by Kate Elliott
Chief Tuvi struggled to raise his bow, and she fixed her gaze on him until he wept. She looked at each of the others to cow them likewise.
Mai took another step forward. “Shai is not your enemy. He was foolish, perhaps, but he did not hurt you. You don’t know how many times he spoke to his brothers, asking them to take you away from Uncle Girish for fear and disgust at what Girish might be doing to you—”
The ghost girl gazed deep into Mai’s face, and Mai’s smooth façade crumpled as she moaned in pain.
“You suspected, but you did not know,” said the girl. “Girish tried to hurt you, too.”
Rubbing her belly as if it hurt, Mai said in a ragged voice. “Girish was a bad man, but Father never allowed him to touch any of us children. Shai tried to have you taken away from him because he pitied you. He pled your case—he did you no harm—I beg you—”
“North,” the demon said, as if the word had been spoken aloud. “He went north, with the scouts.”
She reined around the horse and rode away into the darkness of the house, broken lattices and shards of ceramics cracking under hooves.
Chief Tuvi shook himself, staggered upright, and loosed an arrow after her. Its thunk—burying itself deep in wood—woke everyone else.
Keshad’s gaze drifted, seeing now the outlander slave Sheyshi curled beside a lacquered tray as she scratched at her own face with her nails until she drew blood. Seeing now Priya sobbing disconsolately as she staggered over to embrace O’eki. Seeing now a young Silver man reeling backward as from a blow, hands groping at the turban wound tightly around his head as if he feared that the cloth had unwound to leave his hair naked to the sight of all.
One other person stood in the small courtyard, shaken more with wonder than with fear, an oddly joyful expression infusing her exotic features. The Silver girl had not feared the demon! She had a handsome, if serious and somewhat square face, full red trembling lips, and eyes like a brushstroke, dark and mysterious and bold as her gaze slid to meet his.
She stared at him until he could not breathe, and found his knees giving way beneath him.
Then she smiled, grabbed a fold of cloth off a pillow and, shaking it open, threw it over her head to conceal her face from all those forbidden to see her.
34
Joss had never seen the Qin captain lose his temper, and it made him cursed uncomfortable the way the man did not shout or gesticulate but rather grew still and cold.
“Mai could have been killed.”
“Here, now,” said Joss, with hand raised, as he might try to calm an angry eagle with the gestures used as signals to train the birds. Hoods worked best, but not on humans. “It was a shock to me, as well, when I first heard. I came myself to find you. I wouldn’t let anyone else deliver the news.”
Joss had tracked Anji well north of Olossi, to the village of Storos-on-the-water, where lay a temple of Kotaru. Anji was attended by his usual pair of guards, Sengel and Toughid, and by Chief Deze. The rest of his company—about forty soldiers—waited in the outer training yard with several hundred locals. Three Olossi men had accompanied Anji on this expedition, a militia captain named Lison and a pair of merchants, one an older Silver man wearing a full set of bracelets and the other a robust woman representing the council, whose names Joss had missed. These three had invited themselves into the sanctuary courtyard to hear the news Joss brought. Two local officials—the censor of the temple and the village council mistress—waited also, looking torn between uneasiness and confusion.
“You did not witness the attack yourself,” said Anji finally.
“I did not. Chief Tuvi alerted the reeve stationed in Olossi, who flew to Argent Hall at dawn and brought the matter to my attention. I returned to Olossi immediately and interviewed a number of people who were in the compound at the time as well as townsfolk who reported seeing a light and a winged horse above the city. Then I came to find you.”
The temple of Kotaru stood on high ground between road and river; the creak of wheels as wagons rumbled along the Rice Walk melded with the flowing song of the River Olo. With towers raised at each corner of the square temple, it was a good place to oversee both river and road traffic. A good place to station a significant contingent of armed men.
“It’s bad enough,” said Anji, “to suspect Red Hounds from the empire are hunting me. To imagine that even after my mother cut my ties to the palace when I was twelve and sent me for safekeeping to her kinfolk among the Qin, my brother—and cousins, I suppose—still wish to kill me. Yet they are human, and might be reasoned with or outwitted. Nowhere is safe from demons.”
“If it was a demon,” said Joss.
“It was a demon,” said Anji. “The person you describe was the slave. She died in the desert. No human could have survived such a sandstorm. You’re sure the horse had wings?”
“The testimony comes from your own men. And from others in the compound who witnessed, the servants of your household as well as Ri Amarah guards. In addition, as I said, there were independent sightings from elsewhere in Olossi.”
“Why were Ri Amarah guards at the compound?” asked the Silver. The man stood aloof from his Olossi comrades with his arms crossed and his slanted eyes giving him a suspicious expression.
What was the cursed man’s name? Isar sen Haf Gi Ri. “Your son and daughter were visiting, in the private garden.”
This statement surprised everyone except Anji. Isar muttered, skin suffused with blood. The hells! He was cursed angry, if Joss was any judge of expression. But he said nothing more.
“You do not think it was a demon,” said Anji.
“If you have to choose between what seems the most reasonable explanation, and what the cold, hard evidence reveals, go with the evidence. It was a Guardian.”
“The Guardians have vanished,” said the temple censor, called Guri.
“A Guardian,” said Anji, “who according to your tales hold an exalted position as guardians of justice. Yet a creature matching the description of these Guardians has murdered two of my men. Now that I think of it, it would explain Eitai’s death some weeks ago in the Barrens. Sayan’s report of the incident was so disjointed that we thought both men suffered a sun-sickness from heat and lack of water, and that Eitai died of it, but perhaps we were mistaken. Which means the Hieros was also mistaken in her assessment of the envoy of Ilu she thought was a Guardian, the one who removed the demon from her care.”
“I would not lightly dismiss the testimony of the Hieros,” said Joss. “She is no fool. He likely was a Guardian, but considering the subsequent behavior of the outlander girl, she was already corrupted.”
“Or bringing what she thought was justice,” said Isar. Joss was surprised to hear him speak; the others regarded him as if his horns were suddenly visible.
“What do you mean?” asked Anji.
“My people do not sanction slavery. According to the testimony of the witnesses, the demon—the Guardian—the girl—accused three of your soldiers of rape. Those who are slaves have no right to say yea or nay over what is done to them. Therefore, a slave woman who is in that condition and made to have relations with a man has no choice. That is rape.”
“Not according to the laws of the Hundred,” said Censor Guri. “We are not ruled by Silver laws.”
Anji frowned. “She belonged to Shai. He sold her services to certain of my men one night only, which was certainly his right. When my wife objected, he ceased the practice.”
“Your wife is an honorable woman,” murmured Isar.
“I agree, although that is not the issue at hand. It would be easy enough to ascertain if the three soldiers who died are, indeed, the three who used her on that occasion.” He indicated Joss. “But that does not explain how she killed them without leaving a mark on them.”
Censor Guri stepped forward. He was a burly, muscular man in the prime of life, vigorous and a bit aggressive, a typical adherent of Kotaru the Thunderer. “Every Guardian carries a staff. So the tales say
. Their staff ‘measures life and death.’ What if the Guardians walk the land to take vengeance, not to bring justice?”
Joss shook his head, his throat too tight to speak.
“Just because you don’t want it to be true doesn’t make it false,” pressed the censor. “Just after the turn of the year, a family of refugees walked through Storos on their way to relatives farther north. They’d escaped from their village on West Track. They said folk saw a man riding a winged horse with the invading army.”
“Which doesn’t answer how it was done.” The fury that had scorched off Anji earlier had subsided, to Joss’s relief. “Is it sorcery? A sword has an edge, and can be met with other weapons. What weapon protects us against another attack such as this, whether demon or—as you say—Guardian?”
“Nothing,” said the censor. “The gods set the Guardians over us, to serve justice.”
“We cannot raise our hands against the Guardians,” said the Storos councilwoman, Volla. “They possess a second heart and third eye, to see into the heart of every woman and man.”
Anji looked skeptical. “That being so, I should think they would be frightening to meet. Who among us wishes his innermost thoughts flung open?” He tilted his head, considering his own words. “Although it might explain Chief Tuvi’s lapse, which I can comprehend in no other way.”
“No, indeed, Captain,” said Chief Deze. He was a thin, phlegmatic soldier, tough as best quality rope. “Tuvi would die before he would fail you.”
Joss wondered. If the Marit he had met at the refuge had not been a dream, as he imagined, then she had seen into his innermost heart. Now that he thought of it, she had often looked away while talking to him, as if she did not want to see the truth of what he had become. Aui! Blindness between lovers was a blessing.
“Marshal Joss,” said Anji, calling him back to the muggy courtyard under cloudy skies. “I’d like to see for myself that my wife has weathered this storm before I continue my efforts here on the plain. Can you convey me to Olossi?”
“I can, and I will. My eagle needs rest, and meat. We’ve been a full day searching for you, and in any case he can’t fly at night. We’ll leave at dawn.”
Anji turned to the censor and the local official. “That being so, we should finish our business. I have a proposition to make in my capacity as commander of the Olo’osson militia.”
They walked back to the training ground, Joss falling to the rear. Every temple of Kotaru was arranged in four quarters, with four gates and four corner watchtowers. This temple had prospered and been requartered in the past. The walls of the original temple now constituted the barracks quarter, and new quarters for the sanctuary, workshops, and training ground extended from the old square, careful to keep a strict north-south and east-west axis despite irregularities of ground.
As they passed through the central crossing gates between the four quarters, Isar dropped back to walk with Joss.
“You said you interviewed everyone at the compound for their story of the incident. I trust you were not allowed to speak to my daughter.”
“No, indeed, ver. That had all been settled before I arrived and everyone returned to their place. But I did receive written testimony from her hand, which was read out to me by your son, Eliar. I must say, hers was a forthright and clear-sighted account, very useful to me.”
By his tightly clenched mouth, Isar was as angry, in his own way, as Anji had been earlier. And even less likely to be placated. “It should not have been allowed.”
“That she give testimony, in such circumstances? Every free person who witnesses a crime is required to give testimony.”
Everyone said the Silvers were cunning merchants. The look in those dark, slanted eyes was angry, certainly, but calculating in its own way. “But not slaves? Still, I was speaking to myself, Marshal, not to you. Forgive me for showing a father’s vexation. I knew such a reckless scheme would come to no good. Grandmother and I argued against it, but Eliar twists his mother around his heart, and likewise several of the uncles could not say no to the pleas of the captain’s charming wife, for which I am sure I do not blame them.” He nodded toward Anji, who was walking beside the censor, deep in conversation. “But it is to be understood that the virtue of a Ri Amarah woman is only safe within her own household. Now my daughter is compromised.”
“Compromised, ver? For visiting the house of a friend?”
“You Hundred folk cannot understand.”
“It is your people who live in the Hundred, not ours who live in a land of your making.”
“So it may seem,” he agreed. “Forgive me for speaking intemperately.”
“Neh, think nothing of it. We are all upset to hear such strange tidings.”
“Do you really think it was a Guardian, Marshal?”
“Not as we know of Guardians from the tales and the records of the assizes kept by the Lantern’s hierophants. We hear no accounts of summary execution. But the other elements—the light coming from no visible source, the winged horse, the cloak—how are we to think otherwise?”
“The tale of the Guardians speaks of corruption: ‘I know that in the times to come the most beloved among the Guardians will betray her companions.’ ”
“I fear the evidence suggests that such a terrible shadow has indeed consumed some of the Guardians,” said Joss, feeling the weight of the words in his heart.
On the training ground, as the light deepened to a hazy gold in the last drawn sigh of afternoon, about two hundred persons had assembled: mostly young men with a few women and older men among them. Most were seated cross-legged on the ground, listening as a Qin soldier recalled the battle of Olossi in some detail. The soldier’s precise descriptions, rendered without the gestures and chant usual to tales, brought a stark power to the narrative and held the locals quite fascinated. The rest of the Qin stood at the back of the group or had taken watch positions on the walls, keeping an eye on road and river.
Anji hung back, evidently not wanting to disturb the flow of the story. The censor bent his head close; the two men were still talking. Joss fell in beside them.
“I am aware,” Anji was saying in a low voice, “that your militias are organized into cadres, companies, and cohorts. If you have experienced men to serve as sergeants, I am prepared to leave as many of my own men here to serve as captains, over companies, as you have companies to fill. How many companies can this area raise?”
“Who would command these gathered companies?” asked the censor.
“Naturally they will serve under your formal command and oversight, since you know the region best. Consider, if an army marches out of the north, it is likely they will use either West Track, as they did before, or Rice Walk, to approach Olossi.”
“Having used West Track once, they might try Rice Walk the second time. Better forage, too. More paths to Olossi, won’t be confined to the one road as they are on West Track.”
“Exactly. Therefore, we must be prepared, and we must have trained, disciplined soldiers to face them. If I learned one thing from the battle at Olossi it is that the army—however large—that marched against us did not have good discipline. They expected that brutality and fear—and sheer numbers—would win the day for them. But it did not.”
“How many soldiers do you want?” asked the censor, scratching his beard.
“Can you raise six companies?”
“A full cohort? The hells! That would be over six hundred men. Maybe in the tales you could gather so many. We’re moving into transplanting season. Folk are needed in the fields.”
Volla said, “How will these soldiers be fed and clothed?”
“Taxes, both local and regional. In kind and in coin. You are paying to protect yourselves.”
Volla was about Joss’s age, with a healthy girth and healthy color in her brown cheeks. Not a woman, Joss supposed, who dismissed danger lightly in the hope it would flit away. “We have seen refugees on the road, and resettled a few families in this area in the months
since the year’s beginning.”
“You know what is at risk,” said Anji.
“A standing army.” The censor shook his big head like an ox dealt a blow. “I don’t like it. Seems like too much. What do you think, Marshal Joss? I hear tell you came out of Clan Hall, before you were appointed marshal at Argent Hall. Not a day too soon, if you ask me, for there was trouble at the hall.”
“There’ll be worse trouble sooner than you dare think,” said Joss. “There was confusion within our enemy’s forces after the defeat in Olossi, but the northern army has redoubled its efforts to bring Haldia and Istri under its control.”
“Haldia and Istri?” asked Volla. “That’s a lot of country.”
“Clan Hall sends reports that a huge army is marching south down the Istri Walk toward Toskala. If they take Toskala, and after that Nessumara, what’s to stop them from striking against Olossi? Do you want to take the chance that they won’t?”
“They might kill themselves, trying to do too much,” said Guri. “Wear themselves so thin, they break.”
“They might,” agreed Joss. “I hope they do.”
“Eiya!” said Guri. “I catch your drift. Well, then, Captain Anji, you’re saying you’ll leave a few men here to do the training, whip these colts into shape, and maybe keep the captaincies of what companies I can raise?”
“Trained men can go home to their farms once they’re no longer needed,” said Anji. “As I hope they can all do in time.”
“I doubt I can raise an entire cohort, but I’ll fling my net wide, as it says in the tale.”
A delighted shout rose from the assembly as the soldier reached the part where the eagles had dropped ceramic vessels filled with oil of naya over the army. Yet the memory of what Joss had seen when oil burst into flames gave him no delight.
“We’ll have some trouble raising taxes, in coin or in kind,” said Volla. “Folk will want protection, but they won’t want to pay.”
“Do what you can,” said Anji, “and apply to Olossi’s council for additional supplies of rice and cloth if necessary.”
