It took some effort to force the first set of disputants to present themselves before a cloaked man with his outlander face and ominous Guardian's eyes.
A flock of sheep had been deliberately stampeded, and several lost. The man who owned the flock said those who had scared the beasts had stolen them. Not so, said the accused young debt slave, although he blushed and stammered as he spoke. He'd done no such thing; he'd been out walking and only fallen into the way of the scattering sheep and tried his best to round them up as a courtesy, only to be accused of theft!
Hari scratched his chin, looking — Mai thought — surprised as he examined each witness in turn. He indicated the men who owned the flock. 'You believe the sheep were deliberately stampeded, that is true enough, you do believe it. You lost five of your flock, and that is also true. Maybe it is true the flock was deliberately set upon by people bent on mischief and maybe it is not, but there are no witnesses, so we can't know. However, this young man's story is also true.'
'Then what was he doing out there, a debt slave like him?' demanded one of the owners.
Hari laughed. 'What do you suppose a young man like that was doing, out away from town? The same thing I would have been doing at his age, had a lass as lively as the one he's thinking of made the same offer to me!'
As men smirked and women chortled, the owners blundered on indignantly. 'But then why didn't he say-?'
There were a hundred reasons folk might not say: maybe she was married already; or she was ashamed of her lust for a lowly debt slave; or he was skiving off work and avoiding a beating. Aui! Who could blame a young man for doing what the young liked to do, eh?
'But what about our missing sheep?'
Hari's expression made Mai, who knew him so well, want to snort with laughter. 'Can it be you have only taken up sheep-herding this year? No wonder! You need to hire an experienced drover, ver. Someone who knows sheep. I admit it will cut into your profit, but until you understand the ways of sheep you will find yourself in trouble again and again. I speak as a man who knows sheep. Is there another case?'
Indeed, there was. Underweight strings of vey were being passed off in the marketplace, but no one knew where they had come from. Hari surveyed the crowd with seeming absentminded-ness as one merchant after the next approached to display the string they'd been shorted. He stopped a woman in midsentence with a raised hand, his gaze fastening on a face half hidden in the crowd. His eyes narrowed. Folk murmured anxiously.
'They're coming from the same people who are weighting their wheat flour with chalk dust,' he said.
His words were answered by a flurry of sharp movement in the crowd as a man and woman tried to bolt. No one had suspected. They'd thought the flat bread tasted gritty because everything tasted of grit here. Anyhow, most folk were accustomed to nai porridge and rice, coming from waterfed lands; the drylands wheat and millet were a new taste. What punishment was to be meted out for such a crime?
Hari looked right at Mai, and she needed no second heart and third eye to see the plea in his expression. She broke in. 'Olossi's market has a code for such violations that we may follow until Astafero codifies its own market laws. Surely it is the Guardian's business to determine the truth, and the council's business to determine the fine.'
Hari's tense posture relaxed. Folk agreed that she had the right of it. The sun set over the mountains. A pair of youths lit lamps, the oil of naya so pure it blazed. The light shimmered in the twilight glamor of Hari's long cloak, whose fabric blended into the fall of night and yet caught the final fading measures of day. The way he sat so still quieted the assembly; they were nervous, but
not precisely fearful. They watched him, but did not cower. His mouth wore a lopsided smile that was also half a frown.
He said, 'What of this other matter that concerns you, Mistress Behara?'
The words startled the noodle seller, but she rose to address Guardian and assembly both. A gang of youths trying to extort protection money had been caught by the militia and now there was a dispute over what punishment should be meted out. The lads were hauled up before Hari, where they stammered out defiant declarations of innocence.
Hari made a cutting gesture with a hand that stopped them short. 'Don't lie to me!' The young men wept as Hari's gaze staked them. Frown deepening, he released them and spoke to the assembly. 'You have a more serious problem. These louts are an advance force from a criminal organization that was driven out of Haldia by the war. It's trying to move its operations into Olossi.'
Folk gave way to let Anji through to the front. 'I beg your permission to deal with this matter personally,' he said to the council. 'That such organizations operate in Olo'osson is not acceptable. I'll take custody of these men. With the help of the Hieros and her agents in Olossi, we'll track this back to its source and put an end to it.'
The council looked to Hari, but Hari shrugged. 'I've determined the truth. It's up to you to determine the fine.' He rose abruptly. The assembly rose hastily, touching hands to foreheads as a gesture of respect. 'I am done for this day.'
He strode to his waiting horse, his cloak blending with the fall of night.
'Holy One,' called the hierophant after him. 'Will you preside again over our assizes?'
He half turned back with a smile as sweet as honey cakes. He beckoned, and Mai hesitated, sure he should not be singling her out, but she could not refuse him or the look that suffused him. She paced out the distance between them, not wanting to seem intimate with a holy Guardian who all presumed she did not and could not already know. Before she could speak to scold him for calling her, he was already talking, words tumbling.
'Is this really what the Guardians used to do?'
'So it says in the tales, Holy One.'
He put a hand to his head as if reeling from a blow. 'They lied to me. They've twisted and stained all of it, haven't they? It's not
corrupt and ugly at all. Difficult, maybe. Unpleasant at times I am sure. But it's not at all what I expected-' He swallowed, and blinked hard. 'I need time to think.'
'No one will find you in the valley. Only we know you are there.'
'I might do something useful for once, after all the useless idiocy I've had a hand in.' He flashed a smile that warmed her, then turned away, mounted the horse, and rode into the twilight. Behind, folk broke into such a flood of talk and exclamation that it drowned her. Voices began a song:
' Wait and be patient, because the gods will answer.
Let the heavens bring their voice down to the land.'
'Mai?' Anji ghosted up beside her, a hand on his sword's hilt.
She grasped his wrist. 'He sees there is another life, not just the terrible cruelty Lord Radas wields.' She wiped away tears. A glimmer rose in the sky, briefly marking the track of Hari's flight, and vanished. 'He's come back to us.'
He had no time to answer as others swarmed up: Mistress Behara and council members and the priests. 'What did he say to you, verea?'
She was borne back into the assembly, stammering a half truth that none of them could discern from her flushed face and awkward words. No one seemed to find it strange he had singled her out, and anyway they weren't really listening. They were spinning their own tale: after so many long years, a Guardian had returned, and where there was one then there must be other true Guardians, not gods-cursed demons like those in the north. By restoring justice in Olo'osson, the people here had merited a sign of favor from the gods. The overthrow of the corrupt council in Olossi last year; the recruitment of an expanded militia; the establishment of a regional council; the new settlement in the Barrens; the change of authority in the reeve hall, placing the best person in command even if she was a fawkner, not a reeve. All this they had done and must continue to do.
Anji walked with Sengel and Toughid and a pair of young soldiers bearing lamps up to investigate the place where the horse had trotted to earth. Their black tabards made them fade into the growing darkness as they studied the dirt for signs of the winged mare's passage- and Hari's footprints. Astafero sang. Anji frowned.
After the seventh bell had rung its closing, the temple of the Merciless One lay quiet on its island on the estuarine delta where the River Olo poured into the Olo'o Sea. Lanterns burned at Banner Pier, appearing from the air as small as fireflies.
As Jothinin and Kirit cantered to earth, a pair of youths came running with the stout batons in hand that would allow them to beat off unwelcome intruders. They pulled up in astonishment as they took in the horses'
