Traitors Gate

24

'Commander. Incoming with passengers.'

Joss stepped away from the stewards — one from Clan Hall and one from Copper Hall — who had almost come to blows over what should have been a cursed simple inventory of the harness rooms at Horn Hall.

'Kesta.' He beckoned her into the dimly lit chamber, which like the marshal's cote got its best light before noon. 'I'll let you help Tesya and Likard sort this out.'

'Sort what out?' she asked suspiciously, examining their disgruntled faces.

'I didn't-' objected Tesya.

'She said-!' barked Likard.

'You have my full trust,' said Joss as he hurried out. Kesta hissed a few choice words in the direction of his back. As he slipped out under the arched entrance hewn into the stone, he

waggled a hand in an insulting gesture, but she had already turned away to scold the hapless stewards.

'Here we are, in the abandoned shell of a reeve hall whose eagles and reeves were massacred, and all you two can do is argue over tack?-

'If they were massacred,' objected Tesya. 'The commander heard the news from some gods-rotted ghost-'

'Neh,' objected Likard, 'that lad Badinen saw it all!'

Tesya snorted. 'You can understand that fish boy? Anyway, my people need that tack. We lost everything-'

As Joss fled down the corridor, Kesta's voice rang. 'Sit down and shut up!'

He would soothe ruffled feathers later. As a tactic it worked well to allow his most trusted reeves and fawkners to crack down on the ones who complained and bickered, while he could glide in later to coax the difficult temperaments back into good humor, but he was pretty sure it wasn't good strategy over the long haul.

Hirelings swept the eating hall, which was lit through shafts. He crossed the vast entry hall, flooded with brightness from a big hole gaping above. Hirelings hauled sacks of rice over their shoulders toward the kitchens. Three off-duty Clan Hall reeves were laughing with two Copper Hall reeves over a jest. Young Badinen watched their interaction with the expression of a neglected puppy hoping for attention. He'd been a pet of the Horn Hall reeves, Joss had worked out, but to the Clan and Copper Hall reeves he was just a novice no one had time to train. Something would have to be done about that.

Joss emerged through a high cave mouth onto an oval ledge as long and wide as Clan Hall's parade ground. All along the cliff wall were dotted perches and shallow eyries. He crossed the ledge to the rock wall that rimmed it. Squinting into the setting sun, he watched four eagles descend. Two landed on the parade ground at the top of the ridge, out of sight, while the other two thumped down not so far from him. Their passengers and reeves unhooked, and Captain Anji and Tohon joined him at the wall..

'I've come, as you requested,' said Anji, gesturing toward the magnificent peak of holy Mount Aua some fifteen mey distant. 'That's an impressive view.'

Tohon peered over the wall, a significant drop of at least a hundred baton lengths to a slope slippery with scree that marked the base of the cliff. 'Hu! That's a long way down!'

'There's no way up here except on the wing,' said Joss. 'This ridge is the final outthrust of the Ossu Hills. It's all ravines and folds behind us. And we've got a permanent water source. And gardens atop the ridge.'

'Easy to defend,' remarked Anji, 'and yet, according to the report your people brought me, these reeves are all dead.'

'It seems they were specifically lured to an isolated peninsula in the far north called the Eagle's Claws. There, their eagles were poisoned, and the reeves died.'

'Your source of information?'

'The surviving reeve's account strikes me as having the color of truth. He seems too unsophisticated to come up with such an elaborate tale and stick to it, and you can be sure I've run him over that ground many times. But this news didn't come from his lips alone. I heard it first from a Guardian.'

'From a Guardian!' The captain crossed his arms over his chest.

'She brought news of region we call Herelia. There's a town called Wedrewe recently built to house an administrative center, where new cohorts are being trained. There, the masters of the army condemn prisoners and make an accounting of what they've won. It's walled, but not heavily fortified beyond the presence of so many troops.'

'It's a place that might be attacked. Go on.'

'Lord Radas may have as many as fifteen cohorts. And more recruits are being gathered, or forced into the ranks.' Joss swiped a hand over his hair, recently shorn, its bristles like a warning prickle against his palm. He blew breath out between dry lips, and chose careful words, because he could not keep what Marit had told him to himself. 'Captain Anji, I must speak to you in complete privacy, you and I alone, where none can possibly overhear us.'

No flicker of surprise creased Anji's expression as Tohon tugged on an ear and, casually, as if he had seen something that interested him, moved about ten paces away along the wall. 'This matter you and I must discuss in complete isolation. At a time no one suspects we are doing anything other than scouting.'

'You already know?' cried Joss, the words so loud that half the people on the ledge turned to stare.

Anji laughed as if Joss had made a joke. 'Who could fail to know that half the women in Olossi have come to the door of my compound asking if you will ever return to Argent Hall? At least I

may now tell them that you bide a little closer here at Horn Hall than when you made your nest in distant Toskala.'

A flush burned all the way to Joss's ears. On the ledge, folk laughed.

'That must be Mount Aua,' Anji went on as cool as you please, signaling to Tohon. 'It's magnificent.'

'Yes,' stammered Joss. Had Anji come to know the terrible secret Marit had told him? She'd mentioned that she had allies. Or was it something else he meant to speak of? Yet it was easy to fall into the astonishing view of a gorgeous land and find his feet. 'This time of year no clouds veil its peak. The Aua Gap is the wide saddle of land that lies between the mountain and us. West' — he nodded to the left — 'lies Olossi, south the golden Lend, and east' — to the right — 'lies the road down onto the river plain, toward Toskala and Nessumara.'

'There's the town of Horn.' Tohon, returning in time to catch Joss's comments, indicated white-washed walls as tiny as a child's toy landscape and almost cut from their sight by the last spur of the Ossu Range.

Anji tracked the vista with his gaze. 'Three roads meet here, under our eye: West Track from Olo'osson; East Track from distant Mar; and the Flats, out of Istria and Haldia, in the direction of Toskala. If I were a man wanting to stage my forces to move against Lord Radas, I'd start in Horn.'

'My thinking as well,' said Joss, following his lead, 'which is why I asked you to come. However, the town of Horn has rejected my — ah — best attempts at persuading them that it's in their best interest to ally with us.'

Anji considered the onion walls of the ancient town. 'Send in my wife.'

Joss laughed. 'Truly, what man could resist her?'

Anji looked sharply at him, then walked along the length of the wall toward the steep stairway cut into the outer face of the escarpment that led from the ridgetop down to the ledge. Four figures were descending: Anji's two personal guardsmen, who attended him everywhere, and the two reeves who had ferried them here. Joss recognized one as young Siras, long limbs taut with excitement as he stared around.

'I was laughing because it's a clever plan,' said Joss to Tohon, stung by Anji's seeming rebuke. 'A man can't help admiring what is beautiful!'

'The captain frets over his wife but doesn't like folk to know he does.' Tohon was leaning at his ease, elbows on the wall, as he surveyed the view. 'He's not a man who likes his weaknesses known to others.'

'Is she his weakness?'

'Maybe so, but he calls her his knife.'

'His knife? That's a strange thing to call her.'

'Not among the Qin. A man can be waylaid by demons wearing many guises. Lust for flesh or for gold, lack of discipline, disloyalty, reckless ambition, unchecked anger. A good woman is a man's knife. She protects him against demons. Don't you have the same saying here?'

Joss scratched behind an ear. 'Well, truly, we don't. Maybe Mai can cut a path into the trust and hearts of the council of Horn.'

'If anyone can, it would be her. A grand vista, if I must say so.' He marked the eagles soaring on watch high above. 'How's the lad doing, Commander? Is he a good reeve?'

Joss thought first of Badinen, floundering apart from his stormy northern seas and complaining of the heat. Then he realized that Tohon could not have met the young fisherman. 'Do you mean Pil?'

Tohon nodded, shading his eyes to search the heavens for more eagles.

'He's a cursed solid young man. He's a good reeve, still inexperienced but he's really taken to his eagle and of course as you know he's a excellent soldier in ways we reeves haven't ever trained to be.'

'Do the others — ah — accept him?'

'Because he's an outlander? So they do, but that's in large part because that foul-tempered Nallo has taken him under her wing.'

'A woman?' Tohon rarely looked startled. His eyebrows raised, and his lips parted. 'Are they lovers?'

Til and Nallo? I shouldn't think so. From what I've observed and heard in passing, neither are fashioned that way. It wouldn't matter anyway. It doesn't among the reeves.'

'It's as well the eagle took him, if you understand me, Commander.'

'I don't.' Anji had met Sengel and Toughid at the base of the stairs and the three Qin stood where the wall met the towering cliff, gesturing at the spectacular vista as they conferred.

Tohon cleared his throat and tugged at an ear. 'It's just that this fashioning you speak of, it doesn't happen among the Qin.'

'Surely it's simply part of the nature of some folk.'

'Not among the Qin. Maybe that's why the eagle took him.'

'Ah,' murmured Joss, tumbling at last: Doesn't happen meant Better to say it doesn't happen than to admit it does. 'You out-landers have curious ways. For myself, I'm cursed glad to have a steady young reeve like Pil. We need him.'

'He's a good lad,' said Tohon. 'Doesn't talk too much, which wears easily on his companions. Just like Shai.' The shift of subject was so swift it reminded Joss of Scar altering his glide high in the heavens. Tohon's brows furrowed. 'It would ease a man's mind to hear something, if there was word.'

The glimmer of vulnerability took Joss by surprise. 'Zubaidit I saw in Toskala, as you know. The Guardian I spoke to told me she'd freed an outlander prisoner in Wedrewe, but where he is now or if he got out of Herelia I couldn't say. It might have been Shai.'

Tohon's smile was brief. 'My thanks.' He turned as Anji and his two guardsmen walked up with several curious reeves and fawkners trailing at a polite distance.

'With your permission, Commander Joss,' said Anji, scrupulously formal and his voice pitched to be heard without him seeming to shout. 'After we've looked around here, I have in mind — if you'll do the honors — to scout Lord Radas's army. I'd like to see for myself what we're up against. Talk to those folk who have a stake in the matter. Fly into Nessumara, if it's safe to do so. Scout Toskala and High Haldia. How much support can we get from the occupied population? If they truly chafe, they may be ready to bite back. What's needed is a coordinated plan with enough flexibility to adapt to changing local circumstances, a powerful lot of persuasion, and a cursed good chain of communication.'

'My reeves can easily communicate over distance. Also, as you and I discussed before, we're trying out some new formations — strike forces, if you will.'

Anji nodded. 'They can plant soldiers and scouts behind enemy lines. Move diversionary troops, aid flank movements, and disrupt lines of supply. As archers, they could penetrate almost any fortification.'

Joss grimaced. 'You've thought this through beyond what I have. It goes against tradition for reeves to be used as soldiers.'

'We can sit and wait, or we can act.'

'Are you truly ready to lead an army against Lord Radas?'

'I have a son. I intend to see him grow to manhood.' Anji indicated the grasslands to the south. 'That's the kind of country the Qin inhabit. Yet when I went to the boundary of the Lend to bargain for horses, I was told humans were not allowed to walk in the grass.'

'We can't break the boundaries. The Lend is forbidden to us. So is the great forest we call the Wild, in whose heart no human may walk. And the inner mountain fastnesses held by the delvings and protected by traps and magic. All the tales say humans once lived in those places. Now they no longer do.'

'Things can be taken from us while we're not paying attention.' Anji's smile bit like a sword cut. He gestured toward the high carved entrance into the caverns of Horn Hall. 'Shall we go in?'

The eagles had cleared out, flying to perches where they could sun and preen. As Joss walked with Anji and his men across the ledge, Siras signaled with a flip of the hand.

'Go on in, Captain,' Joss said. 'I'll follow in a moment.'

Anji looked at Joss, followed an unseen thread to Siras, smiled slightly, and nodded. With his men, he strolled into the first cavern, the soldiers staring around' like curious children.

Joss hung back in the sun-swept plaza as Siras hurried over. 'Greetings of the dusk, Siras. How is your eagle? Your training?'

The young man grinned. He didn't even need to say anything. But when his gaze shifted to the cave mouth and the huge vault within, his mouth turned down. 'It's like this, Commander. Verena is marshal of Argent Hall — of course you know that.'

The sun's glare was, at long last, triggering an ache in Joss's temples. Or maybe it was only the secret Marit had told him eating away at his heart. He nodded.

Siras went on. 'She sent word to Arda at Naya Hall that the Qin have asked for reeves to be assigned as messengers and transport for the captain's use.'

'Verena and I discussed it,' agreed Joss, rubbing his brows.

'It seems because I served as your assistant for that time in Argent Hall, that the captain decided I was trustworthy. So he came to me five days ago-'

'Anji came to you?'

'He came to Naya Hall and asked me to fly him to Merciful Valley-'

'Merciful Valley?'

'That's what they're calling that valley up in the mountains where the captain's child was born. Mistress Mai placed an altar at the birthing place to her god, and no one could say her nay.'

'No, I don't suppose they could. The Spires are the borderlands of the Hundred. I don't see why our gods would be jealous of an altar in such an isolated place. Go on.'

'Afterward the captain said he'd like to keep the place off limits to reeves for the time being, until some holy thanksgiving boundary has passed. He's been going up once a month on Wakened Ox with his wife to make a thanksgiving offering. They take up a small chest, the kind you'd store expensive spices in or rich folk their jeweled combs and gold necklaces. Three months running. But this time the captain asked me to transport him up there alone.'

'Alone?'

'That was the first puzzling thing, because you know he never travels anywhere, without those two guards. He took up that same chest, only this'time it was bound with an iron chain. He said he needed to make a father's private offering at the cave where his son was born.'

'Go on.'

'So I flew him there. At his request I left him and came back the next day to fetch him. He was wearing a different tunic and trousers. I only noticed because the ones he'd worn the day before were threadbare and patched, and these were newly sewn.'

'It's possible he changed clothes to make his offering. Like we do for festival days. Is there anything else?'

'He didn't bring the chest back with him.'

'Maybe it was part of the offering.'

'What do you suppose the Qin use for offerings? I asked around. Reeves who were up in Merciful Valley before with the mistress said she takes flowers as offerings, just as folk should.'

Joss thought of what Tohon had told him about the Qin habit of ridding themselves of imperfect children. Killing them. His cursed head was beginning to throb. 'Any news of the child?'

'Atani?' His smile was innocent enough to charm a cadre of susceptible young women. 'The market women in Astafero talk about him all the time. The mistress, she comes out to the big house in Astafero each month right around Wakened Ox and stays for a few days to confer with that Silver woman who runs her household there. If the Qin officers aren't carrying that child

around as gentle as you please despite their grim faces and cold swords, then the house women haul him everywhere. How the market women do fuss over that baby!' His own expression was wistful, as if he missed a younger sibling from home.

'Odd news, indeed. My thanks for bringing it to me, Siras.'

'Is there some trouble, Commander?'

'No. Why shouldn't a man make a private offering to thank the gods for the safe birth of a healthy child? If you see or hear aught else, bring it to me. I'm not just speaking of the Qin soldiers, mind you, but in a general sense. Olossi's council. What the market women are saying. Gossip among the militiamen. Rumblings among the hirelings. Whispers at the temple of the Merciless One.'

The young man's eyes widened as he absorbed his new assignment. 'Yes, Commander!' He grinned and hustled away, no doubt enamored of the idea of playing spy for the reeve halls.

What on earth did Joss think Siras might overhear, as guileless as the lad was? He walked into the shadowed cavern, his headache easing as soon as he was free of the sun's grasp. Yet the commander of the reeve halls was involved in a far greater enterprise than just simple patrol. The magnitude of what he'd taken on yawned before him like the gulf of air beyond a cliff face that drops away to jagged rock far below. Aui!

'Commander?' Captain Anji and his men were waiting.

Joss smiled crookedly and walked over to them.

Anji tapped Joss's forearm in a rare display of fellowship. 'Why wait, Commander? Send a message to my wife now. Let her be brought at once by reeve to meet with Horn's council. If we move quickly, our enemy will be less likely to guess at our plans and prepare to fight us.'

'You would risk her walking into a hostile city?'

Anji gestured to the emptied cavern, the shadowed ceiling, the dusty corridors. 'If even the inhabitants of this unassailable hall could be killed — by treachery — then there will be no safe place in the Hundred until we make it one.'

Joss grasped the captain's wrist, feeling the strength of Anji's arm beneath his hand. 'Of course you are right. It begins here.'

The gates of Horn were huge, the height of six men or more. They were closed tight shut. Militiamen leaned over the parapets, arrows nocked. Mai had practiced speeches and phrases so many times that it was not in fact difficult to address Horn's closed

gates. She had only to pitch her voice to be heard without sounding as if she were shouting.

'We are.come as representatives of Olossi's council to meet with Horn's council in a place of your choosing, here at the gate or within your council hall. I am called Mai. Master Calon and I are merchants. This hierophant, Jodoni, comes at the behest of the temple council of Olo'osson. Please hear our words. We are come today to ask you to join with us in an alliance against the army who call themselves the Star of Life. They have overrun most of the lands along the River Istrt. We beat back a second army at Olossi, as you may have heard, but you can be sure that if Nessumara falls, Horn will be next and after Horn, Olossi. Each city and town — every reeve hall — will fall as long as each attempts to stand separately. The only way to defeat this army and these demons posing as Guardians is to join together.'

'Practiced words from a pretty girl,' called a woman in a deep, powerful voice. Mai scanned the parapet but did not see her. 'Are you one of Hasibal's pilgrims? We've learned that an actress, one of Hasibal's pilgrims, crept into our city in disguise months ago and spied on us. Why should we trust you?'

'Olossi did send scouts into the north. They had to discover if Horn supported the Star of Life army.'

'We did not then nor did we ever!'

'Can you defeat the northern army if it marches against you in full force, fully fifteen cohorts?'

'Fifteen cohorts!'

A murmur of shocked voices drifted down from the wall. Wheels scraped, and the right-hand gate huffed open just far enough for a woman and a man to emerge. Both were dressed in formal council robes with sashes; the woman held the baton of a council 'voice.'

'I am Poro,' said the woman, displaying the lacquered stick, 'who speaks for the council. Seyon is the arkhon of Horn.'

'We don't have arkhons in Olo'osson,' said Master Calon, 'but I understand an arkhon is leader of the council.'

Seyon nodded but seemed uninclined to speak. He was short and slight and held about him a sense of chained energy.

The woman's emotions were all too evident, boiling right on the surface. 'Fifteen cohorts?' She examined Mai as if Mai were a bolt of silk labeled as best quality but merely being everyday quality. 'How can you know?'

'Reeves are excellent scouts.'

'Reeves are not meant to spy for councils. They are meant to preside over assizes courts, to track down criminals, to maintain a proper distance from councils who might otherwise influence their judgments.'

'What are they to do if the northern army overruns every city and town? If it burns the reeve halls? Then who will preside over the assizes? Not reeves. Not elected councils. Let me speak to your council and I will tell you what I know and what Olo'osson's council means to offer.'

'It's said Olossi is raising an army, commanded by an out-lander.'

'Olo'osson has already been attacked by the northerners. We intend to protect ourselves, just as you do.'

'Why not send this captain to negotiate with us, then?'

'Would you admit into your well-guarded city an armed man who is also an outlander?'

Poro laughed. 'A not unreasonable point.'

Seyon looked her up and down in a measuring way. 'An armed man appears as a threat. So instead they send a beautiful young woman who spins words like golden thread. Who is more threatening, I ask you?' His smile took the sting out of the words; she knew she already had charmed him because she could see in his expression the look men got before they paid full price in the market even knowing they ought to bargain.

She met his gaze with a frankness that pleased him, seen in the crinkling of his eyes. 'You have discovered our plot, ver. Forgive us the deception. But if we do not fight together, I assure you we cannot individually defeat fifteen cohorts and the lilu calling themselves Guardians who command them. If you cannot trust my report, we can send one of your trusted militia captains or council members north with a reeve to see for yourselves.'

'Why should we trust any reeves when Horn Hall abandoned us last year? Their own marshal came to the council and advised us to surrender to the northerners rather than fight a losing battle. Then they left. That's why we locked ourselves away, not knowing who to trust.'

'The reeves of Horn Hall were slaughtered, in the far north, at a place called the Eagle's Claws.'

'The Eagle's Claws!' Poro bent to whisper in Seyon's ear, and he shook his head, a dour look darkening his face like a cloud

over the sun. 'It's spoken of in the tales. It's said that on some days in the season of Shiver Sky, the rain turns white. Does such a place truly exist?'

'One reeve survived the slaughter, and he can testify to the truth of what happened. I've more besides to tell you.'

Seyon's long black hair was pulled back in a trifold braid. He fingered a braid in a thoughtful motion. 'I say we let her speak.'

Poro's face bore the irritable expression of a woman who hasn't been brought her expected cup of tea in the morning. 'Whose idea was it to send you, verea?'

'The outlander captain of Olo'osson's militia.'

'Perhaps he's wise enough to win a war that is clearly un-winnable. Enter, verea. The council will hear you.'

Mai gestured toward her escort of soldiers, one of whom was Anji wearing an ordinary soldier's helmet.

'Let them wait here,' added Poro. 'To show you trust us.'

Calon wheezed out a breath, his face sheened with sweat. Jodoni said nothing. Mai smiled, even if it got a little hard to swallow. 'Let the trust we offer you be the trust you offer us, verea.'

'So be it. Come.'

Anji gave no order to stop her, nor did she look back.

The city of Horn was built against a spur of the Ossu Range. It had evidently begun as a citadel higher up and spread downward in walled layers, so the city descended in levels, each one separated from the next by gates. In midmorning, few folk walked the streets, but the hammer and beat of their labors rang everywhere as the party toiled upward on a wide stone staircase cut directly up the slope toward towers rising at the highest point. A few kites circled above Sorrowing Tower. Here in the Hundred they did not bury their dead but left their corpses out in the open air until their flesh was devoured by beasts great and tiny. It seemed barbaric to her, a last insult.

She had to set aside her revulsion. This was their land, and if she wanted to make it hers, she must accept what she could and ignore the rest.

Seyon walked nimbly despite his seeming frailty. He chatted flirtatiously about silk and, once she mentioned her own dealings in oils, about the many varieties of oils used for cooking, cosmetics, light, perfume, healing, leatherwork, and wrestling.

'Naya oil of course is most difficult to come by, and thereby

very expensive,' he added. 'Yet it's well known it can heal certain skin conditions. We heard a story that the army that attacked Olossi was driven off by pots of naya thrown on them and set alight. That they burned to death.'

She stumbled on the next step, clipping the stone rim, and he caught her under an elbow and kept his hand there as she kept climbing, angry at her lapse. 'The militia and the reeves working in concert used naya to break the enemy,' she said.

'I'd like a supply of naya, to be held in reserve to defend our walls.'

She carefully let her arm slip out of his grasp. 'I believe, ver, that you are opening negotiations. Should that not wait until I stand before the entire council?'

He laughed, paused in his climbing although he was not at all out of breath, not as she was. A tree cast a modicum of shade on the sun-drenched steps. He plucked out of its dusty leaves a lush sunfruit.

'The last of the year,' he said, presenting the yellow globe to Mai with a flourish.

Poro laughed. 'Ever the flatterer,' she said.

Master Calon raised an eyebrow. Jodoni shifted his writing box to the other arm and said, in his scrape of a voice, 'Is it much further?'

Was Seyon only humoring her? Yet she had risen to face challenges more daunting than talking sense into the intransigent and fearful council of Horn. She only hoped they were not secretly in league with Lord Radas.

She tested the weight of the sunfruit in her hand. 'Let us share both the sweet and the bitter, ver.'

As the others laughed, she peeled the fruit and handed out its slices, which they ate as they climbed the last and steepest stairs, licking the juice from their fingers.

The council hall sat between Watch Tower and Assizes Tower. The squat stone Sorrowing Tower stood isolated up a lone path through a field of uncleared boulders, on a spur of ridge behind. A message pole stood on open space sufficient for a pair of eagles to land, but no red eagle banners were folded at its base; it looked abandoned. Overhead, about ten eagles seemed to hang in the air, and although she shaded her eyes and squinted, she could not make out if any were carrying passengers, soldiers primed to drop in fast if there was trouble.

The council hall had a tile roof and many pillars to carry the load, but no walls. From any spot within the spacious covered area, the view was so tremendous that Mai stared. She saw the distant peak of Mount Aua and the rolling gap of land between which flattened into the golden Lend to the southwest and fell away in hazy hill country to the east, dropping down toward the Istrian plain. Any movement on the roads that met below the city's gates was visible from the height. The inhabitants of Horn had closed their gates and watched the army out of the north march past, heading to Olossi. They'd done nothing.

How often did folk do nothing because they believed no action of theirs could deflect the inevitable? Had she not done so herself in Kartu Town? All her life she had grown up as the favored daughter of the Mei clan. She might observe untouched while others toiled and suffered; not that she had not worked hard, but even when her father had agreed to the Qin captain's marriage offer — one he naturally could not have refused in any case — she had been fortunate in the husband who had chosen her. Yet she had learned on their long journey and in the Hundred that she had the means and opportunity to aid those who stood 'outside the gate.' She could have done nothing. Instead, she had acted.

'Verea?'

She faced an assembly of forty-eight men and women, all considerably older than herself.

'The view is magnificent,' she said with a smile that caused half of them to smile and the others to snort or frown with the impatience of people who, like certain customers in the market, have already decided before negotiating begins that you are out to cheat them. 'Horn is well situated.'

Half nodded, as if they were determined to be pleased by every word she spoke. The others sighed, tapped toes on the stone paving, nudged their companions; one old woman even rolled her eyes.

Mai gestured to Jodoni, and he opened his writing box. It was a capacious box, because clerks of Sapanasu carried all the tools of their trade with them. Instead of a brush or inkpot, he handed her a slender stick.

She stepped forward and offered the humble stick to the eye-rolling woman, who accepted it with an expression of skeptical bemusement. 'If you will, verea, could you snap that stick in half?'

The old woman had a bit of Grandmother Mei's look to her, a complainer, but she also had a much cannier gaze. Grandmother Mei had never looked past her own desires, as if always gazing into her mirror rather than at the world beyond. With a grimace of satisfaction, she popped the stick in half.

Mai extended a hand, and Jodoni handed her a bundle of slender sticks tied together. Many chuckled as Mai raised the bundle.

'Can you break this so easily? It is only made up of flimsy sticks, just like that one.'

'You've made your point,' said the old woman, brandishing the two halves of the stick she had broken. 'But haven't we already lost this war?'

Mai looked at each of them, forcing them to meet her gaze so they had to acknowledge her. 'No. We haven't already lost. Listen! My nose is itching. Many whispers have tickled my ears. This is my tale.'

They listened as she spoke, at length, describing what might be done: her speech contrived between her and Anji and Commander Joss spun a thread meant to convince without betraying too much of their purpose, in case traitors walked within Horn's council.

Afterward they questioned her at length, some hot, some cool, most doubtful, others with the troubled look of people who nourish hope but fear they are naive for doing so. Calon and Jodoni gave answers when needed; they too had rehearsed their arguments and together agreed on a plan of attack.

'Why does Olossi only approach us now?' Seyon asked. 'When we have all lost so much already? Why not before?'

'I myself and a consortium of merchants from Olossi attempted to send a party to Horn last year,' said Calon, 'but the roads weren't safe, as you must yourselves recall. The party was killed by bandits.'

'Why now?' Mai continued. 'Because now Olossi has acted to safeguard Olo'osson. But Olo'osson cannot stand alone. Only now are we strong enough to reach out for allies. It cannot have escaped any of you, sitting here on this hill with Aua Gap spread before you, that Horn provides an obvious assembly point for forces seeking to attack our enemy.'

'Difficult to know if we can trust an outlander,' said the eye-rolling old woman. 'Yet it says in the tale that "an outlander will save them."'

The wind had picked up, a stiff blow rumbling over the high ridge and streaming across this height like a reminder of life's ceaseless disturbances.

'None of us can know what the future holds,' said Mai. 'All we can do is decide what actions we will take. Will we do nothing as the Star of Life attacks Nessumara and spreads yet farther, stage by stage? Or will we do something?' She bent her head in a gesture meant to fall halfway between respect and dismissal. 'We'll leave you to discuss it among yourselves. Is there a place we might rest while you confer?'

That startled them!

'Of course! But if we have other questions-'

'If you have other questions,' she said in her kindest voice, 'I think you might consider running up the message banner. Then you can question those who would actually prosecute the war: the reeve commander and Olo'osson's captain.'

They responded by coming to their feet in surprise and confusion. But Seyon called a hireling to escort her and her companions to a garden attached to the assizes hall built up against Assizes Tower. On the stony ground no vegetation grew except that planted in pots and troughs: miniature fruit trees barren at this season; a hedge of thorny heal-all dusted with purple blooms; ranks of bushy green growth waiting for the rains to flower again. Mai sank down on a stone bench, wiping her forehead as Calon sat beside her.

'Are you well, verea? You're pale and shaking.'

Jodoni was speaking with the hireling, then walked over. 'I've asked them to bring kama juice, verea.'

She smiled weakly, feeling her energy ebb as if it had all been sucked out in a swollen rush. Her breasts felt heavy and were beginning to ache. It was well past time to feed Atani, and meanwhile the baby was safely ensconced with his aunt Miyara and Priya as nursemaid atop Horn Hall.

'Was it wise for you to dismiss them quite so abruptly?' Jodoni added.

'It makes them anxious, Holy One. Then they feel there is a sudden need to make a decision.'

'Eiya! We'll discover soon enough.'

Two women tattooed with debt marks carried in trays with a jar of kama juice, bitter this late in the season, and a platter of rice cakes and flat bread, nothing fancy but filling to one who was

hungry. Mai was always hungry, although she carefully did not eat more than her fair share.

Master Calon wanted to rehash the meeting, going over every least question and gesture to squeeze from these hints any sense of the council's inclinations, but Mai pleaded weariness. Sipping the last juice from her cup, she wandered the angles of the garden's paths, her sandals crunching on stony earth, and found a secluded haven. The hedge screened off a smaller garden rimmed by a low rock wall that overlooked a ravine with scrub brush. Falls of rock made the steep slopes impassable. A trickle of water, not even enough to make spray, spilled from the height down into the cut. The sparse growth reminded her of Dezara Mountain behind Kartu Town, washing her with nostalgia not for home precisely but for the landscape that once was the only one she knew.

She knelt before the wide stone wall and loosened her taloos enough to ease the pressure in her breasts by milking a bit into the cup. She straightened her clothing with a quick look around. Raptors still spiraled far overhead. From this vantage, she could see only a sliver of the city, roofs and alleys pairing light and dark. She set the full cup on the flat stone and settled back onto her heels, pressing her hands to her chest as she prayed.

T offer this nourishment at the feet of the Merciful One. Through the merit of offering may I walk the path of awakening. The body withers and disintegrates; what power we have now may be shorn from us tomorrow. Receive this offering with compassion. May the world prosper, and justice be served. Peace.'

A whisper teased like wind through the tightly knit leaves of the hedge. Startled, she turned, hands touching her taloos, but it was safely pulled tight. Several women dressed humbly — hirelings and debt slaves — had gathered at the gap in the hedge. How long they had been watching Mai could not guess, but she composed her expression carefully as she rose.

'Forgive me if I was not meant to wander into this place, but it felt so peaceful.'

There were at least eight women, ranging from a pair of girls younger than she was to an old woman supporting herself with a cane.

The old woman came forward. 'Were you praying, verea?'

'I was.'

'We never heard such prayers before, but we could understand most of them. Was that the Merciless One you were praying to? Were you a hierodule?'

She flushed. 'I'm not that, nor was I praying to the Merciless One. I pray to the Merciful One, who gives us sanctuary.'

'Is that an outlander god?' asked one of the girls.

'The Merciful One rests in all places. Anywhere folk suffer trouble or despair, or wish to celebrate joy and prosperity, they can seek refuge and peace with the Merciful One.'

'They're saying you people come from Olo'osson to offer aid and protection.'

'That's right.' This was easier territory to negotiate. She smiled, and several smiled back at her. The younger girl skipped forward to touch her taloos, fingering the silk until the old woman rapped the girl's forearm with the tip of her cane.

'Don't be rude!'

'No matter,' said Mai. 'No harm in her being curious.'

'It's very fine silk, verea,' said the girl, who had a fresh tattoo at her left eye and an ugly rash like an infection spreading down from the mark, inflaming her face. She was newly sold into debt slavery, no doubt, but she had also the pinched cheeks and fragile wrists of a child who has never had enough to eat.

'So it is. It comes from the Sirniakan Empire.'

'All the best silk comes from there,' agreed her interlocutors. 'But we've seen none here for years. The roads haven't been safe. Trade has died. Folk are hungry.'

'If the Hundred joins in an alliance against this cruel army out of the north, then we can open the roads. Trade will flow. Merchants will haggle, and markets will spill over with wares from every town in the Hundred and even farther away, from the lands beyond. Folk won't have to sell themselves or their children into debt slavery-'

She stopped before she began prating on about there being food for everyone. Weren't there always children who were starving and folk passed for sale from one hand to the next?

The younger girl crept forward again, not without a furtive look toward the older woman and her cane. She extended a hand — clean enough — then withdrew, and Mai laughed and beckoned her closer to let her touch the best-quality cornflower-blue silk with its cunning embroideries worked in the same color thread into the fabric.

'Are you the outlander who has come to save us, verea?' asked the girl, eyes wide.

'Mai!'

The women melted back to make a path for Anji to stride into the garden. His gaze made quick work of its narrow confines, pinning each point where an assassin might hide and determining that they were not, at the moment, at risk.

'I didn't see you come in-!'

'The council raised the message flag,' he said. 'It seems you impressed them favorably enough that they agreed to meet with me and Commander Joss.' His expression was so flat she understood he was very very pleased, and she could not restrain a smile of triumph, not for herself precisely, but for their cause. Or perhaps it was just for her personal victory, winning them over. She hardly knew.

'Calon and Jodoni lost track of you,' he added with a frown as he studied her.

'I came here to pray. Then I was talking to these women.'

He measured the company, acknowledging the older women with nods and ignoring the young ones, and indicated that Mai should accompany him. 'We'll go back.'

'Do you plan to fight them what have driven so many refugees out of Haldia and Istria, with such horrible tales they have to tell?' asked the old woman while the younger girls hid their eyes and one of the women with a fresh tattoo wept silently as at remembered pain.

'I plan to fight,' said Anji.

His words made Mai's chest tight with despair, and fear, and pride. She followed him out and the others trailed after them, all but the youngest girl. Only when they entered the council square where Joss was already speaking passionately to the gathered council members and more folk besides coming up from the city to hear did she remember she had forgotten the cup.