Midmorning the next day they rode out onto an escarpment from which they could view the spectacular Mariha Valley sprawled below. Irrigation canals cut the land into a bright patchwork beyond which the lush colors faded quickly to a dull yellow-brown. The old city was a vast honeycomb seen from above, ringed by stout walls and graced by a lake at the center where, Tohon said, priests had once worshiped their ancient god and now the Qin watered their horses. There was a holy tower dedicated to the Merciful One, recognizable by its tiered rings, and a second monumental building concealing a courtyard within a courtyard which Anji told her was a temple for the worship of the god Beltak, one of the manifold names given to the Lord of Lords, King of Kings, the Shining One Who Rules Alone. Next to the Beltak temple lay another palatial structure.
'Is that a second temple?' Mai asked. 'It has two courtyards, too, but they're separate, side by side, not one nested inside the next.'
'That's the royal palace, built in the Sirniakan style,' said Anji. 'The larger courtyard is where men congregate and the separate smaller courtyard is for the prince's women.'
'How strange,' said Mai. 'Do you actually mean to say that women cannot go where the men congregate, and men cannot walk in the women's courtyard?'
'I mean to say that in Sirniaka, the palace women-a dozen wives, a hundred concubines, and all their serving women and slaves-are sequestered, kept completely apart. Only the master, his sons, and his slaves can visit the women's quarters. Any other man who tries to walk there would be killed. Executed.'
Mai laughed. 'That's a good story! It's quite a big palace, though. There must be lots of people living there in order to need two courtyards that big.'
'You don't believe me?' Anji raised an eyebrow in that sweet way he had of showing amusement. He was so handsome!
'How could people live that way? Women kept apart! And so many that they need a place that big! How could one man keep so many women? Two wives is plenty, as the old song goes.'
'You don't believe me,' repeated Anji, shaking his head. 'It seems strange to me now, I admit, because I've lived among the Qin for so many years, but it didn't seem strange at all when I was a child.'
His words caught her up short. She'd been about to laugh again, but he was perfectly serious. He was, briefly, a stranger, looking at her through eyes whose glance had recently become so very intimate.
Tohon whistled. 'Captain! Best keep going. I think we're being followed.'
'They'll see our dust.'
'True, and our tracks. We need only reach Commander Beje's posting before they reach us.'
Anji signaled. Chief Tuvi whistled, and they set off again, riding at a bruising gait that jarred her up through her teeth. Now and again they would reach a vantage point from which they could get a good look behind them, and always there rose that telltale haze of dust, moving as they moved, hard on their trail.
In midafternoon they rode down into a green vale watered by three streams trickling down from the heights. An old stone watchtower on one slope had been abandoned and replaced with a fortified villa on lower ground. It was a one-story compound surrounded by a small orchard, a garden, a single field of grain, and an inner wall of stone and outer palisade of logs ringed by a ditch. Sheep grazed between the two walls. A black Qin banner flew from the gate. They crossed a narrow bridge, single-file, and the gate was closed after them by a silent guardsman.
'This way.' Tohon led them across the pasture and through a second gate, guarded by stone dragons.
Inside lay a stableyard, dirt raked in neat lines. Captain Anji dismounted and gave his reins to Sengel.
'Come,' he said to Mai. 'Bring Priya.'
No one else-not even Sengel and Toughid, who shadowed Anji everywhere he went-was invited to accompany them. There were guards on the walls and a score of soldiers lounging in the stableyard, all armed. The captain's troop dismounted but did not otherwise disperse, as if they expected to have to leave at a moment's notice.
'Are we safe?' she whispered to Anji as Tohon led them into the shade of a long porch. 'Who do you think is following us?'
He paused before entering. The terrace was floored with sandstone, recently swept, but the pillars, eaves, and roof of the porch were all of well-polished wood. A youth knelt at the far end of the porch, not even looking up as their footsteps tapped on stone; he rubbed at one of the pillars with a linen cloth.
'We are safe with Commander Beje,' Anji said. 'Look. There are faces in the pillars.'
The subtle faces of guardian animals peered out from the wood. They leered or snarled or smiled, each according to its nature, and as they crossed the porch and entered the interior, Mai had a fancy that one of the guardian beasts winked at her. Inside they crossed an empty room to a wall of screens that, when slid aside, revealed a quiet courtyard. Their shoes crackled on gravel. Like the first room, the courtyard lay empty except for a quartet of low benches surrounding a dry fountain shaped like a tree with bells hanging from the branches. No wind disturbed the bells. It was utterly silent. A sliding door led them into the dim interior of another immaculate room with wood floors and no furniture whatsoever. All the windows were shuttered, filtering the light through white rice paper. The air smelled faintly of cloves.
Tohon slid a screen to one side, and they emerged under an arbor roofed by vines and surrounded by a net of trees, some flowering and some boasting the small green bulbs of early fruit. A multicolored carpet had been thrown down over flagstones, and in the shade a stout man sat on a camp stool, his back to them, whittling. He set knife and carving on the carpet before rising to face Captain Anji.
He was a good ten years older than Father Mei, a robust man with a face red from too much drinking, and the typical Qin smile, generous and quick. 'Anjihosh!' He wore slippers of gold silk embroidered with red poppies. On these he padded forward to slap the captain on either shoulder. Anji placed his right hand atop his left and bowed respectfully.
'Good you came.' The commander's arkinga was a little different from Anji's. He voiced some of the words in a new way and sometimes used a phrase Mai had never heard before. 'Who is this lovely orchid?'
'My wife, Mai'ili.'
'Not concubine? She's not Qin.'
'No. She is my wife.'
Beje studied Mai for what seemed an interminable time. He had black eyes, and laugh lines that betrayed humor, but he looked her over in the same way a discriminating buyer handles peaches and melons, knowing which are ripe and which not ready for sale. She did not flinch, although she was desperately uncomfortable.
The father of Anji's first wife, of whom she knew nothing except that the woman was dead. Some of the aunts had speculated the Anji had beaten his first wife to death because the Qin were known for their violent temper as well as their hearty laugh, but if that were the case she couldn't understand how the father of that woman could greet Anji so affectionately.
'She can stay, then. If she's your wife, I'll treat her as if she were my daughter.' He pointed to Priya. 'No wife, this one. Why is she here?'
'She is educated. She can read and write.'
'A woman of value! Bring khaif for everyone, Sheyshi.'
The young woman stood so still within the curtain made by drooping vines that Mai actually didn't notice her until Beje said her name and she padded away through the trees on a white gravel path.
'Is she your concubine?' asked Anji, looking amused.
Beje looked confused. 'Concubine? Sheyshi? No, just a slave. I don't like these Marihan girls. They smell funny, but Cherfa likes to be surrounded by pretty things, birds and kits and so on, and she likes pretty slave girls, too. She may sleep with them. I don't!'
'Who is Cherfa?' asked Mai.
'My chief wife. A good woman. She takes care of me. You take care of Anjihosh here, and he'll make you a good husband for all your days.'
'Yes, sir,' she said automatically, because he was the kind of man you addressed with respect. Then she flushed, thinking of lovemaking.
He chuckled, but turned somber as Tohon brought stools, unfolded them, and they all sat down. There was still no wind, and the air was warm but not unpleasantly sticky. It was so quiet that Mai could not even hear the noise of Anji's troop.
Beje sighed as he settled his bulk on the stool. 'I'm sorry, Son. I'm still ashamed. You could have shamed my
