Warning up the steps and through the main entrance hall into the courtyard. Men shrank back from her billowing cloak. A graveled path bisected the courtyard, Hanked by terraces of white and pink tea flowers and decorative herbs set out in blocks like neighborhoods. A fountain depicted the
island at Indiyabu where the Guardians had risen from the lake, but the spouts had dried up. Much like justice, Marit supposed. Run dry.
A dozen men edged out of the shadows into a loose circle around her.
'I've not seen you before,' said their captain, a trim, muscular man flanked by a pair of gargantuan spear carriers. He had the imposing presence of a man who can make decisions without second guessing himself, but he did not look her in the face.
'No, you haven't. I want an escort down Istri Walk, to the main army.'
'I'm under no obligation to assist you.'
She snorted. 'I suppose you get folk every day riding into High Haldia on a Guardian's horse and wearing a scrap of cloak so as to pretend they are a Guardian?'
His gaze met hers just long enough that she tasted the merest tangle of his complicated mind: he admired a bold woman with a sarcastic sense of humor. He didn't like the commanders he worked for, but he was good at fighting and they rewarded him well. He liked the job more than he disliked them. 'They don't call themselves that. Which you'd have known, if you were one of them.'
'As an attempt to intimidate me, it's not bad, Captain, but I'm up here on a winged horse, and you're down there wondering how much of your heart I've seen.'
A smile ghosted onto his face and faded. 'As it happens, Lord Twilight rode into town earlier today. He said a cloak, a woman wearing the color of death, might arrive soon. I just sent a man to fetch him.'
Warning stamped. A door slid open on a long covered porch. The man who stepped into the courtyard wore a cloak very like hers, only the color of his was indistinguishable from the purpling-dark shadows. His hair was black, his eyes and complexion dark, and his expression ironic.
'You and your men can go, Captain,' he said.
They departed hastily through gates and doors.
As he crossed the garden, she dismounted and released Warning to nose among the tea flowers. The man halted beside the fountain. Lanterns hanging from tripods spread light on his face. He studied her as a smile twisted his lips.
'I wasn't sure if I had dreamed you, or really spoken to you. A wish is no better than a dream.' His voice was softly mocking, but not of her. The accent dazzled.
' 'Lord Twilight'}' she asked with a laugh.
'It is grand, isn't it?' He let the grin emerge fully.
'It's ridiculous. Nor do you look like a Northerner, to carry the title.'
'Lord?'
'It's an ancient claim, found only in the north. You're not a Northerner. You're not even born of the Hundred.'
'As I admitted when we talked the first time.'
'As your face proclaims. A good-looking face, I admit, but an outlander's face nevertheless. How in the hells did an outlander become a Guardian? A 'cloak', as the soldiers call us.'
He raised a hand, wincing. 'Let's not spoil a pleasant evening with a painful subject. What am I to call you?'
She hesitated.
'If you won't give me something, I'll have to make up a name. And you won't like it, Lady Death.'
'Aui! I'm wounded. You can call me Ramit.'
'I suppose it's the best I can get.'
'Yes. You said you're called Hari. Water-born, like me.' And therefore forbidden, but she didn't say that out loud.
'Water-born? They said that before to me, but it means nothing. My father named me Harishil, which means fifth of his sons. Nothing about water.'
Not forbidden, after all! She smiled. 'I'll not mention it again. Why are you in High Haldia? Why not follow the army down the Istri Walk as I'm doing?'
His eyes shuttered. 'Are you sure that's what you want?'
'I'm sure it's what I must do.'
It was a relief to look at a man and not be flooded with his thoughts and feelings, and the longer she held his gaze in a kind of defiant counterstare the more it seemed they were flirting. And since he was not truly Water-born, she could enjoy the sensation. He had broad shoulders and the graceful strength of a man in his prime, about the age she had been when she'd died.
'I thought you might pass this way,' he said. 'I thought maybe we could travel together.'
As invitations went, it had charm mostly because of his lazy smile. He wasn't a happy man; trouble shadowed those thick-lashed eyes. But he wasn't the kind to let trouble stop him from making an effort to please. And surely the gods knew how bitterly lonely she had become. Maybe she had hoped for this meeting more than she dared admit.
'I can leave any time,' she said.
They rode out of High Haldia soon after. Once on the Istri Walk, the hooves of their horses lit the road, a glow emanating like a mist formed of dying sparks. The city was silent except for the occasional barking of a dog or the noise of beasts as they passed, and inhaled the smell of, stabling yards. Twice, night patrols aggressively hailed them but, seeing them close, hurriedly bowed and let them pass.
'It's quiet,' she said.
'But orderly. The troublemakers are dead or fled or in hiding. The rest do what they're told.'
'Which is?'
'Farm. Mill. Manufacture. Pay a heavy tithe to the army in exchange for not being killed. That's the bargain they were offered. Most took it.'
'And the ones who did not?'
'As I said.'
'High Haldia has a decent population. There's a lot of land between here and Walshow, not to mention Haldia in general and Seven and the uplands of Teriayne beyond. And Gold Hall above the Falls. How can an army keep that much land and that many people under a reign of fear?'
'You Hundred folk don't understand the way of the world, do you? It seems the mountains and sea — and your reeves and Guardians — have protected you for a long time in your tiny enclaves. I was a troublemaker once, but I learned that a well-disciplined army with strong leadership can control a great deal of territory.'
'How?'
'I and some others got in trouble with the Qin overlords of the
trading town where I grew up. Instead of executing us, they sent us off to be useful elsewhere, which in my case meant being sold into a mercenary company as a soldier. One day about a hundred of us marched north over the high mountains and into the Hundred on a contract. We were betrayed, and I was killed. After that, I found myself prisoner of the cloak.'
'Mine's a simpler tale. A country girl, sent to the city to find work. I was chosen as a reeve instead. I believe I was killed in the line of duty. Thus you find me.'
'Here's the first toll gate.' As they approached a stockade placed to control traffic on the road, Hari raised his voice to alert the guard. 'We're passing through. I'm of no mind to mince words with your sergeant.'
Men opened the gate, careful not to look up. They rode through without slackening their pace. Beyond this stockade the city turned into a scattered collection of threshing yards, stinking tanneries, aromatic corrals, and silent timber lots. High Haldia's environs seemed as deserted as the city itself.
'Have they no patrols to control thievery?' she asked.
'You'll see.'
The roadside leading to a second barrier was lined with poles driven into the ground.
She sucked in a shocked breath. 'This again!'
'You've seen the approach to Walshow, then.'
