by Kate Elliott
Anji glanced with a wry grin at Joss as he stood. “We’ll feast and drink with Horn’s council tonight in celebration, Commander. Tomorrow, we’ll send a messenger to Mai and Tuvi in Olossi. It is time to mobilize the army. You and I will scout the ground ahead. I want to see with my own eyes what we’re up against.”
• • •
THE LAST TIME Kesh had walked on the shore of the Olo’o Sea in the Barrens, the wild lands had spread from the shoreline with its slicks and sinks all the way to the impregnable heights of the rugged mountains. Back then, a few tents had housed Captain Anji and his scouting party. Now they rode between fields of wheat, supplied with water from irrigation channels, and stands of pearl millet on the dryland slopes above. Sapling orchards had taken root. The shore was lined with racks of drying fish. Folk hauled buckets of dirt; shaped bricks; fertilized the dusty earth with nightsoil. Laborers toiled on scaffolding for a brick palisade that would soon surround the entire double hill of the primary settlement.
At the gate, Chief Deze sent the new Qin troop to the distant barracks. The remainder of their group and the wagons lumbered up the main market street. A noodle seller set down her ladle and gaped. A seamstress seated on a mat in the shade of her humble porch dropped her needle. Ten men with hands slick from bean curd raced out of the back garden of a shop to stare. Anji’s mother stared right back, meeting each gaze in a way that made a few grin, a few step back, and a few look startled or ashamed.
Under an arcade with a walkway of raised bricks and a canvas roof, shopkeepers had set up stalls that sold ribbons and cordage, banners and flags, and bolts of cloth ranging from least to best quality. Now, many of the shopkeepers stood to get a look, and their customers turned to stare, ribbons and unrolled silk forgotten. A woman with hair bound back under a kerchief stepped out of the shadowed arcade into a corner of sunlight, leaning out to get a better look by bracing herself on a post.
Her movement caught Kesh’s eye. But it was her face that arrested him.
Seen only once, but never forgotten because unforgettable: a handsome, serious, somewhat square face with full red lips and eyes like two brushstrokes. They were the most beautiful eyes, windows opening onto a treasure house filled with mystery and promise. Her features had seared him, a brand burned into his memory, a scar that would always mark him.
But she wasn’t looking at him. Her expression tightened, and she pushed back from the pole and ducked into shadow.
Too late.
Eliar jerked his horse to a halt and flung himself out of the saddle. He leaped onto the raised brick porch and grabbed her arm.
“Eliar—” She tried to drag herself free.
“What are you doing out here?” he shouted as he shook her roughly.
The cavalcade rumbled to a halt as the captain’s mother signaled, regarding this curiosity with a look that reminded Kesh abruptly of her son’s powerful reserve: impossible to guess what she was thinking. Kesh dismounted, tossing his reins at the nearest soldier. He jumped up to the promenade and grabbed Eliar’s turban at the base of the neck. The silk twisted cool and smooth under his fingers, best quality weave, very fine.
“Let her go,” he said in a voice only Eliar and his sister could hear. “Or I’ll rip this off right now. And we’ll all know the truth of whether you cursed Silvers have horns.”
Eliar let go. Kesh released the turban’s silk.
“Get out of my way,” said Eliar, oblivious of multitudes who had swarmed over to stare at this delightful altercation between a Silver and a young woman everyone surely knew was an unveiled Silver woman walking in public as if she were no different from any other person there. “To find my sister in such a place, so exposed, is a clan matter. None of your business.”
“To find a woman being roughly handled is a matter for all decent people to respond to,” retorted Kesh.
“So say you, the slave master, selling women and men into servitude where they may be abused in any manner whether in public or private. You cant on so, but you are as bad as anyone.”
“At least I do not drone on about abuses of slavery and then lock my women inside my house and yelp like a kicked dog when I find my sister enjoying the freedom of the market.”
Eliar punched him. The fist landed in the curve between jaw and neck. Kesh toppled backward into a table stacked with twists of cordage. The stallkeeper shrieked as her wares scattered across the ground. Folk began yelling. Eliar’s sister grabbed the table and righted it.
Shoulders heaving, Eliar glared at his sister. “How are you come here? Does the family know?”
Her face took on such an aspect of melancholy that it was as though all color had leached from the world despite the bright sun shining down upon them.
What she meant by that look Kesh could not fathom, but Eliar’s mouth pinched.
“Eliar,” she said, offering a hand in the gesture of greeting.
He turned his back on her and walked away, stumping past the cavalcade and up the avenue under the glare of the sun. She swayed as if ill. She did not call after him.
Kesh brushed at his jacket, straightening his sash. His tongue, like his sash, had twisted into a knot. His face was burning, and his hands were trembling.
“The hells!” cried the stallkeeper to the street at large. “Cursed Silver knocking everything over and then just walking off!”
Do something!
Kesh bent to rescue the scattered cordage, bumping into her as she knelt to do the same. Because her skin was lighter, it was easy to see the red of shame scalding her cheeks.
“He was wrong to say those things,” Kesh said, the words pouring like the flood rains, “and to act toward you so rudely in a public street.”
“You’re Keshad.” Her voice was barely audible. “The one who went south to the empire with Eliar.”
His heart was pounding so loudly he thought the entire street must hear. “How can you know my name?”
“I saw you before.” Her blush did not subside as she busied herself collecting the fallen cordage. “That day in the courtyard of Olossi. Maybe you don’t recall it.” She examined him until he could not breathe.
“Of course I remember!” He dropped to his knees, but she rose in the same moment and dumped an armful of gathered cordage on the stallkeeper’s table.
“My apologies, verea,” she said in her husky voice, its tones and timbre so sweet it was painful for Kesh to hear her speak just for all the longing he had carried with him in the months of travel. “If there is any damage to your merchandise, I will cover the cost.”
“You did nothing wrong. You and your mistress are good customers, none better.”
“I insist that if any of the merchandise is ruined, that we make compensation.”
The stallkeeper’s friends, gathering, jostled Keshad as they picked up the rest of the fallen cordage. “Neh, verea,” they agreed, nodding and smiling at Miravia, “nothing but a bit of dirt. It was wrong of the Silver to shake you like that.”
She thanked them and extricated herself from the crowd.
Kesh followed her down the steps of the arcade into the sun. “Eh, ah, maybe you need an escort up to where—ah—wherever are you living, verea?”
“I do not need to be rescued.” She walked away down an alley.
Harness jingling reminded him of his obligations. He tripped over the stairs and bruised a knee, and a friendly passerby caught him by the elbow to steady him.
“You all right then, ver?” asked the man, a good-looking man with a pleasant smile and his long hair in a braid down his back. “Can I help you?”
“Do you know her?” Kesh asked wildly. What if he had lost her? After the way she had stared at him! “Where does she live?”
“The Silver girl? Lives up at the mistress’s house. She manages things here now the mistress lives in Olossi. Talk has it she was thrown out of her family’s house just for showing her face in a public street. It’s hard to believe any clan could be so hardhearted, but they are Si
lvers and so there is no accounting for their outlander ways, is there?”
“Do you mean Mai? Captain Anji’s wife?”
“Surely I do. Here, now. Your people are calling you. Where’d you folks come from?”
“South.” It had to be obvious just by looking. “From the empire.”
“Who is that old woman? She’s got the look of those Qin soldiers about her, but truly, she reminds me of my eldest aunt, the one who cracked the whip.” He grinned so engagingly that Kesh almost started talking, then recalled he was on a public street.
“My thanks for the hand, ver.” Keshad shook free and trotted over to the cavalcade, where a Qin soldier held the reins both of his horse and the one Eliar had abandoned.
The captain’s mother beckoned. “What was the meaning of that altercation? A lovers’ quarrel?”
“No, exalted one. They are brother and sister.” If rumor were true, if Miravia had been summarily exiled from her clan, what did that make her now? Not a widow. Surely not a wife.
“I see,” said the old woman. “It is not Master Eliar who is the hopeful lover.”
Her raptor’s gaze was fixed on him. How deep her stare penetrated he could not be sure, but her claws were in him already.
She nodded. “Is your suit to be favored, or dismissed?”
He felt his skin gone clammy, and then a rush of heat.
“I have found you to be a sure-footed person on the whole, Master Keshad. So it must be you are uncertain of how your suit will be received either on the part of the young woman, or her family. Is there aid I can offer you?”
“You, exalted one? Offer me aid? Why?”
Her expression sharpened, as he had always imagined an eagle’s might when it spots the flicker of movement that betrays its prey. “You have done me a service. I am a woman who settles her debts. Therefore, if you need my help, you need only ask.” She raised a hand and the cavalcade resumed its upward progress. Folk stopped to stare at this remarkable sight while meanwhile she scanned the humble market street, the dusty lanes, and recently built brick houses; her gaze rose to the makeshift temples—the council square with benches set under thatched awnings—and the sprawling building on the height with a plank porch and canvas walls.
“A strangely modest palace for an emperor’s son and var’s nephew to bide.” She glanced at the wagons behind her, her female attendants veiled behind curtained windows. “Is this the best the Hundred has allowed my son?”
“This is but a part of what he possesses, exalted one. Although I admit his exploits are chiefly military. It is his wife who negotiated for a substantial payment for services rendered and who included this valuable stretch of land, since it is here that king’s oil can be harvested. They are partners in this venture.”
“His wife? His wife was stolen by the western demons long ago.”
“Perhaps that was another wife, exalted one. I speak of Mai. If you meet with the council here, they will speak so highly of her you might think they exaggerate. But I assure you, they do not. Although Captain Anji founded the settlement, it is surely through her efforts that the town has flourished.”
“A local woman, is she? From a noble family in this region?”
“No, exalted one. It is not our way to have certain families set above others as it is in the empire. Anyway, she became the captain’s wife before they arrived in the Hundred. I believe she is a merchant’s daughter from the Golden Road, a place called Kartu Town.”
“I never heard of such a place! One of those dreary little towns with nothing more than a well and a stable and a herd of sheep. In any case, my son cannot have married a merchant’s daughter, although I suppose he might have taken one as a concubine. Is she here?”
“I believe she resides in Olossi.”
“Go yourself and bring her to me, since Chief Deze seems determined to keep me out of the way until my son returns to offer a more fitting welcome. Bring her quickly, so I can take her measure.”
“Take her measure? Anyone here will gladly give you her measure.”
“Who is it you are in love with, Master Keshad? The blushing woman whose brother humiliated her in public? Or this other one?”
“She is Captain Anji’s wife, exalted one.”
“Yet would you take her, if she were offered to you?”
“She will not be offered to me! The captain is devoted to her, everyone knows that.”
She pursed her lips. “These sentimental spoutings become tiresome. What man has ever held on to a concubine when he saw that his interests lay elsewhere? Because I like you, Master Keshad, I will give you the concubine and help you acquire this other female as well. Then you can have two wives. Or a wife and a concubine, however you wish it.”
He choked, face burning. “I am not—”
“Are you not? Look how flushed you are!”
He swiped a hand over his sweating forehead. “Anyway, Mai is her own mistress. She is the administrator of their holdings and household, not him. She can’t be bought or sold.”
“Of course she can be! Only the price is negotiable.”
“What are you saying, exalted one?”
“I am saying,” she said with a glance toward the wagons ambling upward behind her, “I have plans for my son that do not include an inconvenient merchant’s daughter.”
31
HOME. HOME. HOME.
Mai had been gone from Olossi for only a few days, flown on eagle’s wings to Horn and back again. In those few days so much had passed in Horn that to think of it dizzied her. But entering now through her courtyard gate she felt as if she had only stepped out of the compound walls to take a turn in Olossi’s market streets before returning home to eat her dinner and go to her night’s rest.
As Chief Tuvi escorted her in through the warehouse, voices faded to silence as people looked up. Factors hesitated, brushes were set down, vials of precious oil held forgotten in hands, people standing as still as if they had spotted a venomous snake near their feet. Tuvi shrugged with a frown of puzzlement. Priya wrapped the sleeping Atani more closely against her slender frame. When they reached the gate that led into the counting room, it opened at once, as if the folk inside had expected them. Tuvi stepped inside first, as he always did. He scanned the room, then gestured to Mai. After a glance at Priya and the baby, she followed.
O’eki stood in the center of the chamber with arms crossed, his big frame towering in the space. “Mistress!”
His gaze shifted to fix on the other person in the otherwise empty chamber, a young man with black and lovely hair curling loose as if blown in a whirlwind, his intense expression pinning her in the instant in which she recognized him.
“Keshad! You came back! You survived! What of Eliar?”
“Eliar is alive, not that I care for his well-being any longer. Mistress, where is the captain? Is he with you?”
“He’s still in Horn.” She shook her head. “What news, Keshad? By your face, it is momentous!”
“I’ve been sent to fetch the captain,” he said, but he was a terrible liar; his gaze slid sideways, his eyelids flickered; his lips thinned as if he were squeezing back the truth.
She looked at O’eki, who shrugged. Standing, as always, in a position to block any move made against her, Chief Tuvi scratched at his straggle of a beard. Priya came in behind her and touched her elbow to reassure her. Atani smacked his lips.
“Best speak up, lad,” said Chief Tuvi in a genial tone that would have milked blood from stone, if the stone were wise.
Voices broke into argument on the other side of the door that led into the house. The heavy door groaned, then slammed back, and Sheyshi stormed into the room with high color in her dusky cheeks.
“Mistress! You are come home! I was worried for you!” She seized Mai’s free arm and clung to it, her breath sweet with mint tea and her fingers like claws digging into Mai’s flesh. “I heard those two talking! That one!” Mercifully, she released Mai and pointed with her finger, tremblingly, a
t Keshad, who flinched at the rudeness. “I heard that one tell O’eki to keep a secret until the captain comes home.”
“Keep what secret?”
Sheyshi heaved a passionate sigh. “There is trouble in the settlement for Mistress Miravia! And he won’t tell you! Some important person is come, but I couldn’t hear who. Now maybe your sister Miravia has trouble!”
“What important person, Keshad? Has Eliar threatened to take Miravia to Nessumara?” In her life maybe Mai had never spoken so sharply to anyone, but the events of recent months had spun a stronger thread in her, as tough as silk, as enduring as wool. “Tell me!”
He took a step back as if she had slapped him, then he wiped a hand over his face as if to brush away the pelting bruise of a cloudburst. The look he cast toward Sheyshi was bitter, even brutal, an ugly grimace that startled Mai. He could not control his feelings; he struggled to speak evenly as Chief Tuvi’s placid gaze prodded him.
“There is much to tell, Mistress. The emperor, he who was the captain’s half brother, is dead, killed in battle by his cousins.”
Mai swayed. Priya caught her under the elbow, but she found her breath. O’eki stooped by his desk and rose to offer his writing pillow for her to sit, but she shook him off as Sheyshi wailed. “No, I’m all right. What does this mean for Anji?”
“The cousin has taken the throne and been anointed as emperor. But he is a peaceable man, seeking order, not war.”
“Hu! Certainly it seems practical to him to want no more fighting now he has gained the imperial throne,” said Tuvi with one those inscrutable smiles common to the Qin when they were amused by the ironies of life.
“Maybe so. I only met his gelded brother, who seemed—” The phrase spoken with a shudder. “—determined to achieve his ends. They have an offer for the captain.”
Mai shook her head impatiently. “An offer? Of what kind?”
“Gelded?” said Tuvi. “Ah. He was cut. A eunuch cannot sit as emperor. Or var.”
“They don’t expect—!” Mai broke off as heat rose in her face.
Atani essayed a few gurgling sounds and reached for Mai from the wrap. Priya lifted him out of the cloth, and as Mai took his comforting weight in her arms she remembered that calmness served her better than anger and fright. “What is the offer, Keshad?”