So the trick was to figure out how to direct the captain’s cosseted temper and Mai’s resentment to his advantage, to win Miravia.
That Miravia remembered him, had bothered to learn his name, had given him hope. That she had scorned his kindness by refusing his aid troubled him. He could not interpret such behavior. He was accustomed to women who openly said what they wanted, or did not want.
“Keshad!” Chief Tuvi’s voice cracked over him.
The hirelings were snuffing the lamps. While he had stood there brooding, the dining chamber had cleared, the officers had dispersed with their weapons and gear, and he’d been left like a lackwit in the shadows.
“We’ll be departing early. Make sure you’re ready.”
Kesh furiously watched the man amble out of the chamber holding the last lamp, leaving Kesh in the cursed darkness. Did the chief wish to marry Miravia? Was he counting on Mai’s support for his suit? Would Miravia choose loyalty to Mai over the impassioned pleading of one sorry man?
Aui! He had so little time to convince her he was worthy of her, although compared to Chief Tuvi he brought nothing to a marriage except his undying devotion. He’d stood on the auction block; he’d clutched his little sister to his side, devoted to her as well, but that devotion had not spared Zubaidit from being sold to the Merciless One’s temple while he’d been dragged off to serve as a slave in Master Feden’s household for twelve long years. Devotion was not porridge. You could not survive on it.
The compound was a large one, easily sleeping a hundred or more people. Kesh had been allotted a pallet in the warehouse along with two grooms and a man who swept and cleaned, but after persistent complaints about their snoring and farting, he had finally been given permission to install himself, his accounts book, and his coin chest in the counting room, like a night watchman. O’eki, Mai, and Chief Tuvi held the locks to the compound’s wealth and accounts books; Kesh just rolled out a thin mattress at night and slept with his small coin chest as close beside him as he might one day hope to embrace a loving wife.
He retired there now, with a single lamp to accompany him. He knew to a vey how much he possessed, but he counted it again anyway. Two hundred and nine leya, and two cheyt. It was a substantial sum for a young man only one year removed from the debt slavery that had eaten his youth. Was it enough to set up as a merchant, rent rooms, feed the children that would result from their bed . . .
He wiped his brow, thinking of the way the captain had stared at his wife all through dinner. Whew! Arousal stirred in his body. Thinking of Miravia, he could not think. The thought of touching her was like a delirium. He sat with his hands caught in the strings of coin and tried to calm his breathing, but it was no good. He shut his eyes.
Voices yanked him awake from a slumped doze over the open chest. He banged down the lid just as the door to the counting room was opened from within the compound. Toughid came in first, a small chest hanging off his back like a quiver. He placed himself between Kesh and the captain, who entered with Chiefs Tuvi and Deze.
Anji wore an elaborate robe of best-quality green silk embroidered with sea creatures emerging from white silk thread wavelets. Kesh had never seen him without his hair neatly packed away in the Qin topknot; tonight it was merely tied back with a ribbon, hanging down his back. His hair was as thick and black and lovely as his wife’s, and almost as long.
Kesh was as suddenly uncomfortable as if he had walked into the captain’s private sleeping chamber to find him in bed with his wife.
“So,” said Anji to Kesh, with his men looking on like executioners, “my mother has offered to give you my wife.”
Anji was not armed, but the other three were; indeed, they looked as if they had slept in their clothes, if they had slept at all. Kesh had certainly not mentioned the matter, but his stupidity in blurting out the truth to Mai when they had been arguing over Miravia had tramped back to trip him up. Unless he could think very quickly indeed. Timidity would win him nothing now.
“Your mother insists you deserve a wife worthy of your consequence, as a man of elevated birth,” Kesh said. “Son and brother of emperors, grandson and nephew of vars. That’s what the Qin call their rulers, is it not? I suppose among you outlanders, who are eager to make such distinctions among families, you might care about such things. Here in the Hundred, of course, a person’s suitability is measured by clan connections and the individual’s own skills.”
“You do not deny the offer was made?” asked Anji so easily that Kesh felt the knife already at his throat, although no one touched him.
“How can I deny it, when it is true? Her words surprised me as much as they do you, Captain.”
“Her words do not surprise me at all.”
That look might scorch walls! But the captain muted his anger as quickly as an incoming wave washes away a piece of sea wrack on a sandy shore: no longer in sight, it yet remains trapped in the watery expanse.
The time to bargain was upon him.
“Your mother is a formidable woman, Captain. Mai is a treasure that any man—any clan in Olossi—would be pleased to acquire as, I believe, you acquired her back in that dreary desert town that had nothing more than a well and a stable and a herd of sheep, and one very beautiful young woman selling fruit in the marketplace.”
Chief Tuvi rested a hand on Anji’s arm as the captain tensed, but Keshad kept talking.
“Indeed, your mother offered me both women—your wife, and Miravia. So tell me, Captain. It’s a good offer. Why should I refuse it?”
“I’ll kill you,” said Anji as Tuvi actually took hold of the captain’s arm.
Although Kesh was shaking, with the coin chest wedged against his knees as a most hideously inadequate shield against the captain’s coiled fury, he knew he was about to win this negotiation. Because the one thing Anji had not said, which Kesh had indeed expected him to say, was that his mother had no say in the matter of disposing of his wife.
“Will you kill your mother, then, as well? She seemed most insistent that you could not remain married to—not that she recognized it as a marriage, mind you—an inconvenient merchant’s daughter.”
“Anjihosh,” said Tuvi.
“Captain,” said Toughid.
“My lord,” said Chief Deze, “this man’s blood is not worthy to stain these fine mats.”
If the captain had been wearing a sword, Kesh figured he would be dead by now. But Anji wasn’t, and he had enough pride not to grab for another man’s weapon.
The flame hissed softly. Anji breathed harshly. Kesh barely breathed at all. Slowly, Chief Tuvi released his grip on the captain’s arm.
Anji fisted his hands, as if to punch Kesh; opened them, as if wishing to strangle him; at last found a spot of stillness within which to slaughter Kesh with his stare. “What do you want, Keshad?”
Kesh glanced at Tuvi, but the chief remained impassive. “I want Miravia.”
“Do you want to acquire her as you would a slave?” said Anji with a caustic laugh. “Would that make her come willingly to you, when you know she remains Ri Amarah in her thoughts and ritual, even though her family has abandoned her?”
Kesh indicated Tuvi. “I want no other claim put in my way.”
Anji looked at the chief, but the chief shrugged. It wasn’t negation; Tuvi had never said if he wanted, or did not want, the young woman; his gesture was a refusal to be roped in.
“If she eats my rice,” Kesh went on, “then I want permission to leave Olo’osson. To ride elsewhere—”
“Into the teeth of the enemy?” said Anji. “Reckless, to be sure.”
“There are other quiet valleys and market towns in the Hundred where we can make a peaceful life.”
“Maybe there are now. But we’re fighting a war. You cannot be sure those quiet market towns and valleys will remain quiet and unmolested. I have no doubt the soldiers of the enemy’s army would be quite eager to plow Ri Amarah ground, for the novelty of it.”
Kesh leaped up, charged pa
st the chest, and lunged at Anji. His feet were kicked out from under him and he landed flat on his back with the wind knocked out of him, and Anji’s hand wrapped around his throat and his knee dug into Kesh’s chest. Kesh sucked air, but he didn’t struggle.
The cursed man grinned, the more frightening because he hadn’t loosed his grip on Kesh’s throat. “You’ve got stones, I’ll give you that. I take it this was your effort to negotiate from a position of weakness.”
Anji knew exactly how much pressure he was applying to Kesh’s throat and chest, as if he’d threatened, or even killed, men this way before.
“So you will listen to me now, Keshad. The only reason you are not dead is because I owe a debt to your sister.”
Zubaidit!
“Yes, that’s got you thinking at last, hasn’t it?”
“Prol’ . . . dead . . . now . . .”
“Perhaps. Obviously I have more confidence in your sister than you do. She has a rare gift. You ought not to value her so low. You ought to value her, in her own way, as highly as I value my wife. Listen very carefully, Master Keshad.”
The mat pressed into his back. Anji’s breath was sweetened with mint; his eyes were dark, and his black hair had slipped over his shoulder to brush against Keshad’s shoulder as intimately as might a lover’s.
“Mai belongs to me. Do not think to play this game, to go behind my back and make bargains with my mother. This is your only warning. I can kill you as easily as I breathe, and I will if you do anything to attempt to separate Mai from me. As for the other—who Miravia marries is no concern of mine, although Mai may have something to say about her wishes in the matter. It is with Mai you must negotiate, not with me, although I admit you might have preferred to negotiate with me knowing, as I am sure you do, that compared to my wife I do not know how to bargain at all. Indeed, Keshad, you might have learned this about me before you attempted it. I don’t bargain, because I don’t have to.”
He let him go, rose to his feet, turned away.
He paused, then turned back. The finely embroidered hem of his best-quality robe brushed Kesh’s body as if to remind Kesh that he himself wore everyday-quality linen, the most he dared afford.
“We leave from the harbor at midday. I expect you in attendance.” He bared his teeth wolfishly, and Kesh shuddered. “You are still my slave, Keshad, until such time as your sister returns alive, or we have proof of her demise in the course of her mission.”
“We might never know!”
“So we might,” agreed Anji with a lazy smile. “You might wish to consider what that eventuality would mean to you.”
He gestured, and with his officers left the counting room. Kesh heard him speaking as they went out the door. “Now, I will speak to O’eki and Priya. Given the situation, best if I go to them—”
Chief Tuvi shut the door and barred it from the far side without a parting glance. Kesh sat alone with his lamp and his coin. His heart burned, but his mind counted a colder price.
Anji would kill him; the man did not make idle threats. But if Anji was preemptively attacking Keshad to make sure he did not go behind Anji’s back, surely that suggested that Anji feared his mother might manage to get her way despite Anji’s wishes. In the light of the lamp, with his entire fortune contained in a chest that, like a heart’s feelings, can be opened and perused by one who holds the key, Kesh saw better the shadows in the room. It was true he might negotiate with Anji’s mother, betray Anji and Mai both, to gain Miravia.
Did he want to be that kind of man?
Miravia did not belong to him. Nor did he want her to, not in the way his labor had once belonged to Master Feden, or Zubaidit’s body and spirit belonged to the temple she served.
He had made a story in his heart about their mutual passion, but it was only a story. He could not help desiring the face he had seen, the woman he had so briefly spoken with among the scattered cord and ribbon of the marketplace. Maybe it was only lust that drove him; maybe it was the lure of the forbidden; yet perhaps a true spark had leapt between them, promising a deeper bond.
Almost two years ago he had trudged over the Kandaran Pass north back into the Hundred in possession of a treasure to buy his sister’s freedom from the temple. Things hadn’t worked out the way he had planned. But he had said something one day, high in the mountains, while speaking with another traveler, a man who appeared to be an envoy of Ilu:
It matters what path a man takes as he walks through the world.
He finally comprehended what those words meant. Miravia was the one who would have to decide. She was the one he had to negotiate with.
• • •
IN THE BREATH of gray lightening just before dawn, Anji woke Mai. His hands knew her body very well, and he was determined to arouse her. He was always a careful lover, as if her pleasure mattered more to him than his own.
She captured his bandaged hands against her flesh. “Are you making up for last night?” She tried to make her voice light. “I received little enough pleasure from it, except perhaps to think it relieved you of some terrible anger or grief.”
He had his eyes shut, savoring touch. “My apologies,” he murmured, kissing her. “I was overwrought. I lost my head.”
“That’s not like you, Anji.”
“No.” He cracked an eye, measuring her. “Must we have this conversation right now? I was just beginning my attack. I have my strategy completely planned.”
He hooked a knee between her legs, using his body’s weight and strength to provoke her. At the feel of his body pressed against her, the familiar flash of desire flooded her. She could sense he knew in the way he shifted, in his smile, in the way he shut his eyes to savor her pretended resistance.
She remained stubbornly immobile. “What will happen now that your mother is in Astafero?”
He sighed heavily and opened his eyes, body relaxing. “That’s done it. How can you possibly speak of such things in our bed, Mai?”
“Because we have privacy here, and therefore none of your officers are standing within a sword’s length of you.”
He looked away from her, toward the closed doors, and she released his hands, not that he couldn’t have freed them at any time. At once, taking advantage, he rolled on top of her.
“Now, plum blossom. Listen carefully. We will travel together to Astafero, by ship.”
“Not by eagle? You seem to be in haste.”
“No, not by eagle, although events move quickly elsewhere and I do have need of haste. I need a full honor guard to attend me, to show proper consequence. I will present you to my mother. We will see what events have transpired—beyond the obvious startling news of my brother’s death and my cousin’s ascension to the imperial throne. I must know what has driven my mother north to the Hundred to find me.”
“What if your cousin wishes to kill you, Anji? Isn’t your claim to the imperial throne more legitimate than his?” Even to contemplate such a fate—Anji becoming emperor in that dreadful place!—made her want to weep.
He kissed her, as if to seal the thought away, unspoken and thereby rejected. “I do not wish to be emperor in Sirniaka. I am too much a son of the Qin to wish for that now. Nor would they want me, because I am no longer one of them.” He had much of his weight resting on his arms as he addressed her. “But it cannot be ignored that my cousin may wish to have me killed. My mother would not for an instant be party to such a desire. But they may have sent agents with her to accomplish the task. Yet she will know that also, and be on the alert for it. She is no fool. Also, it seems she is accompanied by over five hundred Qin soldiers out of Commander Beje’s command.”
“Commander Beje! The one we met in Mariha.” His first wife’s father, who had thanked Anji for saving the clan’s honor. “He’s the one who saved your life by warning you that your own Qin uncle had agreed to have you killed, to seal a treaty with your Sirniakan half brother.” Spoken aloud, the words fell like knives.
“So, you see, plum blossom, I have alli
es. We are not alone.”
“But what of the war here, Anji? You were gone for days, scouting in the north, and I have heard not one word of what you saw and what you decided.”
His gaze narrowed, as it did when dark thoughts troubled him. “War is coming. That’s all I can say.”
“Sengel did not come back with you. You’ve left him to prepare the way.”
“You know how I trust him. Now. Have we discussed these matters in a satisfactory way, enough to put your fears to rest for the moment?”
“My fears to rest? Anji! We speak of assassins. Of a coming war!”
“Little enough time for pleasure in the face of these difficulties. May we continue?”
“No.” She watched his surprise at her bald refusal, and in that brief startled release of his vigilance, she rolled him over so she was on top. She smiled, because what else could she do? He would ride away soon enough. She had him for so short a time. “But now we can.”
THE BED WAS only a respite. He did not linger afterward. He washed and dressed, called for and dandled the baby on his lap while Mai, seated behind him, combed out his hair and twisted it up into its topknot, bound with gold silk ribbons, very festive. When she had finished and he was presentable, he left for the militia encampment with his officers. She nursed Atani and then, according to Anji’s specifications, supervised packing up for a journey while Sheyshi fussed over which silks to bring and which to leave behind.
Priya and O’eki’s arrival surprised her.
She kissed Priya, while O’eki went to supervise the closing down and sealing up of the counting room.