Traitors' Gate

  Marit’s own words—I don’t desire oblivion. Therefore I am already corrupt—haunted Joss, not Anji’s reddened face. Anji had done what must be done: Lord Radas and his allies must be stopped; there was no other way than the way the other Guardians had freely offered them, however impious it was. But what if the corruption, like a cholera spreading through a town, had already worked its shadow into those who did not yet know they were sick? What if corruption was inevitable?

  WHEN THEY ARRIVED late that day to Horn Hall, weary, foul-smelling, and coaxing exhausted eagles to perches for a rest and a haunch of meat, a reeve out of Argent Hall was waiting with a message from Olossi. He did not even wait for them to come inside but bounded forward to offer the message to Anji.

  Anji unrolled the scrap of paper to reveal a script Joss did not recognize. His eyes scanned the words swiftly. The flare of emotion was as edged as that of a sharp-set eagle so angry it cannot reason.

  His expression smoothed to implacability as he studied the words again. His lips tightened. He glanced toward Toughid, who watched him with a gaze that took in every least reaction, measured and prepared to act at Anji’s command. Secondarily, he glanced at Tohon, who was standing with Kesta at the ledge’s grand wall, pointing toward the Lend at something Joss couldn’t see. Anji glanced again over the message. He lifted a hand, signaling to Toughid, who ambled over while scooping his flint out of the pouch. He snapped sparks, coaxed a flare with a bit of dried moss, then applied the flame to the message. The paper caught, and Anji released it, fire consuming as it spun down. The white scraps Anji ground into the stone with the heel of his boot.

  He turned to Joss, the bundle hanging at his back swaying with his movement. “I must return to Olossi at once. Ready your reeves. Keep the lines of communication open with our allies. Prepare a storeroom here with padding for oil of naya. We’ll send the first vessels up via flights from Naya and Argent Halls. The army will march out of Olossi as soon as I reach there to give the command.”

  36

  WITH ATANI BRACED on her hip, Mai watched Priya hoist a scant bundle of possessions across her narrow back.

  The woman smiled gently. “I will come every day, Mistress, in time to say the dawn prayers with you,” she said in the steady voice Mai had come to depend on. “It’s just O’eki and I would like a little cottage of our own.”

  A hundred words wished to flood from Mai’s tongue, but she held them back. Atani frowned thoughtfully at her, catching her mood.

  Don’t leave me.

  You are the one I depend on.

  What if you decide never to return?

  She had to smile as Priya took her leave, departing through the garden gate, which Chief Tuvi closed and barred and latched behind her. He exchanged a few words with the guard on duty. In the fading light, he ambled over to Mai. He touched a finger to Atani’s soft, dark cheek, offering with both hands to take him, but the baby turned his face into Mai’s taloos and gripped his mother more tightly.

  “He’s afraid you’ll take him away, too,” muttered Mai.

  Tuvi rubbed at the corner of an eye. He scuffed a boot on the gravel walkway. He took in a deep breath of the garden, still blooming because it was watered: the sweet haze of purple-thorn, now fading as the last flowers withered; the slightly bitter taste of tallowberry in its neatly trimmed ranks.

  “You can hire a night nurse,” he said. “Or purchase one.”

  “No one I can trust,” said Mai. “I will bring Miravia back from Astafero.”

  He whistled softly, a falling note.

  Was he blushing? “Do you like her, Chief?”

  He sighed.

  “Neh, never mind. I would never have said anything if all that hadn’t happened, and that awful Keshad hadn’t blurted out all those things, like he has only to wish something and it must be true. I don’t like him!” She wiped her running nose with the back of her hand, and sniffed. Because Priya had gone.

  “It’s just down the street,” said Tuvi. “A room in a block with a small courtyard. A hundred steps will bring her here.”

  “She’s free to do as she wishes.” It’s just she hadn’t thought Priya would desert her. For half of Mai’s life, Priya had been a constant presence, the one comfort she could rely on.

  “Mistress?” Sheyshi padded out into the garden, carrying a lamp. “Are you coming in? Did that wicked woman desert you?”

  “She did not desert me, Sheyshi. You aren’t to say so. Priya and O’eki have every right to set up their own household. I’m just fortunate they have agreed to continue in my employ, for I am sure I don’t know—what I would do—without them—” The words choked her. Atani reared back to stare at her, looking perplexed.

  “But Mistress—”

  “Sheyshi,” said Tuvi, his tone like a slap, “go inside now. We’ll want to eat as soon as we come in.”

  Sheyshi fled, taking the lamp with her. If only Sheyshi had been the one to go, instead of Priya!

  “Oh, Tuvi-lo.” She let the tears flow, and after a while the tears were all shed and she pressed Atani’s precious body against her as he patted at her wet cheeks with his chubby little hands and tasted the moisture that coated his tiny fingers. “I’m ready to go in. You won’t leave me, will you?”

  “Hu! A question not to be asked. Come, Mistress. Dinner awaits.”

  “I’m not hungry!”

  “Of course you are.”

  How awful she was even to think of poor Sheyshi in that unpleasant way, because Sheyshi had nowhere to go and no one to go with. It wasn’t her fault she so lacked charm and warmth that not one of the Qin soldiers—those who hadn’t yet chosen wives from among local women—had expressed the least desire to consider Sheyshi, young as she was, for a wife.

  “It’s done,” she murmured, “and done for the best.”

  “If you say so, Mistress.”

  “Priya has the right to desire freedom, just as you or I would.” She shifted Atani to the other hip and crunched over the gravel to the porch. After mounting the steps, she kicked off her sandals and entered the lamp-lit audience chamber with its painted screens depicting rats dressed in human style and going about their daily lives: flying kites, throwing pottery on wheels, planting a rice field, rowing in a reed-choked channel of water while fishing.

  A murmur of male voices caught her ear. Atani turned, caught by the same lilt, and her heart galloped ahead of her. She walked through the crane room, past the half-open door that looked onto the tiny altar room where Priya had promised to pray with her at dawn, and slid a closed door aside to step into the blazing lamplight of the dining chamber. Its doors were opened wide onto the innermost courtyard, her private sanctuary. On the porch stripping off his riding gloves stood Anji, attended by Toughid, Tohon, and a pair of Qin soldiers whose faces were hidden in shadow although she recognized Chief Deze by his thin frame.

  “Anjihosh!” Chief Tuvi strode past Mai, across the matted floor, and out onto the porch. “You have surprised me!”

  “Is that disapproval I hear?” said Anji with a laugh. He tapped Tuvi on the shoulder with the back of a hand, affectionately, but already he had looked past him, his gaze meeting Mai’s with a look that stopped her in her tracks. His expression was unfathomable, intense, possessive. Disconcerting.

  Heat rushed through her. “Anji,” she said, her mouth dry and her cheeks flushed.

  Atani strained away from her, arms reaching toward his father as he babbled badababa.

  Anji gestured, and Toughid took his riding whip and gloves. He hastily pried off his boots. In all his dust from his travels he crossed and in full sight of the men loitering on the porch he embraced her and kissed her full on the mouth, deeply, hotly, his body pressed against hers and already quite obviously aroused. Her own feelings spiked abruptly, but she could not forget the presence of his men. He abruptly pulled away and took the baby into his arms. And he laughed. His face was flushed and red; he had what appeared to be a burn along one cheek, blisters whitening al
ong a reddened patch of skin in the early stages of healing.

  “Anji! You’re hurt. Your hands!”

  His hands were wrapped in bandages of linen.

  “It’s nothing.” His voice was hoarse as he examined her. He bent his head to kiss Atani not once but a dozen times, the baby chortling as he smacked his lips to kiss his father back.

  “We’ll eat,” said Anji. “Bring Keshad.”

  “To the meal?” asked Tuvi, stepping into the dining chamber.

  “I’ll need a complete report from him. We depart for Astafero at dawn. Little enough time to learn what I must. I’ll rest afterward.” The look he turned on Mai did not promise rest.

  “Sheyshi,” she called, knowing her color was still high and that every man there could see it on her. The cursed girl wasn’t there.

  “Where is Priya?” Anji demanded impatiently.

  She found words, clipped and short. “I have freed my slaves, Anji. Priya and O’eki have taken a household just down the street. They will not be here in the evenings, but have taken on a day hire with us.”

  Whatever passed in his thoughts he deliberately did not speak, so she could not tell if he was angry or bemused. “I see.”

  “I’ll see what’s happening in the kitchens. I thought Sheyshi—” To stumble over Sheyshi’s dereliction of duty would only make Mai’s householding abilities look suddenly suspect. Had Priya and O’eki done so much of the work that made the household run smoothly? Had she never noticed?

  Where had that idiot girl gone?

  Mai concealed her pounding heart and trembling hands by going to the side table and pouring water into the basin so Anji and his officers could wash before they ate. She poured too hard; water spattered along the polished wood. A droplet hung from the rounded corner, then separated and vanished into the mat. Exquisitely attuned as they were to Anji’s mood, his officers washed hands and faces in silence, following the custom of the Hundred, while Mai tossed down additional pillows around the table so there was one for each man and, of course, for herself.

  The men unbelted their tabards and quilted silk coats and tossed the gear back out onto the porch for tailmen to tend later. For some reason, Toughid carried a small traveling chest, no longer than his forearm and heavily chained, into the chamber and placed it against one wall. The others set their swords and knives beside their pillows and settled cross-legged around the table, Toughid joining them. There was, at least, tea to be poured, and enough cups. As they drank, she escaped out of the chamber and stumbled into Sheyshi, standing right behind the door with an empty tray in her hands, mouth slack and eyes unfocused as if listening.

  “Sheyshi!”

  She started so badly she dropped the tray. Mai caught it before it hit the floor, then grabbed Sheyshi’s sleeve and tugged.

  “I beg you, Sheyshi! Hurry!” She bit down her irritation, for the young woman could not help what she was. “Is the food ready?”

  Sheyshi stammered as though a pack of amorous wolves were snapping at her heels. Mai composed herself as they hurried through the house, and when they reached the kitchens it was easy enough to calmly and smilingly designate portions and servers and return with a platter of dumplings as an appetizer.

  She paused outside the closed doors of the dining chamber, tray in hand, leaning forward to listen. Inside, Anji was interrogating Keshad in that thorough way he had of uncovering each least detail, the one you thought wasn’t important but which as it happened was the most important of all.

  “How many soldiers?”

  “I counted five hundred and thirty-seven.”

  “All Qin?”

  “All.”

  “Do you know whose clan they serve?”

  “They originally served under a Commander Beje.”

  “Ah. And the rest of the party?”

  “There are forty-three males, all gelded, none Qin. I can’t know about the women, as all go veiled except the exalted lady.”

  “How can you be sure that some among those who are veiled are not men?”

  “Hiding in the company of women? Perhaps. It would surprise me, having traveled in the empire. The men would sooner kill themselves than stoop to being mistaken for women, and the women would be killed for mixing with men. A foul place, if you ask me.”

  “I did not ask. Numbers?”

  Keshad did not sound the least cowed. “Of women? Hard to say. At least forty?”

  “A household,” remarked Anji in a tone that made Mai shudder.

  Better to take action than stew in a brine of unexamined fear.

  She pushed aside the door with her foot and entered briskly, setting down the tray. She washed, then murmured the ritual prayers to the Merciful One for the blessing of food, then seated herself on the pillow the Qin had carefully left for her at the central place at the table. The smell of sweat and horse was strong but not unpleasant. She offered dumplings and they fished them off the platter as Keshad, standing off to one side, shifted from foot to foot like a man whose skin itched but he could not scratch it.

  “Master Keshad,” said Mai, meaning to be polite but with an edge to her voice she could not disguise, “if you are hungry, please bring a pillow and join us.”

  “My thanks, verea,” he said, answering curtness with equally clipped words, “but I will remain here.”

  Anji glanced at her. She shook her head minutely, and he snagged a second dumpling from the platter, wolfing it down. She was forcefully aware of his raised hand, his hips shifting as he changed position on the pillow; the way, when Atani grabbed onto his tunic with a chubby fist, he smiled at the baby and settled him on his left thigh within the crook of his left arm so he could eat more easily with his right. He glanced at her frequently, and there was a hungry sheen to him that made her feel he was holding himself in check by sheer will. No wonder the Hundred folk named their goddess Ushara, who presided over love, death, and desire: the Devourer.

  Sheyshi led a train of four servers into the room. Mai served out soup and arranged platters, and herself ate. Atani sat contented on his father’s lap and made a gruesome face when Anji got him to sip at the caul-petal soup and then coughed out the sip all over the best-quality silk of Anji’s undertunic, which was an exceptional shade of heavenly blue. The officers laughed indulgently, and the baby looked all around the table, smiling at their attention, his little face very bright, and so as they ate he was passed from lap to lap, gurgling and babbling and being coaxed to try first another drop of soup or a lick of barsh or a bit of sweetened porridge or a flake of tender fish. Anji asked no more questions of Keshad. When they had eaten their fill he walked out to the porch with Tuvi while the officers dandled the baby. Keshad remained standing motionless, brooding, in his corner. Captain and chief consulted while Mai gathered up the platters and bowls and spoons and piled them neatly on trays. She called in Sheyshi, waiting right outside, to take them away.

  “Sheyshi,” said Anji, coming back in with the chief at his heels. “Call the other hirelings to take the trays. You may take charge of Atani, although I think his uncles wish to spoil him for a while longer this evening.”

  The uncles had the ability to chatter on right past this transparent speech. Keshad smirked, and even Sheyshi’s gaze flashed from Mai to Anji and back to Mai. Heat scalded Mai’s cheeks as she pretended she was rising of her own accord to walk to her husband. Anji hooked her elbow with a grasp of iron. Without a single word of parting he walked her out of the dining chamber and through rooms to the private chamber where none dared follow.

  She shook her arm out of his grip. “I feel shamed! You summoned me just like a—a—”

  He slapped the door shut behind them, swept her off the floor, and deposited her on the mattress, dropping down beside her.

  “I have seen death,” he murmured. “My death. Your death. Atani’s. Any of us. As long as we live at the mercy of the cloaks who hold power over us, we are vulnerable. Mai.” His voice scraped as though, like his face, it had been damaged,
but it was only emotion that made it raw.

  She gazed up, not that she could see him in the darkness, only the weight and shadow of him. So much of him she knew through physical touch, not through sight. She tasted tonight a quality in him she did not recognize, and yet his need—at this moment rough, aroused and desperate—was familiar to her. It called to her own, rising in part because she had missed him and in part because his sharp desire flattered her.

  She captured his hands between her own. “How did you hurt yourself?”

  “That is not a tale for this night, plum blossom. All in the course of battle. It will heal.” He lowered his weight onto her and kissed her throat, her jaw, her lips; his breathing quickened.

  “I’m afraid of what it means, that your mother has come.”

  “Not for this night, my heart,” he whispered. “Tomorrow is time enough to face what will come.” His voice took an edge, command rather than request. “Hush.”

  She knew then, right then, because it was betrayed by his tone and by the way he impatiently began to tug at her clothing and pull at his own quite heedlessly—he, who never hurried, who was always in control—that he too was afraid.

  • • •

  KESH WAS A merchant, and he knew better than to cede any bargaining advantage by showing too much eagerness too early in the process. So he waited through the interminable meal while the captain—quite uncharacteristically—looked ready to devour his wife right there in front of everyone and finally hauled her off while the officers pretended not to notice. Talk about poor market tactics!

  The cursed baby did entertain the soldiers, it was true; for such a ruthless pack of wolves, they were as soft as porridge when it came to the child. The baby was very handsome and astonishingly good-natured, as long as he was the center of attention and being held, fed, pampered, and feted. Hard not to be content when your every need was fulfilled at the least hint of displeasure. He was a great deal like his father, Kesh decided; it was easy for Captain Anji to be so calm and even-tempered when the truth was everyone always did everything he wanted. Kesh had heard a rumor in the market that the captain had beaten his wife in public when he’d discovered her coming out of the temple of the Merciless One, and while folk in the market had argued whether such a scene was likely to have happened or ridiculous even to contemplate, Kesh believed it. Outlanders had peculiar ideas about what could be owned; he’d seen enough appalling behavior in the south to believe anything of them now.