that, you have to pay house prices.'
'The militia tithe? What manner of tax is that?'
His smile softened, as if he'd just figured out she was as stupid as she was pretty. 'So the army and the reeves can patrol, make sure we're not burned out of our villages, killed in our beds. I'm happy to feed them, seeing how peaceful things are now.'
The young men sauntered up, swaggering with nervous bravado. 'Velin here says he's seen you before, verea,' said the one courageous enough to speak first. 'He says he's sure he saw you in Olossi that one time he went there for festival. Aren't you one of Hasibal's players? They take in outlander slaves, sometimes, and train them up. Hard to see how a man could forget a face like yours. I'm Noresh, by the way. We'd be happy to buy you a cup, eh?'
She knew how to smile to make a man feel she regretted the necessity of discouraging his advances. 'My apologies, ver. I'm on a mission with these reeves. Nothing I can speak of.'
That impressed them. Out of misplaced pity, a scab she kept picking at, she told the innkeeper to pour them each a cup and handed over a few vey. They wandered away, flushed and whispering at their triumph, and kept glancing her way as they lingered over their cups as if to drag out the ecstasy. A woman brought out her lute and began accompanying herself on songs, the folk joining in on the chorus and the hand gestures. The music flowed so sweetly; thoughts might wander down these bright tuneful paths and let go of the shadows.
Until the woman began a new song, one whose response was answered raggedly by folk still Eagerly learning it: how the outlander had saved them and been rewarded with the love of a young woman as beautiful as plum blossoms shimmering dew-laden at dawn, only to have her stolen away from him by a jealous lilu.
Mai, choked and unable to breathe evenly, excused herself and returned to the tiny room. Miravia followed her and lay down beside her on the pallet they would share for the night.
'Mai…'
'Neh, it's nothing. Nothing I understand. He betrayed me.'
'He loved you!'
'Maybe he did, but now I wonder if this would have happened in the end no matter what? Demons stole me! That's one way to put it. But there's another story, a truer tale, isn't there? We sing the songs, and hear the tales, hoping they will have a happy ending — the bandit prince falls in love with the brickmaker's daughter and they live forever after in harmony — or at least a sat-isfyingly gruesome one in which everyone dies, but that is why they are tales, isn't it? Forever after in harmony, as long as I always did what Anji approved of. And then, when I did not…' She touched her cheek, the one he'd slapped.
'Folk do get angry with each other, Mai. Kesh can be so
irritating, but I love him despite it, because of it, including it. If people can never be angry, then isn't that a way of lying?'
Mai smiled, remembering how she had thrown a cup at Anji, which he'd caught. Then she wept, and Miravia held her.
People travel onward by stages. Seven months is a stage, a chasm whose loss cannot be recovered, only bridged.
Late on the third afternoon they found shelter in an outpost atop a hill, a way fort overlooking the major road across Istria called the Flats. A cadre of soldiers was.stationed in tent barracks set on raised plank floors. Their commander was a Qin officer attended by four Qin tailmen whom Mai did not recognize and who did not recognize her. The soldiers recognized Kesh's partnership with Miravia, and deemed Miyara too bored with their youth to flirt with, but Mai and Ildiya they marked as fair game despite Siras's obvious jealousy.
'Enough!' said Miyara finally after yet another tray of cordial had been brought and hopefully presented to the young women. 'Have you louts no manners? We'd like to eat in peace.'
'Neh, I was finished,' said Mai, for the sweat and rowdy clamor and the presence of Qin soldiers made her stomach knot and her eyes fill with tears. Every man, even the local ones, wore a black tabard and his hair bound up in a topknot. 'I'll just walk outside.'
Kesh jerked as if he'd been kicked. 'Ow!' he cried, flashing an indignant look at Miravia. She nodded toward Mai. 'Ah. Well. I'll just walk out with you, verea. Keep you company. Guard you in case there are wolves prowling.'
Every man there, even the Qin, watched them leave the eating porch, and avid gazes tracked them out along the ridge. They reached a platform sited for an excellent view of the road running below, the distant crown of Mount Aua to the west, and a nearer view of an oddly shaped ridge, slightly higher in elevation than their own, cut by a ledge whose stony surface glittered as the setting sun caught its length at just the right angle.
'I wish you would call me 'Mai,'' she said as she leaned on the railing, the wind battering against the clasps and sticks with which she armored her hair. 'Miravia is my dearest friend. Maybe she is my only friend. Even Miyara can't tell me what has happened to Priya and O'eki, only that they went away with Anji. I hate to be called 'verea' by you, as though we're acquaintances in the market. I'm very angry she married you, but surely I can still think of you as my brother.' She wiped a tear.
'Eiya! Why are you crying?'
'Just missing my twin.'
'You have a twin). One as beautiful as you?'
She shot him a glance, and he blushed horribly, looking mortified, and she laughed for the first time since she had woken. 'I have a twin, a brother. Maybe he grew into his looks. I hope so.' Poor Mei. Always hounded by Grandmother and Father Mei and their mother and aunt. He was no silkworm to wind a cushion of silk to protect himself. He was a fragile leaf, subject to their storms. How was he faring? Could she send him a message across the vast distance, let her family know that she was alive? Would the family ever know the full story of what had happened to Hari?
'Did you ever look in the pool, Keshad? Did you ever see the chains?'
'What chains?'
'Never mind. Did Shai truly say nothing to you, that time he came up with Anji a month after-' She rubbed a hand over her vest, feeling the scar tissue along her ribs. 'After Sheyshi stabbed me?'
'He never talked to me at all, arid I admit I didn't talk to him. I was too cursed worried that Ravia would take it into her head to tell Chief Tuvi she would marry him, out of loyalty to you. So I didn't pay much attention to his troubles.'
She rested a hand on his forearm, and he was so startled he jerked it away, then flushed again, and settled his arm back beside hers on the railing as if within the reach of a particularly fearsome snake, and endured her fingers resting lightly on his hand.
'You do love Miravia, don't you?' she asked.
He looked irritated. Then he flung back his head as the sun winked hard on that distant ledge. 'I just remembered. The captain and his men brought three small jeweler's chests bound with chains. But they left without them. I thought they were offerings for the altar. He sent up flowers every month, plum blossoms if he could get them. But that doesn't explain why he left those good quality chests behind, does it? Indeed, they emptied a clothes chest from the barracks shelter and took it away with them, although I never knew — nor asked — what was in it, I was that glad to see them go without taking Ravia with them.'
She changed the subject, stumbling over a momentary awkwardness by falling back on the one subject she never tired of. 'Tell me
again, how was the baby that last time you saw him, when Anji came to take him away?'
He had the same smile any Hundred man would have, thinking of a plump, healthy child. 'An exceptionally beautiful child. He has such a chortling laugh, like everything amuses him! Very good natured.'
Four soldiers tramped up behind them, laughing in a quite different way, shoving each other and showing off, making themselves big and noticeable as they crowded against the railing two on each side.
'Heya, verea! Like the view, eh?'
'It's a very fine view of the road. I suppose you keep an eye on travelers and caravans. Make sure no one comes to harm.'
'We do oversee the roads, of course.' They were young men, desperate to boast. 'But that's not the chief reason we're here. We're black wolves, you know.'
'Black wolves?'
