Shai flushed as though the fire had washed over him. Why would Anji mention ghosts? Had he betrayed himself somehow? He had tried so hard to keep his secret. Maybe Mai had whispered the truth to Anji, as pillow talk. Best he not talk about the dead at all, lest folk got to wondering how he knew so much about ghosts.
"Who is Beltak?" he asked, hoping to throw down fresh scent to muddy the trail.
"That's the short name of the god. He has a longer one, but it takes an hour to say it all." The shifting dance of the flames played on his face. The world was an inconstant place, so the flames might have told him. Anji was a man who appreciated irony, and gave away little else.
"What of the Merciful One?"
"The priests of the Merciful One are executed if they're caught. Or any of their worshipers. Hamstrung, and burned alive."
Shai shuddered. The awning was settled. A lantern was lit, and a carpet unrolled. Shai excused himself, claiming he had to take a piss, but he was simply too nervous to sit. He walked a circuit of the campsite.
Six fires burned to shelter this consortium of thirty-one anxious merchants, ranging in grandness from long-distance solo peddlers pushing handcarts piled with silks and spices to one grand entrepreneur and his managers shepherding ten wagons of fine goods and forty or more healthy young slaves destined for the markets of the Hundred. No one sang or chattered. They watched the darkness, waiting for bandits or heretics to strike.
One man dressed purely in white sat alone, on a mat, with only an oil lamp for company. He held a wooden bowl in front of him and murmured words as he touched water from the bowl to his forehead. The Sirniakan carters and drovers knelt on the ground behind this man, mimicking his movement with bowls and water of their own.
Shai paused to watch. After a moment, a slender man of mature years slipped in beside Shai. The man wore a voluminous cloak, dark pantaloons whose color could not be distinguished, and a tunic that in the moonlight appeared as pale as butter.
After a moment, the man touched him lightly on the elbow. "Best not to stand watching, they don't allow it," he whispered. He flashed a kindly smile, then strode away, cloak swirling around his legs.
Startled, Shai moved on. As he continued his circuit, the Qin sentries nodded at him. These days they seemed polite more than friendly. He had taken their politeness for companionship before, having known so little companionship in Kartu. Now that he understood them better, he recognized that they were bred, or honed, to a manner with a sheen of smoothness that rarely betrayed extremes of emotion. Tohon was asleep, rolled up in a blanket and snoring, his weathered face as peaceful as a baby's.
The sentry closest to the forest's edge whistled sharply. Men leaped up. Torches were lit. The merchants scattered to their wagons and carts. Out in the night, branches snapped and whipped as unseen stalkers scurried to get out of the way. Qin soldiers dashed after them and, in the distance and hidden by darkness, a melee exploded. It settled quickly, fading into a few shouts and a cheery laugh.
The man in white appeared at the edge of camp, holding his oil lamp in his left hand and his bowl in his right. The soldiers reappeared, mocking the tailman who limped in. They dragged a body, a ragged creature who once might have been a man, although he was filthy, skinny, and quite dead now. Shai watched from a distance. It was difficult to see threat in the dead man, but the merchants were as ecstatic as if they had been saved from a marauding army.
A wisp of ghost substance spun out of the man; a face of bitter regret and pain began to form its familiar cry. The man in white lifted lamp and bowl, chanting words under his breath like a prayer over the dead. As he spoke, the ghost substance was pulled and pulled like thread unraveling, and drawn inexorably into that simple wooden bowl, sucked clean into it, until it was all gone.
All gone. Given no chance to pass through Spirit Gate. Trapped in the bowl.
No one else noticed. No one else saw.
Shai broke into a sweat. His hands were shaking as he turned away. The man in white-whatever he was-must not suspect what Shai had seen.
Hamstrung and burned alive.
No talk of the gods in the empire. You'll get us killed!
The man in white moved away. The body was searched and afterward dumped into the bushes like so much garbage. The camp fell quiet again. It took him a long time, but he fought to breathe evenly. Once he thought he could speak without stammering, he circled back around to where he had started, at a spot overlooking the captain's awning.
By the light of a lantern, under the sole awning erected for the night, Anji had settled in to confer with Master Iad, the caravan master, a keen and cunning man for whom no detail was too small to ignore. Together they examined a knife that had been taken from the body of the dead man.
Mai appeared beside him, as if she had been waiting for him to show up. "What's wrong, Shai? You look worried."
"There is a man, dressed in white, who travels with the caravan. The drovers and carters mimic him. What is he?"
"He is a priest of Beltak. That's what Anji says. Every caravan traveling through the empire must employ a priest to guard."
"To guard what?"
"I don't know. To guard against evil, I suppose. I think they're sorcerers. Do not speak to him. He'll leave us and go back into the empire, once we reach the borderlands."
The caravan master glanced up, seeing Mai, and away again with guilty swiftness.
"He knows you're not a boy," said Shai. "Do you think the merchants suspect the captain lied to them?"
"Wasn't Anji magnificent at Sarida? He told them what they most feared to hear, so they believed him."
"That's not an answer."
"I don't think they care," she said coolly, "not as long as they're safe."
"Are we ever safe?"
She shuddered.
"What is it?" he asked. "What's wrong, Mai?"
Shaking herself, she touched his hand. "I didn't see how it happened, in Sarida. How we lost all the bearers, who walked so faithfully all this time, never complaining. And that poor lad forced to leave Commander Beje's villa only because he saw us on the porch. He's dead, too. And poor Cornflower, lost in the storm. How can we be safe when we never know who we're going to lose?" Her voice dropped to a whisper. "What if Anji is killed? Then what happens to us? We've been on the road for four months. We're so far from home we can never go back."
Footsteps crunched on dirt. Mountain's hulking shape appeared out of the night bearing wash water. "Mistress? Priya says she has your wash ready."
She forced a smile before hurrying away.
WHY SHOULD THE merchants care that Mai was not a boy, as long as they were safe? If the caravan master had his suspicions, he did not confide them to Beltak's priest. No doubt he'd be twice a fool to protest now, and a dead fool at that. They were all far from home; best not to take chances.
Their company pushed higher and higher into the mountains. The few weak souls in the merchant train who couldn't keep up were left behind. At the order of the priest, one female slave was executed for an unspecified crime. A young slave gone lame was granted clemency and allowed to ride on the back of a wagon until he could walk again. None of the merchants complained about the grueling pace. Possibly this was because they were to all intents and purposes now at the mercy of their guards. Possibly it was because they were eager to push beyond the range of the Beltak priest's absolute power. Or possibly they were happy to have to pay so little, nothing more than feed and provisions, for this magnificent captain and his wolf pack of soldiers who quietly and efficiently guarded the merchants and peddlers and their laden wagons and chained slaves.