Traitors' Gate (87 page)

But not her.

She had escaped.

“You will wish to wash and rest after your journey,” said Anji's mother, handing the baby back to Miravia as to a servant. “I have set aside rooms for your use, Anjihosh.”

“I thank you,” he said, rising and offering a hand to Mai so she must rise as well. Miravia clambered hastily to her feet, holding the baby. “I have urgent business to attend to at the militia encampment. There is a tent there set aside for my use. I will attend on you again.” His gaze flicked to Mai, and his lips pulled up in that way he had when he was content with his victories. “In the morning.”

He offered a formal gesture toward the veiled woman. “Cousin. My greetings.” Then he switched to a language Mai did not know and spoke at more length, although the cadence of the words remained formal and not at all intimate.

The woman did not look at him as he spoke. When he was finished, she replied to the floor. She had a woman's voice, not astoundingly beautiful and not croaking or harsh; just a voice. Impossible to say what manner of person hid behind the veil of formality and distance. Maybe that was the advantage of such covering: if you were clever, you could hide the truth and do what you wished because no one could suspect your actual intentions, your secret heart.

Yet Uncle Hari could look straight into her heart, could he not? No veil would protect her then. Imagine what it would be like to have an ally who could always warn you of the hidden intentions of those who might wish you harm!

“Mai,” said Anji softly.

She rested a hand on his forearm and looked first at Anji's cousin and then at his mother.

“Greetings of the day, verea,” she said in the Hundred style. “Greetings of the day, Honored Mother.”

The arrow struck home, an ambush, if you wished to call it so. But oddly, as Anji's mother's eyes narrowed, absorbing the hit, her lips quirked as though she were amused.

“Mai,” repeated Anji.

Her ears were still flaming; she knew her color was high. She paced beside Anji as he led her out of the house whose construction
she
had overseen.
She
had boiled rice in those kitchens!
She
had strung canvas walls with her hirelings.

As they descended the steps, she muttered, “It is
my
house.”

“You did well,” said Anji. “Just think. Now you have another five hundred men to find wives for.”

“Will these soldiers stay in the Hundred?”

“They're under my command, plum blossom. Of course they will stay.” He strode up to Tuvi and clapped the chief on the back with a broad grin. “Five hundred Qin soldiers. Think of it, Chief. Allow me a moment to gloat. Hu! I think we can actually win this war.”

Mai embraced Miravia. “I missed you,” she whispered.

“Take me with you,” murmured Miravia into her ear. “I beg you.”

“Come, Mai,” said Anji, taking the reins from his groom.

“Miravia will need a horse to ride,” said Mai to Tuvi. Then she turned to Anji. “Will you marry your cousin? To keep the peace?”

He frowned. “One war at a time. I have battles to fight in the north that will not wait.”

He mounted. Mai stepped into Tuvi's cupped hands and he hoisted her up into the saddle. The chief faced Miravia, whose blushes were easy to see. Was Tuvi also blushing? Did he care for her, or want to care for her, or was he simply overheated from the sun?

“I will take my son,” said Anji.

The chief took the baby from Miravia. As everyone waited for Anji to wrap the child's sling around his torso and Tuvi to
get the baby snugged in, that cursed Keshad emerged from the lines leading a horse.

“If you will,” he said, his gods-rotted intense gaze fixed on Miravia as his color changed.

Miravia could barely look at him, but she accepted the reins and his help in mounting.

Chief Tuvi was still helping Anji with the baby, his back to them. Keshad slipped away into the lines. Miravia clumsily got the horse to move up beside Mai's mare. Anji signaled. The troop wheeled and, under the gaze of the Sirniakan slaves, headed down through town.

Anji was smiling, but Mai could not.

He had not said no.

T
HE DUSTY MILITIA
encampment outside Astafero boiled with Qin soldiers, who wore tabards dyed a very dark blue. They were distinguishable from the black tabards favored by Anji's men only when the two garments were seen side by side. The captain and chiefs of the recently arrived Qin troop waited outside the three huge central tents together with the chiefs in charge of the training camp. The camp flew two cohort banners together with a Qin banner Keshad had not seen before: a crescent moon gleaming on a dark blue background the same color as the tunics. As Kesh dismounted and threw his reins to one of the waiting tailmen, Anji's banner, the black wolf, was being raised from the central pole to mark Anji's arrival.

The men clomped up onto the plank walkway that surrounded the three tents and, following Captain Anji's example, pulled off their boots before they entered. Mai's party followed: Mai holding Miravia's hand and smiling at something Miravia had said; Priya and O'eki with serious expressions as they talked; Sheyshi had a hand pressed to a cheek as if overtaken by a fit of shyness; three kitchen women who had worked for Mai
in all the time Kesh had been in and out of the compound; two apprentice clerks of Sapanasu, who looked young and intimidated. By the time Keshad reached the walkway he was alone except for the ubiquitous guards, but those on duty recognized him and, after checking him for weapons, allowed him to pass.

His feet sank into carpet as he crossed an empty audience chamber furnished only with rugs, a bare expanse that could accommodate perhaps a hundred people sitting squashed together. Toughid sat cross-legged to one side on a rug, next to a small chest decorated with an elaborate brass clasp in the shape of a boar and wrapped in chains. He'd been hauling that cursed chest since Olossi, sleeping with it as though it were his wife. He looked half asleep now, callused hands relaxed on his thighs, a bead of sweat on his upper lip.

The heat simmering within the airless space made Kesh's neck prickle. Eight guards, each pair flanking a slit in the canvas, suffered at their stations with reddened faces. The military contingent had gathered in an adjoining tent, their voices buzzing. He hesitated, not sure where to go.

Chief Deze emerged from behind one of the curtains, Anji and Tuvi right behind him.

“—would have been prudent to leave her in Olossi rather than precipitate a battle you cannot win, Anjihosh,” Tuvi was saying. “Not for your sake, mind you. I speak solely out of concern for Mai. It was a reckless, headstrong decision. You allowed your pride to over-master you. Do you really need to prove to anyone that you are no longer that twelve-year-old boy? Because by acting as you did, you have proven that you are. And furthermore—”

Anji's frown revealed his annoyance at the chief's scolding, but he made no effort to stop him nor did he disagree. However, when the chief saw Kesh, he clamped his lips shut. Reacting to the silence, Anji looked up. His gaze sharpened, fixing on Kesh.

“Captain?” asked Toughid, rising with a hand on his sword's hilt.

A wave of heat washed Kesh's torso. Like a rabbit hiding
from a hawk, stillness might protect him. The guards perked up, their interest surely caught by the expectation of bloodshed.

Anji's smile was a fearful thing because that gods-rotted dimple made it so sweet. He seemed on the brink of laughter. “Master Keshad. Just the man I wanted to see. I need a ship filled with oil of naya, ready to depart at dawn for Argent Hall. Take Master O'eki and see to it. I recommend caution. Oil of naya is quite flammable.”

“I understand oil of naya, like some men, is volatile if mishandled,” said Keshad boldly.

Anji laughed. He gestured to Tuvi, and they crossed to the tent where the assembly waited. The cursed guards sighed, looking disappointed. Toughid sat, closed his eyes, and resumed his doze.

“I need to see Master O'eki,” said Keshad. A guard twitched back one curtain.

He walked down a corridor between tents screened by hangings and past more guards into a separate tent. This space was much cooler because the inner walls and the flaps cut into the canvas roof had been rolled up to allow a breeze through. Pallets lay rolled up on one side, seating pillows heaped around them. Outside, a square of bare ground was shaded not by a canvas roof but by the high sides of other tents; here a hearth fire burned and the kitchen women had already set to work brewing khaif and pouring cordial. Mai was seated on a pillow on a plank porch, nursing the baby; Miravia sat beside her, whispering in her ear in an affectionate way that stabbed Kesh with envy. Would she ever lean against him so lovingly? Did she care about him at all?

Sheyshi, standing unremarked in a corner, was also staring, her eyes as unfocused as if she were—as she likely was—a bit lack-witted. Perhaps she, too, was jealous of the attention her mistress was receiving from the interloper. Sometimes slaves developed an infatuation with their masters, perhaps only to deflect the degradation of their own condition.

As sharply as if they had appeared out of the air to regard
him with fear and reproach, he remembered the two girls he had sold to Master Calon, the young sisters who had clutched at each other for comfort. Calon had intended to train one as a jarya in expectation of gaining a greater price for her later. Had the other girl been sold to pay for her sister's training and upkeep? Where were those girls now?

Why should he even care? If he had not bought them in Mariha, someone else would have. A jarya's life and training was nothing to scorn. Certainly their lives would be better in the Hundred than they would have been in Mariha.

His lips were dry.

“Is Master O'eki here?” he croaked.

Miravia stiffened, without turning to look. After a moment's hesitation, Mai smiled in that pretty way she had that could as well kill a man as reassure him. The baby suckled noisily. Miravia acknowledged his presence with an awkward nod.

“Master Keshad?” O'eki emerged from yet another hidden chamber; this cursed place was full of little antechambers walled off by hangings and canvas and woven curtains. “Here I am.”

Kesh kept trying not to stare at Miravia; he knew he was making a fool of himself, but she was so close and alive, and looking at him because she was free to do so. If she were free to look at him, then he was free to look at her. He ventured a smile, and knew at once how clumsy it must appear because Sheyshi snickered as Miravia flushed and looked away.

The hells!

“Master Keshad?” The big man loomed beside him. “How can I help you?”

“Er, ah, yes, we're to supervise the loading of a ship with oil of naya.”

“Oil of naya?” asked Mai. The baby let go of the nipple and reared back to look at his mother, caught by her tone, which Kesh could not interpret. She quickly covered her exposed breast with her taloos. “Merciful One! To bring oil of naya again to battle. A cruel weapon. But effective.”

“Better this way than drawn out long, Mistress,” said O'eki with a slow shake of his head.

“It was just so awful to see,” said Mai. “Never mind it. I'd rather win with oil of naya than lose by refraining. I'll come with you. I'd like to see how much oil has been stored up, and I want to check the accounts books. Sheyshi, could you bring me the sling?”

“I can carry the baby, Mistress.” Sheyshi's wheedling tone made Keshad wince. Did he sound like that when he spoke to Miravia? Not that he had ever spoken to her except that one time in the market.

“I've been doing the accounts for the naya store houses,” said Miravia. “We've been shipping lots to Argent Hall for the last month. Just a few days ago two flights of reeves flew vessels out, although I wasn't told where they were headed.”

“You've been my trusted eyes and ears here in Astafero for the last months.” She kissed Miravia on the cheek. Kesh licked his lips, wishing they were his lips on that delicate skin. How envy stabbed! Was Mai taunting him on purpose? “Indeed, I can scarcely bear to be separated from you, now we are together again,” she went on, and perhaps her gaze slid sidelong to pinion him, reminding him that he was the outsider. Or perhaps he was just imagining things.

As she wrapped Atani in the sling, the curtain was swept aside and Anji walked in accompanied by Tuvi. “Mai, you'll attend me.”

Chief Tuvi looked up at the rippling ceiling and down again. “Captain? Did I not recommend prudence?”

“Tuvi-lo.” Anji's tone ended the conversation. “Mai, I must absorb a full complement of Qin soldiers into my command. It is necessary for me to make them understand that you hold the position of my consort under Qin custom. For them to accept my command, as Commander Beje has ordered them to do, they must recognize and respect my chosen wife.”

“Is this about your mother, Anji?” his chosen wife asked tartly.

Tuvi sighed gustily. “I recommend banking this fire rather than fanning it—”

“I haven't finished,” said the captain, glancing once around the chamber, marking who was listening and who was absent.
He raised a hand and pointed a finger at O'eki so rudely that Mai flinched and Miravia looked away. But he was just gesturing in the outlander style, making an emphatic point. “You understand me, Master O'eki? We spoke of this when I came to your house.”

The big man inclined his head, but Kesh noted a difference in how he addressed the captain now. He was respectful, even cautious, but not subservient. “Priya and I both understand you.”

“What is there to understand?” demanded Mai. “What aren't you telling me, Anji?”

Something in the look he gave her stopped her before she could go on with her questions and demands. Her lips thinned. Her gaze sparked.