Traitors Gate

12

Holy One,' he finished, 'do you think we can buy horses from the lendings? They had good breeding stock.'

'It would be difficult. They never come out of the Lend, and we do not enter for fear of falling afoul of their boundaries. I'm surprised you made it out.'

'The lendings took our horses,' said Tohon with a laugh.

The Hieros sipped thoughtfully. She was so different a person seen in this light that Joss was amazed. Like this particular rice wine, she had a pleasing disposition, slightly sweet and markedly elegant. 'If you are serious, you'd best inquire at Atiratu's temple. The mendicants sworn to the Lady of Beasts journey out that way seeking various medicinal plants that grow only in the Lend. They know how to make an arrangement with the tribes.'

'What of Zubaidit?' asked Joss impatiently as the conversation wandered away from the subject that interested him most. 'Can she and Shai possibly succeed?'

'She will do as she must,' said the Hieros coolly, unmoved by his passionate words. 'As you did, in agreeing to stand as commander over the reeve halls, a position I believe you did not seek nor are eager to assume.'

'True-spoken.'

'Yet you will do as you must. So tell me, are you come today to embrace the Merciless One?'

The hells! Was she trying to get him out of the way? 'I'm feeling restless, it's true.'

Tohon smiled sweetly at him.

Joss laughed, half shocked to realize the two of them were clearly intending to sleep together.

The Hieros gestured, and the lad dashed out from under cover of the dense vegetation. 'Take the commander to the Heart Garden,' she said to the boy.

Joss went obediently, while Tohon remained behind.

T remember you,' said the lad. 'I've never seen Bai go after a man the way she did you.'

'What's your name? Have we met?'

He had a sly grin, a real troublemaker. 'I'm called Kass.' But his expression drew taut as he sighed. 'Will we ever see her again?'

Joss didn't know whether he braced himself or the youth with the pointlessly optimistic words that emerged from his lips. 'If anyone can succeed, she can.'

They crossed through white gates into the Heart Garden,

where men and women were seated on benches among the flowers. Here folk would linger before being called to enter the gates, but Kass led him straight to the gold gate and tugged on a rope that jangled a bell on the other side. The inner door within the double gates opened, and a young man who might have seen twenty years peered out. Joss smiled at him as the kalos sized him up appreciatively.

'Come in.' The kalos flicked a hand to shoo Kass away. 'I'll see if there are any women wandering free who might find you of interest, not that I can see why they wouldn't. You have any brothers?'

'As it happens, I don't. I was the only boy among more sisters and female cousins than I could count.'

The kalos laughed as he beckoned Joss under the threshold and latched the door behind them. They walked into the outer precincts of the inner garden, an open area paved with flagstones and moss and ringed with trees, bushes, and carefully constructed screens that concealed the greater part of the garden. To the right, a roof topped a bathing pavilion where four men were chatting companionably as they washed themselves while waiting for acolytes to come look them over. Their clothes were draped over benches. Pipes brought water for the rinsing buckets. There was a wooden tub as well, steam rising like breath. Set farther back, half hidden, were a few shelters for private bathing.

'I get the impression you've visited temples aplenty and need no instruction.' The kalos walked over to the pavilion and hitched up on a bench near to one man, starting a conversation.

Ushara's temple contained, like desire, an outer facing and an inner fire. To enter the outer court through the gate was to ask permission to worship. If granted, then within the central court you might loiter while you decided whether you truly wanted to approach, and by subtle signs you were shown whether any within would be likely to grant your petition. Only then did you cross under one of the gates — silver for women and gold for men. Past these gates waited hierodules and kalos, who might approach you according to how you were fashioned, if they so pleased. Water cleansed you.

Beyond that, the inner garden lay bathed in equal parts light and darkness, impossible to discern because of many warrens and walls. There rose an undercurrent of noise something like a constant wind in the branches that made his skin prickle with

anticipation. As well as private bowers in the grass, there were rooms and closets and attics in the farther buildings. Joss was pretty sure that in his time he had experienced pretty much everything the Merciless One's temples had to offer.

Yet even so, never once had he embraced the Devourer without thinking of Marit.

Aui! Wasn't it Zubaidit he'd just been thinking and talking of? He rubbed his forehead, wondering why he had come.

Two young women fetchingly dressed in taloos appeared with empty buckets resting on their hips. They slowed down as they passed the bathing pavilion and looked the men over; then one saw Joss and nudged the other, and they strolled over while the men under the pavilion made laughing complaints about being abandoned for a newcomer.

They looked him up and down, and they looked at each other and smiled.

Whew!

The splash of water startled him so much he looked away from the tight wrap of their taloos and their cocky grins, the vital young who expect admiration. Over by the bathing pavilion, a woman was pouring water into a bronze tub. She was a woman probably in her thirties, maybe one of those who served a shorter second apprenticeship later in life as an offering, or to break the monotony of their own lives, or to escape a difficult clan for a few months, or just because they'd enjoyed the service in their younger days and wanted to remember what it was like. She might have been dedicated to serve her whole life long. She might even have been a debt slave, although she had no debt mark by her left eye. But she walked nothing like Zubaidit; she looked and acted nothing like Marit; she looked comfortable and lush. From the distance she took her time looking him over as hierodules did, for in the measuring they decided whether they'd any interest. Indeed, the act of measuring was its own provocative delight.

For an instant, it was just like the first time he had entered Ushara's temple: Would she find him attractive?

She laughed, as if she could see right into his thoughts, and with empty bucket in hand she sauntered over. The two young women shook their heads as if scolding him for turning down a bite of sweet cake, but they walked back to the men waiting at the bathing pavilion.

The woman halted before him, bucket hanging from one hand

and the other hand set akimbo on the curve of a hip. 'You're the best-looking man I've seen this month, mayhap this year, not that you'll not have heard that line before. Do you need some help finding the garden where the young hierodules sit? Like those two.' She gestured with her chin.

He took the bucket from her hand as she smiled. 'My thanks, verea, but no. I've found what I'm looking for.'

'Commander Joss?'

He hadn't known he was so tired. He woke on a pallet set on the porch in the outer court of the temple, suitable for worshipers too exhausted to make it home in one evening. He had a vague memory of stumbling out here late, the worse for drink but otherwise well satisfied.

He cracked open an eye to see a youthful face looking down on him. 'Kesh, right?'

'Kass. There's, a boat waiting. Tohon says the captain's ship came in. We can see all the ship traffic off the sea, you know.'

The temple had kindly lent Joss a kilt to sleep in. He dressed quickly and slung his kit bag over a shoulder. Dawn had scarcely risen; the captain's ship must have rowed up the channel the instant there was light enough to see. Kass led him to the docks, so furiously not asking questions Joss supposed the lad had plenty of questions he wanted asked.

'How comes it she entrusts you to stand around at all her private councils?' Joss asked as they crunched down the path.

The lad had the wicked grin of a favored child who gets away with plenty of mischief but whose nature hasn't been spoilt to souring. 'I'm her great-grandson. Her daughter chose the path of a mendicant. Her son — my father — offered at the Witherer's altar and was able to marry into a farming clan. I'm in the middle of eight children, too many to feed. They sent me here when I was five. I'm not a kalos, you know, even though I'm old enough.'

'Do you serve the Merciless One?'

'I haven't served my temple year yet. I haven't discovered which god I'm best suited to serve.'

Joss laughed. 'And to think you've got that hard-hearted old woman keeping you here in luxury while you take your time making up your mind.'

The lad sobered as they approached the docks where Tohon waited. Mist rose off the waters. A heron flapped across ripples.

In the shipping channel, merchant boats sailed downstream for the sea, oars dipping in the placid water where the current broke into a dozen smaller channels. The River Olo's estuary was but a tiny spray of channels and islets compared with the vast delta in which Nessumara nestled.

'You'll send word of Bai, won't you?' Kass asked in a low voice.

'If I can. The Hieros will hear as soon as anyone.'

Tohon greeted him, and they settled into the boat as the oarsmen shoved away from the pier. The oarsmen worked upstream to Dast Olo through a backwater channel. Red-caps flitted among the reeds. A fish's silver back parted the surface. The oarsmen worked in silence, and Tohon seemed content to watch the banks slide past under the early-morning sun.

'Have a good night?' Joss asked finally, rubbing the last of the muzz out of his eyes.

Tohon tugged on an ear as the boat rocked under them and waves slapped the side. He didn't reply.

'Sorry. How'd you hear about Captain Anji arriving?'

'I saw the ship pass at dawn. There's a tongue of land at the point of the island, out behind the buildings. You can see where the river meets the sea.'

'They made a quick journey of it.'

'The captain has that habit.'

A woman knee-deep in mud, pulling a trap out of the shallows, lifted her gaze to watch them go by. She waved gnats away from her face as she stared at the Qin soldier, then shrugged and went back to work. Huts clustered on hummocks and racks of drying fish marked the edge of the village.

In Dast Olo they rented horses for the ride to Olossi. Joss offered the usual deposit to the stablemaster, to be marked and returned at Crow's Gate by one of Sapanasu's clerks.

'Neh.' The man waved away the coin, indicating Tohon. 'The Qin are honest. If you say the horses will get turned in to my agent at Crow's Gate, it'll be done. I'll tell you, things are changing for the better. Two years ago I'd have had to send a gang of armed men with my stock to Old Fort or Candra Crossing. Now I'm hiring stock up the pass and all the way to Storos-on-the-Water. I sent my own daughter and two hirelings to Old Fort with a wagon and pair on delivery for men hauling oil of naya out of the Barrens. Plenty of guards and checkpoints on the road against

mischief. I call that new militia commander good for business, even if he is an outlander.'

Joss thanked him. Tohon offered a calm nod, as if he was used to hearing his captain praised for making the roads safe.

'Didn't think you'd know how to ride, being a reeve,' Tohon said after they'd paced awhile.

T served my apprenticeship to Ilu the Herald, riding messages along the North Shore Road. I'm out of practice, though.'

Tohon grinned. 'What say we race? To that pole.' He pointed to a distant vertical line that Joss had to squint to recognize as a pole.

With a challenge like that, it had to be done. Joss lost horribly, but he didn't disgrace himself by falling off. The two men chatted easily about inconsequential things as they made good time the rest of the way to the militia encampment beyond the outer city.

The local militiamen standing guard at the outer gates waved them through. The captain's pennant rippled in a midday breeze. The black cloth was worked with a silver-white stitchery outlining the head of a wolf: a black wolf running in a black night.

Tohon handed the horses over to a groom and instructed him to rub them down, water them, and return them to Crow's Gate. A pair of Qin soldiers greeted the scout as the two men crossed the central drill ground, empty at this hour.

Chief Tuvi stood on a porch that ran all the way around the raised platform, built of planks and covered by a canvas roof, that served as the captain's office. Mai's younger slave sat on the steps staring vacantly at the sky. The chief was chatting with the older slave, who held a baby swaddled in a length of best-quality linen. As Joss and Tohon stepped onto the porch to be greeted by Tuvi, the baby opened its eyes and to Joss's shock fixed a black stare on him as if it recognized him.

'Here is your uncle,' said Priya to the infant, although it was obviously too young to understand. 'Do you want to hold Atani, Commander?'

News of his new rank had reached here before him. How did Anji get his information? But when he took the baby, the tiny creature was so comfortable in his arm that he forgot all else. What were those faint blue gleams shot through its irises? It had a wise gaze, as newborns did, a remnant of the memories it had left behind the Spirit Gate in its passage into this world. He smiled,

hoping to evoke a similar expression, but the dark eyes just sucked him in until, disconcerted, he glanced up.

He stood with his back to the others, who were talking. Priya's voice was smooth in contrast to the rumble of the two soldiers. The inner and outer walls of the captain's office were cloth that could be tied up into any configuration depending on the time of day, the rays of the sun, and the direction of the wind. Though weighted at the hems, the walls fluttered, caught in a stray gust, and for an instant he saw through a series of parting gaps into the innermost chamber where two people stood closely entwined.

Aui!

Certain kisses are not meant to be seen by others. Flushing, he jerked his gaze down to the baby, who had closed his eyes and, apparently, fallen asleep. The child's face was so peaceful that at length Joss's flush faded. He was content to hold the little one as kinfolk were meant to do, providing arms for shelter. Would Anji really have slaughtered a helpless infant? Surely not.

'Commander!' The captain pushed through cloth to emerge onto the porch, looking trim and composed. 'Here you are, elevated in rank.'

'Yes. I'm an uncle now.'

Anji glanced back as the cloth walls parted again. Mai stepped into view while patting her thick black hair, all bound up on her head. Her color was high and her beauty as powerful as sunlight.

Seeing Joss, she smiled as a flower blooms. 'Marshal! Ah! I must call you by another title. Commander! Will you have to grow a beard now?' She halted beside him, whatever perfume she wore as heady as the scent of the Hieros's garden. 'It suits you, that traveling look, as if you've not had time to pause and tidy yourself.'

'Here I've been so careful all these years to keep myself neat.' It was cursed impossible not to admire her in her carefully wrapped silk taloos, best quality, the color a somber green that handsomely set off her black hair and dark eyes and dusky, flawless complexion. She had filled out with nursing. He vividly recalled that he'd been present in the cave when she had given birth. The hells! He'd glimpsed her when she was naked.

A becoming flush crept up her cheeks, and she shifted to less volatile ground. 'You're very comfortable with Atani.'

'He's a lovely boy.' He caught Anji watching him. Aui! That narrowed gaze made him cursed uncomfortable.

The captain pointedly looked at Tuvi and raised his chin. Tuvi nodded and clattered away down the porch.

'He sleeps a lot,' said Mai, her expression sweetly tender as she examined the precious face. She seemed content to watch Joss hold the baby, and he had to admit it was a pleasant sensation, child and woman both.

'You've brought Tohon, as I hoped,' said Anji. 'Will you join me to hear his report?'

The words dragged him back to earth. 'Of course.'

'Mai, Tuvi's gone to bring horses. You and Atani and Priya and Sheyshi can go immediately to the compound. I'll come later.'

Tohon pulled on an ear, twisting the tip between thumb and forefinger. Priya retrieved the sleeping infant from Joss.

'Will we see you soon, Commander?' Mai asked as she paused beside Sheyshi on the steps.

'I'll be returning to Toskala as soon as I can.'

'Even reeves must eat.'

'As my eagle'does today, while I am trapped on earth.'

She looked at Anji. 'Bring Joss with you. It would be a fitting gesture to feast our return to a favored house. Guests bring honor to a feast.'

'And the day is Wakened Ox,' Joss said with a laugh. 'An auspicious day for two born in the Year of the Ox to meet again, neh?'

Her smile was glorious. She glanced skyward. 'It's a little late, but there will still be decent pickings at the market.'

'A generous offer,' said Anji in an odd tone.

She glanced at him, looking surprised, and then at Joss. 'I hope we will see you later today.'

Priya touched her arm and they went down, followed by Sheyshi.

Joss had to force himself to address the captain rather than Mai's lovely backside. 'Don't you worry about the red hounds striking again? Mai returning to Olossi? Going out in the market again?'

'Of course I do.' Anji watched her intently as she reached Tuvi, bound the baby tightly in a sling against her back, and mounted, clearly comfortable in the saddle. 'But I have put substantial measures in place on the roads and at the gates into Olossi, and additional patrols. There's also now a separate camp outside the walls to house foreign caravan guards and merchants, who for the

time being aren't allowed to enter the city. If we control the traffic, then we have some control over what elements move in and out of our lands. The alternative is to let fear shackle us. If you're afraid, don't do it. If you do it, don't be afraid.' He drew aside cloth, indicating they should enter. Tohon? Joss?'

Joss felt the ghost of the baby's weight on his arm. He shut his eyes, but the vision of Mai's passionate embrace of her husband burned there, an intrusion he was very very glad no one had noticed him seeing. Like the child, the moment did not belong to him.

'Out on the Lend I saw the most magnificent horses,' Tohon was saying. 'Perfect for breeding stock, if we can get some. We need to talk to Atiratu's mendicants.'

Shaking himself free of the mire of cursed useless thoughts, Joss followed them in. When they reached the visual privacy of the innermost chamber and its fluttering walls, Tohon delivered a brutally concise description of the desperate situation in Toskala and Nessumara and the regions along the River Istri.

Anji listened with a stillness Joss admired, and nodded when Tohon finished. 'If they consolidate power in Haldia and Istria and impress unwilling soldiers into their army, then what chance have we when — and it will be when, not if — they turn their gaze again toward Olo'osson?'

'They won't make the mistake a second time of thinking Olossi an easy target,' said Joss.

'No, they won't.' Anji walked to his low writing desk and looked down on the paper unrolled there, with lines and hatch marks sketching a map of the Hundred, although it had more blank than detail. Tohon examined it from the opposite side of the desk, arms crossed. 'People want to live at peace, undisturbed. They want to raise healthy children to adulthood, eat every day, do their work, attend their festivals. If their gods grant them fortune, they hope to live to see grandchildren and a measure of prosperity. Why should Hundred folk be any different?'

'I don't believe they are,' said Joss.

'People in the north surely hate and fear Lord Radas's army. Yet I have seen folk hate and fear the Qin, although you must not imagine the Qin behave in any way like these ones who call themselves the Star of Life. Still, if order is imposed through fear or privation, folk will in the end settle into that order, not wanting to risk more disruption, more fear, more dying.'

'What are you saying, Captain?'

Anji grabbed his riding whip off the desk and tapped the map, then traced a line from Olossi to Toskala. 'Before such deadly order is imposed and folk become accustomed to its relative peace, we must act. We have to hit them before they become too powerful.'

T agree. But we're badly outnumbered, and they have years of fighting experience and wagonloads of weapons to use against us. This will be a far harder fight even than the battle we waged here in Olossi.'

Anji drew his whip through his fingers, his gaze so sharp Joss was startled. 'Surely the new commander of the reeve halls will begin by commanding the halls to act in concert against this threat.'

Joss raised a hand, as if fending off a challenge. Anji's intensity disconcerted him; it was almost as though Anji was angry at him for something else. 'I've already begun to do so. But every hall is autonomous. Clan Hall holds a supervisory position only. So for the other halls to undertake to institute any changes I propose-'

'There's a saying among the Qin. One arrow is easily snapped in half, but bundle many arrows together and they cannot easily be broken.'

T understand that, truly I do.' He was momentarily irritated, but an outlander like Anji could not be expected to comprehend the ways of the Hundred, so Joss smiled an easy smile and tried out a more charming, soothing voice. 'I'm just telling you that the reeve halls may take some while to come around. People don't like change, especially not when they are settled in their old ways of doing things, and we in the Hundred do love our traditions. We have to be patient and work at them.'

Abruptly, the captain relaxed. 'Just as some people will flirt the same as they will breathe, having become accustomed to handling people in that manner.'

Joss grinned. T beg your pardon.'

It was difficult to tell if Anji was jesting, or if he was serious. 'It's your job to persuade them, something at which it is obvious you have plenty of practice. The question is not whether they will change, because they will have to. The question is, will they agree to do so before it is too late?'

Home. Home. Home.

Everything was as Mai had left it months ago, dusted and tidied, and alive with voices as hirelings sang and chattered in the gardens and rooms of her utterly wonderful compound in the fabulous city of Olossi. She smiled as she walked into the chamber at the heart of the complex, where she and her husband slept. Priya opened up a tiny cot, and Mai lowered the sleeping infant into its confines. Atani slept and suckled and eliminated, a placid baby, easy to care for despite his too-early birth.

'I want to see the counting rooms!' said Mai. 'And the crane room. And the rat screens — my favorite! And the gardens. So lovely! All that green!'

'You are glad to return, Mistress,' said Priya with a gentle smile.

Mai laughed, feeling giddy. 'After all those months in the Barrens, I should think so. I thought I would be forced to live there forever. Then we had to bide a month trapped in the valley after the baby was born. A beautiful place, to be sure. A perfect setting for a tale, where the handsome bandit hides his treasure, but still-'

Priya's furrowed brow caught Mai short.

'What is it, Priya?' She knelt beside the baby, but his little face remained peaceful and his eyes closed.

'The valley was a merciful place, and well guarded. A safe haven from the red hounds. But creatures live there we do not understand. Like demons, such creatures have their own desires and demands, different from our own. We are fortunate they did not trouble us more than they did.'

Mai brushed the baby's black hair. Fearing for herself was one thing, but when she looked at her vulnerable son, a new and horrible realm of terror opened an abyss before her. If anything happened to him, she would — as her long-lost and much-missed sister Ti would have said — die die die. 'Do you think it was a bad omen when they wrapped themselves around the baby? They were so bright. It's hard to imagine them as malevolent.'

'Beautiful things can cause harm as well as dull ones. Yet we had no choice but to take refuge in the valley. The Merciful One watches over the faithful. What you cannot change, let go.'

'And what you can change, grasp with both hands, neh?' With a tenuous smile, Mai rose. 'Sheyshi?'

Mai had brought three slaves with her across the desert and over the mountains. Her father had sent the big man, O'eki, to watch over her physically. Priya Mai had herself chosen off the auction block in Kartu Town many years ago; over time, she had come to rely on Priya's wisdom and affection more than that of her own mother and aunt.

Sheyshi was a different matter. A Qin general named Commander Beje had warned Anji that Anji's own uncle, who was his mother's brother and also the var — ruler — of the nomadic Qin, had agreed to deliver Anji into the hands of Anji's half brother. That half brother was the newly anointed emperor seated on the Sirniakan throne, and he intended to kill all of his living brothers and half brothers so they could not contest his right to rule. To live, Anji had to die by riding into exile, taking his retainers with him. Yet he wasn't the only one whose life had been saved by their long journey into the Hundred. Sheyshi had served khaif at the meeting between Anji and Beje. Because she had therefore overheard a conversation which could incriminate Beje in the eyes of his var, she was, being a mere slave, expendable. Mai had taken her to save her.

It seemed Sheyshi could scarcely bear to stand more than a stone's throw away from Mai, or Anji, at all anymore, as if she feared what would happen to her if she lost sight of them.

She had been kneeling just outside the door, and at Mai's call she padded in, head bowed. 'I am here, Mistress.'

'Sit with the baby, Sheyshi.'

'Yes, Mistress.' She sank down beside the cot, staring after Mai in a possessive way that made Mai uncomfortable.

Away from the chamber, Mai said to Priya, 'Do you think we should marry off Sheyshi? Maybe she would like that.'

'To a Qin husband? Have any of them expressed any interest in her?'

'Now that I think of it, they have not. Isn't that odd?'

'Maybe not, if they believe she serves you.'

They wandered through the compound to reacquaint themselves with its chambers: here, the crane room, with its painted screens showing cranes through the seasons; there, the rat room,

decorated with screens depicting rats in jackets or taloos flying kites and playing hooks-and-ropes. The outer garden was lush with flowers and late-ripening fruit. The large inner garden with its pools and gazebo lay cool and green in these last days of the rainy season. In the back court, women who were washing laundry greeted her cheerfully as she addressed each one by name. The smell of nai porridge and steaming fish rose from the kitchens.

'Priya, will you come with me to the market?'

'Best you not go today, Mistress.'

'You are still worried about the red hounds?'

'Chief Tuvi will want a few days to establish a watch, assign guardsmen, send your escorts into the market to look it over before you go down. Then they'll know if there are any unexpected changes precipitated by your arrival.'

'You've thought this through!'

T have consulted with the chief and O'eki, it is true.' Priya's gaze was always full with the affection woven between them, but she was also clear-sighted and willing to speak her mind. 'Don't push too fast now you have been allowed to return, Mistress. It cannot have been easy for the captain to place you at risk, knowing he can protect you better — or so a soldier might think — by confining you in a cage as the Sirniakans do to their women. Let those who seek to protect you and the baby feel they have some control.'

'But the red hounds could strike again.'

'Perhaps they will. Do you wish to return to Merciful Valley? There, at least, only those ferried in by reeves can enter.'

'No. I don't want to live there. I would rather take the risk. Anji will do everything he can, and I am sure that the Hieros has her own agents seeking word of spies from the empire. I'll send someone from the kitchen staff to the markets, and bide here patiently. For now.'

Priya kissed her on the cheek. 'You are naturally a little tired as well. Also, it may be you will wish to feel refreshed when the captain returns.'

Mai flushed, thinking of those few private moments she and Anji had stolen behind the curtains in the militia camp. Anji had been seasick crossing the Olo'o Sea; water did not agree with him. They had not yet celebrated their reunion as she yearned to do. 'I'll bathe.'

Priya smiled and let her go. Mai spoke to the kitchen women

while Priya arranged for a tub to be filled in the small courtyard at the heart of the compound, off the private rooms. Mai, after checking on Atani, who was still asleep, joined her. Hot water steamed out of the tub, set on flagstones beneath the roof of a little pavilion. The splintered doors had been repaired; there was no sign any demon attack had occurred.

'I sat with Miravia just there,' Mai said. 'I wonder if I'll ever be allowed to see her again. Her family is so very angry. We insulted their honor.'

'It wasn't your fault, Mistress. No one could have known the demon would attack and kill those soldiers on any day, much less the day when Miravia visited you.'

'No one could have known,' Mai repeated, as if saying the words again would make the memories of that day less painful. But they did not. She might well lose the dear friend she had made, a young woman of the same age and with the special connection that sometimes sparks between two people, as if they had known and touched each before birth in the mists beyond the Spirit Gate where souls reside. 'She lives in a cage.'

'The Ri Amarah have been good friends to us, Mistress.'

'I know they have. It just seems-' It was better simply to strip off her taloos and sit in the warm water and scrub, and let Priya wash her hair. Later, she would take a cadre of women and go to the real baths. Ah!

Then the baby had to be nursed, and afterward she busied herself in the kitchens with the other women. But at dusk came a message that Anji would not be coming home. He had gone away with Tohon on urgent business to do with horses. He might be gone several days; hard to say. Reeve Joss was gone with him, having sent his regrets at not being able to attend the feast. No guests after all.

She wept, and it seemed she was more tired than she had realized, because when she lay down to nurse the baby, she fell into a heavy sleep and remembered no dreams.

About midday, Captain Arras and his three companies, mockingly referred to as Half-the-Asses-They-Should-Have Cohort by the rest of the army, marched past the dismantled remains of a fourth barrier. They followed First Cohort's six companies, who had been given pride of place in the van of the approach over the eastern causeway. Because the eastern causeway was the shorter

passage into the city, First Cohort would be first to enter Nessumara's famed Council Square and therefore get to fly their banner from the Assizes Tower.

Four cohorts — First, Seventh, Eighth, and Arras's remnant Sixth — had set out in staggered ranks just after dawn. They had made excellent time because the causeway was an excellent piece of construction: raised out of the wetlands like a dike, it was wide enough that two wagons might pass. Not that there was any traffic today. Beside the army tromping briskly into the delta and birds fluttering among reeds and shallows, the world seemed utterly empty. The mire glistened to either side. A boat skulked in the reeds; was that a fishing line stretched taut from the prow? The cursed eagles floated overhead, eyes on everything.

A runner loped along the causeway from the front, a youth with hair tied back and a quilted jacket wrapped around his torso. He sighted for the company banners and, reaching them, marked the horsetail epaulets that identified his quarry.

'Captain Arras? Message from Captain Dessheyi.'

'Go on.'

The lad pulled up beside him and began to talk. 'First Cohort has crossed the first bridge, Captain. It's a plank bridge. Single wide, one wagon at a time, easy for counting toll and controlling traffic. Looked to me like you could remove the middle planks and block it. The front ranks are crossing the island beyond it now, toward a second bridge.'

'What is the island like?'

'Storehouses, courtyards, a threshing ground, gardens and orchards. It's deserted.'

'Interesting. What are my orders?'

'Cross the first bridge. First Cohort will move forward over the second bridge, while Sixth holds position on the island until the cohort behind yours reaches the first bridge. Then you'll cross the second bridge in support of First Cohort.'

'Each cleared space taken possession of immediately. I see. Anything else?'

'I'm to continue on to give my message to Seventh Cohort, commanded by Captain Daron.'

'Very well. Follow me.'

He signaled Sergeant Giyara to maintain control of his personal staff and, with the runner in tow, dropped back from the front of his unit. He passed the first-strike infantrymen, his

heaviest shields. Behind them marched a cadre of guards walling in the hostages, followed by five cadres of proven infantry with new soldiers mixed in among the veterans. Next in line came the wagoners with their six wagons rumbling along without incident, archers pacing them with bows ready. He reached the rearguard, where his toughest men were wiping their brows and eyeing the distance opening between them and Seventh Cohort, its vanguard barely in sight behind them. The youth took a swig from his flask, then sprinted off as Arras followed his swift progress with an approving gaze.

'Anything?' he asked Subcaptain Orli after he had relayed First Cohort's orders.

'No, Captain. Seventh Cohort is maintaining distance, according to plan. As for the mire, cursed if I know. I saw a boat.'

'So did I. Stay alert. Betrayal seems cursed simple, but something could easily go wrong.'

The runner reached the vanguard of Seventh Cohort. Arras worked his way' back up through the unit to the wedge that surrounded their twenty-eight hostages, all of whom looked frightened and weary.

All but one.

The other hostages watched what she did, listened for what she said, adjusted their stride to match her pace. They were cowed hostages who knew they were alive only on the sufferance of their captors. She was not cowed. Interesting.

She offered him something that wasn't a smile as much as a challenge. 'Captain Arras. How nice of you to come explain yourself.'

'Explain myself? I'm still trying to figure what you did with those chickens.' He clasped his hands behind his back as he fell into step beside her.

'We didn't do anything with the chickens. We had to put the cage back. You saw the whole thing.'

'The other chickens. The ones you successfully stole via misdirection.'

'I did nothing but what you saw me do, Captain. I'm sorry you believe otherwise.'

It was a discussion they'd had four times in the last four days; he was no nearer to figuring if the hostages had managed to cook the birds without him knowing or to trade them without being caught, and in the latter case for what items in exchange? He had

the hostages' bundles searched every night for weapons and contraband, but nothing ever showed up beyond the usual gear: a spoon, a bowl, a flask, a hat and cloak to keep off rain and sun, a spare linen jacket, soap, a comb, a towel, and a mat to unroll on the ground.

'I meant to say,' she went on, 'I'm surprised you didn't leave us back in camp instead of forcing us to march into battle with you. Won't we just get in the way?'

'Only if there's trouble.'

Her lips curved into a mocking smile. 'Traitors opened the gates of Toskala. Nessumaran traitors can easily tear down barriers that block causeways. They'll let you take the city without a fight. It's the same day, is it not? Wakened Ox.'

'It's better this way. For the Nessumarans.'

'Not for you?'

'Fighting threshes the weak from the useful. Helps me get to know my soldiers.'

She walked in silence, strides of her long legs matched to his. She was thinking over his words, or hoping he would go away; he wasn't sure which. He was pretty sure she wasn't afraid of him, as she ought to be. It was a cursed admirable trait, to be so cool and confident.

'Captain!' His attendant, a decent young man named Navi, had slipped back along the causeway. 'Sergeant Giyara sends her respects, Captain. Our vanguard has started across the bridge.'

'I'll come right up.'

'It's cursed strange, though, Captain.' The young man swiped a hand over his left shoulder in a nervous gesture he had, the kind of thing that could get to irritating a man if the youth weren't so stolid otherwise.

'What's that?'

'Just that the channel we're crossing is running so strong, Captain. You'd think they'd control the flow of water better. With dams and locks and flood barriers.'

'What good would that do? I'm uplands born and bred myself.'

'I'm Istria born, Captain. There's plenty you can do by diverting a strong river current into irrigation channels and canals. I'd have thought they'd divert a side channel into a series of canals that would make haulage and transportation easy within the inner delta and the city, that's what I'd-'

He seemed likely to chatter on, made enthusiastic by knowing

something his captain did not. Arras cut him off. 'Well observed. We'll see what to make of it when we come to know the city better, as we will-'

Light glinted on the water, a flash repeated twice. Arras raised a hand to shade his eyes, staring over the flat expanse marred here and there by a bright explosion of greener brush or tenacious trees grown on hummocks.

Zubaidit lifted an elbow to point up. 'That came from the sky. The reeves are signaling to someone out there in the swamp.'

'Why would they be-?'

Once before in his life, as a youth training as an ordinand, out on a field expedition with eleven others like him, he'd heard a sound before he realized he'd heard it. His action, back then, had saved his own life although it hadn't saved the lives of the other young ordinands he was with. He'd not been captain of their merry little band. Indeed, he'd been youngest and least experienced among them, but the slaughter had taught him a lesson he would never forget: Don't act for yourself alone; you are responsible for your comrades.

'Shields up!' he shouted as he grabbed Navi's arm and yanked him behind the cover of the nearest infantryman.

Streaks darkened the sky as shapes rose out of the water, but his soldiers had already obeyed. Arrows rained down on the causeway, thwacking stone, thudding on upraised shields, but no one was hit. Hostages sobbed with fear.

'Get down!' cried Zubaidit to the Toskalans. She dropped, and the others followed like wheat mowed down as a second flight of arrows rose into the sky from the wetlands and clattered down. A man among the hostages screamed and thrashed.

'I'm hit!' cried one of the soldiers, without panic, just letting everyone know.

'Heh, trying to grow a second tool from your ass, Tendri?' laughed one of his comrades.

Arras heard the clamor of battle joined far ahead, whose first tremors in the air had warned him before he fully recognized what he was hearing.

'Tortoise!' he cried. The soldiers shifted seamlessly, forming a barrier with their shields. Movement flurried through the ranks as Sergeant Giyara pushed back to join him. For an instant he stood above the turtling backs of the shields, above the cowering hostages, and scanned the entire prospect: the deadly mire, the

exposed bridge and the solid island beyond, the enemy in the swamp, boats slipping into view with more archers within, a chaos of dust and hammering action ahead where the vanguard boiled with action against the haze and smoke raised by the commotion. Impossible to see what they were up against.

'Captain Arras,' said Zubaidit from the ground. Her grin was so cocky that he wanted to kick her. 'I think your betrayers have either betrayed you, or been betrayed in their turn and had their plan exposed.'

She was right, curse her.

Seventh Cohort's captain acted at last: figures, small at this distance, broke off in clusters from the cohort behind his and plunged into the water toward the half-hidden archers, only to flounder into traps and sinkholes.

'Captain!' Sergeant Giyara yanked him under a shield as a new shower of arrows fell. His people were too cursed exposed, and they were taking hits.

Zubaidit grabbed his arm. 'Captain! I beg you. Can the hostages hide under the wagons? I've got five hit already.'

He shook her off. 'Sound the drum! Push over the bridge and get onto land! Move! Move!'

Arrows flew. Men staggered. Some fell, and were dragged by their fellows as the companies pressed forward, pushing hard to get off the causeway. One man spun away over the edge of the causeway and tumbled into the shallows, facedown in the muddy water. Behind, Seventh Cohort was retreating, cursed fools; they had three mey of causeway to cover to get back to dry land; they'd be picked off.

'Sergeant!' he called, having lost Giyara in the forward surge. He took a sharp blow to his head. An arrow slid down his body, and he stepped on it, snapping it in half. The hells! He swiped a hand over his helmet, but the arrow hadn't dislodged anything.

He snagged a pair of unbroken arrows. 'Pick up every arrow you can find. Toss them in the wagons. Keep moving!'

The soldiers on the outside had their shields wedged well together to cover legs and torsos. The line inside had lifted shields to cover the heads of the outer rank. They marched in pace with the drum. The wagons rumbled. Arrows thudded into the gravel, or were swept up by a spare hand and tossed into the wagons. A driver grunted as an arrow sprouted in his side, but he kept driving, hunched over. Zubaidit leaped up on the bench and yanked

the reins from the man's hands. Where were those cursed hostages? If they were getting in the way of his troops, he'd slit their throats himself. But they had boxed themselves in between the wagons, hauling their injured. A young woman went down in a fresh shower of deadly arrows. He felt the kiss of death brushing past, but nothing hit him; instead, he stepped over a limp body, a young soldier shot in the eye. Dead instantly, no doubt. Unfortunate. He grabbed the fellow's sword and kept moving. Looking back, he saw one of the hostages — an older woman with her hair tightly wrapped in a scarf — wrench the shield from the soldier's slack hand.

The gravel of the causeway surface gave way to wood planking, the crunch of his footsteps turning to a scrape as he moved over the bridge in the midst of his personal staff. The current in the channel ran swiftly beneath, a purling sound so loud it muffled the roar of confusion coming from up ahead where First Cohort was fighting a foe of unknown size, ferocity, and skill.

The bridge went on and on, as arrows rained down, but although one man and then a second and then a third slumped against the railings, the drummer did not cease her steady beat, the wagons rolled, the men held. The Toskalan hostages grabbed wounded men and slung them on the backs of wagons.

They marched out onto dry ground where he got a quick impression of plenty of dangerous open space and scattered abandoned carts and wagons and hitching gear plus boats drawn up and overturned by the river wall. There were warehouses, trees in planted rows, low brick walls surrounding several conjoined garden plots, a long brick row house with porch and multiple doors, many left open, the place clearly deserted in haste. The island was small, with a lane piercing straight through to a distant bridge, where a mob of fighting churned and boiled, dust thick in the air.

He pushed forward to find the vanguard setting up a quick and dirty perimeter using a pair of storehouses as their cornerstone.

'We're not stopping. We push up to support First Cohort-'

A massive crack made everyone flinch. Out of the chaos ahead, men screamed; shouts rang as the enemy cried aloud in triumph. Arras ran out beyond the perimeter: the distant clot of First Cohort's rearguard was falling back in confusion, completely out of order. Smoke billowed from the vicinity of the bridge and the unseen ground beyond it. Flames licked, running high. A horrible

screaming yammer — maybe no more than ten men — caught in those flames on the bridge, but their agony stabbed panic into the rest. Arras had seen men break and run. He knew what would happen next; he'd witnessed the death of his comrades before, because once you are routed, you are easy prey.

'Heya! New orders!' The rain of arrows had abated now that they were on the island, but he knew their enemy out in the mire was merely taking this chance to regroup, or was pursuing Seventh Cohort down the causeway. 'We're fixing a perimeter on this island. Move to those garden walls.'

'There's good cover, Captain, in these warehouses-' cried one of his vanguard sergeants.

'Neh. They'll burn us out of wooden structures. That thatch will go up in a heartbeat. Set up an outer perimeter along the warehouse line. Everyone else back to the brick walls. Sergeant Giyara!'

'Captain!'

'I want sweep teams through every abandoned building while we're free of archery fire. Strip any provisions, supplies, everything. I'll need another cadre to drag in all the wagons and boats. We'll break them up and build shelters, arrow breaks, barriers. If we can manage it in staggered units, break down that row house for bricks to strengthen our perimeter. We'll make the three walled garden plots our main defensive hold, build it up as we can, and I want to include that mulberry orchard, too, so we have range of motion and some protection from that direction. We'll need forward outposts, and banners torn up to form signal flags. Cadre sergeants-'

'I'll assign them, Captain,' said Giyara, as he'd known she would.

'Captain!' Subcaptain Orli's runner came panting up, face streaked with mud. 'There's trouble on the first bridge. Burning arrows, Captain.'

'Get back to Subcaptain Orli. I want everyone over and the main central planks pulled out. We must control access to the bridge, stop their reinforcements from marching up over the causeway.'

'They can still land boats, Captain-'

'One thing at a time! Get those men over and close down that bridge.'

His soldiers fell to their tasks with the discipline he'd drilled

into them, but as he scanned the shape of the island — too big a slab of ground to encompass easily but not so large that it offered a range of environment — remnants of First Cohort came fleeing down the road with shields slamming on their backs in rhythm to their pounding steps. Their faces were tight with bewilderment and unthinking fear.

He grabbed a company banner ripped by arrow shot and placed himself in the center of the road with the pole held horizontal to block their headlong flight.

'Halt, you gods-rotted cowards!'

He'd trained all his youth with an ordinand's staff; of all weapons, a strong staff still felt most comfortable in his hands. He lashed out now, thumping the men in the front with a flurry of blows that knocked them back or sent them to their knees.

'Halt!'

The second rank slowed, men responding to his voice in the shaken manner of people coming awake abruptly. The soldiers behind them had to stutter step to avoid smashing into those before them, and this shift altered the entire momentum of their collapse.

'Get in your cadres! Form up!'

Folk who feel helpless desire order just as the starving desire food, or the falling man grasps at any object that will stop his fall.

'You!' He grabbed a soldier who was moving too slowly and backhanded him. Others skipped into ranks, startled by the blow.

The young man he had hit reeled sideways, then caught himself and snapped upright. 'Captain?' he squeaked.

'Where's your sergeant?' Arras roared

Men looked around, seeking sergeants. 'Captain! I don't know, Captain!'

'Move your group off the road. Stay in formation!' The mass began to seethe as the press behind them thickened. 'You there!' He pointed at another man. 'Where's your sergeant? Eiya! Move your group off the road, to the other side. Stay in formation!' He whistled, and one of his runners jumped up beside him. 'I need Subcaptain Piri and his company.'

By the time Piri arrived, Arras had two cadres sorted out.

'Captain!'

'Piri, take your company to the forward bridge. Make sure it's blocked, then hold the perimeter. I'm sending these two cadres with you.'

'Captain?'

'If we're stuck on this island, we'll claim all the ground and place our perimeter on the shoreline. Dig in.'

'Captain!'

As Piri and his company pushed through First Cohort's retreat, Arras cracked the whip of discipline over the fleeing men, separating out more cadres, sending them with runners to reinforce: this cadre to Orli at the eastern bridge; three cadres to Giyara to break up wagons, but not boats, so his own troops could be released to set a shoreline perimeter. With the remains of First Cohort, he might have enough to hold the island.

Yet every time he looked skyward, those cursed eagles circled, spying out his every move. A sweating runner sprinted into view.

'Subcaptain Piri's compliments, Captain. The bridge approach is secure. Any intact planks on our side are pulled back for later use if we choose to push forward. We'll need more planks. We've set up a strong archery screen so they can't completely dismantle the railings on the far side. First Cohort's forward companies on the far side look pretty well slaughtered. There are bodies in the channel, but they're getting swept downstream by the current into the swamp. Orders, Captain?'

Arras looked him over, a stocky young man with a fresh cut on his chin. 'You're one of the new recruits. Laukas, isn't it?'

'Yes, Captain.' The young man didn't smile as some new recruits did, when the captain honored them by recalling their names. He wasn't a friendly sort like Navi. 'Orders, Captain?'

'Escort this sorry-looking cadre to Piri. Have him split them out among his own company. I want a secure perimeter. I'll be up soon to get a look.'

'Yes, Captain.' No nonsense there. He ran back to the front.

Arras beckoned to the lone sergeant wearing First Cohort's spear-and-star tabard. 'What's your name, Sergeant?'

The man looked gray about the eyes, as ashamed as he should be. 'I'm called Eddo, Captain.'

'Take your cadre and secure every boat you can find on this cursed island. We'll need them all, half placed at each bridge. Then break down the planks in those warehouses. In case we need to build a floating bridge.'

The man stared at him, not responding.

For a moment Arras thought he was addled, or an imbecile. 'Sergeant Eddo?'

There's a look men get when they have lost hope and then,

unexpectedly, find a spark they can feed with the kindling of resolve. 'Yes, Captain!' He briskly took charge of his men.

Arras rubbed his throat, and then his forehead. When had he gotten so sweaty? His hand came away smeared and dirty, as though his face had been rubbed in the earth by a bully, and he realized he was grinning.

Two First Cohort cadres — both lacking a full complement — waited alongside the road, watching him as if he were insane, or gods-touched. Waiting for orders. How, many cursed companies did he now command? He'd not had time to count. He whistled over a runner and sent the lass to scout out Giyara, with an order to make an accounting and assign out the new cadres into the commands of his three subcaptains.

'Neh, neh,' he said, calling the lass back. 'Tell Sergeant Giyara to attach as many cadres as she needs to her own staff, specifically for laboring. Got it?'

'Yes, Captain.' Off she ran, braided black hair tailing out from her boiled leather helmet.

He examined the two cadres left to him, one at half strength and looking completely demoralized and both missing their commanding sergeant, as if the enemy had specifically targeted sergeants as a way to break down and panic units. A smart tactic, if it wasn't just by chance. He pulled the man standing straightest out of the larger cadre. 'Your name?'

'Fossad, Captain.'

'You're acting sergeant now, promotion to be reviewed according to performance. Your task is to find shovels, anything you can use, and start digging. We'll be throwing up earth ramparts all around this island.'

'Yes, Captain!'

He turned to the final group, the sorriest-looking ragtag bunch he'd seen, scratched, limping, streaked with smoke, many with faces and arms reddened from burns.

'You lot were on the bridge?'

After a moment, the oldest among them spoke up. 'Yes, Captain.'

'Get your wounded under cover in one of those warehouses. As for the rest of you, we'll need a steady source of water. You make a survey of the island, you dig within the gardens if you have to, or you collect buckets and start hauling to fill cisterns. You're in charge, Sergeant-'

'I'm not the sergeant-'

'You are now. Your name?'

'Segri, Captain.'

'Sergeant Segri, you're in charge, under my personal command. Get moving!'

That was the last of them. Without looking, he could hear and sense the focused activity of his troops around him, and he thought too that he felt a stammer of hesitation among the enemy. They'd launched their attack, but he had responded, fenced off his own people as well as he could. They must decide how to answer. He called in his personal staff and trotted west to the forward bridge. The causeway, in a sense, cut straight across the island; the bridge lay at the same elevation, no ramp leading up, merely a continuation of the roadway.

Subcaptain Piri met him with runners in tow and they surveyed the rushing channel, the stalwart reeds that could conceal an enemy, more flat islands beyond. The militiamen who milled about on the far shore shook spears and swords in their direction; they paced among the fallen, dragging their wounded and dead free and stabbing any wearing the tabards of First Cohort's companies. Like the other cohorts, First had brought along a number of Toskalan hostages, but he had no idea what had happened to them; he'd marked none among the survivors who had reached him.

Above, the sun had passed the zenith and begun its steady descent. Eagles sailed, sharp-eyed reeves dangling beneath in their clever harnesses, waving flags to send messages each to the others and to their allies on the ground.

'Hard to win a war when they've got the eyes,' he remarked to Piri as the two runners listened. 'Good thing the reeve halls are split as they are, no one liking to take orders from the next.'

'Lord Commander Radas had the reeve commander executed in Toskala. That's cut off their head.'

'If only we could kill the rest of the cursed reeves. Or unite them to work for us. I wonder who in Nessumara betrayed our plan.'

Piri laughed scornfully. He was an older man, his face pitted with scars and his back scored with the marks of many whips long since healed. He'd been one of the first soldiers assigned to Arras's first command, a man with a reputation, nothing good, but he'd been steady and true for the last eight years. Tough as stone, steady as an Ox, which he was. 'I can't cry for those willing

to betray their own when they're betrayed in their turn, Captain. It just leaves us in a worse situation than we expected.'

'I did not want to be ambushed today,' said Arras with a laugh that made those around him chuckle nervously, attempting bravado. All but that young man, Laukas, who just watched, thin-lipped and serious. 'But here we are. First Cohort is a loss. We'll absorb their cadres into our own companies. It's strange, though. They lost cohesion so thoroughly.'

'They were hit hard and fast.' Piri shaded a hand to survey the militia gathered across the rushing channel, their hurried councils as they tried to decide what to do next. 'The militia killed a cursed lot of the sergeants. There's not one captain left standing, like they were targeted specifically. Maybe you and I should tear off these horsetails, Captain.'

'Neh, we're made of stronger stuff. The thing that concerns me is we've got no means to communicate with the other cohorts. Listen, Piri. Blood Cloak — Lord Yordenas — was marching in the front with First Cohort, wasn't he? Leading the advance?'

'I saw him.'

'Yet no sign of him now. Do you think-' The idea did not bear voicing aloud, but the situation required it. 'Do you think they killed him?'

'The cloaks can't die, Captain.'

But if he'd been in the lead, and he wasn't dead, then was he taken prisoner? Impossible. Had he fled? Abandoned them? Arras shook his head.

'Captain?' asked Piri.

'Neh, it's nothing.'

'What do we do now, Captain?'

Arras surveyed the island, the sky and its spying reeves, the rushing water that would, he hoped, make boat travel on the channels more difficult for the defenders. They had too much daylight left, with reeves watching their every action. Later, night would cover the movements of their enemy, who knew the channels and mires as he and his people did not.

'We dig in.'

Across the way, a man approached the channel's bank waving a strip of cloth, an offer to parley.

Arras grinned. 'I know what they're going to say. If we retreat in order along the causeway all peaceable like, they won't let our sleeves get dirty.'

'Cursed liars.' Piri snorted.

'My thought, too.' He whistled for a runner. 'No, not you, Laukas. I've got a more difficult job for you, if you'll take it.'

The young soldier did not flinch or even look excited. 'I will, Captain.'

'You. Lati, isn't it? Get back to the gardens. Send Navi up to me. Also, I need a pair of sergeant's badges. Any will do. I want all the Toskalan hostages bound and confined in one of the warehouses. Find me among the hostages the woman who calls herself Zubaidit, and bring her here. If she won't be of use to me one way, then she can be in another.'

'What do you mean to do, Captain?' asked Piri.

'I'll give her sergeant's badges so if they kill her, we won't have lost one of our own. She can do the parley knowing the safety of the hostages depends on her coming back. And Navi and Laukas can keep an eye on her, while getting a chance to prove themselves. What do you think of that, Laukas? Willing to take the chance, going over to walk among the enemy?'

His expression did not change. He nodded obediently, like a good soldier ought. 'Yes, Captain.'

Having slept past midday after several interruptions to nurse, Mai felt better. She nursed the baby, rose and washed, and ate crunchy stalks of pipe-stem slip-fried with steamed fish.

'Sheyshi, you'll watch the baby. Come and fetch me if he cries. Priya and I will be in the counting room.'

A fair amount of rebuilding and fortification had taken place in the compound in the months she had been gone. The main house's entrance porch had a newly reinforced gate leading into the entrance courtyard; she heard horses, wagons, voices raised as the Qin guardsmen went about their morning duties on the other side of the high wall. The door to the counting room was on the left, and while before it had simply slid open and closed like all the other doors in this part of the world, now those doors had been replaced by a locked and barred door that opened on hinges like a gate. One of the soldiers standing guard lifted away the bars so Mai and Priya could cross into the office. As the door was opened, Mai heard O'eki scolding a young clerk.

'This is the accounts book we use for all shipments pertaining to the building of the mistress's household in Astafero. This is the accounts book used for expenses pertaining to this compound.

The two compounds are accounted separately, not together! Now, you'll have to go back over the entire last month and divide the expenses out properly. Hu!'

The big slave nodded to acknowledge their presence.

The scolded clerk murmured a barely audible greeting.

Another clerk, even younger, blushed and stammered. 'G-G-Greetings of the day, Mistress.' Hu! The poor girl's head was shaven, and her thin face would have benefited from the softening ornament of hair.

'Sit down,' Mai said, hoping she sounded gracious as the clerk brushed at the stubble on her head as if she had guessed Mai's thoughts. Eiya! Judging a young woman by looks alone was the kind of thing her mother and aunt would have done! Beauty was all very well, but Mai was painfully aware that if Anji had been a cruel man, then her beauty would have brought her tears rather than joy. She attempted a smile; the clerk groped for her brush and, having picked it up, set it down again immediately, thoroughly intimidated. Mai sighed. 'O'eki, show me the books.'

Three lamps burned although it was day; there were only two windows that could be opened in the long room, one at each end and both set with grilles. The door into the warehouse was closed, but they received light through the porch door, which had been left propped open because the captain's wife was inside. The customers' door, leading into the warehouse, was closed and locked. So much was closed and locked!

The scolded clerk hunched his shoulders as Mai looked over his shoulder.

'Those are very clear entries,' she said. 'Very readable.'

O'eki grunted impatiently. 'Yes, but not all in the right place. You see this lumber, marked to this account when it should be here, while the settlement account has been debited with this purchase of dye stuffs.' He pulled a counting frame over and flicked wooden beads so quickly their colors blurred. 'Just on this page alone you have two hundred and forty leya misaccounted.'

'Are you going to send me back to the temple?' The clerk looked so young! Although, Mai thought, he was probably no younger than she was herself.

'If you fix this properly and make, no further mistakes, I'll know you are learning,' said O'eki. The lad nodded gratefully as the other clerk looked on, with her face pulled into an almost

comically anxious expression. 'Lass, you double-check the spare ledgers against the main set.'

As the clerks bent back to their labors, Mai drew O'eki aside, over to the long drawers where Anji kept a set of maps. She opened the top drawer, in which lay a detailed drawing of the city of Olossi, how it nestled on bedrock in a bend in the river, how its streets climbed the hill toward Fortune Square, how its inner and outer walls separated the city into an upper and lower town.

'Where did these two clerks come from?' she whispered.

'The temple of Sapanasu. It's the only place I can hire clerks, Mistress. It's the custom here, to hire your accounts keepers from the temple. But these two are very inexperienced.'

'Their numbers and ideograms are very readable.'

He laughed, and both young clerks, startled, looked up from their books and self-consciously down again. 'One thing I will say for that Keshad. He might have been arrogant and temperamental, but he kept excellent accounts.'

Mai closed the drawer and opened the one below it, whose lines described the region surrounding the Olo'o Sea, as much as the Qin scouts and Anji could describe of it. Past the town of Old Fort the road pushed into the foothills and thence higher up into the mountains here called the Spires. Precise handwriting that she recognized as Anji's had inscribed 'Kandaran Pass' above the village named Dast Korumbos; at the edge of the map where the pass sloped away south and west, the same hand had written 'Sirniaka.'

That way lay the empire, whose red hounds still hunted Anji. He would always be in danger from that direction.

'I wonder how Keshad is doing,' Mai murmured. 'Will he and Eliar be able to spy out information in the empire?'

Priya had come up beside them. 'I wonder if they are still alive.'

'The empire is a terrible place,' murmured Mai. 'If Anji's half brother is now emperor, and has killed all his other brothers and half brothers, then he will not want Anji alive, even if Anji has no intention of claiming the Sirniakan throne. And there are other claimants, too. These cousins, sons of Anji's father's younger brother. How can I keep track of them all?' A few tears ran down her cheeks. She wiped them away. 'How clever of Anji to label his maps with a script no one in the Hundred but he and Priya can read.'

'You are reading it now, Mistress,' said Priya with the smile she offered only to Mai or O'eki.

'I am learning.' She gestured toward a table. 'I'll sit here for a while. O'eki, maybe that young woman will sit with me and review the ideograms. I want to be able to write my own accounts book in the Hundred style.'

The girl's name was Adit, and she had been born in the Year of the Ox, just like Mai, but she was a timid creature, hard to draw out, so after a while Mai concentrated on forming and memorizing the ideograms. Priya and O'eki had seated themselves together at a writing desk, heads bent intimately together as they discussed an unknown matter in low voices, hands touching.

A guard stepped in, glanced around, and stepped out. Sheyshi entered, carrying a fussing Atani.

'I'll nurse him over here,' said Mai as she took the baby to the far end of the room where pillows were stacked for visitors. Atani was an efficient eater, very hungry but not one to dawdle. When he was done and she had burped him, Adit crept over and shyly asked if she could hold him, for it transpired she had left a beloved infant brother at home when she went to the temple. So then she could be coaxed to speak of her home and her family in northern Olo'osson, and when Mai at length had Sheyshi take the infant out, she and Adit settled back to work companionably, trading comments, chuckling over an awkward stroke, asking and answering questions. Eventually the lad rose and, in the course of stretching and straightening his already neat jacket, paused by the table where the two young women worked.

'That's just the basic work,' he said in the tone lads got when they were showing off for girls. 'Those ideograms are the old way of recording. Anyone can do that. That's why the clerks of Sapanasu keep them around, because even merchants who didn't apprentice with the Lantern can tally with numbers and ideograms. Writing is much harder.'

'Don't try to boast, Wori,' said Adit in a low voice. 'It makes you look stupid.'

'I would like to learn this other writing of the Hundred,' said Mai.

'If you didn't apprentice with the Lantern, you can't,' he said, tweaking his sleeves.

Adit hid her flushed face behind a hand.

'Why not?' Mai asked.

'Because you can't,' he repeated stubbornly. She suspected he now felt trapped by her attention and Adit's embarrassment. 'No one does.'

'Not doing it is not the same as not being able to do it. For one thing, surely the Ri Amarah did not apprentice with the Lantern and yet they know how to write in the temple script-'

'Eiya! Well! Them!'

'What does that mean? Them.'

He shrugged. 'They're outlanders. They don't even worship properly.'

'I'm an outlander.'

'Do you make offerings at the seven temples?'

T don't. I have a shrine to the Merciful One. That's where I pray.'

'That's the Merciless One,' he said with a smug smile.

'No, it isn't,' said Adit suddenly. 'I've talked to the women who work here, and they told me it's the Merciful One. Full of mercy. There's a prayer they say, "I go to the Merciful One for refuge. I go to the Truth for refuge. I go to the Awakened for refuge."'

To hear these words flow from the girl's lips surprised Mai. She had thought the local women who worked for her only came to listen to Priya lead the service in order to be polite to the employer who paid them. 'Why, that's right. That's part of the prayer.'

Wori said, 'Who ever says a thing like that? "I go to the truth for refuge." That doesn't mean anything.'

Voices raised outside: men were speaking vehemently in the warehouse. There came a shout, and then a hammering on the warehouse door. Chief Tuvi called out an order; footsteps pounded like a cloudburst as men raced across the entrance courtyard.

She rose, her own heart at a driving run. Would she never be free of the red hounds?

Priya hurried over and grasped her elbow. 'Quickly. Come farther inside.'

Soldiers appeared in the office door leading to the porch. 'Quickly, Mistress. Come inside.'

'Will this never end?' she cried angrily.

A rhythm rapped on the warehouse door, the signal giving the all-clear.

'Seren,' she said, more sharply than she intended. 'Open the door.'

The young soldier limped over to the door. His comrade drew his sword as Seren slid back the iron eye panel.

'Clear to open,' said Tuvi's voice from the other side.

Seren undid the bolts and bars, braced his crippled leg, then swung the door open. Chief Tuvi entered first, marking the occupants with his sharp gaze. An older man wearing the turban of the Ri Amarah strode in behind him.

'Master Isar!' said Mai. 'I am honored at your visit, but I admit I did not expect you-'

'Have you seen my daughter?'

She flinched, for his tone reminded her exactly of Father Mei in one of his tempers. So many months had passed since a man had spoken to her in that way she had almost forgotten how it felt, but of course she would never truly forget because it was the male voice she had grown up with. It angered her now more than it scared her. She cooled her voice to a pitch of such sincere gra-ciousness that she hoped her demeanor would scare him.

'Ver, will you sit? Priya, might you bring wine? Here is a pillow.'

He paced the length of the room and back again. She waited. Chief Tuvi watched through narrowed eyes. The two soldiers shut the door to the warehouse and stood with backs against it. O'eki loomed, and the clerks retreated to the cabinets.

Isar was a good-looking man somewhat older than Father Mei, a man of considerable influence and wealth, accustomed to deference. Because he was Ri Amarah — outlanders who had settled in the Hundred about a hundred years ago and yet had never come around to worshiping the Hundred's gods — he was also, it seemed, accustomed to being distrusted.

Still pacing, he spoke without looking at Mai directly. 'I have come to you, verea, because of your friendship with my daughter, whose name we do not speak in public spaces. This trouble began when she was allowed to visit you in this compound. Not that I fault you, verea, for certainly you cannot understand our customs. But she has become unruly and disobedient since that day-'

Mai wanted to protest that Miravia had spoken discontentedly of her fate and the restrictions placed on her on the very first day the two young women had met, many months ago, but she knew better than to try to stop his flow of bitter words.

'-and now it appears she has utterly cast all honor and duty and sense of propriety into the dirt and run away from home.'

Chief Tuvi looked at Mai, and she wasn't sure whether he was shocked, or ready to burst out laughing. Isar stared around the office.

'Must all these strangers stand here and listen?' he demanded.

Mai gestured. 'Adit. Wori. You are released for the day. We will see you at dawn tomorrow, neh?'

With relieved nods, they hurried out.

'Seren. Valan. Bolt the door, and wait outside on the porch for my signal.'

As the two soldiers left, Mai turned to Isar. 'Chief Tuvi and my advisors stay.'

'Your advisors? Your slaves, you mean!'

'Master Isar, surely you did not come to insult me, since you know perfectly well that my husband has supported your people. Your customs are not our customs.'

'My apologies, verea. I am distraught.'

'What has happened to Mi- to your daughter?' She was truly becoming anxious now, as dusk settled outside and the chamber darkened.

'She was to leave tomorrow morning.'

'Leave for where?'

'Leave for her wedding. To take her place in her new home.'

His words shocked her. 'To Nessumara? You can't possibly be sending her on the roads, Master Isar. Captain Anji has secured the roads in Olo'osson, but you know better than most that beyond Olo'osson the roads are not safe, not even for an armed caravan.'

'It has been arranged that a reeve will fly her there. A female reeve, I might add.' Surely his complexion was pallid more with anger than concern. Did he truly care for his daughter, or was she merely a piece of merchandise he could trade to benefit his family's wealth and position?

'The reeves aren't carters, hauling cargo for money. They enforce the law!'

'Master Esaf has repeatedly supplied foodstuffs for Clan Hall at no profit. Given transport to refugees likewise. He asked for one favor in return. Even a very pious man yearns for a wife when he has been without one for some time.'

As lecherous old goats lust after lovely young brides they've bought like animals at the market! she thought.

Something in her thoughts must have communicated to Master

Isar, because he plunged on. 'It's a substantial sum that he's forgone.'

As if coin answered all objections!

Yet, were Isar and his relatives any different from her own family? Anji had seen her at the market, and because he was a Qin officer in a town conquered by the Qin army, he had gone to her father to purchase her.

'I'm sure Master Esaf's wealth is considerable, ver. But this is your daughter. Toskala has been overrun by a marauding army. They are marching on Nessumara.'

'I have not forgotten the army's trail of bitter conquests,' he said, jaw tight.

'I should hope not! An army that burned High Haldia and laid siege to Toskala. Your own people have died!'

He wasn't willing to meet her gaze directly. 'You are remarkably well informed, verea.'

'Captain Anji makes sure I receive daily reports.' She tried to remember her market voice and her market face, but she could not hold on to them. 'Surely you can't intend to send your daughter into a city soon to be attacked? The young scholar she was originally engaged to was killed in the attack on High Haldia, wasn't he? Do you want to expose her to such risk just for coin and better trade opportunities?'

He was by now quite red in the face. 'What do you think your husband would say, to hear you speak such words to a man of the same age as your own father? Are you challenging our right to do what we must? What we know is right for our house? Are you so lacking in respect? A mere chit of a girl, accustomed to getting her way because folk pet her for her beauty which is exposed in the most unseemly manner-?'

Chief Tuvi interposed himself between Mai and the Ri Amarah merchant. 'I beg your pardon, ver,' he said in a voice the more threatening because he had not raised it.

In the silence, O'eki set down a sheaf of papers he had been holding all this time, its rustling like that of eavesdropping mice scattering away under the floorboards.

Isar swallowed. 'I am not myself, verea. I beg your pardon. I will return another time.'

He went to the door. Tuvi drew back the bolts. As Isar vanished into the warehouse, Tuvi glanced back with an evocative shrug as if to say Men! Daughters! Outlanders! How does one

make sense of them? Then he went out after the merchant, and Seren came back inside and bolted the door after him.

Mai drew in a shuddering breath.

'Those in desperate need of coin will do what they must to get it,' said Priya softly, still standing at her side. 'Even sell their beloved daughter to the temple of the Merciful One. We must learn to forgive and let go when we see that their hearts are trapped in despair.'

'I should never have lost control like that,' murmured Mai, afraid her voice would crack and she would start weeping. 'Said those things to him.' She sank down onto a pillow and rested her head in her hands.

'Mistress?' One of the women peered in through the open door to the porch. 'Sheyshi sent me, Mistress. The baby is awake.'

It was a relief to fuss over tiny Atani, as cranky as she was herself until he latched on and nursed. She dozed off as he suckled, and started awake when Priya gently disengaged the baby from her breast and burped him. Mai settled him in a sling, and she and Priya lit lamps in the altar room. An image of the Merciful One gazed kindly on them, one hand upraised to signify awakening and the other cupped at the belly to signify comfort. One of the kitchen women hurried in carrying a mass of flowers, their fragrance filling the room.

'Mistress, I knew you would want an offering,' she said, bringing forward the bouquet. 'We got these at the market before it closed.'

'Why, Utara, I thank you! Will you make the offering?' As the words left her mouth, she winced. Had she overstepped?

But the hireling smiled, color rising. 'I would do so gladly.'

Trembling, she placed the flowers on the offering platter as Priya began the prayers.

T offer these flowers at the feet of the Merciful One. Through the merit of offering may I walk the path of awakening. The color and fragrance of flowers fade, so does the body wither and disintegrate. Receive this with compassion.'

Other members of the household gathered, some murmuring the responses and others watching, rather like the infant, whose eyes were open, taking everything in.

The short evening service, and her nap, restored Mai somewhat.

'I'll work in the office,' she said.

'Do you want me to take the baby, Mistress?' asked Sheyshi eagerly.

'No. I'll shift him to my other hip. As long as he is quiet, I can work.'

Priya attended her, guards at each door, while around them the compound grew quiet as the rest of the household settled to sleep. Mai set a sheet of rice paper on the writing table and practiced her brushstrokes.

'Better,' said Priya with a smile.

'How do I write out the prayers?' Mai asked. 'Maybe that would help my mind grow quiet. Anji is always out on militia business. I know he's good about sending me word. I don't expect anything else. And truly I am grateful to be in Olossi again. Yet what if he decides it's too much of a risk. No one can control every least goat track! I'll end up living in a stone tower, trapped within high walls!'

'You are troubled indeed, Mistress.'

'Thinking ofpoor Miravia makes me weep.'

Priya said nothing. Lamp flames hissed.

'She must have been desperate.'

Priya took her hand, meaning to comfort.

Mai clung to her. 'But she's no different from me, is she? When Anji made it clear he wanted me, my father could not have said no to a Qin officer. At least he bargained hard to get a high price for me! That shows he cared!'

'We cannot know under what constraints the Ri Amarah labor. They are still seen as outlanders despite living in this land for a hundred years or more.'

'It's just I thought maybe because the women of her people do all their accounting, and seem to whisper of some kind of magic that causes them to know all kinds of things, like Atani would be a boy, that it would be different for their daughters. Was it any different for you, Priya? Sold to the temple in your own land, and then taken away over the mountains by raiders to be a slave in a strange country? Isn't Master Isar right? That I can ignore all these things because I have always been petted and made a favorite?'

She shook off Priya's hand and crossed to the drawer of maps. She opened the third drawer, that contained an incomplete map of the Hundred.

Anji spent considerable time working on his maps. He had

engaged the services of a draftsman out of the temple of Ilu, because the envoys of Ilu were messengers who, in more peaceful times, walked everywhere. The temples possessed maps, so it was said, but they guarded their knowledge jealously.

Anji did not let that stop him.

The map was limned in loving detail in the regions he had himself traversed, and she supposed she could trace his travels over the last year. Farther afield lay regions marked in traceries of charcoal pencil, ready to be erased and redrawn if necessary. The map had the look of a thing still in motion, as if it needed simply a strong hand to set the brushstrokes that would confine it.

Here was south, here north, here east, and here west, roads and rivers laid as lacework across the land. Here stood the crossroads city of Toskala along the River Istri, and downstream on a delta at the sea lay Nessumara, where they would take Miravia and confine her in a house from which she could never after set foot in the world beyond without her husband's permission. All ordered and tidy, lines drawn on a map.

'It's late, Mistress,' said Priya quietly.

The baby smacked his lips, stirring restlessly as his infant thoughts turned to hunger.

'Of course. I am tired.'

They went back to her chambers, and she nursed the baby and Sheyshi brought water for her to wash and rolled out the pallet and unfolded the bedding. The slaves went to their own pallets; Mai snuffed the lamp flame and lay down on the pallet with Atani tucked in beside her, his soft breaths like a flame on her heart. She had no name for what she felt for him. It wasn't any emotion she had known before.

He breathed. She slept.

'Mistress.'

She startled up, but Atani slept peacefully. A hand touched her shoulder. A flame flickered in the darkness.

'Priya! What is it?'

'Mistress, come. Sheyshi, stay with the baby.'

Mai wrapped a taloos around her body, tucking it in loosely as she followed Priya and her lamp. In the courtyard outside, a dawn-chat pipped. Because Priya said nothing, Mai remained silent. Chief Tuvi met them on the porch, fully dressed.

'Mistress, come,' he said in a low voice.

Her heart plunged. Had they news of Anji? Terrible news? But

Tuvi led her into the office where the warehouse door stood open into the utter darkness of the building beyond.

A figure concealed beneath a long hooded cloak the color of twilight stood in the doorway, half in and half out as if unsure of its welcome. In this warm country, folk wore short cloaks to protect against the rain, and only the envoys of Ilu wore long traveling cloaks like this one. Or that demon girl who had ridden into this very house and killed two Qin soldiers with her demon's magic.

Mai had learned in the market how to turn a bland face to any situation. Never let them know what your real price is, or how desperate you are.

'Who are you?' she asked in her coolest voice.

The figure tipped back its hood to reveal a face that Mai stared at, at first unable to recognize one she did not expect to see standing so boldly like any ordinary person in the door of her residence.

The figure spoke.

'Mai. I've run away.'

By wearing no veil in a public room with others looking on, Miravia made plain her determination to break utterly from her family. She dropped to her knees and raised her hands, as might a supplicant begging for her life or a desperate woman come to pray at an altar.

'Will you help me?'