Traitors Gate

15

From the height, Joss marked the many humble fishing villages strung along the wide curve of Messalia Bay like so many variegated beads on a vast necklace. Folk were busy on the paths and beaches, about their end of the day business. Fish dried on racks; kelp marinated in vats; children got in a final round of hooks-and-ropes on a dusty field with the oval scraped out of the sandy dirt. Every council square — some as humble as a stone wall and not even a sheltering thatched roof — had been decorated with ribbons in the color of the season, the faded blues and dried out greens marking the Whisper Rains.

At the mouth of the River Messali, he and Scar flew over a substantial port town where every compound flew ribbons or banners in the old custom that Joss's mother and aunts had often talked about but which had fallen out of favor in his own lifetime. Leaving its wharves and markets behind, reeve and eagle skimmed over the water toward the band of islands and islets that beaded the mouth of the bay. The shallows and deeps of Messalia Bay were easily discerned as distinct shades of blue, sand pale beneath. If only people were as easily mapped. It was high tide and so the bay was full, lapping on white sands. The golden light of the late-afternoon sun glimmered on the flat water; no storms today.

At length, he caught sight of a watchtower on a stony islet. He flagged the sentry, who replied with a burst of activity, flagging Joss the 'clear' and then bending to shout unheard words to his fellows as Joss guided Scar to the outer landing islet of Bronze Hall, on the bayward side of the much larger island that housed the main hall and grounds.

A pair of fawkners approached, holding batons painted in the grandfather patterns, very old-fashioned. They tapped and gestured the full, wordless greeting of hall to visitor, which he'd learned in training but never had done since. Cursed if he could recall what he was supposed to do in reply.

They finished and stepped back, waiting.

'Greetings of the dusk,' he began, but he faltered when he heard how thin the market words sounded in the silence left by their formality.

Scar dipped his big head. He had watched it all with keen attention, and now he chirped in a distinct greeting and settled immediately despite being in a hall he barely knew.

Joss walked to the waiting fawkners. Four men, armed like ordinands, loitered by the archway that led to the bridge.

'If you please,' Joss said, 'could you let Marshal Nedo know I'd like a meeting with her. I'm Joss, commander at Clan Hall.'

The older fawkner began to laugh. The younger cast Joss a startled look and trotted over to the loitering ordinands; two took off as Joss frowned. 'Aui! Did I say something laughable?'

'Neh, sorry,' said the fawkner, wiping his eyes. 'Just never thought I'd see the day when a reeve would fly in here and call himself commander of Clan Hall and not even know the proper forms, eh? Not to say we haven't been warned. I'm Kagard and that is Lenni. Let's look at your eagle, then. Anything I need know, besides that he knows the old forms better than his reeve does?'

The words rankled, but Joss kept his temper jessed. 'Scar's calm, if you're calm. I'd appreciate your opinion on these two wing feathers.'

Scar accepted their attention, and flirted a little with the younger fawkner when he approached with a pair of files. Joss coped the one trouble spot on Scar's beak, and when they were finished he allowed Kagard to direct him and Scar to an empty loft, where a haunch of deer was brought in and tossed to the eagle after Joss had leashed him to his night's perch.

They walked outside onto the landing ground, now entirely in

shadow. Lenni called an assistant out of a storehouse to pull closed the barred gate.

'It's been years since I've been at Bronze Hall,' said Joss. 'I go out the archway and over the bridge to the main island, neh?'

Kagard touched him on the elbow in a friendly way, and smiled in a friendly way, and spoke in a friendly way. 'Best you wait here for marshal's people to give the go-ahead, eh? It shouldn't take long for them to get back.'

'For the go-ahead? Is there some kind of trouble?'

'Hasn't been any trouble since marshal instituted the new measures and talked to all the town councils in Mar.'

'Was there trouble before?'

'Trouble in the Beacons and in the Ossu Hills. But we've culled out most of that trouble.'

'What manner of trouble are you talking about?' Joss asked, feeling increasingly uneasy as he looked around the expanse of ground. The islet was a rocky outcropping artificially leveled to create the landing ground for visiting eagles; there was a good launching point at the prow of the islet. The place housed a dozen separate small lofts and a storehouse and barracks and, as he recalled, stairs cut into the rock beyond the archway that led down to a stone pier where supplies could be paddled in. The folk here did a lot of fishing, too.

'Not for me to say,' observed Kagard.

Joss knew a dismissal when he heard one. He licked the taste of salt off his lips, remembering his own childhood on the coast near Haya. 'Fish for dinner tonight, I'm hoping,' he said, and got a laugh from them, as he had hoped. They weren't thawing, though. They kept a formal stance. 'Your eagles here, you've got more known family groups than any of the other halls, neh?'

'We do,' agreed Kagard.

Lenni was more voluble, perhaps seeing an opening to show off his youthful knowledge under the gaze of his seniors. 'We've got cursed good records of family groupings. They say that Bronze Hall eagles cooperate better than those of any other hall. That's why we keep visitors out here. Fewer tangles.'

'Good to hear.'

A pair of ordinands and a reeve trotted into sight under the archway. One of the lads carried a lamp. Joss strode over to meet them.

'Marshal Orhon will see you now,' said the reeve.

'Orhon?' Joss had no image of any such reeve. Not that he expected to know every gods-rotted reeve in the Hundred — obviously that was impossible — but after his years at Clan Hall he usually knew the names, at least, of the senior reeves at various halls because the legates of each hall did talk about the goings-on at their home compound. But an Orhon, out of Bronze Hall? Nothing.

How idiotic had he been to come here alone? A cursed headstrong fool, as always, acting on impulse instead of thinking. The Commander would never have acted so, but she was dead, wasn't she? So far, he was still alive.

He hefted his pack to his back and noted that they did not ask him to give up either short sword or baton as they crossed under the archway and out into the odd stillness of dusk exposed on the high rock cliff of the islet. The water swirled in white foam still visible in the gloom. Stars bloomed. There was no moon. Their footfalls made an erratic rhythm on the plank bridge. A bell tolled in the distance, ringing the last fishermen home.

On the far side of the bridge, the trail divided. They followed a track to the left, set along a cliff and lit by lamps hanging from iron posts. As they came around the headland the wind off the ocean rushed in his face, but even in the last gasp of day crossing into night it was beautiful. Far out, the ocean rolled, billows drawing whitecaps in and out of the dusk.

A cottage was set alone in the midst of low-growing seawort and clumps of berry-wax bushes. Lamps hung from the eaves. They clumped up onto the porch, where Joss pulled off his boots. The reeve, who had not introduced herself, rapped on the door. A hand bell chimed. The reeve indicated that Joss should let himself in. With a startled shrug, he slid open the door, stepped through onto mat, and closed the door.

The ocean's breathing and the wind's thrum beat in his ears as he stared at the man sitting cross-legged on a pillow in a chamber otherwise empty except for two flat pillows resting to the right of the door.

'I am Marshal Orhon.' The man had a shiny red blotch sprayed across the right half of his face. The left side of his face drooped, that eye fused shut, the skull shaved to stubble, the ear not much more than a twisted nub. His jaw didn't work properly; that accounted for his soft voice.

'Where is Marshal Nedo?' Joss asked.

If Orhon's expression changed, Joss could not interpret it. His voice's timbre did not alter. 'Her eagle was killed.'

'Was killed.'

'Deliberately killed. By raiders in the Beacons. They mutilated both bodies. To send a message.'

'We never heard-' Something in the twist of Orhon's scarred mouth cut Joss so hard he closed his lips over the rest of the pointless words he'd been about to utter.

'There is a great deal Clan Hall does not know, if indeed you are from Clan Hall as you claim. Yet you cannot even respond to the formal greeting, the one passed down through generations of reeves. One which, according to report, your eagle recognized.'

'Everyone says Scar is smarter than me, and I see no reason not to believe them on that score.'

'Sit down,' said the marshal, and Joss wondered if his voice softened. Had he found the comment amusing? The confession humbling enough?

He grabbed a pillow and sat. Voices murmured on the porch; feet thumped; the door slid open.

'Sidya!'

Sidya, once Bronze Hall's legate at Clan Hall, nodded at the marshal, not meeting Joss's eye. 'Yes, I know him. His name is Joss. He was legate from Copper Hall, in all kinds of trouble because he kept insisting on honesty and holding to the laws. He got sent off on an expedition to find out about some trouble on the roads. Last I heard before we were called back here was that he'd been named marshal of Argent Hall to try to clean the place up. As for the commander of Clan Hall, I know nothing about that, only the word we got a few weeks ago about a massacre in Toskala where the old commander was murdered. As for his claim to be the new commander — well — any reeve can name himself "commander" but that doesn't make it so.'

Orhon did not move. It was eerie, as if he were not a living man at all but disfigured skin stretched over the wooden frame of a man.

'Do you vouch for him, Sidya? Do you think he's telling the truth?'

As the silence drew out, Joss grimaced. 'The hells! I thought we parted on amiable terms. That was three years ago, Sidya.'

The comment cracked a laugh out of her, and he glimpsed the enthusiastic woman he'd shared a bed with for about half a year.

She reached for the other pillow, tossed it down next to Joss, and sat beside him. 'I've no complaints of you, Joss. Anyhow, I broke it off, not you. I'm just-' She looked at the silent Orhon, whose one good eye did not shift focus. 'These are troubled times. I don't know who to trust, but I guess I'd trust Joss as much as anyone. I've never known Joss to be anything but honest.' She looked back at him. 'But why in the hells are you come here calling yourself commander of Clan Hall?'

'Because I'm the last person you'd think the Clan Hall council would elect?'

She grinned. 'True enough.' Her smile flattened. 'But if enough of their senior reeves were murdered…'

'There wasn't much left to choose from,' he admitted. 'I've gained experience as marshal at Argent Hall. Together with the militia there, and an outlander captain and his soldiers, we defeated an army that attacked Olossi. So I suppose that makes some folks think I might be able to protect the rest of the Hundred. I accepted the post and the responsibility because someone has to fight.'

'Why are you here?' Orhon asked him. 'Bronze Hall has recalled its legate and attendant reeves from Clan Hall. We don't intend to send them back, especially now that Toskala has fallen into the hands of a creature called Lord Radas.'

The words were not spoken in anger, simply as a statement of fact, the more chilling for its even temper.

'Surely you see we must stand together or fall separately. We've got to institute new practices. Reorganize. Work in concert with the forces assembling to fight Lord Radas's army.'

'You want us to change. To give up our gods-given charge of enforcing the law and become soldiers instead?'

'I don't want it. But we have come to that crossroads where we must choose the path of change.'

'So you say. But Clan Hall has failed the reeve halls. They've let the old formalities lapse. The old disciplines are not followed. Where the old order decays, then what is new has crept in with its rot.'

It was hard to hear because his voice was so soft, but Joss at last got a handle on the odd cadences in the man's speech. 'You're not from Mar.'

'I fled Herelia fifteen years ago after my village was burned because we refused to submit to the rule of Lord Radas's archons.'

His good eye flickered as at a memory. 'After years as a beggar and itinerant laborer on the roads, I washed up half-starved in Salya, here in Mar, where I found work in the marsh cutting reeds. Then an eagle chose me.'

'How did you come by these injuries? In the line of duty?'

'Neh. These I got the day my village in Herelia burned, when I tried to rescue my mother and aunts and the other children from the flames.'

'And an eagle chose you despite-!' Sidya cast an accusatory glance, and Joss broke off, flushing. 'I beg your pardon, Marshal. But eagles choose-'

'Eagles choose men and women who are whole and healthy and strong, not those who are crippled. Why did Stessa choose me? Because the gods made it known to me through the eagle's calling that I must restore the proper forms, the proper discipline, the old ways. Adherence to tradition is the only way to defeat the pollution that breeds these troubles. It is the only way to defeat an army whose adherents wear the gods-corrupted Star of Life. Until Clan Hall recognizes this truth, we cannot support her. Or you.'

In the Qin style, the baby's cot was placed beside the table as Mai spooned soup into bowls. In Kartu Town, children did not dine in company with the master, but the Qin did not consider a meal to be a meal if there were not children and kinfolk present. Food taken on campaign, among soldiers, took a different word, akin to horses and sheep grazing.

Horses and sheep would have been better company.

Mai had overheard Tuvi telling Anji that it would look bad to the men if he did not eat the homecoming meal with his wife and child. So there Anji sat, formally dressed, not a hair out of place. None of the senior officers were present today, although the doors were slid open so that anyone passing by could look in. The cooks had outdone themselves with dishes spiced both hot and subtle. Anji did not eat. He did not speak. He simply sat there, not looking at her. His silence made of the meal a mockery.

She would not succumb. It might seem that a hundred knives pricked her, so nervous was she, but she kept her hands steady as she ate. Even her dark mood could not kill her appetite. Also, handling spoon and eating knife gave her something to do as Anji did not talk and did not eat and did not look.

At length she finished, and called for Sheyshi to take away the

dishes. As soon as Sheyshi had placed the dishes on a tray and carried them out, Anji rose. He caught up Atani and carried the baby to the door.

'Really,' said Mai in a voice that made him pause, back to her, at the threshold, 'it shows no respect to those who have cooked, taking particular care to make special dishes, to refuse to eat this food simply because you are angry not at them but at another person.'

He said, in a lower voice, addressing the door, 'The Ri Amarah showed us hospitality in every way openhearted and generous. That we have succeeded here is in great part due to their aid. Now you repay that hospitality by betraying them. Leaving me to make apologies and restitution, if any can be made given the enormity of the dishonor.'

He banged the door shut behind.

Mai rested her forearms on the table and her head on clasped hands. So had Father Mei sounded as he scolded one or another of his wives or brothers: never able to be satisfied.

Well. Anji could kill her. That would be painful, certainly, but then it would be over. Surely if he had meant to beat her he'd have done it already. Anji's was a contained rage, and she supposed he might continue on in this horrible way for days or months or years.

What if he did? Her heart would weep, but hearts endure years of unhappiness all the time. She had probably breathed more happiness in this last year than Grandmother Mei had inhaled in her entire life. After all, she had always told herself that the only place to find happiness is inside. That was the lesson she had learned growing up in the Mei clan.

Yes, it would be difficult. Yes, she would cry. But she had a healthy son. She had a fine compound. She had plenty of coin, a house to run, a settlement to administer where folk praised her and asked for her to listen to their disputes and sit in judgment over them even though she was young. She could conduct trade in her own person and with her own collateral. She was learning to figure a proper accounts book and actually to write and read.

'Mistress?' Priya slid the door open just enough to slip through. 'The captain has gone out, with the baby.' Her frown creased her forehead.

Mai opened her mouth to speak but no word came out. A hammer had smashed her heart, leaving her breathless. Priya sat down beside her and took her hand.

At length, Mai whispered, 'I need something to do, Priya.'

'Yes, Mistress. We'll sweep. Best to change out of that good silk, though.'

They swept the porches and the flagstone pavements, then raked the garden walkways in neat patterns until dusk make it impossible to continue and she had the beginnings of a blister on her right forefinger. She washed face and hands and feet, put aside her clothing, took down her hair, and lay down on the pallet unrolled by Sheyshi. But although she was exhausted she could not sleep. At length, she heard voices and the hiccoughing wails of the baby.

Priya crept in, holding the boy. Mai put him to her breast and his nursing calmed her and made all ill things seem, for the moment, too distant to matter. Male voices conversed nearby, tense but muted, and even their rumble faded as her eyes closed and she dropped away…

To wake.

She was still alone in the bed, of course, a single coverlet nesting her and Atani. A light shone through the rice-paper squares set into the door. She settled the baby in his cot. Her sleeping robe, pale as silver, seemed poured over the chest set on one side of the room. She slipped her arms through the sleeves, bound it around her waist, fumbling the knot. She tried to open the door quietly, but he — still dressed, his hair still caught up in its topknot, and seated cross-legged on a pillow as though he meant to bide there all night — looked up at once as she paused in the opening, darkness behind her, the lamp's flame dividing her from him.

His expression was as unforgiving as stone. 'If you betray me, I will kill you.'

After everything, this was too much.

'When did I ever betray you? When have I ever given you reason to question my honor? You bought me from my father, did you not? Surely that gave me reason enough to feel I was nothing more than your slave. I could have resented you. I could have nursed sorrow. But I held my tongue in the early days. I hoped for something — I don't know — perhaps just those tales and songs I grew up with that you think are so silly, the bandit and the merchant's daughter, like the tale of the Silk Slippers that they tell here in the Hundred where the girl escapes all those who are hunting her and marries the carter's son. Maybe it was foolish of me to dream of those tales as if they could ever have been true. But I wanted to make a decent life for myself out of what had been

forced on me. Isn't that what any of us want? Less pain and more joy? I wanted to love you. I wanted-'

The sharp movement of his head, as though she had just slapped him, caught her short.

The flame hissed. He lifted his chin, voice scarcely more than a breath of terrible yearning. 'Do you love me, Mai?'

'Of course I love you. Has there ever been a stupider question heard in all the annals of the world than whether I love you? How can you even doubt it?'

'I see how you talk to other men. You smile at them exactly as you smile at me. Like that reeve.'

'Joss?'

'Of course you would think of him first!'

'Besides Miyara, he's the only reeve with whom I've ever exchanged more than ten words. He's personable, it's true. And he's an Ox, like me, and naturally those who are born in the Year of the Ox feel a particular affinity each for the others, because of the particular attributes of our character. Because we are hardworking and pragmatic, with a dreamer hidden inside.'

'The heart of an Ox leaps to the heavens, where it seeks the soul that fulfills it. For the Ox is very beautiful. Is he not?'

'Handsome, certainly, but very old!' she retorted tartly.

'Not too old to father a child.'

'Anji!' For an instant she was too scalded by fury to see, and then as the haze boiled away she stepped fully into the chamber and grabbed the first thing that came to hand: a ceramic cup off a tray. 'All you think about is if I have dishonored you. What makes you think I would ever dishonor myself?'

She flung it at him, flung herself back into the sleeping chamber, and slammed the door so hard shut its reverberation startled the baby in his sleep, a flinch heard more than seen, and then he cooed within his baby dreams and settled.

Strangely, the cup had not shattered. Surely she had thrown it hard enough!

She fingered open the door, easing it back just enough to peer through. There stood Anji, in lamplight, holding the cup in one hand and staring at it as if its existence, such an object as a cup that could hold liquid that might please the tongue and warm, or cool, the throat, puzzled him.

Then he smiled, an expression touched by a whisper as of doubt throttled. He tossed the cup into the air and caught it in the same

hand. He crossed toward the door, and Mai scuttled back and collapsed to her knees beside the mattress.

He slid the door open with a foot and came in carrying the tray with its two ceramic cups and a matching ceramic bottle, sealed with a cap, and the lamp, still burning. He set the tray on the chest and poured out rice wine into each cup. Offering her one cup, he sat cross-legged on the matted floor and drank the other down in one gulp. She sipped cautiously, watching him.

He undressed, and when he was in his robe he sat down on a pillow at the end of the mattress and handed her a comb, merely gesturing to his topknot, which it was her right and indeed duty as his wife to unbind and comb out.

His black hair was not as coarse and straight as that of the other Qin, but had a lustrous glow she never tired of. She stroked for a long time, enjoying the peaceful rhythm because it eased her heart. She knew they would have to discuss Miravia, but not now. In truth, she wanted desperately to lean into his back, to kiss the nape of his neck, to entwine him in an embrace that would cause him to turn and caress her, but she remembered what Chief Tuvi had said. She must not seem to be apologizing. Helping Miravia would cause trouble for them, but she could not have done otherwise and still lived with herself; she would accept the consequences. As for the other — going to the temple, and that ridiculous accusation thrown out against Reeve Joss — she had nothing to be ashamed of. He ought to be ashamed, for even thinking it.

He shifted, and she thought he was about to speak, but he did not. Yet he did turn, easing the comb from her hand, and turned her to face away from him. He gathered her unbound hair and started working through it with the comb from the top of her head down to its ends, which brushed the floor. It was impossible to concentrate on anything except the warmth of his breath on her neck, the way his fingers brushed against her back, or her arms, or the lobe of her ear. This state of suspension, him brushing and her sitting so still lest she utter his name or throw herself into his arms, was almost painful, and yet she dared not move for fear of breaking the connection. Anji was a patient man, very disciplined, and she began to wonder if he meant to comb her hair all night just to see who would break first. And because she was so very tired, and wrung tight, and aching with misery and hope, she began to laugh, a little hysterically perhaps, but laughter all the same even if there were sobs caught in it.

He set the comb on the tray.

'Enough, Mai,' he said, his voice husky with desire, perhaps with satisfaction, perhaps with anger still simmering. He embraced her, pulling her close. 'Enough.'

Much later, a sharp voice jostled her awake. Anji was already rising, drawing on his sleeping robe. He grabbed his sword and slid open a door that led onto the covered porch overlooking their small private garden. The light of a Basket Moon, somewhat past the full, gave a faint sheen to the outlines of the room: the square corners of the chest, the rectangular paper screens of the doors, the puddle of Anji's clothing where he had let it fall on the matted floor. He slid the door closed with his foot, cutting off the light and her view.

The baby was stirring in his cot, and Mai's breasts were heavy with milk. She pulled on her own robe, letting it hang open as she lifted Atani out. As she nursed him, reclining first on her right side and then switching to her left, she listened to low voices in an extended discussion on the porch outside although she could not quite pick out words.

The door scraped open. Anji slipped inside and sank down on the mattress beside her. Atani smacked and gurgled.

'What is it?' Mai whispered.

'One of the guards thought he saw a demon flying overhead, a winged horse, but Sengel has the night watch searching the compound and they have found nothing. The tailman who saw it is one of those who was present when the demon invaded the house.'

She nodded, remembering the evening when the demon in the shape of the dead slave girl, Cornflower, had flown into the compound riding a winged horse and killed two Qin soldiers with sorcery.

'Sometimes, on watch at night, you sink into a place that is neither dream nor sleep. It's a world demons haunt.'

'Maybe he was dreaming.'

'Maybe.' He tucked his sword alongside the mattress. 'Where is your knife?'

The baby released the nipple and exhaled a tiny burp.

'Don't move,' whispered Anji, drawing his sword as one of the doors into the interior slid open. A figure paused on the threshold between the rooms, half in and half out. Its face was concealed beneath a long hooded cloak of a substance that, although dark in

color, remained distinguishable from the shadows. Anji rose. Mai tucked the baby against her, using her body to shield the infant.

The figure raised its hands to pull back the hood to reveal its face. 'Mai?' it said hoarsely.

By the light that glowed from its right hand, Mai stared into the face of a man she had never thought to see again. 'Uncle Hari?' she whispered. 'We thought you were dead.'

His gaze opened a well of memory, a shaft down which she plunged. Best of uncles! He had always teased the little ones in that smiling way that made them feel they weren't just a nuisance meant only to stand in silence around the grim adults. He carried them on his back, horse to their Qin warrior, a game played only in the privacy of their own courtyard, for the Qin had forbidden all people of Kartu Town to ride. He could sing a merry tune, and he knew all the best tales, the ones in which the swooning maiden was carried away by the handsome bandit only to discover the bandit was really a prince, the ones in which the villains fought and died, and those in which the prince triumphed and died anyway. After Father Mei had forbidden him from speaking out against the Qin within the Mei compound, he had spent more time away from home and perhaps inevitably had gotten involved in a foolish, doomed scheme which no one had ever had the courtesy to explain to her, only that he had disgraced the family and they were fortunate they weren't all executed because of his rash actions. The Qin had decreed that every man, woman, child, and slave must witness the punishment of the rebels who had dared speak out against those who governed them. Sixty or more young men had been marched in chains out of Kartu Town into the east. Not a single one had ever been seen or heard from again.

Then Hari averted his gaze, as if it was too painful to look on her, and she was back in her sleeping chamber with Anji poised motionless beside her. Hari brushed fingers along his forehead as if it ached.

'Uncle Hari!' She rushed forward with the baby in her arms and flung her free arm around him. 'Eihi!' She flinched back, skin stinging where it had pressed against the cloak. 'Does that cloth have barbs in it?'

'Mai,' said Anji. 'The baby.'

The baby! 'Uncle Hari, do you see? You have a great nephew, this fine young lad. His name is Atani, after his grandfather. It's a water-born name, here in the Hundred. As yours would be — neh,

it would not be, would it? For you're really Harishil.' She took a step back to display the child, and another step back, which was far enough to see past Hari's body into the chamber behind, where Tuvi, Sengel, and Toughid were edging in through the open doors.

'I won't harm the baby,' said Hari, turning his gaze to Anji and, after a moment, wrinkling his forehead as in puzzlement. 'Call off your men, Captain. Mai, why is this man in your bed?'

'He is my husband! Father Mei married me to him.'

'You were supposed to marry the Gandi-li boy. The sheep-herder's clan.'

'So I was. But then Captain Anji wanted to marry me.'

'Naturally my brother would not say no to a Qin officer, even in the matter of his favorite child,' said Hari drily. 'He gave them anything they asked for, hoping to remain in their favor. But what he never understood was that they would treat him favorably only so long as they had a use for him. That was their nature, to take what they could use. What they had no use for, they discarded or ignored.' He glanced over his shoulder, his gaze sweeping the dark room behind him, and the soldiers actually cringed away from him. Sengel grunted as if he'd been slugged in the belly, and dropped to his knees.

'Stay where you are,' said Anji in a louder voice, meant to reach his men. Although he wore a fine silk sleeping robe tied with a embroidered ribbon and had his fine black hair falling loose halfway down his back, he could not be mistaken as anything except a soldier. 'If I may ask, Uncle Hari,' he went on carefully, 'why have you entered this compound without seeking permission at the gate? You can be sure any relative of Mai's would be greeted hospitably.'

Hari's ironic smile flashed just as she remembered it, enough to make you smile and frown together as his glib tongue entertained you. 'Mai and your soldiers reveal all that is in their hearts to my gaze, as it must be. And who could not wish a glimpse into Mai's heart, truly? Your soldiers have not quite such generosity in their souls although they seem clean enough in their hearts despite being soldiers whose job it is to kill. Yet you are exactly the puzzle that pervert Bevard said you would be. I admit I would not have believed any person could stand veiled before me if I hadn't met Shai. By any chance, can you see ghosts?'

'Shai!' Mai took a step toward him, caught Anji's curt gesture, and halted. 'How did you meet Shai? Hari, you must tell me.'

He would not meet her eye, and yet he watched Anji closely. 'Shai is in the north. He wanted to stay with the army for some reason he would not tell me, but I forced him to leave. In doing so, I saved his life, because Lord Radas has ordered all outlanders to be interrogated. Bevard told Radas he'd encountered two outlanders veiled to his sight. Naturally, we must find them. I suppose, Captain, that you know Shai's purpose in being in the north better than I do. I admit, he seems changed from the lad I used to thrash when I was trying to get him to show some spirit. He impressed me. But the chances are still that they'll catch him and kill him before he can make his way to safety.'

'Uncle Hari! How could you not have found a way to get Shai out of danger?'

'I risked enough doing what I did do! I had no other chance to help him. You have no idea what goes on with the army, what they want, what they intend.'

'What do they intend?' asked Anji. 'Why are you here?'

'To kill you, Captain, as I've been commanded.'

The words fell like stones. But Mai would not be crushed. She stepped between Hari and Anji. 'He's the father of my child. I won't let you kill him!'

Hari laughed. 'I think those are lines from the tale of the merchant's daughter and the fox bandit, are they not?'

She flushed. 'Don't ridicule me, Hari. Girish used to do that.'

'Whew! That's a deadly thrust.'

Anji did not move or relax his guard. 'Who wants me dead? Besides the ones I already know about?'

'Lord Radas wants you dead. He suspects you are the one who led the successful defense of Olossi. Who destroyed that cohort of soldiers Bevard was trying to lead out of Olo'osson. Lord Radas wants no competent commander leading a rebellion against him.'

'I'm leading no rebellion,' said Anji. 'The people of Olo'osson do not want to be conquered by his army. That's all.'

'No more did the people of Kartu Town wish to be conquered by the Qin. That did not stop the Qin armies from overtaking us, did it?'

'And you support Lord Radas's plan to rule the Hundred with an army that, by all accounts, burns villages, rapes women, enslaves children, hangs innocent people from posts to frighten the rest of the population, and destroys the councils through which cities and towns and villages in the Hundred are ruled?'

'As a Qin officer, surely you see the irony of your criticism of Lord Radas's methods of conquest.'

'The Qin army keeps villages and towns intact as long as they do not rebel. What use is a town if it has no markets, no herds, no fields, no artisans producing goods for sale? The Qin governors are harsh toward criminals, but in return those who obey the law live in an orderly and peaceful way, undisturbed by crime.'

'Lord Radas promises much the same thing. Perhaps he needs to complete his conquest of the Hundred before he can impose his orderly and peaceful ways.'

'Enough!' cried Mai. Both men, startled, shifted to look at her. 'Chief Tuvi, tell Priya to brew tea. We are going to drink tea and discuss this as civilized people do. Hari, you must be aware that if you mean to kill Anji you will have to kill me first. Anyway, you have neither sword nor knife, so it is not at all clear how you mean to kill him.'

'Demons kill with sorcery,' said Anji.

'If that's true, then I fail to see how a sword can parry sorcery. Can you go in the adjoining chamber and wait, Hari? And close the door. I need to — make myself presentable.'

He chuckled, stepped into the chamber behind, completely vulnerable to the swords of the Qin, and slid the door shut.

Mai walked to the table, snapped spark to flint, and lit the lamp.

Anji lowered his sword. 'Mai, he's a demon. He's not your uncle.'

'Maybe he isn't my uncle. It's possible. But here in the Hundred, they count demons as a civilized race, like the other children of the Four Mothers. So even demons must be treated with the hospitality due to guests.'

'He came here to kill me. He says so honestly enough.'

'Did it never occur to you, Anji, that we might make an attempt to change his mind? No, of course it did not. You are a soldier. But I am a merchant. We can't fight sorcery with swords. Did you see that light in his hand? That light did not burn from oil. Here, take Atani.'

She offered him the child. He kept his sword in his right hand but settled the infant in his left arm. The baby was awake, perfectly calm, and as soon as he was in Anji's arms, his dark gaze fixed on his father's face. Anji smiled down at the baby as Mai tugged her robe tightly closed, tied it with a sash, and tugged on a

jacket over it as a second layer. She grabbed a pair of hairsticks off the side table and twisted her hair up behind her, pinioning it in place. Then she stepped behind Anji and bound his hair up in something resembling the topknot he normally wore.

'You look well enough for a man awakened in the middle of the night,' she said as she measured him. 'What of me?'

He sighed.

'What does that mean?'

'The question need not be asked. I don't like this situation.'

She picked up the lamp, opened the door, and went into the other chamber. Hari stood in the middle of the chamber, not looking at Sengel or Toughid, who stood ready to strike. The far door slid open and Chief Tuvi entered, marking Hari without looking him in the face. He got out of the way to allow Priya to enter bearing a tray with three cups and a ceramic pot. The slave's gaze flashed toward the cloaked man. She faltered for a breath, then with an effort continued to the table and set down the tray.

Mai settled on a pillow and placed the lit lamp on the table. 'Uncle Hari, if you'll sit, I'll serve you tea in the proper fashion. Anji?'

Anji handed the baby to Priya, then sat next to Mai, his sword still in his hand. The three soldiers kept their silent study. No one looked directly at Hari except Anji and Mai, and even she found it difficult to meet his gaze because such startling and uncomfortable memories churned into life when she did so, things she did not want to share with anyone: Uncle Girish's constant pinching and the way he had leered at her until Father Mei had beaten him so badly that he had finally left alone the children of the house; the vomit and diarrhea that had poured out of her in the first leg of her journey away from Kartu with the Qin, when she had thought she would die of sickness; the desert stars, so bold and bright they seemed close enough to touch, like hope; Anji's kisses; Miravia's whispered confidences and warm embrace; the dusty market lane in Astafero with its women working so very hard to make a new life for themselves out of the unexpected fortune tossed their way by the Qin outlanders; Tuvi's flush as Avisha rejected him; the tingling charge that had permeated the air during Atani's birth, blue threads like living silk clinging to her and then to the baby as if through touch they sought to communicate, or to infest his flesh-

'Mai.' Anji touched her arm, a jolt like fire.

Hari touched his fingers to his eyes. The light that had shone

from his hand had vanished. Looking like a perfectly normal person, he sank down cross-legged onto a pillow opposite Mai, the table a polished surface between them.

'Let me pour the tea,' she said, out of breath.

In Kartu Town you poured tea one way for visitors — their tea must be poured and served first, each cup separately according to importance — and another for family. She set out the cups and poured all first, then considered her dilemma. Anji was her husband, yet Hari was her uncle.

She picked up a cup with each hand and set them before the two men at the same time, then raised the third one for herself and spoke the conventional words: 'The gods give us tea for our health, we drink with their blessings.'

She sipped first, to show she trusted the brew. Anji watched her, then picked up his cup with his free hand and waited, pointedly, for Hari to pick up the cup that sat before him. Both men drank. Mai poured a second cup.

'Uncle Hari, please do not let me sit here wondering. How did you reach the Hundred? Why are you still here? And why have you come, as you say, to kill my husband, when truly you would be better off to stand beside us, not against us? Those who are kin should not battle each other. We should be allies.'

Hari kept his gaze fixed on his cup, but his words were directed at her. 'You are changed, Mai. Yet it seems you are very much the same. How can that be?'

'Perhaps you would like something to eat? Our cook makes very good sweet rice cakes. There are some left over from yesterday, are there not, Priya?'

'Yes, Mistress,' she said in a barely audible mumble. 'I'll go right away, Mistress.'

The door slid open and then closed.

'The baby has escaped,' said Hari. 'Not that I would have harmed an infant.'

'Plenty of babies died when Lord Radas's army invaded Olo'osson last year,' retorted Mai. 'Or were orphaned, which amounts to the same thing, for if they do not then die, they will likely be sold into slavery if there are no kinfolk to take them in, or if their kinfolk have not the means to support extra mouths. That is why we must stand with our kinfolk.'

The lamp's light glowed on the surface of the table. It was odd how the light was absorbed into the fabric of his cloak, whose

color Mai could not define. She thought there was something more there, threads that reminded her of the twisting blue filaments in the valley, but then she would blink and see nothing but a silken cloth saturated with the sinking dusky purple of twilight.

'I am not what you think I am, Mai.'

'Maybe not, but that does not make you any less my beloved Uncle Hari. For you can't deny you are him, can you?'

'I can't deny it. I am him, and I am not him. He is dead. What I am is a shell. A ghost. Perhaps I am a demon.' He raised his eyes to challenge Anji's stare.

Anji, who could look right at him and not flinch.

'Even ghosts and demons have kin,' said Mai briskly. 'Would you like more tea?'

When he did not reply, she poured again and signaled to Tuvi. 'More tea, Chief, if you will. Perhaps Sengel and Toughid can fetch it.'

The chief looked startled. He flashed a look at Anji, who considered the walk with an expression that meant thoughts were boiling in his head that he wanted to sort into tidy ranks. He signaled with a hand, and Tuvi gestured, and all three soldiers left the chamber. Mai felt their presence on the other side, but here in the antechamber, she and Anji and Hari now sat alone.

'Why do you take such a risk, Mai, when I have already confessed that I come here to kill the man who sits beside you?' asked Hari.

'You have already said the soldiers cannot kill you. So their presence does not advance our situation, nor does it protect us. I saw what happened when the ghost girl invaded my house. How did you come to the Hundred, Hari?'

His frown was like a scar. She was not sure he would speak. When he did, words poured from his lips in a rush. 'You watched me being marched away by the Qin as a slave. You. The entire Mei clan. Every person who lived in Kartu Town. Later, I was sold to be a mercenary. The Qin make soldiers of slaves. Or maybe that was the Mariha princes. I'm not quite sure who sold those of us who survived the desert crossing. My new master took a chancy hire out of greed, and we were marched north over frightful high mountains as escort to a trading caravan. I talked the master into it, if you must know, stupid as I was. The caravan master's tale of injustice caught my attention, or maybe it was only his beautiful daughter. But once we reached the Hundred, we were ambushed.

We fought a stupid battle, in the cursed blowing rain, I might add. The girl died defending herself with a paltry knife while I was busy slipping like a clumsy calf, and afterward I got a sword thrust up under the ribs. It's a tiresomely unheroic story.'

'Maybe you only think it must be, because you are angry at yourself for surviving when she died.'

'If you call this survival.'

'If it is not survival, then what is it, Uncle?'

His hand gripped the cup. 'They call it "awakening." The blow should have killed me, yet later I woke, weak but recovering. Wearing this cloak. Surrounded by creatures who laughed at my misery. Anyway, ghosts are like mist, aren't they?' He looked at Anji.

'Ghosts can't be touched,' agreed Anji. 'Nor can they drink tea. That I have ever seen.'

'So after all, it seems I'm not dead.' He gulped down the tea and set the cup down hard. 'Lord Radas is not even your worst enemy. The cloak of Night is far more dangerous to you. She seeks any who are gods-touched — that is, those who can see ghosts, who are veiled to the sight of Guardians — and she kills them. She and Lord Radas know you are one of them, Captain, because you foolishly revealed it to that pervert Bevard. You are dangerous to us, because we cannot control you. Therefore, you must be eliminated.'

Anji made no show of reacting; even Mai could not guess what was going on in his mind. In the harsh silence, she reached across the table and touched her uncle's hand, a fleeting brush. When no snap of power pricked her, she wrapped her fingers around his wrist and held on.

'Uncle Hari, you don't have to go back to them. I know a place you can go, where they won't find you.'

'There is no place-'

'You have heard no voice but your own voice, and their voices, for so long you can't hear any other words. Stop listening to them! You weren't the one who scraped the dirt before Grandmother Mei and my father. You were the one who talked back. So why crawl now?'

'You cannot understand how-'

'Is pain all they can inflict on you?'

'Isn't pain enough?'

'Bad enough, of course. But I don't think that's what you fear the most.'

'What do you think I fear the most, Mai?' He turned the cup over, a single drop pooling on the surface of the table, and then he lifted one edge of the cup and placed it over that smear of liquid, trapping it.

T think you fear yourself. You have disappointed yourself, and now you are afraid to be anything except a disappointment. It's true, you might try to break away from them and fail. That would be bitter, indeed. But you might break away, and succeed. You might have to make a new place for yourself. You might have to walk into an unknown country without knowing what will happen when you get there.'

He scrambled to his feet, and Anji shifted to get his legs under him, but Mai grabbed Anji's wrist and squeezed until he stilled. Hari had only begun to pace, his cloak belling and sagging with the measure of his turns.

'Even if you think you know,' she went on, 'even if you think everything is determined, that the Gandi-li boy will become your husband because it has been talked of for two years and the contract is next to sealed, you can never know. Even if you think it's likely you will lose a battle to a numerically superior enemy, you can never know. Even if you think your dearest friend will be forced to marry a cruel old man who will abuse her, you can never know.'

'Even if you think your wife will naturally obey what she knows to be your wishes,' said Anji in a soft voice, 'you can never know.'

Hari's steps ceased. That smothered sound might have been a chuckle. He stood with his back to them. Lamplight rippled in the threads of his cloak like a living creature caught in the weave. 'And in this secret place you recommend, what would I be? A creature living in solitude? A prisoner? A crippled man trapped in the corner of a house until he fades into blessed oblivion?'

'I'll come visit you,' said Mai, 'but you must wait and be patient, for it's possible I won't be able to visit often. It's a beautiful place. You'll find the waterfall and cave of particular interest.'

'Why not? What can they do to me they haven't already done?' He raised one arm, elbow rising sideways as though he was wiping away tears. 'You haven't changed, Mai. I suppose you still sneak peaches out of the basket and hand them to orphaned beggar children and pathetic slaves, and then overcharge the spiteful who have riches to make up the difference.'

'How did you know-!'

'She overcharged me,' said Anji. 'Looked me in the face and named double the asking price. I respected a woman bold enough to cheat a Qin officer. That's why I married her.'

'It's not cheating,' said Mai, 'to name a price. I'd be a poor merchant had I not tried to increase my profit. You could have bargained.'

'I did,' said Anji more quietly still. He was not smiling.

The words stung in a way she did not expect, and as she looked down at her hands, one lying flat on the table and the other curled around her cup, she had to blink back tears.

Anji kept speaking. 'Where the River Olossi meets the Olo'o Sea, there's a low island where eagles and sea birds perch. I'll send a message to Argent Hall to have Reeve Miyara meet you there, this coming evening, just before sunset. I'll send her with a wolf banner, so you know she came from me. Do not go directly to Argent Hall and display yourself. The fewer people who know where you are, the less likely you are to be found by those hunting you.'

Hari walked to the door. 'It's true enough I must hide. I'll find this islet, and wait there until a reeve named Miyara arrives to guide me to a valley where I can shelter without fear of being discovered by Lord Radas or by Night.'

'What you tell us about their plans could help us defeat them,' added Anji.

'I'll talk to none but Mai, and certainly not to the hated Qin. That's the price of my cooperation.'

He slid the door open and walked out past the Qin soldiers; they looked away as he strode past them. Even the Qin must fear a creature who could reach into your heart and steal your secrets.

'Anji,' she began.

He shook his head. They waited as the Qin soldiers followed Hari.

At length, Chief Tuvi returned. 'I'm not sure how he came in without anyone seeing him, Captain, but he's gone now. He mounted a winged horse and flew out over the wall. Shall I set a doubled guard?'

'Do it, but I think it unlikely he'll return unless he has allies waiting to attack us, which I doubt. Surely he could have killed me, if he'd meant to, and yet he stayed his hand. Meanwhile, alert the reeve on duty to send a message to Argent Hall. Reeve Miyara must come at once.'

Tuvi left.

Anji crossed back to the table. 'It's too dangerous for you to see him again.'

'What's to stop him coming back here to see me, for one thing? And for another, Uncle Hari trusts me. If I reject him, he will despair, and despair will lead him back to them. Isn't despair one of the things that turns people into demons?'

'If they were people before. Usually demons are demons.'

'Hari wasn't born a demon.'

'He might have been born with a human face and body, and no one to know better or ever suspect.'

'I might be a demon, then!'

He studied her as the flame hissed, its light spilling over the polished surface of the lacquered table. 'You just might be.' Then he kissed her, and she was suddenly so weary that she sagged against him, letting his embrace support her. 'If he was born as human as you or I but has become a demon, it must be because corruption has eaten his heart. So you must be doubly cautious, Mai. I suppose I'll let you visit him, as it seems I must if we are to get any information out of him. That's information we desperately need. We can take Miravia with us. She may have some special sorcery to challenge his-'

'Miravia!' She pushed out of his arms and stared at him, but he was not a man who teased for the pleasure of seeing you squirm. 'She can't stay in the temple.'

'Ah. I went to the Ri Amarah last night.'

'When you were still angry with me.'

He smiled crookedly. His dimple flashed. 'I went to offer them a larger share of the oil of naya we put on the market.'

'Anji! The oil of naya is the foundation of our wealth. If we unconditionally offer the Ri Amarah a larger share of what we put on the market, then we're cutting into our own profit-'

'I was still angry with you. Hear me out. I never got that far. The entire household was in an uproar. The Hieros had sent word that Miravia had entered the temple. Master Isar told me the entire tale. He had no idea you were involved in any way with her escape. Or that I might already know where she was.'

'Tuvi said they'd hired an agent. A man was watching our gates. If he saw her, or me-'

'The agent will no longer trouble us.'

'But-'

'He'll tell the Ri Amarah nothing.'

Something about his clipped tone made her shy away from further comment. 'Yet so many people saw you, and me, at the docks in Dast Olo-'

Anji shook his head curtly. 'It's unlikely anyone in Olossi will pass on stories from the street to the Ri Amarah. Or that Master Isar would believe such gossip if he heard it.'

'Every merchant listens to the word on the street.'

'Certainly. But they have no proof to connect your visit to the temple with Miravia's flight there. Without such proof, I am too valuable an ally for them to cast aside on hearsay. What matters to us is that they now consider Miravia to be dead.'

'Dead! Poor Miravia.' She blinked, but no tears flowed. 'Yet that means she is free.'

'Orphans who have no protection and nowhere to shelter are not "free." They are vulnerable and inclined to end up dead. However, we can adopt Miravia. It would be valuable to us to have such a person in our household who may interpret Ri Amarah customs and their secret language. The source of their wealth. Their sorcery, if they possess sorcery.'

'Don't you trust the Ri Amarah?'

'As much as I trust anyone. Also, you'll be leaving Olossi for a month or more. You and Atani will ride with me on a circuit of the training camps and militia forts in Olo'osson. You'll talk to the local councils and merchants while I'm about militia business. Miravia will be company for you on the road.'

'When will we see Uncle Hari?'

'We'll come to Astafero as part of the circuit. That will be time enough for him to make a decision about where he intends to stand. I have it all worked out, Mai. It will do very well.'