Someday, he promised himself, I shall have new clothes, from a real tailor. Though how he was to get to that someday, he had no notion.
Heading back downhill, they passed a bathhouse. Pen stopped and eyed it. “Pleasures of the body, eh?” Clean and warm surely qualified. Not to mention shaved and trimmed.
“Superb idea!” said Desdemona. “But not that one. There’s a better one farther up near the palace.”
“It looks tidy enough . . .”
“Trust me.”
The voice he’d come to recognize as Mira of Adria said something, which he tried but failed to not-understand. If you would but put him under my direction, I could show him how to make a fortune in a place like this seemed to be the gist of it.
Pen chose not to pursue the remark.
The bathhouse near the palace-and-temple precincts was intimidatingly large, compared to the one in Greenwell run out the back of a woman’s home, but not too crowded at this time of day. Pen visited its barber for a serious shave and a trim of the ragged ends of his hair, then the men’s side for a thorough lathering with scented soap of head and body, a sluicing rinse with a bucket of warm water, and a soak in the huge wooden tub with the copper bottom, big enough for half-a-dozen men, kept heated with a small fire underneath. He oozed down in the water and lingered with his eyes half closed until the skin of his fingers began to grow wrinkly, he began to worry that Tigney might be ready to send out a search party, and he became aware that Desdemona, who seemed to be purring as much as himself, was eyeing a couple of the better-looking of his fellow bathers in a way that Pen found unsettling. Time to decamp.
Dressed, hair combed out and drying, and back on the street, he glanced at the looming bulk of the temple at the top of the hill. It was the most imposing structure in town, and the chronicle of Martensbridge that he’d read yesterday had made much of it. A temple had always crowned this high site, but the prior one, being built of wood in the style of the Weald, had burned down in one of the periodic fires. In a joint building effort of Temple and town that had taken several decades, it had been replaced by this one of stone, after the Darthacan manner. This represented not a change in lordship or worship, but a change in wealth, Pen gathered. Curious, he turned his steps not downhill, but up.
He walked all the way around it, marveling at its size and stately proportions, then peeked through the tall pillared portico. No ceremonies seemed to be in progress, and other lone worshipers were trickling in and out, so Pen ventured within. As the space opened up before him, he realized that the old wooden Greenwell temple was a mere hall by comparison, despite its abundant woodcarvings. Or maybe a barn.
The holy fire on the central granite plinth had a round copper hood and chimney, made rich with delicate hammered designs, to carry the smoke out of the worshipers’ eyes, with the result that the domed roof was not smoke-blackened. A ring of arched windows below the dome let in light. The space was six-sided, one for the broad entryway and one for each of the five gods, opening to domed apses that must, could one see the temple from the top, make it look like a grand stone flower.
The niche for the Lady of Spring, whose season this now was, was redolent with offerings of fresh blooms. A few serious-looking townsmen were praying in the niche of the Father of Winter, god of, among other things, justice. Judges, lawyers? More likely litigants, Pen decided. An impressively pregnant woman knelt on a cushion before the altar of the Mother of Summer, praying perhaps for a safe delivery, or possibly just for the strength to stand up again. The Bastard’s niche, between the Daughter’s and the Mother’s, was presently empty.
Pen went by habit to the altar of the Son of Autumn. Only two fellows were there before him. The younger man, looking like a military recruit, knelt on one of the provided cushions, his hands up, palms out and fingers spread. Praying for luck? An older man lay prone on one of the large prayer rugs, arms out, hands clenching, in the attitude of deepest supplication. It was mere fancy that Pen imagined him a veteran, praying for forgiveness, but he couldn’t shake off the impression.
He picked out a cushion behind them and got down onto his knees without quite knowing what he was praying for. Or should be praying for. Or even Who he should be praying to. So he prayed for the safety and well-being of his family, and of all on the Jurald lands, and poor half-cheated Preita as, he was reminded, he had promised to do. Ruchia? Hardly the right god. He signed the tally, rose, and carried his knee cushion over to the Bastard’s niche.
Kneeling again, he realized he’d forgotten to pray for himself. How temporary was the transfer of his affairs to this new god? The Bastard was the master of disasters; supplicants more often prayed to avert His attentions, like paying a mercenary company to route around one’s town.
Would praying for knowledge be safe? Pen was certainly desperate for it. But the white god was the author of some pretty vicious ironies, as far as the prophecy-stories associated with His gifts told. Praying for the soul of Ruchia seemed late off the mark, as she was signed by her funeral miracle to be in His hands already. Pen contented himself with hoping she was happy there, whatever that meant in that profoundly altered state beyond death.
On impulse, Pen decided to pray for Desdemona. Granted, demons were already creatures of the god, though whether escaped prisoners or servants seemed unclear. Maybe they could be either, as one man might be good and another bad, or a man might go from bad to good or the reverse at different times of his life? He became aware that she had grown very quiet, like a tight, closed ball inside of him.
Demons, unkillable and, it appeared, immune to pain, did not fear much, but they feared their god, and the dissolution they would suffer if they fell back into His hands. Pen would too, he decided, if going to the gods meant his destruction and not his preservation. However it was that souls were sustained in the hands of their chosen gods. Or choosing gods.
Praying for her safety and well-being must cover it, since neither were possible without that substrate of continuing existence. A well-practiced prayer that he knew how to do. So he did, whispering the words aloud.
In all, he was relieved that no one answered.
He unfolded himself and went back to the portico, pausing a moment to take in the view up the lake. He wondered if that distant gray smudge sticking out into the water from the left shore might be Clee’s castle birthplace—not on a crag, for a change, but using a small island to provide it with a free moat.
Uncertain which of the descending avenues to take back to the Order’s house, Pen called softly, “Desdemona . . . ?”
No answer. She seemed still locked up inside him. Pen wondered if the gods really were more present in their temples, for all that the divines taught that They were always equally present everywhere. And if demons would know. Pen pursed his lips, then slipped into a silk mercer’s shop at the top of one street.
Most of the goods displayed were far beyond his means, but he negotiated for a bit of ribbon about the length of his arm without doing his little stock of coins too much damage. He found the mirror provided for customers to hold the cloth up to their faces, and braided the blue silk band through his queue. He turned his head and waited.
“Pretty!” murmured Desdemona.