Nekkar eased up onto his side. He was lying in the inner courtyard of the Thirsty Saw, where he and other folk in Stone Quarter often drank under the shade of an awning green with vines. Soldiers lined the compound wall, staring at their boots. Prisoners were tied to the posts that supported the massive trellis, and more were stuffed doubled over and in evident pain into livestock cages. Many had soiled themselves from being confined for so long, their reek mixing with the sour stench of spilled wine.
The sergeant designated a pair of reluctant soldiers to haul the prisoners forward one at a time. The first man had been beaten so badly he could barely walk, and his head swayed on his neck as if he were not quite conscious.
The woman held a writing brush and a neatly trimmed sheet of mulberry paper. Her cloak's hood was thrown back to reveal a nondescript face, pleasant enough in its lineaments and near in age to Nekkar, who had at the turn of the year made forty-seven and counted his thirtieth year in service to Ilu, the Herald. The prisoner's gaze was forced to meet hers.
She marked on the paper like a clerk. 'Veron, son of the Ten Chains clan of Toskala. You have committed a terrible crime.'
The man collapsed. After a moment, it became apparent he was dead. Just like that. His spirit had fled through the Gate, leaving its husk.
A soldier retched. Two others grabbed the dead man's ankles and dragged him out of sight as another prisoner was shoved forward. This one, a woman Nekkar knew by sight from the market square, sobbed noisily as she confessed that her clan had hidden its gold beneath the planks of their weaving house.
'Were you not commanded to reveal all coin and stores in your household's possession, as well as provide a full census of household members including any outlanders or gods-touched residing there?' asked the cloak, her tone calm. 'Why do you not obey when you know there will be a punishment?'
'We cleanse them who disobey our orders so flagrantly, Holy One,' said Sergeant Tomash. 'As an example.'
The woman began to scream, pleas for mercy, anything but to be hung by her arms from a post until she died of exposure and thirst, but the cloak gestured and she was dragged away. Another was hauled forward in her place.
So went the weary round. The sergeant was a cunning man in his own way; every person here had triggered his suspicion, and every one now confessed either to some petty crime or to concealing valuables or in one case an outlander slave. A merchant babbled about how he cheated on his rice measures. All were condemned to the post.
One frail old fellow fell to his knees as he begged her pardon for having killed another laborer back in his youth.
'You killed him? You confess it?' She lifted her brush, touched it to the rice paper.
He croaked a gasp, or perhaps it was meant to be a word, but like the first man he tumbled forward onto his face. Dead.
Nekkar shut his eyes as the corpse was dragged away.
'This man turned himself in to spare his clan,' the sergeant said. 'He confessed to hoarding nai-'
'Look at me,' said the cloak. 'Sergeant, lift his chin-'
Nekkar opened his eyes just as the sergeant wrenched the man's chin up. The prisoner was young, hale, and with the thick arms and powerful legs of a laborer. He struggled, keeping his head down, but his eyes flicked up anyway, as though gauging his distance.
She took a step back. 'Kill him.'
As soldiers drew their swords, the young man fought free and tugged a knife from his boot; he leaped toward the cloak, but spears pinned him before he reached her.
'He concealed no nai.' Her tone remained even as she watched him thrashing, still fighting forward despite flesh pierced and his blood flowing. 'He came to attack me. That is why he hid his gaze.'
'No heart can be hidden from you, Holy One,' murmured the sergeant. 'Cut his throat.'
The young man screamed; his failure was worse than the pain, no doubt. At least this one had fought back instead of waiting passively, too fearful or too shamed to stand up.
'Enough,' Nekkar said aloud.
What a gods-rotted fool he was, knowing he was responsible for the temple and yet staggering to his feet because he could not bear to watch this perverse assizes any longer. He straightened, grimacing at the stabbing pains in his abused body.
'Heya!' barked the sergeant. 'Stop, or you'll be cut down likewise.'
Nekkar faced the woman in the cloak. 'Enough! Why do you do this? Are you not a Guardian? For by your look, and your power, you seem to be one of those who wear Taru's cloak and wield the second heart and the third eye to judge those who have broken the law. The orphaned girl prayed to the gods to bring peace to the land, not cleansing.'
'Does cleansing not bring about peace?'
'As well argue that fear and terror bring about peace. Guardians are meant to establish justice. Is that what you call this? Justice?'
'Stay your hand,' said the cloaked woman before the soldiers could rain blows down upon him. She captured his gaze.
Aui! There it all tumbled as she spun the threads out of his heart: the mistakes he had made, the harsh words he had spoken, his youthful temper and rashness and the fights he'd gotten into, breaking one man's nose and another's arm, the girl he'd impregnated the month before he had entered the temple for his apprenticeship1 year. He had afterward lied outright, saying it wasn't his seed, to avoid marrying her, and afterward taken seven years of temple service to make sure they couldn't force him, although many years later after being humbled and honed by the discipline of envoyship, he had made restitution to her clan. And what of his twenty years bedding Vassa? Yet what had he and Vassa to be ashamed of, he an ostiary forbidden to marry and she a young widow who had preferred her widowhood to a second marriage arranged by her clan? They did nothing wrong by sharing a pallet; he served the temple as he had done for thirty years and she cooked in her family's neighboring compound as she had done her entire life.
Enough! The cloak's gaze pierced him, but it did not cripple him. He had made peace with his mistakes and his faults.
She regarded him with a sharp frown. 'The gods enjoined the Guardians to seek justice. People suffer or die through a recognition of their own crimes, in their own hearts.'
'It looks to me like you kill them. Or hand them over to your lackeys to be cleansed. If you believe that to be justice, then you are no Guardian!'
The sergeant snarled. The soldiers hissed with fear.
'You are bold in your honesty, Ostiary Nekkar,' she said, having gleaned his name from his thoughts. 'You provided a census of your temple to the authorities, I see. Know you of outlanders in
this city? Know you of any man or woman, outlander or Hundred folk, who can see ghosts, as the gods-touched are said to do?'
He did not want to tell her, but his thoughts spilled their secrets and she lapped them up however he struggled to conceal what he knew of Stone Quarter's clans and compounds. He wept furiously, hating how he betrayed them: He knew of eight outlanders who were slaves in Stone Quarter, and he'd glimpsed others in Flag, Bell, Wolf, and Fifth Quarters as well. They came from foreign lands and usually served out their days with the clan who had purchased them. There was a young envoy stationed in Flag Quarter known to be gods-touched. Some years ago he'd met another at the Ilu temple up on the Ili Cutoff, an older man. A pair of gods-touched mendicants were said to wander the tracks and back roads of lower Haldia, aiding troubled ghosts in crossing away under Spirit Gate. Shouldn't such holy ones be left in peace to do what the gods commanded?
She released him by looking away to pinion the sergeant. 'Sergeant Tomash, you will accompany me to Flag Quarter. I must search out this young gods-touched envoy. After that, I have a new assignment for you. Collect all the census records. I want a hostage taken from every compound and handed over to the army.'