by Kate Elliott
He cleared his throat and handed her his cup. “That woman who watches your slaves, is she your lover?”
“Neh.” Bai sipped at the wine. “I’m not fashioned that way. We made a deal. She works for me while she’s looking for a protector.”
“Think she’d consider me?”
“Since I like you, I’ll be honest, my friend. I think she’s aiming for a captain, at the least. A commander, if she can reach so high. Where’s your company’s captain, anyway? I don’t see his fat ass around.”
“Eh, there’s a council going up at the big tent, neh? My captain’s all right, though. Some of the other sergeants, they have to put up with real turds, if I may say so.”
Bai laughed. “You won’t hear me arguing. Whew! What I had to put up with at the temple, I tell you! Heya! Look there. Is that your captain?”
The man was coming back at a trot, looking tense. He hailed his sergeants, and the man talking to Bai made his excuses and hurried over. Bai beckoned to Shai, and they moved off into camp.
“Something’s up,” she said in a low voice. “A council of war this late in the afternoon. The way he came running back to rope in his sergeants. He’s got orders.”
She led Shai back to the perimeter of camp where the camp followers and merchants had set up. When they arrived at the ragged tent she’d purchased for shelter, the children pressed forward to touch both her and Shai, as if making sure they were still alive and not ghosts.
“Where’s Ladon?” she asked Veras and Eridit.
“A fellow came by wearing a badge marked with silk slippers, Edard’s clan, the ones with river transport.”
“Why in the hells would river transporters badge their clan with silk slippers?” Shai asked.
Veras rolled his eyes. Bai smiled.
Eridit just shook her head. “You don’t know the tale, do you? Anyway, Ladon went off with him.”
Bai frowned. “Did he say where they were going?”
“In fact he did. The abandoned Green Suns tanning yard. Not far from here.”
Bai nodded. “I know where it is. That’s where I meet Tohon to exchange news. The hells! I’m going after him, make sure it’s not a trap.”
“Heya,” said Shai, “I forgot. Edard told me that the password is ‘splendid silk slippers.’ ”
“Edard told you?” Bai looked at him with a narrowed gaze, then shrugged. “It’s worth trying. Veras, you’ll come with me. You two stay here with the children. Be alert. Keep them ready to move at short notice.”
Eridit’s eyes widened, and her look of alarm was real, not feigned. “What is it, Bai?”
“May be nothing. A feeling that’s prickling my skin.” She grabbed a pair of slender assassin’s knives, concealed them under her kilt, and strode off with Veras hurrying after.
“Now what?” Eridit asked.
Shai stuck his head into the tent, where the children sat and lay crammed together, watchful as they stared at him. “Form into banners. Pack up everything.”
“What’s happening, Shai?” Yudit asked.
“Maybe nothing. Stay quiet, but be ready to move if I give you the signal. And for that matter, eat up now. Finish off the rice and nai. We can buy more tomorrow.”
The children began gathering up scraps of clothing, eating utensils, leather bottles, and sacks of rice. He came outside and sat on the bench he’d built from scraps of lumber. Eridit twitched her ass down beside him and leaned flirtatiously against his shoulder.
“I like it when you talk with so much confidence,” she purred.
“Stop it!” He moved away. After weeks marching with the prisoners, he could not bear to even think about sex. “Or are you truly as cursed stupid as Tohon must think you are?”
“That was a mean thing to say.”
“Just because Tohon didn’t do the thing with you?”
“You jealous? Of his self-control, I mean.”
“You’re being an ass.”
“A horse’s ass, you mean, Shai. It’s from the tale of the Swift Horse. It’s a bedtime story. You know, before you get into . . . bed?”
“Leave me alone.”
“Great Lady,” said Yudit from within the tent. “Are you two arguing again?”
A soldier stumbled up toward the tent, obviously drunk. “Heya! You there! Outlander! I hear there’s lasses and lads for sale, eh? Nice and young and tasty. Celebrated their Youth’s Crowns and ready for a treat! Heh!”
Eridit ducked inside as Shai blocked the entrance. He wasn’t as tall as the soldier, but he knew how to brace as he shouldered the man back. “Mistress hasn’t opened yet for business, ver.”
“Sheh! You lot have sat here a week, eh? You’ve not fattened up that veal yet? I’ll bring a tey of rice every evening, you just let me in.” He pushed.
Shai sank to get his weight lower, and shoved hard back. The man staggered, unable to keep steady.
“Outlander bastard!” He turned around and shouted. “Divass! Avard! Get over here. About time we took a taste of what these cursed shut-holes are withholding from us, eh?”
A pair looked up from haggling with a man seated on a blanket who was selling white plums and heaps of cawl petals.
Nudged from behind, Shai glanced over his shoulder. Eridit thrust the hilt of a short sword into his back. “Here.”
“That won’t help me,” he muttered as the drunken man stumbled back to his friends and began gesticulating his complaints in a thready whine. Yah yah yah. Merciful God! How much longer Bai expected them to keep up this cursed pretense, Shai could not imagine. Men were coming around every cursed evening after drill, and so far Bai had managed to put them off with various plausible excuses delivered in her drawling, contemptuous style. “Hu! Take the children out the back if you have to. Here they come.”
The three swaggered with outraged privilege as they approached. Merciful One, act now!
A sergeant jogged through the ragged market street, pausing to grab men by the shoulders. “Heya! Heya! Three Circles cadre, report at once.”
A second sergeant followed, calling another group. Men turned from browsing the wares on offer: fried vegetables, hot noodles, goat’s milk, carved bowls and spoons, an old man repairing knife hilts, women skinny from the abuse they took to fetch a few vey.
“Avard! Divass! Kili! Get your cursed horses’ asses over here.”
“Assembly?” muttered the big one. “At dusk? After we’ve already been released from drill? The hells!” But he lumbered away.
Shai sagged, all his readiness blown.
“Did that man go away?” asked Vali, venturing up behind Eridit. “He was following me before. He tried to touch me.”
“Sheh!” said Eridit in disgust. “You’re not even of an age, Vali. But I’m not surprised by any crude thing I hear or see in this place.” She loosed an accusatory glance at Shai, pushed past him, and crossed over the open space to the man selling white plums and cawl petals. There she smiled prettily, and she and the man entered into a protracted haggle, which she no doubt drew out to annoy the poor merchant.
“Why do you argue with her all the time?” asked Vali.
“Shai’s a prude,” said Yudit, laying her head against Shai’s shoulder.
“Neh, he isn’t,” said Eska. Dena and others in the interior echoed her, defending him.
“Oh, shut it, little plum,” said Yudit affectionately. “I’m not ragging him. I’m just saying so, because it’s true. Nothing wrong with it.” She shuddered, and he put an arm around her. Vali leaned against him on the other side, and they watched as the market street cleared of soldiers and the merchants packed away their wares for safekeeping.
He felt a prickling on his skin, maybe the same one Bai had spoken of, like the way air changed before a storm.
Eridit returned triumphant, her long jacket cradling cawl petals weighted down with white plums. “Look at all this, and for only two vey!” She pushed rudely past Shai. “Here, Eska. Let’s put this in the pot. Then we can make s
oup later.”
“I’m scared, too,” said Yudit softly. “But that’s no cause for you two to keep fighting. It worries the younger ones.”
“I don’t fight with her because I’m scared!”
She smiled, a rare gift, and shame shut him up. Maybe she was even right. He missed Tohon bitterly, but the Qin scout had been left in the woodland to scout the environs, meeting with Bai long past midnight on specified nights.
“Whsst!” Bai came striding out of the gloom, waving at them to fall back. “Here, now, Shai,” she said, catching him by the arm. “The password worked. Although why Edard told you instead of anyone else I can’t figure.”
They retreated into the interior, stuffy with so many bodies crammed inside. After so long without a bath, they all stank. Eridit lit a lamp and hung it from a pole.
Bai surveyed her troops. “You’re leaving tonight. You’ll travel to the ford where we crossed ten days ago. You’ll meet Ladon and Veras there, with a wagonload of supplies. You’ll cross to the far shore and travel about a mey downstream. There, you’ll meet Tohon on the road, and he’ll lead you to a hidden dock where you’ll rendezvous with a barge owned by our dead comrade Edard’s kin. They’re going to take you to Nessumara, to his clan’s compound. Do you understand?”
They nodded.
“I want you to know something,” she went on. “Lone wolves are rightly viewed with suspicion and treated as spies. I’d do the same, in their place. But having you here has given me entrance to every cursed company in this camp, talking up my wares, how juicy they’ll be as soon as I get a bit more fat on them, all untouched, never bitten. Folk who want something from you are a cursed reach stupider than those who want nothing.” She sketched a gesture in the air, and the children smiled in response. “By having the courage to walk in here and just wait, not knowing what might happen and if you’d get abused again, you’ve done more service to Olossi than the entire cursed Olossi militia.”
“Should we stay, holy one?” asked Yudit in a low voice.
“No. Edard’s kinfolk were tipped off by some woman who married into the clan from the Green Sun clan. They’re getting out, and they’re willing to take you lot downriver with them. Eridit, there’s a passing phrase you must speak to get across the river at the ferry. ‘Flying fours lost,’ the sentry will tell you, and you reply, ‘Five cloaks won.’ ”
Eridit mouthed the words twice, then nodded. “Got it.”
“Shai, you can see them to the ford, make sure they get across safely. Then you have to come back to me.”
The children groaned, and murmured rebelliously.
“What’s happening?” asked Eridit, all saucy anger fled.
“Lord Radas’s army is attacking Toskala tonight. I don’t know the details, but I’m cursed sure there’s treachery on the wind.”
“Why does Shai have to stay behind?” Yudit and Vali asked at the same moment.
“He’s the only one of us who is protected against the demons. Veiled to their sight. That’s what both cloaks said.”
“And what in the hells do you mean to do?” asked Eridit. “The two of you can’t fight the entire cursed army.”
Bai grinned, and everyone paused to admire her because she made them all want to be able to grin like that. “The Merciless One will guide me.” She rocked back, listening to the murmur of a camp rising instead of settling. “Now get out of here.”
They walked in a tight line, four abreast with the younger ones in the center rows, Eridit and Wori in the lead and Shai and Yudit as tailmen, the ones least likely to get attacked from behind. If you acted like you were about your business, then folk did not question.
The vendors following the army had set up farthest away from the siege line, and the usual busy twilight market had gone to ground, blankets rolled up, folk hiding inside their tents or huddled in whatever scrap of protection they could find in ragged hedgerows or the remains of a lot of firewood commandeered by the army. It felt like it was about to rain, but the skies remained dry. They descended through a series of orchards, and held their noses as they skirted the edge of tanning yards before coming to the main crossing of the Lesser Istri, two sets of paired cables strung across the wide river.
The guards had lamps out at the barricade, and they considered Eridit with suspicion as she sauntered forward, playing too much, Shai thought, to their lust.
“Here, now,” said the first. “Shouldn’t you be at home with your husband, eh, verea?”
“I don’t see your red bracelet, sweetheart,” said the second. “But I’ll give you a taste of married life.”
The third man shushed them. “Flying fours lost,” he said.
“Five cloaks won,” she answered, and her posture shifted so swiftly that Shai blinked. She was another person now, someone rigid and irritated. “Didn’t think I’d have trouble here. You lot need to attend to your duty.”
The two who had been rude grumbled.
The third man shook his head. “Where are you going with all these children?”
“We were ordered to get them out of the area.”
“Who ordered you?” demanded the first man, anxious to show he could be a hard-ass.
“Shut up,” said the third man to his comrade. “I remember you lot. You in particular.” He looked Eridit up and down, and Shai found that he’d closed a hand into a fist. Yudit patted him on the elbow, like calming a tense dog. “You lot crossed eight or ten days ago, neh?”
“Can’t get buyers for what we’re trying to sell, can we?” she said with a smirk.
The first two men looked at each other, frowning as they considered the insinuation in her words, while the third man grimaced. “Sheh! Are you saying—? Most of those kids aren’t old enough—Eiya! People like you ought to be hanged up on a post, eh? I’ve got little sisters and brothers, eh? Haven’t you any shame?”
“Those with plenty of coin don’t need to bow before shame, eh? And we’ve got coin for the fare, don’t we? Now just shut up and let us cross.”
“What if I won’t let you pass, you cursed foul degenerate—”
Down at the platform, the winch-turners had stirred from their cots, rising to get a look at the commotion. Wagon wheels ground on paving stones, and a wagon appeared out of the gloom lit by a lamp swaying on a pole. Ladon and Veras had arrived just in time.
Curiously, a slender man of mature years, not yet elderly, strode alongside the wagon, chattering in the most inanely cheerful manner. He wore a long cloak against the expected rains, and the garb Shai had come to recognize as typical of the priests known as envoys of the god Ilu.
“—then I said to him, ‘Ver, death’s wolves aren’t greedy. They only eat when they’re hungry, not like the wolves among men.’ I was speaking, of course, of the Sirniakan toll collectors, who I will tell you charged me double and triple only because I was a foreigner in their lands! Outrageous!” As the wagon rattled to a halt, the envoy smiled at the guardsmen. “Greetings of the dusk, my friends. What’s this? A full raft for the twilight pull, eh? Good fortune for those who collect the toll.”
The guards took a step back, and the children shrank against each other. Eridit expelled a hot gasp, as though she’d just been insulted, and Ladon and Veras—the idiots—sat like nimwits on the box of the wagon, struck to silence. The big raft bumped gently at the dock. From the shelter of the platform, the winch-turners stared. No one moved.
Shai trotted forward, pushing right up to the guards. “We’re in a hurry, ver. And I’d sooner piss on you than listen to you tell me what you think of our business. You want to fight? Call out your fellows, and let’s fight, eh?”
“Neh, neh, you go on. Vermin.”
Shai shouldered past them, and the children hurried after with the wagon rumbling in their wake. The winch-turners peered out as Shai strode out onto the landing stage and pulled open the railings to allow the wagon to maneuver onto the raft. He stepped back as the children flooded on afterward.
That cursed e
nvoy was nattering to Eridit. “. . . Water-born Goats like you do have an unfortunate tendency to be self-centered, wanting the attention of others always fixed on them. They might not mean to be petty and selfish, but too often they don’t notice if they’ve violated the honor of other people, which is why it can be hard to trust them—”
“Who asked you?” she demanded furiously, half crying as she stormed past Shai and hopped over the widening gap onto the raft. She grabbed a rope and yanked the raft’s railings shut, latched them, and shouted to the laborers. “We’re ready!”
Gears ratcheted. Rope trembled.
Shai gripped the outer railing. “Behave!” he called to the children. “Don’t be stupid.”
“You’re not going with them,” said the envoy.
“Neither are you!”
The envoy met his gaze for a long careful while and then, abruptly, smiled with great sweetness. “I remember you.”
“Eh?”
“You see ghosts.”
The winch clanked, and footsteps trod the boards on the platform behind.
“Shai! Shai!” cried the children as the raft lurched a hand’s span out from the landing stage. The rope tautened.
“Aui!” continued the envoy. “So you are Shai, the one I’ve been searching for, eh? There’s a young woman looking for you. I fear she means to do you ill.”
“How do you know me?”
“You were with the Qin soldiers riding out of the empire. I saw your eyes follow the Beltak priest. A terrible thing to imprison their spirits in the bowl, isn’t it? You’re rare, you folk who see ghosts. You’re veiled to our sight. I don’t know why.”
Words croaked up, made hoarse by everything happening at once. “Who are you?”
“Beware,” said the envoy. “But be honest. Honesty might save you.”
“Shai!” As the raft slid away from the river, rocking in the current, Yudit pressed to the railing, the others crowding behind, their faces fading into the night. Then he heard their voices as they began to chant.