Our Lady of the Islands by Jay Lake, Shannon Page Read Free Book Online

worse. The rumor is that he will die now. And the Factor and his Consort are too old to bear another heir, of course. These fanatics claim it’s a sign that Alizar is doomed to barrenness as well.”
    “I had heard that Konrad was improving, if slowly.” Sian did not mention, of course, that she was related to the Factor. “What has changed?”
    “Crab disease, or so they say.”
    “Oh no.” A likely death sentence, certainly. The poor boy. And very bad news for House Alkattha. Still … “How does that suggest a curse on Alizar? The crab disease strikes where it will, and often, sadly.”
    The man shrugged. “All I know is what these fanatics say as they whip and reel throughout the city.” Sian raised her eyes at his artful language. Grocer by day, poet by night? “If the priest of the Butchered God proclaims the heir’s illness a curse: then it is a curse.” He nodded her good-evening, and stepped back into his shop.
    The Butchered God again. Sian stared at the receding prayer line even as her ears picked up the ecstatic calls and wild mutters of yet another somewhere near. Why would any god smite the Factor’s child? It would only distract the man from tending to his people’s needs. Did this Butchered God of theirs wish trouble on Alizar?
    Sian shook her head, walking on. This kind of unrest was bad news indeed for the average small business owner. Particularly a business dealing in luxury items, whatever the more optimistic of her many reports might have her believe.
    Sian found herself following in the rambling prayer line’s wake now, and hung back, careful not to seem a part of it. The lines were not, strictly speaking, illegal, but they were unambiguously disapproved of by both the Factorate and the Mishrah-Khote, and clearly nothing a respectable businesswoman would want to seem connected with. She glanced around, reconsidering her decision to walk, but still saw no ready conveyances. She began to look down each cross street she passed, and, to her great relief, soon saw an empty cart parked just a block away. She all but ran to flag its runner down before someone else could rob her of his services.
    The lean, bare-chested man turned as she called out, smiling from underneath his bowl-shaped hat.
    “Where have you all been?” she asked, nearly out of breath.
    “Lady?” he said, puzzled. “I am being right here.” He flashed her a winning smile. “Waiting for pretty lady to come hire me.”
    “Aren’t you charming,” she said dryly. “Can you take me all the way to Malençon?”
    His smile became a furrowed expression of concern. “Oh, crowds very bad tonight. That take a long time more than you want, maybe. Maybe cost a lot.”
    She looked back at the mob-choked street she’d left. She was clearly going to be late. There seemed no help for that now. She turned to the runner. “Can you not find some way around all this?”
    “Sure, lady.” He shrugged. “On the islands, yes. But there no way around the bridges. They clog all them. At the bridges, nothing I can do.”
    “Well, I don’t seem to have much choice,” she sighed, climbing into the open wicker cart. “Do the best you can, please. I will tip you handsomely if you can get me there by two hours after sunset.”
    He nodded, hunching his shoulders to concede the possibility of failure, but hurried to pull on his harness and haul the cart into motion.
    They dodged one way then another across the rest of Phaero, keeping to the edges of Lady Nissa Phaero’s large east-shore estate where the prayer marchers seemed least in evidence, but, as her runner had predicted, the bridge to Cutter’s was a solid mass of shuffling, chanting cultists. Whatever are they doing? she thought, exasperated. Was something special happening tonight?
    Half an hour later, they were still not even past the Census Taker’s lush grounds. The prayer lines were right there in front of them, no matter which street the runner dodged to next, it seemed. Are