Chandran grinned. “If the opportunity arises,” he said, “I will definitely inquire.”
She laughed and reached for the second canister. “Well, we’ve settled that,” she said. “Let’s see what else I can offer Seka Mardis.”
This container, when opened, released the foul scent of tchiltsly. Leah let Chandran get one good whiff and then quickly put the cap back on. “Demeset was afraid it had gone bad,” she said. “I couldn’t tell.”
“No, that is what it is supposed to smell like,” Chandran said, waving his hand to brush the lingering odor from the air. “It is putrid. But your Karkan friend will gobble it up with joy.”
Leah pulled a marker from her pocket and wrote a sloppy X on the top of the can. “I do not want to forget which one this is,” she said. “I don’t want to open it again by accident until I hand it over.”
“Very wise.”
Leah reached for the third canister and said, “Tell me what you think about this one.” When she opened it, the dreamy scent of the winter spice drifted out like the memory of love and loss. Leah closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. “It has such a mournful feel to it and yet I just love it,” she said.
The sound of Chandran’s chair toppling over jerked her eyes open. He was on his feet, staring down at the tin with a look of revulsion on his face. His hands were knotted into fists, and she thought he might be shaking.
“Chandran—” she exclaimed, dumbfounded. Hurriedly, she shoved the lid back on and jumped to her feet. “What is it?”
“Lotziel,” he said bleakly.
“Why do you hate it so much?” Because he was backing away from the table as if the lingering fumes were a fatal poison.
“It is—my wife—she often smelled of lotziel,” he stammered. “When she went to visit—the sick and the dying—the stench in that town was overwhelming. She would sift lotziel over her clothing to combat the odor. She would brush it on her nostrils to mask the foul scent every time she inhaled. I came to hate the smell of lotziel so much that I could not eat anything made with it. I could walk into a house where the cooks had been baking some holiday dessert, and as soon as I caught the aroma of lotziel, I would walk back out.” He paused to take a deep breath, to visibly force himself back to a state of calm. “I have smelled it only once in the past fifteen years,” he said. “A trader came to my booth in the Great Market and tried to sell some to me. I nearly fainted from despair.”
Leah stuffed the canister into a pile of boxes and circled the table to put a comforting hand on Chandran’s arm. Through the layers of silk and wool, she could feel him trembling. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I’ll throw it out tomorrow the first chance I get. Or I’ll go to the canal and toss it into the water. Pretty soon it’ll be swept all the way to the ocean.”
He was shaking his head in small, deliberate motions. “I am the one who should apologize,” he said, his voice formal. “I have upset you with my behavior. You could not possibly have expected such a grim tale to arise from such an innocent purchase. And I should not, all these years later, react with such disgraceful weakness to such a simple reminder.”
She clutched his arm tighter and gave him a little shake. “Don’t say such things! It is a terrible reminder of a terrible time. And of a terrible woman.”
He looked down at her. He was a big man, heavily bearded, and in the poorly lit space he was all bulk and shadows. She should never forget his capacity for violence; she should always remember that the wife who perfumed herself with lotziel was a woman he had murdered. But all she could see was his grief. All she could feel was the shiver in his bones. She brought her free hand up to grip his other arm.
“Only if you believe me,” he said, his voice low and hoarse. “Only if I am telling you the truth.”
She met his eyes squarely. “And are you?”
“Yes,” he breathed. “Oh, what I would not give for these stories to be lies.”
“Then I believe you. And my heart breaks for you. And we shouldn’t stay here another minute with that terrible box of poison sitting right beside us. Come on. Let’s close up the shop and go find something to eat.”
• • •
Chandran said he wasn’t hungry, and Leah didn’t have much appetite herself, so they just set out on foot and wandered into the night. Leah kept one hand in the crook of Chandran’s arm, and he allowed it, but neither of them remarked upon the contact. She was still a little giddy from the keitzee, but steadier than Chandran; she could feel him, now and then, leaning into her as if only her light touch kept him upright. She found herself standing taller, stiffening her spine, gathering her determination to prop him up, keep him strong. It was an odd sensation. Most of her life, she’d only focused on keeping herself strong. She hadn’t had the reserves to support someone else.
No surprise that they eventually ended up at the Plaza of Men, which, as always, was nearly as active in the evening as it was during the day. It was also the only place in the city where the gaslight seemed to be functioning properly, because the whole place was cheerfully lit. “Would you like to buy a horse?” Leah asked in a teasing voice, trying to lighten the mood. “Make a legal transaction? This is the place to do it.”
“No, thank you. These are not services or acquisitions I am interested in at this time.” She could tell he put some effort into making his tone match hers.
The booth of promises appealed to him, though. He came to a halt in front of the open awning and considered the tables of ink and parchment. “I recorded a promise of my own the day before I opened the shop,” Leah said, in case he needed encouragement. “I found it a very satisfying experience.”
Chandran turned away. “Some other time,” he said, “when I have thought through more precisely what kind of oath I might want to keep.”
A few yards beyond the booth of promises they found an enterprising young boy who had overturned a wheelbarrow to create a makeshift table and set a small pail on top. “Don’t have time to get to a temple? Draw your blessings here!” he called out as they strolled past.
Leah laughed and tugged Chandran to a halt. “Have you? Since you’ve been to Welce? Have you drawn blessings?”
He shook his head. “As I told you, while I was in Malinqua I visited a Welchin temple. Do those blessings not cover me for the rest of my life?”
She waggled her head from side to side. “Well, your lifelong blessings really need to be chosen for you a few hours after you’re born. Any other time you draw blessings, they’re just giving you direction at that particular moment.”
“Then perhaps I need another set.”
The young entrepreneur looked delighted when they approached. “Looking for guidance? You’ve come to the right place. I’ve got all the blessings in this little barrel. A full set—nothing missing.”
Leah instantly suspected that that was a lie. Just by glancing into his weathered bucket, she could see that he’d collected an odd assortment of tokens. Some looked like charms or pendants that had once hung from a lady’s necklace; others looked like they might have been filched from an actual temple; and a few appeared to be quint-coppers and quint-silvers that he’d thrown in just to make the pile more impressive. “This should be an adventure,” she said.
The boy held out a battered metal cup and rattled it hopefully. “You have to tithe first,” he said.
That made her laugh out loud, but there was something charming about his effrontery, so she dropped in a pair of silvers. “To cover both of us,” she said.
The boy nodded. “Do you want to select your own coins, or shall I draw for each of you so that you have three different hands to pull blessings?”
“Oh, I definitely think we want you to join in!” Leah said, bubbling with laughter. She wished Zoe were here. This young fellow would appeal to the coru prime, though she suspected he had a sweela man’s conniving heart. “Let’s pick my coi
ns first.”
She couldn’t say the blessings provided her with any insights—she ended up with hope and health, as well as a quint-copper that the temple-master insisted represented wealth—but they didn’t foretell any disasters, either. Chandran’s coins were more interesting: honesty, honor, and grace. Leah supposed that there could hardly be a better set of attributes bestowed on a man you would like to believe in with your whole heart.
“Does that make you feel better?” she asked him as they moved away. Behind them, she could hear the boy repeating his patter to the next couple who drifted across his path.
He glanced down at her and she was relieved to see some of the humor back in his expression. “I am not convinced that the ritual we just participated in was a wholly accurate representation of reality.”
She laughed. “Well, no. But I have learned over the years that wisdom can be acquired in unexpected places. Everyone has something to teach you.” She jerked her thumb back toward the young man at the impromptu temple. “Even him.”
Now his eyes were shadowed again. “What did you learn from the experience we just had?”
She met his gaze with a serious look of her own. “That you come away with the glyph for honor every time you touch a blessing barrel.”
“Only twice,” he reminded her. “Once in Malinqua, and once just now.”
“We’ll go to a temple again tomorrow, or the day after that, and try again,” she said.
“And if ‘honor’ never reappears on any coin I draw?”
She shrugged. “Then we’ll see what other blessings have been showered on you instead.”
He was silent a moment. “And if it does?”
She tightened her grip on his arm and pressed a little closer. “Then I will start to feel I have some justification.”
“For what?”
Her voice was almost a whisper. “For believing in you.”
SIXTEEN
There was no time to look for a temple on the following day; too many other things were happening. The weather was rainy and cold, and Leah expected customers to stay away. Instead, they lingered in the shop longer than they ordinarily would, loathe to step back out into the miserable damp.
Just past noon, Yori arrived unexpectedly. “I have something for you,” she said when Leah was able to break free from a group of wealthy buyers.
“What might that be?”
Yori nodded toward the stairwell and they climbed to the upper story. There the driver pulled a small leather pouch from an inner pocket and handed it over. “From the regent.”
Leah untied the flap and poked inside. The packet was filled with coarse dried leaves of a peculiar reddish-orange color; they gave off a faint odor that reminded her of mint, but darker. “Veneben,” she said. “And quite a lot of it.”
Yori nodded. “Worth at least a couple of gold coins.”
Leah took a pinch between her thumb and forefinger, rubbing the leaves together until they crumbled to dust. She sniffed at her fingertip. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never traded in it. Or tried it, even. Have you?”
Yori grinned. “It’s illegal,” she said.
Leah eyed her. “But?”
“I’ve always been the curious type,” Yori said, still grinning.
So that means you have, Leah thought. “I know it’s a hallucinogen,” she said. “What’s it like?”
“It gives you visions—makes you see the world through a kind of prism. Turns the sky funny colors. Sets the world to spinning when you turn your head.”
“Sounds disorienting,” Leah said. “Why do people like it?”
“Some people like to be disoriented. Plus there’s a rush to it. The world might be spinning, but you feel like you’re in control of it. Things are moving really fast, but you feel like you’re moving just as fast. It’s exhilarating.”
“But it’s dangerous, right?”
“Yep,” Yori said, nodding. “If you don’t take enough, you don’t get any of the effects. Take too much, and it kills you.”
Leah gave Yori a stern look. “I hope you were careful.”
Yori opened her eyes wide. “I’m always careful.”
“I think there’s a lot more to you than shows on the surface.”
“Isn’t that true of everybody?”
Leah laughed. “I suppose.”
That was the only moment of calm in the whole day. The rest of the time Leah and her staff were waiting on buyers, dashing upstairs to bring down additional items, and wiping up the wet footprints that visitors tracked in. Leah had never been so happy to see a workday come to an end.
“Now the rain stops,” she said bitterly as sundown ushered in clear skies. “Maybe everyone will celebrate good weather tomorrow by staying home.”
Chandran had closed the cash box and set it on the shelf below the counter. “But now that the weather has improved, I have an errand I must run,” he said. “I will return in the morning.”
“Of course,” Leah said, disappointed. After yesterday’s emotional twists and turns, she had looked forward to spending a quiet hour with Chandran. She suspected that he was leaving abruptly for that very reason—to avoid a repeat of last night’s confessions and affirmations. “We’ll see you then.”
Annova waited until he’d closed the door behind him and they’d watched him pick his way through the nearby puddles on the street. “I can stay late if you like,” she offered. “Help you prepare for the morning.”
Leah waved a hand. “I’ll be fine. I won’t mind being alone for a few hours after the day we’ve just had.”
Leah moved slowly but with a certain contentment after Annova left and she had the shop to herself. Now that she was living in Darien’s house, she rarely had time alone, and she missed the solitude. She couldn’t always think clearly when there were people nearby, laughing and talking and asking her questions. Though she liked those people very much. And if you ever do get a chance to keep Mally as your own, you’ll give up your solitude forever, she reminded herself. The trade-off seemed eminently worthwhile.
She had just come downstairs for the third time, a bundle of Soechin shawls in her arms, when she saw a shadow at the front door. Her heart bounded in anticipation; had Chandran returned? And then it squeezed down in a moment of panic. There were three shapes at the door, none of them right for Chandran. She could drop the shawls to the floor and grab her knife, but she could hardly fight off that many assailants—
Then the first shadow knocked on the door and called through the glass, “Leah! Are you there? It’s Seka!”
Relief flooded her veins with a third potent emotion in less than a minute. Depositing the cloths on a display table, she hurried over to unlock the door. Seka stepped inside but motioned for her escorts—two heavily cloaked men with the stance of soldiers—to stay outside.
“I tried to get here all day, but it was just one emergency after another,” Seka said in her overly friendly way. “I hope it is not too late to stop by.”
“Not at all! I’m just straightening everything up. Did you come to shop? Or merely to talk? I can brew you a cup of keerza and you can try again to make yourself like it.”
Seka laughed. “I would very much enjoy that! Do you have time?”
“I do.”
They pulled chairs up to the table of treats against the back wall, and Leah set the kettle on to boil. “But I have something else you’ll like better than the keerza,” she said with a smile.
“Ah,” Seka said. “The veneben I asked for? It is the real reason I dropped by tonight.”
“That’s for your traveling companion—the one you would like to please,” Leah said. “I have something else for you.”
“Now I’m intrigued!”
“Watch the kettle for me. I’ll be right back.”
Moments later, Leah was settling into her chair
again, laying out three separate items for Seka’s pleasure. “Inside the pouch is the veneben. It was very dear, I’m afraid—three gold coins.”
Seka nodded, her hand going instantly to a small jeweled purse slung over her shoulder. “I told you no price was too high. That’s actually reasonable.”
Leah smiled. “Should I raise it?”
“No, no! That leaves me extra money to buy more if I need to.”
They swapped coins for leather, and Seka opened the pouch to sniff the contents. “Very high grade,” she commented. “He will be so pleased.”
“I hope he shows that pleasure in some suitable fashion.”
“I am certain he will.” Seka’s eyes had already gone to the next two items Leah had placed on the table. One was a metal canister—the other a small net bag tied with a green ribbon.
“Keitzees!” Seka exclaimed. “Wherever did you find any? I love them!”
Leah presented her with the bag. Inside were about ten of the candy drops, since Leah had decided she liked them enough to reserve the rest for herself. She knew it was a mistake for the dealer of a drug to develop a fondness for it—but she figured in this case, with such a limited supply, she could take the risk.
“I met a sea captain who’d just sailed in from Cozique in a ship half-crewed by Karkans,” Leah said. “He sold me a few items his cook had brought for the sailors, swearing to me that anyone from the Karkades would be delighted.”
“Oh, I am! How much did he charge you?”
“I’m not telling. They’re a gift from me to you.”
“Aren’t you the generous one! Thank you!”
Now Leah handed over the metal canister. “Another gift. You might be able to guess what’s inside.”
“Tchiltsly?” When Leah nodded, Seka practically hugged the tin to her heart. “I can’t wait! I have been pining for some for the past nineday.”
“Well, don’t have any until you’ve left my shop,” Leah said. “It smells horrible. The captain wanted to throw it away, but I was sure you would want it.”