largest nearby tree, hindquarters up and head down. She had filled his good bronze cup with deer's blood. Her lips were stained as red as a jarya's as she looked up and, seeing his hurried approach, offered him the cup.
'Neh, neh, I am sure I do not care for any of that,' he said, swallowing a bitter taste in his own mouth. To drink blood fresh from the animal was a barbaric custom known among the lendings or the herdsmen in the Barrens but not among the civilized city folk where he'd been bred and raised. Yet as the thought struck him, his revulsion vanished as he paused to watch what she would do next.
She drained the cup and set it aside. With his machete in hand, she wandered into the trees. He followed her, taking the cup, which he rinsed out in the stream. She tested first this tree, then that. She tore off strips of bark and twisted them; she chopped down saplings and bent them, testing their spring and strength. With a quickening of breath, she saw what she wanted: the tree known as silver-bark, which usually preferred higher ground and a cooler climate. Somehow, a scattering had taken root in a damp depression where the stream had made its bed in former years. She measured, then cut down one that was more than a sapling but not yet truly a tree. This together with two saplings she dragged back through the undergrowth to their camp.
He watched, not wanting to interfere, although he set up a shelter against the rains that might come in the night. She took out every item he possessed and sorted them: the iron pot and tripod legs she kept beside her, the cup and leather bottles she set aside. Flint and knives and awl and shovel she set beside the pot. He caught in his breath when she examined the writing box, but she placed it unopened back in the saddle bags with the small brass lamp and strings of vey and leya. Needles, leather, cordage and straps she recognized; the scissors she puzzled over.
First, she cut three long strips of wood, like backbones, out of the trees she had felled.
Dusk interrupted her, but in the morning she set to work. While bark boiled in the pot, she skinned the deer, then butchered it. She
carefully pulled and scraped off the glistening sinew from its back and neck and legs. She cleaned and washed skin, sinew, and membranes. She rendered fat and boiled glue stock, cooling it in hollows in bare rock. She cut down saplings and shaped them into arrows. She practiced with the captured bow.
Her industry silenced him; he had not before seen her work to such purpose, and he did not want any word he uttered to distract her, for what she did now revealed much about what she was and where she might have come from.
15
They reached Olossi at last, and in the temple dedicated to Ushara, the Merciless One, the All-Consuming Devourer, Keshad scratched along his jaw into the fresh growth of new beard, trying to get out the dust that chafed his skin. A dozen Qin soldiers sat on a bench in the courtyard while Bai scolded him in a low voice as Magic hissed.
'You have to wait here with them. Explain the way things go. Make sure they don't insult any of the hierodules or kalos.'
'Why not just let them wait outside the temple while you attend the council? Outlanders can never be properly respectful in the temple. You ought to know that.'
'If the Qin truly intend to settle here, they must learn our ways. Since they have to wait for me anyway, this is a perfect opportunity to begin. So, you're responsible for their behavior.'
'Me? They don't even like me!'
'Stop whining, Kesh.'
Mischief parted her mouth in a brief, mocking smile.
With the ginnies on her shoulders, Bai sauntered to the white gates that led into the garden of the Hieros, the innermost sanctum of the temple. The Qin soldiers watched her go, but Kesh couldn't tell if their interest was sexual or a more masculine form of comradely respect. Certainly during the long ride here she had joked and sparred with the soldiers in the most casual manner. She was not as physically strong, one to one, but she was quick, fearless, toughened
to pain, and well trained in every kind of dirty trick. The soldiers had liked that about her. Of course they had ignored Kesh.
The white gates opened a crack, and Bai slipped inside. A hush settled over the Heart Garden where Kesh and the Qin sat. Men shifted, toying with their hands or shuffling their feet. One rose, turning toward the entry gate, ready to leave.
'Shai, sit down,' said Tohon.
The young man sat.
The glorious blue and violet stardrops of Kesh's previous visit had been stripped bare by the rains, but the rest of the garden had bloomed, and the woozy scent of flowering musk vine overlaid everything. It made you open your eyes and look around, aware of the sharp, bright beauty of the world.
'Heya! Zubaidit's brother! Where are the whores?' asked Chaji, the soldier with pretty eyes and the features that most passed for good looks in the Hundred.
As if his words were a summons, the gates of gold opened without a sound. Four young women and one young man strolled out to look over the foreigners. The kalos was dressed in a kilt and vest, while the four hierodules wore taloos draped fetchingly around their figures.
One of the hierodules was a tall, lanky girl with a teasing grin. 'I'm Walla,' she said to Kesh. 'Do you remember me?'
He tried not to stare at the swell of her breasts under the tightly wrapped taloos. Every part of him remembered her, although he'd never touched her.
'You're Bai's brother. You thought you were so smart, but you two are in deep trouble now. Hah!'
Chaji stood and grabbed Walla by the forearm. 'I take this one.'
The look she turned on him should have killed him; he didn't even notice as he tightened his grip. The other holy ones became very quiet and very still. Even the breeze seemed to falter and catch its breath. Tohon rose. The younger soldiers watched with steady gazes.
'Eiya!' Kesh made a show of getting up with a hefty sigh. 'That's not how you do it! There are customs to be followed. If you offend the holy ones you'll never be allowed to pass the gate a second time.'
Chaji, despite his pretty eyes or perhaps because of them, had a
spoiled temperament. He stared blankly at Kesh and did not remove his hand from Walla's shapely arm.
Tohon said, 'This is a brothel. We choose one. Coin changes hand with the mistress of the place. We get our pleasure. She gets the coin. We leave. Neh?'
'There are times I wonder why the Merciless One opens her gates to all,' murmured the kalos to Walla as the other three rolled their eyes, looking disgusted. 'They're such savages. In their lands, those who should be allowed to offer pleasure freely are slaves forced to the work.'
'No,' said Kesh to him, 'those who might offer freely aren't allowed to. It's considered shameful. Those who are slaves are forced to the work whether they wish it or no.'
Now he had shocked them. Here in the southwest, where they entertained the most traffic from outlanders of any of the temples, the holy ones ought to have known better. By their horrified expressions, they did not.
'The customs of your country are not the customs here,' said Kesh to Tohon. When he looked at Walla he received for his pains another mocking smile that made him sweat. 'This is not a brothel. No coin changes hands. This is a holy temple. The holy ones give freely because they serve the goddess Ushara, the mistress of war, death, and desire.'
The Qin looked at him blankly, not understanding.
'Never mind,' said Kesh impatiently.
He closed a hand over Chaji's wrist and yanked to dislodge his grip. He barely shifted Chaji's arm, but the soldier sucked in breath with an audible hiss, then released Walla and slugged him.
The blow landed on his shoulder, and he staggered back with a yelp. The holy ones shouted for the warders, Chaji grabbed at Walla, and Tohon strode into the breach with angry words that sat Chaji down on the bench as though he'd been shoved. Everyone quieted. A pair of broad-shouldered warders, easily spotted in orange sashes,
