Traitors' Gate (75 page)

He held still in the nook as men passed, none glancing his way, then slipped out and fell into step behind them. The market, too, had changed in the last six months. The lack of chatter and laughter always struck him first, and after that the absence of the much-loved smells of oily slip-fry stands and steaming noodle water. The only foodstuffs for sale were dry goods and garden produce being sold out of four permanent stalls guarded
by soldiers and presided over by well-fed men who spoke too boisterously.

The other merchants seated cross-legged on blankets or on stools under canvas awnings were older folk, mostly men but also some elderly aunties and grandmothers. They offered goods for sale, but few were buying. He paced down the lane of ornament sellers, who had combs and ribbons and such luxuries that no one could afford any longer, until he marked a shallow basket heaped with glass beads like those he held cupped in a hand. The woman was, like him, of middle age, with her hair bound in cloth. She had a scar on one cheek and her left arm in a sling.

“I'm selling beads, not buying them, Holy One,” she said in a pleasant voice.

He pressed the copper vey down beside the three beads.

She bent forward as if to examine the vey. “Last week,” she murmured, “a work gang from Stone Quarter was sent out to fell trees. Now we hear the entire gang was pressed onto a barge and sent downriver to Nessumara.”

“Who did you hear this from?”

“One lad jumped into the river and pretended to drown, but he was a strong swimmer. He's in hiding. Clerks made a list of every man in that gang, so if they find him, they'll cleanse him.”

He rose. “Neh, verea, I can't afford that today. My apologies.”

She lifted a hand in the merchant's gesture of acquiesence. “Tomorrow, then,” she said in the typical way of the marketplace. “Go well with the Herald, Holy One.”

There were lines at the four stalls selling rice and nai, and as Nekkar approached the nearest one he watched as an old man made his slow retreat with a covered basket so small it was difficult to believe he was buying for anyone other than himself.

“Ver, if you please, a word,” said Nekkar to the old fellow, but when the man looked at him with a frightened expression, Nekkar waved him on.

Instead, he walked to the head of the line where a woman with her head and torso swathed in a shawl was trying to bargain with the bored merchant.

“Ver, maybe if you would take this bolt of wedding silk in trade—”

“For a tey of rice?”

“One tey?” Her shock registered in her drawn and weary face.

Nekkar stepped up beside her as the silent folk waiting in the lines pretended not to watch. “A fine piece of wedding silk, verea.” He smiled at the merchant. “A tey of rice, ver. That would feed me today. This bolt of silk is worth twenty leya, surely.”

“It's worth what I'll pay for it,” retorted the merchant, adding, after a pause, “Holy One. Rice and nai are expensive. Those who can't afford to buy must wait for their rations chit like everyone else.”

“You have a good supply of provisions today, ver.” Nekkar indicated the sacks of rice and nai piled on wooden pallets. “Where are you purchasing?”

“Same as always. What's it to you?”

“Some have plenty, while others starve. If you bring those sacks as an offering down to the temple, I'll make sure to distribute them among the compounds.”

“Tss! You'll just sell it yourself and pocket the profit.”

But he faltered as Nekkar caught his gaze and stared him down.

“Think you so, ver? If you think so, say it louder to all these folk waiting here so I can be sure I'm being accused in public, and not in whispers.”

But the man could not speak such a lie out loud. Maybe it was Nekkar's steady gaze, or the simmering anger of people forced to buy at outrageous prices; maybe it was the restless presence of soldiers loaned him by the sergeant in charge, big burly lads recruited from out of town.

“Give the woman twenty tey of rice for the silk, ver, and I'll go on.”

“You'll go on,” said the merchant, rising belligerently, “because otherwise I'll have these fellows escort you to the well and toss you in.”

The murmur that spilled outward from this threat flowed quickly through the crowd, but quieted when the soldiers spun their staffs, looking for a bit of excitement.

“The gods judge, ver,” replied Nekkar. “If you cheat others to enrich yourself, then you are already dead.”

Yet words did not feed starving people. He walked with a heavy heart down Lumber Avenue to the rations warehouse on Terta Square, for his morning cup of tea with the sergeant in charge of Stone Quarter. This ritual took place on the porch, in full sight of the square. Laborers were adding on to the barracks yet again, hammering on the roof and sawing planks. A pair of older men hoisted buckets from the public well, while several anxious lads brought ladles of water around for the thirsty workers. In another time—how long ago it seemed now!—the well would have been surrounded by chatting women, and handsome girls would have commanded the ladles with a smile and a tart word, but they were all gone now, hiding in their compounds.

A young woman wrapped tightly in a best-quality silk taloos brought cups of steaming tea to the sergeant, who slapped her on her well-rounded bottom. Three other young women peeped at him from inside the sergeant's quarters. One he knew by sight, a girl from the masons' courts who had been forced weeping into the sergeant's rooms.

“We had some trouble over in the masons' courts last night, uncle,” said the sergeant, smiling. The day looked good to him, and in truth he was easier to deal with than the last sergeant had been. For one thing, he pretended to a modicum of respect for Nekkar's authority. “Three young criminals throwing rocks at the patrol. If not reined in, these hotheads will disturb every peaceful night with their violence.”

“Where are they now?” Nekkar had learned to keep his tone even so no feeling spilled.

“The one that fought had to be put down, like a frothing dog. The other two are in the pen out back. Maybe you can talk some sense into them before they're cleansed.”

“Perhaps they might be whipped and given a sentence of labor in the brickyards. Lads will lose their temper.”

“One of my men got a big cut on the head and a concussion from getting grazed by a brick. If I let that go, more will come out. They brought it on themselves.”

The cup trembled in Nekkar's hands. The pretty girl in the expensive silk was clutching one of the porch pillars so hard her hand had whitened at the knuckles, but she had such a bland smile on her face that she looked stupid. He'd not seen her before, nor had she the familiar features of any of the local Stone Quarter families. “I'll speak to them, Sergeant. What of the rations chits for today?”

“We've got nothing for you today.”

“Folk who don't eat, can't work.”

“Folk who don't work, can't eat. No wagons came in yesterday, so there's nothing to distribute.”

This blatant lie Nekkar let pass, even as he thought of the sacks of rice and nai in the market being offered at prices no one could afford. “Perhaps men might be allowed to work in groups in the fields, to prepare the ground for the rains. Each clan can grow rice for its own needs.”

“Neh, I doubt Captain Parron will agree. He's got laborers on the fields already.”

“Yet we are always short of food, Sergeant.”

“There have been enough incidents outside the walls—fights, runaways, all manner of trouble—that the captain will not allow it, and you know he's in charge, not me.”

“If folk are not allowed to plant fields, then what will there be to eat a year from now?”

The sergeant shrugged. “I'll be transferred on by then.” He beckoned to the lass and, when she hurried over, pinched her behind and afterward handed her the cup. “Take this inside.”

She hurried inside, not looking back.

“I haven't seen her before,” said Nekkar cautiously.

“Good breasts and ass, but a bit of a stammering lackwit. Look how she forgot to take your cup. She's a village girl from upcountry Captain Parron was keeping, but he got in new girls last night and passed this one on to me. Tasty enough, eh?”

Nekkar thought of Seyra, of all the young female novices and envoys under his protection. He might have raged or wept but instead sipped at the dregs of his tea, the leavings like ashes in his mouth.

“I can't keep four women. I've had that girl Fala the longest. She's from around here, isn't she? I'll send her on to the barracks.”

If the sergeant heard Fala's gasp from the shadows, he did not show it by expression or comment.

Nekkar felt his face burn with anger and fear, but he kept his voice calm. “Fala is from the masons' court. I'd wager you could make those mason clans whose lads are giving you trouble a bargain. Let the girl go back home, and they'll rope in those stone throwers. Keep things quiet there.”

The sergeant scratched the stubble on his head. Like most of the army, he kept his hair trimmed short against lice. “I'll think on it, but there's been some complaints at the barracks for want of recreation, so I need to shift new hierodules in there.”

For all that Nekkar bound his tongue every gods-rotted day, that he paced out the pattern of his days with deliberate speed so as not to attract unwanted attention, this was too cursed much. “
Hierodules!
Hierodules serve the Merciless One of their own will! They are not forced onto men's pallets!”

Anger creased the sergeant's mouth, and he drew the whip he carried from the belt and smacked it so hard against the nearest pillar that Nekkar flinched. Then the man laughed, and he whistled three short notes, and the girl Fala came hurrying out like a dog called to heel. She crouched, head lowered, shoulders trembling.

“Yes, Master,” she said, the words so soft Nekkar barely heard them. That the sergeant made her address him as slave to master only made it worse.

“You've a hankering to be a hierodule, don't you, lass?” said the sergeant with a grin, gaze flashing to Nekkar.

Hers flashed to the ostiary as well, her eyes black with desperation.

“Look at me!” He pressed the whip against her cheek.

She raised her chin, tears winding down her dark cheeks. “Yes, ver. I apprenticed to the Witherer, but I always wanted to be a hierodule.”

“Well, then, take your things and get over there, report to the barracks.”

She tried to rise, but her legs would not lift her.

Nekkar rose, cup clenched in his right hand. “Truly, Sergeant, let the girl go home. She's done enough, surely, served you for three months by my reckoning.”

The sergeant drew his whip along Fala's neck. She was a pretty girl, alas for her in these times; her clan always made the proper offerings; she'd been betrothed to a young man from Flag Quarter, but Nekkar did not know if he still lived.

“Surely I can do that,” said the sergeant with a smile lingering on his arrogant face, “but I need another girl in the barracks lest my soldiers grow restless. So if you'll send along one of those young novices you keep gated up in the temple, that lass—or lad—can take the place of this one. As soon as you send her, Fala can go home.”

For the space of a breath, for the space of a bell, a day, a year, Nekkar lost sight and hearing, every sensation except the stink of failure and the rotting sweetness of a pain he could not describe or touch but could only taste like vomit on his tongue.

The sergeant laughed heartily, and Nekkar had to squeeze his walking staff with both hands to stop himself from slamming its haft into the man's face. His weak ankle shifted, and he tottered sideways. The poor girl had to steady him.

“Forgive me, Holy One,” she whispered as he swayed.

For what she thought she was apologizing he could not fathom. As if his distress was her fault! What manner of holy one was he? She had endured for months while he had kept his novices and envoys protected behind the temple walls. And yet how could he throw any one of them to the beasts to be ripped and rended?

“The gods are cursed useless now, aren't they, Holy One?” sneered the sergeant.

Was it true? Had the gods abandoned them? Was this a test?

Neh. It was not true. The people of Toskala were not trapped by the gods' indifference but by human action.

“You speak lightly, Sergeant, because it is not a woman of your clan who will be abused every night by multiple men, none of whom will come to her with the respect and awe due to an acolyte of the Devourer. When Ushara's temples closed their gates to your soldiers, you knew then that the gods did not approve of what you did.”

“And what happened to Ushara's temples, eh? We broke down the gates and took what we wanted. They should not have refused us.”

“What you do is wrong. You know it, and I know it. You present me now with a terrible choice not because you want me to make a choice but because you want me to suffer for having to make the choice. Therefore, it is no choice you offer me. It is not my responsibility, but yours.”

The sergeant's expression had grown tight in a way Nekkar knew presaged danger, but he could not stop speaking. “Please allow Fala to return to her clan. If the provision wagons have come in, let rations chits be distributed. I ask you, by the agreement made when the army first occupied the city, to remember that the people of Toskala must eat in order to work. Please allow me to take chits representing a fair portion of rice and nai, and I will distribute them to the clans and compounds in Stone Quarter as I've been doing for almost six months now.”

“Get out, before I whip you,” growled the sergeant. “Fala, get your things and go to the barracks. Neh, leave the silks. You'll not need them there. If you're still here after I've finished my morning meal, I'll whip you.”