"Master Calon, do sit and not strain yourself. I still hold the stone." The grand gentleman pursed a smile in the manner of a discerning customer who finds the bruised peach lurking at the bottom of the basket, the one he supposes you have been attempting to foist upon him. "The prisoner is dead. These caravan masters might have concocted the story between them. They might be in the pay of this wolf. He's an outlander. We already know he lied to the caravan master in Sarida, in order to get the hire. We can't trust him."
Anji spoke, startling, clear, cool. The accent of his arkinga made him seem even more out of place, very much a black wolf among brightly plumaged birds. "What of the reeve? The one from Clan Hall? He journeyed here before us. He came to alert this council to the corruption ripening in the border guards. Where is he?"
A cough came from back by the door, where the guards stood. Folk shrugged and rubbed their chins. The council members stared at Anji. The man with the broken nose had vanished. Mai had not even seen him go.
"There is no reeve here," said the grand gentleman. "Nor were you given permission to speak."
"Yet there was a reeve," said Anji. "Dressed very like that man who just left. He called himself Joss. He came from Clan Hall, from a city he named Toskala."
"Out of the north," said the man with a gloating sneer. "Every manner of villain has crawled north into the shadows. He might have been anyone."
"Have you many of those great eagles?" asked Anji, with all the appearance of surprised curiosity. "That 'anyone' might ride one? I confess, I have never seen such an intimidating creature as that raptor."
"A spy. A traitor. These wolves come bearing tales of a conspiracy between Kotaru's holy ordinands, and unholy ospreys, yet their so-called prisoner is dead and conveniently cannot defend himself against these charges. They might have murdered Captain Beron themselves!"
"If you mean to accuse us," said Anji, "then justice decrees we be allowed to defend ourselves."
"Enough of these interruptions!" The grand gentleman slapped his free hand onto the table, making not a few people jump, and indicated the woman on the platform. "Envoy, I ask for this point of order: that we conclude, having determined that this wolf and his pack be banished from all the territories surrounding Olossi and with whom we have friendly relations. Red in favor. Black to decline."
"No!" Master Calon leaped to his feet as many in the crowd rose with angry voices to goad him on. "You refuse to see the danger. The caravan masters vouch for this man. He and his men acted honorably. We need to strengthen our militia against the rising tide out of the north. Our livelihoods, our very houses, are in danger. Our own messengers sent into the north do not return, yet you do nothing. You ignore the reports from the north at your peril! You shrug off this tale of ospreys along West Spur because you are the fools, not us! I demand an open vote, each member to state a choice. I call for an open vote."
"Open vote! Open vote!" the crowd chanted, while a few remained tight-lipped, hunkered down. The other seated council members stared in stony silence. This was a tangled weave, much more complex than the warp and weft of Father Mei's household and its petty grievances and old grudges.
"Silence! Silence!" cried the woman presiding, although by now Mai realized she was merely a facilitator. She had no more power than a shuttle in the loom, which is directed by the weaver's hand. "You do not have permission to speak."
As folk settled down reluctantly, Anji raised his voice again. "Am I not allowed to speak on my own behalf and on behalf of those people for whom I am responsible?"
They ignored him. Just as Mai had been ignored, in her father's house, when there was business to discuss not considered fit for the ears of a girl who would be married out of the family and thereby no longer have any interest in the matters of the household. The envoy called for an open vote, and the vote went around the table so everyone could see, the council members raising either a red flag or a black one. Now the split came clear to Mai: there were sixteen Greater Houses, but only fifteen votes allotted to the guilds and the Lesser Houses. So they voted exactly on those lines: sixteen red flags and fifteen black. So the Greater Houses won their victory while the crowd seethed with an ugly anger. What held the crowd helpless Mai did not know.
The envoy waited until the clerk scrawled the results and rang a handbell at her left hand.
"Therefore," said the envoy to the hall at large, "the decision carries: the suppliants will not be allowed to settle in the Hundred. Master Feden, have you anything more to say?"
The grand gentleman rose to his feet with a weary sigh, hoisting the heavy stone. "It is late," he said in tones of kindness, nodding toward Mai. He wore an ivory comb of astonishing beauty in his hair, fixing into place the loop of his middle braid. He wore, as well, a magnanimous aspect. The victor can afford to be generous, and can expect gratitude from the one he has defeated when that loser might otherwise expect a death sentence. "Too late really to send you on your way at once, although many have urged you be driven out of town immediately. You may camp outside the walls for one more night. As long as you are on your way by the first bell after dawn, we will not trouble you further. You'll ride south. An escort will be provided for the first leg of the journey. As for the rest of you, let the ban of Taru the Witherer be upon any of you who think to conspire with these outlanders. They are hereby called into exile from the town's commerce. Captain Waras, escort them out."
He sat.
The captain came forward with a doubled guard of soldiers. It was stuffy in the chamber despite the open shutters, and the captain had loosened his outer jacket enough that the chain of the necklace he wore sagged free, and the object fastened there slithered into the open.
The reeve's bone whistle, with which he called his eagle.
38
A stick prodded Keshad awake.
"Ow!" he yelped, but the man at the other end of the spear merely poked him again with the haft.
"Here, now. Your turn on watch."
"Must you prod me? That hurt!"
"Heh. A lot less than those ginnies would hurt when they bit my hand or ankle if I shook you kindly awake, yeh? I saw what they did to Pehar's hand. Heh! Mean beasts!"
"True enough," said Kesh, sitting up and rubbing his sore head. The ginnies gaped their mouths to show teeth to the intruder. "Although it was stupid of Pehar to reach in on them like that. Those ginnies will protect what's mine-what I'm safeguarding for my mistress, that is."
"Heh! I'd risk their bite for a taste of Devouring right now. Is she good, your mistress?"
Kesh made a face. "I'm only her hired man."
The man, who called himself Twist, snorted in disgust. "Seems you're used to being beaten by her stick. Come on, then."
Kesh chivvied the ginnies into a makeshift sling. He saw how Twist eyed the pouch that the ginnies had been guarding, then shifted his gaze to Magic. Magic stared right back at him. Kesh had been very careful to hide his remaining string of leya, but every soldier in the cadre suspected he carried coin. Really, the ginnies had protected him. He gathered up the rest of his trifling possessions and spat to get the sour taste of bad wine out of his mouth. "Where do I go?"
"You can leave your things here."
"I'll keep them near me and my little guardsmen, if you please."
"Heh, heh! Come this way. Be careful where you step."
Twist held a rushlight that steamed off more smoke than flame. The sergeant of their cadre had opened his bedroll in the empty council house in the very village whose inhabitants had-only one night before-sought to overcharge Keshad and Zubaidit for accommodations in those same quarters. The rest of the cadre had lain down to rest on the entry porch, where they could move out quickly if need be.