brought as much radiance into the chamber as a hundred lamps. Shai could not help himself; he began to cry.
The baby spoke up in a piercingly sweet voice: 'Dada! Dada!' He reached; he yearned.
Anji strode across the chamber and engulfed the baby, showering his black hair and dusky face with butterfly kisses that made the little lad chortle as he tried to purse his tiny lips in imitation. Priya looked away, bowing her head.
The Hieros watched, sipped her tea, and set down her cup. 'So, Commander Anji, do you suppose you and your son can ever hope to live in peace? That you'll be safe from those who might wish to kill you?'.‹
Anji glanced up, tucking the child into the curve of his left arm. 'I rely on your support.'
'And you have it, because I, too, have people I wish to protect.' The Hieros's smile did not reassure, but it possessed the pinch of finality. She looked at the Qin princess and received from her a nod no less final. An agreement incubated, hatched, and thrived in that wordless exchange between two women who knew how to order the domains they ruled. 'I am a weary and elderly woman. This trouble has harmed the Hundred grievously. We are not ready to fight another war while this one is not yet ended and the empire in the meantime shrugs a shoulder our way, wondering what mosk has stung its ear. Let it be stated, therefore, that we are allies.'
'Let it be said,' agreed Anji. 'I have every respect for you, Holy One. I will work in concert with you and the temples. We seek the same goals.'
'I suppose we do. Now, I am finished here for today.' She rose with light grace to her feet, needing no aid, and paused by the door to look at Tohon.
'My apologies, Holy One,' Tohon said regretfully. 'I'm not at leisure at this time.'
She nodded with careful neutrality, or rueful resignation. The doors slid shut behind her.
'Well, Mother,' said Anji, 'now you have what you want.'
'Yes.'
'Everything except my affection. Which you will never have.'
She twitched out of the hands of a hovering slave a square of cloth so lushly embroidered with fine silver thread that it glittered. After patting her forehead, she handed it back and sat straight, tucking her feet sideways under her, her skirts heaped in ravines and ridges around her.
T do not need your affection, Anjihosh. I only need you to survive. That is my victory. You will marry the emperor's sister to placate him. I have dulled the knives of the Hieros and her spies and assassins, and will mock into submission those on the council who voice doubts about any aspect of your enterprise. The rest you are already on your way to accomplishing. The Hundred is a fine inheritance for your son, don't you think?'
'Why would the emperor's sister allow Mai's son to live, after she bears a son of my siring?'
'Because I will command it done that way. Let Atani be her son, Anji. Let him call her 'Mother.' She is a biddable creature, and desperate to please. Let her bear daughters in plenty to dote on, and I will rid you of any inconvenient sons who might trouble the waters, for you and I can both see that Atani will shine brighter than any of them possibly could. There, it is settled.'
Anji was, Shai saw, on the edge of tears. He was trembling. The baby, looking worried, patted his father's mouth.
With an effort of will that seemed to actually reverberate through the room as a lute's string vibrates, the more powerful for its lack of sound, Anji reined himself in. He buried the tears. He kissed the baby's palms, first one, then the other.
He said, 'It is settled.'
Tohon grunted, as though he'd been punched in the gut.
Carrying the boy, Anji turned his back on his mother and walked out of the chamber. Shai scrambled up to follow Tuvi and Tohon through the courtyard and into empty chambers furnished with nothing but the barest comforts, absent any of the wild, artful abandon with which Mai would have filled a house. Where were the taloos- wrapped rats flying kites, the first screen she had purchased in Olossi's market just because it had delighted her so? All trace of her was gone.
All except the baby.
Anji came to rest in the chamber with the three chests. He turned to Tuvi. 'We'll fly at dawn to Merciful Valley,' he said. He looked at Shai. 'Not you, I think.'
'Not me? Is there yet more you have to hide? Did you conspire with your mother to have Mai killed, and now fear I will speak to her ghost and she tell me the truth? Can it be true you have just told your mother that you'll marry the woman she killed Mai to force you to marry? I don't believe you wanted Mai dead. I think you loved her, as much as you can love anything. And even so — can it be true? — you'll allow the baby to grow up thinking your new wife is his mother, as if Mai never existed?'
'Anjihosh,' said Tuvi in his hands-on-the-reins voice.
Anji had walked beyond anger. Indeed, Shai thought, he had walked beyond shame. He had walked beyond honor. He knew what he wanted and he knew how to get it; the ghost of another man, a man he might have been, faded behind him.
'It matters not,' Anji said. 'It's done. It's over.'
Tohon said softly, 'A man can be waylaid by demons wearing many guises. Maybe they cloak him with a lust for flesh or for gold, or with vanity or a lack of discipline or the scourge of disloyalty. Or maybe they cloak him with unchecked ambition. A good woman is a man's knife. She protects him against demons. And if he loses her, and does not honor her memory properly, I suppose he risks becoming a demon himself.'
After the silence died to something more stifling, Anji spoke. 'Are you finished, Tohon?'
'I am, Commander. I've said what I felt needed saying.'
'Then you're dismissed.'
'Yes, Commander. I suppose I am. Are you coming with me, Shai?'
Anji held the baby, the last piece of Mai existing on earth. The baby who would never know who his true mother was.
'I want to see where Mai was killed,' said Shai raggedly. 'That's all.'
'Very well,' said Anji. 'That much I will offer you, for her sake.'
So it was done. It was over.
The reeve flight, rising into the steep foothills over which towered the gods-touched mountains, left Shai speechless, not that words had ever come easily. Six reeves deposited six travelers in the valley midmorning and departed immediately, promising to return in the afternoon, as Anji requested.
Merciful Valley was aptly named. Its beauty softened grief, if grief can be softened by anything except time. A mist of cool rain
kissed the trees and sang a lullaby over the grass, herald to weather brewing within the peaks.
In addition to a contingent of Qin guards stationed in the valley, two people remained here. One Shai vaguely remembered, an impetuous and irritating young man named Keshad who ignored Shai while he attempted to ingratiate himself to Anji while casting dagger glances at Chief Tuvi, although why anyone could dislike Tuvi, Shai could not figure. Tuvi was a decent man, solid, honest, and loyal.
The other inhabitant of the valley was kinder, a young woman whose grief for Mai was a comfort to Shai. In the humble audience chamber of the two room shelter, she offered hot bark tea to suit the chill in the air.
'The soldiers say you pray every day, Miravia,' said Anji after he had handed the baby over to her. She kissed Atani's hair and unhooked the baubles hanging from her ears so he could clutch them in his chubby little hands.
'It's our tradition, among my people. After the death of a beloved relative, we pray each day for one year.'
'To ease their passage to the other side, or to ease your own heart?' he asked between sips of steaming tea.
'Does it matter?' She wiped away tears.
Anji cast a sidelong glance at Keshad. 'Miravia, I would be grateful if you would honor Mai's memory by remaining here for the entire year and praying each day. It would ease my grief, to know you watched by the place she died. I would remain here, but I'm called away. The campaign continues.'
'Of course, Commander Anjihosh!' she cried.
'Keshad, I understand your sister has returned alive to the temple. Which means you are free to go.'
'I heard,' he said, with a grimace of relief that then shaded into irritation. 'And also that she is staying as a
