'The wildings have never before involved themselves in human quarrels. Why should they start now?'
'If they don't wish to, they can let me go and go back to guarding their boundaries! Maybe that will protect them for now. But in the end, it's like hiding your eyes while the sand of the desert engulfs you. That you refuse to look doesn't drive away the storm.'
All at once he was seized by such frustration that he feared he would leap off the netting just to relieve the pressure. He groped in the pouch Sis had woven for him, and withdrew a small block of deadwood, caressing it and listening to what it told him. Its glossy grain shimmered in the tapers' light. He unsheathed his knife and began to carve, revealing a horse's muzzle as the conclave watched in a kind of silence. They weren't voicing sounds, but they were speaking with their hands in the most ancient language of the Hundred, the one he did not know.
'How old are you, Holy One?' he asked. 'You look older than the cloak of Night. Is she also one of the first — the true — Guardians?'
'How can she be, if I am the last of the true Guardians?'
'She told me she was responsible for the greatest act of justice known in the Hundred.' He shaved down the slope of a long, elegant neck. 'I may only be an outlander, who knows the tales poorly, but isn't the tale of the Guardians the most important tale sung in the Hundred?'
'According to humans.'
'It's humans I've walked among, demon that I am. And in the tale of the Guardians, isn't it the orphaned girl who prays for peace to return to the land? Isn't she the one the gods listened to?'
The tapers illuminated the Guardian's aged face and bitter smile. '' In the times to come the most beloved among the guardians will betray her companions.' Only we did not realize then, that those of us first raised as Guardians would not remain Guardians forever. That some would grow weary and ask to be released, that one might become corrupt and need to be removed. That new faces — new guardians — would rise wrapped in the cloaks. And when she whose pleas the gods heard and responded
to became a Guardian in her turn — for did she not offer her life for the sake of justice? — how could any of us have supposed she was the one who would in the end betray us?'
'Night is that girl? The very orphaned girl from the tale?'
Wind rattled in the branches. The wildings listened intently, as if by listening they spun yet more detail onto the map of the Hundred, the unfolding tale of the land. The cloak of Earth did not speak, and for the first time Shai felt pity for her, because although she was veiled to him, as he was veiled to her, her expression spoke as any face might: it seemed to him that it was an inconsolable grief mixed with furious regret that stilled her tongue. To be betrayed by the one we have loved best is the worst pain.
'There's a way to kill her and the others, isn't there?' he asked softly as an elaborate fold of feathered wings came to life beneath his knife. 'To take their cloak and pass it to a new person. Not the Guardian council, five to remove one, but a different way. A way no one is supposed to know.'
A sigh fell like wind through the wildings.
'Tell me what it is,' said Shai, 'and then maybe I — or others like me — can stop these cloaks from killing demons and innocents. And if that's what the wildings want, that demons no longer get killed, then perhaps in exchange they'll tell you what you need to know, about a haven for your people.'
She bowed her head. Many among the wilding conclave flicked their ears, but whether to show approval or hostility he could not tell.
Without looking at him, speaking into the darkness and the silent stars, she said, 'There is a way.'
21
Mai bided her time and made her plans, and early in the Month of the Horse when Anji returned flushed with pride over a successful negotiation with the lendings for breeding stock, she struck.
'I would have liked to travel to the Lend with you, Anji,' she said in the privacy of their innermost courtyard as she poured tea and flirted with him. He was freshly bathed, wearing a silk robe and soft slippers and lounging on pillows. 'I am shocked beyond measure that you bargained such a poor deal.'
'You mean when their headwoman offered ten horses in exchange for Tohon, I should have taken the horses?'
She laughed. 'Did that really happen?'
'They remembered and valued him from their last encounter. But you would have approved. I said ten mares wasn't nearly enough, and they wouldn't go any higher.'
'I suppose you did as well as you could. I would have held out for one horse in exchange for each lethra of oil of nay a.'
'No doubt you would have. I knew I was overmatched the moment she started negotiations by offering for Tohon.'
'Then why didn't you take me? You've taken me on a circuit of Olo'osson now.'
'I control Olo'osson. I cannot take my troops into the Lend without violating border rights, and I will not risk you and Atani out in such territory with no proper protection. I do not know what manner of creatures the lendings are.'
'Except that they value men like Tohon.'
'Yes. It was better to pay a worse price and not take the risk that they would value you*
He was in a good mood. The sun was shining over blooming troughs of gold butter-bright and blue heaven's- kiss; her favorite white and blue falling-water tumbled out of pots hung from the eaves of the little gazebo under whose shade they rested.
'It's almost around again to Wakened Ox. Time for our monthly trip to Astafero.'
'You are eager to see Miravia,' he said, humoring her.
'I have been thinking, Anji.' She sipped at her tea, composing herself. 'Since our circuit of Olo'osson back in the Ibex and Fox Months, I've been in correspondence with many village and town councils. I attend Olossi's council meetings every week. The question that most troubles people is the situation in the north. Naturally people fear the Star of Life army will return to Olo'osson.'
He nodded.
'But the question of the assizes also troubles people. Two generations ago the Guardians presided over the assizes-'
'So folk say. Whether the tales are true, we cannot know.'
'The Lantern's hierophants have shown me records held in Sapanasu's temple recording assizes a hundred and more years ago. They were presided over by Guardians.'
'Or folk calling themselves Guardians, pretending to a tradition
they believed was inherited from even more ancient times. Maybe it's true; maybe it isn't.'
'Yes, exactly,' she said, more tartly than she meant to, 'but they believe it, and they are not content with the manner in which their assizes are now conducted. Should reeves preside, or are they only meant to patrol and bring in people accused of committing crimes? Should councils preside, or may they be disposed to judge according to what benefits those with the most wealth and power?'
He set down the cup, his expression as smooth as the balmy sky, untroubled by cloud or wind. The cool weather of the early dry season was passing off and it was getting hotter each day heading into the last season of the year, Furnace Sky.
'Where are you going with this, Mai?'
She went on in her market voice. 'We have seen Uncle Hari twice, the first time in the Fox Month and last month as well. I am encouraged that he has not fled. But he is restless and discontented-'
'So demons must be, because of their essential nature.'
'What folk in the Hundred call a demon and what you call a demon is not the same thing.'
'You may call a demon any other name you wish, but it is still a demon.'
'That is not what I meant.' She rapped him lightly on the back of the hand, a piece of flirtatious scolding that made him smile and twine his fingers between hers. 'Be serious, Anji. Please listen to me. I would say Hari despises himself. No one should have to live with such despair eating away inside them. Especially not my beloved Uncle
