Paladins of the Pickle Goddess

“We aren’t here about the goat,” said Apis. “Are you sober?”

I hadn’t seen him this stern before. It looked like he was a little constipated, really. I wrung a few more drops of water out of my socks before managing to walk over. The man sighed and lay back.

“I’m fine, really,” he said. It must be Amatus. I remembered Gaius’s comment- only two of them, and he’s the old one. “Everyone’s been checking up on me. You don’t need to meddle too, boy. They’ve already got you by the-” He glanced over at me. “…back of the neck. Don’t tell me they’ve already got a new priestess? She’s not even cold in the ground!”

“I’m not a priestess!” I put my hands up. “What about me looks like a priestess?”

“Well, you look angry,” said Amatus.

The goat had wandered over and was trying to eat my apron. I could feel the crab attempting to escape my apron. The sticky sea breeze had escaped the very top of the water and was now attempting to climb over the the dirt mound we all optimistically called an island. It half-moved my tied skirts before giving up again.

“We’re here to investigate,” I said. “I was told you were one of the last to speak to Voice Marcia.”

“Suppose so,” said the man. He scratched at his face. He was growing what might have been called a beard, in kinder times. “Want to come inside?”

“You don’t want to be overheard?”

“The goat’s going to get the boy.”

I turned. Sure enough, Duran was losing to a goat. I sighed. He had grown up in the country. Why wasn’t this one of his skills?

“Right.”

We all trod in, soaking and dripping, to the lighthouse. I had to bend to get in through the doorway, which seemed to have suffered most from the leaning effect. Half of it was propped up with a large piece of what must have been Capital style driftwood (a piece of a wrecked boat) and the other half was covered with a limp curtain.

“Keeps most of the wind out,” offered Amatus.

Inside, it looked like the curtain hadn’t kept much else out. The lighthouse had been covered in a neat patina of dust and grime. It was easy to see where Amatus spent much of his time. The only clean parts of the inside of the lighthouse were the smudges around the window, where a round section had been cleared away, the sections of the bench seat just the right size for two people to sit, and a few spaces wide enough for a mug and plate.

I didn’t look towards the nook where a bed had been placed. I didn’t need to know that much about Voice Marcia.

“Do you get pirates out here?” That was from Duran, who had gone straight to what looked like a weapons rack at the back of the room. His eyes were wide as he put his hand up to a battle-axe nearly as ridiculously large as the sword at his hip. “This is huge!”

“Not anymore,” said Amatus.

“Not since you got rid of them all?” Said Duran.

“Not since the harbor dried up. Not anything worth pirating anymore.” Amatus hacked a large wad of spit and cast it down on the floor. “Back in my day, we made things worth pirating, here.”

I tried to think of what we’d ever produced in the capitol that was worth stealing. As the heart of an empire, we had always been an import city. “What were the pirates taking, exactly?”

“Well, nobles, mostly.” Amatus wandered over to a squat stove in the corner and knelt to start a fire, moving a cast-iron pot over with a thump. “Back when ransoms were actually worth something. When this country was a real country!”

“Thank Andrena that we’re at peace now,” said Apis. “The nobility is much more stable now that we don’t have to worry about entire family lines being stolen in transit.”

“Ha! And what good does that do? Back in the day, you had to be real polite, if you wanted to survive. Not like these young nobles. Running their mouths, speaking ill on the temples, speaking ill of each other.” He muttered more, rummaging through cabinets. “You want some shark, boy?”

Apis looked away. “Erm..”

“Know it’s your favorite,” added Amatus. “I’ve been saving some.”

“No,” I said. “Just the tea. Thanks.”

He stared at me like he’d forgotten I was there. After a moment, he replaced the jar. “Well. Hmph. That kind of behavior, exactly what I was speaking about. Would have beheaded a noble, back in the day.”

Duran stared at him for a moment longer, then took his hand off of the handle of the battle-axe. “Sir.”

“Boy!”

“Were you… a pirate?”

“Sailed for the united independent forces!” He finally lit the flame of the pot-bellied stove. The chimney hacked out puffs of smoke through an uneven connection until he raised the fire poker and thumped it once, twice, forcing it back into alignment. “Not pirates!”

They were not pirates in the same way I was not the Voice of Andrena. Working on the barest of technicalities. As such, I was inclined to believe him. “Stop staring at the man, Duran. He’s obviously remembering a hard time in his life.”

I sat down hurriedly. “Anyway, enough about the past. We’re here to speak about the Voice Marcia.”

At that, Amatus actually seemed to tense up slightly. I tried to watch him in the dim light of the lighthouse’s main room- he had no lamps, only the light filtering in through the windows. Was he behaving suspiciously? Or was he simply sad because his lover had passed away suddenly?

“Ah,” he said. “Let me finish the tea, then.”

The silence was oppressive as we waited for the kettle to boil. In such a small room, the fire heated it more quickly than the water, and I could feel sweat working down the back of my neck. I cleared my throat. “I was told you used to worship Cabellus?”

I couldn’t see signs of any god, in here. Only the most sparse of decorations, and the assortment of weapons.

“I sailed for the United Independent Forces,” he said. He reached into his tunic, and I recoiled back, afraid he might show me a tattoo or something that might force me to stare into the nest of coiled hair springing from his chest. Instead, he withdrew a thick leather cord and dangled it in front of me.

Upon it hung two figures in silver. One, a rearing horse. The other, a merman with a spear in hand. “Pisces and Cabellus, joint gods. One to keep you floating. One to make sure the other man sinks.” He pulled back and dropped the leather cord again. “These days, I mostly just thank the Beetle these old bones are still moving.”

The kettle started to sing, and he turned away. He had a limp, I realized. It wasn’t very noticeable, but it must be from his hip; his entire left leg slowed him.

Only politeness made me accept the rough-made clay bowl he set in front of me, a few loose leaves dropped inside as he poured hot water over it. “Not got enough cups,” he said. “No one much visits.” He’d given Apis the other cup- apparently the dislike only went one way- and had, it seemed, decided to bring out the fermented shark. Duran had received what looked like a storage box for fishing tackle- Amatus had thrown the actual tackle to the floor with little regard- and was having difficulty balancing it in his hands.

I kept my mouth closed as he opened the jar and set it down. “No need to be shy,” he said, proudly. “In memory of Marci. She only wanted you to have the best.”

Apis was a man approaching the gallows. He reached out a single shaking hand, mouth pressed into a single line. He hadn’t inhaled. “I’ll only have a little,” he said. “In repentance, I’m not allowing myself to- to- it’s not appropriate to enjoy things.”

Even here, he couldn’t lie. Not properly. How could such an honest man allow himself to lie so often? I would have stepped in and broken the illusion, but I was too amused.

The pale white, fleshy cubes had been preserved in a glass jar brought all the way south from the north. They sat there, trembling, as Apis reached down with the single knife set upon the table. It was hand-carved, with elaborate designs in the steel. I thought of the comments about nobility and wondered which house it was a relic of.

The knife pierced the flesh. I glanced over at Duran, wondering how he was doing.

His eyes shone. “Can I have some?”

“Ah!” Amatus grinned. “A boy of taste!”

As soon as Apis had retrieved the cube of shark from the jar, Amatus offered it to Duran. Duran picked out the largest piece he could, rotating it in front of his eyes. “Wow,” he said. “I’ve never smelled anything like this before. It’s so… wow!”

“You, lady Priestess?”

“I’m not a Priestess,” I said. “And I’ve already eaten.”

The crab had started to escape up part of my apron. I detached it from my apron strings and shoved it back into the pocket, ignoring the way it pinched through my hand. It would make a lovely soup later.

Duran was chewing enthusiastically. Apis had swallowed his fermented shark whole.

“What exactly happened the last day you saw Voice Marcia?” I said.

“Well, it wasn’t like I knew it was the last day.” Amatus was downcast. He scratched at his scruff again. “We mostly just…” His eyes tracked to Duran. “Well, it was our typical routine. I picked her up after I went to market. We spent some, ah, quality time together. Then we talked for a while, had dinner. I dropped her off on the shore, and she said she was going to go pray. After that… well.”

“What did you speak about?”

“The usual, I suppose. She was worried about the upcoming election. Lots of pressure both ways.” He shrugged. “Not that words from me are much impact. But I could be an ear for her.”

“Pressure about what?” That was from Apis. “She had her position. Was it about expansions for the temple?”

Amatus scoffed. “No. Everyone would approve that. She knew it was a guaranteed majority.” He nodded towards the shark. “Are you sure you don’t…”

“No, no. One was enough.”

“Well. Anyway, she was concerned about that new goddess. Celery? Celeren?”

“Celeres!” Duran had reached for another cube of shark. He, too, was ignoring his tea. A single leaf floated to the surface, forgotten. “The postal goddess.”

“Yes, that one. She was petitioning to be tested as an upper god. Completely unprecedented, of course. Technically speaking, she wasn’t even approved as a small god yet.”

“So who was pressuring her?”

“Celeres wanted to be an upper god, of course.” Amatus tapped his lip in thought. “Ah, pretty sure most of the small gods were on her side. Although some of the larger ones were angry about it. Thought she was disturbing the order, or being too presumptuous?”

“What of the upper gods?” I leaned forward myself.

“Marcia wouldn’t speak of them by name. Said it was too political.”

“But she mentioned them?”

“Oh, yes,” Amatus chuckled. “She said they were divided, too. Sounded like any argument, to my ears. Reminded me of my days at sea.”

“What were the arguments?”

“Some of them didn’t want her to try,” Amatus said. “The others thought she should try and fail. Stop the other small gods from complaining.”

I turned to Apis. “What is this test?” I only had heard of it as an election. Something where the gods worked among themselves.

“To become an upper god, you have to have enough worshippers,” said Apis. “They would have tested her blood on the holy scales. Not that it matters now. The Voice of Celeres wasn’t in the Spire when they closed it for contemplation.”

“She didn’t say which upper gods were for and against, then?”

“Does it matter? None of them really cared about that girl. The only person that took her seriously was Marci.” That came from Amatus, again. Where he had been briefly amused, I watched as he leaned back to stare out at the low tide.

It lapped in, lapped out. Beyond, I could see nothing but the sun glimmering off of the water and the quarantine ship. “Have you heard from Celeres? Seen anything of where she’s hiding?”

“No one speaks to me,” said Amatus. “I’m not important. I’m just a washed up old salt.”