heavenly blue. The officers laughed indulgently, and the baby looked all around the table, smiling at
their attention, his little face very bright, and so as they ate he was passed from lap to lap, gurgling and babbling and being coaxed to try first another drop of soup or a lick of barsh or a bit of sweetened porridge or a flake of tender fish. Anji asked no more questions of Keshad. When they had eaten their fill he walked out to the porch with Tuvi while the officers dandled the baby. Keshad remained standing motionless, brooding, in his corner. Captain and chief consulted while Mai gathered up the platters and bowls and spoons and piled them neatly on trays. She called in Sheyshi, waiting right outside, to take them away.
'Sheyshi,' said Anji, coming back in with the chief at his heels. 'Call the other hirelings to take the trays. You may take charge of Atani, although I think his uncles wish to spoil him for a while longer this evening.'
The uncles had the ability to chatter on right past this transparent speech. Keshad smirked, and even Sheyshi's gaze flashed from Mai to Anji and back to Mai. Heat scalded Mai's cheeks as she pretended she was rising of her own accord to walk to her husband. Anji hooked her elbow; with a grasp of iron. Without a single word of parting he walked her out of the dining chamber and through rooms to the private chamber where none dared follow.
She shook her arm out of his grip. 'I feel shamed! You summoned me just like a — a-'
He slapped the door shut behind them, swept her off the floor, and deposited her on the mattress, dropping down beside her.
'I have seen death,' he murmured. 'My death. Your death. Atani's. Any of us. As long as we live at the mercy of the cloaks who hold power over us, we are vulnerable. Mai.' His voice scraped as though, like his face, it had been damaged, but it was only emotion that made it raw.
She gazed up, not that she could see him in the darkness, only the weight and shadow of him. So much of him she knew through physical touch, not through sight. She tasted tonight a quality in him she did not recognize, and yet his need — at this moment rough, aroused and desperate — was familiar to her. It called to her own, rising in part because she had missed him and in part because his sharp desire flattered her.
She captured his hands between her own. 'How did you hurt yourself?'
'That is not a tale for this night, plum blossom. All in the
course of battle. It will heal.' He lowered his weight onto her and kissed her throat, her jaw, her lips; his breathing quickened. 'I'm afraid of what it means, that your mother has come.' 'Not for this night, my heart,' he whispered. 'Tomorrow is time enough to face what will come.' His voice took an edge, command rather than request. 'Hush.'
She knew then, right then, because it was betrayed by his tone and by the way he impatiently began to tug at her clothing and pull at his own quite heedlessly — he, who never hurried, who was always in control — that he too was afraid.
Kesh was a merchant, and he knew better than to cede any bargaining advantage by showing too much eagerness too early in the process. So he waited through the interminable meal while the captain — quite uncharacteristically — looked ready to devour his wife right there in front of everyone and finally hauled her off while the officers pretended not to notice. Talk about poor market tactics!
The cursed baby did entertain the soldiers, it was true; for such a ruthless pack of wolves, they were as soft as porridge when it came to the child. The baby was very handsome and astonishingly good-natured, as long as he was the center of attention and being held, fed, pampered, and feted. Hard not to be content when your every need was fulfilled at the least hint of displeasure. He was a great deal like his father, Kesh decided; it was easy for Captain Anji to be so calm and even-tempered when the truth was everyone always did everything he wanted. Kesh had heard a rumor in the market that the captain had beaten his wife in public when he'd discovered her coming out of the temple of the Merciless One, and while folk in the market had argued whether such a scene was likely to have happened or ridiculous even to contemplate, Kesh believed it. Outlanders had peculiar ideas about what could be owned; he'd seen enough appalling behavior in the south to believe anything of them now.
So the trick was to figure out how to direct the captain's cosseted temper and Mai's resentment to his advantage, to win Miravia.
That Miravia remembered him, had bothered to learn his name, had given him hope. That she had scorned his kindness by refusing his aid troubled him. He could not interpret such behavior. He was accustomed to women who openly said what they wanted, or did not want.
'Keshad!' Chief Tuvi's voice cracked over him.
The hirelings were snuffing the lamps. While he had stood there brooding, the dining chamber had cleared, the officers had dispersed with their weapons and gear, and he'd been left like a lackwit in the shadows.
'We'll be departing early. Make sure you're ready.'
Kesh furiously watched the man amble out of the chamber holding the last lamp, leaving Kesh in the cursed darkness. Did the chief wish to marry Miravia? Was he counting on Mai's support for his suit? Would Miravia choose loyalty to Mai over the impassioned pleading of one sorry man?
Aui! He had so little time to convince her he was worthy of her, although compared to Chief Tuvi he brought nothing to a marriage except his undying devotion. He'd stood on the auction block; he'd clutched his little sister to his side, devoted to her as well, but that devotion had not spared Zubaidit from being sold to the Merciless One's temple while he'd been dragged off to serve as a slave in Master Feden's household for twelve long years. Devotion was not porridge. You could not survive on it.
The compound was a large one, easily sleeping a hundred or more people. Kesh had been allotted a pallet in the warehouse along with two grooms and a man who swept and cleaned, but after persistent complaints about their snoring and farting, he had finally been given permission to install himself, his accounts book, and his coin chest in the counting room, like a night watchman. O'eki, Mai, and Chief Tuvi held the locks to the compound's wealth and accounts books; Kesh just rolled out a thin mattress at night and slept with his small coin chest as close beside him as he might one day hope to embrace a loving wife.
He retired there now, with a single lamp to accompany him. He knew to a vey how much he possessed, but he counted it again anyway. Two hundred and nine leya, and two cheyt. It was a substantial sum for a young man only one year removed from the debt slavery that had eaten his youth. Was it enough to set up as a merchant, rent rooms, feed the children that would result from their bed…
He wiped his brow, thinking of the way the captain had stared at his wife all through dinner. Whew! Arousal stirred in his body. Thinking of Miravia, he could not think. The thought of touching her was like a delirium. He sat with his hands caught in the strings of coin and tried to calm his breathing, but it was no good. He shut his eyes.
Voices yanked him awake from a slumped doze over the open chest. He banged down the lid just as the door to the counting room was opened from within the compound. Toughid came in first, a small chest hanging off his back like a quiver. He placed himself between Kesh and the captain, who entered with Chiefs Tuvi and Deze.
Anji wore an elaborate robe of best-quality green silk embroidered with sea creatures emerging from white silk thread wavelets. Kesh had never seen him without his hair neatly packed away in the Qin topknot; tonight it was merely tied back with a ribbon, hanging down his back. His hair was as thick and black and lovely as his wife's, and almost as long.
Kesh was as suddenly uncomfortable as if he had walked into the captain's private sleeping chamber to find him in bed with his wife.
'So,' said Anji to Kesh, with his men looking on like executioners, 'my mother has offered to give you my wife.'
Anji was not armed, but the other three were; indeed, they looked as if they had slept in their clothes, if they had slept at all. Kesh had certainly not mentioned the matter, but his stupidity in blurting out the truth to Mai when they had been arguing over Miravia had tramped back to trip him up. Unless he could think very quickly indeed. Timidity would win him nothing now.
'Your mother insists you deserve a wife worthy of your consequence, as a man of elevated birth,' Kesh said. 'Son and brother of emperors, grandson and nephew of vars. That's what the Qin call their rulers, is it not? I suppose among you outlanders, who are eager to make such distinctions among families, you might care about such things. Here in the Hundred, of course, a person's suitability is measured by clan connections and the individual's own skills.'
'You do not deny the offer was made?' asked Anji so easily that Kesh felt the knife already at his throat, although no one touched him.
