The noodle seller, Behara, beckoned to her daughter and sent her running down into town. The six priests rose in consternation, and finally the hierophant extended open hands.
'Holy One,' she said, but faltered, washed bloodless and unable to speak further.
'Make a space for the holy Guardian!' snapped the Lady's mendicant. 'For as it says in the tale, face south in the morning and north in the afternoon. Isn't that how it goes?'
At first no one moved. Then, awkwardly, one man and another woman and more cleared a bench and backed away. Hari dismounted, and the horse furled its wings. A child came running up from town in company with Behara's elder daughter, and the little one — not more than seven or eight — without the slightest self-consciousness pattered forward with a garland draped over one arm and raised it as an offering. The garland was a little withered, truly, and where it had come from in this season Mai could not imagine.
Hari stared at it until the child said in a clear, carrying, and somewhat exasperated voice, 'You're supposed to take it. It's an offering, Holy One!'
Hari's grin blazed. He bent low so the child could drape the garland over his head, then he walked down to the cleared bench, the child trotting behind. The silence within the assembly was so intense that Mai realized her nails were biting into her palms. She opened her hands and sat, to avoid notice.
'And stop pinching your big sister when no one is looking, just to get her into trouble,' Hari said to the child, who chortled wickedly and bolted into the crowd.
Behara actually laughed, although it was her own grandson so
accused. She stood. 'Holy One, I pray you, sit down. Why are you come?' If she was nervous, she hid it well.
'I am a Guardian,' he said as he let his gaze pass once over the assembly. Startled gazes flicked up, or down; a man gasped out a word; a woman chuckled; another sobbed into her hands. 'Is this not an assizes?'
He sat.
Everyone looked toward the six priests, who were conferring in frantic whispers. No one knew what to do!
'Bring cases forward,' said Behara impatiently.
'But there is a proper form-' cried the hierophant.
'Never mind the cursed proper forms,' said Behara. 'How are we to remember a ritual no one here alive has ever witnessed? We'll discuss the certification issue next council meeting. Aren't there other disputes to be brought forward today?'
It took some effort to force the first set of disputants to present themselves before a cloaked man with his outlander face and ominous Guardian's eyes.
A flock of sheep had been deliberately stampeded, and several lost. The man who owned the flock said those who had scared the beasts had stolen them. Not so, said the accused young debt slave, although he blushed and stammered as he spoke. He'd done no such thing; he'd been out walking and only fallen into the way of the scattering sheep and tried his best to round them up as a courtesy, only to be accused of theft!
Hari scratched his chin, looking — Mai thought — surprised as he examined each witness in turn. He indicated the men who owned the flock. 'You believe the sheep were deliberately stampeded, that is true enough, you do believe it. You lost five of your flock, and that is also true. Maybe it is true the flock was deliberately set upon by people bent on mischief and maybe it is not, but there are no witnesses, so we can't know. However, this young man's story is also true.'
'Then what was he doing out there, a debt slave like him?' demanded one of the owners.
Hari laughed. 'What do you suppose a young man like that was doing, out away from town? The same thing I would have been doing at his age, had a lass as lively as the one he's thinking of made the same offer to me!'
As men smirked and women chortled, the owners blundered on indignantly. 'But then why didn't he say-?'
There were a hundred reasons folk might not say: maybe she was married already; or she was ashamed of her lust for a lowly debt slave; or he was skiving off work and avoiding a beating. Aui! Who could blame a young man for doing what the young liked to do, eh?
'But what about our missing sheep?'
Hari's expression made Mai, who knew him so well, want to snort with laughter. 'Can it be you have only taken up sheep-herding this year? No wonder! You need to hire an experienced drover, ver. Someone who knows sheep. I admit it will cut into your profit, but until you understand the ways of sheep you will find yourself in trouble again and again. I speak as a man who knows sheep. Is there another case?'
Indeed, there was. Underweight strings of vey were being passed off in the marketplace, but no one knew where they had come from. Hari surveyed the crowd with seeming absentminded-ness as one merchant after the next approached to display the string they'd been shorted. He stopped a woman in midsentence with a raised hand, his gaze fastening on a face half hidden in the crowd. His eyes narrowed. Folk murmured anxiously.
'They're coming from the same people who are weighting their wheat flour with chalk dust,' he said.
His words were answered by a flurry of sharp movement in the crowd as a man and woman tried to bolt. No one had suspected. They'd thought the flat bread tasted gritty because everything tasted of grit here. Anyhow, most folk were accustomed to nai porridge and rice, coming from waterfed lands; the drylands wheat and millet were a new taste. What punishment was to be meted out for such a crime?
Hari looked right at Mai, and she needed no second heart and third eye to see the plea in his expression. She broke in. 'Olossi's market has a code for such violations that we may follow until Astafero codifies its own market laws. Surely it is the Guardian's business to determine the truth, and the council's business to determine the fine.'
Hari's tense posture relaxed. Folk agreed that she had the right of it. The sun set over the mountains. A pair of youths lit lamps, the oil of naya so pure it blazed. The light shimmered in the twilight glamor of Hari's long cloak, whose fabric blended into the fall of night and yet caught the final fading measures of day. The way he sat so still quieted the assembly; they were nervous, but
not precisely fearful. They watched him, but did not cower. His mouth wore a lopsided smile that was also half a frown.
He said, 'What of this other matter that concerns you, Mistress Behara?'
The words startled the noodle seller, but she rose to address Guardian and assembly both. A gang of youths trying to extort protection money had been caught by the militia and now there was a dispute over what punishment should be meted out. The lads were hauled up before Hari, where they stammered out defiant declarations of innocence.
Hari made a cutting gesture with a hand that stopped them short. 'Don't lie to me!' The young men wept as Hari's gaze staked them. Frown deepening, he released them and spoke to the assembly. 'You have a more serious problem. These louts are an advance force from a criminal organization that was driven out of Haldia by the war. It's trying to move its operations into Olossi.'
Folk gave way to let Anji through to the front. 'I beg your permission to deal with this matter personally,' he said to the council. 'That such organizations operate in Olo'osson is not acceptable. I'll take custody of these men. With the help of the Hieros and her agents in Olossi, we'll track this back to its source and put an end to it.'
The council looked to Hari, but Hari shrugged. 'I've determined the truth. It's up to you to determine the fine.' He rose abruptly. The assembly rose hastily, touching hands to foreheads as a gesture of respect. 'I am done for this day.'
He strode to his waiting horse, his cloak blending with the fall of night.
'Holy One,' called the hierophant after him. 'Will you preside again over our assizes?'
He half turned back with a smile as sweet as honey cakes. He beckoned, and Mai hesitated, sure he should not be singling her out, but she could not refuse him or the look that suffused him. She paced out the distance between them, not wanting to seem intimate with a holy Guardian who all presumed she did not and could not already know. Before she could speak to scold him for calling her, he was already talking, words tumbling.