by Kate Elliott
“Up! Up! Damned eagle! We’ve got to get away from here! North! To the Barrens!”
They hit hard in a dusty rice field. Horas unhooked and stumbled out the harness. Tumna struck at him with her beak. Horas leaped away, shouting. He caught his heel in a hole and fell on his backside. The eagle settled back and, with the greatest dignity and a look of affronted pride, tried to preen at the oozing wound on her wing, which she could not quite reach.
Pissing, stupid eagle!
He scrambled up. Argent Hall stood several fields away. A trio of riders galloped in their direction along a raised path between fields.
His string of oaths did nothing to gain Tumna’s attention. He got a good grip on his short staff and marched over to the idiot bird.
“Up! We’re getting out of here!” He whacked it alongside the head to get its attention. “I’m in charge, you stupid arse-wit!”
Wings flashed out. He sucked in a breath to speak, took a single step toward the harness.
Tumna struck.
The weight of her talons pitched him sideways. At first, there was no pain. But when he shifted, thinking to rise, he found himself pinned to the ground. Blood soaked the dirt, and it was still spreading.
“Gah!” he said, as he tried to speak. A shadow covered him. Tumna loomed above.
She wants to be rid of me.
Then the cruel beak came down.
52
At dawn, Eliar’s mother came to the guesthouse and, in a gesture offered in the most casual manner imaginable, invited Mai to take khaif with the other adult women in the women’s tower. To do this meant entering the family gate.
Sheyshi must be left behind because no unmarried woman not born to the Ri Amarah could ever be allowed within the walls. Priya, offered the gate, told Mai she thought it best to remain behind.
“You will keep your head about you,” she said to Mai. “But this one may panic if I am not here to calm her down. I will also keep an eye on our possessions.”
“I don’t think they’re likely to steal what they could have taken at any time,” said Mai, but she did not press the point.
Eliar’s mother opened the gate herself; no servant performed this mundane chore for her, as one would have in the Mei clan. Behind the gate lay a brick-walled room, already uncomfortably hot, with slats in the roof and one heavy gate in the opposite wall. She rang a bell, and waited as a series of bolts were shot on the other side.
“You can see,” said Eliar’s mother, “that we guard ourselves well.”
“It is kind of you to admit me.”
Mai had to skip back as the doors opened out. A second set of doors, set right up against the first when closed, had already been opened. They passed through a dim corridor and emerged into a vast rectangular garden with well-tended greenery, benches, and several open shelters for shade. A covered porch stretched along the other three sides. All along the edge of the raised porch were scattered indoor and outdoor slippers in matched, or mismatched, pairs.
The narrow end of the garden opposite their gate abutted a three-storied tower. One long wall opened to living quarters, many sleeping and sitting rooms alive at this hour with children running in and out and along the covered porch. A harassed matron tried to herd them into some manner of hall whose doors were slid open to give light and air. The other wall opened onto kitchens set back from the main buildings.
As Eliar’s mother led her along a gravel path the length of the garden, the children were chivvied inside and seated in rows alternating between boys and girls. At some command Mai could not hear, they bowed their heads and cupped hands over mouths and noses. Not one peeped.
At the porch, Mai followed the example of Eliar’s mother and exchanged one pair of shoes for a pair of cloth slippers. Inside, the ground floor of the tower was a warren of narrow halls with whitewashed walls and polished plank floors. Where wall and floor met curved an inlaid strip of blond wood minutely carved with vines and flowers. Now and then a plain wooden door banded with iron stood closed. Oddly, these were not normal house doors, but fitted in the same manner as gates in a wall, with hinges, so that they opened inward. Hanging on each door was a chalked board on which were scrawled strange symbols.
“This way,” said Eliar’s mother.
Mounting stairs, they passed through a weaving hall with its clatter and chatter just getting started. A second set of stairs took them through the second floor, a spacious chamber open on all sides to a screened balcony and furnished with low tables, cubbyholed shelves, the entire apparatus of a merchant’s counting room. This room was empty.
A final flight of stairs took them into the open air. Bright silk awnings, and trellises green with lush vines, offered shelter from the morning sun. The aroma of herbs and flowers growing in troughs of earth melded with the spicy sharp smell of freshly brewed khaif.
The women of the house of the Haf Gi Ri had already gathered for their morning ritual, presided over by the aged grandmother. The pouring proceeded in silence, but although Mai watched carefully she could discern no obvious order in which the women were served, only that the aged grandmother gestured to various women and then, with trembling hands, poured for each one. Mai’s turn came last.
She returned to a pillow, beside Eliar’s mother. All sipped. Grandmother pronounced it good. Then her intimidating gaze fixed on Mai.
“Certain men of our house attended the council meeting yesterday, as is their habit, and their right as merchants holding a license to trade in Olossi. The head of our delegation spoke admiringly of your bargaining skills when you spoke before the council. He said that you overset the Greater Houses before they realized what you were doing, and further that you then took advantage of this victory to drive a harder bargain than the Lesser Houses and guilds expected. Because these acts are worthy of a kinswoman, it was deemed proper by both house councils that you be treated as a cousin.”
Every eye bent to Mai, a circle of women waiting on her answer. This was more daunting than the council meeting! She did not smile, as she would have were they men.
“I thank you for the honor you show me by allowing me inside your walls. Are cousins allowed to thank their hosts by name?”
Eliar’s mother lightly touched Mai’s knee: As warning? As admonition? As comfort? As encouragement?
Grandmother’s smile discouraged. She gestured, and a young woman offered Mai, first among all, a sticky bun from a platter. The matter of introductions, it seemed, was not to be discussed. They fell to talking about yesterday’s council meeting and the preparations of Olossi for the army marching on its gates. Although not one woman had been present at the council meeting, they were remarkably well informed, not speculating and gossiping in a frivolous way but discussing plans, logistics, construction, and financing as if they had been consulted and now needed to work out additional details. They asked Mai specific questions, although none that probed into her own plans and strategies. Some of these questions she could answer: What words had she said, what words had she heard? Who had replied? Some she could not answer because she did not know the people and fashions involved: Which subfactions had been standing together? Were certain persons wearing colors indicative of their allegiance and mood?
At length, the ritual came to an end. Cups, and a platter’s worth of uneaten sticky buns, were gathered up. Women rose and took themselves off down the stairs. Eliar’s mother found a broom in a corner and began sweeping. Several women began to work in the troughs, among the plants. Miravia appeared on the roof and walked over to Mai.
They clasped hands, and kissed each other on the cheek.
“I thought you were not allowed up here,” said Mai cautiously, “because you are not an adult.”
“Only for the morning convocation. I am training as an herbalist. It is one of my tasks to care for the garden, here, where we keep some of our rarest and most potent plants. Come. You can help me.”
For a while Mai stood alongside while Miravia told her the names of plant
s, and they chattered in low voices about the council as Miravia weeded, plucked leaves, tested the moisture of the soil, and examined buds. Master Feden, in disgrace, had nevertheless managed to account for himself a lucrative warehouse lease. Eliar was furious that he hadn’t been allowed to ride out with the militia who had gone with the Qin soldiers. The warehouses in the inner city were being filled with refugees. A pair of men had been caught thieving from a closed shop in the outer city. A child had been lost, and a troop of disreputable entertainers accused of her kidnapping.
A bell rang. Both young women looked up in time to see a pair of eagles dropping fast toward Assizes Square. Mai crossed to the opposite side of the roof. She gripped the lattice. Through the interwoven strips, she looked out over the city and the surrounding countryside.
Olossi was built on a substantial swell, with two flattened high points and a saddle of ground between them; below this ridge the hill fell away into the lower ground, in some places steeply and in others more gradually. Avenues curved up the gentle slopes while stairs cut up the steep ones. The Haf Gi Ri compound lay almost opposite Fortune Square, where she and Anji had faced the council. To the northwest, the height of the second hill cut off her view of the delta and the sea. Here and there other three-storied towers blocked a portion of her view, nor could she see the courtyard of Assizes Square because of the angle of buildings and slope. Yet despite this frustration, she nevertheless gazed at a magnificent vista, over the city’s rooftops and beyond, where the lower town and fields stretched to the south and west and even into the east. She could just make out a line that must be West Track, so distant, cutting down from the southern escarpment, that it seemed no more than a filament. Walking along the roof, she found a line of sight that allowed her to look over the flat plain lying north of the river. A raised road struck straight through a tidy patchwork of fallow fields. If there was traffic on that road, a returning company of black-clad riders, she could not see them. She watched for a long time.
“Mai? I’m going down now. Do you want to come?”
Reluctantly, Mai pulled her gaze away from the road and the plain. “Will you be able to get any news? Of the business of those eagles?”
“It will come to us in time. I’ll tell you whatever I can find out.”
“May I stay up here? That way, I can see them.” If they come.
Miravia took her hand and smiled softly. “You will want to stay in the shade. The sun gets very strong this time of year. I’ll come as soon as I hear anything. Or with midday soup, if that comes later.”
“I’d like that. What of my si—my hired women?”
Miravia glanced around, but by this time they were alone on the roof. “Are they slaves? Eliar told our father they were hired. Else the clan would not have allowed you in!” She seemed about to say something more, but did not.
“I’m sorry.”
“Are you ashamed to own slaves?”
Mai considered her statement for so long that Miravia blushed, and let go of her hand.
“Have I offended you?”
“No. I’m not ashamed. In Kartu, there have always been slaves. That’s just how it is. I’ve never heard of people who don’t own slaves. Are there any who own no slaves, besides your people?”
Miravia laughed bitterly. “Don’t let the old ones hear you ask. The truth is, I don’t know. How should I? We’re not taught such things.”
A lively tenor bell rang three times.
“That’s prayer bell. Now I really have to go.” With a kiss, Miravia departed.
IT WAS BETTER to wait alone. It was easier that way to find a place of calm and silence in which to wait. Mai made herself a place to sit in the shade where she could watch the northern road. From this angle, she could not see the river crossing, which she understood was some manner of floating bridge. Nor could she see Argent Hall, which lay too many mey away for the human eye to see, although Miravia had told her that an eagle soaring above Olossi could mark a path to the reeve hall because of its astonishing eyesight. For someone who claimed to know nothing of the outside world, Miravia knew a great deal, although naturally Mai could not be sure all of it was true. She herself knew so little of the Hundred that anyone might tell her a wild tale with enough evidence of sincerity, and she would believe it. In Kartu, they had laughed at her appetite for tales. Now, of course, she was living the adventure she had taught herself to dream of but never expect. Yet, of course, the tales and songs usually ended in tragedy. So she sat, watching the road, as the sun rose to its zenith. She did not weep. Either Anji would die, or he would live. Nothing she did now could alter that.
Sometime later, an eagle beat up from Olossi’s walls, then with wings open seemed to stop moving and simply to rise up and up as though lifted by an invisible hand. It flew out along the track of the northern road, and was quickly lost to her sight. Below, the courtyards and kitchens came to life, fires lit and stoked, huge pots hauled out, as if in preparation for a festival feast. No one disturbed her; no one came up the tower at all.
Her life lived within the strictures of the Mei clan had trained her well for this day, out of all days, when she must accept that, right now, there was nothing she could do to alter the course of events she had helped set in motion. There was nothing she could do except wait.
MUCH LATER, MIRAVIA brought up a kettle, a pair of bowls, and a dipper. Together, they sat on a bench in the shade and drank their soup. Miravia had pulled her hair back into a scarf.
“Heard you any news?”
“No. I’ve been too busy. We’ve been set to a new task, wrapping rags and dry rushes into torches and soaking them in oil.”
“What for? Do they expect to be attacked at night?”
Miravia shrugged. “I am not an adult. I’m not allowed to know.”
“Is it something I can help with?”
“I’m sorry. If they wanted you, they would send my mother to ask.”
“I suppose I’m best left here, out of the way! It’s so hard to wait. Anything would be easier. Look at you. All of you. It seems you work all the time, at all manner of tasks. I saw your mother sweeping! Do your women do everything? Even if you own no slaves, have you no hired folk?”
“We are all servants of the Hidden One,” said Miravia, surprised at this question. “The work of the world is our sacred labor.” She touched the lattice screen. Her smile was bitter. “Although I wish I had as much right to walk freely through the city as does my brother, who runs a shop.”
“You visit the prison.”
“With an escort. Provided grudgingly by my elders, since they cannot think of a way to refuse my request, which I can honestly claim is an obligation.”
Mai sighed. She had no good answer to this. In Kartu, a married woman must be prudent in how she walked about town, lest gossip destroy her reputation. In the empire, the women lived entirely sequestered, although Mai still found this difficult to believe. And Anji had mentioned that the priests of Beltak had given grudging approval to the Ri Amarah because of their customs regarding how they separated their own women from public life.
Abruptly, Miravia pressed a small hand on Mai’s forearm. “Listen!”
There fell a hush, and out of it, as loud as judgment, the Voice of the Walls cried its plangent warning five times before it ceased. A shout rose from the walls as guards called out in a thin echo of the bell. The two girls ran to the other side of the tower. As they stared in the direction of West Track, other women came up the stairs and pushed to get a look until so many were crowded there that the ones pressed against the lattice had to call back the details of what they saw to those waiting behind them.
West Track had begun to move, only it was not the road that had come alive but an army marching upon its surface. Steadily, in their ranks, they closed the distance. The searing heat of the afternoon did not affect their pace. A few stalwarts who had remained in the outer city clamored at the gates, begging to be let in. Around Mai, some women wept while others presse
d their lips tight and scurried away to be about useful tasks. She smelled oil boiling. A harsh stench rose out of the kitchens, making her eyes water. It seemed half the kitchens in Olossi were boiling vats and kettles. The air wavered, rippling with a haze. Far away, in the southeast, a line of cloud massed. This mass ran so dark, and lay so low along the horizon, that at first she thought it was another army, but Miravia tugged excitedly on her arm and exclaimed:
“The rains! The rains are coming early, before the new year begins! It’s as if they’re marching in pursuit of our enemies!”
Midday crept into afternoon. The second eagle and its rider fled town. The first ranks of that dreadful army swarmed down the southern slopes and began to set up in a wide half circle around the outer walls. More came, filling in the gaps.
“Have you ever seen so many soldiers?” cried the women around her.
“Yes,” Mai said. “When the Qin armies marched through Kartu. One was on its way east, and the other, months later, was marching west. Those were much bigger armies than this one. The one marching east took all day to pass the town, and its rear guard camped within sight of the walls. We saw their watch fires burning all night.”
“Would that such an army marched now, to save us,” said the women.
Mai said, quietly, “They will.”
Scouts probed the locked gates and crude walls of the outer city. Late in the afternoon, they determined they would meet no resistance. Like a crawling mass of black spiders, the army swarmed into the lower town. She could not bear to watch. She crossed back to the view of the north, but even there rode outriders as well. Olossi was encircled. Trapped. Except for the two eagles, the town might as well be alone.
Yet two eagles had come, and both had departed. She only wished she knew what message they had brought, and what message they had taken away with them. Although she asked several of the women, none would answer her question, and she deemed it unwise to push. The prayer bell rang again. They left her. Later, Miravia came alone and begged her to descend for the evening meal. Twilight crept into the sky. Below, the army was looting the lower city. Fires had begun to burn.
