'Take her measure? Anyone here will gladly give you her measure.'
'Who is it you are in love with, Master Keshad? The blushing woman whose brother humiliated her in public? Or this other one?'
'She is Captain Anji's wife, exalted one.'
'Yet would you take her, if she were offered to you?'
'She will not be offered to me! The captain is devoted to her, everyone knows that.'
She pursed her lips. 'These sentimental spoutings become tiresome. What man has ever held on to a concubine when he saw that his interests lay elsewhere? Because I like you, Master Keshad, I will give you the concubine and help you acquire this other female as well. Then you can have two wives. Or a wife and a concubine, however you wish it.'
He choked, face burning. 'I am not-'
'Are you not? Look how flushed you are!'
He swiped a hand over his sweating forehead. 'Anyway, Mai is her own mistress. She is the administrator of their holdings and household, not him. She can't be bought or sold.'
'Of course she can be! Only the price is negotiable.'
'What are you saying, exalted one?'
'I am saying,' she said with a glance toward the wagons ambling upward behind her, 'I have plans for my son that do not include an inconvenient merchant's daughter.'
Home. Home. Home.
Mai had been gone from Olossi for only a few days, flown on eagle's wings to Horn and back again. In those few days so much had passed in Horn that to think of it dizzied her. But entering now through her courtyard gate she felt as if she had only stepped out of the compound walls to take a turn in Olossi's market streets before returning home to eat her dinner and go to her night's rest.
As Chief Tuvi escorted her in through the warehouse, voices faded to silence as people looked up. Factors hesitated, brushes were set down, vials of precious oil held forgotten in hands, people standing as still as if they had spotted a venomous snake near their feet. Tuvi shrugged with a frown of puzzlement. Priya wrapped the sleeping Atani more closely against her slender frame. When they reached the gate that led into the counting room, it opened at once, as if the folk inside had expected them. Tuvi stepped inside first, as he always did. He scanned the room, then gestured to Mai. After a glance at Priya and the baby, she followed.
O'eki stood in the center of the chamber with arms crossed, his big frame towering in the space. 'Mistress!'
His gaze shifted to fix on the other person in the otherwise empty chamber, a young man with black and lovely hair curling loose as if blown in a whirlwind, his intense expression pinning her in the instant in which she recognized him.
'Keshad! You came back! You survived! What of Eliar?'
'Eliar is alive, not that I care for his well-being any longer. Mistress, where is the captain? Is he with you?'
'He's still in Horn.' She shook her head. 'What news, Keshad? By your face, it is momentous!'
'I've been sent to fetch the captain,' he said, but he was a terrible liar; his gaze slid sideways, his eyelids flickered; his lips thinned as if he were squeezing back the truth.
She looked at O'eki, who shrugged. Standing, as always, in a position to block any move made against her, Chief Tuvi scratched at his straggle of a beard. Priya came in behind her and touched her elbow to reassure her. Atani smacked his lips.
'Best speak up, lad,' said Chief Tuvi in a genial tone that would have milked blood from stone, if the stone were wise.
Voices broke into argument on the other side of the door that led into the house. The heavy door groaned, then slammed back, and Sheyshi stormed into the room with high color in her dusky cheeks.
'Mistress! You are come home! I was worried for you!' She seized Mai's free arm and clung to it, her breath sweet with mint tea and her fingers like claws digging into Mai's flesh. 'I heard those two talking! That one!' Mercifully, she released Mai and pointed with her finger, tremblingly, at Keshad, who flinched at the rudeness. 'I heard that one tell O'eki to keep a secret until the captain comes home.'
'Keep what secret?'
Sheyshi heaved a passionate sigh. 'There is trouble in the settlement for Mistress Miravia! And he won't tell. you! Some important person is come, but I couldn't hear who. Now maybe your sister Miravia has trouble!'
'What important person, Keshad? Has Eliar threatened to take Miravia to Nessumara?' In her life maybe Mai had never spoken so sharply to anyone, but the events of recent months had spun a stronger thread in her, as tough as silk, as enduring as wool. 'Tell me!'
He took a step back as if she had slapped him, then he wiped a hand over his face as if to brush away the pelting bruise of a cloudburst. The look he cast toward Sheyshi was bitter, even brutal, an ugly grimace that startled Mai. He could not control his feelings; he struggled to speak evenly as Chief Tuvi's placid gaze prodded him.
'There is much to tell, Mistress. The emperor, he who was the captain's half brother, is dead, killed in battle by his cousins.'
Mai swayed. Priya caught her under the elbow, but she found her breath. O'eki stooped by his desk and rose to offer his writing pillow for her to sit, but she shook him off as Sheyshi wailed. 'No, I'm all right. What does this mean for Anji?'
'The cousin has taken the throne and been anointed as emperor. But he is a peaceable man, seeking order, not war.'
'Hu! Certainly it seems practical to him to want no more fighting now he has gained the imperial throne,' said Tuvi with one those inscrutable smiles common to the Qin when they were amused by the ironies of life.
'Maybe so. I only met his gelded brother, who seemed' — the phrase spoken with a shudder — 'determined to achieve his ends. They have an offer for the captain.'
Mai shook her head impatiently. 'An offer? Of what kind?'
'Gelded?' said Tuvi. 'Ah. He was cut. A eunuch cannot sit as emperor. Or var.'
'They don't expect-!' Mai broke off as heat rose in her face.
Atani essayed a few gurgling sounds and reached for Mai from the wrap. Priya lifted him out of the cloth, and as Mai took his comforting weight in her arms she remembered that calmness served her better than anger and fright. 'What is the offer, Keshad?'
'I don't know, verea. They sent an emissary. They sent the captain's mother. It's she who knows what they mean to offer him.'
'The captain's mother?' said Tuvi under his breath, words she would not have heard if he had not been standing close enough that his shoulder brushed hers. 'The var's sister? Is here in the Hundred? In Astafero? Hu!'
Sheyshi was staring at Kesh as if his words had hammered her, yet her gaze seemed fixed not on him but past him, as if she were seeing something else. Then her eyes flickered and she glanced at Mai and began to snivel. 'I'm scared, Mistress. What if the red hounds come?'
'Hush, Sheyshi. Tuvi, if Anji's mother has come, I must greet her. Show her honor and respect. Can she not come here to Olossi?'
The Qin were not outwardly affectionate; they did not push and prod, except when soldiers wrestled and sparred in training exercises. In Kartu Town, folk kept a physical distance appropriate to their station and degree of relationship, and even within the Mei clan Mai had witnessed few displays of physical warmth and intimacy. One of the most startling aspects of the Hundred was the degree to which people casually touched other people, of either sex, in public spaces.
So when Tuvi now touched her hand, she was shocked enough that Atani startled, his little head tilting back to look first at her and then at the chief.
'Best she stay there and you stay here until the captain returns, Mistress,' Tuvi said, but his sober expression cleared immediately and a smile softened his face as the baby squirmed and reached for him. Mai handed him over.
'She asked me if I would take you!' Keshad blurted.
