Ushara's temple had not even a proper entrance court, just a high wall of rocks. The outer gates were canvas, and a youth sat cross-legged on a rough approximation of a rock bench illuminated by a lamp hanging from a tripod.
'Haven't seen you before,' the youth said to Keshad in the rude way kalos and hierodules often had, as if the goddess chose them for their impertinent speaking. 'We don't have a proper Heart Garden yet. Just so you know, the Hieros has come to detest you folk complaining about how things aren't so very nice out here.'
'You're grumpy this evening. Did I offend you somehow?'
The youth grinned. 'The Hieros has only been here for one month. You can't believe the things we've heard. Folk should be grateful we've been able to set up at all.'
'Why is that?'
'Eh, the captain didn't want the the temple here at all when the verea was in residence. There was a rumor he's afraid the mistress will come find some pleasure while he's out fighting, but that can't be true. What man would begrudge his wife a little sex if he's off traveling all the time?'
'He's an outlander. They have different customs.'
'Aui! Hard to believe. Anyway, the new Astafero council voted to establish a temple, so the Hieros in Olossi sent a kalos to stand as hieros.'
'Can I go in?'
'The devouring urge is eating you badly, isn't it? Anyway, I know who you are.'
'How can you know who I am?'
The youth grinned maddeningly and waved him inside as several Qin soldiers strolled up. Kesh pushed past the canvas entrance to avoid speaking to them. An elderly woman sat on one of a chain of rocks set up as benches in a square of ground that would perhaps one day harbor a garden with flowering shrubs and troughs of blooming yellow-bells or stardrops. Torches bound to iron posts flared.
'Don't you have pretty eyes?' she said wickedly. 'If only I were younger.'
Instead of gates, they had hung canvas to either side, these painted with the proper colors although in such dim illumination it was impossible to distinguish gold from silver except by the pattern: a round disk to mark the gold and a crescent to mark the silver.
At the entrance, the Qin soldiers were laughing at something the obnoxious gatekeeper had said, as jovial as you please in that calm way they had of never finding offense. He suddenly recalled the chief who had offered to take the Sirniakin palace concubine as a wife rather than see her killed. Would he have made the woman a good husband? Would he, like Anji, have threatened to kill a young man who had no designs on his wife purely for the unfortunate accident of having been made an offer for that wife he had no intention of accepting?
'No one will bite you,' the elderly woman said with a laugh. 'Unless that's how you like it.'
He hurried to the men's side and rang the bell. The Qin soldiers came into the Heart Garden, but the old woman engaged them in conversation and like all the Qin they had very polite manners and therefore listened and responded dutifully as Kesh shifted, wondering how the hells long it was going to take and what if Miravia was already here waiting for him?
Away in town, the sixth bell rang its pattern, closing the day.
A young man twitched the curtain aside and looked Kesh up and down. He grinned in a friendly way, whistled sharply, then beckoned. They had done their best with the dusty environs. There was a cistern and a bathing tub, and several screens set back in the shadows for more private ablutions. Where normally a garden would sprawl with winding paths and hidden glades and ornamented private alcoves leading through the grounds to buildings set up in the back for those who preferred more traditional comforts, they'd thrown up a maze of canvas hanging from ropes strung between posts. It had a certain rustic charm.
Four women strolled out to look him over, one with a very sexy smile who was too old for him, one with a playful grin who seemed too young, and a pair more or less his own age, one thin and one plump.
The kalos draped an arm companionably over the shoulders of the youngest. 'Good eyes,' he said to the young one, who was perhaps seventeen, 'but he won't be interested in you, dearest. Nor in you, grandmother,' he added, with a grin at the older woman.
She said, sardonically, 'Nor in you, peaches.'
'I'm here to meet someone,' interrupted Kesh.
They all laughed, but it was the kalos who replied. 'You want to meet a lover, go find some dusty ravine for your assignation, like that idiot debt slave who got accused of stealing sheep when they were just trying to keep out of sight of her husband. The temple does not facilitate secret meetings.'
'But she said to meet me here…' He trailed off, hearing how ridiculous he sounded.
The plump one looked bored by his evident idiocy and wandered off to twitch aside the curtain and peer through to look at the Qin laughing in the Heart Garden at the elderly woman's jokes.
'Which means she was telling you that she's not interested.'
'But-'
'Aren't we always sure, when we're infatuated, that our interest is returned?' Was that pity in his gaze? Were these cursed people feeling sorry for him?
He grasped as at rice straw. 'Maybe she doesn't know the laws. She's an outlander — not an outlander, precisely, a Silv — that is, she was but not now-' He' stumbled to a halt, wondering if it was too late to save himself from utter humiliation.
Their expressions changed. Even the plump woman hurried back, having caught the end of this staggering speech.
'Oh!'
'Well!'
'You didn't say you were talking about Miravia!'
The hells! They looked sidelong at each other, sharing smiles. The plump one brushed a finger over her rosy lips. The kalos waggled his eyebrows as he shared a meaningful glance with the thin one. The older woman flashed that startlingly sexy smile again.
'You know her?' demanded Kesh.
'She comes to worship just like anyone,' said the kalos appreciatively, 'not that it's any business of yours. And not that it changes the law.'
'It's possible she doesn't know,' said the plump one, as if it mattered to her to help Miravia in any way she could. 'He might be the one she was talking about. Those beautiful eyes. Not that it makes any difference.'
'You'll have to go, ver,' said the kalos sadly.
Kesh sure as the hells wasn't going to walk out of here without
seeing Miravia unless it happened she had deliberately sent him on a fireling chase — the kind where you could not hope to catch what you were after — and he was cursed sure that a woman who stared at him the way she had stared at him was not pretending.
'Here, now,' he said, the words flooding out as a scheme took shape in his mind. Zubaidit had nagged him months ago, and he had ignored her then. 'I was sold into slavery at the age of twelve. My master never allowed me to serve my apprenticeship year even though it goes against the law to deny any youth that year. I want to serve as a kalos. Starting tonight.'
A bell rang at the entrance.
The kalos grabbed Kesh by the elbow. 'The Qin won't be wanting me. You and I are going to see the Hieros.' As the hierodules admitted the Qin soldiers, the kalos tugged Kesh back into the Heart Garden.
'Trouble?' asked the elderly woman with an arched eyebrow.
'He says Miravia told him to meet her here for an assignation.'
'I thought so,''said the woman, clucking her tongue. 'It was the eyes.'
'Does everyone know Miravia's business?' he cried.
'She could have been a hierodule and served the Merciless One,' said the woman with a chuckle that made him flush, 'but she says she cannot take an apprenticeship because of her hidden god.'
'This one says he wants to take an apprenticeship so he can serve Miravia!' laughed the kalos.
'Aui! The Hieros will sort this out.'
The kalos led them through the canvas hanging — painted white — that sealed away the inner courtyard from whence the Hieros guided the temple. Behind the gate lay a featureless square of dirt faced on one side by a long
