by Kate Elliott
“Tuvi, are you sure—?”
“Do you want to stay in the palanquin, Mistress? I can engage its services to return you to the compound.”
“I’d rather walk.” To delay returning home to face Anji’s anger. To feel the sun on her face, to pray for the grace of the Merciful One to cover her heartache.
He led their little cadre up to the gate and invoked captain’s privilege to pass them through ahead of others.
“That’s the outlander, the captain’s wife,” someone said in the crowd.
Another called out, “Greetings of the day to you, verea! You brought good fortune to my cousin’s husband’s sister, who married one of the soldiers after her own husband was killed on West Track. She’d have had to sell herself into debt slavery otherwise.”
“Council members say you’re the one bargained those cursed Greater Houses down until they begged for mercy.” This comment brought general raucous laughter. “Thanks to you, verea. They say it’s thanks to you the Qin soldiers fought at all.”
“Out Dast Olo way, eh? Getting a taste at the temple? For sure you’ve earned it.”
A flush rose in her cheeks, maybe enough to hide the red mark.
Folk made pretty greetings as Tuvi inexorably led her forward. She spoke words of greeting in return, nodding and smiling at every person who nodded and smiled at her, but all she could see was Anji’s face in the instant after he had struck her, a man she did not recognize.
They worked free of the crowd and walked up the road to the inner gate. People were too busy going about their business to pay any mind to Qin soldiers; it was nothing they didn’t see every day.
“Hard to know where to start,” said Tuvi. “Let me tell you a story. One time, you see, there was a boy named Anjihosh, the son by the Sirni emperor sired on a Qin princess, who was herself sister of the Qin var. The Qin var had handed his very own sister over to the emperor to seal a treaty. That’s the way of things.”
“I know, but Miravia—”
“Best to let me speak,” he continued in a soft voice that as good as cut her throat. “For a while the Qin princess was much in favor with the emperor because she was not like any of the other women in his household, and be assured that he had many women in his household, confined to a special palace reserved for the emperor’s women into which only the emperor or his cut-men—eunuchs—could enter. Now I suppose most of those women were slaves, chosen for their beauty or some special skill like weaving or herb knowledge or cooking. But a few were wives according to the Sirni way, that is, they were the daughters and sisters of powerful men of noble families. So it could not have sat well with these wives, and their fathers and brothers, that the emperor should shower so much favor on an outlander, and more especially, on the son she had borne him. For you can be sure that Anjihosh was as a child well-spoken and attractive in temperament, quick at his lessons, and naturally the best among the young princes at riding and archery and weapons. His enemies whispered that he was the emperor’s favorite among his sons, a threat to the worthy noble families of pure Sirni blood. What the emperor thought of this we cannot truly know.
“There came a time when one among the wives decided to act. Her son was older than Anjihosh and had for many years been considered the likely heir. Among the Sirni, only one man rules as emperor, although the emperor has many sons. It is common for the mothers of the sons of the emperor to fight a war within the women’s palace from which only one emerges victorious.” He offered an arm to help her over a gouge in the street cut by the wet-season rains. “Hard to imagine wasting so many good soldiers, lads who could be trained up as captains and commanders. It’s no wonder these people are weak.”
“If they’re weak, why haven’t the Qin conquered them?”
His smile was a tip of the lips, a thought held to itself. “The empire is very large. But it so happened that the Qin princess found herself alone and despised in the women’s palace with no one to support her while meanwhile her greatest rival had called in her powerful family to put pressure on Emperor Farutanihosh to name her son Azadihosh as heir after him. Which naturally would mean that any other boy sired by Emperor Farutanihosh would have to be killed. So the Qin princess found a way to smuggle her boy out of the palace. Through one means and another, she got him to a border post, and thence into the hands of Qin clans willing to bring the boy back to his uncle, who must raise him or be seen to be dishonorable in the eyes of all the Qin. For it is shameful to kill one’s own relatives, is it not? Naturally the head of a clan must make sure that the line remains untainted by weakness, but any child let live becomes the charge of all his clansmen.”
“So the boy and his mother returned to the Qin.”
“Eh? No, Mistress. The boy did indeed arrive at his uncle’s tent. But his mother could not escape the women’s palace. Nor could she hope to journey through the empire without raising the alarm, for as you recall, women do not travel openly on their roads. I suppose, if she still lives, she remains in the palace still.”
Mai’s fingers tightened on Tuvi’s arm. “Surely you see that I couldn’t allow Miravia to walk into a prison like that?”
“Let me finish, Mistress. That is not the end of the story. The boy Anjihosh was raised by certain of his uncle’s retainers, who were assigned to take charge of him. Without exception they became his kinsmen of the heart, because he grew to be that kind of man, who inspires such trust and loyalty.”
“That’s you!”
Seren, hearing the chief’s voice fall silent, looked back to make sure nothing was amiss, but Tuvi nodded at him and they trudged on. It was a warm day but mercifully not hot, yet each step dragged, harder than the last. Her legs were as heavy as sacks of rice; her belly ached; her cheek was a stab of flame. But if she concentrated on Tuvi’s voice, then she didn’t notice these pains so much.
“In time Anjihosh came of age to ride in the Qin army. A wife was proposed from among the daughters of the var’s high command. It was a good marriage with Commander Beje’s girl. Has Anji ever spoken to you of his first wife?”
She flushed. “Neh. I just remember, that time we met Commander Beje, that the commander said she was a headstrong girl. ‘Precisely her charm,’ that’s what Anji said in reply. But Commander Beje also said Anji could have shamed the commander’s entire clan in front of the var because of what she did. Yet Anji did not. That’s why Commander Beje helped Anji. Because Anji had acted honorably in the matter of his daughter. Anyway, I thought she must be dead.”
They had come to the gate into the inner city, another checkpoint with militiamen making their painstaking interviews and folk waiting with remarkable patience, bred no doubt from the still-fresh memories of the siege and from the years before that when the roads had not been safe.
They waited in silence, people glancing at them but holding their tongues. When they reached the front of the line, the guards recognized Tuvi and waved them through.
Only after they crossed Assizes Court and started up the hill did Tuvi start talking again, his voice so low Mai strained to hear. “She was seduced by one of the western demons, the ones with ghost hair and ghost faces and blue eyes. Like that slave Shai had.”
“Cornflower.”
“A demon very like that slave girl, yes,” said Tuvi. “She rode away with the demon into the west. So that is the same as being dead, actually. If you walk into demon land, then you are dead, aren’t you?”
“Did she hate Anji? Hard to see how anyone could hate him, but maybe she was forced to marry him. That can breed resentment.”
“Naturally the elders of a clan consider marriage prospects and make suggestions, and negotiate terms. And of course in the matter of secondary wives and concubines taken by men in the army, that is naturally done by their preference. But within the Qin clans themselves, it would be very bad to force two young people who did not like each other to marry because then if one mistreated the other, the clans would get involved, and there would be a feud, so as yo
u can imagine clans wish to avoid such an outcome. Generally a proposal is made, and the two meet and decide if they can cooperate. If they and the families agree, he offers her a banner sewn especially for the marriage. They race, and if he can catch her, then it is destined that they wed.” His shrug came and went like a brief smile. “Of course, a woman may choose under such circumstances to allow a man to catch her.”
“That’s how they do it here, too,” said Mai, “only with the bowl of rice offered and accepted, or offered and refused.”
Was that a tinge of color in his cheek?
“I’m sorry about Avisha, but she wasn’t right for you, Tuvilo. Anyway, even here, even if people say girls have the right not to eat the rice, to refuse the man who courts them, or if a lad wants one girl but is told to marry another for the benefit of his clan, there are other ways to coerce a person to marry by making it seem you’ll be disappointed or you need the treaty or you must have the coin lest the entire clan be ruined . . . and what about the Qin var? Did the var’s sister, Anji’s mother, want to go to the empire as the seal on a treaty?”
“You’re not listening to me, Mistress. Anjihosh was loyal to his first wife, but she was not loyal to him. Where did he find you today?”
“I don’t understand what you’re trying to say.”
He grinned in that lively way the Qin had, and shook his head as at the antics of a child innocent in its charm. “Mai, I expected you to help Miravia leave the city.”
“You did?” Her voice rose to a squeak. The soldiers glanced at her, and hurriedly away. “No, no, of course you must have. Of course we couldn’t possibly get out of the compound without you knowing of it. What an idiot I was to believe otherwise! Why didn’t you just help me, then?”
“I obeyed what I knew would be Anji’s command in the matter. Also, I could therefore afterward speak the truth with a straight face to the Ri Amarah and their agent—that one loitering at the gate hoping to catch a hint of her whereabouts—that I had advised the girl be returned to her family, as Anji would have done, had he been there.”
Having nothing to say, she walked in silence. Had Anji been there, she would never have dared defy him.
“Not much farther to go,” she murmured, feeling the pain in her cheek magnified.
“But I did not think, Mistress, that you would take her to the whore’s temple.”
“It’s Ushara’s temple, Tuvi! We must speak of it with respect, because we are Hundred folk now.”
“And you went with her, to partake of what is offered in the garden?”
She stumbled over her own feet, and he caught her arm and kept her walking as she covered her bruised cheek with a hand. “Can that be how it looked to him? I went with her to plead her case to the Hieros!”
“His father betrayed him. His half brother betrayed him. His mother sent him away alone, to be raised among people he did not know. Then his wife betrayed him, and finally his uncle the var betrayed him, for he sent Anji east to the frontier to be killed, as we discovered only because Commander Beje felt obligated to repay Anji for the dishonor shown to him by the commander’s own daughter. Now he wonders if you have betrayed him.”
“I would never! I only went there because I hoped the Hieros could help me. . . . You haven’t even asked what happened to Miravia.”
“Best I don’t know, Mistress. Here we are.” He stopped her with a hand on her elbow as they reached the familiar gates of their compound. She smelled meat roasting, and the savory tang of a big kettle of spiced caul-petal soup. “Take my advice, Mistress. Don’t go to him. I’ll have Priya bring you the child, for nursing.”
Her milk had let down, twin spots darkening the front of her taloos. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Can we go in?”
“Don’t go to him,” Tuvi repeated. “Bathe yourself. Make yourself particularly beautiful, as you can, and preside over the supper table as if you are the queen and he a humble captain honored to be seated at your table. If you have nothing to apologize for, then do not apologize out of fear. Qin do not respect those who are afraid.”
“If you do it, don’t be afraid,” she murmured.
“If you’re afraid, don’t do it. You have offended him, Mistress, but I know you, and I know you went to the temple with no thought for anything except the other woman. Yours is a generous heart. Do not be generous with your apologies. And if I must say so . . .” He twisted his beard hairs again, frowning. “Do not ever under any circumstances go again into a temple dedicated to the Merciless One. Let the Hundred folk have their ways, as they must. No Qin woman would ever do such a thing. In this matter, the captain will never ever change.”
17
FROM THE HEIGHT, Joss marked the many humble fishing villages strung along the wide curve of Messalia Bay like so many variegated beads on a vast necklace. Folk were busy on the paths and beaches, about their end of the day business. Fish dried on racks; kelp marinated in vats; children got in a final round of hooks-and-ropes on a dusty field with the oval scraped out of the sandy dirt. Every council square—some as humble as a stone wall and not even a sheltering thatched roof—had been decorated with ribbons in the color of the season, the faded blues and dried out greens marking the Whisper Rains.
At the mouth of the River Messali, he and Scar flew over a substantial port town where every compound flew ribbons or banners in the old custom that Joss’s mother and aunts had often talked about but which had fallen out of favor in his own lifetime. Leaving its wharves and markets behind, reeve and eagle skimmed over the water toward the band of islands and islets that beaded the mouth of the bay. The shallows and deeps of Messalia Bay were easily discerned as distinct shades of blue, sand pale beneath. If only people were as easily mapped. It was high tide and so the bay was full, lapping on white sands. The golden light of the late-afternoon sun glimmered on the flat water; no storms today.
At length, he caught sight of a watchtower on a stony islet. He flagged the sentry, who replied with a burst of activity, flagging Joss the “clear” and then bending to shout unheard words to his fellows as Joss guided Scar to the outer landing islet of Bronze Hall, on the bayward side of the much larger island that housed the main hall and grounds.
A pair of fawkners approached, holding batons painted in the grandfather patterns, very old-fashioned. They tapped and gestured the full, wordless greeting of hall to visitor, which he’d learned in training but never had done since. Cursed if he could recall what he was supposed to do in reply.
They finished and stepped back, waiting.
“Greetings of the dusk,” he began, but he faltered when he heard how thin the market words sounded in the silence left by their formality.
Scar dipped his big head. He had watched it all with keen attention, and now he chirped in a distinct greeting and settled immediately despite being in a hall he barely knew.
Joss walked to the waiting fawkners. Four men, armed like ordinands, loitered by the archway that led to the bridge.
“If you please,” Joss said, “could you let Marshal Nedo know I’d like a meeting with her. I’m Joss, commander at Clan Hall.”
The older fawkner began to laugh. The younger cast Joss a startled look and trotted over to the loitering ordinands; two took off as Joss frowned. “Aui! Did I say something laughable?”
“Neh, sorry,” said the fawkner, wiping his eyes. “Just never thought I’d see the day when a reeve would fly in here and call himself commander of Clan Hall and not even know the proper forms, eh? Not to say we haven’t been warned. I’m Kagard and that is Lenni. Let’s look at your eagle, then. Anything I need know, besides that he knows the old forms better than his reeve does?”
The words rankled, but Joss kept his temper jessed. “Scar’s calm, if you’re calm. I’d appreciate your opinion on these two wing feathers.”
Scar accepted their attention, and flirted a little with the younger fawkner when he approached with a pair of files. Joss coped the one trouble spot on Scar’s beak, and when
they were finished he allowed Kagard to direct him and Scar to an empty loft, where a haunch of deer was brought in and tossed to the eagle after Joss had leashed him to his night’s perch.
They walked outside onto the landing ground, now entirely in shadow. Lenni called an assistant out of a storehouse to pull closed the barred gate.
“It’s been years since I’ve been at Bronze Hall,” said Joss. “I go out the archway and over the bridge to the main island, neh?”
Kagard touched him on the elbow in a friendly way, and smiled in a friendly way, and spoke in a friendly way. “Best you wait here for marshal’s people to give the go-ahead, eh? It shouldn’t take long for them to get back.”
“For the go-ahead? Is there some kind of trouble?”
“Hasn’t been any trouble since marshal instituted the new measures and talked to all the town councils in Mar.”
“Was there trouble before?”
“Trouble in the Beacons and in the Ossu Hills. But we’ve culled out most of that trouble.”
“What manner of trouble are you talking about?” Joss asked, feeling increasingly uneasy as he looked around the expanse of ground. The islet was a rocky outcropping artificially leveled to create the landing ground for visiting eagles; there was a good launching point at the prow of the islet. The place housed a dozen separate small lofts and a storehouse and barracks and, as he recalled, stairs cut into the rock beyond the archway that led down to a stone pier where supplies could be paddled in. The folk here did a lot of fishing, too.
“Not for me to say,” observed Kagard.
Joss knew a dismissal when he heard one. He licked the taste of salt off his lips, remembering his own childhood on the coast near Haya. “Fish for dinner tonight, I’m hoping,” he said, and got a laugh from them, as he had hoped. They weren’t thawing, though. They kept a formal stance. “Your eagles here, you’ve got more known family groups than any of the other halls, neh?”