Mai drew in a shuddering breath.
'Those in desperate need of coin will do what they must to get it,' said Priya softly, still standing at her side. 'Even sell their beloved daughter to the temple of the Merciful One. We must learn to forgive and let go when we see that their hearts are trapped in despair.'
'I should never have lost control like that,' murmured Mai, afraid her voice would crack and she would start weeping. 'Said those things to him.' She sank down onto a pillow and rested her head in her hands.
'Mistress?' One of the women peered in through the open door to the porch. 'Sheyshi sent me, Mistress. The baby is awake.'
It was a relief to fuss over tiny Atani, as cranky as she was herself until he latched on and nursed. She dozed off as he suckled, and started awake when Priya gently disengaged the baby from her breast and burped him. Mai settled him in a sling, and she and Priya lit lamps in the altar room. An image of the Merciful One gazed kindly on them, one hand upraised to signify awakening and the other cupped at the belly to signify comfort. One of the kitchen women hurried in carrying a mass of flowers, their fragrance filling the room.
'Mistress, I knew you would want an offering,' she said, bringing forward the bouquet. 'We got these at the market before it closed.'
'Why, Utara, I thank you! Will you make the offering?' As the words left her mouth, she winced. Had she overstepped?
But the hireling smiled, color rising. 'I would do so gladly.'
Trembling, she placed the flowers on the offering platter as Priya began the prayers.
T offer these flowers at the feet of the Merciful One. Through the merit of offering may I walk the path of awakening. The color and fragrance of flowers fade, so does the body wither and disintegrate. Receive this with compassion.'
Other members of the household gathered, some murmuring the responses and others watching, rather like the infant, whose eyes were open, taking everything in.
The short evening service, and her nap, restored Mai somewhat.
'I'll work in the office,' she said.
'Do you want me to take the baby, Mistress?' asked Sheyshi eagerly.
'No. I'll shift him to my other hip. As long as he is quiet, I can work.'
Priya attended her, guards at each door, while around them the compound grew quiet as the rest of the household settled to sleep. Mai set a sheet of rice paper on the writing table and practiced her brushstrokes.
'Better,' said Priya with a smile.
'How do I write out the prayers?' Mai asked. 'Maybe that would help my mind grow quiet. Anji is always out on militia business. I know he's good about sending me word. I don't expect anything else. And truly I am grateful to be in Olossi again. Yet what if he decides it's too much of a risk. No one can control every least goat track! I'll end up living in a stone tower, trapped within high walls!'
'You are troubled indeed, Mistress.'
'Thinking ofpoor Miravia makes me weep.'
Priya said nothing. Lamp flames hissed.
'She must have been desperate.'
Priya took her hand, meaning to comfort.
Mai clung to her. 'But she's no different from me, is she? When Anji made it clear he wanted me, my father could not have said no to a Qin officer. At least he bargained hard to get a high price for me! That shows he cared!'
'We cannot know under what constraints the Ri Amarah labor. They are still seen as outlanders despite living in this land for a hundred years or more.'
'It's just I thought maybe because the women of her people do all their accounting, and seem to whisper of some kind of magic that causes them to know all kinds of things, like Atani would be a boy, that it would be different for their daughters. Was it any different for you, Priya? Sold to the temple in your own land, and then taken away over the mountains by raiders to be a slave in a strange country? Isn't Master Isar right? That I can ignore all these things because I have always been petted and made a favorite?'
She shook off Priya's hand and crossed to the drawer of maps. She opened the third drawer, that contained an incomplete map of the Hundred.
Anji spent considerable time working on his maps. He had
engaged the services of a draftsman out of the temple of Ilu, because the envoys of Ilu were messengers who, in more peaceful times, walked everywhere. The temples possessed maps, so it was said, but they guarded their knowledge jealously.
Anji did not let that stop him.
The map was limned in loving detail in the regions he had himself traversed, and she supposed she could trace his travels over the last year. Farther afield lay regions marked in traceries of charcoal pencil, ready to be erased and redrawn if necessary. The map had the look of a thing still in motion, as if it needed simply a strong hand to set the brushstrokes that would confine it.
Here was south, here north, here east, and here west, roads and rivers laid as lacework across the land. Here stood the crossroads city of Toskala along the River Istri, and downstream on a delta at the sea lay Nessumara, where they would take Miravia and confine her in a house from which she could never after set foot in the world beyond without her husband's permission. All ordered and tidy, lines drawn on a map.
'It's late, Mistress,' said Priya quietly.
The baby smacked his lips, stirring restlessly as his infant thoughts turned to hunger.
'Of course. I am tired.'
They went back to her chambers, and she nursed the baby and Sheyshi brought water for her to wash and rolled out the pallet and unfolded the bedding. The slaves went to their own pallets; Mai snuffed the lamp flame and lay down on the pallet with Atani tucked in beside her, his soft breaths like a flame on her heart. She had no name for what she felt for him. It wasn't any emotion she had known before.
He breathed. She slept.
'Mistress.'
She startled up, but Atani slept peacefully. A hand touched her shoulder. A flame flickered in the darkness.
'Priya! What is it?'
'Mistress, come. Sheyshi, stay with the baby.'
Mai wrapped a taloos around her body, tucking it in loosely as she followed Priya and her lamp. In the courtyard outside, a dawn-chat pipped. Because Priya said nothing, Mai remained silent. Chief Tuvi met them on the porch, fully dressed.
'Mistress, come,' he said in a low voice.
Her heart plunged. Had they news of Anji? Terrible news? But
Tuvi led her into the office where the warehouse door stood open into the utter darkness of the building beyond.
A figure concealed beneath a long hooded cloak the color of twilight stood in the doorway, half in and half out as if unsure of its welcome. In this warm country, folk wore short cloaks to protect against the rain, and only the envoys of Ilu wore long traveling cloaks like this one. Or that demon girl who had ridden into this very house and killed two Qin soldiers with her demon's magic.
Mai had learned in the market how to turn a bland face to any situation. Never let them know what your real price is, or how desperate you are.
'Who are you?' she asked in her coolest voice.
The figure tipped back its hood to reveal a face that Mai stared at, at first unable to recognize one she did not expect to see standing so boldly like any ordinary person in the door of her residence.
The figure spoke.
'Mai. I've run away.'
By wearing no veil in a public room with others looking on, Miravia made plain her determination to break utterly from her family. She dropped to her knees and raised her hands, as might a supplicant begging for her life or a desperate woman come to pray at an altar.
