Traitors Gate

32

The baby sprawled naked in his cot, netting draped over to keep off mosks and flies and gnats, to discourage scorpions and snakes. Here in the Barrens the houses had to be elevated off the ground to keep away vermin, or else, as in Kartu Town, furniture must elevate the body away from the earth where poisonous creatures scuttled.

The commander's complex of tents had likewise been built up off the ground, canvas raised over raised plank flooring. Mai knelt behind Miravia, combing out her hair, which had a tendency to snarl. They were alone except for the sleeping baby.

'It's very irritating,' said Mai, 'that we cannot sleep in the house we raised but must push Chief Berkei out of his accustomed place to accommodate us. Not that the chief complained.'

'You were invited to sleep in the house, were you not?'

'Anji was. In the suite of rooms set aside for his use just as if that woman had built and furnished the house and overseen the settlement. No doubt I was meant to sleep like a beggar on the steps.'

'She's been kind to me. Not kind, precisely, but- Ouch!'

'Don't move! There, I got the tangle out. Hard to imagine her as kind.'

'A poor choice of words. She has treated me with respect. She asked about you, but I pretended stupidity and told the other hirelings to do the same. I'm sure she did not believe us. She ordered me to take her shopping in the market and bargain for her. She seems to know no other way of talking to people except to command them. She talked a great deal about Keshad. He traveled with them all the way from the south. She seems to think he is a promising young man.'

'Do her words stand in his favor, or against him?'

Miravia raised a hand to a cheek.

'You're blushing!' said Mai with a laugh, although she could not see Miravia's face.

'I don't think she speaks well of many people,' said Miravia in a choked voice. 'Oh, Mai, do you think of Anji every waking moment? When you close your eyes, do you see his face? Imagine his voice? Wish you might taste his lips? All the while knowing you are an utter fool for being obsessed?'

'No.'

'No!' Miravia turned so quickly Mai lost hold of the comb, which remained trapped in her curls. 'No?'

'Of course I think of him often. But I have other responsibilities, obligations, duties. Atani. My business interests. The household. I can't think of Anji all the time! I think of him enough! You are infatuated with Keshad. There's nothing wrong in that unless you lash yourself off a cliff for a man you don't know.'

Miravia leaned back against her, and Mai wrapped her arms around her as Miravia spoke. 'It's true you hear tales and songs telling of a glance seen across a street or looks exchanged in a garden that seal two hearts. How the arrow of a lilu hits its mark and makes the victim miserable for the rest of her days. I saw him that day, in your courtyard, that one time. Now I can't stop thinking of him.'

'That isn't love, dearest,' said Mai, as a pressure of annoyance built in her chest. 'You can't love someone you don't know.'

'Do you love Anji?'

'Of course I love Anji.' She disentangled herself from Miravia and went back to combing her hair, because combing hair calmed her surging heart. 'But I didn't love him when he plucked me out of the marketplace.'

'You told me you did!'

'I was very frightened. So I had to believe it, didn't I? I had to sing the songs that allowed me to ride each day into unknown territory. Then, afterward, well…' Her hands ceased their stroking; she wrapped her fingers in Miravia's hair as she recalled the sweetness of Anji's lovemaking.

'You're blushing,' said Miravia with a laugh, not needing to look at her to know that heat had flooded her skin. 'Stop that! Your husband will return soon enough, a moth to your flame. Let me comb out your hair, or does he like to do that for you?'

They both began to snort and giggle, and Mai had to wipe her eyes and her running nose with a scrap of cloth. 'Oh, hush,' she said, 'we'll wake Atani.'

The curtain swayed, and a dark hand pressed it aside. Priya looked in, smiling. 'Is all well? Have you awakened the baby?'

'No, thank you, Priya. All is well. Is there any signal of Anji's return?'

'No.' She vanished behind the curtain.

'Where did he go?' asked Miravia, settling on her knees as Mai hitched up her taloos to her hips and sat cross-legged with her back to the other woman.

'I don't know. I sat through the entire afternoon at his side. He wanted me to tell the chiefs and sergeants about life in the Hundred and how I would help them find local wives and settle into local households once the war was over.'

'Is he that sure we will win?'

'That's the story he must tell himself and others, isn't it? It's the tale I tell myself. They asked about the brothel, very shyly, I must admit, for they didn't wish to trouble me with such questions, but Anji told them that they must ask me everything even though he didn't expect that question! That's how he found out that since last time we were here, a temple to the Merciless One was dedicated and raised, at the order of Astafero's council! I thought he was going to ride down and burn it to the ground at that very instant. He said before he would permit no temple of Ushara in the settlement. He's still angry about' — she faltered, because she had

never told Miravia about Anji hitting her — 'about me taking you to Ushara's temple in Olossi. But I turned his anger to my advantage, because he hadn't a word to say that he was willing to say in front of others. That allowed me to speak. I told the men about the local customs and that they must never offer coin in Ushara's garden and so on. You know all that better than I do. After all that, he calmed down, and the meeting was over at nightfall, right before you returned. Then an urgent message came from his mother.'

Miravia pulled the hairsticks and combs out of Mai's hair and let it fall. 'You shouldn't fight her.'

'I don't want a battle. But what am I to do? Accept a place as his second, inferior wife?'

'You cannot ever be that to him!'

'I am a merchant's daughter. She is an emperor's sister.' Hu! Now she was crying.

'It won't come to that. He loves you.'

'As you love Keshad, perhaps?' she asked bitterly. 'He loves my beauty, anyway. People do not marry for that kind of love. Their clans arrange a contract. Or a woman is purchased. Or two families seek an alliance. Or cousins pool their family fortune with a wedding. There are many reasons, but not that one. He would be a fool not to marry her and secure the benefits she brings to him. Anyway, if he does not marry her, his cousins will try to kill him.'

'They may try to kill him no matter what he does or says. She might try to kill him, once she's in his bed. With a dagger she's hidden in her bosom!'

Mai sobbed, and Miravia embraced her, and then they both began to laugh because laughing was better than crying.

The sixth bell tolled across the settlement to mark the final descent into night.

Miravia shrieked and scrambled to her feet. 'I have to go! I said I would meet him-!'

'No!'

'Yes!' How Miravia's face glowed at the thought of meeting a lover she ought not to have. 'I thought, if I just devour him, then I'll have done it and I can think more clearly. And he'll have slaked his thirst, and he'll leave me alone and stop pestering me!'

'You go to the temple?'

'I go every week. I don't have to obey my family's strictures any longer. Why should I deny myself?'

To know that the women and men of the Hundred worshiped at Ushara's temple was one thing. To see Miravia making ready to leave with a reckless look in her eyes left Mai stammering. 'B-But Chief Tuvi is a good man.'

'Yes, he is a good man. What has that to do with anything?'

'I am hoping — you two could marry.'

'He's as old as my father!'

'You were about to be married off to a man twice as old! That makes him half as young! He'll treat you kindly, and leave you alone to run your business affairs as I do mine. Then we'll always be together.'

'Oh, Mai.' Miravia bent to kiss her. 'You're the one who sheltered me. Without you, and all you risked for me, I would be in Nessumara now in a cage. If you don't want me to go to Ushara's temple, I won't go.'

Mai smiled ruefully as she snagged Miravia's scarf off the floor. She'd bought this scarf for Miravia months ago, admiring its beautiful color. The scarf was a gift of friendship, not an obligation to bind Miravia to Mai's wishes.

'Of course if you want to go, you must go. I will not rule you as I was ruled. Hold still.' She tied it to conceal Miravia's hair, adding a pretty knot for flair. 'Go on.'

At the curtain, Miravia grinned. 'Anyhow, Mai, who is to say I cannot meet a lover in the temple and marry a different man?' Then she was gone.

Mai stared at the curtain as it rippled and stilled. The lamps burned. The shadows lingered. Was she sad? Happy? Bewildered? Upset? She hardly knew what to think, and yet the memory of Miravia's deliriously hopeful expression made her smile.

Priya slipped into the chamber, crossed to her, touching her hand. 'Plum blossom, are you well? So Miravia has gone off to meet the Devourer, has she?'

'Should I have dissuaded her, Priya? Keshad's rather unpleasant, but she thinks him handsome.'

'I believe she acts wisely. The flame may burn hot and short, and then afterward even if there is pain at its death, it will be extinguished. Held apart, it will smolder for far longer than if it is allowed to consume the fuel of desire. Or they may find they truly care for each other.'

'Two clanless people do not marry for love, Priya.'

'What do you suppose O'eki and I did?'

When she had traveled with Anji and his soldiers across the desert and alortg the mountains and over the Kandaran Pass, almost every day had exposed a new vista whose unexpected contours surprised her, elated her, scared her, or made her look twice.

She stared at Priya, who stood exposed as a person whose depths she had never bothered to contemplate. 'I never thought about you being married. It never seemed important because-'

The woman's gaze softened. 'Because we were slaves. Yet we had no contracts, no property, no freedom to barter with, no clan to please, no family obligations because we were torn from our families. Because we were slaves. So we pleased ourselves. Your father could be a harsh master, but he was fair in his own way. He allowed us to marry, as long as we did our work and never let our association interfere with the household. He allowed O'eki to earn coin on the side with the hope of buying us free in time. Not every master in Kartu Town was as generous.'

'I'm a fool,' said Mai. 'Forgive me, Priya. I never even looked. Or thought. Or wondered.'

'You are no fool, plum blossom. You are young, and yet even so in your own way, wise enough to let Miravia go although I know you wish her to marry Chief Tuvi.'

'Do you think Tuvi wants to marry her?'

'I think he wants to please you, Mistress. Or please the captain through pleasing you. Difficult to say. Perhaps both. He's an honest man. He goes to the temple now and again to please himself-'

'Chief Tuvi goes to Ushara's temple?'

Priya chuckled. 'Does that surprise you?'

'Of course not. It's just — Aui! It's no business of mine.'

'He has enough obligations within the household that I do not suppose he feels a desperate need to take on a wife and, later, children.'

'But every man wants wives and children in order to be content!' She heard her own voice and laughed. She wiped her eyes and sighed. 'I sound like my mother and aunt and all the other wives in the Mei compound. They must say so, mustn't they?' She swallowed. 'Have you gone to Ushara's temple, Priya?'

Priya merely smiled, saying nothing, keeping her secrets.

'I'll never go,' said Mai.

'No,' agreed Priya. 'Married to the captain, as you are, you will never go.'

Hands clapped outside the entrance. O'eki stepped inside with such a look that Mai tensed. 'Mistress,' he said — and broke off.

Two burly men dressed in the southern style pushed past him, still wearing their boots. For an instant she saw one holding a long knife and the other a drawn sword; so had red hounds tried to kill her in a plain white room in the women's quarters of an unknown inn in an unnamed city in the empire.

She lunged for Atani's cot.

Priya tugged her to a halt. 'Mai! Stop!'

The haze of her vision cleared. They weren't holding weapons: one held a scroll and brush and inkpot, the other a baton carved from ebony wood and inlaid with strips of gold, a factor's staff of authority.

Sheyshi rushed in behind them, took one look at Mai's unbound hair, and hurried over to the pillows to collect combs and hairsticks. 'The mistress is not dressed to receive visitors!'

Words are no obstacle when the wind blows in. O'eki stepped to one side, holding the curtain back. Anji's mother strode into the room and halted, surveying the plain canvas walls, the scatter of pillows, the three small chests that contained Mai and Anji's traveling clothes and necessities, a tray with cups and pitcher and basin set to one side, the enamel pisspot set off to one side on the open porch, recently emptied and rinsed. She looked at O'eki, at Priya, even at Sheyshi.

Never let it be said the market had not taught Mai to think on her feet.

'Sheyshi, please offer a pillow for our guest,' she said in the same gracious voice she would use when offering a tough customer a few almonds to nibble before getting down to serious bargaining.

'I see you are not dressed to receive visitors,' said Anji's mother.

'At this time of night I am accustomed to receiving only my husband. Unfortunately he is not here to greet you.'

'I am not come to speak to my son.'

Sheyshi placed the best-quality pillow — embroidered in silver and red and gold thread with butterflies and bees — near Anji's mother.

'Am I to sit on the floor like a slave?'

'Honored Mother, it is the custom in the Hundred for all people to sit on pillows, on the floor, just as it is the custom here to do many things differently from what you and I may have been accustomed to in the places we lived before this.'

'Do not condescend to me. You, a humble merchant's daughter, cannot in any way compare your circumstances to mine. Is there no stool? No camp chair? No captain's bench?'

Maybe there had been once, but these artifacts had vanished over the last year. Mai had a chair in the compound at Olossi, but she only used it when negotiating a particularly hard bargain. Some rich people liked couches in the Sirniakan style, but Mai preferred the ease of handsome furnishings that could be moved, changed, or put away quickly and withjittle effort.

'Now that we are come to live in the Hundred, Honored Mother,' she went on stubbornly, with that same sweet voice, 'we have found it easier to adopt the local ways rather than cling to our old ones.'

'So say those who are weak-minded and lazy. Had I not clung to my Qin customs and ways in the long years I was trapped in the women's quarters of the imperial palace, I would be dead now. So would my son. A fact you should consider. I will not sit on the floor.'

'Then you must stand, Honored Mother. My apologies.'

She snorted. 'Sweetly wielded. A knife coated with honey.'

Mai let this pass. 'May I offer you refreshment, Honored Mother? Khaif or tea can be brewed. There is also kama juice.'

'What is your price?'

Mai smiled. Now they were walking on familiar ground. 'I offer you refreshment as I would offer any guest refreshment, Honored Mother. This is not the market, that such drink would come with a price.'

'Do not play this game with me. I am accustomed to female beauty. I have studied it over many years. Many beautiful girls and women inhabit the women's quarter in the imperial palace, some even more beautiful than you. But you are also intelligent, and more than that, you hold a piece of yourself aside. That is what lends savor to your beauty, although few men understand it is that quality they react to. I doubt my son understands it. He may believe it is merely your physical beauty and your intelligence he favors, but it is the particular quality of spirit which infatuates him so. He wishes to conquer all of you and knows instinctively that there remains yet a corner of your spirit which belongs to you only. How that must rankle him!'

Mai had learned to say nothing and show nothing long ago. Her market face had protected her many times. She found anger

surging in her breast, and she pushed it aside. Later she could rage. Now, she waited.

'What is your price? Your own household? Coin? Gold? Fabric? Horses? Slaves? A handsome husband to replace this one?'

'You believe I am someone else, Honored Mother. I have my own household. I am rich, through my own efforts. I run things as I wish. I am content.'

'Would you be as content if Anjihosh is murdered? They will come after him.'

'They might come after him even if he marries the emperor's sister. Have you any reason to trust they will leave him alone in exchange for a marriage?'

'The marriage will show them he means to honor the agreement to remain in exile. The Hundred means nothing to the empire. There is nothing here they could possibly want.'

'The giant eagles.'

'Ah, the giant eagles and their reeves, which I have seen. Yet they are a curiosity, poorly deployed and without purpose. In the empire, the reeves would be slaves who served the throne, sent as messengers on the emperor's behalf or to strike at his enemies. It is Anjihosh the empire cares about, not the eagles or the paltry trade goods.'

She took three steps toward Mai. Priya stepped forward as if to place her own body between the two women, but Mai put out a hand to restrain her. Anji's mother was only looking, studying Mai with a gaze not truly hostile but something Mai had no name for anc no experience with. She herself measured fabric in the market with such a gaze, trying discern which would best suit her uses and which was not worth her time or coin. But you did not measure people as you measured goods in the marketplace.

Eihi! Of course folk did.

They did it all the time.

She folded her hands in front of her and said nothing, only returned that gaze without flinching.

Anji's mother nodded, a flicker of a smile flashing. Was that a dimple, like Anji's? It was already gone.

'You are more formidable even than I had supposed. Let us speak bluntly, then. Have you a price?'

'Let us speak bluntly, then. I do not have a price.'

'Do you think it unreasonable of me to insist that my son make such an advantageous marriage?'

Obedience choked her. Duty choked her. Truth choked her. Powerful men commonly took two wives, multiple concubines. Clans made alliances for mutual benefit. In contracts, in business, love meant nothing.

'I see,' said Anji's mother. 'You understand perfectly well that it is not an unreasonable demand. But let us imagine that my son is too proud and stubborn to see you relegated to the status and rank of concubine, even if that is what you are in the eyes of any person born of noble blood and to high, rank. Such distinctions often mean a great deal to the common people. Let us say that for a merchant's daughter, status as a concubine would be seen as lowering, shameful, even dishonorable. Would you therefore object to a position as his second wife, for certainly an emperor's sister must be designated his chief wife? There is no shame or disgrace in standing as the second wife to a prince.'

Once she could have borne it in silence, let words wash over her and away. She had long ago determined to live life in her own way and on her own terms by holding a part of herself aside as a garden in which she could nurture a seedbed of personal, private happiness. In those days, she had been careful to hide her true feelings in order to never anger others, because if they were angry they might disturb the tranquil sanctuary she had so carefully constructed.

But now, it seemed, she no longer feared making other people angry. The girl she had been had passed through the Spirit Gate and become a woman whose voice she scarcely recognized as her lips opened and she spoke.

'You forget, verea, that in the Hundred Anji is not a prince. He is not an emperor's son, or an emperor's brother, or a var's nephew. Such titles mean nothing here. He is a militia captain, a man who works for coin just like everyone else. He is no greater or lesser than I am. If I walk first in his heart, why should I then agree to step back and become second?'

'To save his life. And the life of your handsome son.'

Priya gasped. O'eki gave an inarticulate exclamation.

The ground lurched beneath Mai, or perhaps that was only her hammering heart and dizzied head as she stumbled to the cot and placed her body between the baby and his grandmother.

Who smiled, not unkindly. 'Perhaps you now understand me. There is no abyss as fathomless as a mother's fear for her child. There is no beast who will fight more fiercely than a mother

defending her child. So understand me in this. Anjihosh's son is as precious to me as Anjihosh himself. I am not the one you need fear in the matter of the boy.'

'Then why do you threaten Atani?'

'I do not threaten Atanihosh. I am endeavoring to make you understand that with my aid and cooperation you can ensure the baby's survival.'

'If I relinquish my place as Anji's wife.'

'If you give way, as is proper, to a woman whose rank and birth lie far above your own. It would be best for you to leave the household entirely.'

'Taking my son with me?'

The woman had the audacity to look startled. 'Only Anjihosh and I can protect him!'

'Is this your argument? To abandon my son into the arms of a woman who speaks of his death?'

'Mistress,' said Priya warningly.

'I will never leave him with you!'

She expected anger in response, but in her fury and fear she had forgotten the way the Qin veiled their faces with a bland expression that concealed any and every emotion.

'Do not cross me, pretty girl, because you will discover I have survived far worse in the palace than you can possibly imagine. I offer you two choices: I pay you handsomely to depart, and you may walk free to establish yourself as you wish and where you wish as long as it is not beside my son. Or you accept a place in his household as second wife, accepting the primacy of the princess and my authority to rule over any disputes such as may arise within the household.'

'Mistress,' said Priya urgently.

'No,' said Mai.

Her breathing caught in her chest as she fought to expel the fury that rose like a haze. All she could feel was the pressure of the carpet's dense weave pressing up against her bare soles, and the faintly oily taste of air flavored by flames that consumed the reservoirs of lamps.

Voices rose angrily outside. The curtain was swept aside, and Anji strode into the room.

'Hu! Hot in here.'

His voice pretended at evenness, but he was furious: his boots were still on, his gloves were still on. He never came into their

intimate chamber dressed for riding; he had far better manners than that. He was tapping his riding whip against his thigh as though better that than a vicious slash across the face.

'I received a message, Honored Mother, saying you had urgent trouble that warranted my immediate attention. Yet when I went up to the house, I was told to cool my heels while you were roused. Time passed as I waited with obedient patience. At length, I realized I had been outflanked. Now I am here.'

Mai wanted desperately to call him over, to flaunt him standing beside her, supporting her, protecting the baby, but she did not move or speak. To call so obviously for his aid in front of his mother would betray weakness, and that of all things she refused to show.

'I am ready to depart,' said his mother without the slightest hint of discomfort. 'Yet if you will, might an attendant guide me to a private corner for I have some necessary business I must urgently complete before the walk back up to the house. If you will be so kind, Son.'

Besides Mai, there were only two other females in the chamber, Priya with her disapproving frown and Sheyshi in the corner.

'You,' said Anji's mother, pointing at Sheyshi.

Priya said, 'Mistress, I will go-'

'I am not useless!' cried Sheyshi indignantly. 'This way, verea.'

'To a slave such as you,' snapped Anji's mother, 'I am addressed as "Most High."'

'Sheyshi is not a slave,' said Mai.

But Sheyshi picked up a lamp and scuttled outside. Once both women were outside on the porch, Sheyshi shut the doors behind them.

Mai heard her speak in her clumsy way, 'Here is the waste bucket, Most High.'

'Not here, you stupid girl! A place with some privacy!'

Off they clattered into the depths of the inner courtyard.

'Out,' said Anji to his mother's slaves, and they retreated so quickly Mai would have laughed, if she could have laughed. Chief Tuvi came in, looking as disheveled as if he'd been sleeping. Anji marked Priya and O'eki. 'Tomorrow I depart by eagle for Olossi. The ships with the oil of naya and the new cohort of Qin soldiers will follow. As for you, plum blossom, my heart, my own, you will go to Merciful Valley. It is the only place I can know you will be safe from the dagger, or from poison. These are the preferred

methods of the women's palace in Sirniaka. It's like a sport for these women. They have nothing else to do.'

'She said that she would never harm Atani-'

'Of course my mother would never harm my son. You'll take Miravia.'

'Keshad should go with O'eki back to Olossi to see to the business.'

'That's fine. You only need your personal attendants. Chief Tuvi and your usual guards. Reeve Miyara and Siras — a few others — can fly in supplies. I'll assign a specific group, and the chief will have standing orders to kill anyone else who attempts to land. You will see no one until I have returned.'

'But, Anji-'

'I can only fight one war at a time.'

'Will you marry the emperor's sister?'

'You are my wife.'

'Are you only saying that because you're angry at your mother?'

'No.'

Chief Tuvi snorted, raising his gaze to the ceiling.

Anji shrugged. 'Perhaps.'

'Wouldn't it be prudent to seal a contract with your cousins?' Mai said. 'To marry their sister?'

'I must fight this war in the north. And since I must fight, I must know you are safe. The rest can be discussed afterward.'

Footsteps stamped outside. The distinctive sound of a slap, hand meeting cheek, cracked. One of the doors was wrenched sideways to slam against the frame. Sheyshi stood sniveling on the steps, a hand on her reddening cheek where the old bitch had struck her.

'What a stupid girl!' said Anji's mother as she swept in. 'What useless doors!' She did not look at Mai. 'You will escort me to my dwelling place, Son.'

'I will let you make your own way within the considerable security of your impressive entourage to my wife's house in which you are temporarily lodged. If you must entertain yourself, I suggest you set yourself to discovering the extent and competence of the spies set in this town by the Hieros who sits in authority over the temple of the Merciless One. Surely you can outwit an elderly priestess from a land as provincial as you must believe this place to be.'

He pushed the curtain aside with the riding whip and gestured.

Head held high, his mother departed from the chamber; he followed her out.

Mai's face was burning, as if the scorching heat of Anji's tone had scalded her as well. It was better to move than to think. 'Sheyshi, come inside. Here's some water to wash your face. Was she quite rude to you?' She wrung out a linen cloth and offered it to Sheyshi, even dabbed her cheeks as she sniffled.

'I'm sorry to cause you so much trouble, Mistress.'

'Do not cry, Sheyshi. There is kama juice in the kitchens.'

The curtain stirred. Anji had returned, this time without boots.

'Sheyshi,' said Priya. 'Let's go to the kitchens. Come along.'

The chamber cleared, leaving Mai with Anji.

He had the ability to stand still, not restless at all; his self-control was impressive and a bit disconcerting. Had he ever worshiped at Ushara's temple? Somehow she could not see him relaxing in a garden that belonged to someone else. Probably she was just being naive.

'What are yoit thinking, Mai?' he asked in a low voice. 'There is a piece of you that you always hold apart.'

She licked dry lips, thinking of his mother's words.

Sheh! She would not let that woman's poison do harm!

'Tomorrow you will ride to war because you must, and I will hide, because you say I must.'

'Mai-'

'I do not object to your concern. Atani and I will go, as you wish, to keep you easy in your heart so you can think only of the battle you must win.' She approached him, and it was odd to note how he reacted with each step bringing her closer: his breathing quickened, his body tensed, he began to cant toward her. But he let her come to him. 'Because you must win this battle. So.'

She rested her palms against his chest and gazed into his eyes, which were measuring her, as always.

'Mai-'

She touched a finger to his lips, silencing him.

He might die. So might anyone die. No one could draw breath as they woke in the morning knowing for sure they would still be alive at day's end.

You could only know you were alive now, in this moment.