She started back by a different route. It wasn’t a conscious decision to go by way of the temple, but Tanalvah was drawn to it, as she had been many times before.
Although she had never really known much about her birthright gods, she had no intention of disdaining them. But temples devoted to the Qalochian gods didn’t exist in the city. Nor was there anywhere she could go to learn about her heritage; what little she knew came from rare meetings with her own kind. So Tanalvah had heeded that old saying about when in Jecellam do as the Jecellamites do, and given her devotion to a local deity.
In the pantheon of Rintarahian immortals, the goddess Iparrater did not rank high. There were many in the hierarchy more powerful, dashing, courageous or wrathful. But none as compassionate. Iparrater’s lack of eminence in the eyes of the state religion was the very reason she was loved by the poor and disenfranchised. For she was said to favour the hopeless, the destitute, the weak. She was the patron and protector of the dregs, and Tanalvah wasn’t alone in her profession in choosing to see that as extending to whores.
Tanalvah had made good time negotiating their passage, and there was some to spare before she met up with Freyal and the children. So she decided to go into the temple, just for a few minutes.
It was small, certainly when compared to those for the gods preferred by the rich and powerful. That was one of the reasons she liked it. It didn’t make her feel too intimidated. She went through its marble pillared entrance, across an anteroom and into the darkened hall of worship. There were several dozen people inside. Some sat on benches, heads bowed. A few were supplicants, waiting in line before a perpetually burning flame so they could cast in the scraps of parchment on which they had written their appeals.
But most simply stood and gazed at the goddess.
Tanalvah understood that the figure on a dais before the shrine was only a representation of Iparrater, a glamour likeness tended by her priestesses. That didn’t make it any less remarkable. To Tanalvah it was an article of faith that the illusion had an actual affinity with the goddess herself.
There was something almost unbearably sad about the chimerical Iparrater, as was to be expected of a deity that accepted the burden of so much despair. She was a tragic, ethereal figure, swathed from head to foot in grey gossamer, her arms outstretched as though to take on the weight of her worshippers’ sorrow. Yet for all the melancholy that attached to her, somehow she was fetching. Her face was veiled, but by some strange quirk of the sorcerers’ art or through the transcendent power of the goddess herself, there was an unmistakable impression of her hidden features. A stamp of kindliness, nobility and sublime mercy.
Tanalvah went to her knees. She prayed for Mahba’s spirit, for the safety of the children, and lastly for herself. Conscious of time passing, she traced the sign of the goddess, touching her collarbones, left to right, with the middle fingers of her hand. Then she rose and turned to leave.
In a side chapel she paid to light a candle so that Mahba’s soul could see its way to the afterlife. And in the annexe she couldn’t resist stopping at the oracle. A stone idol, in the form of a scaled-down version of Iparrater’s glamour, it dispensed prophecies in exchange for a coin. She dropped one into the dish, reflecting on how fast her money was going, and slipped her hand into the divining slot. A light tingling sensation prickled her fingers.
There was a panel at the foot of the statue, coloured pewter. Its surface swirled and glittered. A few words came into focus.
Interesting times await you
.
Tanalvah felt, perhaps heretically, that she could have worked that out for herself.
As promised, Freyal was there with the children. Tanalvah embraced, thanked and paid her. Then she took Lirrin and Teg by their hands and set off again.
She never knew that Freyal would be dead before nightfall.
Her body would be found not far from the street where she worked. The likely cause of death was stab wounds, though she had other injuries that could have proved as fatal. Some put the murder down to a lone sadist. An occupational hazard. There were those who whispered about agents of the state, and of how the girl’s condition pointed to torture. She knew a secret, maybe, a piece of information the authorities wanted.
But nobody cared.
On the way to the ship Teg became fractious and tearful, and demanded his mother. He drew unwelcome stares. Tanalvah placated him a little, and Lirrin tried to help calm him, in her perplexed, tight-lipped way. But it was an additional problem Tanalvah didn’t need as they moved through byways filled with potential informers and haters of her race.
They were nearly at the moorings when things reached breaking point. The boy was in a tantrum, struggling in her arms, and his sister had succumbed to great wet, gulping tears of her own. Heads were turning their way.
Then a strident noise boomed out above them. They looked up to see a crier glamour far overhead. It resembled an enormous eagle, so big that were it to land its wings would span the width of the road. And it wasn’t alone; others could be seen wheeling in the distance.
The voice of the crier, with its distinctive, not quite human inflection, was greatly amplified. But as the glamour was still high in the sky, and circling, only snatches of its proclamation could be heard.
‘…of a Rintarahian citizen… flight from the scene… Qalochian… Lahn…’
‘That’s
your
name, Auntie Tanalvah!’ Lirrin exclaimed.
Tanalvah scooped up the startled children and ran into the nearest alley. She prayed that people on the street were too preoccupied with the glamour to notice. Weaving through the back ways, carrying Teg, dragging Lirrin, both of them bawling, she moved as fast as she could towards the harbour. She’d promised to be with the ship at a specific time, so it could catch the evening tide, and this detour was slowing her dangerously.
Every now and again the crier glamour, or one of its duplicates, appeared low over the rooftops, massive wings beating languidly as it broadcast her description and supposed crimes. Tanalvah expected to be challenged at any moment, to hear the tramp of running boots and feel the thud of a militiaman’s cudgel across her back.
But she reached the dockside undetected. And there was the ship, bustling with activity prior to departure. The gangway was still in place, and at its top stood the captain, watching them approach. Tanalvah dashed to it, clutching the children, heart racing. At the foot of the stairs she hesitated, breathing hard. The captain must have seen the criers. Would he want to carry a fugitive?
‘Come on!’ he yelled, beckoning frantically.
‘Hurry!’
She clattered up the gangway, leaving a trail of bits and pieces that spilt from her open shoulder bag.
‘The criers,’ she panted.
‘I know,’ the skipper told her. ‘Go with him.
Move!
’
A crewman steered her and the children to the bridge, and out of sight.
The captain bellowed the order to cast off. Crew scuttled along the decks, ropes were slipped from bollards, the gangway was raised. Sails whipping, the vessel moved away from the harbour wall.
Shortly, the captain joined Tanalvah on the bridge.
‘We’re not clear yet,’ he said, ‘but I think we’ll be all right. Unless they have the navy out. You’re not important enough for that, are you?’
‘What? Oh. I don’t think so. No, of course not. Look… thank you for taking us. But why? After the criers, I mean.’
Teg and Lirrin were subdued and tearless now, mesmerised by the captain’s weather-battered, generously whiskered face.