Traitors' Gate

by Kate Elliott

  “I am leaving for Astafero.” She dared not beg Priya to come with her, because she did not want to beg, and yet she could scarcely bear to go without her.

  “The captain asked us to attend you,” said Priya, indicating a traveling chest, two covered baskets, and a pair of scuffed old saddlebags stuffed to bursting.

  Mai touched Priya’s arm, shy of contact because she did not know how to treat a woman she had once called “slave.” “Did he ask you, or command you?”

  “I do not mind, plum blossom.” Priya kissed her on the cheek with dry lips. “These last few days have been difficult for you.”

  “I have been selfish. If you do not wish to go—”

  “We are going, Mistress. Let it be.”

  The harbor was busy, the town abuzz with messengers, gossip, commerce, and nervous anticipation: The army was on the move, leaving Olossi with a scant guard to protect itself should the worst happen and the attack into the north fail. The folk of Olo’osson were gambling, having offered up their young men, their horses, and significant supplies. They had only one chance.

  “Should I have chosen a welcoming gift?” whispered Mai to Priya as they watched two low-slung cargo ships being laded with a remarkable amount of cloth and other fineries. Mai stroked Atani’s back anxiously until the baby wriggled to show his discomfort, his dark eyes drawn down very like his father’s when Anji was trying to hide annoyance. “I have to make a good impression. Why didn’t Anji say something to me?”

  “There the captain comes,” said Priya, squeezing Mai’s elbow.

  Atani squirmed, hearing hooves, a sound he evidently associated with his father. He reached, spotting his father among a cadre of thirty-six riders. A cadre of foot soldiers marched behind.

  The horses would be going with the army. Anji dismounted. He greeted Mai first, then kissed Atani and handed him to Chief Tuvi. He greeted Priya and O’eki with respect, acknowledged the others with a glance, even the silent Sheyshi. At Anji’s look, Keshad actually took a step back, bumping into one of the hirelings, who muttered a curse. Many folk had gathered to watch, as Hundred folk commonly did, for any activity or interaction that occurred in public was meant to be watched, discussed, and commented upon.

  “I forgot to bring a welcoming gift for your mother,” Mai murmured.

  “She would accept no such gift from you.”

  “How am I to greet and converse with a woman who has already tried to get rid of me?”

  “Listen, Mai.” He glanced back at Atani, content in Tuvi’s arms, then bent his gaze toward her as they walked up the gang plank onto the deck. “She is my mother. She raised me. She saved my life at the cost of her own freedom. I owe her respect and obedience, as all Qin sons respect and honor their mothers. Anyhow, until I know what has brought her here, I can make no plan. You must follow my lead in this.”

  The same tension that had troubled his visage last night before he had devoured her settled heavily on him, making him seem a different person than the uncomplicated Qin captain who had plucked her out of the marketplace and carried her off to distant lands. But perhaps he had not changed at all. Perhaps this man had always been masked behind the other one, thickly chained like the little chest Toughid carried slung over his mount’s hindquarters. Now and then this other man escaped, and however much she loved Anji, she was not sure she liked that piece of him very much.

  • • •

  SHAI TRACKED SIXTH Cohort for four days before he spotted Zubaidit. He was hiding in a stand of pipe-brush overlooking a stream, and cursed if she wasn’t wearing a sergeant’s stripes and leading the rearguard along the bank, striding along in that easy way she had. Her soldiers were quiet and disciplined, but they were also in a hurry. For four days Sixth Cohort had been marching toward Nessumara.

  Shai pitched a stone into the water. The plop caught the patrol’s attention. Then he ran the other way, across a weed-ridden field. He favored a leg, pretending to limp.

  “Get him!” That was Zubaidit’s voice. “Capture him alive.”

  Had she recognized him just from his back?

  He stumbled on purpose, hoping to make the inevitable fall go more easily, but the soldiers hit him across the back with their staffs and piled on, grinding his face into a desiccated thistle. He inhaled bristles and grit.

  “He’s got a knife.” They took his weapons.

  He heard her voice. “Have you caught yourselves a gods-rotted outlander, lads? There’s a cursed good reward for bringing in outlanders.”

  “Not fair,” complained one of the men, “just because those three were close enough to grab him.”

  “I could take the whole cursed reward and forget about you lot. But I’ll divide the reward and my bonus evenly between the entire cadre and give you three who tackled him a bit extra for your trouble. I’ll take the knives and his staff meanwhile. Any complaints? No? Let him up.”

  The pressure on his back eased, and he spat out dirt. Cautiously, he rolled to sit.

  Zubaidit wore soldier’s garb and, around her neck, an eight-pointed star hammered out of tin, the mark of the army. Leaning on the staff they’d taken from him, she studied him, but the way she was looking at him made him cursed uneasy.

  “Get rope,” she said. “We don’t want to lose him. Not with so much coin at stake.”

  “What do we do with him, Sergeant?” asked one of the men as he brushed dirt off his trousers.

  “I’ll search him for other weapons. Then we take him to Captain Arras. Hurry up! We’re trailing behind, you cursed lagabouts. I could march faster when I was a wee toddler. There’ve been reeve patrols sighted in this area. A couple of cadres were hit by attacks.”

  “Wish I had an eagle.” The youngest scanned the sky with a wistful look.

  “So you’d wish, until it ripped your head off,” said Bai with a laugh. “Here, give me the rope. Get ready to march out. You three, scout ahead.”

  She kneeled behind Shai and yanked his arms so hard up behind him that he grunted in pain. With his wrists tied tightly back, he sat there panting as she patted up his legs and torso.

  “Cursed fool,” she breathed into the back of his neck. “If you came deliberately, fist both hands.”

  He fisted both hands.

  She grunted, like an echo of his pain. “Follow my lead.”

  She fastened a lead line to his rope shackles, fastened his belt and small pack over her back, and handed the lead to a soldier. “Six men on him at all times. Let’s move.”

  As they marched, he in the middle of the cadre and she striding along close by, she commenced a running commentary. “Well built, isn’t he? Are all outlanders so cursed well built, do you think? Look at those arms! Whew! He’s got a cursed good chest under that shirt. Makes me miss my Devouring days, eh?”

  “If you don’t mind my saying so, Sergeant,” said one of the three women who marched in the cadre, a fine-boned woman who carried a bow like she knew how to use it, “I thought the captain was after your ass.”

  “I’ll tell you, Taria, the best piece of advice I’ll ever give you, is never ever milk a man who sits in authority over you. Not unless you have no choice. And unless you like wielding the whip, don’t milk one you have authority over. Slaves are different, of course.”

  “Why? You fancy this one? I can’t say I think he’s that cursed handsome, but—whew!—you’re right about his arms. Why don’t we strip off his shirt and look over the rest of him?”

  Zubaidit grinned. “I wish we could sell him. But I suppose the cloaks will just take him away, since they’re the ones who set the reward. Although what in the hells they want with outlanders I can’t imagine.”

  On they strode, as the soldiers tossed suggestions back and forth, ranging from the mundane to the obscene. The odd thing was that this group was not any different from any gaggle of militiamen, mostly youngish men with a few older men and the three women, all archers and, by their similar features, probably related. Zubaidit threw in comments now and agai
n, but she retained an air of separation very like the chiefs among the Qin. It was a strong cadre; they were alert; they looked out for each other; they kept up the pace. They were very little like the first cohort of Star of Life he’d met. These soldiers seemed human.

  They paused at the fringe of a woodland copse beside a shallow pool ringed by mulberry trees and a pair of fallow diked fields. The cadre set up a perimeter using a pair of fallen logs as a line of protection, and the three archers headed out around the woodland with a trio of scouts flanking. Shai was allowed to take a piss, with Zubaidit holding the rope, just far enough away that, within sight of everyone but with their backs turned so no one could see their mouths moving, they could exchange a few words.

  He did not hesitate. “I know how to kill Lord Radas. There are two precious vials of snake venom in the pouch. On a dart, the venom is deadly if it penetrates the skin. Even a cloak will fall if infected by the poison.”

  “Cloaks can’t die.”

  “We have to strip the cloak off him while he’s in a stupor.”

  “Can it be so simple?”

  “Not if the cloak knows what you intend. Then it’s impossible.”

  “Of course. They can always anticipate an attack.” She swatted him, hard, across the back of the head, and spoke in a loud voice. “Aren’t you finished? You’re as slow as an ox!”

  “And not as well hung!” shouted a soldier, as the others laughed.

  “Has anyone checked?” asked another.

  “Hush, now, you’ll frighten off the game.” Zubaidit tugged Shai back into the midst of the cadre, and he sank down and rested his forehead on bent knees, abruptly so tired he could not keep his eyes open. He’d shared the secret. She knew; she was still with him; they had their chance to complete the job.

  May the Merciful One protect them!

  He dozed, and was awakened when the hunting party returned with a half dozen birds and a plump yearling deer. At dusk they reached the cohort, which was settling for the night in a deserted village. The captain was a cautious man; he’d ringed the village with fires and a barrier hastily constructed out of boards torn from the cottages. They’d found a bag of nai flour to cook into porridge, enough for the entire cohort. Zubaidit’s cadre fell to arguing over how much of their meat they had to share out among six hundred men, until she snapped at them to shut up. Then, with the three men who’d actually captured him, she sought out the captain.

  He’d set up for the night in the council square, a roof over a square of benches screened on three sides by lattices grown with vines. He was sitting on a camp stool with his boots and armor off, relaxed in bare feet and loose jacket and trousers. Over the council hearth he roasted strips of meat on a metal rod over the fire. He rose as Zubaidit led Shai in.

  All he said, after looking Shai up and down in the firelight, was a breath of a word. “Ah.”

  He sat again and bent his attention to the sizzling meat. They waited while the meat roasted, and afterward he pulled the strips onto a wooden platter and offered some both to Zubaidit and to Shai, although he did not offer to let them sit. Shai was so cursed hungry he burned his mouth by gulping down the meat while it was still too hot to chew.

  The captain ate with the infuriating deliberateness of a man who is thinking hard and trying not to outpace himself. Zubaidit licked her fingers after; the captain watched her, realized he was watching, and looked away, right at Shai.

  “Where’d you find this outlander, Sergeant?”

  “Out lurking in the brush. I guess he panicked and started running. My men caught him. Here he is. I’ve told them they’ll share out the reward. There was a reward, wasn’t there? My cadre will be cursed irritated if they discover there isn’t.”

  His lips thinned. Was he angry? “There is a generous reward.” He rubbed a clean-shaven jaw. He reminded Shai of the Qin, a fit man who carried himself confidently. He looked again at Shai, and his frown deepened. “What in the hells am I to do with you?”

  Zubaidit’s eyebrows twitched; something in her expression made Shai uneasy, but he could not identify what it was. Was she uneasy?

  “I thought you’d be glad of an outlander, Captain. Something to boast about at the next army council at Saltow. Or do you fear Commander Hetti will say he captured him and take the reward for himself? Isn’t that what he always does?”

  He cut another haunch of meat into slices and skewered them on the rod. “Why do you care, Sergeant?”

  “I’m ambitious, Captain, just as you are. I’d rather be loyal to one who shows loyalty to those he commands than to one like Commander Hetti, who takes what others have done and uses it to raise himself up. I couldn’t help but notice after the failed attack on Nessumara, that it was your proposals for prosecuting the war that Hetti adopted as if they were his own. The very things the army went out and did, which got you no credit. I don’t mind saying I want the reward I’ve promised to my cadre, and I want a chance for a company command.”

  A female sergeant came forward with a kettle for tea and set it on a wire trivet over a bed of glowing coals raked off to one side. The captain glanced at her, an intimate look that reminded Shai of Anji’s interactions with his chiefs. Her shrug was unfathomable to Shai, but the captain nodded.

  “There are ways around Commander Hetti,” he said. “So the question you and I must face, Sergeant, is do we really want a cloak to walk into our camp to claim this outlander, and meanwhile cut into our hearts and thoughts, as they will do. Are you willing to have your heart laid bare? Are you sure you will survive their scrutiny?”

  “I have nothing to hide!”

  “Maybe I do have something to hide,” said the captain, gaze sliding smoothly to Shai.

  Merciful One! Shai recognized him: this was the captain who had waited in attendance on Hari outside Toskala. He’d arranged for Shai to get smuggled out of camp.

  He knew Shai knew; Shai knew he knew. But if he wasn’t going to say anything, then Shai sure as the hells could keep his mouth shut. He had a job to do, whatever it meant for him in the end. A good soldier rides into battle without flinching. His comrades depended on him, and beyond all things, he must never let them down. That was the Qin way, and whatever else the Qin were—conquerors of the Golden Road and the Mariha princedoms—they had taken in and trained a hapless seventh son like Shai. He owed them something.

  The captain shook his head with a sigh. “Unfortunately we can’t rid ourselves of the outlander now. Everyone has seen him.”

  “Why would we want to rid ourselves of him when we have standing orders to bring in all outlanders and gods-touched—?”

  “Never mind. We can send a message to Lord Commander Radas, sealed and for his clerk’s eyes only. Be sure you have nothing to hide, Sergeant. For if you do, you’ll be dead.”

  “I’ll be dead anyway,” she said with a Devouring smile that made the captain wince and then laugh ruefully. “We’ll all be dead someday, Captain. Won’t we?”

  “The cloaks say otherwise,” he said softly. “Don’t you believe them, Sergeant?”

  Bai’s smile, in response, frightened Shai, for there was something implacable in it. Even the captain flung up his chin, looking startled, but her posture altered as she thrust out a hip in a provocative stance that reminded a man of how bodies might grapple. Shai broke out in a sweat, recalling his grappling with the actress Eridit in the rocks, months ago now, barely more than a dream. Yet what a dream!

  “I serve where I am bidden,” Bai said, the words like a promise.

  The other sergeant’s gaze tightened, watching this display. She nudged the captain.

  “Don’t,” he said to Bai, “for we agreed there’d be none of that. As for the other, you’re right. I don’t like to think of Commander Hetti gathering to himself the harvest of what my cohort has sown, as he’ll do if I don’t act.”

  “I know what I want,” agreed Zubaidit. “This outlander will help both of us get what we seek.”

  37

 
THE QIN TROOP arrived at the shore of the western Barrens after a two day journey over waters so smooth that even Anji had shown no sign of seasickness, although Mai had thrown up twice and given up on any food except nai porridge. A company of riders leading extra horses waited where the ships were dragged up onto the strand. Qin led the ranks and local men filled out the rest of the company, many of whom were growing out their hair to twist up in topknots.

  This impressive cavalcade clad in black tabards provided their escort as they rode to the gates of Astafero. The dusty colors of the Barrens leached Mai’s heart of courage, but she knew how to keep her expression placid and her hands from trembling. As long as Anji was beside her, she could face down anything.

  Folk gathered at the gate; guards lined the wall walk, their spears adorned with rippling banners in the wind that blew down off the mountains. It was so hot that her mouth parched, making it difficult to swallow. Yet the bright colors worn by the local women pleased her eye, and the people who lined the main avenue leading up through town, waving banners and ribbons, sang a greeting. Their smiling faces and strong voices heartened her. Whatever Anji’s mother might think of her, she had allies here.

  At Anji’s insistence, she rode beside him. He understood the protocols far better than she could; he had been raised in an imperial court until the age of twelve and afterward sent to his uncle’s court as a prince, even if after all that he had ridden in the Qin army as a mere captain. And yet had he been a mere captain? Had she misunderstood his rank? Or had his uncle the var all along been suspicious of his nephew? Clearly, his uncle had been willing enough to rid himself of Anji, given the chance.

  Had Commander Beje’s only motivation been to repay the favor Anji had shown Beje’s clan by not dragging the clan’s dishonor—his first wife’s abandonment of him—through the var’s court? Or did Beje covet other allegiances? Mai remembered old Widow Lae who had been hanged in Kartu Town for her treachery against the Qin. Where had her grandson gone? To whom had he been conveying her message?