by Kate Elliott
“We met a reeve at the border. He’d heard news of these troubles along West Spur, although he did not tell me how he had come by this information. He asked for our aid in tracking down the bandits, and we helped him. He left us on the road because he wanted to visit Argent Hall. After that, he was supposed to come here to Olossi ahead of us, to speak in our favor and preside over the arrest of the border captain, the one who died untimely. This reeve called himself Joss.”
“Heya!” cried Eliar.
“Hush, cub! Let him finish!”
Anji’s gaze sharpened; he was not accustomed to being interrupted. He coughed, and went on. “He rode an eagle whose name was Scar. Have you any news of him? Because it seems he has gone missing.”
“Argent Hall, eh?” Calon scratched his chin. “Maybe he changed his mind and flew back north. People do that, quit themselves of any claim to duty.”
Anji shook his head. “Perhaps, but he would have left word. He would have let us know the change of plans. He is a man of honor. He said he would meet us at Olossi. He did not.”
Meanwhile, Eliar was rolling his eyes and waggling his hands like a madman, although both of the other men ignored him.
“You’re stubborn on this point,” said Calon. “For you spoke of it in council as well.”
“It’s a point of honor.”
“I surely know nothing of this reeve, except for what rumor your comments caused after the council meeting.”
“Let him speak,” said Mai, almost laughing.
Eliar did not wait for permission. “It’s true a reeve did come to Olossi a few days back. Legate Joss was the name he went by.”
“How did you hear of this?” demanded Calon. “I never did!”
“That clerk who was recently assigned to work in Fortune Square at the council hall—”
“One of your flirts?” asked Calon with a laugh.
“She’s a friend to my sister,” he said with an unexpected bite.
“Begging your pardon, cub,” said Calon hastily. “No offense to your sister intended.”
Eliar fixed his sharp gaze on Anji. “Before I met up with Master Calon to come out here tonight, I related the events of the council to my sister. This clerk is a friend of hers. My sister told me in strictest confidence that her friend had confided to her that this reeve was arrested and taken to Assizes Tower. The clerk who witnessed his arrest is afraid she’ll be imprisoned in Assizes Tower herself if she speaks of what she saw. She’s that frightened. There were a number of witnesses to the arrest, folk waiting that morning for council desk to open, but even so, she fears to speak of it, because she heard his name.”
“How long ago?” asked Anji.
Eliar shut his eyes briefly, as if counting, then opened them. “Five days back. My sister said that her friend said he was a handsome man, I remember that particularly. That she’d been quite taken with him, and thus triply shocked that he’d been hauled away, thinking she’d been fool enough to flirt with a criminal. He was accused of murder.”
“That’s him,” said Mai.
“A murderer?” asked Calon.
She flushed. “No. He’s the kind women flirt with on short acquaintance.”
“Who was he accused of murdering?” asked Anji.
Eliar shrugged. “A captain, she said. A captain guarding the southern border.”
“Captain Beron.” Anji nodded. “Five days back, Reeve Joss was arrested, it seems. Three days ago, Captain Beron was still alive. Before the dart stung his eye. So tell me, Mai, how could Reeve Joss have been arrested for a murder that hadn’t yet been committed?” He extended a hand, gestured, and Mai tossed him a gold coin, which he caught deftly. “He was arrested for a crime someone else was planning to commit, someone who discovered that Captain Beron’s operation was discovered, and that Beron himself had been arrested. Yet no man or woman left our caravan between the border and Olossi, none except Reeve Joss.”
“They betrayed him!” cried Eliar.
“So it seems, and another man besides,” said Anji. “Captain Beron was alive yesterday morning, and was dead by the time we reached the gate. Who killed him, and why?”
Master Calon shook his head, like a weary ox trying to shake away a pestering swarm of flies. “This grows deeper and darker,” he muttered.
“Truly,” agreed Anji, “since this man called Captain Waras was wearing, around his neck, the very bone whistle which we had previously seen in the possession of Reeve Joss. Without it, I think, the reeve has no way to call his eagle. How can a man be freed from Assizes Tower?”
Calon shook his head. “Assizes Tower was once the responsibility of the Guardians. After they were lost, the reeves came to sit in authority over the courts. Now even that measure of justice is lost. The Greater Council rules at its whim.”
“This reeve is not the only prisoner in Assizes Tower,” said Eliar with a frown. “All the criminals are taken there. Yet I know—as do you—of a well-respected man who vanished after he claimed that the Greater Houses were involved in a conspiracy, that they’d allied with unnamed villains out of the north. He’s not been seen since. He was murdered.”
“Hush, now, cub. That’s gossip, nothing proven. He was known to be of an envious, restless nature, an Air-touched Rat, and worse besides, if you take my meaning.”
“You suspect he was murdered, too,” retorted Eliar. “Who can measure his true crimes now that he has vanished with no chance to speak on his own behalf?”
Talk of prisoners made Mai uncomfortable. The Qin had been able to drag criminals and, indeed, any person at all off to their prison block in Kartu Town, where they held their own manner of court, and the law court of Kartu Town had no authority to stop them or even oversee the hapless prisoners. She began to replace the coins and bars in the bag. It gave her something to do with her hands.
“How can a man be freed from Assizes Tower?” Anji repeated.
“Impossible,” said Calon.
“Necessary,” said Anji. “First, I have an obligation to him, and my honor to uphold. Second, he knows things we don’t. We are grasping in the dark, and he holds a light insofar as he knows which people he talked to, and if he traveled to Argent Hall, and what he saw there.”
“I’ll see it’s done,” said Eliar.
Calon groaned, clapping a hand to his head in a gesture so very like Ti that Mai expected him to declaim in threes. “Fool!” he growled. “You can’t get into Assizes Tower.”
“My sister can. My sister was there today. She said there was one man in the deepest pit, untended and filthy. It could have been this reeve.”
“Your sister goes to the Assizes Tower?” Calon asked. “Whatever for?”
“She brings food to indigent prisoners.”
Calon laughed as though it hurt. “The hells, yes, you Silvers do go on about your ‘god rules’ in a way that does get to annoying people. Begging your pardon, Eliar.”
The youth gave something like a wink with his right eye. Mai saw at once that he was angered by this comment but didn’t want to show it. “We will be judged at the gate according to the measure of how we walked in the world and showed justice and mercy to poor and rich, innocent and guilty, those with power and those who are helpless, according to the law.”
Calon coughed. “That was the law in the land you came from. That’s why folk will keep calling you outlanders.”
“No, it is the law in all lands, not just the land we came from.”
“Let’s not have this argument, cub.”
Eliar turned his back and took several steps away, shoulders heaving, hands in fists up by his mouth.
Anji watched.
Mai said, “Master Eliar, even if you could get into Assizes Tower, how would you know Reeve Joss if you saw him, and why would he trust you, even if you could speak to him?”
From Eliar came silence.
Master Calon rubbed at his chin with a knuckle, looking thoughtful, and turned to Mai. “Perhaps you could go with that sis
ter of his, verea.”
“How could I do that?”
“Because the Silver women only appear in public with veils covering their faces. No one need know it was you.”
Maybe this could work after all. Heart pounding, Mai turned to Anji. “I can’t fight. At best I can defend myself at close quarters with my knife, but any competent soldier would overwhelm me. This is something I could do.”
“No,” said Anji. “What do you trade in, Master Calon?”
“Flesh. In slaves.”
“So. This entire complicated scheme might be nothing more than a plot to rid yourself of my company, which seems dangerous to you, and steal my wife without any risk to yourself. You and I both know she would be worth a great deal of coin on the slave market.”
“I could sell her for twenty cheyt, at the least,” agreed Master Calon with a genial smile.
“I won’t have this talk!” cried Eliar, lurching back to the circle. “Never tell a man of my people that he has stirred his hand in the pot of slavery! Do you mean to insult me?”
“Cub, hold your tongue!” Calon grabbed hold of his arm, but Eliar shook him off.
“Enough.” Anji stepped between the two men, and they both backed off. “Answer me a few questions, if you will, Eliar sen Haf Gi Ri.” He grabbed a stick out of the fire and held it up. Flames licked down the wood. “On what fuel does the flame sup?”
“The wood,” said Eliar, looking irritated. “What is the point of this?”
“And on what food did this wood grow?”
“On water and earth and sun. As any fool knows!”
“And water and earth and sun, where are they grown? What is their origin? Is it not the case that ‘all things blossom out of the heart of the Hidden One’?”
“I beg you, accept my apologies,” said Eliar in a stricken tone.
Anji tossed the stick on the fire. “No need. I studied the archives as part of my education at the palace school. Now I know who you are. Your people lived in the empire.”
“Not my clan, but distant cousins out of other clans, yes. After our people crossed the ocean, some of the clans fetched up on the shores of the Sirni Empire. They were driven out because they would not make sacrifices at the temple of the false god.”
“That’s not quite how it is written in the histories of the palace.”
Eliar had the grace to blush. “I suppose it would not be. I intend no offense.”
“You can be sure I take none, as I am not a believer. But you’re right. It was a long time ago, four generations. As it happens, the priests of Beltak had a lot to say about your people, as they have a lot to say in all their writings. But I never thought I would meet one of you. They called your people ‘the servants of the Hidden One, an avatar of the Lord of Lords, King of Kings.’ They claimed you lived half in light and half in shadow, and in the end the priests insisted that any of you who refused to perform the sacrifice at the temple depart from the empire or be put to death. It is written there were no executions, so I am minded to believe that the priests were merciful in your case.”
Eliar nodded. “It is said in our lore that some among the clans betrayed our people and sacrificed to the false god in order to stay in the empire. But the rest came north into the Hundred to join their kinsmen. A few sailed farther north even than that, to the lands beyond.”
“Many things were written,” added Anji, “but I recall in particular that the priests of Beltak were outraged that among these ‘servants of the Hidden One,’ slavery was entirely outlawed in all ways and shapes, and in every manner. In the empire, clans and houses are required to provide slaves for service in the temples. This your people refused to do.”
Eliar nodded. “It is against the will of the Hidden One that any should hold another’s life in bondage, or aid in such a transaction.”
“But what of their labor?” asked Calon. “Labor is separate from life, as it is written in the law of the Hundred. Still.” He smiled as Eliar puffed up, ready to burst into a tirade. “This is a dispute for another time.”
“Everyone keeps slaves,” said Mai. “That’s just how it is. How can anyone change that?” She looked at Priya, but Priya remained silent.
Anji looked at Eliar, and then at Mai. “These are desperate times. But tell me, Master Calon, how are we to manage this overthrow, since it will take longer than one night to plan and execute? If we don’t depart in the morning, they’ll guess something is amiss.”
Calon took in a deep breath, and seemed to have breathed in a midge, because he set to coughing until Chief Tuvi slapped him on the back and dislodged the irritant from his throat.
“Eh. Gah. I thank you.” He wiped his brow. He was sweating, although it wasn’t hot any longer. “Misdirection. In the morning, ride west along West Spur, as if you mean to obey the council’s order. After a day or two cut south into the Lending.”
“The Lending?”
“The grasslands. The high plains land south of the Olo’o Sea. With good horses, and if you can hunt, you’ll manage. It’s a difficult time of year to find water, but the rains will come soon. We’re almost to the turn of the new year. Out there, the Greater Houses won’t be able to follow you, for despite the power they hold here in Olossi, they don’t possess more than the town militia. I guarantee you that the militia won’t march out into the Lending in pursuit. They’ve had trouble out there in the past, but if you’re hospitable to the tribes and raise no sword against them, you’ll be given free passage. Then you can await word, until we’re ready to strike.”
“A great risk, for uncertain gain,” said Anji.
Priya’s soft voice startled Mai, although the Qin did not seem surprised to hear her speak. “The Merciful One teaches that where a river cannot breach hard rock, it will find a softer path to go around.”
“True enough,” agreed Anji. “This may be the softer path.” He gazed into the darkness toward the distant watch lights burning along the city wall, barely visible from their campfire. “But a dangerous one, despite that.” He looked at each face illuminated in the circle of light thrown off by the fire before settling on Mai. “I cannot bring myself to allow you to ride out on such a perilous expedition.”
Calon made a noise, a soft grunt of surprise and pleased assent.
Anji nodded at Calon. “Should we agree to your offer, that is. Such a plan would not only put my wife at risk, but her presence on military maneuvers put the rest of us at additional risk because we will need to take additional measures to protect her. Therefore, Master Eliar, I ask you, would you on your honor as a servant of the Hidden One give shelter to my wife? I will pay for her lodging at fair market value—”
“Impossible!” cried Eliar.
Mai stepped back, startled by his vehemence.
Even Anji looked surprised.
“Cub, what are you saying?” demanded Master Calon.
“I mean only—I pray you—” He was flustered. “She would bide with my family as our guest. We cannot take payment. It goes against the law of hospitality.”
“Then you will have my undying gratitude,” said Anji as smoothly as if these were the very words he had expected to hear. He turned to Mai. “Sending you with them is a risk we must take if we mean this venture to succeed. For one, you will seek to free Reeve Joss. Also, the coin will go with you. If something happens to me, you will have the resources to set up a business for yourself.”
Eliar nodded. “My people will shelter her as one of our own. And do what is necessary to aid her, no matter what comes. I do make my oath on the heart of the Hidden One that she will suffer no harm nor will she be sold into bondage while in the shelter of our house, and that she will leave that shelter only upon your return, or of her own choice if she is widowed.”
“So taken,” said Anji.
“So taken,” said Mai, but the words came roughly, and her eyes filled with tears. She had talked him into this, and now he would run the campaign according to his understanding of war even if it
meant she was to be separated from him in this foreign land and sent to live with strangers. Yet it must be done. If you do it, don’t be afraid.
Priya took her hand in her own.
“A shrewd bargain,” said Master Calon. “So, Captain. Verea. Do we have a deal?”
Anji indicated Mai. It went against everything she had learned and lived in the marketplace to agree to any deal without negotiating for a better offer.
“Double the price. The balance to be paid if we succeed.”
Eliar whistled.
Calon took the bait. “Impossible. We’ve already given you everything we have with us.”
“Impossible, indeed, to ask our company to risk so much. Life cannot be bought by gold. Death cannot be bribed by gold. Double the price.”
“A third again as much.”
She glanced at Anji. He had his head tipped slightly and appeared to be looking not at her but at Toughid’s boots, with his mouth pulled tight as if he were trying not to smile. He flicked a finger against his chin as he sometimes did, to her chin, when they were alone, and she sucked in a breath to give her a volley of courage.
“Two-thirds again as much.”
“You’d do better to ride back to the place you came.”
“Master Calon, surely you do not expect me to believe you offered us everything you and your consortium possess in your warehouses and stock? No merchant of your undoubted prosperity offers his best price first. Something must always be held in reserve. Yet we are as you see us. We have no reserves, except what this payment will bring us. We are at the mercy of fate. Two-thirds again as much.”
“Half again as much.”
She nodded. “Agreed.”
