"Slaves. You might look to Master Calon for advice. He pays his bills promptly. That's how I measure a decent man. He's on the council this year, although he's not among those whose dogs bring back a bird in the hunt, if you take my meaning."
"I'm afraid I don't. What do you mean?"
"Dear heart, how young and sweet you are, with that disarming smile. I hope your man appreciates you, and treats you well. There's sixteen houses who call the dance in this town. They don't call themselves the Greater Houses for nothing. But these days the Lesser Houses and the guilds are making a lot of noise. Now, I admit, the Silvers keep quiet because no one trusts them. The others know they don't have enough official votes to change things, yet they also know that if you counted each household's vote, they could take power. You can be sure the Greater Houses like things the way they've always been, because that means they get to keep what they have. They won't give up their power on the council easily."
"I know how that goes," said Mai, because she did know. This did not sound promising. She'd heard stories in Kartu's market about disputes in other towns getting murderous. "What about the land beyond Olossi? How is it there?"
"Beyond Olossi? What would you be wanting to go there for? Farmers. Fishers. They stink. I hear village folk out in the Barrens take a bath only once a month. Whew!" She waved a hand in front of her nose. "No wonder everyone leaves them alone."
"Aren't there other towns in the Hundred?"
"Oh. Yes." She released Mai's hand and found an outlet for her disdain by sweeping the already spotless pavement. "But those are in the north. You don't want to go there. It gets cold there after the Whisper Rains. That's why they call it Shiver Sky up there. Brrr! Anyway, everyone knows it isn't safe along up in the north anymore. Nothing but trouble up there. All gone to the hells, if you take my meaning."
Mai knew all about the nine caves of hells, where demons festered and fed on the souls of those who hadn't the strength to be reborn. "What about other lands? Are there places north of the Hundred?"
"I suppose there must be. West of Heaven's Ridge they say it's barren country, nothing but dry grass and rolling hills with no end to it, and only beasts and barbarians roaming the land. North of the Hundred lies the sea. I hear there are folk living far away, to the northwest, beyond Heaven's Ridge and the sea, but it's very cold there, so the tale says. People actually die of it being so cold. Imagine that!"
Mai sighed. "Best we stay in Olossi, then?" But she wondered if Olossi was far enough from Sirniaka. "Is anywhere safe?" she added plaintively.
Tannadit slapped her on the buttocks. Mai yelped, for the old woman still had a strong arm.
But Tannadit only laughed. "Don't you worry. A pretty girl like you can always find a man to take her in."
34
It took Keshad and Zubaidit a while to reach the spot where the crows and vultures had gathered. The road descended into a hollow where debris lay strewn to either side like so much flood wrack. At first it was difficult for Kesh to make sense of what they saw, but shapes came clear as they moved closer. Corpses were beginning to bloat in the sun. An overturned kettle had tumbled off a cart with a broken wheel. A dead dog lay on its back, its legs stiffening. Orange silk fluttered, caught in the claws of a thornberry bush. These were the ruins of a caravan, hit by ospreys, as at Dast Korumbos. It smelled like a latrine.
Bai strode into the carnage as if she were wading into storm-tossed waters: careful to keep her balance. The ginnies seemed to be trying to flatten themselves against her shoulders. There were about a dozen open-bed wagons, at least as many handcarts, and no animals except two hands of dogs, all dead. It was a fresh kill. The bodies hadn't yet started to rot, but they would. Kesh kept to the road, which remained clear except for a pair of wagons tipped off the verge.
The line of march, in trying to escape the slaughter, had spilled onto the cleared ground that lay between the road and the straggling pipe-brush and pine forest. At least twenty vultures had settled to feast. They eyed the intruders irritably, and as Bai explored, all but one flapped away to wait in the branches of the nearby trees.
This was not the same kind of attack that had hit the caravan in Dast Korumbos. Kesh fished for a kerchief in his sleeve and tied it over his nose and mouth. There, arched backward over a mound of thick grass, sprawled a girl not more than ten or twelve years of age. Her hands had been chopped off.
He retched into the kerchief, although nothing came up.
Bai knelt, and lifted a baby, but by the way its delicate limbs dangled, it too was dead. At first he thought it wore dull red silk, and then he saw it was naked, covered in dried blood. The beds of those wagons did not carry merchandise; they carried dead people: an eyeless old woman, her toothless, shrunken mouth pulled back in a death's grimace; a pair of boys, each lacking a right hand; a man with a crutch thrown across him, the angle of a tipped wagon concealing his legs. Baskets had tumbled off carts, spilling grain in heaps and mounds. A bladder of ale had been trampled and punctured, and the smell of its good yeasty brew still brushed the air as the last leaked out into puddles. All the harness for the wagons had been cut. What had become of the beasts once pulling them he could not tell.
All was silent except for the buzzing of flies. Even the wind had died, as if in deference to blood and death. If he did not think, he could move past. His hands were cold, but his face was hot in the sun, and his eyes hurt so badly he thought he would go blind.
Bai circled back to him, her expression serene. The ginnies remained hunkered down against her, gone a dull gray color. She seemed undisturbed, as if this were simply a ghastly mural painted on a wall that one might look at, or away from, as one pleased.
If he did not speak, he would be sick. "I've never seen… They cut off their hands!" He pressed the kerchief to his mouth as bile rose and tears burned in the corners of his eyes.
"No, they didn't. If you look at the stumps, you'll see they're healed. Some better, some worse, some more recent than others. These people had already taken those injuries, days or months ago. Look what they have with them: grain, tools, blankets. These are refugees. I wonder what horror they were fleeing from. Out of the north."
"I guess it caught them up." Then the heaves hit, and he doubled over, ripped away the kerchief, and threw up on the road.
She stepped away neatly and waited him out. When he stopped retching, she said, "What of the village we passed through late yesterday? They'll be in the path of these wolves. And after them, all those other villages we passed. We have to go back. Try to warn them."
"I don't want to go back," he gasped. His mouth tasted horrible, although he'd had little except bile to vomit. He was dizzy; he could not get the world to stay still beneath him. "We'll take what we need from these supplies." He faltered. She was staring at him as if he had begun in truth to spin. "This will only go to rot, or be eaten by animals! I'm not a thief. The valuables they can keep, not that they can carry them in death. We have to go on! You must see that. I don't want to go back to Olossi!"
"Neither do I. No need to alert the Olossi militia, or any holy officials to preside over the passing ceremony. No need even to drag the dead to a Sorrowing Tower, for you see-" She gestured toward the waiting vultures. "-the acolytes of the Merciless One are already come. They and the beetles and the open air will scour these poor dead bodies properly."
"You're heartless!"
"I am? You're the one who wants to loot the murdered dead and keep on walking as if nothing happened."
"We can do nothing for them! If we go back, we risk falling into slavery again. You know that!"
"It's true. It's a risk I'm not sure I'm willing to take. What do you suggest, then, Keshad?"
There was no way to look away from the scattered dead. Even if he closed his eyes, the bitter taste in his mouth and the smell rising in the air reminded him of the death that surrounded them. He wiped his eyes with the heel of a hand and found that core of orderly determination that had kept him going for twelve long years of servitude.