She tasted blood, a faint lingering taint. One of the others had stood at Haldia Overlook recently, was maybe even walking the labyrinth ahead or behind her. She pushed on. Unlike the last time she had walked this labyrinth, no voices whispered at her ears; no man's figure greeted her as she stepped into the hollow. But instead of being blinded by a flare of light, spun halfway around and thrown by the altar's sorcery to the peak of the knob, she simply halted beside Warning, who watered unconcernedly at the pool.
Marit knelt, dipped her bowl, and drank deeply. Rising, she ran a hand over the soft stubble of her hair, still and always the same length as the days when she'd kept it cut short because that was the fashion reeves wore.
You think that you are dead, but you are living. It is others who tell you you are dead, and you believe them, and by believing them you corrupt the strength the gods pour into their chosen vessels.
Yet why then did her hair not grow?
Sometimes you had to go with the evidence.
She walked back to the rim of the ledge. Remarkably, the rope she'd left here twenty years ago swayed in the morning breeze, still fastened above. She gripped the rope in a hand and tugged as hard as she could, and cursed if it didn't hold. Amazing how indestructible good hempen rope proved to be.
She curled up the trailing end of the rope and knotted it in a cradle around her hips. Climbing up on the ledge, she leaned backward into the air and, hand over hand, worked her way up the knob, pausing at intervals to rest with the rope looped up tight around her body. Arms and legs aching, she scrambled the last rugged slope up to the summit where a metal post had been hammered deep into the rock. The frayed remains of banners streamed around her: blood-red, black of night, heaven-blue, mist-silver, fiery-gold-sun, earth-brown, seedling-green, twilight-sky, and death-white. The cloaks of the Guardians.
And she laughed, because there it was. The metal post was hollow, like pipewood, and cursed if someone — maybe the handsome man with demon-blue outlander eyes set in a brown face — hadn't simply slipped a sword in at the top, the hilt peeping up above the blustery rumble of sun-bleached banners.
Never in her life before had Mai enjoyed isolation, but after the birth she was content simply to rest on a pallet in the cave, seeing no one, food and drink and cleaning arranged by Priya and, later, Sheyshi. The baby was very small, but he seemed healthy, nursing and sleeping and eliminating. He rarely cried, and sometimes she sat outside on a pillow by the pool and cradled him in her arms as spray off the falls cooled her back. Probably she should not expose him to the moist air, but she felt an inexplicable kinship with the falls, as if it had soothed and comforted her during the final stages of labor when those eerie strands of light had filled the cave. The valley, too, was very beautiful, and its high walls cradled her, the crags and mountain peaks looming like stalwart guards. In this place, she was safe.
'Mistress, do you want to go lie down?' asked Sheyshi.
'No, I'm content here in the sun.'
'You should lie down for one month,' said Sheyshi. 'Otherwise the evil spirits might eat you.'
'I'm fine, Sheyshi. Maybe you could brew me some more of that nice tea with spices.' Anything to stop her hovering!
Given a task, the slave hurried off to the small encampment newly set up down the path to accommodate the daily coming and goings of reeves out of Naya Hall bringing provisions and news. The baby slept, his tiny round face entirely peaceful, although he slept so much she had scarcely seen his eyes open except for that first startling moment after his birth when he had stared at her as if recognizing her. He weighed nothing, really, light to hold but so vast that her heart had opened to encompass heavens and earth, fire and water, all of creation.
'Mai.'
She smiled down at the sleeping baby, and then she rose with careful dignity and turned to greet her husband. 'Anji, greetings of the day.'
He looked a bit ragged, as if he hadn't slept, but his clothes were neat and clean and his hair was tied tightly up in the Qin topknot, not a strand out of place. He held a basket in his hands. Awkwardly, he offered it to her, looking very serious.
'These gifts I bring, mare's milk, goat's butter, sheep's yoghurt, to strengthen your blood.' He set the basket on the low wall and opened a pouch slung at his hip. From this he drew length after length of gold chain and jewel- set necklaces, a fortune beyond price. 'Among my mother's people, a woman of honor wears her clan's wealth, for she alone possesses the vitality to resist its corrupting influence. This is yours now, which once belonged to my mother's mother.'
He draped them over her neck, a heavy weight indeed, and only then did he bend his gaze to the child.
She gently unwrapped the sleeping baby, who stirred and stretched as his limbs were exposed. 'He is whole, and although small he is so far healthy. He sleeps a lot, though.'
He examined the child's head and torso and genitals and limbs and fingers and toes, and only then did he smile, the sudden brilliance quite staggering.
'He needs a name!' she said indignantly.
He nodded. 'That's why I waited seven days. He'll be Atani, after my father, who loved his younger brother too much to see him murdered, although it cost him much on his own behalf. I've also been told that by Hundred custom it is a Water-born name, proper to a child born under the shelter of a waterfall, during a storm.'
'Atani,' she murmured, tracing the infant's perfect tiny lips and his flat baby chin. He burbled, mouth rooting as he woke up. His eyes opened, black pools absorbing the mystery of the world, and shut again.
'You have done well, Mai. Not that I am surprised.'
'Will you hold him?'
'After the moon's cycle is complete. Otherwise my touch may alert demons to his presence. It's enough that I can look at him, and at you, until that day.' He did look, but at her more than at the child, eyes narrowed with the very slight look of satisfaction that meant he was well pleased, perhaps even gloating, if Anji ever gloated.
'Captain!'
He turned. 'You are an uncle, Tuvi-lo.'
The chief walked up as Mai displayed the naked baby. 'So I am! What a fine lad.'
'Whole with no blemishes,' said Anji.
'Atani-hosh, I pledge my loyal service,' said the chief. Then with a big grin he nodded at Mai. 'To the mother, strength and honor.'
'I'm hungry. I think I'm always hungry!'
As if she had heard, Priya walked out from the cave. 'Captain Anji! You must not touch Mai or your son until the turn of the moon.'
'I have not. But I have brought Mai foods that will strengthen her blood.'
Priya took the infant to wrap it, and Mai sat on the wall an arm's length from Anji and ate the food he had brought, rich butter, voluptuous yoghurt, stingingly strong fermented mare's milk, while he related the tale of the skirmish and the fate of the Red Hounds.
'We killed all of the riders, except for two we took as prisoners. However, they did not talk. As for the agents in place within the settlement, three for sure we killed.'
'Who were they?' She shuddered. 'I hate to think of walking past such men every day and never knowing.'
'Posing as laborers. I am sure there are others. We remain vigilant. My brother the emperor will attempt to strike again. He sees me as a threat to his position, more so even than my cousins.'
'Although they are the ones who have challenged him over the throne.'
'At the moment, my brother is the one who stands in the way of their ambition. Although it's hard to imagine that they can defeat the rightful heir, the one the priests have sealed as legitimate. Now, of course, this boy likewise, a new grandson of the former emperor. So I'm not sure what to do with you and the baby, Mai.'
'Build me a cottage in this valley. Then it would be hard for the Red Hounds to reach me, neh?'
He surveyed the whitecapped mountains and the spilling water, inhaling the scent of sweet flowers, of extravagant leaves, of moist air. The deep cleft might harbor an entire village, and no one ever know.
'But I don't really want to live here forever,' she added hurriedly, brushing a hand over the links of gold that
