who will become emperor.'
'That's right. Ujarihosh will be seated on the gold throne in the eight-gated palace, and the priests of Beltak will anoint him as I'arujarihosh, he who has gained the favor of the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the Shining One who rules alone.'
'How far are we riding?' Kesh asked, wanting to lick his fingers but taking a fine linen cloth from a slave to wipe his hands instead.
'I'm not sure.' Jushahosh glanced toward the road, not visible from here, although they could hear the talk of men at the grisly task of clearing the road and the singsong chant of the priest. 'Until we meet the one who has summoned you.'
'Who is that?'
The captain sipped at his wine. 'I'm only a messenger. The truth is, I don't know any more than you do.'
With each day they rode deeper into the heart of the empire, traveling south through countryside so densely populated there was always at least one village within view, and more commonly three or four. Farmers laboring in their fields paused in their work, bent with hands on knees, heads bowed, as the company passed. Kesh wasn't sure if they were showing obedience, or praying that the beast would ignore them rather than ravage them. But the captain and his soldiers took no notice of the common folk. Life went on
unmolested. Whatever war had been fought between the noble heirs of the imperial house did not affect those who must bring in the crops. Not like in the Hundred, where the strife had precisely ripped through the houses and fields of the humblest.
'We'll never see home again,' said Eliar every morning as they made ready to mount and go on their way.
'Speak of your own end, not mine,' replied Kesh every day, and every day he found a way to fall in beside Captain Jushahosh, because Eliar's morose company had become unbearable. To risk so much and then grouse about it! Death was a small price, compared with his betrayal of his sister!
But Jushahosh was a man like Eliar in many ways: son of a wealthy house, one of many such sons accustomed to a life of sumptuous clothing and platters piled high with food, who in his life had seen little enough hardship and so craved the excitement he kept missing out on. A civil war! How exciting! Yet his company, backing the eventual winner, had seen no action beyond that encounter on the road, which was nothing to be boasted of although they had pickled the heads of the woman and the child in a barrel of wine so the new exalted administrator of the women's palace could make an accounting of who was dead and who, therefore, was missing. He never tired of hearing Keshad's tales of his travels. It seemed never to occur to the captain that a man could embroider a small tale and turn it into a large one. Kesh found him lacking in imagination.
At night, in the privacy of their tent, Kesh forced Eliar to go over and over the basic tale of their partnership, their trade, their expedition south. 'So they can't catch us out in contradictions and decide to burn us.'
'Maybe I'd be better dead,' whispered Eliar.
'Maybe so, but I wouldn't. I intend to survive this interview, give a good account of myself, and go home with a decent profit.'
'Yet if we fail — eiya! — when I close my eyes I see that poor little child with his head sliced off. And that woman — his poor mother — cut down like a beast. Doesn't it haunt you, Kesh? Are you so unfeeling?'
'Yes, I am. There's nothing I can do for them. They're dead. I concern myself with the living.'
The living — like Eliar's sister. The woman he could never discuss, whose face he ought never to have seen. That face — her glance — haunted his nights and his days.
They rode ten days after the skirmish on a road marked at intervals with distance markers, just as in the Hundred, only the empire measured not in meys but in a measure known as a cali, about half the distance of a mey. Kesh was careful to count off their distance, and every night he had Eliar record the cali traveled in the accounts book Eliar had brought.
'It's a good thing you're useful for something,' Kesh said, watching the young Silver slash marks by lamplight. 'Did you make note of the two crossroads we passed and at what distance we reached them?'
'Do you think I'm a fool?'
Kesh did not answer.
'Yes, you do. I did note them. I noted the letters marking the posts. They indicate which towns and cities lie along that road. I also recorded the number and density of villages we passed today, and the water wheels and forges that I could be sure of. All in a script which no one but the Ri Amarah can read, so we can't be caught out if my book is taken from me. Unless, of course, the act of writing in a book is seen as suspicious, which I must suppose it will be.'
'What are those?' Kesh asked, pointing to a secondary column of odd squiggles falling on the left-hand side of the page.
'I'm recording the words and sounds of the Sirniakan language. Why do you think I talk so much with the officers? They're not particularly interesting. We have in our archives a record of the language from our time of exile here, but we no longer know how to pronounce things properly and what certain words truly mean. That's what you don't understand, Kesh. All you can think about is how much coin you'll get from this expedition. If we survive it, which I doubt. But there are more valuable things than coin. There is knowledge.'
information to be sold-'
'No. Knowledge in itself- Why do I bother?' He broke off and cleaned the brush and without speaking another word boxed his writing tools and lay down on his blankets with his back to Kesh.
Kesh wondered what would happen if he grasped the cloth of Eliar's turban and ripped the coiled cloth from his head. His hands twitched. With a laugh, he crawled out and paced to the central watch fire, where he found Captain Jushahosh still awake and conferring with an officer in a red jacket holding a fancy stick like a reeve's baton, plated as in gold.
The captain looked up sharply at Kesh's approach, and without interrupting his flow of words to the other man, lifted his left hand and gestured with a flick of the fingers that seemed to say go away. Kesh stepped back, then took himself over to the pits as if that was where he'd been heading all along. He lingered, hearing scraps delivered too quickly for him to sort out what words he knew. In time, the stranger made his courtesies, and Jushahosh his own in response, and the man strode away. Kesh crept back toward the central watch fire and was rewarded with a cup of the spiced wine that was the only thing in the empire he had come to love.
'In the morning, you'll ride with Captain Sharahosh,' said Jushahosh. 'We part here, for I'm sent on a new assignment, hunting down another infant son of Farazadihosh, if you must know. No glory there.' He sighed. 'I was hoping for battle, but it seems most of the troops loyal to Farazadihosh have surrendered. There will likely be no more fighting. I was hoping for at least one battle.'
'It seems the southern prince had more support than expected. He won quickly, did he not?'
'The Lord of Lords, King of Kings, has showered His favor on the deserving. Now we will have peace.' He sketched the gesture signifying obedience to the god's will, and Kesh copied it. The captain smiled, an odd light in his eyes that Kesh recognized, after a moment's doubt, as admiration. 'I thought all barbarians were brawling drunks with hot tempers, ready to fight at any excuse, like those Qin riders.'
'Do the Qin get drunk and brawl? I've never seen — ah, one of these — lose his temper.'
'Maybe not these, since they are under our command, but you know how barbarians are. Still, you're different from the others, I suppose because you are a believer. You've walked fearlessly into the wilderness, stalked the desert's edge, battled with naked demons, ridden over the snow-choked pass, bargained with deadly — what did you call them? — with deadly lilu. Is it true they have the bodies of women and the skin of snakes?'
'Oh. Eh. Some of them.'
'Whew!' The captain grinned. 'I wish I had your cool. Having seen such sights as you have, and survived such dangers! My thanks to you, truly, for being generous enough to dine and drink with me. You being such an important man in your part of the world.'
'Yes. Eh. And my thanks to you, Captain, for sharing your food and drink. You've shown me hospitality. I won't forget it.'
The awkward parting accomplished, Kesh took his leave.
In the morning, he rose to find Captain Sharahosh in command with a new troop of Sirniakan cavalry. Captain Jushahosh and his troop were gone. The Qin company remained.
Captain Sharahosh was an older man uninterested in conversation, and he held his soldiers aloof from
