The Black Wolves

  “Ver Zilli?”

  He broke off. “Ah! Blessings of the day to you, verea.” He always addressed her with the polite title used among the people of the Hundred for women, just as she used the correct polite address for men.

  “Blessings of the day to you, ver. Is your family well?”

  “They are indeed. Thank you for asking.”

  “My uncle brought sunspear seeds from Toskala. Do you have any advice?”

  “Yes. Those will flower brightly in the dry season but it’s too wet for them now. Start the seeds in pots and coax them along until Whisper Rains. Then plant the seedlings outside—at night, mind you—where they’ll get full sun.”

  “I’ll do that!” It was so hard to let him go. “I wanted to ask you about the fistir hedge. Cousin Beniel insisted our hedge ought to be trimmed no wider than a hat’s brim, just like the one he sees in the city garden of the Herelian clan that has some kind of connection to the palace. But in truth I think he just wanted a chance to brag about what a man of the world he’s becoming with his new palace friends.”

  Zilli cleared his throat. After a pause during which she realized abruptly that she had compounded the crime of being an unmarried girl talking to a man who was not Ri Amarah with the worse transgression of gossiping about family to an outsider, he went on. “A sudden trimming like that will only traumatize the plant. But let me see what applications of compost and laceberry juice can do. Oh here now. Who is this?”

  From beyond the shed a new voice broke into song, the husky tone and familiar refrain staggering Sarai’s thoughts so thoroughly she could neither move nor speak. She knew that voice as she knew her own soul.

  The sad girl and her happy lover

  What a striking pair they made.

  One in shadow, and the other in light—

  The voice broke off as the servants’ bell chimed from the direction of Rua’s workshop.

  “Best you go, verea,” Zilli said in a sharper voice, for he knew as well as she did that they weren’t allowed to speak. His footsteps stomped to the far end of the shed. Pushed hard, the door slammed back, and he called, “Heya! You, lad, hurry! Curse it! I told them to send a woman because it looks suspicious if men come up here too early in the day. Get inside before someone sees you.”

  “Greetings of the day to you, ver!” replied the new arrival with brisk cheerfulness. “May the Merciful One greet you on this fine morning when we are graced by Hasibal’s Tears.”

  “Ah. May the world prosper, and justice be served. Are you my contact?”

  “Yes, ver. We need to move everyone out now before the reeves get here. Go on. I’ll lock up.”

  A door slapped shut as one or both of them left.

  Sarai could not catch her breath. With another glance back at the workshop to make sure no one was in sight, she fumbled at the multipronged lock. She shifted the gate open and peered into the dim confines of the shed. A person stepped into shadowy view.

  “Elit!”

  Two steps brought them into each other’s arms. The embrace was tight, comforting, and yet painful after being apart for so long. She never wanted to let go.

  “I wasn’t sure I’d ever see you again,” she whispered, looking up to give her beloved a kiss.

  Elit pressed fingers to Sarai’s lips. “You’re not supposed to know I’m here. You mustn’t tell my mother or anyone, not even your great-aunt.”

  “Why are you here, then? If it’s a secret even from your mother?”

  “To take a delivery of rice.”

  “Is that a euphemism for something else?”

  “It’s the gods’ business. They sent me because I’m from here and know my way around. I can’t tell you more. I’m sorry.”

  Elit had cut off her beautiful long black hair into a short, spiky mess, in the fashion worn by many Hundred boys and men. On her lanky frame the hill country tunic and trousers commonly worn by men hid her small breasts and narrow hips, and her shoulders looked broader than they had before, as if she’d been at hard labor. If Sarai hadn’t known her she might well have mistaken her for a lad, as Zilli had.

  “It’s to do with you being one of Hasibal’s pilgrims, isn’t it?”

  “It is.” Elit lifted Sarai’s hand to her lips and tenderly kissed her palm. “I don’t have much time. I shouldn’t have volunteered to be the one to come to the shed, but I was hoping I might see you. And here you are!”

  She caught Sarai’s face in her hands and stared at her so hard, tears in her eyes.

  “It was my idea to make that song the signal we use to alert our allies that it’s safe to approach. It always makes me think of you. Are you well, Sarai? How is it with you?”

  A lump in her throat made it hard to speak calmly, but she did not want Elit to see her cry.

  “Great-Aunt Tsania and I always have some project going. I’ve read all of Aunt Rua’s medical books, and I’m allowed to sit in when villagers bring her their difficult medical cases. I’ve read all of Uncle Makel’s history and geography books. I can tell you in great detail about the towns and regions and customs of the Hundred, and I am well versed in the geography of the Sirniakan Empire in the south and the kingdom of Ithik Eldim in the north, all the places I will never see except to read about them in a book.”

  Her desperate babble began to embarrass her.

  “I’m going to begin writing my own pharmacological study,” she finished. “That’s all.”

  Elit released her, glancing away with such remorse that Sarai could not bear to leave it at that.

  “I have some ideas about better recipes for medicinals, prepared through sublimation and distillation, with special attention to compounds of plants and minerals that can alleviate illnesses particular to women…”

  She couldn’t go on.

  “I didn’t mean this to be so painful,” whispered Elit, letting the tears flow.

  “No, I’m glad you came. Are you glad you dedicated yourself to the temple?” Sarai asked, not sure which answer she feared more.

  Elit’s face lit like fire. “Oh, Sarai-ya! I am so glad! Hasibal’s service is more even than I had imagined! I wish I could tell you everything but I can’t.”

  She clasped Sarai’s hands again. Hers were callused and strong like iron. This time they said nothing because there was nothing to say. The honk of a salt-goose broke the silence, although it wasn’t the season for salt-geese to pass over these hills.

  Elit released her hands and stepped back. “I miss you, my dear one. But that’s the signal I have to go.”

  Sarai stood there, dense and stolid as a tree, stuck in one place until death felled her. “When will I see you again, Elit?”

  Even in shadow Sarai could absorb every delicate nuance of Elit’s expressions because she knew them so well: compassion, impatience, excitement, pain, love, and the final stamp of regret accepted as inevitable. “I don’t know. Probably not for years. We won’t be coming back here anytime soon. You know how hard it was for me to leave you the first time, and there isn’t anyone else, Sarai-ya, I need you to know that.”

  “No one but the god.”

  Elit nodded. “I walk in the service of Hasibal the Merciful One now. I wish…”

  I wish I wasn’t a demon-touched Ri Amarah girl whose clan will never let her go. I wish I could worship your god so I could go with you, but I can’t. Sarai had already said the words four years ago. No point in repeating them now.

  “… I wish you can find a path that makes you happy, that brings you what you need and what you deserve. Whatever you must do to find fulfillment and a life you can bear to live, please do it. You’re in my heart always. I’ll return when I can, but I’m the god’s servant now and I don’t control my own movements. Please don’t wait for me if you find another path. You deserve more than this, Sarai-ya.” She kissed Sarai hard one last time and left, shutting the shed’s door behind her.

  Sarai stumbled backward into a light and air that seemed stifling, here inside the estate w
all. A shadow rippled over the ground. An eagle flew so low over the garden she could trace the feathers on its wings and see the creases in the leather trousers worn by the reeve. She shoved the gate closed and clicked the lock’s complicated pegs and levers back into place.

  What if the reeve had noticed the open gate?

  She reached the back entrance just as Yava slid a screen aside, looking for her.

  “Didn’t you hear the bell?” Agitation wrinkled Yava’s brow, at odds with her normal good humor. She said nothing about the tears on Sarai’s cheeks as she looked past Sarai toward the locked gate. “Do take care, mistress. The new gardeners your uncle hired aren’t from around here and may not understand your family’s strict rules.”

  Sarai bent her head over the clippers, wiping them on the apron. Her lips burned, and her heart had shattered. But she could still think straight and speak in a falsely calm voice. “I was all the way in the back where the ruvia is thickest. I got some nettle on my foot and it really stings.”

  Yava coughed. “Your uncle is here.”

  “Uncle Makel is here?” He never came down to Aunt Rua’s workshop.

  “Cover your face. There is a stranger with him.”

  Sarai was grateful to have an excuse to pull a corner of her shawl up to conceal the lower part of her face. As she and Yava hurried down the back corridor, she recognized Makel’s approach by the familiar hitch in his walk. A second set of footsteps paced him.

  “This way,” her uncle said in a stern voice.

  She and Yava slipped inside just as the far door rattled with a knock and was slid aside. Uncle Makel entered the room followed by a stranger. Except for the outside servants, people who were not Ri Amarah never entered any part of the estate except the audience parlor.

  The man wore leather trousers, a close-fitting leather vest, and leather gloves and boots, clothing sewn from the skin of animals and thus forbidden to Ri Amarah. A harness wrapped his torso and hips, like a plow ox’s rigging. His bare arms were sheeny with sweat and tight with muscle. Hundred men did not cover their hair as did Ri Amarah men. His black hair was shaved so short that the shape of his skull was a lure to her eyes. She knew she was staring but after the shock of Elit’s sudden appearance and departure she just did not care.

  “My apologies, Aunt Tsania,” said Uncle Makel. “This is Reeve Reyad. He says he was sent to keep watch on the demon’s coil, and he saw a woman standing on Vista Hill.” His gaze marked Sarai. “Your aunt says you did not come to the workshop this morning, niece.”

  “She has been here all morning,” said Aunt Tsania. “I sent her down to thin the ruvia.”

  “My wife says she wasn’t here.”

  “Makel!” Tsania had been born on the estate while Makel had merely married into the family through his alliance to Rua, who was Sarai’s mother’s sister. “I cannot help what your honorable wife does not see when she is busy. Why do you permit a strange man to intrude into my private workshop?”

  The question raked so accusingly that Makel retreated to the door, but the reeve did not budge. He examined Tsania with no sign of the disgust with which her own relatives often treated her, instead giving her a respectful nod. Then he studied the long shawl that draped Sarai from head to halfway down her skirt. Her clothes were ordinary, nothing fancy like the other girls liked to wear, and for once she was happy for it because it made her harder to identify. His gaze dipped to where her bare toes peeped from beneath the hem of the skirt. They were damp and dusty, smeared along the tips. With a lift of the eyebrows, he looked up directly into her eyes, and she stared belligerently back, knowing her expression was concealed.

  “My apologies, verea, for intruding where I am not wanted,” said the reeve. “But I have my duty. Can the girl speak? I have questions for her.”

  Makel’s lips pressed primly together. “It is not Ri Amarah custom for unmarried girls to speak to men not of the clan.”

  “Very well. We reeves are told to respect your foreign customs. I’ll tell the marshal. I’m sure she’ll send a woman to the house to interview the girl.”

  He left.

  “Yava, bring Sarai and my honored aunt up to the house at once.” The glare Makel flung at Tsania made him look like a baby on the verge of a squall but Tsania merely smiled. He flushed. “Sarai, go sit with the girls at Garna’s jubilee. Do not mention a reeve was here, do you understand?”

  Without waiting for a reply he stamped out the door.

  “Did you see anything?” whispered Tsania.

  She thought of Elit, and for the first time in her life she lied to her beloved great-aunt. “No. I didn’t see anything.”

  9

  The lack of fleeing criminals nagged at Dannarah as she flew sweeps and yet still spotted no suspicious movement on the ground. Finally she returned to the clearing where the discarded machete had caught her eye. The “All Clear” flag had been planted in the dirt, and a hooded eagle waited on the ground. She landed at a prudent distance and hooded Terror.

  Walking through the wet growth with the tall grass dragging against her leathers made every creaky joint and tight muscle pop and pull. Her left knee ground with each step. Her right shoulder hurt. Everything hurt. Eventually she would get frail enough that Terror would snap her head off to be rid of her and thus acquire a younger, stronger reeve. But not today.

  A temporary settlement had been constructed beneath the trees. Goats had grazed back undergrowth but were absent now, which struck her as strange. Soldiers picked through remains of crude huts and stone-built hearths.

  Reyad beckoned to her. He was standing beside a scaffold on which lay a dead woman with her long hair unbound and her body wrapped in a length of undyed linen. She had a work gang mark inked on her cheek.

  “Marshal Dannarah!”

  “Didn’t I set you to watch the demon’s coil?” she asked as she came up.

  “Yes, and I saw a woman on Vista Hill. I landed in the estate and tried to interview a girl who may have been the one who was outside. But they’ll only allow a woman to talk to her, a cursed unpleasant custom, if you ask me. She kept her face covered, too, although that did make me notice what pretty eyes she had.”

  Charming men were so full of themselves, but his grin amused her anyway.

  “That’s what I flew back to report,” he added.

  “You did well to seek me out, then.” She studied him to see how he would react to praise; he merely nodded to show he’d heard, neither modest nor arrogant. “Was this person killed in the raid?”

  “No. The soldiers told me the camp was deserted when they got here, except for her body.”

  “If there was a demon helping the fugitives, it could have warned them before we arrived.”

  “These folk may be outlaws and criminals, but look how they’ve done their best to build a proper Sorrowing Tower for the corpse, and how she’s been washed and laid out respectfully.”

  She looked at him with more interest. “Where are you from?” she asked, trying to sort out the odd pronunciations in his speech.

  “I’m from upcountry Mar, the Suvash Hills.” The reeve’s left forearm and right calf bore the inked patterns marking him as a child of the Earth Mother. “My clan grows rice and bitter-leaf.”

  “Ah. That explains it.”

  “Explains what, Marshal?”

  Like many countryfolk he was impertinent, speaking just as if he were the equal of anyone and even her. “You’re inked in the old-fashioned way. In the cities the old custom of the Mothers’ mark inked onto forearm and calf began to fall out of fashion twenty years ago when King Jehosh decreed all war captives be inked on the face. Now that work gang criminals are also marked in the same way, only people who live in the country still ink their children. Just like most folk no longer follow the old death customs of building a Sorrowing Tower and binding the corpse.”

  “More the shame to them! It honors the Four Mothers to ink each of us with the symbol of which essence we bear. I’ve seen that out
lander custom of trapping dead flesh under earth when bodies ought to be washed and laid out for the vultures to pick apart and the wind and rain to scour clean. It’s impious.” Abruptly he drew his shoulders up his ears exactly like a boy being scolded. With a breath he forced his shoulders down. “No offense meant. I know you are of the lineage that worships the southern god and his spirit bowl and stone tombs.”

  “Hard to offend me, lad. I’ve heard it all and worse. Honesty serves better than lying smiles.”

  Reyad touched a bronze armband on his upper right arm as if it were a talisman. He glanced around to make sure they couldn’t be overheard. Since the soldiers had widened their search for any trace of the vanished inhabitants, most of them were now out of sight among the trees. “Is it true you were chief marshal? When King Atani was alive?”

  “I was.”

  “Do you have any influence over King Jehosh?”

  She had been as good as exiled from the palace twenty-two years ago, but she was not about to confess that to this young bantam. “I find being demoted to marshal of Horn Hall preferable to being leashed to the palace under my nephew’s rule. Why do you ask?”

  “I just wonder how an ass of a man like Auri gets to become chief marshal over all the reeve halls.” He paused, looking taken aback at what he had just said.

  Young men held no mystery for her. “It’s no wonder you’re glad to be out of that cesspit of backbiting and foot licking in Argent Hall. Every reeve who wants to catch the notice of Chief Marshal Auri begs for a transfer there, so they are all stewing in one foul-smelling pot that has as much shit and piss in it as rice and greens. Anyway, that ass Auri only gained the post of chief marshal because he’s an old crony of Jehosh’s. It was sheer luck for him that he got chosen by an eagle although I swear an oath no one can understand why. He can’t even trim his own eagle’s talons, leaves all that care to the fawkners because he fears the bird.”