that reeve fly me there. If the Star of Life invades Nessumara and overruns it, then I can hope to be raped and killed and that would still be better than living in a prison with a wicked old man who abuses those he controls!'
The Hieros clapped her hands. An attendant, an older woman with a sharp gaze and a curious eye, appeared on a path shrouded by flowering plants.
'Tea,' said the Hieros, and the attendant nodded and vanished. The Hieros turned to Mai. 'Does your husband know you are here?'
'No.' Mai tucked her chin, her body remembering the lessons learned in the Mei clan, when you kept your gaze down and shoulders bowed as Father Mei or Grandmother addressed you in that scolding way. But then she remembered she was mistress of her own household. She was a good businesswoman. She had overseen the birth of a new settlement. She had blessed the marriages of more than forty local women and Qin soldiers, bonds that would carry them into the years to come, that would bind them to the land. She lifted her chin and looked the Hieros in the eye. 'He is away on militia business. I have taken this action on my own.'
'Ah.'
'I did not know who else to turn to. Can you shelter her?'
'The Ri Amarah will take me to the assizes once they know she is here. They'll demand her 'return, according to their laws, by whose measure she is still a child because not married. How old are you, Miravia?'
'I was born in the Year of the Deer.'
Her frown deepened. 'Twenty. Far too old to be called a child.' The attendant walked up the steps, set a tray on a low table, and poured three cups of steaming tea. Birds called from the trees, and a ginny lizard — maybe the same one who had nosed into the palanquin — ambled into a patch of sun and settled to its full length.
'However, few love the Ri Amarah,' added the Hieros. 'Fewer will support them in a dispute against the temples. What will Captain Anji recommend?'
Mai nodded as the old woman examined her. 'You already know. That is a magnificent length of silk, Holy One.'
The compliment drew a smile. 'A fine bolt of first quality out of Sirniaka. No one else produces such exquisite silk. Miravia, you will hand out the cups.'
Miravia took them one at a time, each one cupped in her palms, offering the first to the Hieros, settling the second in Mai's free hand, and sitting back on her heels with the third held close
to her mouth as she inhaled the scent. 'You've put in a tincture of rice-grain-flower.'
'The Ri Amarah women are known for their herbal knowledge.' The old woman sipped, and Mai sipped, and Miravia sipped and smiled her approval.
In silence, they finished drinking.
'As I said,' continued the Hieros, 'the displeasure of the Ri Amarah I can weather. They do not enter or tithe to the temples. But I am not as eager to set myself against Captain Anji. We negotiate difficult times. We are beset with creatures wearing the cloaks of Guardians who have raised an army that can be turned against us at any time, and no doubt will be if they gain control of the north, as they seem likely to do. Am I willing to offend a competent commander who may be key to our ability to withstand the storm? His ability to organize others into an effective force makes him valuable. He himself knows this. What if he were to change loyalties? To ride north and offer his services to the army in the north because we offended him here?'
'He would not!' Mai cried.
'Why not? Are you saying Qin soldiers did not conquer territory in lands far away from the Hundred? Is it not true that you grew up in a town they conquered? That you are yourself a prize for a victorious warrior?'
All the words she wanted to say — to protest that Anji would never ally himself with folk who burned and raped and killed — died in her throat. Her tongue was dry, and her hands had gotten cold.
'It's all true,' she said in a low voice, never dropping her gaze from the Hieros's fierce glare. 'Beyond the Hundred, the Qin are conquerors. You could say I am a prize taken in war. But we came here as exiles. I speak because I have done my best to find willing and honest wives for the Qin soldiers. To encourage women to marry men they might not otherwise look at because they began their lives as outlanders.'
'There's been much discussion about how you encouraged young women and Qin men to make their own choices. In this country, clans and elders arrange marriages. That is the proper way to do things. Youth is not celebrated for its wisdom. Lust is a slender reed on which to build a house. We recognize the power of the Merciless One. We do not construct homes on her body.'
'That's also how it was arranged in Kartu Town, where I grew
up. Yet it seems to me, Holy One, that people did not treat each other very well in the house where I grew up. I sold produce in the market for several years and I heard plenty about the misery folk endured in their households. Maybe people could have at the least the right to say no to an arrangement. Then maybe more would treat each other decently and fewer fall into abuse.'
'Spoken passionately, verea. And with some understanding of human nature, rare to see in one so young as you. Yet you must know, having seen the ceremony of binding, that we do not force young women to accept a marriage. She doesn't have to eat the rice.'
'There are other means of coercion.'
'Those who truly fear the arrangement made by their clans are not required to suffer. The temples can always serve as their refuge.'
Mai lifted her chin, sensing victory in those words. 'Miravia is not fortunate, she is not willing, and yet she cannot say no. Folk will say she went willingly, when the truth of her heart speaks otherwise. I believe her when she says she will suffer abuse in that house in Nessumara. If I can do something to stop it, then it is dishonorable of me not to try!'
Miravia hid tears behind a hand.
The ginny thumped its tail once, then lapsed back into stillness. A small bird with a red-feathered cap and white-tipped wings fluttered in under the pavilion roof, landed beside the tea tray, and looked them over with sharp black eyes.
'You may suffer for this act today,' said the Hieros.
'I know,' said Mai. 'But I can't do anything else.'
The old woman bent her head, as if considering whether to make one more attempt to bargain Mai down. Her hair was entirely silver except for a few strands of black. It was bound up and pinned in place by lacquered hairsticks like those Mai herself used. Once, Mai supposed, it had been luxuriantly thick hair. Now, of course, age had thinned it.
She raised her head and looked at Mai. 'Do you trust me?'
'I came to you for help, Holy One.'
'Very well. I'll help you. But she'll have to leave Olo'osson immediately. Today.'
'There is another way, Holy One,' said Miravia. She sucked in a breath as for courage and spoke again. 'I could enter the garden.'
'Mira!' Mai grasped her arm. 'You can't-'
'Not as a hierodule. No offense to you, Holy One. I have no place in the temples as an acolyte. But merely as a — a — a-' She shook off Mai's touch, not in an angry way but in the manner of a person who knows she must walk the next stretch of the road alone. 'Once I enter the garden — and do what is done there — my family can no longer marry me off.'
'You can't possibly-' Mai cried.
'No clan among the Ri Amarah would ever accept me,' said Miravia calmly. 'They will say I am no 'daughter of theirs. They will say I am dead.'
The old woman had features honed by age; in them you could see the ghost of her youth, and yet Mai could not imagine her young. 'Who are we, daughter, if we have no clan? We are a fish hooked out of the water that sustains us and left to die on the shore. Do not be so eager to embrace this form of death.'
'I do not want never to see my mother and brothers again. But it is still better than what awaits me in Nessumara. Can you imagine sending one of your own daughters into such danger?'
The Hieros smiled. 'Certain of my daughters are trained to walk into danger, and they do, and I will likely never see them again. But you are desperate, indeed, Miravia. Is this truly what you wish?'
'Doesn't anyone ever think I also might be curious? That I might want to-' She stammered. 'Don't all the tales say it brings pleasure? I see in the blush on your cheek, Mai, when you speak of Captain Anji. Why shouldn't I
