get some. We need to talk to Atiratu's mendicants.'
Shaking himself free of the mire of cursed useless thoughts, Joss followed them in. When they reached the visual privacy of the innermost chamber and its fluttering walls, Tohon delivered a brutally concise description of the desperate situation in Toskala and Nessumara and the regions along the River Istri.
Anji listened with a stillness Joss admired, and nodded when Tohon finished. 'If they consolidate power in Haldia and Istria and impress unwilling soldiers into their army, then what chance have we when — and it will be when, not if — they turn their gaze again toward Olo'osson?'
'They won't make the mistake a second time of thinking Olossi an easy target,' said Joss.
'No, they won't.' Anji walked to his low writing desk and looked down on the paper unrolled there, with lines and hatch marks sketching a map of the Hundred, although it had more blank than detail. Tohon examined it from the opposite side of the desk, arms crossed. 'People want to live at peace, undisturbed. They want to raise healthy children to adulthood, eat every day, do their work, attend their festivals. If their gods grant them fortune, they hope to live to see grandchildren and a measure of prosperity. Why should Hundred folk be any different?'
'I don't believe they are,' said Joss.
'People in the north surely hate and fear Lord Radas's army. Yet I have seen folk hate and fear the Qin, although you must not imagine the Qin behave in any way like these ones who call themselves the Star of Life. Still, if order is imposed through fear or privation, folk will in the end settle into that order, not wanting to risk more disruption, more fear, more dying.'
'What are you saying, Captain?'
Anji grabbed his riding whip off the desk and tapped the map, then traced a line from Olossi to Toskala. 'Before such deadly order is imposed and folk become accustomed to its relative peace, we must act. We have to hit them before they become too powerful.'
T agree. But we're badly outnumbered, and they have years of fighting experience and wagonloads of weapons to use against us. This will be a far harder fight even than the battle we waged here in Olossi.'
Anji drew his whip through his fingers, his gaze so sharp Joss was startled. 'Surely the new commander of the reeve halls will begin by commanding the halls to act in concert against this threat.'
Joss raised a hand, as if fending off a challenge. Anji's intensity disconcerted him; it was almost as though Anji was angry at him for something else. 'I've already begun to do so. But every hall is autonomous. Clan Hall holds a supervisory position only. So for the other halls to undertake to institute any changes I propose-'
'There's a saying among the Qin. One arrow is easily snapped in half, but bundle many arrows together and they cannot easily be broken.'
T understand that, truly I do.' He was momentarily irritated, but an outlander like Anji could not be expected to comprehend the ways of the Hundred, so Joss smiled an easy smile and tried out a more charming, soothing voice. 'I'm just telling you that the reeve halls may take some while to come around. People don't like change, especially not when they are settled in their old ways of doing things, and we in the Hundred do love our traditions. We have to be patient and work at them.'
Abruptly, the captain relaxed. 'Just as some people will flirt the same as they will breathe, having become accustomed to handling people in that manner.'
Joss grinned. T beg your pardon.'
It was difficult to tell if Anji was jesting, or if he was serious. 'It's your job to persuade them, something at which it is obvious you have plenty of practice. The question is not whether they will change, because they will have to. The question is, will they agree to do so before it is too late?'
Home. Home. Home.
Everything was as Mai had left it months ago, dusted and tidied, and alive with voices as hirelings sang and chattered in the gardens and rooms of her utterly wonderful compound in the fabulous city of Olossi. She smiled as she walked into the chamber at the heart of the complex, where she and her husband slept. Priya opened up a tiny cot, and Mai lowered the sleeping infant into its confines. Atani slept and suckled and eliminated, a placid baby, easy to care for despite his too-early birth.
'I want to see the counting rooms!' said Mai. 'And the crane room. And the rat screens — my favorite! And the gardens. So lovely! All that green!'
'You are glad to return, Mistress,' said Priya with a gentle smile.
Mai laughed, feeling giddy. 'After all those months in the Barrens, I should think so. I thought I would be forced to live there forever. Then we had to bide a month trapped in the valley after the baby was born. A beautiful place, to be sure. A perfect setting for a tale, where the handsome bandit hides his treasure, but still-'
Priya's furrowed brow caught Mai short.
'What is it, Priya?' She knelt beside the baby, but his little face remained peaceful and his eyes closed.
'The valley was a merciful place, and well guarded. A safe haven from the red hounds. But creatures live there we do not understand. Like demons, such creatures have their own desires and demands, different from our own. We are fortunate they did not trouble us more than they did.'
Mai brushed the baby's black hair. Fearing for herself was one thing, but when she looked at her vulnerable son, a new and horrible realm of terror opened an abyss before her. If anything happened to him, she would — as her long-lost and much-missed sister Ti would have said — die die die. 'Do you think it was a bad omen when they wrapped themselves around the baby? They were so bright. It's hard to imagine them as malevolent.'
'Beautiful things can cause harm as well as dull ones. Yet we had no choice but to take refuge in the valley. The Merciful One watches over the faithful. What you cannot change, let go.'
'And what you can change, grasp with both hands, neh?' With a tenuous smile, Mai rose. 'Sheyshi?'
Mai had brought three slaves with her across the desert and over the mountains. Her father had sent the big man, O'eki, to watch over her physically. Priya Mai had herself chosen off the auction block in Kartu Town many years ago; over time, she had come to rely on Priya's wisdom and affection more than that of her own mother and aunt.
Sheyshi was a different matter. A Qin general named Commander Beje had warned Anji that Anji's own uncle, who was his mother's brother and also the var — ruler — of the nomadic Qin, had agreed to deliver Anji into the hands of Anji's half brother. That half brother was the newly anointed emperor seated on the Sirniakan throne, and he intended to kill all of his living brothers and half brothers so they could not contest his right to rule. To live, Anji had to die by riding into exile, taking his retainers with him. Yet he wasn't the only one whose life had been saved by their long journey into the Hundred. Sheyshi had served khaif at the meeting between Anji and Beje. Because she had therefore overheard a conversation which could incriminate Beje in the eyes of his var, she was, being a mere slave, expendable. Mai had taken her to save her.
It seemed Sheyshi could scarcely bear to stand more than a stone's throw away from Mai, or Anji, at all anymore, as if she feared what would happen to her if she lost sight of them.
She had been kneeling just outside the door, and at Mai's call she padded in, head bowed. 'I am here, Mistress.'
'Sit with the baby, Sheyshi.'
'Yes, Mistress.' She sank down beside the cot, staring after Mai in a possessive way that made Mai uncomfortable.
Away from the chamber, Mai said to Priya, 'Do you think we should marry off Sheyshi? Maybe she would like that.'
'To a Qin husband? Have any of them expressed any interest in her?'
'Now that I think of it, they have not. Isn't that odd?'
'Maybe not, if they believe she serves you.'
They wandered through the compound to reacquaint themselves with its chambers: here, the crane room, with its painted screens showing cranes through the seasons; there, the rat room,
decorated with screens depicting rats in jackets or taloos flying kites and playing hooks-and-ropes. The outer garden was lush with flowers and late-ripening fruit. The large inner garden with its pools and gazebo lay cool and green in these last days of the rainy season. In the back court, women who were washing laundry greeted her cheerfully as she addressed each one by name. The smell of nai porridge and steaming fish rose from the kitchens.
'Priya, will you come with me to the market?'
'Best you not go today, Mistress.'
