Traitors' Gate (92 page)

“It's possible she doesn't know,” said the plump one, as if it mattered to her to help Miravia in any way she could. “He might be the one she was talking about. Those beautiful eyes. Not that it makes any difference.”

“You'll have to go, ver,” said the kalos sadly.

Kesh sure as the hells wasn't going to walk out of here without seeing Miravia unless it happened she had deliberately sent him on a fireling chase—the kind where you could not hope to catch what you were after—and he was cursed sure that a woman who stared at him the way she had stared at him was not pretending.

“Here, now,” he said, the words flooding out as a scheme took shape in his mind. Zubaidit had nagged him months ago, and he had ignored her then. “I was sold into slavery at the age of twelve. My master never allowed me to serve my apprenticeship year even though it goes against the law to deny any youth that year. I want to serve as a kalos. Starting tonight.”

A bell rang at the entrance.

The kalos grabbed Kesh by the elbow. “The Qin won't be wanting me. You and I are going to see the Hieros.” As the hierodules admitted the Qin soldiers, the kalos tugged Kesh back into the Heart Garden.

“Trouble?” asked the elderly woman with an arched eyebrow.

“He says Miravia told him to meet her here for an assignation.”

“I thought so,” said the woman, clucking her tongue. “It was the eyes.”

“Does everyone know Miravia's business?” he cried.

“She could have been a hierodule and served the Merciless One,” said the woman with a chuckle that made him flush, “but she says she cannot take an apprenticeship because of her hidden god.”

“This one says he wants to take an apprenticeship so he can serve Miravia!” laughed the kalos.

“Aui! The Hieros will sort this out.”

The kalos led them through the canvas hanging—painted white—that sealed away the inner courtyard from whence the Hieros guided the temple. Behind the gate lay a featureless square of dirt faced on one side by a long stone building. A canvas awning was fixed over a porch constructed of paving stones set on a bed of sand. A man dozed in a sling chair, his behind almost scraping the stones while his feet and head were elevated.
He startled awake as the kalos marched Keshad across the empty square.

“Why in the hells are you disturbing me, Dalon?”

“Holy One, my apologies.” Dalon offered a disgracefully hasty gesture of respect that made it obvious this Hieros took a more casual authority over his underlings than the old bitch in Olossi. “You know the man Miravia thinks she's in love with—”

“The one with the beautiful eyes.” The Hieros sat up, and cursed if Kesh didn't recognize him: a good-looking man with a pleasant smile and his long hair in a braid down his back. “Come closer.”

Kesh stopped. “I saw you in the street, the day we first arrived here. You wanted me to tell you who we were and where we'd come from.”

The Hieros raised a hand in an imperious gesture copied from the old bitch. “You may address me as ‘Holy One.' Also, I meant it. Come closer.”

Why the world was filled with people whose whims must be pleased Kesh did not know, but he walked to the edge of the flagstones, within the aura of lamplight.

“He says Miravia told him to meet her here,” Dalon said. “Maybe she doesn't know private assignations aren't allowed. So he up and says he never served one of the gods, that he spent his youth as a debt slave and his master never let him. Claims he wants to serve his apprenticeship to Ushara starting tonight.”

The Hieros grabbed his sandals, shook them before slipping them on, and rose. “It's a gods-rotted coincidence that you're Zubaidit's brother. Isn't it?”

Kesh gaped, left speechless.

The Hieros paced the length of the awning and returned. Zubaidit walked with the same deadly grace. “I trained Bai. I know all about her. Loyal Keshad.” He smiled in a way that made Kesh very uneasy. “An unusual thing, I am sure, to think of devouring a Ri Amarah girl. Quite a feast to boast of later to your curious friends.”

Kesh pinned shut his lips and glared.

The man's smile altered, growing sharper. “You're already under obligation—debt obligation—to the temple in Olossi. Not as kalos, more as a hostage although if you had asked me, which no one did, I would have said Zubaidit needed no hostage to seal her cooperation. She is the most loyal servant of the goddess I know, except for the old bitch.”

“The Hieros?”

“Did you think I was speaking of someone else?”

Kesh grasped desperately for any advantage. “If Captain Anji finds out I'm speaking to you—”

The Hieros laughed again. “He'll what? Kill you? Try to kill me? He knows the temple has agents here. Indeed, he asked for them, which was polite of him considering we had them in place already. For him, we keep an eye on the settlement and all the newcomers. For ourselves, we keep an eye on the trade in oil of naya, on the training camps, on the reeve hall. On such very interesting developments as when you and the Silver youth returned from the south with a cohort of Qin troops and the captain's mother. Is it not odd that such an eminent individual was sent here instead of to Olossi? Peculiar, if you ask me. I'd love to know more. Give me information, and I'll let you meet Miravia here as often as she likes. But I can't take you as a kalos. You're not one of Ushara's apprentices. Too cursed passionate in the wrong way.”

“You would trade Miravia's body for information?”

“She may reject you if she wishes, so I can promise you nothing from her. But I can have you thrown out so you have no chance even to speak to her. That's the offer I'm making. Talk to me, and I'll let you stay. What happens after that is up to her.”

The scent of incense floated on the night breeze. A man and woman shared laughter. Water splashed, followed by a burst of cheerful play-shouting and shrieks.

“Dalon,” said the Hieros in a mild voice that made Kesh stand straighter, “please go remind them we cannot take water for granted here as we can in Olossi.”

The kalos trotted off.

Kesh's mind was already made up. He bore no grudge
against one who bargained fairly, and he respected the other man's frankness and his swift, tough offer. “Must I stand? Or will you allow me to sit?”

“For you, ver, a sling chair so you can keep your feet off the ground.” A sleepy man, rousted from the interior, carried out another sling chair, a table, and a tray with a pitcher of juice and cups. “We've got a cursed plague of scorpions out here and it's causing us all manner of trouble. One poor worshiper was stung right on his tool! Fortunately, the big ugly ones won't kill you, but he was cursed swollen for a good long time after. We've petitioned Astafero's council to rebuild in a different location, and we'll have to set the entire temple up off the ground, so we'll have to import posts and wood planking—very expensive, I'm sure.”

“I heard the captain was dead set against a temple to the Merciful One being raised here in the settlement at all.”

“The council voted to bring in the temple. It's not the captain's decision.”

Kesh smirked. “You think he hasn't the power to stop it, if he wanted to?”

“An interesting statement. Why do you say so?”

“He's captain of the regional militia. It's more of an army now.”

“Necessary to fight our enemy in the north,” said the Hieros. “The temple works well with him. It's a mutually beneficial relationship.”

“I don't trust him. He's willing to kill to get what he wants.”

“Do you say so, to me? The Merciless One, the mistress of love, death, and desire, is also willing to kill.”

“Don't say I didn't warn you.”

“Warn me more. Talk.”

Kesh talked. He told of his dispute with Anji; Anji's mother's peculiar offer; what he knew of the woman. His sojourn in the empire and what he had seen there.

The Hieros was an engaging listener, a bit of a flirt—naturally—and he knew how to look you in the face as you talked so you began to think you were the best storyteller who had ever drawn breath. He knew how to ask the questions that
drew out the details whose unveiling revealed overlooked vistas and undiscovered crevices. Would the new Qin soldiers remain in the Hundred as well, marry, and settle down, or would they go back where they came from? And if they came from the south, would yet more follow? What other signs might Kesh have seen of the red hounds? Did he know anything of how they were organized? Was it true that in the empire even military cohorts were overseen by a Beltak priest? Why did Kesh carry one of their god's blessing bowls?

“I first went south when I was a slave. In the empire, a believing merchant is taxed at a lower rate than a nonbelieving foreigner. I built my first stake by carrying Beltak's bowl and keeping the difference for myself.”

“Yet you're back in the Hundred now. Talking of serving a proper apprenticeship. Yet it's difficult to say which god you belong to.”

“Bai said the same cursed thing to me, and it annoyed me just as much then as it does now.”

“Yet you came to me asking to serve as a kalos. Was that insincerely meant?”

“A man may be sincere for different reasons than those expected of him, Holy One.”

“An answer I can't fault you for.”

Dalon trotted out of the gloom and bent to whisper in the Hieros's ear. The Hieros rose. “Will you come back, Keshad, and talk to me again?”

Keshad bolted up out of the chair so fast he knocked it over, and its clatter brought the other man out from the back with a staff in one hand. “Is Miravia asking for me?”

“You didn't answer my question.”

Kesh wiped a hand across his suddenly clammy forehead. “You've been fair. Can I go?”

“Here's the thing, Keshad.” One moment the Hieros was standing casually several safe paces away; the next he had moved so quickly and taken such a grip on Kesh's left arm, twisting it, that Kesh doubled over with a grating squeak that shamed him even as his shoulder and wrist flared hot with pain. “Don't think you've earned our trust just because Miravia is
infatuated with your handsome eyes. Don't think you've earned our trust just because you're ready to sell any man on the block if it will bring you a few vey of advantage. If any of us ever discover you have mistreated her in any way, we'll beat the shit out of you and I personally know how to do it so as not to leave any visible marks and to cause you maximum suffering afterward. Is that understood?”

Kesh's eyes were watering. He braced a foot, and immediately his arm was tweaked so hard his vision hazed. “Yes!”

The Hieros released him.

He dropped, rubbing his shoulder. “Aui! What did I ever do to deserve that?”

“A question to which only you can provide the answer. Dalon, get him out of here.”

Clenching his jaw, Kesh rose, shaking but determined. “I'd like tea and cups. Sweetened rice cakes, if you have any. Or bean cakes. On a platter.”

The Hieros chuckled. “Would you now? I admire your stubbornness, Keshad. An undervalued trait. Dalon, bring him whatever he asks for, within reasonable bounds.”

Whatever he asks for.

He ignored the pain in his shoulder as he followed Dalon into a barracks-like building flanking one side of the Hieros's courtyard. The courtyard stretched the length of the entire compound. A door led from the barracks into the women's garden, lively at this hour with laughter, conversation, and the sounds of one unfortunate who evidently had the habit of whooping loudly when she reached a climax. Most people were more discreet. Musicians were singing, accompanying themselves with drum, flute, and zither. Dalon led him to a tiny pavilion in a shadowed corner, hung a lantern from a hook, and left Kesh there alone.

There were pillows, a low table, a pitcher of wash water, a copper basin for washing. He washed his hands and face and poured the wash water into a decorative trough of snarling stardrops whose last flowers stubbornly bloomed although it was past their season. He knew how to be stubborn, how to get what he wanted no matter how long and how hard he had to
work for it. He placed a pillow on each side of the table and scattered the rest so they did not clump all together, convenient for a quick tumble.

Dalon announced his return with a cough. He handed over a tray resplendent with a beautifully lacquered tea pot and matching cups, and two platters of delicacies: red bean cakes, yam dumplings, ginger rice cakes, raisins, and sliced mango.

Kesh set cups, platters, and teapot on the table and fussed with their arrangement, so engrossed in his task as his mind devised a plan that he was surprised when she spoke.

“Keshad?”

He started back, tumbling one of the empty teacups, and caught it as he straightened to face her. She was dressed simply, in an undyed linen taloos of fine weave, and wore no scarf, her lustrous hair tumbling over her shoulders like a fall of water. Eiya! He heard a distant voice singing of just such a sight: “Her hair, like the water, falls—”

He was terribly aroused, but he smiled as if he weren't lusting after her so badly it hurt. He knelt at the basin and washed hands and face again, this time with the proper prayers. She copied the movements but did not speak the prayer.

Lips parted, eyes bright as the lamp's sheen made them glisten, she turned to him, lifting a hand to touch his chest. “Keshad.”

He scrambled to put the table between them, settled cross-legged—tremendously uncomfortable but determined to negotiate this with every cursed trick he knew—on one pillow and indicated the pillow opposite him.

“Look at these enticing foods the Hieros has had brought for us,” he said.

Surprised, and cautious, she sat on the pillow with her legs folded to one side, leaning on her right hand, watching him. She had a way of dipping her chin and looking up through half-closed eyes that was likely to drive him to madness, but he was not to be swayed from his purpose. “What is this? I thought—”