Spirit Gate

41

Shai envied Mai her ability to sleep when his every nerve jangled. She sat back-to-back with Priya near the fire, her head drooping gracefully and her fingers tucked under her belt. Shai had already bundled up his sack of carpentry tools and his meager possessions, leaving them with the neat pile of goods that would go with his niece at dawn, when the man with pulled eyes and turbaned head came to take her away.

Honestly, he was shocked that Captain Anji had let her go so easily. It was all very well for a man to claim that his people and his god abjured slavery. You could say anything, but that didn't make it true.

One of the soldiers appeared out of the night and placed driftwood on the fire, then faded back into the dark. In his wake, Anji came back from the main campsite and beckoned to Shai.

"Come. You'll attend me."

Together with Sengel and Toughid, Shai walked with Anji to the ford, and there the captain called across the channel to the men on guard.

"I have a request. Is there anyone I can speak with?"

There was a big bonfire illuminating the bank and much of the length of the channel, to make sure no one snuck across. By its light, a man walked through the multitude of sentries and halted at the edge of the water, not so far away, really. His feet were hidden in reeds. The creak of bowstrings sounded faintly from farther back, at the edge of the fire's light, covering him.

"I'm sergeant in command of this cadre. What do you want?"

"You know our situation," said Anji. "Since we have to return to the south, we'll have to hire ourselves out as guards again, if we're allowed. Do you think I can go over in the morning and arrange for a hire?"

"Not my decision," said the sergeant. "I was told you're to ride straight out."

"There'd be something in it for you if you could see to it that one or a pair of your men might run into town on my behalf. I saw the makings of another caravan-"

A fellow came up beside the sergeant and spoke to him, too low for Shai to hear.

The sergeant nodded and raised his voice to call to Anji. "That group rode out two days ago. There's no hire waiting for you. You'll just have to go."

"In that case, I've need of coin. Are there any merchants in town willing to buy flesh?"

"Buy flesh?"

"Yes. Much as it grieves me, I'll have to sell my concubine."

It seemed every guardsman on the far bank heard him, for there was a rush of sound that briefly drowned out the bass cry of the river. Their voices rose, and jokes came, laughter in plenty although the words themselves were washed together.

"You can imagine," said Anji into this so sternly that those men quieted and there was only one last laugh, choked off, "that I'm unwilling to part with such a valuable flower for anything less than top price. As I said, if you've a man willing to run into town, perhaps a few of your merchants might be willing to come out here at dawn to bargain with me."

The sergeant whistled. "You're a cool one. I thought you told the council she was your wife."

"Slaves can be wives. She lent respectability to my offer, but it wasn't enough. I can purchase ten more just like her in any market in the south. She's too much trouble to me at the moment. She takes two slaves to keep her, and they slow me down."

"Thought you didn't want to ride back south," said the sergeant. "Are you changing your story, eh?"

"It doesn't seem to me I have a choice. Now, are you willing, Sergeant? There'd be something in it for you, as well."

"How much could I get my hands on?" asked the sergeant with a coarse laugh.

"A bit of coin for your trouble. Anything else you'll have to arrange with the merchant who buys her."

"Whew! I doubt I can afford it. She'll go to the houses up on the hill, for certain. Well, I'll send a runner in to Flesh Alley, but I can't promise you any of them will be willing to creep out of their comfortable beds before the dawn bell. Best you and your company be ready to leave as soon as the sun is up."

"We'll do what we're told," said Anji, "having no choice in the matter."

As they walked back to their own campfire, Anji said to Shai, "Do you think that went too easily?"

"Do you think he was suspicious?" Shai asked.

"I don't know. In the Qin territories, no one would have believed that sorry tale. Not after I'd publicly proclaimed her as my wife. Concubines and slaves may be shed and taken at will, but not wives. Still, in the empire, unless she had powerful relatives I did not dare to offend, no one would remark on it."

"There was a man in Kartu Town who bought a slave. A year later he took her to the priests to have a scroll written to free her of all claim and to make a marriage contract, since he wished to marry her. And he did, and held a marriage feast, too. Three months later she stole his strongbox and fled from town with a passing caravan."

"The authorities did not catch her?"

"No. It was during the rule of the Mariha princes. The captain of the guard wanted a bribe to go after her, and the poor man had no coin. He tried to sell his land and his business to raise money to go after her, but my father talked all the merchants in town out of taking advantage of his weakness. It was obvious to everyone he had been possessed by a demon. Later, he recovered, and after that he came to our house and thanked my brother, for by then my father had died and my brother become Father Mei in his place. That was the difference between my father and my brother. My brother would have bought land and business at the bargain price, and been happy to do so."

Anji shook his head. "The Qin would have brought her back and executed her as a thief. A crime of that sort weakens all of society. It's no wonder the Mariha princes fell so swiftly. They were already like a wood post that is rotten and soft all the way through. Easy to topple."

"Do you trust this man? Master Calon? If his Lesser Houses have so many people who support them, then why haven't they already overturned the council?"

"They are frightened. They are shackled by habit. Or they are just now testing their strength, which they have only newly discovered. It may be these problems with the roads have only recently made them desperate enough to act. I can't tell."

At last, swallowing, Shai asked the question he dreaded asking but must ask. "Will Mai be safe with these 'Hidden Ones'?"

They had come to the fire, where Mai dozed, Sheyshi snored, and Priya watched. Father Mei would have yelled at Shai and struck him for his impertinence in asking such a question, since a younger brother must not question an elder, but Anji rubbed a midge out of his eye instead. His was a thoughtful expression.

"The priests of Beltak, in the empire, hold all men to be as slaves to the god. Those who do not believe are allowed to travel to only a few of the border towns, where they must remain in the markets. Within the empire, if you do not sacrifice to Beltak and pay his tithe, you are executed. Yet they wrote of the servants of the Hidden One with respect. They accounted, especially, any number of instances of their honest dealings. And they complained of their treatment of their womenfolk."

"How so?" asked Shai, looking at Mai. Fearing for her. She had endured this journey better than he had, if you really counted it all up, but no one could look at her and not think her fragile, even knowing better. "How do they treat their womenfolk?"

"It seems the servants of the Hidden One allow their women to keep their accounts books. In the empire, women are not allowed to handle money, so you can imagine that this offended and shocked the priests. But the servants of the Hidden One refused to alter their custom, saying it would go against the law of their god. So I am thinking, Shai, that if Mai will be safe anywhere, it will be in the hands of people who let women run their businesses, even if they are hiding away behind a veil. Perhaps especially, for Mai, in a strange land, where her beauty is hidden behind a veil."

"But how did they know?" asked Shai.

"What do you mean?"

"In the empire, men live separately from women. So you told us. So I saw for myself. How could the priests of Beltak know who kept the accounts?"

Anji laughed, but his laughter ended abruptly when Tohon came out of the brush and began speaking to him. Without answering Shai's question, the captain walked away with Tohon to oversee, Shai supposed, the breaking of camp.

Shai sat down next to the fire and tried to sleep, but he could not calm himself. They were true mercenaries now, taking up another man's fight for coin. If they survived the first test, they would ride into unknown lands, to that town where Hari's ring had been found. At the start of this journey, the idea of actually finding the place where Hari had died had seemed impossible, but now it seemed he might survey the field of battle where, it was supposed, Hari had died. But would this knowledge, his witnessing, bring peace to the Mei clan? These thoughts unsettled him. He sought out Tohon, in the main section of camp. Shelters were already taken down and bundled up. Men made themselves ready. There was nothing for him to do. He was not only extraneous-he was useless. He went back to the fire and watched the lick of flame as it ate up branches. Priya nodded to acknowledge his presence. Mai still slept, and none disturbed her.

The slender crescent moon, the herald of dawn, was rising in the east. A nightjar clicked. A bird whistled, and there came an answering bird song out of the bushes. Out on the water, a few boats appeared, being poled or rowed downstream toward the estuary. Lanterns swayed from their bowsprits, hung on poles out over the water to attract fish. The color of night was fading as the tones of daybreak shaded the world around them and brought life to all those creatures who hid and slept at night, fearing what they could not see.

No different from me. For the first time, he thought longingly of home, of the sere slope of Dezara Mountain, of the tidy orchards and narrow streets, the familiar scents and angles of the town where he had lived his entire life. His brother Hari had left willingly, even eagerly, boasting of lands far off that would welcome him better than he had been welcomed in his father's house all the years of his erratic rebellions and outraged criticisms. But at least Hari had been bold. Shai had been pulled along for the ride, a twig tossed into the flowing stream, nothing done of his own volition but only caught and taken by the current.

A splash sounded in the shallows where a fish leaped. A series of chirrups chased a path through a clump of bushes. A twig snapped under the foot of one of the sentries, who later would be ridiculed for the lapse. Wind gossiped in the leaves, a murmur that never seemed to stop, just as the whispering in Father Mei's house, among the wives and cousins, never seemed to stop. These were his chorus, and after all maybe it was better to be standing here awaiting word of their departure than to be standing in the courtyard once again awaiting whatever crumbs the family would throw him, the seventh and least of sons.

Grandmother Mei had wanted a daughter last of all. That was the traditional way: a daughter to keep at home to care for you in your waning years, since a daughter-in-law, while under your rule, could not be trusted to be as faithful and considerate as a daughter of your own blood and body. But she had gotten Shai instead, and a pair of miscarriages, so he was often reminded, and after that she had withered in the way women do when they grow too old to bear any longer. She had used up the last of her birthing blood on a useless boy.

No, definitely, he was well rid of them all. It was only that he missed the wide vistas and the soft colors, the stormy height of Dezara Mountain and its spacious grazing grounds, and his solitary shelter.

"Look, there!" said Tohon, startling Shai when he appeared suddenly out of the night.

Shai went over to the scout. From this angle, he could see the city walls. A single torch-the second one they had seen that night-reached the city walls and vanished inside. Closer at hand came another splash. Anji came into the light and bent down to gently wake Mai. She woke quickly and without fuss, and was on her feet in a moments, alert and ready.

"Here he comes," said Anji.

Escorted by Seren and Umar, Iad the caravan master skulked into view. The stocky man looked around nervously as if he hadn't expected to see people's faces, and he retreated to stand in the gloom with his face in shadow.

"I am surprised to see you here," said Anji, not with anger, simply speaking the truth.

"I'm surprised to be here," said the man. "I've been sent as an emissary by the council of Olossi to make a proposal."

"The council of Olossi?" Not by a hair or a shading of tone or a flickering of the eyes did Anji betray emotion or thought or any reaction at all. "The Greater Houses?"

"Yes. I'm here at the behest of the Greater Houses." Iad hesitated, swallowed a gulp of air for courage, and spoke. "They sent me because you and I have dealt honestly in our crossing out of the empire."

Anji looked at Mai. As if bothered by a bug, she scratched at her right ear with her left hand. "Go on," said Anji, looking back to Iad.

Well, now things were getting interesting. Shai moved closer, to hear better.

"They thought you would trust me where you might not trust another. They said to tell you first of all that a certain reeve, called Joss, has been discovered in the assizes prison where he was accidentally placed after a case of mistaken identity. He's now been released, and taken no harm from his sojourn in the prison."

"Released? Unharmed?"

In an undertone, Mai murmured a prayer of thanks to the Merciful One.

"Yes," said Iad.

"A bold if convenient move."

"They hope this will show you they are ready to deal-" Breaking off, he wiped his brow nervously. "The hells! You must know they did no such thing. I mean, the reeve is free, and has taken no lasting harm, but it wasn't the council who released him. Someone else rescued him-a hierodule, of all people-and brought him in to confront Master Feden about this news she had of an army approaching-"

"Hold. Hold." Anji raised a hand, looked at Mai, then back to the caravan master. "An army?"

Mai's eyes had gone very wide. An army? Had the empire sent soldiers after Anji? Shai saw movement in the shadows: the Qin soldiers, those not on watch, were stirring, coming in close to listen. Everyone was on edge.

Master Iad swallowed like a man wishing he could eat his words rather than speak them. "It's like this. This is the question the council sent me to ask. Can a company of two hundred defeat an army of three thousand?" Having gotten the words out, he wiped his mouth as against a foul taste.

"An army of three thousand?" said Chief Tuvi. "Are you sure of that number?"

"The hierodule saw the army earlier today, and got a decent count: about five companies, which would be three thousand men more or less. Several days' march east of here, Hornward, that is, on the West Track."

"How could she have seen that today, and then have rescued the reeve from Olossi's prison this night?" asked Anji. "If they're several days' march east of here?"

Iad clapped a hand to his forehead. "She got a ride to Olossi from one of Argent Hall's reeves, but she says the entire hall is corrupt. .. Aui! It's a complicated tale. Then a lad rode in after nightfall, saying his village had been attacked by a strike force and everyone laid to the sword, killing and burning."

"The torch we saw," said Anji to Chief Tuvi.

"That would explain it," agreed the chief.

"The reeve, Joss, confirmed that Argent Hall had been corrupted. And Master Feden confessed that he had made a deal with some villains out of the north who it seems meant to betray him all along, for they said nothing to him of sending an army!"

"So what, precisely, is it that you want?"

"An answer to the question! That's all I agreed to. Can a troop of two hundred defeat an army of three thousand?"

Anji laughed. "Not in a pitched battle, with mounted forces, such as I command. A company of two hundred would be foolish to attempt it."

Master Iad relaxed, shoulders sinking and lips going slack. "Eh. Ah. Exactly. I told them so, but they are so desperate, they insisted I come."

Mai raised a hand. "Master Iad. Before you step away from a sale you believe you cannot make, let us hear your entire proposition. You can't simply have been sent to ask a question."

"I told them it would be impossible," said Master Iad, "but they insisted."

"You treated us fairly, so it is only fair that, in return, we hear you out," said Anji, and the poor man started, so surprised was he. "Did you say the Lesser Houses are involved in this transaction? That they knew of it?"

"The Lesser Houses? No, not at all. They knew nothing of it. Even now, only a few know the truth, for it was just laid before Master Feden a short while ago. The Lesser Houses and the guilds may seem numerous to you, but they have no power in the council. I come at the behest of the Greater Houses. Aui! Now that I know what is upon us-an army of three thousand!-I'm cleaning out my warehouse and dependents and leaving at first light, as soon as I get back to the city, unless they've locked me out, which I wouldn't put past them. The Greater Houses have destroyed themselves with their own greed! They brought this calamity down on Olossi, and the rest of us will be ruined with them!"

"Well, Mai," said Anji, looking at her with an expression Shai could not begin to interpret. The captain raised a hand to his lips. When had he gotten Mai's wolf-sigil ring? He touched it to his lips, then nodded at her, waiting.

"Can you do it?" she asked.

Anji smiled, as Shai imagined a wolf might grin-in a manner of speaking-when it spots a helpless fawn caught in a mire. "Go on, Master Iad. Now I am interested."

As dawn rose, the caravan master began to talk.