Traitors' Gate (28 page)

He tapped the sergeant's arm. “You stay here.”

He circled around until he saw, in the gloom, the ranks of wagons piled with poultry cages, all the birds asquawk as if a fox had come raiding. It was easy to miss the noise beneath the roar of the agitated crowd; easy to ignore a pair of dark shapes lifting a pair of cages from the rearmost wagon.

He strolled up. “You've got permission to secure those, eh?”

One of the figures—a thin youth clad in nothing more than a kilt—shrank back, but
she
turned to confront him as bold as you please, having set the two cages on the ground at her feet.

“Who are you to ask?” Her voice was low and assured.

He grinned. “I'm called Captain Arras. You're not a soldier.”

“I'm not.”

“A spy, perhaps?” He set a hand on his sword hilt.

She rubbed her chin, head cocked to one side. “It's sure I'd admit it if I were.”

“Heh. I'd say you were one of the hostages out of Toskala, but you don't talk like them.”

“I don't, it's true. Not that it's any of your business, but I was married into one of the mat-making clans in Toskala. I'm
from the south. I guess the army thought my husband would miss me if they hauled me away.”

“Do you miss your husband?”

She spoke with the posture of her body, playing to his obvious interest. “He's young and energetic. I have no complaints of how he's treated me since we were wed.”

“But some complaints of the army, I take it. Why are you stealing chickens?”

“Do you suppose our masters feed us properly?”

“You could get whipped for stealing.”

“So I could, but I don't like to see my comrades suffering.”

“You're young to take on so much responsibility, knowing you'll take the brunt of the punishment. Where'd you serve your apprentice year?”

“Where do you think?”

He laughed, lifting his chin to make the question a command. “What's your name?”

“Zubaidit.”

“Tell you what, Zubaidit. You collect a cadre of hostages, hard workers and decent folk, and bring them along to my company. I'll see you and your people are decently fed and cared for as long as you do your work and cause me and my soldiers no trouble.”

“That's a generous offer, of its kind. What will you ask for in return?”

“It's true I like a good workout at the Devourer's temple, same as any person, but I'm not one of those who uses the power he has to coerce folk into sex. I like that you're not afraid to talk to me, although I've caught you in the act of stealing, for which I could certainly see you and the lad whipped had I a mind to it. Or force you into my bed to spare you the welts.”

“So you'll pull me along to work for your company and hope to persuade me by other means? I've a husband, as I've mentioned.”

“Many a woman has a husband, and many a man a wife, and the tales repeat what observation tells us: that the Devourer acts as she wills, and folk will find pleasure as they are driven by her will acting within them. What's your point? If
you're worried you might conceive a child for his clan not of his breeding, then there are ways to make sure no child is sown in fertile ground. As every hierodule in the Devourer's temple knows.”

“You've made your plan of attack plain!” She laughed, and he wasn't quite sure whether she found him attractive or ridiculous, but anyway she wasn't recoiling. “How do you know I'm fashioned that way?”

“I know how you're fashioned.”

Behind them, the fight was breaking up. She set a fist on one hip, the angle emphasizing her shapely torso, the fit of her sleeveless vest, the curve of her hip over loose trousers belted up so the hem lapped just above her ankles. She knew he knew. It was just the first skirmish in a longer battle.

“Put those chickens back,” he added, “and I'll speak with the captain you're assigned to right now.”

She gestured, and the youth set the cages back on the wagon. Out of the darkening night, a pair of soldiers strolled up on camp duty.

“Got a problem here, Captain? The hostages are forbidden from congregating around the supply wagons. They're all gods-rotted thieves.”

“There's no problem,” said Arras.

After looking over the young woman and her mute companion, the soldiers walked on up the line of wagons.

She gestured after them. “So we are at your command, Captain Arras.”

“There's one thing,” he added, stepping up close enough to let his muscle speak. “Don't ever mock me.”

She didn't shift at all. “I don't mock, Captain. I'll tell you straight to your face what I think of you.”

He liked a dangerous, confident woman who wasn't afraid of him, and he was cursed curious about so young a woman married into a humble mat-making clan, come so far from her own people's home. What gave some folk that sense of confidence? Discipline. Training. And a more intangible quality, gifted to them from the gods.

Later, after he'd detached twenty-six hostages of her
choosing from the cohort to which they'd been assigned, he went to speak to the quartermaster in charge of the provisions wagons. It was well into night by this time, but the quartermaster was still awake, supervising six clerks working by lamplight as they administered the flow of provisions and supplies into companies refitting in preparation for the fall of Nessumara in four days.

“How can I help you, Captain?” the woman asked, looking him up and down to let him know she found him attractive. She was full-figured, about his age, competent and confident, but although he appreciated her interest, he could only think about Zubaidit. Aui! Where's there an itch, you must scratch. He could not tell if, like Nessumara, Zubaidit had already fallen and was just holding out for a few more days to prepare the ground properly, or if he'd have to endure a longer campaign.

“Captain?”

“A favor, if you will. You've records for the poultry wagons?”

“I do.” Clearly, she was the kind who kept accurate records. “I've taken my day count earlier. I do another count at dawn, and then allocate birds according to those companies that have reached their week's turn for a meat ration. I can't change your company's ration, if that's what you're after.”

“I'm just curious. Any chance you could do another count?”

“Now?”

“Now.”

Sure enough, the count came up one cage short, a cage pilfered from the middle wagons, well away from the rear of the line where he'd been kept busy. Thoughtful, he strolled back to camp under a cloudless sky, swatting away the bugs, whistling under his breath. The stars shone like jewels cast across the heavens, as it said in the tale. He carried a lamp to guide his feet. One did need a lamp. It was so easy to stumble.

He grinned.

He had soldiers to drill, to make ready for Wakened Ox, because they would need rigid discipline even if all went smoothly, as such things rarely did. That first, then. He was a patient man. After the fall of Nessumara, he would have
plenty of time to unravel the mystery of his hostage. One task at a time.

A whisper of wind stirred the air as a shadow passed over him. A horse, wings spread so wide they blotted out a length of sky, galloped low, dropping to earth. The cloak of the rider billowed behind, and Arras ducked without meaning to, feeling as if the sweep of that rider's eyes was a spear-thrust that caught him in the back. Fear ripped away the strength of his legs, and he dropped to his knees, panting.

How angry would Lord Twilight be when he returned to discover that Night had captured the outlander Arras had been tasked to protect? What if Lord Radas questioned him and chose to punish him for disobedience, even though he'd only been obeying Twilight's orders? How was an ordinary man to balance walking this edge, when it was not even his choice to do so?

He picked himself up, wiped off his knees. The day of Wakened Ox could not dawn soon enough. After Nessumara fell, he would ask to be sent forward with his cohort into the next assault of the campaign. Battle was a cursed sight simpler to deal with than Guardians.

S
OMEHOW, JOSS COULD
not be rid of folk speaking of Zubaidit. Late that afternoon he reclined on pillows in the pavilion of Ushara's temple as the Hieros poured rice wine into cups and with her own hands offered one to Joss and one to Tohon. The old woman and the two men sat alone under a roof wreathed with harvest flowers from jabi bushes. The scent was overwhelmed by the tart aroma of tsi berries being cooked down as they were every year in this season. A pair of older women—like Captain Anji's personal guards—hovered within sight but out of earshot, and there was a lad lurking in the bushes.

“Strange,” the Hieros was saying, indicating two ginny
lizards who had crawled up onto the pavilion floor and were sizing up Joss with mouths gapped to show teeth. “I'm not sure they like you, Commander.”

“Aren't those the pair that traveled with Zubaidit?” asked Tohon.

The old woman terrified Joss, but the smile she turned on Tohon would have melted a block of ice. She'd been stunning in her youth, no doubt of it, and was still handsome in the way of women who have kept their vigor along with fine bone structure.

“So they are. Most folk can't tell the difference, but ginnies are as unlike as any one person is from the next. What news of my hierodule, Tohon?”

The scout packed information into a comprehensive review of all he had said and done and seen. “If you don't mind my asking, Holy One,” he finished, “do you think we can buy horses from the lendings? They had good breeding stock.”

“It would be difficult. They never come out of the Lend, and we do not enter for fear of falling afoul of their boundaries. I'm surprised you made it out.”

“The lendings took
our
horses,” said Tohon with a laugh.

The Hieros sipped thoughtfully. She was so different a person seen in this light that Joss was amazed. Like this particular rice wine, she had a pleasing disposition, slightly sweet and markedly elegant. “If you are serious, you'd best inquire at Atiratu's temple. The mendicants sworn to the Lady of Beasts journey out that way seeking various medicinal plants that grow only in the Lend. They know how to make an arrangement with the tribes.”

“What of Zubaidit?” asked Joss impatiently as the conversation wandered away from the subject that interested him most. “Can she and Shai possibly succeed?”

“She will do as she must,” said the Hieros coolly, unmoved by his passionate words. “As you did, in agreeing to stand as commander over the reeve halls, a position I believe you did not seek nor are eager to assume.”

“True-spoken.”

“Yet you will do as you must. So tell me, are you come today to embrace the Merciless One?”

The hells! Was she trying to get him out of the way? “I'm feeling restless, it's true.”

Tohon smiled sweetly at him.

Joss laughed, half shocked to realize the two of them were clearly intending to sleep together.

The Hieros gestured, and the lad dashed out from under cover of the dense vegetation. “Take the commander to the Heart Garden,” she said to the boy.

Joss went obediently, while Tohon remained behind.

“I remember you,” said the lad. “I've never seen Bai go after a man the way she did you.”

“What's your name? Have we met?”

He had a sly grin, a real troublemaker. “I'm called Kass.” But his expression drew taut as he sighed. “Will we ever see her again?”

Joss didn't know whether he braced himself or the youth with the pointlessly optimistic words that emerged from his lips. “If anyone can succeed, she can.”

They crossed through white gates into the Heart Garden, where men and women were seated on benches among the flowers. Here folk would linger before being called to enter the gates, but Kass led him straight to the gold gate and tugged on a rope that jangled a bell on the other side. The inner door within the double gates opened, and a young man who might have seen twenty years peered out. Joss smiled at him as the kalos sized him up appreciatively.

“Come in.” The kalos flicked a hand to shoo Kass away. “I'll see if there are any women wandering free who might find you of interest, not that I can see why they wouldn't. You have any brothers?”

“As it happens, I don't. I was the only boy among more sisters and female cousins than I could count.”

The kalos laughed as he beckoned Joss under the threshold and latched the door behind them. They walked into the outer precincts of the inner garden, an open area paved with
flagstones and moss and ringed with trees, bushes, and carefully constructed screens that concealed the greater part of the garden. To the right, a roof topped a bathing pavilion where four men were chatting companionably as they washed themselves while waiting for acolytes to come look them over. Their clothes were draped over benches. Pipes brought water for the rinsing buckets. There was a wooden tub as well, steam rising like breath. Set farther back, half hidden, were a few shelters for private bathing.

“I get the impression you've visited temples aplenty and need no instruction.” The kalos walked over to the pavilion and hitched up on a bench near to one man, starting a conversation.

Ushara's temple contained, like desire, an outer facing and an inner fire. To enter the outer court through the gate was to ask permission to worship. If granted, then within the central court you might loiter while you decided whether you truly wanted to approach, and by subtle signs you were shown whether any within would be likely to grant your petition. Only then did you cross under one of the gates—silver for women and gold for men. Past these gates waited hierodules and kalos, who might approach you according to how you were fashioned, if they so pleased. Water cleansed you.