That was Hari's voice!
She jumped up, but Anji stopped her from rushing outside. He indicated the baby. At first, she did not understand his intent; then she did.
'Uncle Hari, is that you?' she called as she unwound the cloth and transferred the infant to his father with a quick kiss to his unclouded forehead. Anji took him firmly, protectively. Mai hurried outside.
A man stood in the shadow of the cliff looking exactly like her beloved Uncle Hari except for his weary expression and the terrible cloak draped around him, worse than chains for being of such a beautiful weave. She looked him straight in the eye, and the
tumult of her own thoughts and worries spilled so fast and hard that she stumbled as though she had been slapped.
'He hit you!' Hari cried. 'Just as your father used to-'
'No, it's nothing like that.'
Hari withdrew his reaching hand as if he were poison. 'Tell me he treats you well.'
She found her footing and walked over to the wicker chest. 'I am perfectly well! There was a day's misunderstanding, it's true, but you must not think — I am my own.mistress, here. I am Anji's wife, of course, but I am not only that.' She fumbled with the cords, fixing her gaze on this task so she would not look at his troubled eyes. Why was her heart racing so? What was she afraid of? 'Sit with me, Uncle Hari. I'll brew tea. There's a fire pit here that we became accustomed to using. Here is kindling and a flint.'
Abruptly, she understood her fear, and tears began to fall. 'I was so afraid you would not be here!'
Blessed be the, holy one for the mercy of simple tasks, for it was possible to lay ct fire and get it burning while you wept.
He sank down on the wall, riot close enough to touch. 'Where else am I welcome, Mai? You are the only home I have.'
She wiped her running nose with the back of a hand. 'Look at me! Just like Ti, a spouting teakettle, neh?'
'Do you miss Kartu Town?' he asked softly.
Everything she needed was in the chest: a tripod to angle over the fire from which to hang the little kettle in which to boil water, bowls to drink from, a straining spoon, the tea leaves blended by Miravia from different varieties. She need only dip water from the sparkling cold pool where its last ripples lapped the rocks.
'I miss Ti. And Mei — my twin! How it pains me I will never see him again! But no, Uncle. I don't miss Kartu Town. If I never went back there I would be sorry not to see my brother and sister-cousin, whom I love, but otherwise I am content here.' She looked up, feeling he needed the reassurance of seeing that she spoke the truth. Yet this time there was a gentle sweetness in the exchange, as if her openness lessened the assault of his gaze. Maybe it was fear that hurt you most; maybe those who caused the most pain to others sought that fear and fed on it.
His smile faded as he looked away. 'You have always had the gift of being content, Mai. It is a more precious treasure than gold or silk.'
She fussed with the kettle, the firewood, the straining spoon,
but in the end she must speak the question she most needed an answer to.
'Have you decided anything, Uncle?' At his ominous silence, she hurried on. 'You need decide nothing, of course. You can just rest here. Tell me of your day. Or of some beautiful place in the Hundred you have seen. Or we can talk of anything you wish — the tea, if you like, or the weather, or this fine silk I am wearing, for I will have you know that I have more silk now than we ever had in the Mei clan, so much I must force my hirelings to wear it to their festivals since there is no real purpose in hoarding silk if you do not mean to display its beauty!'
On she chattered, just as she had learned to do selling produce in the market, setting people at ease. It was no easy thing to sit for hours in the market, on slow days and busy days and all the days in between. Folk did love to talk, and talking did pass the time, and for those who were too shy or weary or beset by cares to have anything to say, talking made them feel welcome despite their silence.
She poured hot water and watched it darken as the leaves steeped.
'Did you come alone?' he asked.
His words surprised her. She had thought the cloaks could sense people with their third eye and second heart. 'No, Anji came with me. He is praying at the altar.' She called, 'Anji! Here is tea.'
He emerged from the cave, his expression carefully polite. The two men eyed each other warily as Anji sat.
'Where is Shai?' Hari asked abruptly, watching Anji. 'Has there been news of him?'
Mai looked away.
'Your news is the last news we have had of him,' said Anji. 'I will come to you with such news as soon as I have it. If I know where to find you.'
Hari's wicked smile flashed, but there was a sharpness Mai recognized as bitterness. 'So am I trapped here, waiting to hear.'
Mai handed him a cup of hot tea, and he blew on the steaming liquid to cool it.
'Do you know what I miss most?' he added. 'Companions. I am alone because I have been created to be alone. I cannot drink and gossip and boast with friends as I was accustomed to do. I am forever cut off from casual intercourse with people. So naturally that is what I miss more than anything.'
His tone made her heart twist with pity. 'You always have a home with us, Uncle.'
Hari studied Anji, who had loosened the baby's wrap to soothe him as Atani started up with a mild fuss. 'Tell me, Captain Anji, did you marry my beloved niece Mai merely for her beauty? Or did you know what a treasure you had found?'
Anji met his gaze squarely with a polite smile that told nothing and hid everything. 'Naturally any answer I give within the hearing of my wife will have to be cut out of a cloth that will satisfy her. Let me just say she was bold enough to overcharge me at the market while all the other merchants fell over themselves to give away their wares. I admired her for that as much as I certainly admired her beauty. Will that answer content you, Uncle Hari?'
'I suppose it must. For like Shai, you are veiled to me.'
Anji hoisted the baby to rest on his shoulder, never shifting his own gaze from Hari's. 'There are many ways to judge the intent of those you face.',
Hari laughed as he violently flung the dregs of the tea bowl to the earth. 'Maybe I was just never a careful observer. It is easy to grow accustomed to living off one's glib tongue and pleasant manners. A young man may be reckless because he wants to impress his friends and in doing so overlook every good warning telling him not to act in such a rash way. Then he may find himself an exile, caught in a cage not of his own devising. Were you ever like that, Captain? Reckless? Rash? Leaping in with both feet onto ground you'd not measured beforehand?'
Anji glanced at Mai and slid the quieting Atani into the crook of his elbow, rocking him gently. 'No,' he said calmly, T don't suppose I ever was like that.'
'Uncle, I know we don't go to drink at the altars because the other cloaks might be walking the labyrinth, and then they would know where we are. But the horses go. What will happen to us if we don't drink?'
For several weeks Jothinin and Kirit had been running sweeps in widening circles out from the altar known as Crags, high in the mountain range called Heaven's Ridge that stretched along the northwestern reaches of the Hundred. Earlier in the day they had made camp at the edge of a pine grove in an isolated mountain valley, its grass not yet whitened by the dry season cold, and released the horses.
'If we don't drink, we age. Very slowly, it's true.' He wrapped his cloak more tightly, shivering, although she seemed unaware of the chill wind cutting through their clothes. 'When I awakened, I was a rather younger man than you see me now. I traded my youth to hide from my enemies.'
'I don't like hiding.' Kirit fed sticks into the fire with the intense concentration with which she approached every task, her serious face rarely smiling and yet never quite frowning. 'Did the people who were grazing sheep here this morning see us coming and run away?'
'How can you know people were grazing sheep here this morning?'
'Uncle! If you look at the sheep droppings, they're still-'
'I need no description! I grew up in the city. I don't know sheep except to eat lamb on festival days.'
'You'd be warmer if you wore wool clothing.'
