She liked him, for his laugh and his praise of Anji and the soldiers, and because bargaining entertained him as much as it did her. Because he offered tea not just to her and Priya but also to Eliar and Tuvi and the four soldiers as they loitered under the eaves, waiting for her. 'I'll need two accounts books. I am sure you can bind them with good-quality paper, something that will hold up better than those poor scrolls, and provide the necessary scribal tools.'
In the end she purchased the prints and the accounts books, with the entire basket of dusty scrolls thrown in as a courtesy. The books and scribal tools and prints would be delivered, but Priya herself carried away the basket, clutched as tightly as a precious child. Mai could not have been more pleased.
'Mistress, here is juice, just as you like it with lime and mint.'
'Ah! That's very nice, Sheyshi.'
'While you were gone, I washed the cloth just as you said. I folded the bedding. I cooked rice. The young mistress helped me.'
'Very good, Sheyshi. Where is Miravia?'
'She went back through the gate, Mistress. Do you want your hair brushed, Mistress?'
'Yes, Sheyshi.' Mai sank down onto pillows and sighed with pleasure as Sheyshi took out the combs and sticks that held her hair. Released, her hair fell past her hips. As Sheyshi brushed with steady strokes, Mai watched Priya examine the scrolls. The slave said nothing, but tears shone on her weathered skin.
'What have we found?' Mai asked finally.
'A treasure! Six of the scrolls are written in script unknown to me. They might be anything. But the other six are discourses and threads. I have not touched holy books since the day our temple was burned and we were taken away by the raiders.' She wiped tears from her cheek. 'I thank you, Mistress. This treasure brings me great joy.'
Mai sniffled, wiping away her own tears. 'We'll make an altar. You can teach me all the holy prayers.'
'We will not build an altar in the house of the Ri Amarah.'
'No,' said Mai with a frowning laugh. 'I suppose we will not.'
The brush paused halfway down her length of hair.
'Mistress, what altar will you build?' Sheyshi asked. 'Can I pray there? I know the words 'the Merciful One is my lamp and my refuge'. But that's all I know.'
Priya touched each of the scrolls in turn, as if she could absorb their holy essence through her skin. 'Of course you will pray, Sheyshi. The Merciful One hears the prayers of all people.'
'Even women?' Sheyshi whispered. 'Even slaves?'
'Especially women. Especially slaves.' Priya sat back. She had grown thin. In Kartu she had been more robust, favored with extra food in her capacity as nursemaid to the house's favored daughter, Mai. But the long journey had whittled at her flesh to expose the ridges and hollows of bone.
'You must eat more, Priya,' said Mai, scooting forward to touch one of Priya's hands with her own. 'And rest. I could not bear to lose you.'
'I will recover, little flower. Do not fear for me. You are the one who must be careful to eat plenty, now that you are with child. Look. Here comes Miravia.'
The guesthouse attached to the Ri Amarah compound was
separated from the street by gates, and further separated from the main compound of the family by another set of gates.
Miravia entered, ran over, and kicked off her sandals before she dropped down beside Mai on a neighboring pillow. 'Sheyshi, what a lovely brushing you've done!' The young slave dipped her head shyly, smiling at this praise. 'Priya, you look tired. I will take Mai into the house for supper and afterward I will bring a tray of food for you and Sheyshi myself. That way you can rest.'
'Let me put your hair up, Mistress,' said Sheyshi.
Sheyshi braided Mai's thick black hair into the loose arrangement which she then twisted and bound up on Mai's head with combs and hair sticks, while Mai and Miravia discussed the shopping expedition and the scrolls.
'Don't mention that they are holy scrolls,' said Miravia, with a look of alarm as if she thought invisible spirits might be eavesdropping. 'They might make you get rid of them.'
'Even if we just keep them here in the guest house with our other belongings?'
'It would be better if you did not mention it. Might you teach me the reading of the script, Priya?'
'Certainly,' said Priya. 'Must you ask permission from your elders?'
'I won't, for they would forbid it.'
'Then not in this house. It would not be fair recompense for their hospitality.'
Miravia sighed, and made no reply. She took Mai's hand. 'Come, Mai.'
They slipped on sandals and walked to the inner gate. 'My mother is particularly keen to talk to you. She wants to know what you thought of our markets.'
'I don't think it's right you're not allowed out to shop! Yet you visit the prison!'
'To bring food to indigent prisoners. That they cannot forbid me to do because of our obligation to act for justice and mercy where we can. But only adult women are allowed to go out into the marketplace.'
'And even then, with a veil covering your face!'
'Mai, let it go, I beg you.'
They had reached the gate. Mai embraced her friend as they waited for the mechanism to be drawn back from the other side. 'I'll say nothing more. But I have my own plans. You'll see.'
After supper, Mai accompanied Miravia on her lamp-lighting rounds.
'Do you miss him?' Miravia asked as she stood on tiptoe, pressing a lit taper to a wick. With a hiss, flame brightened.
Mai closed and latched the glass door. 'Yes. But I don't like to think about him. What if he is killed? That would be too painful to bear, wouldn't it?'
'If you cared for someone, it would. Otherwise maybe it would be a relief, wouldn't it?'
Her voice had such a finely grained dark tone that Mai touched her hand, to let her know she was not alone. 'When my uncle Girish died, I think everyone wept only because they were ashamed that they were glad he was gone. But people will feel relief, if a death lightens their burden.'
Miravia wiped her cheek with the back of a hand, but she did not reply. She walked on to the next lamp in the vast rectangular courtyard of the women's side of the Ri Amarah compound. Older children not yet sent to bed played in the open space, shrieking and giggling as they dodged around benches and the twisting forms of pruned trees. A hearth glowed in the kitchens, and beside it a pair of old women prepared pots of steaming herbs. At a raised trough, chatting girls scoured dishes. Most of the married women had gone to the innermost apartments, leaving the supervision of the courtyard to the unmarried women and elderly widows.
'What if another's misfortune brings relief to you?' asked Miravia as she lit a lamp, keeping her face turned away from Mai. 'If something you never wanted is made impossible through no effort of yours, only through trouble afflicting others?'
'What happened?' asked Mai as she latched the tiny glass door. They stood in shadow far from the running children, the clatter and laughter in the kitchen, and the intermittent cries and complaints of younger children being coaxed to bed in the sleeping rooms. 'No one can hear us here. You know I'll keep secret any word you tell to me, Miravia.'
A bench stretched below the lamp, the polished wood gleaming
under the illumination. Miravia sank down, and Mai sat beside her, taking her friend's hands between her own.
'A courier came from Clan Hall to Argent Hall, a reeve bearing letters. One of the Ri Amarah houses in Toskala paid to have a message delivered to us. High Haldia is fallen-' Her voice broke on a caught breath.
'Yes, I heard that, too.'
'I spoke once to you of the young scholar it was arranged I would marry. I should have gone a year ago but the roads weren't safe. To High Haldia. Where their house is.'
'Oh, no,' murmured Mai.
'A few survived the assault, and fled to Toskala with their news. But he's dead. Mai, he's dead. And I'm relieved to know it. I never even met him. It's just I didn't want to marry someone I never met and never knew. But
