Traitors Gate

PART SIX
Choices
26

Nekkar woke before dawn and stretched to discover that, as always, Vassa had left his pallet without waking him. She returned to her clan's compound to take care of their needs first, as she must, but her presence lingered. As always, he smiled because their love was, even after all these years, a wellspring of unexpected joy.

Often enough, it was also his only smile of the day.

His stomach growled as he stowed the pallet and blanket in the cupboard. He dressed quickly, careful not to strain threadbare cloth. He kneeled on the pillow in front of his ostiary's desk, bent his head, and in the silence that held Toskala before first bell rang across the city, he prayed to Ilu the Herald, asking for strength to get through just this one day. As long as he had enough strength for this day, he could keep going.

And he had to keep going. So many people depended on him.

Two envoys, Seyra and Doni, waited for him on the porch. How they used to tease Doni for his plumpness! Now the young man's cheeks were hollow and his loose tunic and trousers accentuated how thin he'd gotten.

Seyra looked as frail as a wisp of straw. 'Holy One. The night passed peacefully.'

He nodded. 'Thanks be to blessed Ilu for watching over us. Any disturbances?'

'Not that we heard or saw, Holy One.'

The best he could now say of a new day was that no catastrophe had troubled the night. Two eagles spiraled aloft, so although many reeves and passengers had flown off Law Rock some days ago in a mass exodus, not all had abandoned them. That was something.

At the trough, an elderly envoy winched up a bucket of water from the well and poured it into the stone basin. The splash hit loudly in the hazy half-light. They washed, murmuring the cleansing prayer as the retiring night watch and the dawn-rising envoys joined them. Afterward, they walked as a group past rows of struggling vegetables being grown in the courtyard.

On the porch of the sanctuary they slipped out of their sandals.

They sang the dawn prayers quietly so as not to waken the novices in the barracks next door. It was better to let the young ones sleep through the morning prayers than wake too early into the claws of hunger.

As his hands folded to close the last prayer, he bent his head to inhale a final breath of fragile peace. The matted floor cushioned his knees. His right shoulder ached. His left ankle twinged. His stomach gurgled. He raised his eyes to the dais, trying to quiet his mind. On the altar, in a latticed iron frame, sat a large nodule of polished turquoise veined with a spider's web pattern like a fireling's lost thread. Ilu's Eye was always watchful. He was surprised the occupiers had not stolen the precious stone along with everything else, but some at least still feared to rob the gods' altars.

That would come next. It was only a matter of time. With each step they took down the path of corruption, the next became easier.

The Star of Life army had occupied Toskala for almost six months.

With a sigh, he stood. He walked among the envoys and servants, commending them on their night's watch or reminding himself of their day's coming activities. The men must eat a scant bowl of porridge before they went out of the compound to work on building projects for the occupiers. Three times, now, young envoys had not returned, having been killed or imprisoned for what reason he could not fathom; he told them to keep their heads down and their mouths shut. Yet occupiers need have no reason as long as they held the sword and you held nothing. The males must go out so the females could remain inside or else risk multiple indignities. Therefore, the women gardened in the courtyard for such sparse gleanings as they could coax from its reluctant dirt, including the terig leaf they sold to the soldiers for a few paltry vey. All other work within the compound they accomplished as well, shut away within the walls. They raked the dirt into complex patterns, just to lend variety to their day. It was a cruel life to be so confined. Not one complained. No one within the temple had starved yet.

'Holy One, before you go out, please eat.' Doni and Seyra waited with a steaming bowl of nai porridge.

They would plague him until he ate, or threaten him by refusing to eat until he did. So he ate. The nai was bland but filling; his

mouth hungered for it, but his heart rebelled because so many in the city had no nai porridge to ease their belly's ache.

Trying to hide their relieved smiles, they hurried away with the empty bowl.

'Make sure you rest!' he called after them. 'Tired eyes cannot see and tired ears cannot hear!'

The nai sat well in his belly. His legs felt stronger. It was time to go-

He tied an empty bag to his belt for the rations chits he would be issued and clasped his blue ostiary's cloak around his neck. Finally, he drank deeply of cool water from the ladle hanging at the well. At the gate, the men were lined up to leave. Today's gatekeepers — two tough young female envoys armed with staves and knives — shifted the bars. As the men passed, Nekkar touched each on the forehead with a blessing for safe return. When all had passed through, he nodded at the young women. Their expressions were as tight as drums, and they were weary.

'You're the last of the night watch?' he asked them.

'Yes, Holy One. There come our relief now.'

He heard footsteps behind him. 'Kellas did not return last night?'

'Neh, Holy One. Did you expect him so soon?'

'Neh, of course not.' He couldn't expect Kellas back for two days at least. 'I forgot. I shouldn't have mentioned it.'

They wanted to ask where Kellas had gone but knew better than to inquire. Soldiers might come pounding on the gate with any purpose at all in mind, and the cloaks — should you be so unfortunate as to be forced to stand before one — could eat out your heart.

'Walk safely with the Herald, Holy One,' they murmured.

Herald's staff in hand, he passed under the triple-linteled gate marking Ilu's holy precincts. At this time of day, men like his envoys and novices hurried in small groups to their assigned labor gangs, but otherwise the streets were empty. He checked the closed gates of the compounds. No white ribbons hung from any gate posts this morning, to mark a death inside. That was something.

At each gate he rang the bell and waited for a voice to query. 'What news, Holy One?'

'The reeves still fly. Law Rock is still ours. What news inside?'

They might say, 'All are alive, by the gods' mercy,' or

'Grandfather is refusing to eat so the young ones can have his portion,' or 'My cousin never came back from that gang they sent to fell trees, is there news, Holy One?'

Then he would go on.

Today's guards in Lele Square were too busy sucking on the harsh smoke of rolled-up terig leaf to acknowledge him, but they followed his progress with suspicious gazes as he circled the square to check the ribbons hung on gates. On the Red Clover merchant house hung a pair of ribbons, orange twined with white to mark a sickness, maybe a lung fever or a belly cramping; a single white ribbon marked a death in the adjoining compound, a clan of basket weavers. Otherwise, Lele Square had weathered another night.

An old woman draped in the undyed linen robe worn by Atiratu's mendicants limped along the eastern shadows of the square, leaning heavily on a stick.

One of the soldiers broke off from his companions and headed for her, skirting the public well. 'Heya, old woman.'

She halted to look, absorbing the insult.

'I have an itch on my cock. What do you have to cure it? Cursed girls must be wiping something on me, eh?'

Her gaze took in Nekkar's approach but she turned to answer the impatient soldier. 'Truly, my nephew, if your tool is itching, then you must wash it every day with soap and a tincture of cloud-white oil, and you must not let it enter any woman or man's passage for one full turning of the moon. If it still itches afterward, wait another month.'

'The hells! One full month! It doesn't itch that badly!'

'If you do nothing to rest it now it will turn red and develop sores, and then grow green with the Witherer's fungus. After that, I can't help you.'

He yelped. For one sharp intake of breath, Nekkar thought the man meant to hit an elder, but he pushed brusquely past Nekkar and strode back to his fellows, who were laughing as the man's face darkened with embarrassment.

'Is that true?' Nekkar asked softly, careful not to look after the retreating soldier.

'Greetings of the day, Holy One,' she said.

'Greetings of the day, Holy One. There's a sickness in the Red Clover compound.'

'So have I come. There's a flux over in the masons' court alleys.

Four children and one old uncle are dead. I fear their well has become fouled.' She had a dagger's gaze, her mouth growing thin in an expression more like a stab than a smile. 'As for the other, yes, it is true, except for the Witherer's fungus. The itching won't kill him, but if I can scare him into keeping his wick dry for one month, that's one less man sticking it where it isn't wanted, isn't it? I heard there's baskets for sale in Bell Quarter. Need you some?'

This news was unexpected, come sooner than he'd hoped. Kellas had been smuggled across the city in hopes of getting him up to Law Rock via the same route the southern spy Zubaidit had taken months ago, in a basket up a hidden cliff. Despite the strict curfew and restricted movement between quarters, Toskala's priests and clans and guilds had woven a network of communication across the city, although they dared not risk it often.

'No, not today, but I hope to buy a basket on the first day of Wolf Month, eh? What of you, Geerto?' He ostentatiously rubbed his right shoulder, as though he were asking her for advice.

She grasped his arm. 'You've heard the rumor that the great flight of eagles some days ago, all double-laden, means that Clan Hall has abandoned Justice Square and Law Rock.'

'That's why we sent Kellas, to find out-'

'Ah, of course.' She made him raise his right hand high while she kept a hand cupped over his shoulder. 'Anyway, yesterday the sergeant at Stone Quarter's gate told me the reeves had gone for good and that I could now go out to the brickyards.'

'Eiya!' He dropped his hand. He had never stopped thinking of those three small children lost after Toskala's fall. No matter how often he asked, he was never allowed to go outside the city.

'I laid out five dead ones and sang the prayers of departing over their corpses.'

He forced out the words, although they emerged with a vile taste. 'Is it true they're burning the dead?'

She made a gesture to avert malign spirits. 'There are fires, it is true, but I have not seen corpses placed on fire with my own eyes. If it is done, it is being done at night.'

'What of the living?'

'Those able to work I am not allowed to speak to. The weak, ill, and dying are dragged out of the way. Not even under shelter, mind you. Left out in the sun.' She swallowed several times, squeezed shut her eyes, and at length found enough breath to go

on. 'I got some honey water down the throats of three dying ones, enough to make their passage a little sweeter. I bound scrapes and cuts, and fed a strengthening tea to seventeen other children, although what good will come of that? All I have done is allow the poor things to be released to toil again.'

'Better than dying.'

'Is it?'

He bent his head, the sun already hot on his neck. They were entering the season of Furnace Sky, when the heat would become brutal and the suffering more intense.

'Yes, it is,' he said at last. 'We resist by living.'

She touched his hand. 'Thank you, Holy One. I had forgotten.'

Her fatigue was evident in her drooping shoulders and in the creased lines alongside her mouth. 'Never think you have forgotten, because every day you walk out to treat those who are ill is a day you have remembered.'

'Heya!' shouted the soldiers. 'You old folk! Get on, or go home.'

They parted, she to her tasks and he to his. First, he made his way toward the market, pausing by Astarda's Arch. When the streets in either direction lay empty, he slipped into the old nook where, according to temple history, there had once stood an age-blackened statue of Kotaru the Thunderer. Five months ago he had arranged for a new statue to be placed there, crudely carved but with a compartment cunningly concealed in the Thunderer's right palm in the hinge where the god grasped his lightning's spear. He twisted open the compartment and fished out three rations chits, each one with three marks burned into the wood as a message: Nine provision wagons had entered Stone Quarter at dusk last night. There was something else rolling at the base of the hole: three glass beads and a single copper vey. The vey was new; he had no idea how to interpret it.

He held still in the nook as men passed, none glancing his way, then slipped out and fell into step behind them. The market, too, had changed in the last six months. The lack of chatter and laughter always struck him first, and after that the absence of the much-loved smells of oily slip-fry stands and steaming noodle water. The only foodstuffs for sale were dry goods and garden produce being sold out of four permanent stalls guarded by soldiers and presided over by well-fed men who spoke too boisterously.

The other merchants seated cross-legged on blankets or on

stools under canvas awnings were older folk, mostly men but also some elderly aunties and grandmothers. They offered goods for sale, but few were buying. He paced down the lane of ornament sellers, who had combs and ribbons and such luxuries that no one could afford any longer, until he marked a shallow basket heaped with glass beads like those he held cupped in a hand. The woman was, like him, of middle age, with her hair bound in cloth. She had a scar on one cheek and her left arm in a sling.

'I'm selling beads, not buying them, — Holy One,' she said in a pleasant voice.

He pressed the copper vey down beside the three beads.

She bent forward as if to examine the vey. 'Last week,' she murmured, 'a work gang from Stone Quarter was sent out to fell trees. Now we hear the entire gang was pressed onto a barge and sent downriver to Nessumara.'

'Who did you hear this from?'

'One lad jumped into the river and pretended to drown, but he was a strong swimmer. He's in hiding. Clerks made a list of every man in that gang, so if they find him, they'll cleanse him.'

He rose. 'Neh, verea, I can't afford that today. My apologies.'

She lifted a hand in the merchant's gesture of acquiesence. 'Tomorrow, then,' she said in the typical way of the marketplace. 'Go well with the Herald, Holy One.'

There were lines at the four stalls selling rice and nai, and as Nekkar approached the nearest one he watched as an old man made his slow retreat with a covered basket so small it was difficult to believe he was buying for anyone other than himself.

'Ver, if you please, a word,' said Nekkar to the old fellow, but when the man looked at him with a frightened expression, Nekkar waved him on.

Instead, he walked to the head of the line where a woman with her head and torso swathed in a shawl was trying to bargain with the bored merchant.

'Ver, maybe if you would take this bolt of wedding silk in trade-'

'For a tey of rice?'

'One tey?' Her shock registered in her drawn and weary face.

Nekkar stepped up beside her as the silent folk waiting in the lines pretended not to watch. 'A fine piece of wedding silk, verea.' He smiled at the merchant. 'A tey of rice, ver. That would feed me today. This bolt of silk is worth twenty leya, surely.'

'It's worth what I'll pay for it,' retorted the merchant, adding, after a pause, 'Holy One. Rice and nai are expensive. Those who can't afford to buy must wait for their rations chit like everyone else.'

'You have a good supply of provisions today, ver.' Nekkar indicated the sacks of rice and nai piled on wooden pallets. 'Where are you purchasing?'

'Same as always. What's it to you?'

'Some have plenty, while others starve. If you bring those sacks as an offering down to the temple, I'll make sure to distribute them among the compounds.'

'Tss! You'll just sell it yourself and pocket the profit.'

But he faltered as Nekkar caught his gaze and stared him down.

'Think you so, ver? If you think so, say it louder to all these folk waiting here so I can be sure I'm being accused in public, and not in whispers.'

But the man could not speak such a lie out loud. Maybe it was Nekkar's steady gaze, or the simmering anger of people forced to buy at outrageous prices; maybe it was the restless presence of soldiers loaned him by the sergeant in charge, big burly lads recruited from out of town.

'Give the woman twenty tey of rice for the silk, ver, and I'll go on.'

'You'll go on,' said the merchant, rising belligerently, 'because otherwise I'll have these fellows escort you to the well and toss you in.'

The murmur that spilled outward from this threat flowed quickly through the crowd, but quieted when the soldiers spun their staffs, looking for a bit of excitement.

'The gods judge, ver,' replied Nekkar. 'If you cheat others to enrich yourself, then you are already dead.'

Yet words did not feed starving people. He walked with a heavy heart down Lumber Avenue to the rations warehouse on Terta Square, for his morning cup of tea with the sergeant in charge of Stone Quarter. This ritual took place on the porch, in full sight of the square. Laborers were adding on to the barracks yet again, hammering on the roof and sawing planks. A pair of older men hoisted buckets from the public well, while several anxious lads brought ladles of water around for the thirsty workers. In another time — how long ago it seemed now! — the well would have been surrounded by chatting women, and handsome

girls would have commanded the ladles with a smile and a tart word, but they were all gone now, hiding in their compounds.

A young woman wrapped tightly in a best-quality silk taloos brought cups of steaming tea to the sergeant, who slapped her on her well-rounded bottom. Three other young women peeped at him from inside the sergeant's quarters. One he knew by sight, a girl from the masons' courts who had been forced weeping into the sergeant's rooms.

'We had some trouble over in the masons' courts last night, uncle,' said the sergeant, smiling. The day looked good to him, and in truth he was easier to deal with than the last sergeant had been. For one thing, he pretended to a modicum of respect for Nekkar's authority. 'Three young criminals throwing rocks at the patrol. If not reined in, these hotheads will disturb every peaceful night with their violence.'

'Where are they now?' Nekkar had learned to keep his tone even so no feeling spilled.

'The one that fought had to be put down, like a frothing dog. The other two are in the pen out back. Maybe you can talk some sense into them before they're cleansed.'

'Perhaps they might be whipped and given a sentence of labor in the brickyards. Lads will lose their temper.'

'One of my men got a big cut on the head and a concussion from getting grazed by a brick. If I let that go, more will come out. They brought it on themselves.'

The cup trembled in Nekkar's hands. The pretty girl in the expensive silk was clutching one of the porch pillars so hard her hand had whitened at the knuckles, but she had such a bland smile on her face that she looked stupid. He'd not seen her before, nor had she the familiar features of any of the local Stone Quarter families. 'I'll speak to them, Sergeant. What of the rations chits for today?'

'We've got nothing for you today.'

'Folk who don't eat, can't work.'

'Folk who don't work, can't eat. No wagons came in yesterday, so there's nothing to distribute.'

This blatant lie Nekkar let pass, even as he thought of the sacks of rice and nai in the market being offered at prices no one could afford. 'Perhaps men might be allowed to work in groups in the fields, to prepare the ground for the rains. Each clan can grow rice for its own needs.'

'Neh, I doubt Captain Parron will agree. He's got laborers on the fields already.'

'Yet we are always short of food, Sergeant.'

'There have been enough incidents outside the walls — fights, runaways, all manner of trouble — that the captain will not allow it, and you know he's in charge, not me.'

'If folk are not allowed to plant fields, then what will there be to eat a year from now?'

The sergeant shrugged. 'I'll be transferred on by then.' He beckoned to the lass and, when she hurried over, pinched her behind and afterward handed her the cup. 'Take this inside.'

She hurried inside, not looking back.

'I haven't seen her before,' said Nekkar cautiously.

'Good breasts and ass, but a bit of a stammering lackwit. Look how she forgot to take your cup. She's a village girl from up-country Captain Parron was keeping, but he got in new girls last night and passed this one on to me. Tasty enough, eh?'

Nekkar thought of Seyra, of all the young female novices and envoys under his protection. He might have raged or wept but instead sipped at the dregs of his tea, the leavings like ashes in his mouth.

'I can't keep four women. I've had that girl Fala the longest. She's from around here, isn't she? I'll send her on to the barracks.'

If the sergeant heard Fala's gasp from the shadows, he did not show it by expression or comment.

Nekkar felt his face burn with anger and fear, but he kept his voice calm. 'Fala is from the masons' court. I'd wager you could make those mason clans whose lads are giving you trouble a bargain. Let the girl go back home, and they'll rope in those stone throwers. Keep things quiet there.'

The sergeant scratched the stubble on his head. Like most of the army, he kept his hair trimmed short against lice. 'I'll think on it, but there's been some complaints at the barracks for want of recreation, so I need to shift new hierodules in there.'

For all that Nekkar bound his tongue every gods-rotted day, that he paced out the pattern of his days with deliberate speed so as not to attract unwanted attention, this was too cursed much. 'Hierodules! Hierodules serve the Merciless One of their own will! They are not forced onto men's pallets!'

Anger creased the sergeant's mouth, and he drew the whip he carried from the belt and smacked it so hard against the nearest

pillar that Nekkar flinched. Then the man laughed, and he whistled three short notes, and the girl Fala came hurrying out like a dog called to heel. She crouched, head lowered, shoulders trembling.

'Yes, Master,' she said, the words so soft Nekkar barely heard them. That the sergeant made her address him as slave to master only made it worse.

'You've a hankering to be a hierodule, don't you, lass?' said the sergeant with a grin, gaze flashing to Nekkar.

Hers flashed to the ostiary as well, her eyes black with desperation.

'Look at me!' He pressed the whip against her cheek.

She raised her chin, tears winding down her dark cheeks. 'Yes, ver. I apprenticed to the Witherer, but I always wanted to be a hierodule.'

'Well, then, take your things and get over there, report to the barracks.'

She tried to rise, but her legs would not lift her.

Nekkar rose, cup clenched in his right hand. 'Truly, Sergeant, let the girl go home. She's done enough, surely, served you for three months by my reckoning.'

The sergeant drew his whip along Fala's neck. She was a pretty girl, alas for her in these times; her clan always made the proper offerings; she'd been betrothed to a young man from Flag Quarter, but Nekkar did not know if he still lived.

'Surely I can do that,' said the sergeant with a smile lingering on his arrogant face, 'but I need another girl in the barracks lest my soldiers grow restless. So if you'll send along one of those young novices you keep gated up in the temple, that lass — or lad — can take the place of this one. As soon as you send her, Fala can go home.'

For the space of a breath, for the space of a bell, a day, a year, Nekkar lost sight and hearing, every sensation except the stink of failure and the rotting sweetness of a pain he could not describe or touch but could only taste like vomit on his tongue.

The sergeant laughed heartily, and Nekkar had to squeeze his walking staff with both hands to stop himself from slamming its haft into the man's face. His weak ankle shifted, and he tottered sideways. The poor girl had to steady him.

'Forgive me, Holy One,' she whispered as he swayed.

For what she thought she was apologizing he could not

fathom. As if his distress was her fault! What manner of holy one was he? She had endured for months while he had kept his novices and envoys protected behind the temple walls. And yet how could he throw any one of them to the beasts to be ripped and rended?

'The gods are cursed useless now, aren't they, Holy One?' sneered the sergeant.

Was it true? Had the gods abandoned them? Was this a test?

Neh. It was not true. The people of Toskala were not trapped by the gods' indifference but by human action.

'You speak lightly, Sergeant, because it is not a woman of your clan who will be abused every night by multiple men, none of whom will come to her with the respect and awe due to an acolyte of the Devourer. When Ushara's temples closed their gates to your soldiers, you knew then that the gods did not approve of what you did.'

'And what happened to Ushara's temples, eh? We broke down the gates and took what we wanted. They should not have refused us.'

'What you do is wrong. You know it, and I know it. You present me now with a terrible choice not because you want me to make a choice but because you want me to suffer for having to make the choice. Therefore, it is no choice you offer me. It is not my responsibility, but yours.'

The sergeant's expression had grown tight in a way Nekkar knew presaged danger, but he could not stop speaking. 'Please allow Fala to return to her clan. If the provision wagons have come in, let rations chits be distributed. I ask you, by the agreement made when the army first occupied the city, to remember that the people of Toskala must eat in order to work. Please allow me to take chits representing a fair portion of rice and nai, and I will distribute them to the clans and compounds in Stone Quarter as I've been doing for almost six months now.'

'Get out, before I whip you,' growled the sergeant. 'Fala, get your things and go to the barracks. Neh, leave the silks. You'll not need them there. If you're still here after I've finished my morning meal, I'll whip you.'

'Let her come with me,' said Nekkar.

The whip's snap laid open his cheek.

Fala screamed and stumbled away into the interior. The women who had been watching from within scattered like mice.

Nekkar let the blood drip as he hobbled away, his bad ankle wobbling, while the sergeant shouted angrily at his women and his slaves and his attendants. No whip, no arrow, no spear followed the ostiary to the gate that opened into the courtyard in back, but the cursing, laughing guards refused to let him in to check on the lads imprisoned in the pens.

With such dignity as he could gather, he set off on his usual resting day round, only today he had to tell each compound expecting a rations chit that today there wquld be nothing and that he did not know when the next rations chits would be available. He did not tell them that the sergeant was hoarding all the provisions and handing them out to a few select merchants to sell at inflated prices.

Folk certainly saw his bleeding cheek and marked the whip's slash, but none asked. He was glad of that, because had they asked he would have to tell them the truth: He was whipped because he could not spare a young woman from abuse, a grandfather from' starving, young men from being enslaved to the army or cleansed on the post, rice and nai from being stolen, children from dying in the brickyards.

He walked his round as always. Today, empty-handed.

He returned before the curfew to the temple, and Vassa cleaned the dried blood off the cut but did not ask him how he had come by it. He counted his people, and on this evening every single one came home, all except Kellas. He led the dusk prayers, then sat on his porch as the night bell tolled.

'What humiliations is Fala enduring?' he asked Vassa, who sat cross-legged beside him shaping a basket with her cunning hands. She needed no light to do this work, having woven all her life. If she did not keep her hands busy, she often said, she would go crazy. 'Will Grandfather's spirit pass the gate tonight? What will happen to those sent south?'

'They have come to love cruelty because it feeds them,' she said.

'Must I ask one of mine to go to the barracks and offer herself in place of Fala?'

Her handwork did not cease. 'What makes you think they will honor the bargain? They may just take the other one as well, and then two will suffer.'

'That is a story we tell ourselves. So we can sit here, and eat what we have, and listen to our young ones sleep at peace. Yet if we opened our ears, we would hear nothing but weeping.'

'True, but it doesn't change the truth of what I say,' said Vassa. 'When people see you in the street, they discover their hearts are still strong. Thus they can endure another day.'

Another day. Even another month. For how long before they succumbed to despair and obeyed while telling themselves it was for the best? Yet to voice such thoughts aloud was to start down that terrible path, so he kept silence.