The water was very hot. There were several fires tended and tested by the older woman in charge of this wing which kept the temperature stable and a constant supply of steaming hot water at the ready. Mai was the only customer on the women's side except for Sheyshi and Priya. Sheyshi refused to undress in front of people she did not know, while Priya, after washing, proclaimed the pool water to be too hot to be healthy.
Mai sank onto the submerged bench gratefully. Ah! It had been so long since she had really been clean.
Through the lattice she saw a plain courtyard lined with stone benches and wooden racks on which her laundered clothing had been spread out to dry in the blistering sun. It was already a hot day. There also lay Anji's tunic and leggings, now clean. She leaned back and closed her eyes, imagined him joining her in the pool, the two of them, alone and uninterrupted. This was the lowest tower of heaven, where the song of the Merciful One lulled you and you were always clean and well fed.
'Mai?'
She jolted awake, up to her nose in water. Her unbound hair had made a veil around her, floating on the surface of the water.
'No men on this side! No men on this side!' The attendant had a stick, which she brandished with a well- muscled arm.
Anji, dressed, held Mai's clean and dry clothing draped over an arm. He dropped the clothing on a bench and, grinning as he retreated, slipped out through a gap in the lattice.
'We must leave to walk up to the council chambers, plum blossom,' he called over his shoulder.
She was blushing.
The old woman cackled. 'Good-looking boy, that one! What a smile! Cocky, though, coming right in here.'
'We're strangers here,' said Mai, trying out this bid for sympathy. 'We don't know your customs.'
The old woman spat on the dirt. 'Outlanders! I never trust them.'
Startled, Mai said, 'Why not?'
The old woman sat on the other bench and launched into a complicated tale, only partially understandable, about a southern merchant she had taken a fancy to back in the days when she was young, and how he had treated her badly and broken her heart…
When Mai realized that the story was going to go on for some time, she got out of the pool, dried herself, and dressed, punctuating her actions with a murmured 'That can't be!' and 'Then what happened?' By the time Sheyshi and Priya were waiting anxiously for her to go, Mai and the old woman-'call me Tannadit, dear heart'-were best of friends.
'I mean nothing by it, what I said before. It's only the southern men, you see. I've never seen a woman before you who came up from the south who wasn't a slave.'
'All the men are like that one, who come up from the south?'
'Oh, yes, all of them. I'm sure your man is a good one, though.'
'He is. But I'm anxious.'
'What about, dear heart? Pregnant already?'
She felt herself flush. 'Oh! I don't know. I don't think so. We've been traveling a long way, and…'
Tannadit's wrinkled hand clasped hers. She had a milky gaze. She was blind in one eye and the other was clouding, but her hearing was sharp and her attention fixed on Mai. 'How can I help?'
'I just wonder if there's anything we need to know of your customs, so as not to offend you folk. Did you know that in the empire, the priests burn any person who worships another god besides their god? That anyone who speaks out of turn to a priest is put to death?'
'Aui! What monsters!'
'That doesn't happen here?'
'Well! Naturally everyone here worships the seven gods. But if a person wanted to speak her prayers to some other god, that would be on her head, wouldn't it? No one here would take any mind of it. Although why anyone would want to worship that cruel Beltak god, I certainly don't know. Not very kind to women, he is.'
'I'm sorry to be so ignorant. Who are the seven gods? How are we to recognize and respect their holy priests?'
The old woman laughed heartily. 'Why, every soul you meet in the Hundred has apprenticed to one of the seven gods. You might as well respect them all, even those who aren't worth your respect! We all serve a year at one of the temples when we're young. Some serve longer, eight years or more, binding over their labor to the temples. Some serve their entire lives because they are poor or because it is their calling to remain in servitude to the temple.' She flexed her arms; she still had strength in her muscles. 'I served a year as one of the Thunderer's ordinands, for I did enjoy cracking lads over the head with my staff. You, I think…'
She considered Mai with her good eye, a look of such seriousness that Mai was taken aback. Yet the measuring quality of that gaze had an odd element of respect in it, as if this woman meant to see Mai for what she actually was rather than what people thought she ought to be. 'Some might mistake your beauty for your calling, and send you off to be a hierodule to the Merciless One, but I don't. The mendicant's life in service of the Lady of Beasts is not for you, I am thinking. Nor would you feel comfortable as one of Ilu's envoys. You are one who observes more than she talks, yet I do not see you as one of the Lantern's hierophants. A diakonos of Taru, the Witherer, perhaps? Patron of increase and decrease.'
'Fitting for a merchant!' said Mai with a laugh. 'But that's only six.'
She frowned. The brief shadow in her expression made Mai shiver. 'That leaves only the Formless One. A pilgrim of Hasibal? Perhaps. A difficult path to follow, but the deepest. Few walk that road.'
Mai judged her new friend's mood to a nicety, and plunged in. 'Do any outlanders ever come here to settle? Is that allowed? I mean, besides those brought here as slaves.'
'Well they should want to settle here, if everything I've heard is true of that awful place down south of the pass! There's a merchant house whose grandfather came up out of the empire and never went back. Now I know why! Put to death, indeed! Just for speaking out of turn to a priest! I'd have something to say about that!'
'Who would that be? Who came as an outlander and settled here?'
'Master Calon's house, of course. His grandfather-the one who was born in the empire-had a foreign name, but we all called him Beyar.'
'I wonder if he was a third son,' mused Mai.
'He established the house of Three Rings. They mostly deal in flesh.'
'In flesh?'
'Slaves. You might look to Master Calon for advice. He pays his bills promptly. That's how I measure a decent man. He's on the council this year, although he's not among those whose dogs bring back a bird in the hunt, if you take my meaning.'
'I'm afraid I don't. What do you mean?'
'Dear heart, how young and sweet you are, with that disarming smile. I hope your man appreciates you, and treats you well. There's sixteen houses who call the dance in this town. They don't call themselves the Greater Houses for nothing. But these days the Lesser Houses and the guilds are making a lot of noise. Now, I admit, the Silvers keep quiet because no one trusts them. The others know they don't have enough official votes to change things, yet they also know that if you counted each household's vote, they could take power. You can be sure the Greater Houses like things the way they've always been, because that means they get to keep what they have. They won't give up their power on the council easily.'
'I know how that goes,' said Mai, because she did know. This did not sound promising. She'd heard stories in Kartu's market about disputes in other towns getting murderous. 'What about the land beyond Olossi? How is it there?'
'Beyond Olossi? What would you be wanting to go there for? Farmers. Fishers. They stink. I hear village folk out in the Barrens take a bath only once a month. Whew!' She waved a hand in front of her nose. 'No wonder everyone leaves them alone.'
'Aren't there other towns in the Hundred?'
'Oh. Yes.' She released Mai's hand and found an outlet for her disdain by sweeping the already spotless pavement. 'But those are in the north. You don't want to go there. It gets cold there after the Whisper Rains. That's why they call it Shiver Sky up there. Brrr! Anyway, everyone knows it isn't safe along up in the north anymore. Nothing but trouble up there. All gone to the hells, if you take my meaning.'
