walked as if expecting an attack.
A steeply slanted tile roof rose from the greenery. They ascended a flight of stone steps, pressing through uncut shoots of musk vine that groped at Kesh's body. He staggered into a pavilion of surpassing beauty: the pillars painted in gold leaf designs; the benches upholstered with rich fabrics so expensive that immediately his mind toted up their worth in days of labor and the price of slaves; the floor inlaid with a complicated pattern of precious woods. The lad threw out an arm before Kesh or Tohon could actually step onto the floor, and indicated that they must remove their shoes and then sit to one side on a pair of plain silk pillows.
Four waited in the pavilion, sipping wine. Zubaidit looked perfectly comfortable seated cross-legged on a pillow, ginnyless. Beside
her, that cursed reeve flirted with a smile on his smugly handsome face as he made some quip meant for Zubaidit's amusement. Captain Anji sat quietly. Bai marked Kesh's arrival with a glance but did not acknowledge him. The reeve kept talking, attention fixed on Bai. The Qin captain noted Tohon, then Kesh, and gave each a crisp nod before turning back to the conversation.
The fourth person sketched a greeting. Master Calon was the head of a well-to-do merchant house whose faction had never before held power in the city, although today he wore the crossed sash of a seated council member with the red braid of power fixed to his right shoulder. In the aftermath of the battle, a huge change had swept the city and council of Olossi. The Greater Houses, who had held power for untold generations, had fallen to the machinations of the Lesser Houses and the guilds in alliance with Captain Anji and his troop.
A pair of elderly hierodules — by their age, lifelong slaves to the goddess — mounted the steps and with a tinkling of bells announced the arrival of the Hieros. All rose, Kesh last of all. How he hated this woman!
Her attendants helped her sit on a particularly fine pillow covered in a heavy damask of an intense jade green that set off the pale pipe-sprout of her rich silk taloos. For such a delicate, frail, elderly little woman, she had a stare that hammered you. And she was gloating. He could see it in her smirk as she addressed the gathered company.
'That man, the Qin sergeant. The stink of his clothing offends me. Have your people some objection to bathing, Captain? Yet by all report you are yourself perfectly happy to indulge in the baths in the city.'
'I see you have a network well placed to bring you all manner of reports, holy one,' said the captain with a faint smile.
'As you will yourself in time, I expect,' she retorted. 'You haven't answered my question.'
Captain Anji looked at Tohon, gave a nod.
Tohon's expression remained calm, his voice untroubled. 'I can answer for myself, holy one. As a man who has earned respect, I ask to be treated with respect.'
She looked him over. His gaze, on her, was not challenging but it was also not submissive. 'I will listen to your words.'
He acknowledged her reply with a nod. 'It is well known among my people that the water spirits hate human beings. They are kin to demons, and therefore there is a long war between us. We Qin know better than to trouble the spirits. Maybe you folk have a better understanding with them than we do. Anyway, my daughter drowned, and my wife died of grief from losing her to the water spirits.'
Kesh expected the Hieros to scoff at this ridiculous story. There weren't any spirits in water except for strong currents and unexpected eddies. The merlings lived in the sea, but they were living, material creatures like humans and delvings and firelings, not spirits. Even demons were living creatures with powers beyond human understanding. The only spirits abroad in the world were ghosts. Everyone knew that.
The Hieros touched fingers to her right ear and then her forehead, the gesture of hearing and understanding. 'Very well. If you wish to walk in the temple, then come to me personally. Like all hierodules, I am trained in the act of cleansing a body in preparation for the act of worship. I am powerful enough to protect you against anything, within these walls, that might wish to harm you.'
The temple lad whistled under his breath, Bai looked baffled and Joss and Master Calon amazed, but the elderly hierodules made no comment at this remarkable offer. It was impossible to know what Captain Anji was thinking.
Tohon tugged on his left ear, blinked, and then met the Hieros's steady gaze. 'My thanks to you, holy one.'
Kesh hadn't known the old bitch could smile in a friendly way, but she did so now, like a flirting girl all lit up when a boy agrees to meet her family. 'That's settled, then. Now to our other business.' The smile vanished. She turned a cold shoulder to Kesh quite deliberately, drawing attention to his disgrace. 'Marshal Joss, you've fulfilled your duty and brought me these criminals. Zubaidit I absolve from fault, although naturally she will have to return her accounts bundle and resume her service with the temple. She can't have known that her brother would use a stolen object to purchase her freedom. He, on the other hand, must pay full forfeit and be prosecuted for his crime of buying out the contract of a temple slave under false pretenses. He tried to cheat us. The temples cannot allow such behavior to go unpunished.'
'The girl came into my possession by finder's right, which none of you can dispute,' objected Kesh. 'How can I have known some envoy of Ilu would come along to make a claim on her? How do I even know you're telling the truth? You could be trying to cheat me, to get Bai back into your claws.'
She continued as if he hadn't spoken. 'How the assizes choose to deal with any complaint in the matter brought by his former master, matters not to me. Master Feden is dead and his house disgraced-'
'I bought out my own contract with trade goods! Nothing illegal about that!'
'-so it may be that the heirs of the House of Quartered Flowers will bring no claim against him. But the temple certainly means to take back what is rightfully ours-'
'Only because you'd been cheating her all along, you old bitch-'
'Keshad!' snapped the reeve. 'Be quiet!'
'I won't be quiet! I've been found at fault without being allowed to speak in my own defense, or have any kind of representation at the assizes. She means to tilt the judgment against me before I ever stand up at the rail. What kind of justice is that? Or do the reeves simply stamp as justice what's the wish of those in power?'
Ha! That stung!
The reeve examined Kesh with a look that hadn't the hammer of the old bitch's look but which was just as annoying, like someone poking into you to see what would make you squeak. Kesh shifted on his pillow and rubbed his throat. Tohon coughed into a hand. Bai watched the Hieros much as the ginnies had watched her.
The captain broke in. 'If you will. It appears the dispute rests on whether this man, Keshad, brother to Zubaidit, had a legal claim on the individual whose body he used as payment for his sister's freedom. He exchanged a girl he found in the south for the outstanding balance on his sister's accounts book, the unpaid balance of which kept her as a debt slave to the temple. Am I correct?'
'You are,' said the reeve.
'I accepted the female as payment because of her obvious value,' said the Hieros. 'I would have been a fool to let such a treasure pass out of the temple's hands. However, it appears she belonged to someone else.'
'This is the part I do not understand,' said the captain. 'A man
came to the temple, at night, and claimed the female. Did he have a contract? Proof of ownership? He might himself have been a thief, a clever con man, who cheated you and left the blame to fall on Keshad.'
There is a silence that soothes, and a silence that frightens. Silence can conceal, or reveal. It can make you stop and think, or it can be a warning. The garden lay quiet behind them, smothered in green growing things. Clouds scudded overhead, piling up over the Olo'o Sea. Kesh smelled rain coming, but it hadn't reached them yet.
'He was a Guardian,' said the Hieros, 'and so was the girl.'
Nine simple words, coolly spoken. A cold thrill woke in Kesh. Guardians walking the land again! He could not imagine what it might mean for the Hundred. Or for him.
He got up clumsily and glared all around. 'Maybe it's true, maybe it isn't. But how would she ever have gotten to the Hundred, eh? Many months' journey! She could never have made it alone, a naked girl, with nothing and no one, starving, mute, lost. I brought her here.'
'You have no idea what Guardians are capable of, or why she might have been walking in the south,' began the Hieros in a cruel voice. 'You are the worst kind, making excuses for your crime, refusing to accept responsibility for the acts you have committed. Don't think I don't have reports of what you did as Master Feden's factor, how you
