by Kate Elliott
He obeyed her, for he felt an odd monstrous presence looming behind him like the charged breath of a late season storm prickling his neck.
“No one truly understands the bond between eagle and reeve, what invisible leash jesses one to the other. We guessed you must have died because your eagle died. For I am cursed sure living eagles don’t fly at night and seek out Guardian altars, not as this one does.”
The old raptor lowered his head to Joss’s level, an uncanny glamour in those huge depthless eyes.
“How can this be?” Joss asked, as Scar offered a series of chirps in greeting.
“In a way,” said Marit, “you died together.”
Joss was left to wonder if it was he, or Scar, who had died fighting for justice. Or maybe after all it was the two of them in partnership, just as it had always been.
54
WHEN A PREGNANT widow and her household move into town, the event is certain to be talked about for days. When the widow is young and beautiful, the gossip will spread across weeks. And when she opens her own emporium that competes successfully with local warehouses and merchants who have lived for generations in the bustling port of Salya on Messalia Bay, then it is likely that rumor will mildew into the kind of antipathy that flourishes for months in shadowed corners and uncleaned cupboards.
And yet, stage by stage, week by week, month by month, it did not.
Mistress Karanna, the head of Seven Cups clan, was won over when the young widow advised her on the quality of silks and which hues were more appropriate to her particular complexion and personality. Master Dessottin of Merling’s Gift clan discovered that the widow’s married sister—not that anyone believed they were actually sisters—not only shared his obsessive interest in plant lore but actually knew how to play an obscure game of counters called “emperors and warriors” which he had long studied in equally obscure texts first encountered when he’d served his apprenticeship as a clerk of Sapanasu; that she beat him more often than not did not lessen his enjoyment of the matches. His influence brought round several local clans, one of which was doubly charmed when the married sister specifically requested a formidable aunt to attend the birth of her daughter because of the aunt’s long experience in midwifery.
The farmers and artisans and laborers appreciated the widow’s fair prices and willingness to dicker at length and to trade in kind, if that was all they had to offer. A few hired daughters and sons into her household, where they were fairly treated and well paid, although there were a few complaints about the widow’s clerk, who had such an exacting eye for detail that he spared little patience for people who made even trivial mistakes.
The local secretive Ri Amarah household, after substantial initial resistance, made some manner of deal regarding import of certain hard-to-acquire precious oils. And when the Four Petals clan began to simmer with resentment, seeing their trade in oil cut into, the widow befriended their unmarriagable eldest daughter and within two months had helped them open up a promising negotiation with an upcountry sheepherder’s clan that included the promise of an expansion of the wool trade.
Even the horribly crippled and notoriously solitary marshal of Bronze Hall began to fly in once a week with certain of his senior reeves to take tea on her spacious porch right out in public view, the only place in her compound she ever met with men.
So when after the course of seven moons the widow gave birth to a healthy baby girl, only two important holdouts remained: a branch of the White Leaf clan out of Arash, who were in any case only third-generation local with therefore the usual insecurities of newcomers, and the hieros at the local temple of Ushara.
The White Leaf clan was dispatched with a ruthlessness that had the town laughing for days: she simply asked the old widower, whose temper was infamous, to stand with Bronze Hall’s marshal and a senior reeve named Peddonon as one of the uncles over the delicate newborn, whom the cranky old man certainly must hold. Wasn’t she precious and darling even with her unmistakably outlander features? Who could say no to such a request, coming as it did from a young woman so very lovely who no longer, alas, possessed the extended family with which to comfort and influence the baby?
Three months passed. She made a thanksgiving offering at each of the temples, and laid flowers on Hasibal’s stone together with prayers no one had heard before. But she did not make the traditional procession to the Devourer’s temple. She never went there at all. The young man who assisted the head gardener got drunk one night and told a friend, who told a friend, who told her cousins, that he had once overheard the mistress say there were spies in the temple keeping an eye on her, which was a very odd sort of thing to say even for a beautiful and mysterious young widow with an air of tragedy cloaking her like first-quality silk.
Or so folk whispered, until the day the Qin soldiers rode into town.
It was clear she had been warned ahead of time, likely by the Bronze Hall reeves, because she appeared midmorning on her porch dressed in a rainwater-blue taloos of such exceptional silk that a girl passing by on the street actually went running to Seven Cups clan to fetch Mistress Karanna so she could see it for herself.
But Karanna no more dared approach than did anyone else when a cohort of black-clad soldiers—the very black wolves who, it was said, ruthlessly hunted down criminals and kept the peace in the Hundred, not that they’d seen any such soldiers down here in the isolated and peaceful backwater of Mar—rode into town, their horses filling the streets and their blank expressions frightening children. About a third of them were outlanders, solemn as herons, so easy astride their horses they might have been born in the saddle.
The commander at the head of the procession was also an outlander. He was magnificently dressed in a knee-length silk jacket sewn from silk of such a surpassingly delicate green, like sea foam under the evening sky, that Mistress Karanna actually wept. Or maybe she wept because he and all the soldiers were armed, and with his sword swinging at his side he climbed right up onto the porch as if no one could stop him from doing so, which no one could.
The widow made no courtesy, nor did she cower. She greeted him coolly, and anyone with eyes could see they knew each other.
This was not to be a happy meeting.
At first it seemed the point of contention was the baby, and that was a wonder, indeed, for anyone who had seen the infant—and most everyone in town had peeped into the emporium or porch over the last three months to take a look—must instantly recognize that the tiny face bore some resemblance to that of the Qin soldiers. Was her nose destined to grow to something like his? An unfortunate fate for a girl, perhaps, but when the widow allowed him to hold the child and examine it, which he did very carefully, one might begin to suspect she was not, after all, a widow. That he might in fact be the father of the precious darling. That the point of contention was not the child, although clearly there was something about the child which mattered deeply to him, but the woman herself.
Anyone with eyes or ears could see what kind of tale this was. Every variation on this song has been sung down the years. She retreats; he pursues. He desires; she refuses. A slave buys herself free, but the master cannot bear to let her go.
What then?
The siege lasted one full month.
He was a persuasive and extremely powerful man, a reasonable, intelligent man, who consulted with councils from villages and towns all over Mar, presided over assizes, and discussed certain efficiencies of reorganization that were proving successful in other regions of the Hundred. He examined the local varieties of wool and rice, seven times rode out hunting with local men, and once took a canoe to Bronze Hall to meet with its recalcitrant marshal, an expedition he did not repeat. All that besides the mornings or afternoons he spent dandling the baby while courting the woman, although it was noted that she never actually invited him to visit nor was he ever, for even one instant, alone with her behind closed doors.
By the end of the month many of the locals had come to cordially loathe his well
-behaved and standoffish soldiers especially as dozens of local youths began to wear their hair up in topknots and certain local girls got over their shyness enough to flirt with an enthusiasm that their disgusted elders put down to the novelty of the soldiers and the heavy strings of coin they had to spread around. One Qin tailman fell so desperately in love with a chance-met local girl that he persuaded her to ride away with him when, at last, the commander had to admit defeat and leave. He had other regions to oversee, other councils to consult with, other assizes to administer.
“Other wives,” the married sister was overheard to say tartly to her husband, “to impregnate.”
The next day the hieros packed up and left with a dozen of her hierodules and kalos.
One month later a new and quite young hieros sauntered into town in company with a pair of middle-aged outlanders and their wagon.
“Do you think he’ll come back, Priya?” Mai asked three days later as they sat on pillows and sipped tea on the porch. Dusk hovered but hadn’t yet fallen. “I don’t know if I could bear to go through that again. Do you know how badly I wanted to have sex with him?”
“Why didn’t you?” asked Priya. The baby was asleep on her lap, snoring softly with a bit of congestion, feet and hands twitching with baby dreams.
Mai reached across the table to touch her hand. “Do you know, Priya, it wasn’t until I came here that I realized that when I was Anji’s wife, I was always under guard. Did you and O’eki choose a house yet? Maybe that cottage by the lake you were talking about? It was very, ah, scenic.”
Priya laughed. “You are not a country girl, are you? Anyhow, there were too many mosks. We were thinking of something in town. There’s a tiny compound just down this street and around the corner.”
“I know the one! Perfectly respectable. Although it has no porch as fine as this one.”
This porch wrapped the main house, which was set at exactly the right height and position to command a spectacular view over the bay, whose sunset-gilded waters were darkening fast as twilight rushed over them. A pleasant breeze blew up from the shore. The port-side neighborhoods down at the strand were lively as the night market set up, but here compounds were settling in for the night, a few people hurrying home with lantern in hand. Their street was empty except for a dog purposefully trotting along, as if leashed by someone they could not see. The dog loped out of sight. Song drifted up from the streets below.
Inside, Miravia shrieked with laughter, and Keshad swore angrily and, evidently, stomped out of the room.
“The poor lad is jealous because Miravia gets along so well with his sister,” remarked Priya as Miravia and Zubaidit began giggling. “Imagine what it must be like to struggle for so long against seemingly insurmountable obstacles only to get exactly what you want.”
“Ah.” Mai shut her eyes.
“Oh, Mai, what a foolish thing for me to say.”
“Neh, never mind it.” She opened her eyes and drained her cup. “See. No tears. Anyway, Kesh didn’t exactly get everything as he wished it. Zubaidit still serves the temple.”
“I would say she serves the goddess. It may not be exactly the same thing. For I would call it very interesting indeed that she—of all people—has come here—of all places—just now—of all times.”
Mai lifted the pot. “She told me she requested service at this temple so she could be near her brother. More tea, Priya?” She poured gracefully and lifted the lid to see how much was left and, after consideration, decided to let it be as it was. “I’m so glad you’ve come, and come to stay. Yet I think of Atani, left alone there.”
“He’s well taken care of. The women spoil him. Commander Anji loves the boy, Mai.”
She watched the face of her sleeping daughter wistfully. “That will have to be enough, won’t it?”
A rowdy group of twenty or thirty reeves surged into view, singing raucously but in remarkable harmony.
“Mai!” Peddonon stumbled on the lower step as he leaped onto the porch. “The hells! My knee!”
“You’re drunk.”
The baby, startled, woke and began to bawl lustily.
“I beg you, verea, let her uncle take her! She’s crying because she misses me!”
Peddonon swept her out of Priya’s lap and began to dance and sing along the porch as Mai winced, hoping he wouldn’t topple off the edge, but in fact he wasn’t drunk at all; he was just pretending as reeves tramped onto the porch and made a great deal of noise with a great swirl of currents during which Priya recovered the baby and Miravia brought out cordial and a tray of cups and Peddonon caught Mai’s arm within the concealment of all the commotion and pulled her back through the house to the quiet courtyard and garden that, in the Mar style, ran the length of the back of the house.
“How a prim Ri Amarah woman like Miravia came to develop such a crude sense of humor I will never figure,” said Zubaidit, stepping out of the shadows under a towering paradom bush.
Mai yelped, both hands slapped to her breast. “Eihi! You startled me, sneaking up like that.”
“I like that rat screen in the public room,” added Zubaidit, “but I feel I have seen it before.”
“I used to own it, but it was sold away. I tracked it down specially and had it carted here.”
“In fact,” said Peddonon, “I had it wrapped in layers of canvas and flew it here. You were terrible gloomy, Mai. A man would weep to see it. We had to do something to lighten you. My wise grandmother always said that a sad woman gives birth to a fussy baby.”
She stretched on tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek. “You’re a terrible good man. Now why have you two sneaked me out here?”
“To admire your plantings.” Zubaidit drew Mai into the heart of the garden in all its evening solemnity, although the reeves’ chatter, laughter, and song rose overhead like so much heady wine. “Is that muzz? Proudhorn? Musk vine? Stardrops! You’d think you were planting a Devourer’s garden here, Mai. Or thinking of one, anyway.”
She flushed. “I like their scents. You know what my situation is.”
“Well,” said Zubaidit with a shrug, “he only specified men, didn’t he? You’re always welcome at Ushara’s temple, whatever you choose. He’ll hear nothing from me.” She removed her hand as they reached the long, open stretch where dirt had been marked with flags and ribbons tied to and between sticks for the digging of an ornamental pool, meant to commence two months ago but suspended because of the siege. “Look there, Mai.”
Three figures waited at the end of the garden, discernible by the glamour woven into the cloaks they wore.
Mai halted as her hands clenched. “Have you betrayed me?” she whispered.
“The hells!” Peddonon turned on the hieros. “I told you this was a bad idea to spring it on her without warning.”
“There!” Zubaidit looked skyward.
A shadow covered the stars. A vast weight thumped down right in the middle of the open ground, crushing the carefully surveyed flags and ribbons. It was, Merciful One protect her, an eagle, even though she was sure eagles didn’t fly at night. A lithe figure unhooked, dropped, and strolled forward, grinning.
“Greetings of the dusk, you cursed show-off,” cried Peddonon, rushing forward. But he pulled up short before, tentatively, reaching out to grasp arms with the man as the others came forward.
Four Guardians. The last of their kind.
She recognized the envoy of Ilu leaning on his walking staff; his cheerful smile coaxed an answering smile from her even as he was careful not to look too hard into her face. She shied away from the girl who wore the face and body of the slave Cornflower, who had killed Uncle Girish, three Qin soldiers, and, if the stories were true, an entire cadre of the enemy; a mirror hung from the girl’s belt, an incongruity against her rough traveler’s clothing.
It was the Guardian reeve’s identity that shocked her. “Joss? I thought you were dead! I would never have said—”
He released Peddonon and grasped her hand as much to hold her
off from the lamp-like shimmer of the cloak that swathed him. “You would never have said what?”
He looked into her face, raised to his.
“The hells! You told Anji what?”
“I didn’t say so, I just let him assume you might be the father—”
“The hells!”
“It was the only way to get Anji to release me. It was just an idea I had, that you were the only man he really feared.”
“Because he thought you would have wanted to sleep with me?” He clipped off the words, broke off the contact, smiled glancingly and heartbreakingly at Zubaidit, and turned to the woman wearing a death-white cloak as she walked up beside him, a sword sheathed at her side. “This is Marit.”
Zubaidit said nothing, her gaze fixed on the shadowy net of an arbor of patience, still so young and sparse that its characteristic falls weren’t yet long enough to dangle over the horizontal posts. She might have been smiling, but it was difficult to tell under evening’s cloak.
“Well, this is more awkward than I had realized it would be,” said Peddonon. “Do I babble to smooth over the unexpected undertow, or do we move straight to business? Straight to business it is, then. You may wonder, Mai, what brings us here tonight, or how it comes that four Guardians are walking in your garden.”
“No,” said Mai, taking his hand and smiling when he squeezed back, the pressure of his fingers warm and comforting. “I am honored to welcome four holy Guardians into my courtyard. Joss surprises me, and while it pleases me and heartens me to see him, I have to say, beautiful Ox you may be, but I think you’re a little old for me.”
Joss laughed, and Peddonon relaxed, and the woman called Marit smiled. Zubaidit bent her head and brushed at an eye as though flicking away a gnat.
“I’m surprised all four travel together, as vulnerable as they must be now anywhere they could be boxed in, trapped, and cut down. The black wolves are hunting you.”
“We know,” said Joss, rubbing his left shoulder. “We’ve made a few tactical errors. We’ve spent months searching out people we can trust.”
