Traitors' Gate (85 page)

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.”

T
HE 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?

Anji glanced at her; his hands were light on the reins, but his eyes were tight. She nodded coolly in return. He smiled, a flash that might have been loving encouragement, or anticipation of a cruel triumph as he forced his mother to accept a humble merchant's daughter as his wife. She looked ahead.

The porch wrapping around the big house had been extended, and whole sections around the side screened off with canvas. Even in the few weeks since Mai had last sailed to Astafero to see Miravia and to coax Uncle Hari out of the valley and down to the assizes that one time, the house had been changed: whitewashing on the walls, curtains screening the windows, pillars wrapped with elaborately painted but half finished floral scenes. In addition to all this other decoration, the big house had been festooned with banners in the Qin style, a rainbow of colors: bold scarlet, sun gold, heavenly blue, bone white, mist silver, festival orange, night black, rain-sodden green, and a sighing purple that reminded her of Uncle Hari when she had last seen him flying away from Astafero's assizes. How well the assizes had gone! She drew strength from the memory.

A figure was seated in an ornate chair placed on the high porch as if the entire settlement of Astafero had been built to display and enhance the seated person's authority.

“Be brave, plum blossom,” murmured Anji. He carried Atani in a sling against his chest, the baby facing forward and looking around with his usual delighted expression, as if to say: all this! a parade for me! Not that Atani could possibly understand what was happening, or the import of this procession and what it suggested. When the Qin had taken over rule of Kartu Town, the city fathers and lords had processed to the fort in a show of humility. They had come to the Qin, not the other way around. So Anji approached his mother.

Attendants lined the plank walkway, sheltered from the sun
by a new slate roof constructed over what had once been wings of canvas. Miravia stood on the lower steps, below the other attendants. Besides the kitchen women standing at the leftmost corner of the porch, Miravia was the only visible woman. Their gazes met across the gap, but Miravia did not descend to greet her. She glanced past Mai, searching for someone else, then self-consciously adjusted the scarf that bound her hair. Realizing what she was doing, she lowered her hand.

Anji signaled the troop to a halt, dismounted, and handed his reins to a groom. He beckoned to Mai. Tuvi dismounted and came to hold her horse. Swinging down, she paced as in a dream to Anji. He unwrapped the baby from his sling and handed him to Mai. To clasp the plump little fellow gave her courage. She had a piece of Anji that his mother did not.

They approached the porch and ascended past a silent Miravia.

The woman was seated in a lofty chair of bright blue silk embroidered with dragons in a darker blue thread; these intense colors set off her gold headdress and the gown with its draperies that flowed around her. She had a broad, bold face, no beauty but certainly handsome in the Qin way. She was not as old as Mai had thought she would be; her skin had a few wrinkles but no blemishes; her hands looked strong and capable, her shoulders were unbowed. She stared fiercely at her son—a man she had not seen for almost twenty years—and spared no glance for his wife and son.

Anji kneeled to touch her right slippered foot with his right hand, then brushed his fingers against his chest and his forehead before he looked up at her.

“Honored Mother.” He did not grovel. His pride elevated him. Whatever his true feelings were, he kept them reined in.

No one spoke as the mother examined her son. If joy or memory or tears welled deep in that steel countenance, Mai could not perceive them. She took her time looking him over, much—Mai supposed—as Anji had carefully examined Atani when he had first held the little boy. Banners snapped; ribbons fluttered. Hooves shifted as horses grew restless. The sun
blazed on Mai's back, but her body shielded Atani within its shade.

“You look well enough, my son. Not handsome, I am afraid. But you have grown up strong and fit.” Nothing frail about her voice! Or her first line of attack, cutting straight for a vanity he did not, in fact, possess. “Possibly you're even competent, if the reports I have heard are true.”

Mai was abruptly glad he had made no gesture commanding Mai to bow and scrape as he had done, for even fixed on her son, his mother's gaze had the biting remoteness of a desert adder's. Mai was pretty sure she could not bring herself to show obeisance to a woman who refused to show even one drop of affection for the son whose life she had saved years ago, a child she had not seen in twenty years. Yet she must be strong enough to welcome the woman's overtures, should they ever come.

“I am come from Sirniaka, Son. Your half brother Azadihosh is dead. I do not regret his death, or his family's slaughter, since it was his people who wished to kill you when they took pride of place in the palace. So do the gods work, in cutting the throats of those who forget that fate has a hand on every knife. Your cousins now hold the throne and its power. I am released from my prison and return to comfort you, Son. I do regret the many years we have been forced to live apart.”

For all the sentiment of the words, her voice did not quiver. Still, incredibly, she managed not to look at Mai or the baby.

“Why did they let you go?” he asked. No pretty speeches; no joyful embraces. They got straight down to business. “Once a woman is brought into the emperor's palace, she is released only by death.”

“Not even then,” she said with a curt laugh, “for the white robes capture her spirit in their blessing bowls and confine it forever to the jar of misery that is all the afterlife they will permit women.” Her smile held bitter victory. “Your cousins feared what might happen if they attempted to have me put down like a broken horse. My brother betrayed me when he sold me to the emperor in exchange for border trading rights,
but he made sure the Sirni understood that my life and honor must never be tarnished. However, your cousins released me: to act as their emissary.”

Her gaze flicked to Mai, like a blow: comprehensive, swift, and meant to make Mai flinch. Mai found her market smile and fixed it on like paint. The baby gurgled and reached one sweet little hand toward his father, babbling, “Baba. Baba.”