made sure the rest knew what would happen to them if they tried it. Yet if soldiers can steal rice and nai and anything else they want from a cottage, why not sex as well? Who will stop them?'
'Those are First Cohort men, those in the cadre you were given to command!'
'I just thought you would want to know it's going on among your own troops.'
'You're putting me off my guard because there's something else you want. What is it?'
'I can't tell you without you giving me your word you'll let me do what needs doing.'
'I could give you my word and then change my mind.'
'Not you, Captain. You're an honorable man.'
He laughed, although the way she said the phrase stung him. 'I'd say you were flattering me, but I don't think you flatter.'
'A man who would do this favor for me would seemed cursed attractive in my eyes.'
'Neh, you're still bribing me. Let me ask you a question, then. You served your apprenticeship in the Merciless One's temple.'
'That's right.'
'If you were a hierodule and I was a man come to the temple to worship, would you devour me?'
Her amused smile was an honest answer, enough to make him feel like he wasn't begging.
'I was a hierodule once,' she added, 'so I honor the Merciless One. Within the temple, the hierodule and the kalos are the equals of those who come to worship. Not their hirelings. Not their servants. Not their slaves. Not their conquest.'
'Yet I've heard it said that of all those who serve the gods, those who serve the Merciless One are the most like slaves.'
'At the temple, the hierodules and kalos choose as they please, and refuse as they wish. I admit, sometimes an unscrupulous hieros will pressure her apprentices to do what they might otherwise feel reluctant to do. However, such a hieros will find it hard to keep apprentices.'
'What do you want?'
'I need to get something out of Copper Hall before you burn it. I'd like to get these items out untouched and unharmed.'
'Wine? Jewels? Silk? Gold cheyt? I wondered where the reeves were hiding their wealth.'
'Something a cursed lot more valuable to me.' Her expression darkened in a way that surprised him, and he sat up, taking her presence far more seriously. 'There's a chamber dug below this cote. I found about thirty youths, mostly debt slaves and hirelings. I hate to see children broken into slaves, Captain. And I truly despise seeing helpless young persons abused, as some will do, given the chance. I don't like to owe anything to anyone, but if you'll get them out no worse for what they've otherwise endured today, I'll be in your debt.'
'They might be better off serving as slaves to this cohort than sent to wander the roads with the risk of falling afoul of a less merciful cohort.'
'They might. It's a generous offer, but I don't think you can keep feeding more dependents.'
He turned the bowl of cold nai halfway around just to do something. 'I could have you executed for this conversation.'
Her smile was cursed relaxed. 'So you could.'
'Aui! Does nothing fluster you?'
'Not much.'
'Will it content you if I order all refugees and debt slaves released?'
'You'd have my thanks.' Her smile offered more.
'I want nothing in exchange,' he said curtly. 'I'll have the refugees and debt slaves assembled here in the marshal's garden. Sneak the others in among them, and they'll all be escorted from the compound before we put it to the torch. You're dismissed.'
'Captain.' She slid the door open and went out.
He turned the bowl all the way round, then tapped it on the table's top as he frowned.
'Captain?' Giyara looked in.
'Did you hear all that?' he asked, because Giyara's expression reminded him of a darkness in Zubaidit's eyes.
'I did.'
'What do you make of it?'
'She's a strange one. Yet she's right. No matter what you've proclaimed, there are soldiers who will force sex on captives. It's just wrong to steal what the Devourer offers. I hope most of your veterans would agree. You've got to come down hard on the First Cohort soldiers.'
'The commanders of this army won't care one way or the other. Maybe those who order cleansings have no argument with other forms of torture. Where does that leave us, Giyara?'
She'd seen too much to make light of his concerns. Like him, she'd walked a hard road to get to this place. She was good at what she did. She trusted him, and he trusted her, because they'd set their boundaries and stuck to them. There were things a person simply refused to do, because they were shameful.
She knew what he meant without him having to explain himself. 'We walk cautiously, Captain. And try not to attract much notice.'
'These children Zubaidit found hiding — Eiya! That wasn't mice I heard!' She looked a question at him, but he waved a hand. 'Never mind. Look over the prisoners. We'll release the refugees, and recruit or release those with debt marks and any young ones.'
'And the hirelings and assistants from Copper Hall? Cleanse them?'
Someone had to take the blow. War was a hard business. It was idiotic to pretend otherwise. 'No cleansings. Kill them, but make it clean and quick. When the compound burns, let it have a necklace of dead to remind the people hereabouts that the reeves, and those who support them, are going down to defeat.'
Stage by stage, day by day, the caravan journeyed to Old Fort. The amount of local traffic on the road shocked Kesh. Men led donkeys piled high with firewood. Lads and lasses shepherded flocks in grassy clearings. Women walked — alone! — with baskets of mushrooms gathered from the forest, calling out a cheerful greeting to the soldiers. Now and again they saw an eagle and reeve overhead, patrolling. At every village they crossed a guard post with a barrier blocking the road while the escort sent with them from Dast Korumbos cleared their passage.
'I've never seen the roads so secure,' said Kesh for the hundredth time. 'You could send a cursed child walking from here to Dast Korumbos and not fear for its safety.'
'All under the watchful eye of the Olo'osson militia,' said Eliar.
'As long as they're protecting me.' Kesh pushed forward to keep pace with the soldiers assigned them at the border. 'Are the roads safe all the way north, even to Nessumara?'
They were local lads, clear-featured and well disciplined, wearing their black hair up in topknots to mimic the Qin. 'Neh, things are cursed bad in the north,' they said with serious looks.
Kesh bit back a grin to make it a grimace. 'No one traveling up to trade in Nessumara and Toskala then, eh?'
They scoffed. 'Tss! You'd be good as dead, you would. But we hear-' They bent closer, confidingly. 'As soon as our army is ready to march, we'll do to them gods-rotted Stars of Life criminals, won't we?'
'Surely you will,' agreed Kesh, surprised by the fervor in their expressions.
They descended toward a familiar hill, its ancient ruins overlooking the glittering expanse of the Olo'o Sea caught in the ruddy light of late afternoon. Old Fort's palisade gates were open. Folk worked in fields and orchards scattered all the way up to the upland highlands where the southern shore of the grassy Lend washed against the foothills. They labored in stinking butcheries and tanning yards, sawed and sledged in the big lumber yard by the water where ten ships were drawn up awaiting logs and planks. No sooner had their caravan rumbled in to the large encampment grounds then young and old alike swarmed them with wares to barter or sell, freshly roasted meat on skewers, kama juice, barsh. A pair of young women had set up a slip-fry stand and got to work as the newly arrived Qin solders stared.
In procession with her eunuchs, the captain's mother presented herself to the slip-fry girls. Kesh hurried over, Eliar at his heels.
'What are these items? In what manner are you cooking them? Is this typical in this country? What do you
