It was true that the holy masters who served the Merciful One in Kartu Town had memorized the discourses and blessings, and never carried scrolls. It hadn't occurred to Mai to wonder if they could read as did the scholars who ran the var's law courts.
Unexpectedly, the captain looked past her to Priya. "Can you read this scroll?"
The silence made Mai nervous. She turned to look up at her slave, whom she trusted perhaps more than any other person in the world. That bland, pleasant face had not changed expression, but a single tear slid down Priya's cheek.
"I can read it," she said quietly.
"How can you?" cried Mai. "Are you a scholar, Priya? How could you not have told me?"
Priya did not answer. She was as old as Mai's mother, a robust woman of no particular beauty but a core of inner strength and a well of calm that had always seemed bottomless. Mai admired her. It was true that her complexion was so similar to a dark red clay that Father Mei had named her Clay, but Mai's persistent and public use of her real name had won the day in this single case. She was the only slave in the Mei clan called by her free name.
"The holy women of the Yari are taught to read," said Captain Anji. "It is part of their worship. They read the thirty-seven discourses and the eighty-nine narratives from dawn to dusk all the way through the cycle and then begin again. Is that not so?"
"It is so," murmured Priya.
"How are you come here?" he asked.
Mai stared, caught speechless. Mai had picked her off the auction block seven years ago, and in all that time Priya had never revealed any part of her past!
"Raiders came to our holy pavilion," she said simply. "They killed some and marched the rest of us away, north over the pass. The mountains are so high that half the slaves driven across the pass died with blood foaming on their lips. We kept marching north until we came to the Golden Road. I was sold in Kartu Town. I survived because of the teachings of the Merciful One. Death is nothing to fear."
"No," he agreed. "We are all dead men."
"You don't look like a ghost!" cried Mai more strongly than she intended, still stinging from the realization that she didn't know as much as she thought she did. Then she took a breath. How stupid that comment sounded! And bad luck, too, maybe.
As he began to smile, she recalled bitterly how Girish had belittled her and how the family so often patted her head and called her "little orchid" and "plum blossom" as though she were no smarter than a flower. He saw the shift, perhaps even the anger, in her expression. She had betrayed herself. His smile faded as his gaze grew more intent. "I don't mean that I'm dead, only that we will all pass Spirit Gate in time. There is no point in fearing what is inevitable."
"I feel that I have passed Spirit Gate already," she said. "I am not what I was before, nor do I want to be."
Priya bent and took her hand. "Any great change is a Spirit Gate, plum blossom," she said fondly, and in her mouth the pet name did not cloy. "I crossed through a gate when I was stolen from my land and my people. I am dead now."
"Would you go back, if you could?" Mai asked, fearing to hear the answer.
Priya looked at Captain Anji, and they seemed to speak to each other in a language Mai did not understand, one that made her feel terribly young and naive. "The road that passes under Spirit Gate runs in only one direction, Mistress. There is no going back."
BECAUSE THERE WAS no going back, she had to go forward never knowing where the path led. By the tenth morning after they had left Kartu Town she was able to mount her horse and ride for half the day before the effort tired her. That night they camped within the ruins of a fortress so old that the wind had sculpted it into a complex beast half buried in the sand. A constant whistle sounded from the many holes where the wind sang through, changing only in pitch and loudness. They set up tents in the middle of the ruin for some relief from the sting of sand. Chief Tuvi made a shelter for himself in one corner and to Mai's surprise brought out a one-stringed musical instrument from a long leather case which she had all along thought contained a hunting bow. Yet the case proved to carry a slender instrument as well, which he used to draw music out of the string. A few of the men carried rattles or bells. With the wind as accompaniment, they played and took turns singing.
The bay mare rode down to me from out of the sky
She rode down to me from out of the sky.
A celestial horse! Best among horses!
The lord wants her for himself.
But I'll keep her for myself.
A celestial horse! Best among horses!
With the bay mare I rode east along the Golden Road.
This is what I saw along the Golden Road.
This particular song went on for a long time, with men adding verses as they pleased, describing sights they had seen in their journeys, north into the dry hills or south into the stone desert, west into demon country or east along the Golden Road. Mai sat on her divan beside Captain Anji on his stool. She sipped at yoghurt.
When she bent toward him, he, alert to her least movement, turned to smile at her.
"Why are you called east?" she asked daringly, aware of how close he was. If she swayed forward, she could kiss him!
He raised an eyebrow, always a sign of amusement in him. "I can't say."
"You can't say because you don't know or because you aren't allowed to tell?"
He laughed. She flushed, embarrassed, pleased, excited, too many feelings thrown together. It made her giddy, and she withdrew-just a little-to give herself breathing space.
"Shai," he said in a louder voice, still looking at her. "Come here."
Shai had been outside sparring with his weapons partners. When he appeared, sweating and dirty, he sat on a stool beside the captain. Anji signaled for the music to stop. The men put away their rattles, and Chief Tuvi sealed up his instrument in its case.
"We are come about halfway," said the captain, "the easy part of the road. This place was a town once, on an oasis, but the desert creeps close. The demons are hungry. They've eaten many towns that used to stand here, like this one, and even swallowed the old wells. We'll finish filling our water pouches tonight and press on as soon as the moon rises. We'll rest from midday to a hand's breadth before sunset and travel at night and into the morning. You'll be thirsty but must not drink more than your share. Any who fall behind will be left. Beware demons. They hunt here."
He stood. "Rest now. You'll hear the chief's whistle when it's time to ride out."
The men dispersed, but he stopped Mai as she rose. It was the third time he had ever touched her. His fingers on her wrist were cool, his grip light. "You must ride, Mai'ili. The slaves cannot carry you on this part of the road. We'll break the palanquin down and bring it as baggage as far as we can. But you must ride now. Do you understand?"
She looked at him carefully. His eyes seemed more lovely to her than they had eleven days ago when they had stood at the law court while the proper contracts were signed and sealed. He was, just slightly, breathing to an unsteady beat as he watched her. His lips were parted just enough that she might slip the tip of her little finger between them, and as if he had heard her speak such words, as if she had actually touched him so intimately, he flushed along his dark cheeks but did not release her.
"Will you leave me behind if I falter?" she asked.
A peculiar expression passed swiftly across his face: pain or anger or a smothered laugh. Something deeper and more complicated.
"You hide yourself," she said, bolder now. "Let me see you."