Anji did not come to her. He was merely a captain assigned to escort her, and they could not chance that someone might suspect that the truth was different than the tale he spun. Spies were everywhere: children giggling behind unseen peepholes; female voices murmuring on the other side of closed doors; more distantly the shouting and arguments of men and often the boisterous song of drunken men out on the streets just after sunset, following by the ringing of bells and the profound silence of night's rest. Priya and Sheyshi went about with heads and necks and mouths and noses covered, only their eyes left to them. Otherwise they were hidden in vast shawls that covered them to the ankles.
'The most beautiful silks,' Priya reported. 'Inside the home, the women are most beautiful and dressed as richly as queens. Loose silk trousers and long silk jackets that reach almost to the floor and are clasped with braid across the torso. I wish you could admire the fashion here.'
'No one will ever believe I am a royal concubine if I am not dressed in the proper manner. These jackets and robes from Kartu are well enough for a woman of the Mei clan. Yet I wonder if they would seem poor to a royal concubine. You must say we met with some manner of trouble on the way, my wagons lost in a ford when we crossed. When we come to a town with a proper marketplace, it will be necessary for me to replenish my wardrobe.'
Through Priya she sent this message to Anji, and soon thereafter, at each stop, silks arrived, gifts from local lords and magistrates hoping to curry favor.
Here were colors to delight her-marigold yellows as intense as sunlight, coral reds and blood reds and rust reds, joyous oranges and plangent blue-greens-and patterns to astonish, blossoms and vines and bulbs and leaves, every manner of floral gaudery both woven and embroidered in the style proper to a woman of rank.
'I will die of boredom in this seclusion,' she said one evening to Sheyshi as they sat in a narrow room whose white walls and papered windows oppressed her. 'How soon will we come free of the empire?'
'I do not know, Mistress.' The Mariha girl was combing Mai's hair in long strokes. She seemed content enough. Mai thought it possible the girl was a little stupid. No fault of the girl's, of course. Sometimes things just worked out that way.
'When does Priya return with our supper?'
'I do not know, Mistress.'
'It seemed to me this might be a larger town than the others we've come to,' she added, because the rumble of traffic had been so loud together with the rattle and shrill of pots and laughter, the barking of dogs and the cackle of fowl, and the drone of myriad voices. As she had rocked along the thoroughfare, she had heard the scrape of carpenters' adzes and had smelled wood shavings, as if they passed through a carpentry district. She thought of Shai, who loved to work wood, and wondered what he thought of all this. Had Uncle Hari seen similar scenes when he was marched north out of the empire with whatever doomed troop he had fallen in with in the end?
A door slammed shut with a sharp report. Footsteps drummed erratically on wood. A woman shrieked a protest.
The door into her seclusion opened with the same quick spasm as of a gasp drawn inward in surprise. Two men pushed in. One held a long knife. The other drew his sword. Sheyshi screamed and fell flat to the floor, covered her eyes with her hands.
Mai stared at them for a thousand years, it seemed, although in that space of time they did not move more than one step each. They had complexions not darker but different from Kartu folk, and they had also sharper faces, while Kartu folk had broader cheeks and gentler eyes.
They are coming to kill me.
She had been kneeling on her pillow, but smoothly she rose, and faced them. It was her training, honed in the market. Even in her early days, no customer had ever torn her facade, not even the ones who had surprised her.
'Who are you?' she said in the cool voice she might use to a matron who offered a deliberately insulting price for her wares.
They faltered. Sheyshi moaned in fear at Mai's feet. The two men exchanged a glance, speaking without words. Their smell, like everything in this country, hit her strongly: straw and stables and leather and a hint of piss and a spice that made her nose itch. Her instincts were good. Even in this extremity, she could see into them, men determined but not subtle.
They are surprised by what they find. This is not the face and form and reaction they expect.
The man on the left raised his sword. The other one tightened his grip on the knife hilt. So slowly it all transpired: they took another step, while she considered the strength of the walls behind her and whether it was likely she could smash through them.
A rush of footfalls swept up the corridor. Chief Tuvi burst into the room with Anji behind him as the assassins turned to meet them, but those who wished to protect her had a kind of rare fury to aid them. With a few strokes the men were cut down. They fell to the floor, and they bled and bled, croaking and gasping, until Tuvi cut their throats.
Anji looked at her from the other side of the corpses. 'Can you speak? Can you move?'
'Yes, but Sheyshi is having hysterics.'
'We're leaving now. If she does not get up, then Tuvi will kill her and leave her with these.' He paused, cocked his head as he listened, and dashed out of the room. On the heels of his exit, Priya ran in, tears on her face.
'Mistress!'
'I'm unharmed.'
Priya knelt, gathered up cup, pillows, bedding, and carried these out into the corridor. Mai took in a breath, aware suddenly that she had not breathed for forever. She knelt beside the sobbing Sheyshi.
'We must go now. Now. Do you hear? Come. Stand up.'
The girl pulled her hands from her face, saw a trail of blood oozing toward her, and wailed. She rolled backward to get away from it.
Mai took hold of her shoulder. 'Close your eyes. Do it. Close your eyes and get up.'
'Leave her,' said Tuvi. 'I'll kill her after you're gone. Not worth dying for, that one.'
'Sheyshi! Close your eyes. I'll lead you.'
Tuvi leaped over the corpses. The stink of fresh blood became overpowering, and Sheyshi began to retch, although nothing came up.
'It's very bad, Mistress,' Tuvi said reasonably. 'Some local agent has guessed the truth. We are a day's ride from Sarida. We must get there before those who suspect the captain's identity get news back down the line to a commander who can do something about it. Leave this one. Go!'
'Sheyshi!' Mai was angry now. It was so stupid to die this way. 'Come now, or I'll have to leave you. Come now!' She hooked a hand under the girl's armpit, and tugged, and at last, spitting and groaning, the slave staggered to her feet. Limp and passive, eyes squeezed shut, she allowed Mai to lead her along the wall and out of the room, across the corridor, through the women's courtyard where a huddle of women crouched on the ground under the guard of four of Anji's men. Mai could not see their faces. They had thrown their colorful shawls up over their heads to cover themselves. A toddling boy crouched between two of them, bawling, until one of the women slapped him, and then he bawled louder and was wrestled under the tent of her outer shawl, where his cries were choked off.
The gate that led out of the women's courtyard stood open. Hesitantly, she stepped through. The late- afternoon shadows stretched across the large inn courtyard, but despite the late hour, Anji's men went about their purposeful business, saddling horses, tying on packs. The palanquin stood to one side, sliding door open, interior stripped and empty. Anji led a horse to her.
'You'll wrap yourself as Priya shows you, covering your face.' He did not look at her; already he scanned the wide gates that let onto the thoroughfare. Despite the imposing blockade of a dozen of his soldiers, passersby had gathered to gawk and point and comment. Some, seeing Mai, gave up a shout, and Anji called, and his soldiers pushed into the street by laying their whips about them viciously.
'Aren't we making a stir?' she asked, looking toward the palanquin.
'Too late now,' he said. 'One of the red hounds got away. We must outrun them. Cover your face.'
He thrust the reins into her hands and strode off. Priya ran up and wrapped a shawl tightly around Mai's head and neck and shoulders, twisted it, knotted it, tucked it; gave Mai a pair of hands to boost her into the saddle. The
