by Kate Elliott
“The hells!” laughed Joss, pulling away as he felt the stirring of an all too familiar arousal. “Cordial for everyone.”
But as they filled their cups from a barrel, he frowned. Looking around, he discovered a small chest—not one bound with chains but simply a chest in which a man or woman might store coin or jewelry or spices—cast aside in one of the ditches. Spoils of war. He hoisted it up and slapped it down on the ground under the shade of one of the awnings.
“Heya, all of you! Sit down!”
They weren’t as disciplined as Anji’s troops. They grabbed cordial and passed around a basket of whiteheart, whose ripe shells could be pried apart for the fragrant, sweet flesh within. Sucking down the juice and licking grimy fingers, they shouldered aside their friends with jokes and roughhousing and settled cross-legged on shared blankets or slapped hindquarters straight on the churned-up dirt. They were all dusty, stained, sweaty, and smelling of days without a decent bath. They were reeves, and that was a reeve’s life.
“You lot have a reek about you,” he said, to general laughter, “which means you’ve been out serving justice again. I’ve got a nose for it.”
“How did you get to be so cursed handsome?” shouted one wag, a male.
A woman called, “Sleep with me tonight, eh? I’ve a friend in Copper Hall might join us.”
Joss grinned. “I’ll tell you my secret if you’ll quiet down a moment and listen. For listen you must. We all must listen.”
His tone caught them. They were weary, but feeling their victory in their bones, and the combination opened a path from their ears into their hearts.
“We are fortunate, jessed as we are. It’s a hard life, truly. In a way, you leave your family behind, even if you can always drop in on them. I won’t tell you that the reeves become your new clan, for it’s a tired old saying, isn’t it? Yet here we are. We’re camping together, eating together, drinking together. We know who we are, whether we’re from Clan Hall, Horn Hall, Copper Hall.”
“I’m up from Naya Hall,” called the attractive young woman who had kissed him. “Don’t you recall me, Commander Joss? I saw you bathing that one time, naked but for the kilt and with it being wet and all, it didn’t hide much. As I recall, you had quite an audience.”
Peddonon whistled; folk would laugh, and yet he was used to the admiration; he knew how to throw it in his favor.
“I’d happily toss a bucketful of cold water over my head again if I can just get people to quiet down and listen.” They were finally settling, the heat and the sure knowledge of a hard-fought fight that had ended in victory relaxing them as the sun sank toward the horizon. Soon dusk would come and, exhausted, they would sleep. Strike while the chance is upon you.
“The reeves have served the Hundred, as we always have. Today we’ve been part of a victory over an army whose cruelties have scarred the north. But let’s not lose sight of what happens after victory.”
“We haven’t won yet!” called one of the Copper Hall reeves. “Commander Anji says as long as the enemy poses a threat, we must keep pursuing them! We must keep fighting!”
Joss shook his head. “Are we meant to be just another cohort in the army? Or to be reeves?”
“What does that matter as long as there are remnants of the army running and hiding?” objected the young man as his companions nodded to support him. “There are cohorts still training in this place called Wedrewe, up in Herelia. I saw them.”
“Wedrewe must be dealt with,” Joss agreed, “but I want you to think a moment about the remnants of the Star of Life army. Who are they, really? Yesterday I fought hand-to-hand a sergeant in Lord Radas’s army.”
“Who won?” called the Naya Hall lass.
“Do you even need to ask?” They laughed, and he waved them to silence. “He reminded me of certain men in the village where I grew up. It’s easy for a man to set a foot on the wrong path, to walk crooked out of anger or grief or greed. Those men are like dogs lost in the woods. But they aren’t our enemy. They’re our brothers and cousins. In different circumstances, they might have been ourselves. We made them because we didn’t pay attention while the world fell apart around us. Some can be lured back and make restitution, rebuild a life, and some just can’t. But those who can’t are criminals. They should be treated as the criminals they are. They should be arrested and brought before the assizes to answer for their crimes. The assizes is the rightful place for these matters, not a single commander. For think of what a powerfully dangerous thing it would be if one man can pass judgment according to the strength of his will? Isn’t that exactly what Lord Radas was doing? Isn’t that exactly what the corrupted cloaks did, who hammered stars out of tin and gave them to their followers to wear? Do we want to become like them? Or do we want to restore justice? Maybe to make some changes—yes—” He nodded at the Copper Hall reeves who seemed about to object again. “Yes, we need a new halls council—”
“With you sitting over us all as commander, no doubt,” accused one of the Copper Hall reeves, a curly-haired youth with a scar on his chin and, evidently, a chip on his shoulder. “I’ve heard stories of you and the trouble you got into back when you were my age.”
Joss grinned. “You haven’t heard half of it, then!” The lad ventured an answering grin, piqued by curiosity. But Joss sobered. “Listen, I don’t care about being commander of the reeve halls. The reeve halls must call a council no matter what. They must debate what changes to institute, how to reconstitute the assizes here in the north, how to rebuild the halls and train the many new reeves. How to repair the damage left by the slaughter of Horn Hall’s reeves.” They were absolutely silent, every one of them, intent on his words. “Every hall must send representatives to meet. It’s this council that will elect a new commander. Of course we must be vigilant. We must be vigilant on behalf of the law, for we must never allow the law to be corrupted by those who might claim to—”
He broke off, sensing movement to his left.
Anji stood on the berm, flanked by Sengel and Deze. How long had he been listening?
Seeing Joss had noticed him, Anji walked in among the reeves with the confidence of a man who knows his place. They rose to greet him, and he moved through the group speaking to each individual, maybe asking to see a baton or spinning an arrow through his fingers as he listened to an impassioned tale whose sketched gestures told of a skirmish. He gathered smiles and nods and flushed, excited expressions in return for his attention.
Joss settled beside Peddonon. “Where’s Pil?”
Dear Peddonon. He blushed a lover’s blush, and it made him look fresh and sweet. “I left all my flights resting at Law Rock according to your orders, including Pil. But I wanted Nallo to give a personal report to Commander Anji, which she did. She was there when Chief Toughid was killed by the demon. I came with her to make my own assessment of the situation. To ask after you. Things are quiet in Toskala. Ostiary Nekkar has the council well in hand.”
Joss sheared off in search of Nallo. She stood to one side, watching the sun set. “Heya, Nallo.”
“An impressive speech, Commander, even if you didn’t get to finish it,” she said tartly. She glanced at the Qin soldiers still chatting with reeves. She had fire enough to burn; she just hadn’t learned how to use it, as blacksmiths did, to forge something more powerful out of the raw and malleable earth. “I listened to every word. I’m thinking about it.”
“Joss!” Anji strolled over, marked Nallo, and nodded gravely. “Reeve Nallo. We spoke earlier. Is there anything else you need?”
“I’ve done my duty, Commander. I’ll keep doing it.”
He raised an eyebrow, hearing an edge in her words that might imply the woman disliked him. But it was difficult to tell with Nallo, because she always sounded like that. Then Anji turned to Joss. “I thought you’d want to hear Tohon’s report on Wedrewe. Shai is sleeping, and Tohon sees no need to wake him. Will you accompany me? We can talk on the way.”
His smile was a beacon. Au
i! Joss liked this man; he liked him very well. But he no longer trusted him.
“Of course I want to hear Tohon’s report. I’ve never met a more skilled scout.”
“He was a rare gift from Commander Beje,” agreed Anji.
“Who is Commander Beje?”
“A Qin officer of princely birth, a good man. I was married to his daughter.”
“Had you a first wife?” said Joss, startled by this confidence. “I didn’t know.” And had his first wife abandoned him in favor of a handsome outlander? Better not to ask.
Anji squinted into the sun drenched west toward eagles, although the light made it hard to tell if they were approaching or flying parallel to the river on patrol. “The past is dead to me.”
The men scrambled up a berm and walked, using the height to survey the encampment as the light turned the amber that presaged dusk. Most men were already sleeping, exhausted from the days of forced march and the battle. Those who were still awake were scraping the last bits of rice or nai from big bowls. A pair of enterprising young women—where in the hells had they come from?—had set up a slip-fry stand, but it seemed they had sold all their food and were now just chatting merrily with a crowd of admirers.
A crew from Nessumara was still pitching corpses into the river, but the men from Anji’s army who had been killed were being hauled aside and piled on wagons and carts so they could be conveyed to a Sorrowing Tower and given a proper ceremony. There weren’t as many as Joss had expected; Radas’s army had taken the brunt of the casualties.
“What do you Qin do with your dead, Anji?”
“If we’re at war, we leave them. Once the spirit is fled, the body is only a husk. If in camp, the women have their own rites.”
“And in the empire?”
“In the empire, the Beltak priests control all passages, birth, death, marriage, fealty between master and servant. They take a tithe at the market, and collect tolls on the roads and at every gate.”
“A fence against every manner of temptation,” said Joss more sharply than he intended.
“A knife,” said Anji, “with which to protect themselves.”
“A knife is a useful tool, but in the hands of a drunk man or one who minds only his own greed, it is a dangerous weapon.”
“Therefore we keep knives out of the hands of those we cannot trust to wield them wisely.”
“Six cloaks you said, Anji. But I count only five.”
“Did I forget to mention? The cloak of Twilight is the sixth. Here we are.”
The council of captains had been dismissed, and in its place Joss found himself alone among Qin officers, a single Olossi militia captain, and the hierophant Joss had seen before. The Lantern priest was holding a charcoal stick and tracing lines according to Tohon’s directions: Here. No, to the right. Erase that bit. Yes, down that way.
Anji, Sengel, and Deze strolled up to the table as the guardsmen who had followed him around camp fell back to join the ring of guards. A soldier stood beside each stout pole that held up the awning, and two men guarded the curtained entrance off under the right-hand wing of the awning.
The men pressed up to the table, all but Sengel settling into stools as Tohon drank cordial.
Two reeves hurried up, escorted by guards. “Our apologies for keeping you waiting, Commander,” said the curly-headed youth with a scar on his chin.
“If you three will report on your observations, we’ll listen and ask questions.” Anji offered the reeves stools and gave Tohon his whip to point with.
The reeves deferred to Tohon, offering asides only when he could not explain or had missed some typical local object or tree or landmark. They had flown above the Istri Walk to Toskala and thence along the Ili Cutoff and across the vale of Iliyat to the Liya Pass.
“That’s Candle Rock,” Joss said when they described a high sanctuary where they’d camped for the night. “You can see Ammadit’s Tit from the rock. It’s a Guardian’s altar. And that abandoned compound you saw, on the way up? That was once a temple to Ushara, although it was popularly supposed that they trained assassins there. There was a woodsmen’s encampment near there, although it’s likely long since grown over. That’s where Reeve Marit and her eagle Flirt were killed. Theirs are the first known deaths definitely linked to Lord Radas. I think it might have been the first cadre of his army.”
The curtained entrance off to one side swayed, and a woman ducked out. Tohon smiled, making room for her, but she snagged a stool, walked around the table as if to peruse the map from all angles before she fetched up, quite as if by accident, next to Joss. She set down the stool and herself in it. Her hip pressed against his. She leaned over the low table, one of her breasts brushing his arm as she used the hilt of a knife to tap the spot on the map he’d just been discussing.
“The temple of Ushara was attacked and all its hierodules and kalos murdered.” She straightened, setting the knife back to hold down a curling corner. “The many hieros across the land have never let any hierodule or kalos forget it, either. Didn’t you ever hear the rest of the story, Reeve Joss? They found a young hierodule—barely fourteen—chained to a death willow and raped and abused, as if to spit on the generosity of the Devouring One. She was dead, a knife to the heart.”
“I was one of those who found her corpse,” said Joss so quietly that everyone looked at him. “Which is a moment I will never forget as long as I live. As you say, a knife to the heart.”
The words had an odd effect on Anji, whose gaze had drifted past Joss toward a movement in camp beyond the awning. His expression tightened in a puzzled frown, then opened to a look of sheer violent falling helplessness as he recognized what he was looking at. He leaped to his feet, his stool tipping and falling behind him. He fisted a hand and for one breath Joss could have sworn Anji swayed as though he had taken a knife to the heart. Sengel caught his arm. Stepping sideways, shaking off Sengel, he strode around the table and out from under the awning. Joss twisted to see.
Out of the dusk settling its wings over the encampment limped Chief Tuvi carrying a bundle in his arms. Neh, no bundle but a living, squirming baby. Tuvi was carrying Anji’s son.
Joss stood, intending to follow, but Chief Esigu blocked him. Sengel and Deze trotted up on either side of Anji as Anji halted in front of Tuvi and engulfed the baby in his arms. Tuvi’s lips moved, speaking words Joss was too far away to hear.
Sengel and Deze grabbed Anji under the elbows, and Tuvi swept the child back. The two chiefs held their captain as his legs gave way.
Had the wind failed? For it seemed the entire camp was holding its breath, taking in the news with the captain, still supported by his senior officers.
Kesta and Peddonon jogged out of the dusk, circling wide around the knot of Qin, who stopped Peddonon at a distance but allowed Kesta to hurry up to the awning.
She grasped Joss’s arm, pulling him aside. “Siras flew Chief Tuvi in from the Barrens. The captain’s wife was murdered up the Spires, that place they call Merciful Valley.”
“Murdered?” As well say the sky was green, or that folk preferred bread to rice given the choice. “Who would murder Mai?” Beautiful, clever Mai. The Ox walks with feet of clay, but its heart leaps to the heavens where it seeks the soul which fulfills it.
“One of her slaves stabbed her. Siras says she fell into the pool, and her body was lost in the depths beneath the falls. Maybe that makes sense to you.” She caught him as he sat heavily, almost tipping over the stool.
Siras came running, but Qin soldiers halted him beside Peddonon as the chiefs steered Anji in under the awning and sat him down on his stool beside the camp table.
“How did she outflank me?” Anji asked, the question all the more wrenching for his even tone, like he was asking for a report on the weather.
“She had an agent in your midst all along, that slave named Sheyshi,” said Tuvi. “None of us suspected. The girl played her part, and none of us suspected all that time.”
“Commander Beje m
ust have known.”
“That Sheyshi was your mother’s agent? It’s likely. That your mother would strike through the slave? How could any Qin man guess? There was nothing you could have done, Anjihosh. The princess was caged in the women’s palace for many years. She is far more skilled on this battlefield than you or I. She defeated you with a superior flanking movement.”
“I should have known,” said Anji as he reached for a knife that Chief Deze snatched up before Anji could touch it. Anji went on as if he had not noticed, hands splayed open on the careful detailed lines of the map. “I should have suspected. Mai is the sharpest knife a man could hope to possess. The biggest threat to my mother’s power. I should have brought Mai with me, never let her leave my side—” His hands fisted. He bent as in a gust of wind, and his eyes lost focus. A sound more gasp than moan strangled in his throat.
The baby had begun to noisily fuss, wanting his father, and Tuvi thrust the angry child onto Anji’s lap, anything to take that stunned blank expression off the captain’s face.
Joss had known these feelings once. Nothing would make the killing blow easier to absorb; nothing could ease the searing pain. Only the baby, who demanded his father’s attention by beginning to cry.
“What have you been feeding him?” asked Anji in a harsh, hoarse voice.
“Goat’s milk and nai porridge,” said Tuvi. Revealed in lantern light, his face and hands were netted with scars, as though he had plunged into a burning spider’s web. He stood awkwardly, and when a soldier brought a stool, sat gingerly as if every movement was agony. Yet his gaze was bent on his captain as Chief Deze sent soldiers to find goat’s milk and nai porridge. Anji soothed the child by speaking in another language, the words flowing like a chant. His expression was scoured raw; his eyes flared white, like a spooked horse, and yet, every time he ceased speaking even for a moment, his jaw clenched as tight as if he were choking down a scream.
Kesta patted Joss’s shoulder and jerked her chin toward the spot where Siras was confined between a pair of watchful soldiers. Joss stepped away from the table. Sengel glanced at him, nodding to acknowledge his leave-taking, but Anji did not look up nor did Tuvi register their departure. He hadn’t looked at Joss once.
