The Very Best of Kate Elliott (19 page)

Slowly, he set down the cup. She had not even finished hers; a shimmer of heat still spun from its surface. She went to the door. Poised on the threshold, she glanced over her shoulder at him. He rose with a shy smile. Like any man born and bred in the Hundred, he saw nothing odd in entering a house with a woman, even one he was flirting with.

“Eh, truly,” he said, the older accent wakening in his voice,“my aunties used to make me chop the vegetables. Said it were best when done by a man.”

Then a flush darkened his skin again, as if he had said something he ought not.

As if the words had two meanings, as they often did in the Hundred.

He would go inside with her, all alone into the compound. They would chop vegetables in the kitchen—that was all—and the others would return, and maybe he would take the feast with them and return to the reeve hall after. And at some time in the next few weeks he would die an unfortunate death. Because Anji would order it. He would not be able to help himself, being what he was. He’d have to kill the spy he’d sent to steal Bronze Hall’s secrets, for the crime of having been alone with the woman Anji still considered his wife.

That would teach Anji, wouldn’t it?

But what if Tesya was wrong about Badinen?

A wave of disgust swamped her, its taste so bitter she wanted to spit. How could she even think of luring this man into a situation he could not understand and was in no way responsible for? Maybe he was Anji’s willing and eager agent. Maybe he was just obeying orders forced upon him. Obviously, even if that were true, he had not been warned what would happen to men known to have been alone with her. So even if he were Anji’s agent, Anji considered him expendable. No one could look at Badinen and not see that women might find him attractive. Anji might even have sent him to test Mai, without warning the poor reeve.

Eiya! Down these paths branched a maze of possible threats, promises, motives, and outcomes. All she knew for sure was that important documents had been stolen from Bronze Hall.

She stepped back onto the porch, slammed the door shut, and turned to the young reeve. “A thousand pardons, Reeve Badinen. I entirely forgot that I promised to go over to my neighbor’s—”

Breaking off, she strode forward, grabbed her cup, and drained the tea. The liquid burned on her tongue, making her eyes water. She set it down so hard on the table that he jumped.

“Why have you come to Bronze Hall?” she said, keeping her voice low.

“I-I beg your pardon, verea?” He took a step away from her, as if just now wondering if she might be demented. “Did I offend you in some way? I had no intention—”

“Surely you know a courier bag has gone missing. As the only newcomer to the hall you are the chief suspect. Did you know people believe you’re working as a spy for King Anjihosh?”

His mouth opened, worked wordlessly, and shut again.

“I heard something about a courier bag in the hall at dawn this morning, before I flew here. . . . They think I stole it?” He covered his eyes with a hand, shook his head, and lowered the hand to stare at her helplessly.“No, of course they would blame me. I’m the only new reeve among them. Peddonon warned me this might happen.”

“Peddonon? The reeve Peddonon? He warned you what might happen?”

“He and many others transferred from Horn Hall to Bronze Hall after the war. King Anjihosh never trusted them, knowing they had been close companions to the previous reeve commander. But at that time, right after the war, I was a novice reeve. Because I needed training I had an excuse to stay behind. So they left me as their agent within Horn Hall. All these years I’ve faithfully sent information to them when I could . . . but now that I’ve finally left there, no one trusts me here.”

His words fell like so many leaves scattered by a gusting wind: hard to grasp hold of.“Are you saying you have been Peddonon’s spy in Horn Hall all this time?”

He looked as guileless as the unclouded sun.“Yes.”

“But then why did you leave there just now . . . ?” She trailed off. His gaze did not leave her face.

After a moment, he said, very softly, “You’re the one, aren’t you? I didn’t realize.”

“I’m what one?”

“Discipline is so tight at Horn Hall that there was a joke among the reeves that ‘Nothing escapes the King Anjihosh.’ Then the rejoinder was,‘Except one.’ So if anyone ever made some comment like,‘Everyone knows that,’ or ‘Everyone must do that,’ then someone would always respond,‘Except one.’ It’s you, isn’t it?”

Heat flamed up her cheeks so fast that he looked away.

“My apologies,” he muttered.“I should never have spoken it.”

“Best you go,” she said more curtly than she intended. “If you see Reeve Peddonon, tell him I wish to see him as soon as he can trouble himself to get here.”

Badinen glanced up at the sky. The sun blazed at zenith, clouds parting around it as if afraid to veil its fierce disk. “My apologies, verea,” he repeated.

“Neh, neh, do not say so. It was nothing. But I need to speak to Peddonon right away. Do you understand?”

With his hands he sketched the gesture used in the tales to indicate
goodbye and fare well.
“I’ll go at once.”

“If you go up this street to its end and through the gate there,” she added, “you’ll find the hill top has a perch built out in the open. Your eagle can land and launch from there.”

“My thanks,” he murmured, still so embarrassed that he could not meet her gaze as he took his leave.

She watched him go and then, at last, met the gaze of the curious red cap. After all, she was not as ruthless as she ought to be. He tipped his cap in mocking salute, a strenuously polished ring glinting on his left hand. A wolf ’s head ring. She refrained from grabbing the pole used to raise and lower the lamps, running down onto the street, and smashing him right on his already once-broken nose. How she hated them and their surveillance! But she would not become like the man she had left. She would not. Instead, she went back to the kitchen.

Once a year a spray of plum blossoms was delivered to Mai’s door by a cadre of Anji’s elite Black Wolves. Once a year she refused to accept the flowers, and the riders left bearing the message implicit in her refusal. That was the only communication between them. She kept hoping Anji would give up but so far he had not. The only thing stopping him from riding into town with his troops and making her a prisoner was his pride.

She had built a fine life as far away from him in the Hundred he ruled as she could manage. In the region of Mar, in the port town of Salya, she had family, a business, friends, and a network of interlacing community in which she was deeply involved and, she believed, was respected. She had a daughter to raise. She had allies, whatever that meant, but it meant something when part of your life involved a rear-guard action fighting to own yourself.

“Mai! You’re slaughtering that innocent brinjal root. You must be thinking of Anji.”

Miravia lumbered in, belly leading, and gave Mai a kiss on the cheek before she swung the basket she was carrying onto the table. Derra followed with a basket balanced on each hip.

Mai set down the knife, seeing the spray of white tuberous brinjal flesh in splinters across the wooden cutting board.“Oh.”

“Yes,” agreed Miravia.“Let me do that.”

“You should sit down after tramping all over town.”

“I can’t. I feel very restless.”

Mai glanced at Miravia’s huge belly. “Do you think the baby is coming?”

“I think so. It’s exactly how I felt with the other two.”

Mai handed her the knife.“It wouldn’t be like this if all ties had been severed. I would simply have moved on. But I am constantly reminded that I can’t. For example, I would like to have a man in my arms again someday. I would like to not worry that my friends in Bronze Hall are under constant siege. I fear he may find an excuse to send his soldiers to occupy Salya even though the town council pays taxes faithfully every year.”

Miravia smiled ruefully as she lined up scrubbed radish and began chopping, but she made no reply. Her hair was bound back in a scarf, and her cheeks were round and moist with sweat from the excursion. She began to tell Mai the gossip she’d heard in the market, and what news there was of ships and sheep and merchants from exotic lands come to sell exotic wares for a season in Salya in the hopes of earning enough to buy Mar-grown spices and delicacies to take back to their homes.

Mai let the words flow past. What manner of person was she that she had even for an instant entertained the notion of inviting Badinen inside to innocently help her prepare a meal with the full expectation that this unexceptional act would get him killed? She hadn’t any proof he was a spy nor any reason to think so except what Tesya had said. Was she so caught up in this silent war with Anji that she would throw the innocent to the wolves just to prove that she could?

The two girls came running in, towing big Edi and little Raida. Arasit’s shrieks filled the kitchen area before calm Eiko pulled her away to go set up the dining room for the feast. Raida toddled loyally after the big girls as always. Edi went out to haul in fuel and water and extend the awning so they could leave the dining room doors open on the sunside. Miravia chattered on with an entertaining if far-fetched tale about sea-going ships whose hulls were magically woven with the shadows of birds so that they would fly faster over the ocean.

Keshad returned carrying the accounts books, which he sealed into the chest hidden beneath the floor, to be opened after the Ghost Days, at dawn on the first day of the new year. Then he supervised the girls as they put up the festival decorations on the porch. Within the routine of daily life Mai kept her hands busy, and slowly the churning mire of her thoughts settled.

Late in the afternoon, when she had gone into the garden to harvest fresh shoots for the slip-fry, Zubaidit strolled into the garden, her hair braided and coiled up atop her head and an undyed cotton taloos suitable for the Ghost Days tightly wrapped around her lithe body.

Mai rose and kissed her, holding her dirty hands away from the cloth, then said,“You have something you want to say to me in private about Tesya.”

Instead of replying Zubaidit raised a hand, cautioning silence. Boots thumped on the walkway. Reeve Peddonon trotted down the steps and strode across the walled garden. He was big for a reeve, tall and thickly built without being fleshy. Zubaidit relaxed at once, and gave him a sisterly kiss on either cheek, then stepped aside so Mai could greet him in the same way.

“You got my message,” Mai said. “I hope there’s no need to look so grim.”

“What message? I got no message. I have terrible news.”

His mouth had a harsh line she’d not seen since the days of the war. “What’s happened?”

“Marshal Orhon is dead.”

“Dead?” The word shaped easily, but it made no sense.“But I just saw Orhon last week for our usual tea . . . There’s been no word of sickness . . . Dead? How can he be dead?”

“He was murdered.”

“Murdered? How can you be sure?”

“The knife and the blood.”

“Knife? Blood?” She kept repeating words as if Peddonon had lapsed into speaking a language she did not know.

“He was stabbed up under the jaw.”

“The hells,” murmured Mai, to say something. Her head felt raked clean of all but one word:
Murdered.

“A knife to the brain is one of the ways the acolytes of Ushara mark their killings,” said Zubaidit quietly.

“Have you killed a person in that way?” Peddonon asked, examining her from top to toe.

“No.” Zubaidit had the deadly grace of a person whose body is honed like steel, her assured posture very like that of the flirtatious young man Mai had seen on the street.“Neither I nor any of my people in my temple were involved with this death. Orhon was my ally in keeping this region free of King Anjihosh’s iron fist. Might a disgruntled reeve or fawkner have killed him?”

Peddonon shook his head. “Unlikely. He was rigid and often unpleasant but he was also fair and consistent. People in the hall grumbled but they respected the way he kept Bronze Hall independent when the other five reeve halls bent under the thumb of the king.”

Mai nodded. “Anji met Orhon only once. As I recall it, Orhon flatly rejected his overtures to have Bronze Hall join with the other reeve halls under Anji’s command. I’m sure Anji never forgave him for that. It’s the kind of thing he can’t forgive.”

“That does make his involvement likely. But I don’t understand how someone could have gotten into the marshal’s cote to do it, at night, on an island surrounded by cliffs where no stranger is allowed to stay and where there is only one place to put a boat. The pier is guarded day and night. It makes more sense if it was someone already inside.”

“What about that new reeve, Badinen?” Mai said.“This morning Tesya accused him of stealing a courier bag. Could he have murdered Orhon last night and flown here to Salya this morning? Because he was here.”

He rocked back on his heels as at a hit.“Tesya accused him! It can’t be. Badinen was working for me in Horn Hall.”

“Was he?” said Zubaidit, exchanging a glance with Mai. “You never told us!”

Peddonon shrugged ruefully. He was such a good-natured man that Mai could never be angry with him. “It seemed safer that only I and Marshal Orhon knew. What did Tesya say?”

“That there is a spy and a thief in Bronze Hall, and he is the only newcomer so therefore the chief suspect. Do you think he could have turned on you?”

“Anything is possible. But he’s old-fashioned, our Badinen, from the upcountry north where the old ways are the only ways anyone knows. This business of an outlander riding into the Hundred and declaring himself commander over all the land is not a thing a country lad like Badinen takes lightly. Nor is he infatuated with the idea of being part of an outlander’s army, or the reorganized reeve halls, or the way Anjihosh set himself up as king with spies and soldiers to do his bidding.”

“What made Badinen come here now?”

Peddonon’s lips curled into a sardonic smile. “There was a woman involved. Threw him over for another man.”