He reined aside as the soldiers formed a barrier between the city and the crowd and waited sullenly for the camp followers to accept the inevitable and start moving off.
The sergeant hailed the captain. 'Captain Dessheyi, we found an outlander.'
The captain rode over, the horse skittish with the crowd seething so close by. 'So I see, Sergeant. Good work. I'll take him.'
'There's a reward for outlanders, Captain. If I might say so. I found him.'
'Did you? Or did some of your men roust him out, and now you take credit for it? Very well. There's a cloak at the city gates. Take him there.'
He should have run at the first sign of trouble. Now it was too late. Some called the cloaks 'Guardians,' saying they were holy guardians of justice sent to the Hundred by the gods long ago. But
Shai figured they were demons. Of the four he had encountered, one was a horrible pervert. Another had taken on the form and face of a dead slave girl Shai had once owned, and she had easily killed an entire cadre of the enemy before allowing Shai and the children he was caring for to walk free. The third had seemed harmless enough, a middle-aged man dressed in a blue cloak who talked too much. The fourth had been his dead brother Hari's ghost.
The commander of this army, Lord Radas, was one of these demons, the very man Zubaidit had been sent north to assassinate. So this was Shai's chance to be more than the least and last of seven brothers, the least and last of the Qin tailmen. This was his chance to prove himself.
'Glad it's not me has to face a cloak,' muttered Milas as the cadre marched Shai up onto the road toward Toskala. Outside the city walls, houses rose in village blocks linked by paths to the city, although the folk who lived there had fled. Every patch of ground was cultivated, rice fields, vineyards, vegetable gardens, wheat. Mulberry trees lined the irrigation ditches that crossed the area. Farther out along the Lesser Istri spread compounds like the abandoned tannery he had hidden in, anything that stank too much to be allowed within the environs of the city.
Gangs of workers tended the fields under guard by cadres from the army. Ten heavily laden wagons rolled past. A steady stream of people trudged out of the city on footpaths, more refugees to join the banished camp followers. It was a pleasant morning for walking, as long as you didn't think about the dead and dying people hanging from posts.
When their cadre reached the gate, they found a line of detainees waiting beyond the gatehouse under the supervision of bored soldiers.
'Heya!' called the sergeant, seeking out the captain in charge. 'I've got an outlander. Can I take him forward?'
This captain had a lean, watchful face and enough arrogance to make you blink. 'Get in line with the rest.'
'These lot aren't outlanders!'
'I'm pleased you can tell the difference. Everyone here has to be judged for one reason or another, so get in line. You're not the only one who's brought in an outlander. I'll call you forward in due time.'
They waited the rest of the morning. Shai measured the height
of the walls, the speed and frequency of traffic — all as Tohon had taught him — but after a while he began to think his efforts pointless. The soldiers stood, or sat, or went to relieve themselves; two mounted an expedition for food and returned some time later with a heaping bowl of noodles that they shared out between them. Shai got nothing. His stomach rumbled with hunger, but he'd endured worse and, even so, he had never suffered the abuses forced on the children he'd been held captive with for many weeks. Had Eridit and the others found Tohon? Had their party reached Nessumara safely? He murmured a prayer to the Merciful One: Shower mercy over them; protect them; grant them refuge. But he had no offering gift except the pain and fear and grief in his heart.
Clouds gave intermittent protection from the sun. It was not as steamy as it had been earlier in the year. The season was changing. Having grown up in a distant land where the round of the year was utterly predictable, he could not hope to know what this new season would bring. He considered the knife concealed within his boot and offered a brief prayer to the Merciful One: Let them not search me.
Was Lord Radas himself conducting interrogations?
'Heya!' The familiar voice jolted him. 'What are you lot doing with my slave, eh?' Zubaidit strolled up in her tight sleeveless vest, her kilt swinging with each twitch of her shapely hips.
'So you're the whore,' said the sergeant with a laugh.
'I'll thank you not to use that insulting word, Sergeant. I'm an honest merchant.'
'Taking coin for sex is not honest work,' said Milas with a sneer.
She looked him up and down until he blushed. 'Like you never paid? Just how long have you been marching with the army, ver? Or do you sharpen your tool yourself?' His comrades laughed. 'You lot scorn the Devouring temples, so I figure that gives us something in common.' A medallion in the shape of an eight-pointed star hung by a leather thong around her neck, just like the ones worn by all the soldiers. 'Can I have my slave back? I'll make it worth your while.'
The sergeant placed himself between her and Shai. 'Listen, verea. You look like a tasty morsel, that's for sure. You've got the look of a hierodule.'
'I was a hierodule, truly, until I left, because the old bitch of a
hieros kicked me out.' She was a bold woman who knew how to attract the eye, but Shai recognized the strength in her shoulders and the taut muscular grace of her legs, signs the soldiers ignored in favor of the sexual charms she flaunted to put them off their guard.
The sergeant grinned in reply. 'Well, lass, I don't like to be the one bearing bad news, but all you camp followers have been told to get out. Any one of you found within sight of the city by day's end will be cleansed.' With a jerk of his chin, he indicated the poles lining the road, an avenue of death.
Zubaidit did not even look at the suffering. 'Whew! That's cold comfort for those who served the army all this way. You lot figuring to settle in here? Else who will help you on your further campaigns?'
'Not my problem. It may be those bed warmers who have pleased the officers get dispensation to stay with the army, but I wouldn't take my chances even on that. We saw a soldier's favorite lass with a baby born of his getting, cut down by Captain Dessheyi just for being in his way. Why don't you get on, then? No cause to get yourself in trouble, eh?'
She regarded him with a quizzical look, a moment of sympathy, perhaps, or something more complicated. Then the expression vanished, and the mocking smile reappeared. 'I'll just take my slave and get out of here.'
'Neh, can't let you do that. How'd you afford a brawny lad like this, anyway?'
'He was cheap. He's dumb as an ox. That's what I call him, anyway. Ox.'
Shai took the hint. 'Mistress, I waited for you. Then they made me go. They're taking me to see some fancy cloth. I tried to wait, Mistress. Please don't whip me.'
The soldiers snickered.
Bai's smile was its own whip. 'Are you sure it's worth wasting the time of your, interrogator, Sergeant? You see what I mean.'
'There's a reward if we bring in outlanders.'
'Eiya! I thought no one cared for outlanders here. I've been trying to hire him out for the novelty of it, but he's too cursed stupid to know what to do with women, or with men, for that matter. I think he can only tup sheep.'
That got them roaring. Shai was just grateful there were no sheep around, lest they amuse themselves by suggesting he perform.
'Heya!' The captain in charge of the line beckoned. 'Sergeant! Come.'
'You can't just steal him from me like that,' objected Bai.
'Go back to your village and get yourself a respectable shop or a respectable husband,' said the sergeant in a manner meant to be kindly. 'You don't want to find yourself like that lass and her infant babe who are dead.'
Bai did not protest as they led him away. She could not. Anyway, they both knew he had to take a chance at the cloak.
At the gatehouse, coin changed hands, and the sergeant and his cadre took off, happy to be rid of him. He was shoved down a corridor and fetched up in a spacious courtyard between high walls where a horse grazed on a patch of grass. Cloth had been strung along rope to conceal one half of the courtyard. The sun's light revealed three
