loose pantaloons — who were striding out from the settlement. 'What new fields?'
'It'll be ten years before we've really got irrigation enough to feed ourselves, but at the festival we harrowed five fields. Rice will be planted with the rains. Then we'll see how those irrigation channels work, eh? I tell you, best thing I done was to come out here and establish a branch clan of carters. I had my doubts, with the militia running things, but Mistress Mai made sure we have our own council.'
'Was there any doubt you would not have your own council?'
'With all these soldiers, we might just have been run as part of the army, neh? Not that I resent them, mind you. Two years ago I thought my clan was done for. We had no work. The roads weren't safe. Now, we're prospering.'
The Sirniakans were gaining, obviously in pursuit. Keshad swung his legs to the side and leaped off the slow-moving wagon. 'Go ahead. Just one more load.'
The man turned. 'I don't trust those Sirniakans, I don't mind saying. The Qin, they're all right, but those others — Aui! Very odd birds, if you ask me.'
'I'll head them off. I don't want them to know where we store the oil of naya, neh?'
He and the carter exchanged a friendly nod as the wagon moved on. Keshad waited on the road, cursed sure they were after him. They reached him at last, faces slick with sweat.
'Master Keshad?' asked the one holding the ebony baton that Keshad recognized as the symbol of the man's authority as a slave factor.
'I am Master Keshad. What do you require?'
'Your attendance, Master.'
The prospect of being summoned to an interview with Anji's mother did not please him. He retained a visceral memory of Anji's hand clutching his throat; indeed, he could not stop himself from touching his throat with a hand. But he'd accomplished the task set him by the captain, so there was no use delaying the inevitable.
Unlike the carter and the laborers with whom he had worked all day, the Sirniakan slaves did not speak as they walked to the settlement gates and up along the market avenue. As night fell, the market arcades were shuttered. From behind curtains and closed compound doors lifted conversation, laughter, song; an argument; a baby's squall. A dog barked to mark their passage. Up they walked past a newly built Lantern's accounting house. The council square had been expanded to include the stone walls originally built to house Kotaru's temple, which had been re-dedicated in a larger space outside the settlement walls near the militia camp. A wooden gate with three lintels marked the domain of Ilu the Herald; it had not changed except for the addition of a thatched open shelter with cots where passing envoys could sleep. A flat boulder so deeply sunk in the earth that no one had bothered to excavate it offered a resting place for Hasibal, the Formless One; and in the fading light Kesh saw fresh offerings of flowers laid in a pattern that abruptly reminded him of the offerings Mai and her people made at the altar dedicated to their god, the Merciful One.
The two slaves climbed the steps and passed into the outer audience chamber without removing their outdoor shoes, but Kesh stopped and took off his boots.
'Hurry!' snapped the factor.
It was remarkably easy to channel his anger into overly polite words. 'It's not our way to enter our homes shod in dirt, ver. Our mat makers pride themselves on their fine work. Why should we trample it as if it were no better than the street?'
He set his boots aside and ran a hand over his hair before entering behind the impatient factor. They crossed the matted floor on a trail smeared with dust tracked in from outside. The factor paused by the far doors and rang a hand bell. A door was slid opened; Kesh entered alone. Four low couches in the Sirniakan style had been placed in a square, a table set between them.
'Master Keshad.' Anji's mother reclined on one couch. 'Sit down.'
He sat opposite and rested his hands on his thighs. Female voices whispered and giggled from behind curtains strung across one side of the room. Where slits parted, he glimpsed eyes, or cheeks, or gauzy veils stitched with shimmering thread.
'The ladies admire your beauty, Master Keshad. They're commenting on it.'
'I beg your pardon, exalted lady,' he said as more giggles assaulted him. His cheeks burned. With the force of will that had gotten him through twelve years of slavery, he refused to look again toward the curtains. 'Your words startled me.'
'Are you not commonly praised for your beauty?'
'No, exalted lady.' He was unable to find a posture that did not make him uncomfortable. 'Why have you summoned me?'
But he could already guess.
'We traveled a long road together, Master Keshad. I will therefore presume upon our acquaintance to forego the usual pleasantries and formal words and strike directly to the heart of the matter. I made an offer to you many days ago. What is your answer?'
There was more than one way to make trouble!
'I hope you will forgive my blunt speaking, exalted lady.'
'I expect an honest answer.'
The gods-rotted women hiding behind their cursed curtain were still whispering, the sound as irritating as the whine of a disaffected customer who has gotten the worse of the bargaining session through their own hapless negotiation.
'I must decline your most generous offer. I cannot take the captain's wife off your hands. I do not want to marry her.'
'You need not marry her. You can take her as a concubine.'
'I am hesitant to correct your observations, exalted lady, but believe me when I say she is a rich woman who is well respected among the councils of this region.'
'She is very young!'
'Nevertheless. Most people credit her with convincing your son to fight the army that attacked Olossi last year. Also, the Olossi city council considers itself beholden to her for making it possible for them to overthrow the houses who railed the council for many years solely to enrich themselves and their allies. Also, it seems she's been instrumental in supporting local councils and in creating a regional council in Olo'osson so all folk can have their voices heard.'
She said nothing.
'And, to be blunter, exalted lady, your son will never allow another man to take her from him.'
'I can direct my son.'
'You can?'
'You doubt me?'
Keshad smoothed the fabric of his loose trousers over his legs, taking courage in the fine weave and reed green color; these were the best quality clothes he had ever owned. Yet her garb — the silk; the embroidery of gold thread; the headdress plated with gold rings and medallions — was as far above his rich merchant's fittings as his were above that of a beggar's tattered loincloth.
'I do not doubt you, exalted lady. But I must still decline your offer.'
'You have given up on the other one? She's a clever girl, if reckless and possibly even inclined to disrespect. However, her accounting skills are good, she knows herbcraft, and she can even read and write. These are skills not to be scorned.'
'I will win her over in my own time and in my own way.'
'You can have two wives.'
This was like talking to Zubaidit when she got going! 'Exalted lady, please listen to my words. It is not what I want.'
'But it is what I want. I can make it worth your while. Name your price.'
Goaded, he laughed. 'Exalted lady, your son will kill me if he ever learns that I — or I suppose any man — has… well… Mai-' Aui! He was blushing. 'Do you think he cannot?'
'I see.' She might have been a statue examined from a distance,
remote and unknowable. She clapped her hands three times, and a slave emerged from behind a curtain carrying a small sack, no bigger than a melon, in both hands. The slave offered the sack to Kesh.
