The envoy took in a deep breath and smiled broadly. With two fingers he dipped into the mash and tasted it. 'Ah! A better flavor than your cordial, Master Innkeeper. Very good!'
The man grunted, both irritated and gratified. 'The berries were sour this year. I can't afford to throw it out and buy elsewhere. No one wants to live on the pass, right up into the mountains where anything might happen. Heya! I was born here, and here I'll stay, but we have to pay rent and food to the ordinands who patrol the wall and control the gate, and to the clerks who account the trade and taxes. And it's a high toll ourselves to bring in any goods we want that we can't grow here. I don't like serving sour cordial, I'm proud of my inn and my service, but sour cordial's all I've got this year.'
'Heya! Innkeeper!' a merchant called from another bench.
He sketched a gesture of leave-taking and hurried away. Kesh hitched the tripod holding the pot of barsh closer to the bench. They set to it eagerly.
Tebedir ate more slowly than the other two and was first to break the silence. 'Not that tasty, if you ask me.'
'What of your girls?' asked the envoy.
Embarrassed to be be taken to task in public, Kesh called the innkeeper over. 'I want two tey of your second-grade rice, and a tey of beans-whatever kind-mixed in. I'll bring the bowl back when they're done.'
'That's a lot of food for two young girls,' said the envoy. He stared toward the Ladytree. Clouds had crept westward, making the late afternoon hazy. The wagon was half lost in the shadows under the spreading branches, but the envoy's gaze had a piercing quality that made Kesh nervous. What if the man could see through cloth?
Kesh forced a grin to his lips. 'They're my merchandise. I'll get a better price for them if they're healthy and plump. No profit to me if the girls get sick or starve on the way to the block, is it?'
'No, certainly not. Nor is it any shame to hire folk who worship He Who Rules Alone when there are no good Hundred folk who can make the journey.'
'The Shining One Who Rules Alone,' corrected Tebedir genially. 'King of Kings, Lord of Lords. You Hundred folk will all burn in the fire if you don't change your ungodly ways like Keshad here did.'
The envoy raised an eyebrow but said nothing, and Kesh winced, thinking it would have been better had the envoy spoken his thoughts out loud. Anything would be better than that measured gaze turned on him now that seemed to eat him alive.
'Have you turned your back on your clansmen?' asked the envoy curiously, although no hint of anger tarnished his voice.
'They turned their back on me! Sold me into slavery to pay their debts!' He touched the crudely worked debt mark, more scar than tattoo, curving from his left brow and around the outside of his left eye.
'A sad tale heard all too often in the Hundred, I grant you. But under the rule of Beltak, once a slave you are a slave forever.' He turned to the driver. 'Is that not true?'
'Of course! No man become slave by the law of the Exalted One if he do not fall into disgrace.' He nodded toward Keshad without embarrassment. 'Is different here in the north. Tsst! First become slave, then buy free, and so on. But that is your way. Maybe it will change when Beltak's priests come.'
'Maybe,' agreed the envoy politely, 'but in the Hundred, the gods and the land are as one, not to be separated.' He looked closely again at Kesh as if trying to tease the strand of memory out of Kesh's mind that would explain to him why a good Hundred boy would betray his gods.
Kesh scratched the back of his neck, wondering how he could excuse himself without insulting the envoy. Whatever pleasure he'd taken in the day had vanished. Fortunately one of the innkeeper's lads bustled up with the boiled rice and beans.
'Best get the girls fed and settled down for the night,' he said as he took the big bowl. 'We rise before dawn. Get a brisk start to the day. Olossi Town beckons.'
He tossed enough vey on the table to pay for everything.
'I thank you, nephew.' The envoy smiled. 'Rest well.'
'Crazy priests,' muttered Tebedir as they walked back to the wagon. 'Best they all die in the burnings. Better for your people to worship the Exalted One and not these wrong things they call gods.'
'Leave it, if you will,' said Kesh sharply. The conversation had rattled him. He handed the rice inside.
After the girls had eaten, he returned the bowl to the inn, paid a pair of vey to empty their waste bucket in the inn's latrines, and returned to his little camp. Yet as he knelt in the shadow of the wagon, set a bowl of water before his knees, and said his evening prayers with palms turned upward to face the heavens, he found the words meaningless.
'Rid us of all that is evil. Rid us of demons. Rid us of hate. Rid us of envy. Rid us of heretics and liars. Rid us of wolves and of armies stained with the blood of the pure.' He dipped a thumb in the water and traced that cool touch across his forehead. 'Increase all that is good. Increase life. Increase wealth. Increase the strength of your devoted. Increase the power of your holy emperor, beloved among men.' He dipped his little finger in the water and traced a line on each cheek. 'Teach me to hate darkness and battle evil. Teach me the Truth, Exalted One, King of Kings, Lord of Lords. You are Beltak, the Shining One Who Rules Alone. Peace. Peace. Peace.'
Wind shushed in the branches of the Ladytree, as if the Lady Atiratu Herself overheard him and muttered Her displeasure among the leaves. His thoughts wound away like the wind, seeking north. The town of Olossi beckoned, sixty-two mey from Dast Korumbos, more or less eight or ten days' journey depending on weather, road conditions, the state of the wagon, and the likelihood of accidents or obstacles as yet unknown.
Nine days! It seemed both far too many and so blindingly few. He could feel the taste of freedom on his tongue, as sharp as the blend of kursi and pepper that had spiced the barsh. His freedom. Her freedom. Both of us, soon to be free.
'Hei! Hei!'
The slap of feet on the ground startled him so badly he knocked over the blessing bowl. Water stained the dirt. He jumped up, but his view beyond the Ladytree was obscured by branches. A commotion roiled the commons. A youth came running from the direction of the southern gate with his broad sleeves fluttering back like bird's wings.
'Hei! Hei! 'Ware! 'Ware! Ospreys comin-!' He stumbled forward and plunged headlong into the ground. An arrow stuck out of his back. His arms jiggled crazily as he tried to crawl but could not make his legs work.
'Osprey?' Tebedir had heard the words but from his angle closer to the trunk of tree had not seen the lad fall. 'What is that?'
'Trail robbers. Named for birds-what swoop down and grab their prey. But they never attack into a town…'
'Robbers!' exclaimed Tebedir.
'Close the gate! Close the gate!' rang the frantic call.
Already out in the commons, a hand of men in guard tunics ran toward the southern gate. A pair of guards leaped on horses and headed toward the northern gate. A crowd converged on the inn, each man, and they were all men, yelling and gesticulating as they cried for protection, for news, for safety. Kesh grabbed his sword and slung it over his back, then buckled his quiver over it and with a quick tug and pop strung his bow. His stomach had fallen into a pit so deep he couldn't measure it.
'Tebedir, you can run, or stick with me, whatever you will, but if you run now I can't pay you your delivery share and you'll be taking your chances with robbers out among the trees.'
He backed up until he pressed into one corner of the wagon, scanning with each step, and called out to Tebedir again, but the driver had vanished as if consumed by a stroke of lightning. Even the driver's blessing bowl was gone.
There were four vehicles under the Ladytree, crammed to fit: three wagons and one handcart. A sleepy lad draped along the driver's bench of the second wagon raised his head and stared around without comprehension. The others had been abandoned by men gone over to their supper who had, no doubt, paid their companion's lad to stand watch over all. Another merchant, less trusting, leaned against his handcart waggling his hands in fear as he stared at Keshad and his weapons.
'What to do? What to do? That boy just fell down with an arrow in his back! Os-preys never dive into a walled village! Everyone knows that!'
'Run for safety,' advised Kesh roughly.
'And leave my cart? That's all my clan's savings tied up in silk-'
