by Kate Elliott
“What was in Widow Lae’s letter?” she asked. The men looked at her, Shai with his mouth popping open in a most ridiculous way, Tohon and Tuvi with puzzlement, but Anji with a faint smile.
“Widow Lae?” Chief Tuvi asked. “Who is that?”
“She was burned and hanged in Kartu Town square,” said Mai, looking at Anji. “I know you remember that day.”
“I saw her ghost,” Shai muttered. “She said she was waiting for her reward.”
Mai nodded. “What did she do? The order we heard read in the citadel square said she had insulted a Qin officer. But the whisper told us she’d asked a passing merchant to carry a letter to Tars Fort, in the east. When he wouldn’t do it she sent a grandson instead. That merchant received a share of the proceeds of the sale of her estate and her kinsfolk, and then he left town by the Golden Road. What was she really executed for? I always wondered.”
The fire snapped, its bridge of brittle driftwood collapsing into sparks. Tuvi gestured, and Pil came in from the gloom with an armful of new branches. The soldier arranged them on the coals and blew on the lattice until fire caught and flared high, burning strongly on the dry wood but without enough smoke to smother the horrid midges.
Anji batted a swarm away from his face, scratched his neck, and nodded. “Widow Lae,” he said, musing over the name. “I think, Mai, that you have spotted the only blossom on the otherwise barren tree. I had forgotten about Widow Lae.”
A bird’s whistle startled out of the brush at the shoreline. The men leaped to their feet. Mai rose and clutched Priya’s hand. Sengel strode away toward the sound. But Anji kept talking, as if nothing strange had happened.
“You’re right that Widow Lae was not executed for insulting a Qin officer, except in the most general way.”
She waited as he rubbed his chin. He lifted an arm to point. Every head turned to look toward the shore. Inland a tiny light—torchlight—advanced along what must be the main road, heading for Olossi. They watched in silence, because it was such a strange sight to see that pinprick of brightness aflame against the dark.
At length, Tohon muttered, “A runner, or a rider. Too fast to be walking.”
Anji grunted. “It’s an urgent message,” he said evenly, “that travels into the night.”
“The Sirniakans have night runners,” said Priya, and she shuddered, releasing Mai’s hand. “Agents of the red hounds.”
“Do you think it could be the red hounds?” whispered Mai.
Anji caught her wrist. “Enough. We may never know, and it does no good to spin these thoughts when they have nowhere to go.”
“The agents of the red hounds never travel alone,” said Tohon.
Anji turned his head to look, in the most general way, toward the southwest, whence they had come. Out there lay the wide, flat delta, dark under the night sky. The river had a slow, deep voice here as it spilled away into a hundred channels and backwaters. Wind found a voice in the rushes and reeds and bushes growing everywhere. A nightjar clicked.
“I had forgotten until now,” he mused, and for a moment Mai could not remember what they had been speaking about because she had not yet banished the vision of giant slavering red dogs panting and growling as they closed in for the kill. “She was executed for passing information to an agent of the Sirniakan Empire. To our enemy. To one of the red hounds, perhaps. Certainly a traitor must expect death. But now that I think on it, by the time Widow Lae was passing intelligence to an enemy agent, the var would already have sealed the secret treaty he made with my brother Azadihosh. Emperor Farazadihosh, I should say. Whose position as emperor is so weak that he must seek Qin aid in putting down his rivals. The orders for me to ride east came from my uncle, the var.”
“He was sending you into a trap,” said Tuvi.
“Just so.”
“Did the commander of Kartu Town know of the new treaty?” asked Mai. “Did he send you east innocently, or did he know he was sending you to your death?”
“I don’t know,” said Anji. “But all the commanders in the eastern part of the Qin territories would have to be told of the treaty because of the major transfer of troops onto the eastern frontier. That means it’s likely that the commander of Kartu knew of the treaty, and knew that the emperor was now our ally. If that’s true, then I must ask myself, who was the enemy that Widow Lae was found to be passing intelligence to?”
“I never heard a whisper of rebellion in Kartu Town,” said Shai.
Anji smiled softly. “Nor did I. The people of Kartu Town possess a pragmatic wisdom that has served them well.”
Mai frowned. “You were an officer. Weren’t there rumors in the garrison?”
“All we were told was that the widow was passing information to the enemy. Which we all took to mean that she had tried to pass information to the agents of the Sirniakan emperor. But we were wrong, because by that time, they were our allies, not our enemy. I never heard anything more about it after her execution. I never heard if the grandson—if there was a grandson—was ever found.”
“There was a grandson,” said Shai. “Everyone knew Widow Lae’s grandson. A little older than me, a hard drinker, and he knew how to ride a horse.”
“Huh,” grunted Tuvi, who found this amusing. “Riding a horse is a capital offense, if you’re not Qin!”
Shai grinned. Widow Lae’s grandson had been one of those young men that you admired but disliked. “He vanished before she was arrested. That’s why we all knew she was guilty. He was her favorite.”
“What other enemy could there be?” asked Chief Tuvi. “If not the Sirniakan emperor?”
Mai said, “Who else was interested in the transaction? Who else might benefit, or take a loss, from any secret treaty signed between the emperor and the var? Who might wish to know of Qin troops moving into the empire? Or of trading privileges reserved for the Qin that might formerly have been available to others?”
“Exactly,” said Anji, without looking at her. “There may be other agents involved that I am not aware of, merchants of some kind. But common sense suggests that the sons of my uncle Ufarihosh have an interest here. So we must ask ourselves, if she had ties to them, how did she come by those ties, and what message did she send, and did it reach them?”
“How can we possibly find out?” Mai asked. “Is there a chance the sons of Ufarihosh might give us asylum? If we can reach them?”
Raising two fingers to his lips to enjoin silence, Anji tilted his head back as if looking at the many-souled sky. He shut his eyes. Now she heard, fainter than a splash, the lap of water. He pointed toward the river’s edge, away from the slow-moving channel that separated them from the shore. Chief Tuvi drew his sword. Toughid shifted five steps to the left, to cover more ground. Tohon was already gone. Reeds whispered as dark shapes pushed through them, soldiers converging on the bank, which she could not see from here. In the quiet, a horse snorted, and a bird’s lazy koo-loo throated along the air.
A shout of surprise cut the silence, startling Mai so badly that she jumped. Priya clasped her hand.
Sengel and Tohon reappeared a few moments later. In their wake walked a dozen soldiers with two prisoners in tow. One was the handsome young man with the head covering whom Mai remembered well enough from the council meeting. The other was the older merchant who had defended them at the meeting, Master Calon.
“Look what we caught,” said Tohon. “They came by boat. They say they bear a message for you, Captain.”
Firelight lent glamour to the young man’s pleasant features. He resembled ordinary people with his black-brown eyes and dark lashes, but there the resemblance ended. Although not ghostly pale in the manner of poor, dead Cornflower, he had a lighter complexion than Mai was used to seeing. And his eyes had a pull to them, stretched at the corners with a fold at the lid. She was herself known for having grandfather eyes, the sloe eyes seen more commonly in Kartu children long ago, so the grandmothers said, tantalizing for seeming exotic, for hinting of a promise as yet unm
et. The legend of Dezara Mountain told of the long-ago time when a rotting plague killed all the men in what was then Kartu Village, followed by a terrible storm that had lashed the houses into splinters and burned the trees off the slopes, after which a ragged band of about fifty foreign hunters had walked down off the mountain saying that the wind had blown them far from their homeland. They were men of a handsome burnt-sugar complexion very different from the lovely red-bronze clay color common in that region, and they had handsomely slanted eyes, troubling and exciting to look upon. It was whispered they were demons wearing human form, but they were pleasant company and hard workers, and they kept their hair clean and combed. In the end, they had married the widows and maidens of Kartu Village and bred so many children that the village had grown to become a town.
Now here was a young man who had something of the look she had always supposed those grandfathers to have. If this one was a demon, he hid it well. Maybe the turban on his head was meant to conceal his horns. He grinned at her most flirtatiously, until Master Calon cuffed him with a genial swat.
“Here, now, cub. Show respect. I promised your father you’d not shame him.”
“I am surprised to see you, Master Calon,” said Anji before the young man could reply to Master Calon’s scolding.
“You should not be.” The merchant nodded briskly. “I think by your actions and speech at the council that you’re not eager to return to the empire.”
“I am not,” agreed Anji.
“Then there’s no sense in waiting through the opening measures before we start the dance. This is how it is.”
He paused as might a man who wants to show his goods in the best light, making the buyer lick his lips before he gets a taste. Anji nodded, showing neither excitement or disdain.
“We have the votes, only we don’t have the votes,” broke in the young man, “because those bastards will always use the old law against us—”
“Hush!” Calon pressed a sandaled foot onto the exposed toes of the young man, who yelped in pain and fell silent.
“The Lesser Houses and the guilds possess only fifteen votes,” said Mai, “while the Greater Houses hold sixteen.”
“That’s right!” said Master Calon with an admiring nod. “You must be a merchant yourself, verea. That’s how they can always outvote us, although we are many more than they are, and with allies among more than just the Lesser Houses and the guilds. For instance, this cub is called Eliar sen Haf Gi Ri.” He paused as if the news ought to astonish, or light a flame of recognition, and when Anji waited, the master glanced at Mai, at the others, and read what he could from their expressions. “That means nothing to you, then?”
“What does it mean to you?” asked Mai.
He grinned, and she liked him for it. “His people are outlanders, like you, who come to settle here.”
Eliar waved a hand. Silver bracelets jangled at his wrists. “Whsst! A hundred years or more ago, my people came here! You can’t call me an outlander any more than I can call you an outlander.”
“It’s true my folk came from the south not so long ago, but you will always be outlanders to Hundred folk until you cast away your strange way of dressing and naming and come to worship proper gods.”
“Likely not!” said Eliar with a carefully measured sidelong glance at Mai. “You know that normally my fathers and uncles and kinsmen would never have made this agreement with you. It’s a sign of our desperation.”
“Thus you prove my point.” Master Calon turned back to Anji. “Many among the Lesser Houses and their allies fear the Greater Houses too much to act against them. They will gripe—”
“So they will!” broke in Eliar. “Gripe! And do nothing about it!” Now she saw real passion furrow the young man’s handsome face. His admiration of Mai’s beauty came frivolously, no more than skin deep.
Calon nodded. “We of the Lesser Houses and the guilds and our other allies in town fear that the Greater Houses see only their own profit, this season’s coming harvest, without attending to the storms that will come in the seasons beyond. They are blind to the shadows. We of the Lesser Houses, guilds, and other households in Olossi have a made a pact among ourselves. We cannot stand back any longer. If you are desperate enough, we hope you may consider an agreement with us.”
“What manner of agreement?” asked Anji.
“Let me first explain what my allies and I have done to this point. If you will.”
Anji stepped back as Tohon stepped out of the shadows, moved up beside him, and whispered in his ear. Master Calon waited as Anji gestured to Chief Tuvi, who ghosted away into the coarse grass that shielded the land-facing shore of the island.
“Some movement of guards has taken place among those set to watch the ford that links this island to the shore,” said Anji to Calon. “Have you seen?” He pointed to where that distant torchlight wended its long descent toward Olossi. “Know you anything of what that light might portend?”
“I do not. Nor of any messenger coming into town this late.” Calon turned to Eliar. “Think you it’s news from Master Nokki and your cousin Shefen?”
Eliar winced. “Shefen is dead. I fear the others lost as well.”
“You can’t know he’s dead. There’s been no word. How did he die, then?”
Eliar shook his head. “I can say nothing, and I don’t know anyway. This knowing is woman’s magic, not the province of men. If they say he’s dead, then he’s dead. Anyway, it’s unlikely they would travel at night.”
Calon sighed and turned to Anji. “As you saw yourself, we came by the water, hoping to escape detection, so we’ve had no view of the road until now. I would ask the ones who guard you, but since most of Olossi’s militia dance to the tune played by the fiddlers of the Greater Houses, they would only march us straight to Assizes Tower and lower us into the dungeons besides.”
In the distance a splash resounded, but the sound was quickly drowned by the relentless push of the river’s current. From their vantage point Mai could see past Anji’s head onto the dark reaches of the spreading delta. A light winked on and off, on and off, and her first thought was that this was a firefly bobbing in the curling breeze, but as her gaze adjusted to the distance she realized she was seeing an artificial light turned off and on as though a lantern’s protecting veil was being shut and opened.
Someone was signaling, out there on a boat riding the river or hugging the shore of another low-lying island.
“Anji, look,” she said, and he turned, but the light vanished as though her voice had warned it. “I saw a light blinking, like a signal. Think you it’s related to the messenger?”
“That’s only a fisherman,” said Master Calon. “There’s a good night catch to be had this time of the moon.”
“Not just fish are caught this time of night,” said Eliar with a laugh. “There’s plenty who smuggle goods across the water so that Sapanasu’s clerks can’t demand their tithe. Not that I’d know of any such criminal behavior, being a law-abiding citizen.”
“My attention is caught,” said Anji, stepping back to face Calon. Priya set a pair of sticks on the fire, and the flames licked higher as Calon wiped his brow.
“My nose is itching,” agreed Calon. “Many whispers have tickled my ears these last few nights. Listen!”
Mai listened, but she heard only the night sounds and the crackle of the freshly burning sticks, and when he went on she saw that this was a storyteller’s punctuation, readying his audience for the meat of the tale.
“I cannot spin the whole tale to you now, for we haven’t the time. But this is how it is.”
“He doesn’t even know the lay of the land!” said Eliar impatiently.
“Patience, cub.”
“It’s true enough,” said Anji.
“Very well. It’s rich country in the north. The two great cities—Nessumara and the crossroads of Toskala—lie in the north, along the River Istri. The fertile fields of Istria and Haldia grow rich crops. To the northeast lie the r
icher fields of Arro, where the delvings glean gold and iron from the mountain fastness. And many more places besides, all sung in the tales of the Hundred.
“Once we commanded a steady trade along West Track through the Aua Gap and to Horn, that road which leads to the markets of Nessumara and Toskala and the fields of Haldia and Istria, even to the mines of Arro. All this has wasted away these past few years, sucked dry. Merchants rode north, and never returned. We hear terrifying tales of fighting in the north like to the hundred wars of ancient days, before the Guardians came. No caravan has reached Olossi from Nessumara for over a year. Last year there was talk of Horn being overrun, but we never had any direct news. No one dares send their wagons and goods on that route.
“After all, here in the south we can always trade throughout the south and over the pass into the empire, so it never seems as urgent as it ought to be. It’s also true that the roads into western Olossi, Sund, and Sardia are still open, although they’ve become more dangerous as well in recent months. There’s some trade also into the far south, places like Farro and Ofria, but that trade passes along foot trails overland through the foothills of the Spires, a path expensive in both trouble and time. A merchant must have safe, open roads to make a living. We have sent many messengers to Argent Hall asking for them to investigate this matter, but we’ve heard no answer of any kind, only silence.”
