Traitors Gate

14

As Miravia slept, Mai sat on the porch overlooking the tiny garden at the heart of the compound, her private retreat. A night wren chirped, but the taste of the air was already growing sweeter with the promise of a rising sun.

'There is a man loitering outside our gates,' said Chief Tuvi. 'I suspect he is an agent hired by the Ri Amarah. If he knew for certain she was here, then likely he would have fetched Master Isar already. That he has not suggests he suspects she is here but has yet no proof. So, if I give a word to him, he'll run-'

'No!' The forceful word spoiled the delicate hush.

'Of course she must be returned to her father. I am sorry if that answer displeases you, Mistress. You have a kind heart. But Captain Anji will insist.'

O'eki and Priya said nothing, but the gazes they bent on her were like the pressure of a hand checking impetuous speech. Did they want her to say one thing and expect her to say another? Yet her heart was determined. In the chamber behind, glimpsed through a partially open door, Miravia lay sprawled on the pallet; she had been so exhausted she had collapsed soon after Mai had drawn her inside. The baby's cot was tucked into the corner. Sheyshi, snoring lightly on a pallet just outside the sleeping chamber, had not even awakened.

'How did Miravia get inside?' Mai asked.

'I let her in.'

'Do you ever sleep, Tuvi?'

'I was restless, Mistress. Thinking of things. Hard to sleep then, eh?'

Certainly, as exhausted as Mai had felt earlier, she was wide awake now. 'I can't do it, Tuvi. I can't betray her.'

'She belongs to her father, Mistress. You accepted such a marriage. You were wiser than she was.'

'Maybe I was just fortunate!' she snapped. 'Hu! I beg your pardon, Chief. I know you are only telling me what everyone else will tell me, but I cannot do it.'

'I'll do it, Mistress. A word to the suspicious agent outside or a messenger sent directly to the compound, if you wish. The Ri Amarah will thank us, and Captain Anji will return home to a peaceful house, just as he likes it.'

His calm words decided her. Rising, she found her market face. 'Of course you are right, Tuvi. Never let it be said I turned my back on a distasteful task and let another perform it in my place. I'll go myself to the Ri Amarah house. But I must sleep first, for I'm very tired.'

He nodded. 'You are an honorable person, Mistress. Now, if you will, I want to settle the dawn rounds.'

She released him, a courtesy he extended to her, for although she ran the household and all of the business arrangements and dealings, he commanded the security measures in Anji's absence. Just as he would never question any negotiation she entered into or any contract she sealed, she knew where her authority ended and where Anji's began.

She slipped inside the door, Priya behind her. O'eki remained standing on the porch. From the bushes, the first dawn songs were I rilled. The sky was still black, stars blazing.

Priya touched her elbow. 'In the Mei household folk often called you stupid, or light-minded, or simpering, or precious. But I know these words describe what they see, not what is there. If you show a calm face to the world, it is not because you are without passion. If you do not challenge those who command you, it is not because you are too placid to protest. If you are obedient, it is not because you obey thoughtlessly, knowing no other course of action. I hear defiance in your voice, even if I am surprised Chief Tuvi did not. What are you planning?'

'I'll need help from you and O'eki to get out of the compound and the city. No one else must know. Can you do it?'

From the porch, O'eki spoke as if he had already guessed her intentions and run through several plans. 'It's possible to get out the back gate if you are willing to hide cramped in a chest, Mistress. I will need another hireling to help me carry it. Priya will have to stay here to guard the chamber and say you are sleeping. It will be easy enough to hire a covered palanquin down by Crow's Gate. Even so, our movements can be traced.'

'There lies the risk. I'll have to take Atani in case he wants nursing.'

'Chief Tuvi is right,' said Priya. 'Captain Anji will tell you to return her to her father.'

With trembling hands, she grasped Priya's fingers. 'I know.' She swallowed a sob, like drinking down sorrow. 'But I will never forgive myself if I do nothing. Never never never.'

Miravia stirred. Abruptly, she sat bolt upright. 'Mai?' she croaked.

Mai released Priya's warm hands and knelt beside Miravia, whose hands were cold. 'Hush, my sister. You must wake now. We're going to leave right away.'

'Where are we going?'

A pallor had lightened the shroud of night to a gleam neither night nor day which is called twilight for partaking of both and yet sustaining neither. Priya watched Mai, expression quiet in the gloom. O'eki waited on the porch, big body blocking her view of the garden.

'The only place we can go,' said Mai.

Soon after dawn, Arras gave the order and his cohort moved out, shields tortoised and wagons crammed with wounded and provisions. He forced the hostages to walk outside the shields. If the

Nessumaran militia broke the truce and attacked, they would kill unarmed civilians first. It's what he would do, in their position: he'd shoot down the civilians and break through the shield wall, because a cohort stuck out on an unprotected causeway was too easy to pass up. But he doubted the local militia had the stomach for such slaughter.

He hung back with the rearguard until the last soldiers cleared the bridge. Four sorry-looking hostages, the most truculent of the crew, trotted at the end, tied by long ropes to the rearmost wagon so they couldn't bolt. He moved up alongside the unit, marking their brisk pace and even footfalls, their confident gazes, their energy. The other hostages stared over the mire more than they watched their feet, although no one tried to run. If the enemy did not kill them, his people would shoot them in the back as they splashed into the swamp.

'Captain!' Zubaidit hailed him. 'Must I walk out here with the rest? Didn't I prpve my loyalty by walking in among the enemy last night to take your message?'

He kept striding along with his attendants streaming behind. He thought he heard a few among the hostages hiss at her words, but that sound might also have been the flutter and flurry of wings as waterfowl rose in numbers off their tranquil feeding ground, disturbed by the tread of feet. Boats bobbed out of his reach. The rising sun glinted on stretches of water. Reeds swayed in the morning breeze.

They reached the front of the cohort. The causeway speared straight over the mire; he could not yet see the solid earth of the mainland, only the blur of gray-blue water and green reeds.

'Captain?' Sergeant Giyara gestured up.

Eagles soared overhead; those gods-rotted reeves would never let up. Then gold winked, like a spark of sunlight detached from the spreading rays. He squinted, shaded his eyes, tilted his head and tried to find that trick of the light again, but it was lost in the gleam.

'The hells!' swore Giyara.

The cloak trotted to earth on the causeway before them, and the soldiers dropped to their knees, bowing their heads.

Lord Radas himself had come. His cloak — almost as bright in its golden splendor as the sun itself — rippled as in an unfelt breeze. Arras felt fear as a knife in his ribs, but he walked forward anyway, because he must. He was captain; he was

responsible. He knelt on one knee and raised both hands to shield his gaze obediently.

'Lord Radas. What is your will?'

'What is your name?'

'Captain Arras, of the Sixth Cohort. I have with me remnants of the First Cohort.'

'You are retreating rather than holding the forward position. When Lord Yordenas spoke to you last night, you were encamped farther out, on an island.'

When thrown off balance, it was best to right yourself by throwing a punch. 'Lord Yordenas ordered the retreat, my lord. I suggested we hold the forward position and asked Lord Yordenas to undertake a reconnaissance to estimate the true strength of the Nessumaran militia.'

'We were betrayed.' Lord Radas had a mild voice, nothing odd in it, only its tone had a timbre that made a man shudder even to hear simple words spoken in a seemingly reasonable manner. A madman might speak so as he was cutting your throat. 'Look at me, Captain.'

Aui! A man in his line of work could never know, never plan for, and must never dwell on when death might arrive to carry him to the Spirit Gate.

No sense waiting.

He looked up.

The man had youthful features but did not seem young; rather, he appeared rather unsettlingly well-preserved. He had deep-set eyes and broad cheekbones set off by a mustache and beard; no dashingly handsome man, as in the tales, but an ordinary fellow if not for the eyes, which were a weapon cutting you open so your guts spilled out.

Here it is, all of it:

Lord Twilight told me to arrange for an outlander to be conveyed out of camp without the other lord commanders knowing of it and by chance I was able in addition to use the outlander's trail to track down a nest of bandits and kill them. Kill me for it if you must; I obeyed the cloak, as I am required to do. I didn't know who the outlander was, but then Night tracked me down to say she had captured him. She said he was Lord Twilight's brother.

I don't enjoy killing or savor its power. I don't mind it, either, and if it has to be done I'll do it, as I have done since the day I left

my village forever. Nothing against my clan or anyone else there; it just wasn't a life or a bride I was willing to accept. I like battle, because it tests the mind and the body and it tests your resolve, your reactions, your reserves.

As for Captain Dessheyi of the First Cohort — even in an ambush he ought not to have allowed his soldiers to break ranks and lose cohesion like that; he ought to have had a decent chain of command in place. But some of these men are cursed better at oiling up their superiors to grab for rank than they are at actually doing the work of fighting.

Lord Radas laughed, the sound so startling Arras flinched. 'So Harishil and Night are playing a game of hooks-and-ropes. He'll not survive her displeasure. Perhaps she means to replace one out-lander with the other.'

Shaking, Arras brought his hands up to cover his eyes. He was on both knees, sweat streaming, hands moist.

'Keep the remnants of First Cohort as your own,' said Lord Radas as easily as if he were handing him a cup of cooked rice for his supper. 'You have a full cohort now. It's up to you to mold them into a cohesive unit. There will be a full war council in Saltow on Wakened Horse. I will be sure to consult your opinion at that time. I expect you to have a plan of action to present, that can be considered along with other strategies. We have underestimated the Nessumarans. Now we must defeat them.' He began to rein his horse around.

'Lord Radas! If I may be permitted to speak.'

The horse sidestepped as the cloak twisted in the saddle and Arras ducked his head to avoid that gaze. 'It's the reeves, Lord Radas. They see everything we do. As long as they have that advantage, we'll struggle.'

'Be sure we are not finished with the reeves,' said the cloak over his shoulder before he urged his mount onward.

The wings unfurled, their span almost as wide as the causeway and so bright and powerful Arras forgot to fear and simply gazed in awe. In a transition he could not measure or mark, the horse ran off the causeway and up into the sky as if the roadway split and it had merely taken a path he could not see. The man and his billowing cloak seemed almost an afterthought to the magnificence of the beast's wings and graceful form.

'Heya!'

Arras leaped up, whipping round to see a soldier racing up on

the heels of Zubaidit. She staggered to a halt as she stared after the rippling sheen of the gold cloak falling away like rays off the rising sun. Her expression was unfathomable, mouth slightly parted, eyes narrowed. Is that what she would look like in the arms of the Devourer? Whew! He'd completely forgotten about her in the face of Lord Radas's gaze.

'Cursed hostage took off running, Captain,' said the panting soldier. 'Everyone was staring at the cloak.' He aimed the haft of his spear at her, taking a halfhearted swipe, and she turned on Arras.

'You cursed ingrate! I only went on that cursed negotiating expedition for you because you said you'd kill the other hostages if I did not. Now they're all spitting on me and calling me a traitor.'

He dusted off the dirt on his trousers and, straightening, shook off the muzz afflicting his thoughts. 'That would seem to make them the ingrates, not me.'

Her gaze flicked eastward toward the mainland, taking in the mire and the gods-rotted honking waterfowl dotting the sheets of water. Already the cloak had vanished from view.

'I'm tired of being strung along as on a rope,' she said. 'First my clan marries me off north to a man I've never met. Not that I've any complaint of him, mind you. It's just I had no choice. I've never had a choice.' Her tone hardened as old grievances bubbled to the surface. He saw that look in a lot of the young men who came to him. 'Seems to me you lot have more choice in what happens in your life. I want to join your cohort as a soldier.'

'What's in it for me?'

She snorted. 'Do you ask that of every recruit?'

'I might have asked it of that cursed traitor Laukas. What's to say you won't betray us, as he did?'

'What's to say anyone won't? I'm one person, Captain. Not that difficult to keep an eye on.'

'Indeed not. I might have to keep you close by me, just to be sure.'

Her lips twitched, reminding him abruptly of a hook used to catch a fish. 'Do you want me to play that game, Captain? I shouldn't think your men will respect you for it.' She looked around, because of course everyone within earshot was listening openly, and no doubt those cursed boats bobbing off shore, out of arrow-shot, were also wondering what in the hells was going on.

'Tortoise up!' he shouted, angry at his lapse. The entire cohort could have been shot to pieces while he gaped like a lust-struck moonwit. 'March!'

He fell behind the front rank of shields, and although the soldier who had chased her queried him with a gesture, he waved him off. She did not drop back to walk with the other hostages, nor did he make her go. Hadn't he already decided?

'You'll plague me until you get what you want, won't you?'

'Yes.' She matched her stride to his.

'I won't have it said I enlisted any soldier in my cohort in exchange for sex.' He glanced at Sergeant Giyara, who had dropped into step on his other side. She'd no doubt have an opinion to share with him in private, later. 'That's not the kind of unit I run.'

Zubaidit flashed that handsome smile. 'That's why I respect you, Captain.'

They walked in silence except for the tread of feet. The causeway stretched to the horizon.

'Captain,' said Giyara at length, as if she'd been chewing for a while and had finally swallowed, 'does that mean Lord Radas thinks we did the right thing by giving up our forward position?'

'Surely he knows I couldn't refuse a direct order. He told me to present a plan at the war council on Wakened Horse. I've a few ideas. Spread into the countryside. Confiscate the harvest, all flocks and horses, take wagons and tools. We can cut off every land route into Nessumara. Field boats out of Ankeno and do damage to their shipping as well, cut off the flow of refugees fleeing the city. Trap them in the delta like rats. They have fields and storehouses, but surely not enough to feed all the refugees. And the dry season is coming. Maybe this cursed mire will dry out and we can advance across a longer front, off the causeway. Maybe we can set fire to the islands and drive forward under the cover of smoke, to hide from the reeves.'

Giyara whistled. 'Fire is a two-edged sword. It can't be controlled.'

'War is a fire, isn't it? If we burned the grand and glorious city of Nessumara to ruins, what a message we'd send to any other people who think to resist us, eh?'

Zubaidit sucked in a sharply audible breath. Then she laughed, tossing her head.

'You find that funny?' he asked.

She lifted both hands, palms up, the well-known gesture of the-

child-asking-an-obvious-question in any of the tales. 'If you burn Nessumara, Captain, then what do you possess afterward?' 'Victory. What else matters?'

This time of year, as the rains faded to a whisper, the winds drew cooler drier air out of the northwest. You could taste the change, the locals said, see the shift in the color of the vegetation, hear the altered voice of the river announcing the advent of the dry season.

Mai peeked out through a slit in the curtains she'd opened with her fingers. Where the River Olossi met the Olo'o Sea, a green sway of reeds carpeted the shallows while blue sky melded with blue-green sea out beyond the last channels. She licked her lips, but all she tasted was her own anxiety. She let the cloth close.

'You're out early, ver,' said the boatman, speaking to the hirelings as they set the curtained palanquin on the dock. 'Your mistress or master can't wait, eh?'

'Don't ask me,' said one of the hirelings brusquely. 'We were hired to carry the palanquin at Crow's Gate and were told to deliver it to the boat and wait to deliver it back to Crow's Gate. Can we get going? Cursed cold out here by the water. We want to go wait in an inn.'

Mai had a shawl wrapped around her shoulders, but not for the cold; it was for a covering should she need to conceal her face. Miravia sat on the narrow bench opposite, clutching the baby beneath her long cloak. She had looked so fragile at the beginning of this journey, and therefore Mai had handed Atani over to her as soon as they were hidden inside the curtains of the palanquin. Holding a baby gave one a measure of stability.

The palanquin was heaved up, pitched right and then left, and settled into the boat. Coins changed hands with a clink of vey counted out in pairs. The boatman grunted as he poled away from the dock. He made no attempt to converse. The boat rolled as they hit choppy waters, and then they glided through a long calm stretch and at last bumped up against another pier. The tang of salt was now flavored with a brush of bitter incense. A whisper of bells chimed an ornament to the hiss of wind and water in reeds. She heard the slap of feet running down to meet the boat.

'Eh, this isn't our early day, ver. What were you thinking?' The voice was cheerful, followed by laughter from others on the shore.

Mai slipped a folded piece of paper through the curtains. 'Take this to the Hieros, I beg you. I assure you, she will want to read it.'

A person wrenched the message from her fingers.

After a moment, the first voice said, 'Go!' and footsteps raced away. 'Bring the palanquin onto the dock. Quickly, you clod-foots.'

With much pitching, the palanquin got hoisted out of the boat and set on mercifully firm ground. Mai rubbed legs and arms sore from the journey smuggled in the chest. Miravia shut her eyes.

'Eh, that was a good game, the last of the hooks-and-ropes tournament,' said the boatman, determined to make the time pass by visiting with the unseen loiterers. 'You see it?'

'You think we get a festival day off? Wasn't there a new team competing?'

'A militia team, yeh. I was impressed. They'd only been practicing together for four months, at the order of the commander, and yet they came in third at the stakes. They'll win next year.'

A new voice chimed in, older and female. 'You see all the checkpoints and such they're setting up? I'm not sure I like it!'

The boatman snorted. 'I don't mind! Better than fearing bandits and criminals, neh?'

Outside, the voices argued about the new road regulations. The curtains stirred, and a tooth-filled snout poked into the palanquin. A scaly shape shimmied in so fast Miravia shrieked, and Mai gasped, and the baby woke and began to cry.

Outside, the temple folk laughed.

Inside, a ginny lizard nudged Miravia's leg and tried to crawl up onto the bench beside her.

Mai snatched Atani from Miravia. as her friend smothered laughter and crying beneath a hand clapped over her own mouth. 'I–I — I never thought I would see one,' she whispered. 'I read about them in books.'

Mai was struggling with her taloos and at last got the crying baby latched on. He began sucking noisily. The ginny backed down from Miravia and spun so quickly it seemed it had levitated, turning with a whip of its long tail. It nosed at Mai's feet, showed the merest edge of teeth, and tried to climb up on Mai's lap.

'You will not!' she said indignantly.

Its crest lifted, and a spasm like faintly glimmering threads of blue traced its knobbly spine. Atani let go of the breast, milk squirting his round face as he turned his head. Almost as if he knew it was there.

A voice called. 'Heya! The Hieros says to bring up the palanquin right away!'

The ginny scrambled out, curtains swaying in its wake. The palanquin rose; they rocked. The baby burped and burbled and, like any newborn, complained as he rooted, seeking the breast. Their bearers were less experienced than the hirelings who had carried them smoothly from Crow's Gate to Dast Olo's docks; Mai could not get a moment of stillness to let the poor little one fasten on, and by the time they were dropped roughly to solid ground, he was wailing, inconsolable.

Miravia twitched aside a lip of curtain to peer outside. Her eyes widened. 'It's a lovely garden!'

If joy had a fragrance, it might be something like this: flowers exhaling, the sun shedding warmth, the earth sighing, the air braced by a light breeze off the salty inland sea. Atani got hold again and began suckling. Mai sighed as the milk flowed, and a tingle of well-being, the breath of the Merciful One that penetrates all living things, coursed through her.

Miravia opened the curtain a little wider. 'There's a pavilion here. How pretty! But I don't see anyone, just plants. Musk vine. Both orange and yellow proudhorn. Heaven-kiss. Look at those falls of purple muzz! I've never seen so thick a flowering!'

'What if we're not supposed to see onto sacred ground-?'

'You say that now?'

Their gazes met. They both began to giggle, then to laugh, the anxiety and tension like water overtopping a cup, pouring over the lip, coursing everywhere.

'Are you coming out?' The voice was old, strong, and not kind. But it wasn't angry. Like Anji, it expected to be obeyed.

Miravia grasped and released Mai's hand before pushing aside the curtain. Mai tucked Atani into the crook of an arm and followed.

The Hieros sat on a low couch under the pavilion's roof. Miravia and Mai kicked off their sandals and climbed three steps to kneel on pillows in front of her. For a while there was silence as Atani nursed contentedly. A spectacular taloos wrapped the old woman's slender form: silk of the most delicate sea-green hue. Woven with an inner pattern of scallops like waves, it might have been an actual layer of water skinned off the surface of the deeps of the inland sea and spun into fabric.

The baby let go of the breast, smacked his tiny, perfect lips. As

soon as Mai burped him he closed his eyes and sighed into a doze. She adjusted her taloos and shifted him to the other arm.

'I admit,' said the Hieros, examining first Mai and then Miravia with a cool gaze, 'that I did not expect to see the wife of the outlander captain enter the precincts of the holy temple, not after he expressed so strongly to me on a separate occasion that his wife would never set foot in Ushara's temple. Yet even less did I expect ever to see the face of a Ri Amarah woman.'

Miravia glanced at Mai, and Mai nodded. 'I am named Miravia, ken Haf Gi Ri, daughter of Isar and his wife, whose name I am not free to mention.'

The Hieros looked at Mai. 'Why have you come?'

'We have come, Holy One, to ask you to give refuge to this woman.'

'You have not come — one newly a mother and the other soon to be married, so it is rumored, to a rich man of poor reputation in Nessumara — to gain some pleasure in our gardens?'

'No!' said Mai, genuinely shocked.

The Hieros's expression darkened as a storm front occludes the horizon.

Mai plunged on. 'I beg you, Holy One, listen to my petition. Miravia has run away from her family. She does not want to marry the man they've chosen for her.'

'Does not want to marry? Is she asking to dedicate herself as a hierodule at the temple?' She surveyed Miravia with a look that made the girl blush to a sodden red.

'I am not, begging your pardon, Holy One,' Miravia said hoarsely. 'Meaning no disrespect. It's just-' She gulped out words between sobs. 'Oh, what good will it do, Mai? No one will help us! Everyone will just tell me to accept the marriage for the honor of my clan! I would have been better off to sell myself as a debt slave!'

'Do you believe you would be better treated as a debt slave, you who are Ri Amarah and scorn all those who sell their bodies and their labor?' asked the Hieros coldly.

'Yes! It would be better! My life in Nessumara will be like living in one of the hells. But maybe I should just let that reeve fly me there. If the Star of Life invades Nessumara and overruns it, then I can hope to be raped and killed and that would still be better than living in a prison with a wicked old man who abuses those he controls!'

The Hieros clapped her hands. An attendant, an older woman with a sharp gaze and a curious eye, appeared on a path shrouded by flowering plants.

'Tea,' said the Hieros, and the attendant nodded and vanished. The Hieros turned to Mai. 'Does your husband know you are here?'

'No.' Mai tucked her chin, her body remembering the lessons learned in the Mei clan, when you kept your gaze down and shoulders bowed as Father Mei or Grandmother addressed you in that scolding way. But then she remembered she was mistress of her own household. She was a good businesswoman. She had overseen the birth of a new settlement. She had blessed the marriages of more than forty local women and Qin soldiers, bonds that would carry them into the years to come, that would bind them to the land. She lifted her chin and looked the Hieros in the eye. 'He is away on militia business. I have taken this action on my own.'

'Ah.'

'I did not know who else to turn to. Can you shelter her?'

'The Ri Amarah will take me to the assizes once they know she is here. They'll demand her 'return, according to their laws, by whose measure she is still a child because not married. How old are you, Miravia?'

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

Her frown deepened. 'Twenty. Far too old to be called a child.' The attendant walked up the steps, set a tray on a low table, and poured three cups of steaming tea. Birds called from the trees, and a ginny lizard — maybe the same one who had nosed into the palanquin — ambled into a patch of sun and settled to its full length.

'However, few love the Ri Amarah,' added the Hieros. 'Fewer will support them in a dispute against the temples. What will Captain Anji recommend?'

Mai nodded as the old woman examined her. 'You already know. That is a magnificent length of silk, Holy One.'

The compliment drew a smile. 'A fine bolt of first quality out of Sirniaka. No one else produces such exquisite silk. Miravia, you will hand out the cups.'

Miravia took them one at a time, each one cupped in her palms, offering the first to the Hieros, settling the second in Mai's free hand, and sitting back on her heels with the third held close

to her mouth as she inhaled the scent. 'You've put in a tincture of rice-grain-flower.'

'The Ri Amarah women are known for their herbal knowledge.' The old woman sipped, and Mai sipped, and Miravia sipped and smiled her approval.

In silence, they finished drinking.

'As I said,' continued the Hieros, 'the displeasure of the Ri Amarah I can weather. They do not enter or tithe to the temples. But I am not as eager to set myself against Captain Anji. We negotiate difficult times. We are beset with creatures wearing the cloaks of Guardians who have raised an army that can be turned against us at any time, and no doubt will be if they gain control of the north, as they seem likely to do. Am I willing to offend a competent commander who may be key to our ability to withstand the storm? His ability to organize others into an effective force makes him valuable. He himself knows this. What if he were to change loyalties? To ride north and offer his services to the army in the north because we offended him here?'

'He would not!' Mai cried.

'Why not? Are you saying Qin soldiers did not conquer territory in lands far away from the Hundred? Is it not true that you grew up in a town they conquered? That you are yourself a prize for a victorious warrior?'

All the words she wanted to say — to protest that Anji would never ally himself with folk who burned and raped and killed — died in her throat. Her tongue was dry, and her hands had gotten cold.

'It's all true,' she said in a low voice, never dropping her gaze from the Hieros's fierce glare. 'Beyond the Hundred, the Qin are conquerors. You could say I am a prize taken in war. But we came here as exiles. I speak because I have done my best to find willing and honest wives for the Qin soldiers. To encourage women to marry men they might not otherwise look at because they began their lives as outlanders.'

'There's been much discussion about how you encouraged young women and Qin men to make their own choices. In this country, clans and elders arrange marriages. That is the proper way to do things. Youth is not celebrated for its wisdom. Lust is a slender reed on which to build a house. We recognize the power of the Merciless One. We do not construct homes on her body.'

'That's also how it was arranged in Kartu Town, where I grew

up. Yet it seems to me, Holy One, that people did not treat each other very well in the house where I grew up. I sold produce in the market for several years and I heard plenty about the misery folk endured in their households. Maybe people could have at the least the right to say no to an arrangement. Then maybe more would treat each other decently and fewer fall into abuse.'

'Spoken passionately, verea. And with some understanding of human nature, rare to see in one so young as you. Yet you must know, having seen the ceremony of binding, that we do not force young women to accept a marriage. She doesn't have to eat the rice.'

'There are other means of coercion.'

'Those who truly fear the arrangement made by their clans are not required to suffer. The temples can always serve as their refuge.'

Mai lifted her chin, sensing victory in those words. 'Miravia is not fortunate, she is not willing, and yet she cannot say no. Folk will say she went willingly, when the truth of her heart speaks otherwise. I believe her when she says she will suffer abuse in that house in Nessumara. If I can do something to stop it, then it is dishonorable of me not to try!'

Miravia hid tears behind a hand.

The ginny thumped its tail once, then lapsed back into stillness. A small bird with a red-feathered cap and white-tipped wings fluttered in under the pavilion roof, landed beside the tea tray, and looked them over with sharp black eyes.

'You may suffer for this act today,' said the Hieros.

'I know,' said Mai. 'But I can't do anything else.'

The old woman bent her head, as if considering whether to make one more attempt to bargain Mai down. Her hair was entirely silver except for a few strands of black. It was bound up and pinned in place by lacquered hairsticks like those Mai herself used. Once, Mai supposed, it had been luxuriantly thick hair. Now, of course, age had thinned it.

She raised her head and looked at Mai. 'Do you trust me?'

'I came to you for help, Holy One.'

'Very well. I'll help you. But she'll have to leave Olo'osson immediately. Today.'

'There is another way, Holy One,' said Miravia. She sucked in a breath as for courage and spoke again. 'I could enter the garden.'

'Mira!' Mai grasped her arm. 'You can't-'

'Not as a hierodule. No offense to you, Holy One. I have no place in the temples as an acolyte. But merely as a — a — a-' She shook off Mai's touch, not in an angry way but in the manner of a person who knows she must walk the next stretch of the road alone. 'Once I enter the garden — and do what is done there — my family can no longer marry me off.'

'You can't possibly-' Mai cried.

'No clan among the Ri Amarah would ever accept me,' said Miravia calmly. 'They will say I am no 'daughter of theirs. They will say I am dead.'

The old woman had features honed by age; in them you could see the ghost of her youth, and yet Mai could not imagine her young. 'Who are we, daughter, if we have no clan? We are a fish hooked out of the water that sustains us and left to die on the shore. Do not be so eager to embrace this form of death.'

'I do not want never to see my mother and brothers again. But it is still better than what awaits me in Nessumara. Can you imagine sending one of your own daughters into such danger?'

The Hieros smiled. 'Certain of my daughters are trained to walk into danger, and they do, and I will likely never see them again. But you are desperate, indeed, Miravia. Is this truly what you wish?'

'Doesn't anyone ever think I also might be curious? That I might want to-' She stammered. 'Don't all the tales say it brings pleasure? I see in the blush on your cheek, Mai, when you speak of Captain Anji. Why shouldn't I be allowed to experience what every girl born into the Hundred expects she can have simply by walking to the temple after she has celebrated the feast of her Youth's Crown?'

'I am not one who will argue this point with you,' said the Hieros. 'Enter if you wish. If you feel apprehension natural to one coming from your circumstances, be aware that certain of the hierodules and kalos are trained specifically to- Well, it should be obvious we are accustomed to every temperament and wish a person might have, entering Ushara's holy precincts.'

'Miravia,' whispered Mai, 'it would be — with someone you don't even know, or-' Humiliated, she looked away.

'All are allowed to enter who have not offended the goddess,' said the Hieros. 'You, too, may enter if you wish, Mai.'

'I would not! Anji would-!'

'Does he own your body, as a master owns the debt of a slave?' asked the Hieros.

She could not find a safe place to fix her gaze. 'It would be shameful. I couldn't.'

Miravia grasped her free hand. 'Oh, Mai. Do you think less of me?'

'Never!' She burst into tears. 'I just want you not to suffer what I grew up with! That hateful house! Grandmother Mei's spite. My father's temper, and how it made everyone walk with their heads down for fear of looking him in the eye and getting punished for it. He beat my brother, Younger Mei — my dearest, twin to me — because he wasn't strong and angry like Father. And now my dearest twin doesn't even have me to protect him or hold his hand. But I always knew I would have to leave the house. That's the way of it, that the girls must leave to join their husbands' households, where they bide at the mercy of those who may treat them well or ill. Bad enough I should have to leave. I couldn't bear to think of you, Miravia-'

'It will be well.' Miravia kissed her and stroked her. 'Once my family casts me out, we'll find another way.'

'I'll gift you with so much coin,' sobbed Mai, 'you can set up your own stall selling herbs and ointments.' She sucked in breath and wiped her cheeks.

They embraced.

Mai pulled away. 'Best I go quickly, Holy One.'

'You came in secret, did you?' said the old woman with a faint smile, perhaps of disapproval. 'Now we will see what colors this thread layers in the cloth.'

'I don't want you to get into trouble,' said Miravia in a husky voice.

One last embrace. Maybe their last one.

Mai walked out of the garden with the palanquin carried behind her by silent but clearly curious folk. They did not attempt to speak to her.

It will be well, she thought fiercely.

The baby woke, and as she crossed under the white gates, ginny lizards peered down upon them from the trees and tall bushes. Atani turned his head as if trying to track them. As she passed under the outer gates and beyond the temple's outer wall, the sun had risen a hand's breadth above the estuary. The path down to dockside gritted under her feet. The force of all she had

said and done overtook her in a rush of feeling that made her tremble. What would Anji say?

The boatman stared at her as the acolytes jostled the boat while getting the palanquin fixed across the board, but mercifully he said nothing except 'You'll have to sit inside, verea, for there's no place otherwise.'

He balanced the boat deftly as she clambered aboard, tightening her grip on the baby until he squawked in protest. She settled onto the bench inside the curtains as the boatman poled away from the dock. She kissed Atani's sweet face for comfort.

The water had gentled, and the easy slap of water in the back channels lulled her. Smells and sounds rose from the channel: musty molding thatch; the dry rustle of reeds; the whit-whoo of a bird calling after its mate. Soon she heard the rumble of wheels, a hammer pounding a steady rhythm, a burst of laughter cut short. A boy's voice lilted: 'There is it, Seri! Go get the porters!'

What would she tell Tuvi? She'd not thought that far ahead.

The boat bumped the dock. An odd spill of silence emanated from the dockside where she might have expected the lively sounds of commerce.

'No need for such a look, ver,' said a voice she recognized as that of one of the hirelings. 'We just took the coin like any hire.'

The palanquin thumped hard to the boards. Weren't the hirelings going to pick her up and start back to the city? She bit her lip and reached for the curtain, to tell them, kindly but firmly, that they had to go right away.

'I beg your pardon, ver, but them who hires the palanquins have to be able to expect privacy-'

The curtain was abruptly pulled back. She looked into Chief Tuvi's face, his expression so blank she thought it hid a deeper emotion. His mouth quirked, as if he had a wish to speak but could not. At a movement behind him, he flipped the curtain up over the roof of the palanquin and stepped out of the way.

There stood Anji, his riding whip clenched in his left hand and his normally neat topknot as frayed as if he'd bound his hair up in haste. To come riding after her.

Her breath caught in her chest; her fingers went cold; her cheeks flushed hot.

But not this cringing. One sharp breath she took in, and then with her market face as bland as ever she could make it, she stepped out of the palanquin with the baby in her arms and

smiled with blander politeness at him, facing it out with pleasant words in the tone with which she would greet a treasured acquaintance.

'Anji, I was just-'

He slapped her, the back of his hand to her cheek, the blow so sharp and unexpected that all grounding in time and place fell away for forever and one instant as she fell and she drowned

he's furious

he's reaching for his sword

he's going to kill me now

Merciful One, please give me the strength to endure this

She was too stunned to react when instead of cutting her down he took the baby out of her arms and turned his back on her. Then he paused, shoulders tense like coiled steel, and turned halfway back.

'Bring her,' he said to Tuvi.

He walked to his horse, mounted, and rode away.

'Hu!' Tuvi sighed, and as through a haze Mai saw him take his hand off his sword's hilt. Her cheek was stinging.

All kinds of people were staring, old and young and laborers and merchants and debt slaves and girls at their harborside slip-fry pans with mouths dropped open. Everyone was staring, except the Qin soldiers detailed to escort her, who were carefully looking elsewhere. The river churned behind her.

'Follow my lead, Mistress,' Tuvi said in a low voice. 'It's best if you ride, so they can see you are still honored among us. Do not let them see you cry. You've nothing to feel shame over.' He paused, fingering his wisp of beard as he studied her. 'Do you?'

Her face was really hurting now, a throb that reached to her left eye. 'It wasn't wrong to help Miravia.' Her voice was a scrape over tears held in. 'Are you angry with me, Tuvi? I couldn't bear that on top of the… other.'

He shook his head, as if she'd given the wrong answer. 'Ride with me, Mistress.'

She had no more of a choice than the day Anji had approached her father and proposed that Father Mei might be interested in marrying his daughter to a Qin officer, a polite way of saying: I'm taking her. He could have hauled her out of the marketplace where she had sold produce, and done whatever he wanted; no one could or would have stopped him. The family would then have taken her back in shame, or left her to make her own way as

a whore. It happened to women all the time, didn't it? Only the old stories and songs made it seem glamorous.

She struggled to gather calm as she turned to the porters. 'The second half of your payment is waiting at Crow's Gate when you return the palanquin, as was agreed.' She followed Tuvi to the waiting soldiers.

But of course it was impossible to ride in a taloos. Trembling and embarrassed, she had after all to call the bearers and return to Crow's Gate sitting within the palaquin as the Qin soldiers plodded before and after like jailers. She wept once and then wiped her eyes. Her cheek hurt if she touched it, so probably it was going to bruise, and then she wept again, and after that she thought of what Tuvi had said and she was done with weeping. She had done nothing wrong! Even if everyone said otherwise — that of course a young person must marry according to the wishes of the clan — she could not stand aside while her beloved friend was handed over to a man who had already killed three wives.

They arrived' at Crow's Gate. The line at the gate moved slowly, and when she peeked out from behind the curtains, it was to see sober young militiamen interviewing each incoming party and clerks of Sapanasu checking accounts books. She leaned out, but did not see Anji among those waiting in line.

'Set me down, please.' The bearers did so, and she climbed out and walked over to Chief Tuvi. 'How long will this take, Chief? Don't they let Qin soldiers through?'

'They do not, on orders of the captain. If the locals must endure these delays in order to make the roads safe, then so must we when we are about the ordinary business of the day. Lest we appear as outlanders in their eyes, taking privileges we deny to them.'

'No, of course Anji is right.' She looked away, pretending that her bracelets must be turned. Her breasts were beginning to ache, a sense of fullness that anticipated a feeding, for although Atani did not take much at any one time, he nursed frequently.

Tuvi dismounted and handed his reins to one of the soldiers. 'You four escort us, two before and two behind. The rest of you wait your turn and be sure that the bearers and palanquin owners are properly paid.'

'Tuvi, are you sure-?'

'Do you want to stay in the palanquin, Mistress? I can engage its services to return you to the compound.'

'I'd rather walk.' To delay returning home to face Anji's anger. To feel the sun on her face, to pray for the grace of the Merciful One to cover her heartache.

He led their little cadre up to the gate and invoked captain's privilege to pass them through ahead of others.

'That's the outlander, the captain's wife,' someone said in the crowd.

Another called out, 'Greetings of the day to you, verea! You brought good fortune to my cousin's husband's sister, who married one of the soldiers after her own husband was killed on West Track. She'd have had to sell herself into debt slavery otherwise.'

'Council members say you're the one bargained those cursed Greater Houses down until they begged for mercy.' This comment brought general raucous laughter. 'Thanks to you, verea. They say it's thanks to you the Qin soldiers fought at all.'

'Out Dast Olo way, eh? Getting a taste at the temple? For sure you've earned it.'

A flush rose in her cheeks, maybe enough to hide the red mark.

Folk made pretty greetings as Tuvi inexorably led her forward. She spoke words of greeting in return, nodding and smiling at every person who nodded and smiled at her, but all she could see was Anji's face in the instant after he had struck her, a man she did not recognize.

They worked free of the crowd and walked up the road to the inner gate. People were too busy going about their business to pay any mind to Qin soldiers; it was nothing they didn't see every day.

'Hard to know where to start,' said Tuvi. 'Let me tell you a story. One time, you see, there was a boy named Anjihosh, the son by the Sirni emperor sired on a Qin princess, who was herself sister of the Qin var. The Qin var had handed his very own sister over to the emperor to seal a treaty. That's the way of things.'

'I know, but Miravia-'

'Best to let me speak,' he continued in a soft voice that as good as cut her throat. 'For a while the Qin princess was much in favor with the emperor because she was not like any of the other women in his household, and be assured that he had many women in his household, confined to a special palace reserved for the emperor's women into which only the emperor or his cut-men — eunuchs — could enter. Now I suppose most of those women were slaves, chosen for their beauty or some special skill like weaving or herb knowledge or cooking. But a few were wives according to the Sirni

way, that is, they were the daughters and sisters of powerful men of noble families. So it could not have sat well with these wives, and their fathers and brothers, that the emperor should shower so much favor on an outlander, and more especially, on the son she had borne him. For you can be sure that Anjihosh was as a child well-spoken and attractive in temperament, quick at his lessons, and naturally the best among the young princes at riding and archery and weapons. His enemies whispered that he was the emperor's favorite among his sons, a threat to the worthy noble families of pure Sirni blood. What the emperor thought of this we cannot truly know.

'There came a time when one among the wives decided to act. Her son was older than Anjihosh and had for many years been considered the likely heir. Among the Sirni, only one man rules as emperor, although the emperor has many sons. It is common for the mothers of the sons of the emperor to fight a war within the women's palace from which only one emerges victorious.' He offered an arm fo help her over a gouge in the street cut by the wet-season rains. 'Hard to imagine wasting so many good soldiers, lads who could be trained up as captains and commanders. It's no wonder these people are weak.'

'If they're weak, why haven't the Qin conquered them?' His smile was a tip of the lips, a thought held to itself. 'The empire is very large. But it so happened that the Qin princess found herself alone and despised in the women's palace with no one to support her while meanwhile her greatest rival had called in her powerful family to put pressure on Emperor Farutanihosh to name her son Azadihosh as heir after him. Which naturally would mean that any other boy sired by Emperor Farutanihosh would have to be killed. So the Qin princess found a way to smuggle her boy out of the palace. Through one means and another, she got him to a border post, and thence into the hands of Qin clans willing to bring the boy back to his uncle, who must raise him or be seen to be dishonorable in the eyes of all the Qin. For it is shameful to kill one's own relatives, is it not? Naturally the head of a clan must make sure that the line remains untainted by weakness, but any child let live becomes the charge of all his clansmen.' 'So the boy and his mother returned to the Qin.' 'Eh? No, Mistress. The boy did indeed arrive at his uncle's tent. But his mother could not escape the women's palace. Nor could she hope to journey through the empire without raising the alarm,

for as you recall, women do not travel openly on their roads. I suppose, if she still lives, she remains in the palace still.'

Mai's fingers tightened on Tuvi's arm. 'Surely you see that I couldn't allow Miravia to walk into a prison like that?'

'Let me finish, Mistress. That is not the end of the story. The boy Anjihosh was raised by certain of his uncle's retainers, who were assigned to take charge of him. Without exception they became his kinsmen of the heart, because he grew to be that kind of man, who inspires such trust and loyalty.'

'That's you!'

Seren, hearing the chief's voice fall silent, looked back to make sure nothing was amiss, but Tuvi nodded at him and they trudged on. It was a warm day but mercifully not hot, yet each step dragged, harder than the last. Her legs were as heavy as sacks of rice; her belly ached; her cheek was a stab of flame. But if she concentrated on Tuvi's voice, then she didn't notice these pains so much.

'In time Anjihosh came of age to ride in the Qin army. A wife was proposed from among the daughters of the var's high command. It was a good marriage with Commander Beje's girl. Has Anji ever spoken to you of his first wife?'

She flushed. 'Neh. I just remember, that time we met Commander Beje, that the commander said she was a headstrong girl. "Precisely her charm," that's what Anji said in reply. But Commander Beje also said Anji could have shamed the commander's entire clan in front of the var because of what she did. Yet Anji did not. That's why Commander Beje helped Anji. Because Anji had acted honorably in the matter of his daughter. Anyway, I thought she must be dead.'

They had come to the gate into the inner city, another checkpoint with militiamen making their painstaking interviews and folk waiting with remarkable patience, bred no doubt from the still-fresh memories of the siege and from the years before that when the roads had not been safe.

They waited in silence, people glancing at them but holding their tongues. When they reached the front of the line, the guards recognized Tuvi and waved them through.

Only after they crossed Assizes Court and started up the hill did Tuvi start talking again, his voice so low Mai strained to hear. 'She was seduced by one of the western demons, the ones with ghost hair and ghost faces and blue eyes. Like that slave Shai had.'

'Cornflower.'

'A demon very like that slave girl, yes,' said Tuvi. 'She rode away with the demon into the west. So that is the same as being dead, actually. If you walk into demon land, then you are dead, aren't you?'

'Did she hate Anji? Hard to see how anyone could hate him, but maybe she was forced to marry him. That can breed resentment.'

'Naturally the elders of a clan consider marriage prospects and make suggestions, and negotiate terms. And of course in the matter of secondary wives and concubines taken by men in the army, that is naturally done by their preference. But within the Qin clans themselves, it would be very bad to force two young people who did not like each other to marry because then if one mistreated the other, the clans would get involved, and there would be a feud, so as you can imagine clans wish to avoid such an outcome. Generally a proposal is made, and the two meet and decide if they can cooperate. If they and the families agree, he offers her a banner sewn especially for the marriage. They race, and if he can catch her, then it is destined that they wed.' His shrug came and went like a brief smile. 'Of course, a woman may choose under such circumstances to allow a man to catch her.'

'That's how they do it here, too,' said Mai, 'only with the bowl of rice offered and accepted, or offered and refused.'

Was that a tinge of color in his cheek?

'I'm sorry about Avisha, but she wasn't right for you, Tuvi-lo. Anyway, even here, even if people say girls have the right not to eat the rice, to refuse the man who courts them, or if a lad wants one girl but is told to marry another for the benefit of his clan, there are other ways to coerce a person to marry by making it seem you'll be disappointed or you need the treaty or you must have the coin lest the entire clan be ruined… and what about the Qin var? Did the var's sister, Anji's mother, want to go to the empire as the seal on a treaty?'

'You're not listening to me, Mistress. Anjihosh was loyal to his first wife, but she was not loyal to him. Where did he find you today?'

'I don't understand what you're trying to say.'

He grinned in that lively way the Qin had, and shook his head as at the antics of a child innocent in its charm. 'Mai, I expected you to help Miravia leave the city.'

'You did?' Her voice rose to a squeak. The soldiers glanced at

her, and hurriedly away. 'No, no, of course you must have. Of course we couldn't possibly get out of the compound without you knowing of it. What an idiot I was to believe otherwise! Why didn't you just help me, then?'

'I obeyed what I knew would be Anji's command in the matter. Also, I could therefore afterward speak the truth with a straight face to the Ri Amarah and their agent — that one loitering at the gate hoping to catch a hint of her whereabouts — that I had advised the girl be returned to her family, as Anji would have done, had he been there.'

Having nothing to say, she walked in silence. Had Anji been there, she would never have dared defy him.

'Not much farther to go,' she murmured, feeling the pain in her cheek magnified.

'But I did not think, Mistress, that you would take her to the whore's temple.'

'It's Ushara's temple, Tuvi! We must speak of it with respect, because we are Hundred folk now.'

'And you went with her, to partake of what is offered in the garden?'

She stumbled over her own feet, and he caught her arm and kept her walking as she covered her bruised cheek with a hand. 'Can that be how it looked to him? I went with her to plead her case to the Hieros!'

'His father betrayed him. His half brother betrayed him. His mother sent him away alone, to be raised among people he did not know. Then his wife betrayed him, and finally his uncle the var betrayed him, for he sent Anji east to the frontier to be killed, as we discovered only because Commander Beje felt obligated to repay Anji for the dishonor shown to him by the commander's own daughter. Now he wonders if you have betrayed him.'

'I would never! I only went there because I hoped the Hieros could help me… You haven't even asked what happened to Miravia.'

'Best I don't know, Mistress. Here we are.' He stopped her with a hand on her elbow as they reached the familiar gates of their compound. She smelled meat roasting, and the savory tang of a big kettle of spiced caul-petal soup. 'Take my advice, Mistress. Don't go to him. I'll have Priya bring you the child, for nursing.'

Her milk had let down, twin spots darkening the front of her taloos. She crossed her arms over her chest. 'Can we go in?'

'Don't go to him,' Tuvi repeated. 'Bathe yourself. Make yourself particularly beautiful, as you can, and preside over the supper table as if you are the queen and he a humble captain honored to be seated at your table. If you have nothing to apologize for, then do not apologize out of fear. Qin do not respect those who are afraid.'

'If you do it, don't be afraid,' she murmured.

'If you're afraid, don't do it. You have offended him, Mistress, but I know you, and I know you went to the temple with no thought for anything except the other woman. Yours is a generous heart. Do not be generous with your apologies. And if I must say so…' He twisted his beard hairs again, frowning. 'Do not ever under any circumstances go again into a temple dedicated to the Merciless One. Let the Hundred folk have their ways, as they must. No Qin woman would ever do such a thing. In this matter, the captain will never ever change.'