uncles? You might be able to persuade them to allow me to visit her again. I have accepted she will never again be allowed to visit in our own compound, after that terrible incident. After men not of her kin saw her face-'
His expression closed. 'The Ri Amarah run their own houses by their own laws. We do not meddle with those who have treated us as guests and given us aid. That is all I have to say'
She knew that look. She had grown up in the Mei clan, where Father Mei ruled all and must be consulted in all matters except the most trivial. It was what she had expected in her own marriage. But in matters of business and marriage, Anji had let go of the reins; she was in charge, and he never meddled because he assumed she knew what she was doing and that she would do
what benefited them. It was a potent brew, going straight to the head like too much sweet cordial.
But there was a line, and on the other side of that line, he commanded.
As the baby gurgled, he smiled and lifted up Atani to dandle him. The matter was closed to him; he would not think of it any longer, but she had not that facility. She would think of Miravia and Miravia's troubles, and mourn the loss not of a friendship, for they could write one to another, but for the voice and smile and touch that had come to mean so much to her in so short a time. To lose the intimacy of their friendship was a grief so sharp it was like a wound.
'Mai?' His smile faded as he watched her.
She sealed her sorrow as in a cask and set it away beside her fear for Shai. Alive, Anji had said; not coming home.
'What other news?' she said, more brightly than she intended. 'What of the reeves? Have you heard from Marshal Joss? Reeve Miyara told me he was called away to the north.'
Anji's eyes narrowed as if he were looking into the sun. He shifted the baby more firmly into his grasp. 'From the north, the news is bad. Are you sure you wish to hear an accounting on such a pleasant day?'
T do not wish to hide from the truth, if that's what you're asking.'
'Very well, then. The news from the north.'
10
Joss shifted his seat on his pillow in the audience room of the commander's cote in Argent Hall. He'd arrived midday from the north with his thoughts in a tumult at everything he must try to accomplish. Facing the senior fawkners, he began to doubt he could change a cursed thing.
'You want to name a fawkner to act as marshal over Argent Hall so you can go be commander at Clan Hall.' Askar rubbed his grizzled chin. He was missing two fingers on his right hand, but the injury never seemed to hamper his fawkner's work, or his strong opinions. 'It can't work.'
'It's true that a fawkner has never stood as marshal,' said
Verena thoughtfully, 'but in the Tale of Fortune, an ordinand stands in for Marshal Foragerda at Horn Hall for two years while the marshal searches for her mother. And in the tale of the Swift Horse-'
'A comic tale, in which folk are ridiculed,' remarked Askar.
'It's the reeve hall that's being ridiculed, and then it turns out a hieros and his hierodules and kalos restore order in the hall when none of the reeves who stepped up to the task could manage it.'
'Are you saying you're willing to stand as marshal of Argent Hall, Verena?' Joss asked. 'You'd be a good marshal.'
'And be accused of having slept with you to get the preference? Askar would be a better choice.'
Askar yelped. 'Neh, I won't do it! I don't want the aggravation.'
Joss turned to the third fawkner, who watched with a calm gaze. 'Geddi? You're well liked. Folk confide in you.'
'Because they know he never opens his mouth to tattle their secrets!' Verena smiled affectionately at the man, who was thirteen years younger, a Violet Eagle with all that meant: honest, respectful, an especially hard worker, and known to have kept out of the quarrels and cruelties that had plagued the hall during the months of misrule by Marshal Yordenas and his cronies.
Geddi ran a hand over his close-cropped hair.
'You've a lot of friends among the younger reeves,' added Joss. 'They trust your judgment.'
'I'm not the right one,' said Geddi. 'If it's a temporary measure, Verena should do it. Everyone respects her and Askar for sticking it out in the bad years, keeping true to the eagles. Besides' — he had the grin of a man who likes wicked gossip — 'talk in the hall is not that you slept with the marshal to get preference, Rena.'
Joss flushed. The hells! They'd only slept together once, and that at Verena's instigation.
Verena's glower would have curdled milk. 'What do they say behind my back, then?'
'That you were the only one bold enough to act on what the rest were wishing for.'
Joss groaned and hid his face behind a hand.
Askar said, 'No doubt he's grinning behind there, eh?'
'And that you only bothered the one time, so maybe that sends a message to the younger women who might have thought of strutting after him otherwise.'
'Ouch,' said Joss.
Verena chuckled in the confident way mature women can have, the ones who can't be rattled. He'd seen the terrible scars on her torso; he knew how tough she was. 'Were you wondering why no one else in the hall tried to seduce you, Marshal?'
Joss rested his hand on his hands. He was vain of his looks, it was true; he took for granted that women would find him attractive.
'They're just jesting with you,' said Askar.
Joss raised his head. 'Neh, I surely deserve it. Anyway, you're all honest enough to speak your minds, a precious thing. Verena, will you take the authority of marshal?' He indicated the chamber, neatly organized by a clerk brought in from Olossi to manage the marshal's correspondence and the hall's accounts books. 'The sleeping room's a bit messy…'
Askar sighed.
Geddi snorted, laughing.
'It's nothing I asked for,' said Verena, 'nor do I want it. But I love this hall. I gave my clan three children who survived to adulthood, and now I'm free to do the work I care for most. Argent Hall is barely recovered from the rot introduced by Yordenas. We've got to heal if we want to recover our strength. We've got the training hall to oversee as well — Naya Hall must have strong leadership, too. How do you propose we manage all this?'
'If we don't unite the halls, then we'll all go down to defeat by the northern army. Do you know what happened to Horn Hall?'
'They vanished,' said Askar. 'No one has heard a word of them for over a year.'
'And what of those corrupt reeves who were here at Argent Hall, obeying Yordenas, the ones who fled we know not where?' Joss pressed his point. 'What if Lord Radas is already at work corrupting other reeves? Other halls? We have to do something different from what we were doing before — which was nothing — as the Star of Life rose to swallow so much land. All that time we ignored the changes taking place around us. Yet there comes a time when change overtakes the traveler, as it says in the tale. We can't know what may happen next. We must be ready for anything.'
He'd first heard such words from Zubaidit. At the time, he'd protested mightily. But after the events of the intervening months and the power displayed by an army commanded by cloaks
claiming to be Guardians, he had come to believe she was right. And not just because mere days ago she had kissed him in a way that still troubled his dreams and daylight hours-
'You're passionate today,' said Geddi. 'The tone you use is very persuasive, Commander. It's true the reports from Haldia and Istria and Toskala and the north are enough to scald one's ears. It's like we're living in a tale, not chanting one. Cursed uncomfortable, if you ask me. I liked it quiet the way it used to be back when I was a lad.'.
'Yet you've told me many a time how you came from a quarrelsome family!' said Verena with a laugh.
'True enough! That's why I find the eagles so restful. They're more honest than humankind. They don't take
