"Something like that."
"Grandmother is nothing but an accounts book, figuring up the worth of everyone and every thing she encounters. You mustn't think she has taken a dislike to you. You're our guest, and she will treat you as such."
"Your mother said she had approved me."
"Yes! So she did. It was the cabbage."
From over the walls Mai heard the shouts and laughter of children, as bright and constant as a waterfall. A faint clacking serenaded them, which she identified as folk working at looms. She heard horses, and smelled their ordure. It seemed the stables lay close by. There rose also a tangy scent as of a sharp brew or cordial, and a whiff of a metallic vapor, like skeins of wool being set in alum.
"You can call me Miravia, by the way."
"My name is Mai."
There followed an awkward silence, and tremulous smiles.
"I was up at dawn cooking up a cordial," said Miravia, by way of making conversation. She displayed her arms. That moist sheen of water was evaporating swiftly in the waxing heat. "Hot work, I'll tell you! Steam boiling up! But I've been released from my duties for the day to act as your host."
"I beg your pardon. I do not mean to offend. Am I to stay here?"
"With us? Yes, of course. Eliar offered you guest rights. We are beholden now to meet the obligation."
"I meant, here." She indicated the courtyard and the veranda, meaning as well the chambers beyond.
"In the guest court? Yes, certainly. This is where we entertain all of our friends and guests." Miravia looked around. "It's nicer after the rains come, when there are flowers. It's rather dusty now. Is there anything else you need? The one thing we can't offer you is a bath beyond washing out of a tub of heated water. But I might be able to ask if you can be given an escort down to one of the bathhouses. There are several that my friends have mentioned as being of special quality. You would be safe there, and your escort would remain close by until you are returned to us here."
At some command Mai could not hear, the children quieted. Their silence, compared with the raucous activity that had come before it, was unnerving.
She lowered her voice in deference to the hushed children beyond the wall. "This is a lovely house and courtyard. I am so appreciative. It's just that I'm so restless, wondering what has happened."
"With your husband and his company? Eliar told me. He's quite wild that he wasn't allowed to ride out with them. I'm sorry for it, that you must wait while the men ride out. I feel the same frustration, although I beg you never to tell anyone and especially Grandmother that I ever said so."
"I won't. But don't you-your brother said-" Again, she found herself hesitant to speak, not knowing what was permitted and what might, and might not, be known. "Your brother Eliar mentioned that you visit the prison."
Miravia laughed. "Yes, I have managed that much. Because of the obligation. I bring food to those who are so destitute their families cannot feed them." Her tone had a bittersweet edge. Her smile seemed touched with anger. "Eliar told me that you and I were meant to rescue that reeve, but now even that small task has been taken away."
This passionate speech put Mai at ease. She began to feel that she might say anything, and not fear a sharp rejoinder. "I was surprised, too. It seems the council freed him."
"Someone did, but I don't think it was the council," said Miravia with a frown. "I'm glad for his sake, poor man. It's just… I had hoped for my own adventure. I'll have none of those once I am married."
"Is it already arranged?"
"Oh, it was arranged long ago," she said dismissively.
"Do you know him?"
"His clan lives in the north, in Toskala. I've never met him, but we correspond." She sighed. "He's a scholar. Everyone speaks highly of him. I'm sure he's very nice."
"You've never met?"
"Why should we? Our families arranged everything. Anyway, the roads are very dangerous these days. No one dares risk the journey. I ought to have been married last year, but they had to put it off. I'm glad of it. Is that bad?"
Mai could not resist a gaze that shared in equal parts a glimpse of disillusionment and the presence of an ability to be amused at one's own selfish, lost hopes. Like her brother, Miravia had charm and also a core of passion that, it seemed, she had learned to disguise.
"I was meant to marry a youth from another clan," Mai said, "but it came to nothing after the Qin officer decided he wanted to marry me. Of course my father could not refuse him."
"Well! That could be a disaster. Or a triumph."
Mai blushed.
"Just like the Tale of Patience! Love's hopes fulfilled!" Hearing her own voice ring out so clearly, Miravia pressed a hand over her lips and said, through her fingers, "Don't tell Grandmother I said so. I'm not supposed to know such stories. But I do."
"I don't know the Tale of Patience," said Mai. "Will you tell it to me?"
"You don't know it? Everyone knows it!"
"Not where I come from."
"If I tell you the Tale of Patience, you must tell me your story, your life in the faraway land, your marriage, your travels. Your adventures." Like her brother, she had a way of grinning that lit her as with fire from within. "How I want to hear it all!"
"I'll tell you, gladly. Will you have some khaif? I can get a cup."
"Oh, I must not." Seeing Mai's confusion, she added, "I'm not allowed, of course. Only adults can drink khaif."
"Surely you're as old as I am. I'm an Ox. When were you born?"
Miravia bent close, lips almost touching Mai's ear. The intimate gesture made Mai shudder with pleasure. "I was born in the Year of the Deer. But we're not supposed to know about that. The elders call it an ungodly custom, a superstitious way of naming the years instead of numbering them properly. Don't tell anyone. Please."
Mai grasped her hand between hers. "Of course I won't! But I still don't understand. If you're two years older than I am, then how am I allowed to drink khaif, while you are not? Is it because I'm a guest?"
"No, because you're an adult."
Mai shook her head. "I don't understand."
"You're married. And pregnant."
"He-ya! Tay ah en sai!"
The children's voices thundered out in a unison chant, echoed by three unison claps. A woman's powerful voice called a singsong phrase, and the children replied in a penetrating chorus, punctuating each phrase with unison claps. This call and response went on while Mai stared at Miravia and felt as though she had just been overtaken by a sandstorm.
From the veranda, Priya opened her eyes and turned to look toward Mai, a smile blooming on her round, dark face. Sheyshi's head remained bent over her sewing. At length, Mai discovered she still possessed a voice, although it had little enough strength to pierce the roar of the schoolroom chorus beyond the wall.
"What did you say?"
"You didn't know?"
Without warning, a deep clanging resonated out of the earth, so full and heavy that the whole world seemed to vibrate to its call. Mai pressed her hands to the bench. The sound throbbed up through the earth and the stone and into her body. Into her belly. Into her womb.
Could it be true?
Of course it could be true! It was even likely. Probable. Expected.
Yet she could not catch her breath. She could not even think, not with all that noise.
The children's chorus stammered into silence. A little voice began to wail in counterpoint to the shuddering bass roll of the bell.
Miravia rose, face flushed with something other than steam rising off a boiling cauldron. "There cries the Voice of the Walls. May the Hidden One protect us!"
The bell ceased ringing. The sudden, shocked silence lasted long enough for a breath to be drawn in. Then, on those wings, rose a clamor from all around, within the walls and without, as if every person in Olossi cried out at the same time. That roar was its own storm, battering the heavens.
"What does it mean?" Mai stammered.
"The Voice of the Wall is Olossi's alarm bell. When he sings, any person outside the walls knows to retreat to the safety of the walls. Once a year on Festival First Day, we hear him. Today he cries in truth. There must have come news. Bad news."