by Kate Elliott
“Seventh sons see ghosts.”
“What about seventh daughters?”
“Who ever has seven daughters? Just tell me! We’re not in Kartu Town anymore. You aren’t a witch here.”
“How do you know? Maybe they’ll burn me alive like they do in the empire. Or hang me, or tie me to a post and shoot me full of arrows, or poke me with spears until I’m all full of holes. You don’t know anything about this place!”
“You shouldn’t be afraid. Anji isn’t.”
“Then why don’t you ask him what the ghosts are saying?” he snapped.
This revelation did not disturb her. Of course she already knew Anji saw ghosts! She considered him with a placid expression, but he guessed from the tilt of her chin that she was annoyed. “He doesn’t hear ghosts. He only sees them. What you hear might help us.”
When he only looked at her, she continued as she would to a particularly slow slave child who needed each least task explained at length several times over. “Help us. From the ghosts you can learn of any danger that might be ahead . . . learn the customs of the Hundred . . . Shai! The ghosts can teach us, warn us, even if they don’t mean to. If we know more, we’ll do better in our new life, don’t you think?”
“You don’t understand ghosts, Mai. They only talk about the past. What lies in the future no longer exists. That’s why they’re ghosts.”
Which was why ghosts were often boring, as these were, bawling and bleating like so many discontented sheep:
Captain Beron! You betrayed us, you sheep-tupping son of a bitch!
I didn’t mean to eat that rabbit. It isn’t fair I was exiled for such a little thing! Forced to live the osprey life. I never wanted it! Why won’t you forgive me? Why can’t I go home?
I hate you! I hate all of you! Piss on you all!
“One thing, though,” he said, because he found it so curious that he had to share with Mai. “You know how the arkinga here sounds so strange.”
“They speak it wrong,” she agreed. “Sometimes I can’t understand them.”
“I don’t notice it so much with the ghosts.”
“Maybe ghosts only speak the language of the dead. What are they saying?”
The only way to be rid of her questions was for the company to start moving, and the caravan wasn’t ready. He’d never seen people slower to get moving in his life! The Qin stood beside their horses, not by a whisker betraying they might be impatient to go.
“Some person named Captain Beron betrayed them. Don’t eat rabbit meat—it’ll get you exiled. Now I don’t want to talk about it anymore. How can I know it’s safe here? In the empire, they burn those who believe in the Merciful One. What would they do with me?” When he spoke of the empire, he remembered how that Beltak priest had imprisoned the essence of a ghost, trapping it forever within a simple wooden bowl.
She touched his arm. “Are you all right, Shai? You’re pale.”
He looked around to make sure no one was within earshot. Mai’s slave women were busying themselves by the cart Mai had obtained south of the pass through some clever trading of silks and woolens given to her as a wedding gift by Commander Beje.
“Can’t you see? I’ve seen so many ghosts. I don’t want to become one myself by speaking when I should have remained silent!”
Her expression softened. “I’m sorry. Of course you’ve had to keep it secret all your life in Kartu. I can see why you would still be anxious.”
It was almost worse when she gazed at him with sincere concern. “How do we really know it’s safe here?” he demanded. “Captain Anji made common cause with that eagle rider awfully quickly.”
She shrugged. “Sometimes you have to know when to leap. Anyway, he liked him.”
Abruptly, many of the horses whinnied and startled and shied. The big eagle landed with a whomp in the clear zone. The reeve fastened himself into his harness, and the eagle launched itself skyward with a mighty thrust of legs and wings whose strength and majesty brought tears of admiration to Shai’s eyes. Mai touched fingers to heart, her gaze open with awe. They both followed the raptor’s flight until it vanished away over the trees.
Chief Tuvi called out and, when he had their attention, waved merrily at them and signaled toward the horses.
“We’re leaving!” Shai said with relief. He wiped his eyes and went to join the ranks.
The angry ghosts did not follow as the caravan trundled out the northern gate. But they hadn’t ridden more than a few lengths when Shai saw an almost transparent wisp trudging along the road, a whipcord man-shape who had such an antique look about him—as though he had lingered in this spot for a hundred years—that Shai actually stared, wondering who this ghost was and where it came from. He had a strange idea that he had seen that face recently, but he couldn’t place it. The ghost did not even look at him. As he turned in the saddle to watch it fall behind, it reached a broad stone placed beside the road like a marker, and vanished.
29
For the first three days after leaving Dast Korumbos, they traveled through heavily wooded hills, and although the road bent here to the left and there to the right and at intervals hit steep upward inclines as they climbed out of a valley, on the whole they headed northeast and downslope until Mai thought her tailbone would never stop aching. The Qin never tired or ached, so she refused to complain and had Priya massage her in the evening.
“Sheyshi should massage you, and you should massage Sheyshi.” She lay on her stomach, with her head turned sideways so she could see with one eye. Her hair was caught up against her head, tendrils fallen free along her neck. “You must ache, too.”
Priya smiled as she rubbed Mai’s buttocks. “This is an easy life, compared to what came before.”
“I wish I was a horse,” Sheyshi whispered. She only ever whispered.
“Why do you wish you were a horse?” Mai asked. “Oh. Ah! Yes, right there!”
Sheyshi did not answer. She was the most reserved person Mai had ever met, closemouthed, not at all confiding.
“Horses are free,” said Priya.
“Sheyshi, do you wish you were free?” Mai asked. “When we have found a place to live, I’ll make sure you can earn extra zastras—or whatever they use here—to earn money toward your manumission. That’s perfectly fair. Commander Beje gave me your bill of sale. That amount is what you must earn to buy your freedom.”
The girl colored, stared at her hands, then lifted her gaze to look at Mai as daringly as she ever had. “I would like to be free,” she whispered. “But that isn’t what I meant. I dream sometimes about things. I dreamed I was a horse, running over the grass. It felt—it felt—” But after all, that was too much confiding! Sheyshi squeezed shut her mouth, twisted her hands and, to make herself busy, offered Priya more oil for the massage even though Priya’s hands were moist and Mai’s flanks smoothly coated.
Priya chuckled. “Were you a mare, or a stallion? I’ve wondered, sometimes, how it might feel to be a stallion—man or horse—and have such a—”
“Oh, stop teasing her!” Mai scolded, because the girl looked miserable. Or maybe not. Commander Beje had implied that the girl slept in the bed with his chief wife and that there was play between them. “Are you lonely, Sheyshi?”
Sheyshi wore a green silk cap from which hung shoulder-length streamers, some of green silk, some of gold and white beads, and one woven out of supple wire. Normally the arrangement left her face exposed, but with her head bowed the streamers concealed her expression.
“Hard to come by right now,” said Priya as she rubbed, “but I can make sheaths out of sheep gut if you’re wanting comfort with a man without catching a child in your sack.”
Mai chuckled. “You made me no such offer, Priya! A sheep-gut sheath for a man’s sword!”
“You are freeborn, and now a wife. You must get a child as soon as you can.” She paused with a hand resting on the gentle curve of Mai’s lower back. “Perhaps . . .”
“It’s too early,” said Mai
, suddenly frightened. “Don’t say anything.”
Priya began kneading again as if nothing had been said. “I will pray to the Merciful One that you are blessed with seven sons, and three daughters.”
It was good to change the subject. “How can it be, if there are always seven sons but only three daughters, that all the sons can get married? In Kartu, the clan banner goes only to the eldest son. But all my uncles got wives—well, except for Uncle Shai, and Uncle Hari, and Uncle Girish.” She shuddered, remembering Girish. He’d paved his own path to the deepest hell.
“Priests and soldiers need not marry,” said Priya. “This way we always have plenty of them.”
“Ow! Ow! No, don’t stop! Right there!” She groaned in blissful pain. “Yes, right there! It hurts!” Priya worked in silence while Mai kept her eyes shut and breathed into the knot of pain to try to loosen it.
Sheyshi shuffled around; there came footsteps, an opening and closing of the flap of the tent. Feet shushed along the carpet, and just before Mai opened her eyes to see what was going on, hands began massaging her again. These hands were firm and strong and callused, and no less knowing.
“Anji.” She smiled as she opened her eyes.
He kept kneading with one hand and with the other slipped free the tortoiseshell comb that bound up her hair, uncoiling it and raking it out over her back. “I am the most fortunate of men,” he murmured.
“I am the most flattered of women.”
He laughed. “It is not flattery if it is true. Not one man among this company does not honor your beauty and good nature, Mai.”
She rolled out from his hand, onto her side, and propped her head up on a bent elbow. “Is that what you seek? The envy of other men?”
He considered the comment, but his gaze roamed along her body and his hands twitched, although he did not—yet—touch her. “It is easy to be gratified by the envy of others, directed at what you yourself possess. But it weakens you. Half the secret of your beauty, plum blossom, is that you do not covet it or use it.” Then he smiled. “Except in the marketplace, to drive a harder bargain.”
“You will never let me forget that.”
“I must know the measure of those I hold closest. Any commander must measure his troops in this manner.”
“I am no different than your troops?”
He said nothing, and she understood abruptly that it would be foolish to press the conversation any further in this direction.
She groped for and found the scraper Priya would have used to clean the oil off her body. “When do I get my bath?”
He relaxed. “Soon.” He took the scraper and worked methodically, but somehow by the time he had finished he was also undressed and she was warm and almost delirious with pleasure.
“Soon,” he repeated, kissing her.
She wrapped her limbs around him and took what she wanted.
DO NOT FEAR happiness.
Is it dangerous to become too happy? To get what you want, and be blessed with good fortune? A kind husband. A missed bleeding. As Grandmother Mei used to say, in her querulous way, “Why do you think you’ll get a drink from my cup just because I gave you one yesterday?”
She pondered this question at dawn as she rolled up the blankets and the sleeping carpets while, outside, Priya and O’eki released the tent ropes. She crawled out as the walls collapsed. Sheyshi collected the bedding and secured it to one of the packhorses. Anji stood beside the sentry fire talking with the man who rode that huge and intimidating eagle. Anji had an easy way of conversing with other men. He had a natural precision of movement, and he took up space in a way that made him noticeable without diminishing those in his company. He glanced her way, saw her, and without smiling—just a certain way of narrowing his eyes and the barest curve to his lips—made her flush.
Grandmother had not approved of happiness. She said it led to carelessness and trouble, or perhaps she had meant that happiness led you to carelessness, which in turn took your hand and walked you into trouble. Good fortune was fickle. You must never count on it.
Her hair was already pulled back in a mare’s tail swishing down her back to her hips. She twisted it up deftly, and Priya thrust the tortoise comb through the mass of gathered hair to keep it in place. Mai walked over to the men.
“A good morning,” said Joss appreciatively. He was the kind of man who smiles his admiration but shows restraint in the way he doesn’t draw too close. She liked him. He was good-looking in the northern way, but pretty old. As old as her father, probably, although his coloring was so different that it was hard to tell. Father Mei walked old and talked old and frowned old and sighed old, but the reeve had the lively aura of a man who plunges through life because he wants to be happy.
It hit her all at once.
“You’re an Ox,” she said.
“Mai?” said Anji in a tone that almost crossed into a warning.
Joss laughed. “How did you know?”
“So am I. The Ox is hardworking and pragmatic, with a dreamer hidden inside.”
“What gave me away?” He was still smiling, his eyes handsomely crinkled with amusement, and she gave in to the temptation to flirt, even though she knew she should not.
“ ‘The Ox walks with its feet in the clay, but its heart leaps to the heavens where it seeks the soul which fulfills it. The Ox desires happiness, which is a heavenly gift, but it accepts its burden of service on earth even if it knows that happiness has flown out of its grasp.’ And anyway, the Ox is always beautiful.”
She was aware at once of Anji’s boots shifting on the dirt as a complicated expression altered the reeve’s face before he found a harmless smile again. “Does it say somewhere that the Ox is a shrewd judge of character? Or did you serve your apprenticeship to Ilu as I did?”
“I don’t know what ‘Ilu’ is.”
He glanced at Anji and made his own judgment. “We’d best begin our trek. It’s still five or six days’ journey from here to Olossi. I won’t rest easily until these two caravans are delivered to the safety of the market there.”
Anji nodded, and the reeve left.
“He’s been called handsome before,” said Anji once the other man was out of earshot. “He’s accustomed to the admiration of women. It was the talk of happiness that made him uncomfortable.”
She looked at him closely. “You’re a little mad at me.”
“This is not the marketplace, Mai, and you are not selling peaches and almonds to unsuspecting men who will be stunned into paying full price by one glance from your beautiful eyes.”
She raised a hand to her cheek, where Father Mei would have slapped her. “Forgive me,” she said in a low voice, but she kept her gaze fixed to his.
He did not smile to soften his words. His voice was low and even. “Do not dishonor me.”
“I will never dishonor you! Because I will never dishonor myself!”
Now he smiled. “I am rebuked.”
Her cheeks were hot, and her heart was hotter. She was still not quite sure what threat she faced because in most ways Anji was still a mystery. Father Mei would have hit her, and her mother and aunt would have pinched her arms and ears until she cried. It had been easier to fit herself into the walls they shaped than to endure slaps and pinches, but she had passed through the gate and survived the ghost lands. She was not the same person any longer. She refused to go back.
“I want to be trusted,” she said softly, “because it dishonors me if I am not trusted.”
His gaze remained level. He was no longer angry, but rather measuring and perhaps a little curious, intrigued yet not at all amused. “Honor is all we have. You are right, Mai. I must trust you.”
She nodded in reply. That was as far as she could go. She could not trust her voice, and turned aside gratefully as O’eki brought the horses forward.
LATE IN THE afternoon, the wagons rolled into a meadow already fitted for encampments. A covered cistern opened through a series of cunning traps into a trough suitable for
watering stock. A spacious corral built out of logs allowed them to turn out many of the beasts. Posts offered traction for lead lines where horses could be tethered. Pits rimmed with stones marked off six fire circles, all of which had iron stakes set in place to hang kettles or cauldrons over flames. Hired men and slaves set to work to raise camp and get food ready.
She made her way on a dirt path that cut through a thick stand of pipe-brush and under an airy grove of swallow trees to the crude pits set back against a ravine. Some kind soul had woven screens out of young pipe-brush stalks and pounded and nailed arm braces against the steep slope for ease of use. There was a great deal of coming and going and, remarkably, a stone basin cooled by trickling water flowing down through an old, halved stalk of mature pipe-brush. As she washed her hands, she noticed a small structure off to one side that almost blended into the foliage. She walked over, Priya and Sheyshi trailing after, but thought better of mounting the steps when she saw it was a shrine. She had been raised in the path taught by the Merciful One. In the empire, she knew, the priests served Beltak, calling him the Shining One Who Rules Alone even though he was only a harsher aspect of the holy one all folk worshiped.
This altar had no walls, only green poles with the shapes of leaves carved into them, a tile roof painted green, and a green rug laid over a plank floor. The rug was woven of thick, stiff grass-like blades as long as her arm, and it had begun to wear away where folk had trodden on it. A walking staff stood within, propped at an angle, so tall that it fit inside the peaked roof. A stubby log sat on its end in one corner, with a bouquet of withered flowers discarded on top.
“I’m surprised the flowers haven’t blown away, or been replaced with something fresh,” she murmured to Priya. “Is there no bell or lamp?”
“This is no altar for the Merciful One,” said Priya.
“I don’t think it’s a Beltak temple, either,” said Mai.
“I see no god,” whispered Sheyshi. With head bent, she eyed the shrine as she might a twisting snake whose dance can cause women to fall into a charmed and deadly sleep.
