Traitors' Gate

by Kate Elliott

  He set the comb on the tray.

  “Enough, Mai,” he said, his voice husky with desire, perhaps with satisfaction, perhaps with anger still simmering. He embraced her, pulling her close. “Enough.”

  MUCH LATER, A sharp voice jostled her awake. Anji was already rising, drawing on his sleeping robe. He grabbed his sword and slid open a door that led onto the covered porch overlooking their small private garden. The light of a Basket Moon, somewhat past the full, gave a faint sheen to the outlines of the room: the square corners of the chest, the rectangular paper screens of the doors, the puddle of Anji’s clothing where he had let it fall on the matted floor. He slid the door closed with his foot, cutting off the light and her view.

  The baby was stirring in his cot, and Mai’s breasts were heavy with milk. She pulled on her own robe, letting it hang open as she lifted Atani out. As she nursed him, reclining first on her right side and then switching to her left, she listened to low voices in an extended discussion on the porch outside although she could not quite pick out words.

  The door scraped open. Anji slipped inside and sank down on the mattress beside her. Atani smacked and gurgled.

  “What is it?” Mai whispered.

  “One of the guards thought he saw a demon flying overhead, a winged horse, but Sengel has the night watch searching the compound and they have found nothing. The tailman who saw it is one of those who was present when the demon invaded the house.”

  She nodded, remembering the evening when the demon in the shape of the dead slave girl, Cornflower, had flown into the compound riding a winged horse and killed two Qin soldiers with sorcery.

  “Sometimes, on watch at night, you sink into a place that is neither dream nor sleep. It’s a world demons haunt.”

  “Maybe he was dreaming.”

  “Maybe.” He tucked his sword alongside the mattress. “Where is your knife?”

  The baby released the nipple and exhaled a tiny burp.

  “Don’t move,” whispered Anji, drawing his sword as one of the doors into the interior slid open. A figure paused on the threshold between the rooms, half in and half out. Its face was concealed beneath a long hooded cloak of a substance that, although dark in color, remained distinguishable from the shadows. Anji rose. Mai tucked the baby against her, using her body to shield the infant.

  The figure raised its hands to pull back the hood to reveal its face. “Mai?” it said hoarsely.

  By the light that glowed from its right hand, Mai stared into the face of a man she had never thought to see again. “Uncle Hari?” she whispered. “We thought you were dead.”

  His gaze opened a well of memory, a shaft down which she plunged. Best of uncles! He had always teased the little ones in that smiling way that made them feel they weren’t just a nuisance meant only to stand in silence around the grim adults. He carried them on his back, horse to their Qin warrior, a game played only in the privacy of their own courtyard, for the Qin had forbidden all people of Kartu Town to ride. He could sing a merry tune, and he knew all the best tales, the ones in which the swooning maiden was carried away by the handsome bandit only to discover the bandit was really a prince, the ones in which the villains fought and died, and those in which the prince triumphed and died anyway. After Father Mei had forbidden him from speaking out against the Qin within the Mei compound, he had spent more time away from home and perhaps inevitably had gotten involved in a foolish, doomed scheme which no one had ever had the courtesy to explain to her, only that he had disgraced the family and they were fortunate they weren’t all executed because of his rash actions. The Qin had decreed that every man, woman, child, and slave must witness the punishment of the rebels who had dared speak out against those who governed them. Sixty or more young men had been marched in chains out of Kartu Town into the east. Not a single one had ever been seen or heard from again.

  Then Hari averted his gaze, as if it was too painful to look on her, and she was back in her sleeping chamber with Anji poised motionless beside her. Hari brushed fingers along his forehead as if it ached.

  “Uncle Hari!” She rushed forward with the baby in her arms and flung her free arm around him. “Eihi!” She flinched back, skin stinging where it had pressed against the cloak. “Does that cloth have barbs in it?”

  “Mai,” said Anji. “The baby.”

  The baby! “Uncle Hari, do you see? You have a great nephew, this fine young lad. His name is Atani, after his grandfather. It’s a water-born name, here in the Hundred. As yours would be—neh, it would not be, would it? For you’re really Harishil.” She took a step back to display the child, and another step back, which was far enough to see past Hari’s body into the chamber behind, where Tuvi, Sengel, and Toughid were edging in through the open doors.

  “I won’t harm the baby,” said Hari, turning his gaze to Anji and, after a moment, wrinkling his forehead as in puzzlement. “Call off your men, Captain. Mai, why is this man in your bed?”

  “He is my husband! Father Mei married me to him.”

  “You were supposed to marry the Gandi-li boy. The sheepherder’s clan.”

  “So I was. But then Captain Anji wanted to marry me.”

  “Naturally my brother would not say no to a Qin officer, even in the matter of his favorite child,” said Hari drily. “He gave them anything they asked for, hoping to remain in their favor. But what he never understood was that they would treat him favorably only so long as they had a use for him. That was their nature, to take what they could use. What they had no use for, they discarded or ignored.” He glanced over his shoulder, his gaze sweeping the dark room behind him, and the soldiers actually cringed away from him. Sengel grunted as if he’d been slugged in the belly, and dropped to his knees.

  “Stay where you are,” said Anji in a louder voice, meant to reach his men. Although he wore a fine silk sleeping robe tied with a embroidered ribbon and had his fine black hair falling loose halfway down his back, he could not be mistaken as anything except a soldier. “If I may ask, Uncle Hari,” he went on carefully, “why have you entered this compound without seeking permission at the gate? You can be sure any relative of Mai’s would be greeted hospitably.”

  Hari’s ironic smile flashed just as she remembered it, enough to make you smile and frown together as his glib tongue entertained you. “Mai and your soldiers reveal all that is in their hearts to my gaze, as it must be. And who could not wish a glimpse into Mai’s heart, truly? Your soldiers have not quite such generosity in their souls although they seem clean enough in their hearts despite being soldiers whose job it is to kill. Yet you are exactly the puzzle that pervert Bevard said you would be. I admit I would not have believed any person could stand veiled before me if I hadn’t met Shai. By any chance, can you see ghosts?”

  “Shai!” Mai took a step toward him, caught Anji’s curt gesture, and halted. “How did you meet Shai? Hari, you must tell me.”

  He would not meet her eye, and yet he watched Anji closely. “Shai is in the north. He wanted to stay with the army for some reason he would not tell me, but I forced him to leave. In doing so, I saved his life, because Lord Radas has ordered all outlanders to be interrogated. Bevard told Radas he’d encountered two outlanders veiled to his sight. Naturally, we must find them. I suppose, Captain, that you know Shai’s purpose in being in the north better than I do. I admit, he seems changed from the lad I used to thrash when I was trying to get him to show some spirit. He impressed me. But the chances are still that they’ll catch him and kill him before he can make his way to safety.”

  “Uncle Hari! How could you not have found a way to get Shai out of danger?”

  “I risked enough doing what I did do! I had no other chance to help him. You have no idea what goes on with the army, what they want, what they intend.”

  “What do they intend?” asked Anji. “Why are you here?”

  “To kill you, Captain, as I’ve been commanded.”

  The words fell like stones. But Mai would not be crushed. She s
tepped between Hari and Anji. “He’s the father of my child. I won’t let you kill him!”

  Hari laughed. “I think those are lines from the tale of the merchant’s daughter and the fox bandit, are they not?”

  She flushed. “Don’t ridicule me, Hari. Girish used to do that.”

  “Whew! That’s a deadly thrust.”

  Anji did not move or relax his guard. “Who wants me dead? Besides the ones I already know about?”

  “Lord Radas wants you dead. He suspects you are the one who led the successful defense of Olossi. Who destroyed that cohort of soldiers Bevard was trying to lead out of Olo’osson. Lord Radas wants no competent commander leading a rebellion against him.”

  “I’m leading no rebellion,” said Anji. “The people of Olo’osson do not want to be conquered by his army. That’s all.”

  “No more did the people of Kartu Town wish to be conquered by the Qin. That did not stop the Qin armies from overtaking us, did it?”

  “And you support Lord Radas’s plan to rule the Hundred with an army that, by all accounts, burns villages, rapes women, enslaves children, hangs innocent people from posts to frighten the rest of the population, and destroys the councils through which cities and towns and villages in the Hundred are ruled?”

  “As a Qin officer, surely you see the irony of your criticism of Lord Radas’s methods of conquest.”

  “The Qin army keeps villages and towns intact as long as they do not rebel. What use is a town if it has no markets, no herds, no fields, no artisans producing goods for sale? The Qin governors are harsh toward criminals, but in return those who obey the law live in an orderly and peaceful way, undisturbed by crime.”

  “Lord Radas promises much the same thing. Perhaps he needs to complete his conquest of the Hundred before he can impose his orderly and peaceful ways.”

  “Enough!” cried Mai. Both men, startled, shifted to look at her. “Chief Tuvi, tell Priya to brew tea. We are going to drink tea and discuss this as civilized people do. Hari, you must be aware that if you mean to kill Anji you will have to kill me first. Anyway, you have neither sword nor knife, so it is not at all clear how you mean to kill him.”

  “Demons kill with sorcery,” said Anji.

  “If that’s true, then I fail to see how a sword can parry sorcery. Can you go in the adjoining chamber and wait, Hari? And close the door. I need to—make myself presentable.”

  He chuckled, stepped into the chamber behind, completely vulnerable to the swords of the Qin, and slid the door shut.

  Mai walked to the table, snapped spark to flint, and lit the lamp.

  Anji lowered his sword. “Mai, he’s a demon. He’s not your uncle.”

  “Maybe he isn’t my uncle. It’s possible. But here in the Hundred, they count demons as a civilized race, like the other children of the Four Mothers. So even demons must be treated with the hospitality due to guests.”

  “He came here to kill me. He says so honestly enough.”

  “Did it never occur to you, Anji, that we might make an attempt to change his mind? No, of course it did not. You are a soldier. But I am a merchant. We can’t fight sorcery with swords. Did you see that light in his hand? That light did not burn from oil. Here, take Atani.”

  She offered him the child. He kept his sword in his right hand but settled the infant in his left arm. The baby was awake, perfectly calm, and as soon as he was in Anji’s arms, his dark gaze fixed on his father’s face. Anji smiled down at the baby as Mai tugged her robe tightly closed, tied it with a sash, and tugged on a jacket over it as a second layer. She grabbed a pair of hairsticks off the side table and twisted her hair up behind her, pinioning it in place. Then she stepped behind Anji and bound his hair up in something resembling the topknot he normally wore.

  “You look well enough for a man awakened in the middle of the night,” she said as she measured him. “What of me?”

  He sighed.

  “What does that mean?”

  “The question need not be asked. I don’t like this situation.”

  She picked up the lamp, opened the door, and went into the other chamber. Hari stood in the middle of the chamber, not looking at Sengel or Toughid, who stood ready to strike. The far door slid open and Chief Tuvi entered, marking Hari without looking him in the face. He got out of the way to allow Priya to enter bearing a tray with three cups and a ceramic pot. The slave’s gaze flashed toward the cloaked man. She faltered for a breath, then with an effort continued to the table and set down the tray.

  Mai settled on a pillow and placed the lit lamp on the table. “Uncle Hari, if you’ll sit, I’ll serve you tea in the proper fashion. Anji?”

  Anji handed the baby to Priya, then sat next to Mai, his sword still in his hand. The three soldiers kept their silent study. No one looked directly at Hari except Anji and Mai, and even she found it difficult to meet his gaze because such startling and uncomfortable memories churned into life when she did so, things she did not want to share with anyone: Uncle Girish’s constant pinching and the way he had leered at her until Father Mei had beaten him so badly that he had finally left alone the children of the house; the vomit and diarrhea that had poured out of her in the first leg of her journey away from Kartu with the Qin, when she had thought she would die of sickness; the desert stars, so bold and bright they seemed close enough to touch, like hope; Anji’s kisses; Miravia’s whispered confidences and warm embrace; the dusty market lane in Astafero with its women working so very hard to make a new life for themselves out of the unexpected fortune tossed their way by the Qin outlanders; Tuvi’s flush as Avisha rejected him; the tingling charge that had permeated the air during Atani’s birth, blue threads like living silk clinging to her and then to the baby as if through touch they sought to communicate, or to infest his flesh—

  “Mai.” Anji touched her arm, a jolt like fire.

  Hari touched his fingers to his eyes. The light that had shone from his hand had vanished. Looking like a perfectly normal person, he sank down cross-legged onto a pillow opposite Mai, the table a polished surface between them.

  “Let me pour the tea,” she said, out of breath.

  In Kartu Town you poured tea one way for visitors—their tea must be poured and served first, each cup separately according to importance—and another for family. She set out the cups and poured all first, then considered her dilemma. Anji was her husband, yet Hari was her uncle.

  She picked up a cup with each hand and set them before the two men at the same time, then raised the third one for herself and spoke the conventional words: “The gods give us tea for our health, we drink with their blessings.”

  She sipped first, to show she trusted the brew. Anji watched her, then picked up his cup with his free hand and waited, pointedly, for Hari to pickup the cup that sat before him. Both men drank. Mai poured a second cup.

  “Uncle Hari, please do not let me sit here wondering. How did you reach the Hundred? Why are you still here? And why have you come, as you say, to kill my husband, when truly you would be better off to stand beside us, not against us? Those who are kin should not battle each other. We should be allies.”

  Hari kept his gaze fixed on his cup, but his words were directed at her. “You are changed, Mai. Yet it seems you are very much the same. How can that be?”

  “Perhaps you would like something to eat? Our cook makes very good sweet rice cakes. There are some left over from yesterday, are there not, Priya?”

  “Yes, Mistress,” she said in a barely audible mumble. “I’ll go right away, Mistress.”

  The door slid open and then closed.

  “The baby has escaped,” said Hari. “Not that I would have harmed an infant.”

  “Plenty of babies died when Lord Radas’s army invaded Olo’osson last year,” retorted Mai. “Or were orphaned, which amounts to the same thing, for if they do not then die, they will likely be sold into slavery if there are no kinfolk to take them in, or if their kinfolk have not the means to support extra mouths. That
is why we must stand with our kinfolk.”

  The lamp’s light glowed on the surface of the table. It was odd how the light was absorbed into the fabric of his cloak, whose color Mai could not define. She thought there was something more there, threads that reminded her of the twisting blue filaments in the valley, but then she would blink and see nothing but a silken cloth saturated with the sinking dusky purple of twilight.

  “I am not what you think I am, Mai.”

  “Maybe not, but that does not make you any less my beloved Uncle Hari. For you can’t deny you are him, can you?”

  “I can’t deny it. I am him, and I am not him. He is dead. What I am is a shell. A ghost. Perhaps I am a demon.” He raised his eyes to challenge Anji’s stare.

  Anji, who could look right at him and not flinch.

  “Even ghosts and demons have kin,” said Mai briskly. “Would you like more tea?”

  When he did not reply, she poured again and signaled to Tuvi. “More tea, Chief, if you will. Perhaps Sengel and Toughid can fetch it.”

  The chief looked startled. He flashed a look at Anji, who considered the wall with an expression that meant thoughts were boiling in his head that he wanted to sort into tidy ranks. He signaled with a hand, and Tuvi gestured, and all three soldiers left the chamber. Mai felt their presence on the other side, but here in the antechamber, she and Anji and Hari now sat alone.