'Got a problem here, Captain? The hostages are forbidden from congregating around the supply wagons. They're all gods-rotted thieves.'
'There's no problem,' said Arras.
After looking over the young woman and her mute companion, the soldiers walked on up the line of wagons.
She gestured after them. 'So we are at your command, Captain Arras.'
'There's one thing,' he added, stepping up close enough to let his muscle speak. 'Don't ever mock me.'
She didn't shift at all. 'I don't mock, Captain. I'll tell you straight to your face what I think of you.'
He liked a dangerous, confident woman who wasn't afraid of him, and he was cursed curious about so young a woman married into a humble mat-making clan, come so far from her own people's home. What gave some folk that sense of confidence? Discipline. Training. And a more intangible quality, gifted to them from the gods.
Later, after he'd detached twenty-six hostages of her choosing from the cohort to which they'd been assigned, he went to speak to the quartermaster in charge of the provisions wagons. It was well into night by this time, but the quartermaster was still awake, supervising six clerks working by lamplight as they
administered the flow of provisions and supplies into companies refitting in preparation for the fall of Nessumara in four days.
'How can I help you, Captain?' the woman asked, looking him up and down to let him know she found him attractive. She was full-figured, about his age, competent and confident, but although he appreciated her interest, he could only think about Zubaidit. Aui! Where's there an itch, you must scratch. He could not tell if, like Nessumara, Zubaidit had already fallen and was just holding out for a few more days to prepare the ground properly, or if he'd have to endure a longer campaign.
'Captain?'
'A favor, if you will. You've records for the poultry wagons?'
'I do.' Clearly, she was the kind who kept accurate records. 'I've taken my day count earlier. I do another count at dawn, and then allocate birds according to those companies that have reached their week's turn for a meat ration. I can't change your company's ration, if that's what you're after.'
'I'm just curious. Any chance you could do another count?'
'Now?'
'Now.'
Sure enough, the count came up one cage short, a cage pilfered from the middle wagons, well away from the rear of the line where he'd been kept busy. Thoughtful, he strolled back to camp under a cloudless sky, swatting away the bugs, whistling under his breath. The stars shone like jewels cast across the heavens, as it said in the tale. He carried a lamp to guide his feet. One did need a lamp. It was so easy to stumble.
He grinned.
He had soldiers to drill, to make ready for Wakened Ox, because they would need rigid discipline even if all went smoothly, as such things rarely did. That first, then. He was a patient man. After the fall of Nessumara, he would have plenty of time to unravel the mystery of his hostage. One task at a time.
A whisper of wind stirred the air as a shadow passed over him. A horse, wings spread so wide they blotted out a length of sky, galloped low, dropping to earth. The cloak of the rider billowed behind, and Arras ducked without meaning to, feeling as if the sweep of that rider's eyes was a spear-thrust that caught him in the back. Fear ripped away the strength of his legs, and he dropped to his knees, panting.
How angry would Lord Twilight be when he returned to discover that Night had captured the outlander Arras had been tasked to protect? What if Lord Radas questioned him and chose to punish him for disobedience, even though he'd only been obeying Twilight's orders? How was an ordinary man to balance walking this edge, when it was not even his choice to do so?
He picked himself up, wiped off his knees. The day of Wakened Ox could not dawn soon enough. After Nessumara fell, he would ask to be sent forward with his cohort into the next assault of the campaign. Battle was a cursed sight simpler to deal with than Guardians.
Somehow, Joss could not be rid of folk speaking of Zubaidit. Late that afternoon he reclined on pillows in the pavilion of Ushara's temple as the Hieros poured rice wine into cups and with her own hands offered one to Joss and one to Tohon. The old woman and the two men sat alone under a roof wreathed with harvest flowers from jabi bushes. The scent was overwhelmed by the tart aroma of tsi berries being cooked down as they were every year in this season. A pair of older women — like Captain Anji's personal guards — hovered within sight but out of earshot, and there was a lad lurking in the bushes.
'Strange,' the Hieros was saying, indicating two ginny lizards who had crawled up onto the pavilion floor and were sizing up Joss with mouths gapped to show teeth. 'I'm not sure they like you, Commander.'
'Aren't those the pair that traveled with Zubaidit?' asked Tohon.
The old woman terrified Joss, but the smile she turned on Tohon would have melted a block of ice. She'd been stunning in her youth, no doubt of it, and was still handsome in the way of women who have kept their vigor along with fine bone structure.
'So they are. Most folk can't tell the difference, but ginnies are as unlike as any one person is from the next. What news of my hierodule, Tohon?'
The scout packed information into a comprehensive review of all he had said and done and seen. 'If you don't mind my asking,
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Holy One,' he finished, 'do you think we can buy horses from the lendings? They had good breeding stock.'
'It would be difficult. They never come out of the Lend, and we do not enter for fear of falling afoul of their boundaries. I'm surprised you made it out.'
'The lendings took our horses,' said Tohon with a laugh.
The Hieros sipped thoughtfully. She was so different a person seen in this light that Joss was amazed. Like this particular rice wine, she had a pleasing disposition, slightly sweet and markedly elegant. 'If you are serious, you'd best inquire at Atiratu's temple. The mendicants sworn to the Lady of Beasts journey out that way seeking various medicinal plants that grow only in the Lend. They know how to make an arrangement with the tribes.'
'What of Zubaidit?' asked Joss impatiently as the conversation wandered away from the subject that interested him most. 'Can she and Shai possibly succeed?'
'She will do as she must,' said the Hieros coolly, unmoved by his passionate words. 'As you did, in agreeing to stand as commander over the reeve halls, a position I believe you did not seek nor are eager to assume.'
'True-spoken.'
'Yet you will do as you must. So tell me, are you come today to embrace the Merciless One?'
The hells! Was she trying to get him out of the way? 'I'm feeling restless, it's true.'
Tohon smiled sweetly at him.
Joss laughed, half shocked to realize the two of them were clearly intending to sleep together.
The Hieros gestured, and the lad dashed out from under cover of the dense vegetation. 'Take the commander to the Heart Garden,' she said to the boy.
Joss went obediently, while Tohon remained behind.
T remember you,' said the lad. 'I've never seen Bai go after a man the way she did you.'
'What's your name? Have we met?'
He had a sly grin, a real troublemaker. 'I'm called Kass.' But his expression drew taut as he sighed. 'Will we ever see her again?'
Joss didn't know whether he braced himself or the youth with the pointlessly optimistic words that emerged from his lips. 'If anyone can succeed, she can.'
They crossed through white gates into the Heart Garden,
where men and women were seated on benches among the flowers. Here folk would linger before being called to enter the gates, but Kass led him straight to the gold gate and tugged on a rope that jangled a bell on the
