Paladins of the Pickle Goddess

“Well,” I managed, “That’s unfortunate for you.”

She didn’t move for a moment, the washing flapping behind her. The letterboys were peeking through. I could hear Cornelia creeping up behind me, no doubt wanting to ask about the boys again. I cleared my throat before I could. “I thought the Laundresses weren’t involved in religious business.”

They were very loud about it. Egnetius, of the tiny glasses and the repaired cloak- who was also hovering behind me, shifting from foot to foot- had been obnoxious about it, right before I’d gotten myself locked up in the hold of a quarantine ship.

“They owed me a favor,” said the Voice of Celeres. She squinted over at me. “But you weren’t it. Why did you show up with my missing letterboys?”

“They were in the same ship,” started Egnatius, peering in from behind me, “And she insisted-”

I held up a hand. “I wanted to make sure he wasn’t taking them into more trouble,” I said. “I saw them captured the first time.”

The Voice of Celeres seemed more thoughtful than I had expected. Her fingers drummed along her arm as she tilted her head to one side. The other voices- the small council I’d met at the tea shop- had described her as almost impulsive. Bold. Demanding impossible achievements. This girl just seemed tired, with dark circles under her eyes. Although she did seem very young. “The others said you didn’t want to be involved.”

“I was chosen to find justice for the Temple. That’s hardly no involvement.”

“Are you finding justice now?”

“It wasn’t just for us to be imprisoned, no,” I said. She was still flushed in anger. I rolled my eyes. “Go on. Spit it out, don’t let it rot.”

“They’re blaming it all on me, on my letterboys! Marcia doesn’t need justice! Everyone knows it was wrong for her to die! We’re the ones that need help!”

“Kid, I don’t…” I stepped back and looked at her. Tried to see past the bright hair, the uniform. “Have you been hiding here, all this time?” No wonder her information was out of date. I wondered if it would help, to tell her they were blaming it on Apis instead, now. Probably not?

“It doesn’t matter where I’ve been hiding! I know what people are saying. They say you won’t go to the Spire.”

“Why does everyone want me to go to the Spire? What do you think I’m going to do there?”

Her face was blotchy and ugly when she flushed in anger. She had been speaking to the other small gods, then. I thought I could hear their words when she spoke, although it was changed by the brief, sharp anger of a teenager. She didn’t understand that it wasn’t that easy. They wouldn’t just take my word for it, let me approach the Spire as the Voices were sequestered.

“I need someone to vouch for me,” she said. “I could change everything- we could change everything. We were so close. And now everyone’s ruining it.”

“I’ve just been exiled from the city,” I said, and watched her clench her teeth in frustration. “You think they’ll let me into the Spire?”

I wanted to get back at Sylvia. Prove that I was better than this. I also wanted to break Apis out of Kingshome, find Duran, and get that sword back. A little money in my pockets wouldn’t be bad, either. At the end of the day, I had to be realistic. I’d already escaped once, today. That might be all I was capable of.

“They don’t listen to the law,” she said.

“There’s a whole lot of law in between here and there.” I folded my arms. “Besides, I already said- they won’t know that they can trust me. I didn’t hold any position in the priesthood. Most of the Upper Gods aren’t like the Small Gods, where anyone can be a Voice. You have to ascend to the position.” Besides, I’m a paladin. She wouldn’t like that answer either, I’d bet.

“You don’t want to help,” she said. “You don’t believe it could succeed.”

“You think that if you get into the Spire now, they’ll still let you try to ascend?”

“Not without you,” she said. Her hands dropped down. She stepped closer to me. I could see tears welling up in her eyes. “Please. All of this- Marcia died for this.”

“I don’t think she did, though.” I swallowed. “Well, I do think she’s dead. But-”

The signs didn’t point towards Andrena’s temple being burned down by someone within the church- or at least, someone working alone. Sylvia had given it all away when she’d offered to bribe me. She could care less about the Small Gods.

“I think some important people used you,” I said. “To create chaos.”

The wind flapped through the laundry. She huffed out a deep breath before looking at me.

“What does that matter? I still want to try. Why should I care what they want?”

“That doesn’t mean I can get into the Spire.” We were talking in circles. I wanted to bash my head on something again.

“So you’re useless,” she muttered. “Useless! I should have worked with Teuthida instead. At least her godly magic is helpful.”

I stopped. I stared at her. “What do you mean, her godly magic?”

“Haven’t you been using it?” She frowned at me. “I thought you were the Voice.”

“Of course,” I said. I coughed. “But, uh, the other gods.” Paladins didn’t get any godly magic. Paladins got a sword and a pat on the back, for luck.

I suddenly regretted all the time I’d spent as a child, avoiding time at temple functions. I could have learned so much. At the time, I’d thought it was useless.

“Well, Andrena can make things grow, as you know,” she said, like it was obvious. “Cabellus can set fires. Ursus can speak to animals, and Teuthida creates illusions. That’s how I knew the blood in my veins would weigh enough on the holy scales, because I started to be able to send messages. You could just- grow a flower, or something, and the guards are sure-”

I held up a hand. “Teuthida can create illusions?”

It was all clicking together now. “What kind of an illusion,” I said. “Can she duplicate an existing image? A person, maybe?”

“Why does that matter?” said Celeres. “Yes, but-”

I stepped back. Theories, clues that hadn’t made sense, were suddenly clicking into place.

Had Sylvia actually managed to trick a real Voice into one of her schemes? If she had used the power of Teuthida to burn down a temple, to hurt Andrena- that’s honestly just rude. You couldn’t find a friend to commit arson with you?

“But what about-”

As I started to walk away, I spun on my heel, turning back to her. “You said you could send messages?”

It was time to break my biggest conviction. I had known it was a possibility, ever since Sylvia had mentioned her. Yet I had been resisting. It seemed like the ultimate failure; worse than death.

Yet here I was. No allies. Followed only by an unhappy housekeeper. I had lost my apprentice. My one friend here was imprisoned. If I didn’t get to the Spire in time, Sylvia might succeed in her latest scheme- which I now took personally, since she’d had a guard clock me over the head so hard it sent me to the realm of the gods.

It was time.

I was going to speak to my mother. On purpose.

“This is most irregular,” said my mother. I was in the depths of the public baths. I was still wearing clothes, which was probably the source of her concern. No one else was bathing; just me, my cloak folded neatly to the side, and the slight steaming of the oils to create a barrier between us.

She stood above me, arms folded.

I reached up and squeezed water from my hair, watching her wince. “I heard you told everyone I had the pox,” I said.

She was still wearing a full formal dress. I wondered if she had been scheduled to go to an event, or if I had merited the special outfit just for this. “You ran off in the night without telling anyone where you were going! For all I knew, you did have the pox!”

I slid deeper into the water, letting it come up to my chin, and let my head thump back towards the tiles. The baths really were incredible. I could see an attendant to my left, approaching stealthily with a towel. She was probably going to ask me again if “m’am would like to consider undressing”. Maybe I would, this time.

Cornelia had stayed outside. She had been scandalized by my choice to meet with my mother in the baths. I wasn’t sure why she had such a problem with it. It was, after all, efficient. She had been trailing me consistently, sure I would lead her to Duran.

I was going to try to find him- but based on my experience with the kid, he was likely as not going to pop up when I least expected him. Thus, it wasn’t high on my list of priorities. Apis had much less of a chance of making it on his own.

“Look,” I said. “I’m sure you’re eager for me to leave.”

“They’re saying you’ve committed treason against the city,” said my mother. “A daughter of mine, committing treason!”

Sylvia had moved fast on that one, then. Not even a full day out of her custody, and she’d already exiled me.

“You’ve only the one child,” I said. “Actually, it seems quite likely at this point. Maybe tomorrow.” I reached up and grabbed for some foam, wanting to wash my face, but it dissolved under my hands. “I brought you here to offer you a deal.”

When I heard nothing from her, I forced myself to sit up, water sloshing.

“Well?”

“I can’t think of anything you could offer me,” said my mother. Her earrings clicked as she stared down at me. She could have knelt, to speak to me. I could have stood. As usual, neither of us was willing to change. As a result, both of us had to shout a little bit. “You chose to remove yourself from this family! Made yourself a peasant!”

“I make a good oat-cake these days.”

“I gave you a good life,” she snapped. “An incredible life. If I had been offered the chance to marry a Baron - not to mention his position now- you could have been like a queen, Elysia. A Queen! Our family started as turnip farmers. Couldn’t you have helped out the family, if not yourself?”

“You didn’t even tell me when it was time to light grandmother’s pyre,” I snapped back, and there it was; this was why I had needed to leave.

Both of us had gotten older and more clever, it seemed, because she took a moment to respond. “The postal system must have not worked properly,” she said, looking away and smoothing her hair. Not a single strand was out of place. She was wearing my grandmother’s locket- the only thing we’d actually brought from that southern farm. “I did send something. It’s not my fault if you lived so far away it never arrived.”

“You didn’t want anyone seeing I was alive, more like,” I said. “Who did you offer to him in exchange? Were they really so awful?”

I couldn’t remember exact details of my cousins, but I couldn’t picture the man I’d married having objections to any of them. It wasn’t as if I had been some prize. He’d just needed the money, the land that had changed from “just another farm” to “the edge of the city” to “the center of commerce” so quickly that no one had realized it was still in the hands of a few upstarts who slurred their consonants and didn’t use the right fork.

“He had qualms about his soul.”

I looked away, slipped back into the water.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said, and hoped it echoed enough through the bathhouse that it would be true. “Look- I have an offer. Right here, right now. Will you hear me out, or are we just going to argue forever again?”

I heard her shuffle behind me. I pressed my fingers tightly into my palm under the water, waited. Finally, my mother said, “Fine. What do you say, then?”

“You have political weight these days, yes? Use it. Stop the order of exile. Just until the end of Flight’s Feast. In return, I’ll leave after the festival. I’ll even properly annul my marriage, if I can.” I wrung out some of my hair. “Also, I need someone released from Kingshome.”

The silence afterwards stretched too long. I kneaded soap into my hair, washed it out. When I turned back, she was staring at me. “You like it up there,” she said, finally. “You actually like scrubbing in the dirt, like you were never anything better.”

“I like not smelling shit all the time,” I said. “I like not wasting my time with irritating people lying in my face. The dirt is a bonus.”

“A release from Kingshome. What kind of friends are you making?”

“He was raised by the temple!”

“Hmmm. It might be difficult. I don’t have that much political weight.”

I leaned back in the water, watching it steam. “Say what you want, then.”

“Come and stay at home. At least try,” she cajoled. “Just until the end of Flight’s Feast. I’ll give you all of my political strength. For what it’s worth. But at least try to make it all work. Your life here, your marriage.”

I stared up at her. She sneered down at me. “You’ll regret that,” I said.

“You were so young when you left. We’ve changed.”

“I agree.” I had changed, too. I watched the water in front of me. Was it such a bad deal? I could sleep in a real bed. It wasn’t like I could go back to Apis’s apartment. Besides. It was only two nights… “It’s a deal.”

“When you come by the house, I’ll send out the requests.” Before I could hear the rest of what she said, I dunked my head under the water.

When I emerged, clean, she was gone.

The attendant emerged, finally strong enough now that my mother’s dominating presence wasn’t overpowering. “M’am?” She said. “Would you like to-”

I threw my shirt at her. She caught it, surprisingly deft, and bowed. “I see,” she said. “I’ll just go- hang this up to dry, then.”

“Many thanks,” I said. I leaned back, sighed in the scent of the oils. There were some benefits to the city.