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 corne 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 sur-veyed 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 whatV
'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 Mark.'
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.'
'Like Peddonon and Zubaidit,' she agreed. 'Who in the end must have led you here. I expected one or more Guardians might eventually track me down to find out if I knew what Anji had done with the cloaks he took off the other five.'
'He told you?' Joss demanded.
