Shadow Gate

19

After the gates were unlocked, the women who had been waiting all morning on the hot Olossi street were herded into a courtyard surrounded by high walls. Avisha trudged in, carrying Zianna and holding Jerad by the hand. Their keepers, a foursome of militiamen hired to maintain order, kept up a running patter of crude jokes. 'Heh. I wonder if those Qin soldiers have swords or prickles, eh?' 'Sharp as their swords, eh? I wouldn't want one swiving me.' 'This lot hasn't much choice. Heya! Rufi, look there. Isn't that your mother? Eihi! No call to go hitting me, just a joke.'

Avisha kept her head down. Fortunately, she was not the only woman here burdened by children, so perhaps that wasn't an immediate disqualification for marriage. Her arms were numb from the weight of holding Zianna. Jerad was sniffling.

She pushed him over toward a small door set into one wall where the tops of pipewood rising on the other side of the wall offered a silver of shade. A beggar in a red cap and ragged kilt who was leaning against the door in that shade kindly moved away as she and the children approached. She sagged against the door, wiping sweat from her neck as she looked around.

The court's stone pavement and high, whitewashed walls suggested it was either an unloading ground for wagons, or an open space for people to work. She had no idea how things worked in a

city as big as Olossi, with its crowded streets and aggressive inhabitants as likely to shove you out of the way as wish you the blessings of the day. Her eyes watered from all the cook-smoke and from ash that still drifted off the burned sections of the lower city. Clouds were piling up in the east, and she was sure that on top of everything, it was going to rain.

'Vish.' Jerad's voice threaded into a whine. The sad little sprout sagged against the wall, his legs crossed.

'You have to be patient, Jer.' She shifted the sleeping girl, Zianna's weight aching her shoulder. The little girl's naming-day clothes – the nicest garments anyone in the family had ever owned -were dirt-stained and stinking from being urinated in more than once; the once-precious orange silk was probably beyond salvaging after all those days on the road. 'Just a little longer. See those double doors, there?'

She pointed with her free elbow.

The women pressed forward to cluster around the impressive wooden doors that gave access into a building bigger than Sapanasu's temple hall in the village. There was a door in each wall of the vast courtyard. To the east, gates led to the street. The warehouse entry doors carved with elaborately twined salamanders were set in the western wall. To the north stood a gate trimmed in iron, big enough for wagons. The small door against which Avisha and the children huddled was the kind of entrance regular people passed through. The trees rising on the other side of the wall meant there was a garden beyond, filled with cool shade and, perhaps, a fountain. She licked dusty lips with a parched tongue.

'Don't crowd!' shouted one of the militiamen as he reined his horse in a mincing circle, whip raised.

There were about fifty women, with perhaps twenty children in arm or in tow. Most of the women were young; some were older. Most were wrapped in a plain cotton taloos or dressed in the linen tunic and trousers worn by farmers and artisans and laborers. Poor clans desperate enough to send their daughters and sisters to make a marriage with outlanders; impoverished widows eager to find a home with their children. The beggar shuffled through the crowd, trolling for alms among folk likely as poor as he was!

A pair of elegant city girls passed him a few vey and returned to their conversation.

'My uncle told me to demand nothing less than forty cheyt as a marriage portion. They can afford it. They took the whole treasury. Greedy bastards.'

'Forty cheyt? Whew! You could never hope to see that much coin in your whole life. Who's being greedy?'

'It's fair payment for having to marry a dirty outlander.'

'Best make sure they don't find out about-' Their voices dropped to a whisper.

A girl with a bright red birthmark splayed over one cheek kept lifting a hand to cover her face. 'Auntie, don't you think they'll turn me away the instant they see me? Can't we just go home? I'd rather go to the temple than be scorned again.'

'Quiet! The dowry the temple is demanding is more than we can afford. We'll offer you to the outlanders with no request for a bride price at all. That might induce them to take you.'

A middle-aged man fussed over two girls dressed neatly in farmers' best, each in a cotton taloos, one dyed a calm sorrel green and the other a reassuring bracken orange-brown. 'Be polite. Be respectful. It's a good opportunity but there's no need to sign any contract unless you're truly willing.'

'Papa, you've said this twelve times.'

He smoothed down the hair of one, twisting the end of her braid, and tugged out a wrinkle in the cloth draped over the shoulder of the other. 'They have to prove themselves to you, girls, in the same way you have to prove yourselves to them. They're folk just like any other, even if they look different than we do and have different ways.'

Avisha wiped her forehead again. Taru have mercy! It was so hot. Thunder rumbled, but the clouds hadn't yet gotten to the city. Her hair felt stringy and tangled, however much she had tried to keep it combed and clean. She'd washed out her one good taloos a day ago, in a stream, but it had gotten stepped on and there was a big smudge of red clay dirt smeared across her hips. She hoped her face was clean, but Zianna would keep rubbing her hands in the dirt and then patting her big sister's cheeks.

i have to pee.' Jerad's body was jiggling as he tried to hold it in.

Tears dribbled down his face. 'I don't want to wet myself out here in front of everyone.'

If only Nallo were here!

But Nallo had been marched off to the reeve hall. They'd probably never see her again.

A shout from the gate startled her. A troop of grim Qin soldiers dressed in black rode into the courtyard from the street. She'd seen them during the long march from the Soha Hills to Olossi with the other refugees, but except for the day she and Nallo had encountered them on the trail, she'd not spoken to one. Every gaze shifted to stare with fear or apprehension at the newcomers.

If Nallo were here, Avisha knew what she would do.

'The hells!' She grabbed the boy by the wrist. 'Come on.' She jiggered the latch and found the door unlocked. They slipped through while every eye in the courtyard was fixed on the Qin soldiers.

She closed the door behind them and sank against it, breathing hard. A stand of hatmaker's pipewood screened the door. Jerad fumbled at his trousers – she'd made him put on his only pair so he would look respectable – and with a snivel of relief let go of his water. The spray rattled so loudly Avisha thought the whole city must hear, but the clamor of horses in the courtyard drowned him out. Her arms ached, and she looked around to see if there was anywhere she might put down Zi.

They stood in the shadowed corner of a walled garden. A larger garden lay beyond a second wall, green with fruit and nut trees, but this modest garden was laid out in a square with beds and troughs for medicinal plants, now overgrown and neglected, and stands of pipewood or shrubs of rice-grain-flower and purple-thorn and other such useful plants set against the walls. In the corner opposite her hiding place, a second door stood ajar. Just a few steps from it, a young woman sat on a bench. With her shoulders bowed, she was weeping too softly to be heard, but weeping nonetheless, wiping her face with the back of a hand as she lifted her head.

She was an outlander! She didn't look like the Qin, with their flat faces and broad cheeks. She was some other breed of outlander. She wore sumptuous silks, the kind of cloth only a rich woman could afford or that, if the stories were true, a rich man would lavish on

a valuable bed slave. A broom lying slantwise across the walkway and a hem of dust on her silks betrayed that she'd been sweeping.

Avisha gaped. How could she risk dirtying such magnificent silks by wearing them to sweep in? What manner of person was she? Had she tried her luck at a marriage contract only to be rejected? Or did she live in this grand compound?

Jerad coughed as the river slacked to a trickle, and ceased.

'Who's there?' said the girl in a cool, firm voice. You'd never have guessed she'd been crying.

Avisha stepped out from the pipewood, trying to keep her voice calm and her hands from shaking. 'I'm sorry, verea. I was just waiting out in the courtyard with the others when my little brother had to pee. He's just nine, you know how it is, and tired from all the waiting.'

The girl examined Avisha and the sleeping Zianna critically. 'Where is he?' she asked with a pretty smile but a searching gaze.

'Here, Jer, come out,' said Avisha.

The boy stumbled out to the open square, still tying up his trousers. He saw the other woman, and his mouth dropped open. 'Her eyes are pulled all funny. Is something wrong with her?'

'Hush! Don't be rude! I'm so sorry, verea. He's just a sprout. We've never been to the city before. We don't see outlanders where we come from.'

'No offense taken,' said the girl as her shoulders relaxed. She squeezed back the last of her tears and sniffed hard, then wiped her nose with the back of a hand. The more she spoke, the more you could hear the funny way she had of speaking, the sounds squished tight so it was hard to understand her. 'What is your name?'

'I'm called Avisha, verea. This is my brother Jerad, and my little sister Zianna.'

'You are here for the interview?'

'Surely I am. There's quite a few out there, truly.'

'That's a surprise. In the first five days after the announcement in the markets, only fourteen women came to the gate. I do not know why so many crowded in today.'

'Do you live here?' Avisha gestured to the peaked roofs that marked the buildings of the greater compound.

'1 do.'

'Sheh! Whoever is gardener of this place should be hauled out and whipped. No one is taking care of these valuable plants!'

'It has been neglected, that is true.' The girl examined the garden as if she was really getting a good look at it for the first time. 'Why are they valuable?'

'To start with, that's a nice stand of hatmaker's pipewood, although it needs thinning. My mam would crush the seeds of purple-thorn – there – to kill insects in the storeroom. You can perfume clothes with the rice-grain-flower…' Now that the girl's flush of tears had faded and her face was more at ease, Avisha saw that she was lovely despite her odd features. She had lustrous black hair bound into a long tail with a ribbon; the tail hung to her hips. 'Or you can put a spray of the flowers in your hair, like an ornament.'

All at once, she felt sorry for the other girl. No one rich enough to wear silks of such quality would also wield a broom. She knew the tales as well as anyone. A rich merchant house could afford foreign slaves, and of course a life slave had no rights at all. Nothing about them belonged to themselves, not like a debt slave, who might hope to pay off the debt and walk free of all claim. No wonder the poor girl had been crying. 'You're from the south, aren't you?'

The girl had been scrutinizing the rice-grain-flower, brushing at her hair where an ornamental flower might adorn her, but she turned back to Avisha. 'I am, that's true.'

'You have a funny way of pronouncing things.' The idiotic words sounded worse now that they hung in the air, awaiting an answer, so Avisha stumbled on. 'I'm sorry for your trouble. I saw you were crying. We didn't mean to interrupt. It's just the boy had to pee so badly and didn't want to wet himself.'

'Vish!' hissed Jerad indignantly.

No, I'm glad you came.' The girl patted the bench. 'Sit beside me. I am glad of a girl my own age to talk to.' As Avisha approached, the girl indicated a shady spot in one corner of the paved square.

'Ooof!' Jerad stopped short with a squeal of outrage followed by a childish giggle. 'Did you see what she did?'

'What did I do?' asked the girl, alarmed.

Avisha wanted to slap the runt, but he didn't know any better. 'Nothing, verea. It's just rude to point with your finger like that.'

'Ah.' The girl stared at her for a moment with her mouth open in a smile that wasn't quite sincere and wasn't quite false; anxious, maybe, or embarrassed. She had all of her teeth, and they were as white as the landlady's string of precious pearls, so perfect that Avisha felt a stab of ugly jealousy for the careless beauty she would herself never ever possess. Then the smile faded, and the girl rose, with dignity, revealing a shawl that she had draped over the bench and on which she had been sitting. This she spread in the shade. 'The little one can rest here.'

'My thanks!'

It was such a relief to have Zi's weight off her arms and back that Avisha almost wept, but instead she sank down on the bench beside the outlander and rested her head wearily in her hands. Still suspicious, Jerad sat down cross-legged beside Zi. His head drooped, his eyes closed, and he dozed off.

'Why do you want to marry one of the outlanders?' the girl asked. 'Most Hundred folk don't seem eager.'

'There's a good group waiting out there today.'

'Good, or numerous?'

Avisha laughed. 'There are a lot of them. There were two women there, dressed as fine as ever I did see, in city fashion, nothing like we'd ever see in my village. All they could talk about was how much coin they mean to demand in exchange for marrying. I didn't think that was nice. But there was a nice father, telling his daughters they'd best be polite, and that they could look things over and make their own choice if they wished to wed an outlander. That was kind of him, for usually the clan gives you no choice. You know how it is.'

Only what a stupid thing to say to a slave who was no longer her own person!

The girl smiled softly. It was hard to tell if she was happy or sad. 'Truly, sometimes a person isn't given a choice.'

Impulsively, Avisha reached toward her, but drew back before she touched the other girl's arm because the gesture seemed so intrusive, so bold, so intimate. 'Eiya! I shouldn't chatter so much. That's what Nallo says.'

'I don't mind your chatter. I like it. You remind me a little of my sister. Maybe it's only that we're of an age.'

'I was born in the Year of the Ox.'

'Why, so was I! Who is Nallo?'

'My father's wife.'

'She's not your mother?'

Avisha looked at Zi, sprawled on the shawl and snoring with toddler snuffles in the blessed shade. 'My mother is dead. My father remarried soon after. That's Nallo.'

'A second wife! Is she kind to you, or awful?'

'She's got a murderous temper, and she slapped me once! But then Father got angry at her, and he never loses his temper, so she apologized and she never did it again. How I wish she was here. She's very tough-minded. Nothing scares her.'

'Where is she?'

'They took her to the reeve hall. They said she was chosen by an eagle and she has to be a reeve even though she doesn't want to be one.'

'Is that how it goes? You get chosen by an eagle? Even women?'

'Of course even women,' said Avisha. Really, outlanders were so ignorant! 'If an eagle chooses you, then you have to be a reeve. Isn't it that way where you come from?'

'We don't have reeves where I come from. Although I suppose that's not true anymore. I come from here, now.' The girl's expression brightened momentarily, then darkened as she recalled a bitter thought. She sighed heavily. 'Hu! Enough of feeling sorry for myself. What of your father, then? Where is he?'

It was like being slapped in the face.

'My father's dead, isn't he?' Avisha snapped.

The girl flinched, and the echo of the words – not the sound but the ugly anger in her own voice – made Avisha cringe with the vivid memory of the ruined village, the swarming flies, the sweet stink of rotting flesh, and the acrid stench of burned houses. Of the way the mellow green cloth of her father's jacket and trousers had rucked up around his corpse. She mustn't bring that anger with her now, or she'd never save herself and the children. She heaved in breaths, shaking.

The outlander draped an arm around her shoulders. 'You're safe here.'

'How can we be safe?' Avisha sobbed into her hands. She'd hammered it in for so many days. 'We've no close kin. We owe rent to

the landlady, so she wants to sell our labor, so we'd have to become slaves. All I can hope for is that some outlander I don't know might want to marry me because people say I'm pretty, and that counts for something, although you must wonder what I'm frothing on about thinking too well of myself since I must look like a field hen with my feathers all every-way for I haven't had a bath in days and our clothes must be stinking, and all torn besides. And I have the little ones and I can't just let them go. I wouldn't anyway, and it would be a terrible dishonor to my father's memory to sell their labor just to save myself. Now what will we do? Who will want us all? Why would anyone agree to take us in?'

Her voice became brisk and competent. 'Priya, bring me a cup of sweet ginger cordial.'

Avisha gulped down sobs and raised her head, but there was no one else in the garden. The little ones still slept. They were so very tired. She was all they had, now that Nallo had been dragged from them. She hadn't leisure for weeping. She was an artisan's daughter, accustomed to working hard, not some city-bred girl lounging in elegant fashions and thinking she could get forty cheyt – whoever had forty cheyt altogether except maybe the temples! – from some outlander to marry him.

With a fierce scowl, she rubbed the tears from her cheeks and swallowed her fear and her anger. 'Eiya! I don't know what came over me. Best I leave you, verea. I'm sure you have your duties to be about. I wouldn't want you to get beaten for shirking.'

'No, I wouldn't want that either. Here is Priya and she's brought some ginger cordial. Won't you taste it? It's very good. It's my favorite right now, for it settles the stomach. Priya, maybe some juice for the two little ones, although I don't think we should wake them yet.'

A woman with amazingly dark skin and round outlander features offered her a cup with a kindly smile. Dazed, she took it and sipped the most glorious sweet ginger concoction, sharp but light on the tongue. Its bite rose to her eyeballs, making them water.

'Eihi! That's good!'

The girl stood, her expression transforming as she smiled. The older woman took several steps back. Belatedly, Avisha turned to look behind her.

'Here you are, Mai.'

A man walked into the garden, wiping wet hands. He wore black, like the Qin, and he was accompanied by a middle-aged Qin soldier with the typical round face and merry eyes of the foreigners and by a huge man with a slight slump and a complexion rather like the pretty girl's. Outlanders, all. The man was not handsome but not ordinary. He halted with his hands out in front of him, registered Avisha's presence, and looked around the garden as if expecting a tiger to leap out and devour him. Of course he noticed the sleeping children. He looked back at her. Really, he was a fearsome man with a commanding stare, a sword swinging casually at his hip, and a way of looking at you that made Avisha feel she had done something very wrong.

Then he looked away. The older woman handed him a cloth and he finished wiping dry his hands.

'You are returned.' The young woman used that same cool voice Avisha had noticed when she and the little ones had first stumbled into the garden, but Avisha thought she understood it better now: it was the voice of a woman holding her emotions in check.

'We are returned, and we have seen much to interest us. Who is this?' He pointed at Avisha. 'Who are those children?'

'Don't point with your finger, Anji. It's considered rude. This is Avisha. And that is… ah, Jerad, and the little girl is Zi'an, I think.'

'Zianna,' said Avisha reflexively. 'Zi'an would be a boy's name although that would be very old-fashioned.'

'Thank you,' said the girl. 'Avisha, this is Captain Anji.'

Avisha rose hastily and brushed off her horrifically rumpled and dirty clothing.

'Where did she come from?'

'From the courtyard gate.' Mai indicated the stand of pipewood. 'Now that I think of it, Chief, how will I ever convince the Ri Amarah to allow one of their daughters to visit me if I can't promise a secure house?'

The middle-aged man narrowed his eyes. 'That door was secure at dawn, for I checked it myself.' He trotted over to the gate.

The captain's gaze assessed Avisha. He was like the temple clerks, toting up numbers that might not bring them any personal benefit but needed accounting because that was their job and one they were

accustomed to doing well. 'Who is she? Certainly not one of the Red Hounds, for they don't admit women to their ranks. An assassin from the temples, perhaps?'

Mai seemed amused. 'She's a girl from a village. These are her siblings. She hopes to find a husband among the troop.'

'Ah.' He handed the cloth to the older woman and turned to look through the open door, into an interior Avisha could not see. 'Nothing I need concern myself with, then. Mai, I have an idea Keshad might actually be useful.'

The older soldier walked back to them, shaking his head in disgust. 'When I find out who left that unsecured, I'll whip him myself.'

'Tuvi-lo,' said the captain. 'Where did the prisoner go off to? He was right behind us.'

Inside, a familiar voice rose. 'Don't touch that! Don't you know a priceless vase when you see one? What kind of five-burned fool are you?'

The splintering crash of ceramic meeting floor answered the question. Gales of laughter followed this assault, accompanied by a few choice swear words that genuinely shocked Avisha, for the only person she had ever heard say such rude things was the disreputable village drunk.

'Who did that?' demanded Mai in a voice meant to carry indoors. 'If that vessel was truly valuable, then the owners of this house will have to be paid its value out of your own portion. What a waste!'

Her words cut short the laughter. Three young men filed into the garden. One was smirking, one was still stifling laughter, and the third was fuming with such intensity that Avisha expected steam to rise from the top of his curly black hair. Eiya! He was the man with the handsome eyes and the overbearing sister who had rescued them at Candra Crossing and gotten them across the river.

The law had caught up with him.

His gaze passed over her, and she found herself smiling stupidly only he had already looked away without any flicker of recognition. He glanced first at Mai, then looked at the captain and, flushed, glared down at the paving stones.

It hurt to be dismissed so easily. Avisha was used to being known as a pretty girl in her village, but she also knew perfectly well that

her village wasn't very large and that the world must be populated with women twelve times more beautiful than she could ever hope to be. And yet those two young Qin soldiers were looking at her in a gratifying way even if she did wish it was Keshad who found her of interest. In fact, the soldiers were staring as if they recognized her, and all at once she remembered the one with the pretty eyes. He had been part of the cadre that had intercepted them on the road in the Soha Hills. His teasing grin made her grin shyly in return, and his grin widened.

'Which of you did it?' asked Mai in her cool voice.

Keshad's head came up. 'It's not just these two. They were all jostling and making jokes with no respect for the possessions of others! They all need a lesson in good manners!'

'You're called Keshad, aren't you?' asked Mai in a kind voice that would have killed most men and made Keshad shut right up. 'I need to hear from these two men what they will say. I thank you.'

He gulped down a couple of breaths. Poor man! He felt things so deeply. But even as she thought it, Avisha saw Priya and the big man exchange an intimate glance, and the big man rolled his eyes and mouthed something that made Priya look at Keshad and smile with unconcealed amusement.

The clip-clop-clap of hooves on stone clattered in the courtyard; a buzz of women talking in low voices droned under. The sounds of hooves faded, shuttered by a clang of closing gates. Chief Tuvi walked over to the children and gently tipped Jerad so he could rest comfortably on the ground beside Zianna. Then he returned to stand by the captain. Everyone looked at the two Qin soldiers.

The soldier with the pretty eyes spoke first. 'It slipped out of my hands.'

'I told you!' muttered Keshad.

Mai said, 'Chaji, why did you drop the vase? After he said it was valuable?'

Chaji shrugged. 'How could I have known he knew what he was talking about? I only meant it as a bit of fun. I didn't mean to drop it. It slipped.'

'You may go, Chaji,' said the captain. 'You'll continue to ride with the tailmen until I say otherwise.'

His eyes widened; his mouth twitched. Yet as quickly as anger

flashed, he controlled it, tightening his lips into a straight line. He nodded obediently, spun, and left the garden. The other Qin soldier began to follow, but Anji raised a hand.

'Hold on, Jagi. What do you have to say for yourself?'

The soldier's gaze shifted toward Keshad, who was still glaring at the pavement. Then he looked back at his captain.

'Chief Tuvi,' said the captain, 'place Keshad in a private chamber with guards.'

'Come on,' said Chief Tuvi with a cough that was almost a laugh.

When they were gone, the captain nodded at the remaining soldier. 'Jagi?'

Jagi scratched his pock-scarred chin. Like all the Qin, he had a mustache but no beard to speak of, just wisps of hair on his chin. Captain Anji alone had a neatly trimmed beard.

'Speak,' said the captain.

Jagi sighed. 'Captain, none of us like him. That's the truth. First, some of us journeyed many days with him and his most excellent sister. Now we've traveled with him again to the barren lands and back. He's arrogant. He's unfriendly. He treats us with no respect. He never shared wine or ale but hoarded his own cup. So I suppose I thought he had it coming. I admit I enjoyed seeing the way his mouth frogged open and his eyes bugged out.' His grin made his eyes wrinkle and look merry.

'An honest answer, but yours was the behavior of a boy, not of a man.'

The smile fled. 'Yes, Captain.'

'Furthermore, you know what situation we find ourselves in. We must establish ourselves as settlers in this land, respected and accepted by those we mean to live among, while at the same we know that a dangerous threat remains, one we do not understand nor know the extent of. I need my tailmen to become men, so I can assign each one of you to stand as sergeants over recruits. To survive, we have to protect ourselves. To protect ourselves, we need what our enemy already has: an army. You may go.'

'Yes, Captain.' He left.

Mai said, 'Anji, after the battle, you told the council of Olossi you were not minded to accept the post of commander of the militia of Olossi.'

'Because the commander of the militia of Olossi can accomplish very little. This whole region needs a militia, not just the city. We need a militia, plum blossom, so our children may grow up.' He shifted, reaching to take Mai's hand, but before he touched her he caught himself, glanced at Avisha, and withdrew his hand.

Mai rested a hand on her abdomen. 'You think the army wearing the star will attack again.'

'I am sure they will.'

Avisha sank onto the bench.

Trembling, Mai sat beside her and took hold of her hands. 'Don't fret. You'll be safe.'

'I would attack, in their place,' he continued. 'But I would also assign new commanders, get better discipline in my troops, and most importantly I would send-' Looking at Avisha, he broke off. Paused. And started again. 'I would do what I have already done.'

'Shai is not ready for this,' Mai whispered, and Avisha thought she did not mean the captain to hear, but he did.

He said, "If you do it, don't be afraid."

She smiled wanly. 'I will not falter. It's just that sometimes it seems so hard.'

He nodded. 'Mai, we'll get the land we need. We'll build a stronghold and set up our perimeter. While you run the business, I'll teach the people of Olo'osson how to fight. Between us, we can survive.'

'Of course,' said Mai faintly as her expression twisted. She swayed, covering her mouth.

He said, briskly, 'Priya, can you fetch her some of that sweet ginger cordial she likes?'

'Here's my cup,' said Avisha.

The older woman whisked the cup out of Avisha's hand and knelt beside Mai. 'Just take a sip, little flower.'

It seemed unfair that the woman had ripped away her chance to give a kindness to repay the kindness shown her. She glanced at the children; their ragged clothes and dirty faces wouldn't help her cause. But she had been rehearsing speeches for days now, making lists of reasons she would make a good wife. 'My mam taught me a tincture, steeped herbs, that helps settle the stomach of pregnant women. I can make some for you.'

Mai was still sipping, looking almost cross-eyed with nausea, trying to hold it in.

Avisha looked up, straight into the gaze of the captain. Finally, she had caught his interest, and she straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin and felt that her ears were going to burn off, only they didn't. 'For instance, you've got a nice stand of tallow-berry over in that corner.' She pointed with her elbow. 'Mama would say, "Inedible, good tallow for candles, oil pressed from the seeds good for varnish or paint and can be used as lamp oil although poor quality, residue of dry cakes with oil pressed out is good for fertilizer, also soap." The wood carves well, and can be burned for incense. The leaves produce black dye if boiled in alum…'

He smiled so suddenly it made her heart jolt.

'Choose wisely,' he said, transferring his gaze to Mai. 'They're not all of equal worth.'

Avisha flushed, seared as though by lightning. He had already turned his back, and anyway, a man like him was far beyond her reach. While Priya fussed, he went inside, followed by the big man talking about sheep and wool.

'That's better,' said Mai, sitting back with a sigh. 'I thought sure it would all come out.'

Priya set down the cup, then examined Avisha. She had a dark gaze so deep it seemed to go on forever. When she touched Avisha's hand, tears stung in Avisha's eyes although she didn't know why.

'You'll stay with us,' said Priya. 'Won't you?'

Tears spilled, and she began to laugh as much as cry, for it was raining finally, a mist that smeared the dirt and pattered among the leaves, presaging a fiercer storm to come.

'You'll want a bath,' added Priya with a kind smile. 'Once you've gotten it all out.'

'I just didn't think-'

'There, now,' said Mai. 'I have to interview all those women. 1 ater, if you feel able, maybe you can point out to me the ones who were talking about coin.'

'O-Of course.' She gulped several times and found she could swallow, she could breathe, she could think. She fixed her jaw, braced herself. 'I'm so grateful. B-But I'll need a contract. So I have

a chance to choose a husband from among the s-soldiers-' Or Keshad, if he would have her. Thinking of him made her skin scald with heat because she was so stupid, but she was alone, the only one the little ones had left. She had to proceed as she knew Nallo would, by being forceful and bold. '-and that I'm assured n-no one will change his mind and throw me out. The children have to come with me and be treated as full kin, not debt slaves having to work to offset the expense of keeping them.'

Mai laughed. 'I do like you. Is there anything else?' To think of her father was to yearn for him, to wish the gate might open and he, with his gentle smile and with a half-braided cord in hand, would walk in to greet her. The grief of knowing he was truly gone had not lifted, and she supposed it never would. Yet she had hope she could raise the children, and honor their father's memory by doing so.

'It's just a small thing, and I don't think it would be too hard… it's just… I would like know how Nallo is faring.'

'I don't like you,' said Nallo. 'So quit bothering me.'

'Eiya! I was just trying to be nice.' The young reeve took his bowl of soup and his inane banter, obviously meant to impress her, and walked over to another table in the eating hall where he was greeted with friendly cheers.

She thought herself shed of them, able to eat the spicy cawl-flower soup in peace without a bunch of chattering pleasantries, when another cursed reeve plopped down beside her.

'I don't like Siras either,' said this man. 'All that glad-handing talk, like a cursed entertainer.' He placed his bowl on the table, nudged it to the right, and stared at the dumpling floating in the center surrounded by limp cawl petals and specks of bright red pepper. 'Did they replace the cook? This looks more appetizing than the last meal I ate here.'

'1 wouldn't know. I only got here yesterday. And I plan to leave tomorrow.'

He chuckled. 'Don't you remember me? I'm Volias.' 'Yes, 1 remember you. You made me leave the children I'm responsible for and come here to Argent I Iall, where I don't want to

be. And since I'm not planning to stay, I don't see why I should have to remember anyone's name.'

'You're very irritating and rude,' he said appreciatively. 'Will you promise me you'll be this rude to the marshal?'

Nallo wasn't used to people smiling at her. It made her suspicious. 'Why do you want me to be rude to him?'

'Because I don't like him. Not enough people are rude to him, just because he's charming and good looking. How like them not to see past his handsome face to the insufferably smug and self-righteous man beneath!'

'Will being rude to him help me get out of here?'

He laughed. She wasn't a good judge of laughter. She couldn't tell if he was laughing sympathetically, or if he was laughing at her, and that made her bristle.

'Why are you so ill-tempered?' he asked.

'I didn't say anything!'

' "A look's as good as a hundred words", as it says in the tale. Have you always been this way?'

'So they tell me!' She turned her attention back to her soup, sipping cautiously, but it had just the right sting of pepper to really make your eyes open as you swallowed the rich broth.

He tried his own.

'This is good,' he added, as if she weren't ignoring him. 'Listen, Nallo. The gods marked you the moment that eagle chose you, or the eagle chose you because the gods marked you. It's hard to know how that works. You can no more walk away than you can expect to see your dead husband walking among the living. Keep your ill temper and your rudeness if you wish. It'll intimidate people, once you get out into the world as a reeve. But the sooner you accept that you can't leave, the better it will be for you. Although why I bother to tell you, I don't know. I'm leaving tomorrow anyway, to return to Clan Hall. I won't have to deal with your sulks and outbursts, although I'll miss them. I like you.'

She was finding it hard to breathe because the air had gotten so thick and the pepper in the soup was stronger than she'd realized, making her eyes water. 'No one likes me.'

'That sister was bawling her eyes out when you took your leave of them-'

'She's my husband's daughter, not my sister. I don't have any obligation toward them now their father is dead.'

'Which is why you are mad at me for taking you away from them. Hrm, that makes sense. Anyway, presumably your husband liked you.'

'He tolerated me. He needed a second wife quickly because the first died in childbed. I'm the prize he got!' Her voice had risen. Folk seated at other tables looked at her and quickly away when she glared at them.

'Here, now,' said Volias with a sneer. 'If you feel a little more sorry for yourself, even I might begin to dislike you despite your wonderful ability to say cutting things to people deserving of a cut like that idiot, Siras, who fancies himself a future marshal just because the fawkners here pet him so and signed him up to run errands for the marshal. So how many people do you suppose are dead already, and how many more do you suppose are going to die, with the way things are these days? Maybe we need reeves right now. Maybe we need the work reeves can do. Maybe the gods are desperate enough to touch you, or maybe you're just someone who could be a good reeve. Think about it.'

Now he did ignore her, working at his bowl in silence. The hum of other conversations surrounded them. The hall had windows open to a courtyard. Rain pattered on the pavement outside. Lamp flames trembled under the breeze raised by the twilight rains. The hall easily sat two hundred; truly, Nallo had never in her life been under a roof so large because not even Sapanasu's temple in her village had been anywhere this big. She might as well be outside as inside because there was so much loft hidden by darkness up in the open rafters. And yet it did smell like indoors: the shavings that covered the floor to keep down dust and mess had been mixed with herbs to sweeten the air. The scent reminded her of home.

Home.

Not the house where she had grown up, which had smelled of goats, but her husband's house. His was not a violent or expansive temperament. He was quiet and kind, and he liked things to be tidy and pleasant, and yet unlike the landlady, he didn't fuss unnecessarily to make a point that it must be done his way or not at all. He was a good ropcmaker, a true artisan, because he had an eye for

detail and a real love for doing things right just because that's what satisfied him. She had respected him, but she had never loved him.

Overcome with feelings she did not understand and could not explain, she slumped forward with her elbows on the plank table and covered her face with her hands.

'Making the women cry again, Volias?'

'I'm the only one she'll talk to. She probably saw you coming. It's enough to make me weep.'

She lifted her head. Volias lifted his bowl to his lips and slurped down the last of the broth. The marshal was standing behind him, holding the short staff carried by all reeves. He was a good-looking man; you just couldn't help noticing that every time you set eyes on him. When he saw that Nallo had looked up, he smiled, a look calculated to melt people's hard hearts.

She scowled. 'I don't have anything to say to you.'

Volias set down the bowl with a clunk. 'My heart, have I told you recently that I love you?'

This was not worth replying to, nor did her harsh words have the effect she hoped for.

'You two are well matched,' said the marshal in such a genial way that she wanted to slap the good humor off his handsome face.

'She and I?' said Volias. 'I'm flattered you think so.'

'No, I meant her and the eagle. A worse-tempered raptor I've never encountered in my life, which is why I need to talk to you right now, Nallo. You'll come with me.' Under that charm lay an implacable temper, maybe worse than her own once roused, and she knew all at once that she dared not cross him. She shoved the bowl away and got up from behind the bench.

'That just goes over to the table, there,' said the marshal helpfully, pointing to a table where other bowls and utensils had been stacked. All of the other people in the hall – reeves and fawkners and hirelings – had turned to watch the encounter. Aware of their scrutiny, she stalked to the table and set down the things before walking to the door, where he waited for her. Volias came with him, the two men talking in low voices.

1-I think it's a risk with that eagle,' Volias was saying, 'and I'm surprised you-'

The marshal nudged him.

He broke off.

'I'm here,' said Nallo needlessly. Sometimes she didn't even know why these griping phrases popped out of her mouth. 'What do I have to do to convince you I'm not the right person to be a reeve? That I don't want to be here?'

'Oh, you've convinced me you don't want to be here,' said the marshal. 'But as you'll discover, how you feel about your situation doesn't actually matter.'

'There's no sign of that eagle.'

'That eagle's just flown in, and she's in no better temper than you are.'

'The hells,' swore Volias.

'That's right,' said the marshal. 'Quicker is better. Come on.'

Rather than walking across the courtyard through the rain, he skirted the edges of a quadrangle of wooden buildings: the eating hall, the fawkner's warehouse and shop, the barracks, and the back wall of one of the high lofts, like a byre for beasts, where eagles quartered. Eaves sheltered them from the rain but the wind sprayed moisture over them. She welcomed the cool spatter. The Flower Rains at the beginning of the year were her favorite, a cleansing draft to cool what burned and tore at her insides. Angry, she followed the marshal through a narrow alley between two buildings and halted on the edge of the vast parade ground.

Four fawkners stood against the far wall of the north loft, under the eaves. One clasped her right hand to her left arm as though she'd been raked. Another held a hood, ties dangling, as they all stared despairingly toward the center of the parade ground. The yard was cleared of all eagles save one, who clutched a perch and stared belligerently at the fawkners. The idiots hadn't even gone in to examine her wound; dried blood and fresh glimmers discolored one wing.

'She's really angry,' said Volias. 'You know what she did to-'

'Let me finish,' said Joss to Volias. 'Nallo, do you recognize that eagle?'

'That's the one that protected us on the trail. Can't you see its injury? Why isn't anyone helping it? I thought these fawkners knew everything about eagles.'

'They need to hood it first.'

'Why don't they?'

'She's really angry,' repeated Volias.

She did look angry, with her neck feathers puffed out and the rest of her slicked down.

'They need that hood on so they can treat her injury,' said the marshal. 'She'll settle down then.'

Volias frowned. 'You can't mean you'll send Nallo out-'

'If that injury isn't treated properly, the eagle will not survive. If the eagle dies, Nallo dies.'

'You're saying that to scare me. To get me to agree.' It was ridiculous the way they were all scared of the big eagle, not that she wasn't a frightening sight when you really compared how puny the humans looked compared to the magnificent size and weapons of the raptor. But Nallo had sheltered under that vicious beak before; the bird had saved Jerad from the bandits.

With a grunt of disgust, she strode over to the huddled fawkners. 'Give me the hood.'

Blood stained the skin of the woman clutching her arm. 'She's favoring her right leg,' she said, calm as you please, 'which is what saved me from worse. If she strikes, she'll strike with her left. Watch for the talons.'

A man handed her the heavy leather contraption.

'How do I get this on?'

'That part fits around the beak,' said the injured woman. 'Just get the eyes covered. Once she settles, we'll do the rest until you've learned more.'

One of the other fawkners, a short, fine-boned man, whistled under his breath and shook his head, but the rest simply watched as she took a step back.

'Oh, I see,' she said as she opened it out. The leather was soft and pliant, heavy because there was so much of it, and there was an obvious hole for the beak. She'd grown up dealing with goats. This couldn't be that different.

Yet as she approached the eagle, whose fierce gaze fixed on her, her heart raced until her ears throbbed. That beak was big enough to rip off her head.

The eagle moved, a swipe with her talons. Nallo leaped back out of range as, behind her, a man groaned and many voices gasped.

'Just keep going.' That was the marshal, calling encouragement. 'If she'd meant to hook you, she'd have made contact. You're much slower than she is.'

'Isn't he the cheerful one,' said Nallo to the bird, taking courage in irritation. What a prancing idiot that marshal was! 'Although by the look of you, I suppose it's true. Or I hope it's true.' If she kept talking she didn't have to think about how scared she was. 'If you really wanted to bite my head off, I don't see how I could escape you.'

Taking a deep breath, she stepped forward. The eagle raked again, but she was slow and jerky.

'Stop that!' She was on her toes ready to bolt with a knot in her throat she had to squeeze the words past. Even so, feeling stuck between all those cursed reeves and fawkners expecting her to do what she didn't want to do, and the huge raptor looking furious with everyone, made her temper rise even more. If that was possible. But not at the poor bird.

'Here, now, you recall me. We met up in the Soha Hills. You gave the boy shelter, didn't you, and I appreciate it as I think I said then so I don't know what you're slashing at me for now. I never did you any harm!'

It drew up one leg. Its neck feathers eased.

That seemed less threatening. She went on.

'So if you want that wing looked at, you'd best be cooperative. Not that I can't see that you dislike all of them, and I surely can't blame you for doing so since they seem an unlikable lot to me, too.'

It lowered its head. A feathered brow ridge gave her a grouchy look, as if she were saying, 'What took you so long?'

The hood was bulky, and Nallo tried to sling it over. The eagle lifted her head, and leather spilled off and flopped to the dirt with a thump.

'Be still! Do you want that injury tended to, or not?'

As she bent over to grab the hood, she heard a sharp hiss, a whispering, the shifting of many feet. Rising, she swung around.

All kinds of folk had crowded under the eaves to watch. There were a dozen more fawkners, some armed with staves and long padded spears and hook-bills, and too many reeves and hirelings to

count. The eagle lowered her leg to get better purchase on the perch. Nallo sensed her contempt and impatience and pain.

'Yes, may they all rot in the hells, idiot gawkers! Just let me get this thing-oof!-' She heaved. '-up over your head and-' Tugged awkwardly, one leather thong briefly clamped in her teeth to keep it out of her face. '-sheh! keep your head down!-and you won't have to look at their ugly faces anymore. There!'

The eagle was hooded, although the straggling ends needed tying off. Nallo beckoned to the fawkners. 'Don't just gawp there! How do you fix this thing so she can't scrape it off?'

Three started forward, including the woman with the torn arm. They grabbed the leather ties at the back of the hood and, while the eagle still had her head lowered, tightened them.

'These ties are called the brace,' explained the injured fawkner. 'You stayed calm.'

'Best get that arm tended to, Rena,' said the small fawkner, taking charge. 'Aras, can you run and get the salve? I'll need the imping needle and – Eiya! – just bring the lot of it. What's your name again?'

When no one answered, Nallo realized he was talking to her. 'I'm called Nallo.'

'Well done. Tumna's famous for having an uncertain temper at the best of times, but you handled her well. Better than Horas ever did.'

'Who is Horas?'

'Her last reeve.'

'What happened to him?'

Tumna dipped her head, huge beak probing the air as the marshal and Volias walked over.

'Keep talking,' said the small fawkner. 'She likes the sound of your voice.'

'Tumna, don't fret, they're coming although I must say they're slow about it and why all these staring fools have to stand here and stare so rudely is beyond my understanding. How badly is her wing injured?'

The fawkner was grinning, although she couldn't figure what he thought was so funny. 'She can fly on it, so that's one thing. But we've got bleeding even after this long because she's not resting

properly. As you can see, she's still in pain and not healing as she ought.'

'Volias,' Nallo said, 'can't you just chase these people off? Don't they have anything better to do?'

He said, to the marshal, 'You're a hard man, Joss. I didn't know you had it in you. I thought sure the cursed bird was going to rip-'

'Shut up, Volias,' said the marshal in a flat voice.

'I'll take it from here, Marshal,' said the small fawkner in the manner of a man rushing to fill a gap.

'What was he going to say?' Nallo demanded.

'Rip off the hood,' said the marshal. 'They're trained to accept the hood when they first come to the hall. An eagle like Tumna or my Scar is accustomed to it. It eases them, helps them settle if they're injured or exhausted. An eagle tumbles quick from keen-set to frail-set.'

'If you don't mind,' said the fawkner, 'we'll get her settled.'

Thus dismissed, she had no choice except to walk with the marshal out of the parade ground and down an alley between storehouses. The reeve hall was a prosperous place, with plenty of impressive buildings to house its reeves, fawkners, assistants, hirelings, slaves, and eagles, and to store the provisions necessary to maintaining the hall.

'What happened to her other reeve?' she asked as her feet kicked up chalky dirt.

Volias coughed.

The marshal said, 'Dead in the recent battle.'

'Do eagles mourn their reeves when they go?'

'Hard to say. We like to think so.'

'Do reeves mourn their eagles?'

He sighed as he looked at her. 'Reeves don't survive the death of their eagles.'

'You can't mean it. How old can an eagle get?'

'Hall records show that the longest known life span of an eagle encompassed six reeves, although only one of those reeves lived to old age.'

'Do you mean if I agree to become a reeve and that eagle dies, that I'll die?'

'You already are a reeve.'

'Is this how you force people to agree to become reeves? Because they think they have to? We're no better than slaves. I'd have better luck walking to Olossi and trying to get a husband from those foreigners. At least I'd be my own mistress, able to do what I wanted.'

'Who knows what disgusting customs those outlanders have,' said Volias with a smirk. 'You're better off with; us. Not that you have a choice.'

They walked into a garden so fancy that Nallo gawked. It had its own pool, with fruit and nut trees along either side, reflected in the still water. Aui! There was even a fountain of burbling water, just like in the tales! Avisha would have gushed over the many herbs and other flowering plants burgeoning out of troughs and terraces. A pavilion overlooked the far end of the pool. That pest Siras was seated on the steps leading up to the covered porch, and when he saw them he leaped up and brushed his hands on his trousers as if he'd been eating.

'I guess Tumna didn't rip your head off, then, eh?' said Siras with a big grin as they reached the porch. 'Not like she did to Horas. Not that he didn't deserve it, mind you. He was rotten all the way through.'

'The hells!' said Volias. 'Siras, you're a bigger horse's ass than even I thought.'

Nallo halted with a foot on the porch and one on the step below. The marshal turned, balancing on one foot with a sandal half pried off the other. He grunted with irritation, a man who has just been caught out in a lie.

Rain spat through the pretty garden. In the distance, thunder rolled and faded.

Rip your head off.

They had all known that the eagle was a killer who had murdered its own reeve.

When she got really mad, her tongue lit and she couldn't stop herself. 'That's why everyone came to watch. Was it a good show? Or is everyone disappointed she didn't rip my head off, too? Does it happen often? Because if I were an'eagle, you three would all be in little pieces by now, but I wouldn't eat a single scrap of bloody flesh because your foul taste would make me cast it all back up.'

Her heart was sucked dry, and her blood was raging. She walked away.

Volias called, 'Here, now, Nallo-'

The marshal interrupted him in that smoothly dishonest voice she should have distrusted from the first. 'We didn't say anything because we didn't want you to fear her before you had a chance to understand eagles. And Tumna in particular.'

'No one told her?' yapped the young one in a tone that couldn't have made him sound stupider if he'd been a novice entertainer acting a part.

Ignoring every soul who tried to talk to her, she strode through the compound until she found the cot she'd been assigned. She grabbed her bundle of useless odds and ends, the worthless rubbish of her life, and walked out the gates of Argent Hall, never to return.