'I — l-'
'Eh? Eh?' They mocked him, his flushed face, his trembling hands, his ragged breathing. 'Are those honey- sesame cakes?' They ripped the cakes from his grasp and ate them.
'I need to see the sergent for Stone Quarter. There were some orphans given over to the temple I was meant to take possession of, but because of the curfew I couldn't get out to leash them in until today-'
'Slave takers, too,' said Shorter, and all at once Nekkar realized the young man had a debt scar scored into his face, by his left eye. 'Cursed temples take our labor and work us and then discard us. How I hate them!' Like lightning, he backhanded Nekkar so hard across the face the ostiary stumbled to his knees on the street, so much pain he couldn't stand at first even as they shoved and then
punched and then kicked him until he staggered up half blinded by tears.
'I need to see the sergeant.' His voice sounded like that young child's, scoured raw.
They hauled him to the inn after all, punctuating the long walk with a running commentary about what the sergeant would do to him, fingers broken, eyes gouged out, toes cut off, cleansed on the pole. They were enjoying the conversation because they knew he could do nothing to stop their chatter. Their talk was like a winding chain, winching them tight and tighter.
The inn was empty but for three young women serving ale to ten off-duty soldiers. His pair traded jests with their comrades before prodding him upstairs. There he waited in the corridor, pain jabbing in his ribs. After a while, another man, soberly dressed and moving as slowly as if he were recovering from a severe beating, invited him into a long chamber overlooking the square.
The sergeant seated in the chamber had a lass to pour his wine, a couch to lounge on, and a pair of writing desks set against the wall where two shaven-headed clerks hunched over accounts books. As Nekkar entered they glanced up and looked down at once, as if expecting to be hit.
The sergeant had a knife in one hand, coring an apple. 'What trouble are you causing? Be quick about it.'
If he talked fast, he didn't have to imagine what it would feel like to be hanged on the pole.
'Sergeant, I'm Nekkar, ostiary at the Ilu temple here in Stone Quarter. Three orphans were consigned to my care some days ago, and I've only just now been able to collect them. But your soldiers took them away. So if I can just fetch them from wherever they've been hauled off to, then I'll take them off your hands and the temple will provide-'
'They're probably being taken to the brickyards.'
'The brickyards!'
'We've a fair lot of building to do. Fire damage to fix. Defensive walls to reinforce. Small hands can work in the brickyards.'
'They're very young, the smallest not more than four-'
'I'm done with this conversation. You know, ostiary, I might well send soldiers by your temple if I've need of your novices' labor. Best you take care of your own, and be careful you don't displease me further. Indeed, I'll thank you to come by every
morning after second bell and give me a report on Stone Quarter's doings. Now, get out!' He popped a slice of apple into his mouth, then offered one to the lass, who glanced at the ostiary before she took it and devoured it.
He was shaking. 'Sergeant, if I may-'
The sergeant whistled, and the two soldiers entered the room, their grins fading as they took in the sergeant's grim frown. 'Get this cursed ostiary out of my sight. But don't be beating on him, you gods-rotted fools!'
They were strong with youth's surety. They marched him through streets emptying of traffic as the fourth bell tolled the curfew hour, although the laborers working on the army's projects would hammer and haul until dusk. They shoved him to the closed gates of the temple, and waited until the watch let him in past the growling dogs.
He shut the door in their faces. It was all he could do.
'Holy One?' asked the envoy on watch, looking worried. The novices came to the porch of the learning hall, staring but saying nothing. 'Shall we haul water for a bath?'
He shook his head roughly. 'I'll haul the water myself.'
So he did, each bucket spilling into the bronze tub along with his tears.
And when he poured the last bucketful in, the water splashed, rippled, lapped, and stilled to become a mirror. His own filthy, bruised face stared up at him, the ordinary face of a man who has done his duty and lived as decently as he could manage according to the precepts of the gods. No special craft, no exceptional skills, no particular ambition.
'I will fight,' he said to his reflection, to his hidden spirit, perhaps, or to the gods. 'Let me be a messenger, as befits my calling. Let me be an envoy, to carry resolve where it is needed. There must be a way to defeat them. We must find a way.'
PART THREE
Demands
9
Twenty-five days ago, Mai had taken refuge in a valley entirely wild, its soil untrammeled by human feet and its bounty unhar-vested by human hands, a place so high and isolated in the mountains it could only be reached only by eagles. Here, in a cave behind a waterfall, she had given birth to a son.
At dawn on the day called Resting Ibex, Atani's hungry fussing woke her. She nursed him from the comfort of her sleeping mat. She slept under a framework of poles raised two steps off the earth with canvas hung for walls and roof. A second structure housed the reeves and hirelings and guards brought in to assure the baby's comfort and safety. Their stores of rice and grain rested in a storehouse raised on stilts.
After Atani's demands were satisfied, she tucked the infant in a sling, slipped into her sandals, and stepped out. Sprawling jabi bushes fenced in the clearing; the stream burbling down from the waterfall higher up in the vale chased into the trees beyond. She greeted the sentries and, with them pacing behind her, followed a track downstream beside trees whose branches drooped, so heavily laden were they with sunfruit and mamey and mango.
The mountain escarpment rose on three sides, all bold peaks and daring angles. On the fourth side, the stream that welled out of the sacred pool upstream spilled over a rocky ledge at the edge of a mighty cliff overlooking a wilderness of rugged foothills. In the right light at the right time of day, rainbows glittered in the spray below, and if the last gasping breath of a high-mountain storm sprinkled out of the Spires from the heights behind you, you might see rainbows above and below.
Surely the Merciful One favored this place. From this vista a person might hope to see into the future, or recall the past.
How long ago had Mai been carried away from her family and childhood in Kartu Town by the Qin captain and his troop? One year? Two? It seemed like half her life ago. Far more had happened to her in that short span of time than in the seventeen years previous: she had been married off to a man she did not know, had embarked on a long overland journey, had sealed a merchant's bargain on which her life and fortune and that of many
others depended, had made a dear friend, had supervised the building and expansion of a settlement, had survived battles and assassins, and borne her first child.
'Mistress?'
She turned. 'Greetings of the day, Priya. I'm coming.'
Together, she and her attendants walked back to the clearing and onward up a path twisting through the foliage toward the heights. Mai carried whatever small offering took her fancy. This morning she plucked a bouquet of red-and-yellow fall-of-joy with its swoony scent. Each morning more attendants followed, most no doubt out of
