It was Kali herself who wielded the thin, flexible switch as I stood with my hands clasping a stone atonement pillar carved with the Flayed God’s many names, and she was not cruel. Still, I sobbed without restraint, sharply aware of her disappointment and afraid I would be sent back into the smoke-bowl of the city to fend for myself again.
That night, face-down on my pallet in the low dormitory attached to the dormant kitchen, I heard a scratching like a mouse, and pulled myself painfully upright, shuffling for the door as if I had to make nightsoil.
The path to the soilhouse was overgrown to provide modesty, and Haza met me at the bend in deepest shadow, first hugging me, then thrusting a clumsily tied leaf-package into my hands. “I thought you would find the way,” he said in an undertone, his shaven head glistening a little as moonlight dappled the broad waxy leaves overhead. “How is Father?”
“I left the night after you did.” The packet was still warm; it smelled of roast and the meaty starchroot I had helped make that very evening while sniveling with pain. “He is probably happy, with her.”
There was no need to tell him more, and in any case, he did not seem interested. “You’ve been in the kitchens?”
“Kali found me.” I longed to tell him of Flower Style, of the groaning of my tendons, how it was different than the monks’ directness. But there was a rustling, and we drew back into the bushes on either side of the path like the forest creatures we once had been, waiting as a senior in a saffron robe wandered past with a lantern, scratching luxuriously at his crotch and yawning.
When he had vanished into the soilhouse we emerged again, breathing in tandem, and I reached for Haza’s hand. “You are well?”
His face was shadowed, but there was a line between his eyebrows I knew. His fingers were chill and damp. “We eat well.”
Did I not know as much? “Better than home.”
“This is home, now.” He freed his hand from mine, not ungently. His queue was cut; he was supposed to have no family but his fellow monks. “We cannot let them know, Ghani.”
As if I was stupid. But I did not mind. We were together again, and a boy always wants the last word.
On my way back into the dormitory, I stopped by a particular long-leaved bush tucked near the temple’s protective wall. I plucked some few leaves and bruised them inside another, different leaf, dropping the palmful upon the thin pallet of the snoring girl who had betrayed me as I passed, and in the morning she had a spreading, virulent rash from sticky sap.
* * *
That summer there were no rains, and the dust grew thick. The governor of the province came with a long train and made offerings inside the gleaming stone pyramid, incense rising in clouds and cymbals shatter-clanging through day and night to keep the sun awake, feasting afterwards spreading its largesse to the steadily increasing number of beggars choking their fouled courtyard. Old Vril’s eyes burned with fever and his skin was scorching; he settled in a vine-shaded corner and watched. His staff’s copper shoe developed lacy holes, green rot nibbling at metal, and his gaze followed me when I braved that cauldron of suppuration, begging, and soft hopeless cries to bring him scraps.
I could not do so often, for Kali had examined our hands again after the Frog Festival, and those of us who had special signs in their palms began to learn the fermenting, drying, grinding, and brewing of the round, ribbed fruits sacred to the Flayed God. Dexterity is needed, a fineness of touch even through calluses, and the cupped palm of a cook must be married to long fingers and several other subtle signs. Now, of course, I can tell at a glance who has the hands for it, but then I was a child, and knew only that Kali found something she was looking for in me.
Indeed, she was the only one who ever had.
It was in the deepest days of drought that the rumor began. At first it was only exchanged in looks between senior monks, but like fire, suspicion spreads in dry times. After the Frog Festival and the visit from the governor there was another temple lottery, and many boys were shaved upon the temple steps and brought into the stony girdle.
During the Water Jar Festival the Abbot dropped his staff, its godbird feathers fluttering, and when he bent to retrieve that most sacred item he reached for empty space. One of the senior monks had to rescue its flutter-length, and the rumor was proved before a crowd of worshippers and notables.
I was frothing the spice-bitter holy drink under Kali’s watchful eye as whispers raced through the kitchen. A mere girl cannot taste the drink, but I could smell very well when it became ready and see the froth change. Kali tapped my head with a bone scraping-spoon, to remind me not to falter – if the stirring pauses, the drink will not blend properly.
The Abbot dropped his staff. The Abbot could not grasp it.
The Abbot is blind.
It was strange, I thought as I stirred. The Flayed God’s high priest cannot be infirm. He must be whole as the God before his sacrifice. But I put the question aside, for a mere kitchen-bird does not meddle in those matters.
Or so I thought then, especially since Kali’s expression grew set and she laid about with that long-handled spoon when she caught other kitchen-birds with guilty faces and wagging tongues. The girl who had tattled on me was clouted twice, and I bent to my work to give the kitchen-goddess no time to catch me thinking. Later that evening something foul was fished from the temple well, and brackish water turned the day’s cooking fetid.
The next day, another lottery was announced. This one, though, was for the junior monks like my brother.
The entire temple watched one gasp-hot morn as the young ones mounted the steps one at a time, reaching into the basket with a hole in its lid and drawing forth a smooth, dark stone. They were black and glossy, those sacred eggs, each one brought from burning mountains belonging especially to the mother of all gods, She whose name is not spoken, who wears serpents in her ears and provides warmth to the dead if they have lived a righteous life.
Again and again they drew forth black eggs, and I drowsed in lace-pierced shade on the fringe of the courtyard. Nobody else seemed to have any trouble staying awake, but I had been up all night stirring and afternoon would hold more of the same. Much of the sacred drink was required for the monks in this season, to bring them clarity.
At least it did not reek of anise, like Father’s new wife. And at least Kali’s training made the pain only a distant ache.
I must have closed my eyes; I woke to a susurration that was the sigh of the crowd. My chin jerked up, my eyes flew open, and I saw Haza before the basket, his sunburned, shaven head gleaming, the set of his shoulders expressing shock.
In his palm was a single, satin-smooth, pale stone.
* * *
They put him in seclusion, in the long cloister full of stone-walled cells. His young body was shaved daily by the most solemn of the Abbot’s attendants, but his head was left to grow its fur again. The best we could cook passed to his cell first, where he was supposed to spend the days meditating. But my brother, used to roaming the forests or spending his days with strike and kick, hardly touched the platters before they went in turn to the Abbot’s table.
Kali was called upon for more tempting dishes, rarer flavors, sweeter fruits. I could have told her Haza preferred thick porridge with savory leaves, with perhaps some fat from last night’s dinner if it had been a good autumn and Mama had not taken to coughing. I could have told her the squirrels in the forest, turgid for the beginning of winter and roasted in brookside clay, was a dish my brother could never resist.