'They might. It's a generous offer, but I don't think you can keep feeding more dependents.'
He turned the bowl of cold nai halfway around just to do something. 'I could have you executed for this conversation.'
Her smile was cursed relaxed. 'So you could.'
'Aui! Does nothing fluster you?'
'Not much.'
'Will it content you if I order all refugees and debt slaves released?'
'You'd have my thanks.' Her smile offered more.
'I want nothing in exchange,' he said curtly. 'I'll have the refugees and debt slaves assembled here in the marshal's garden. Sneak the others in among them, and they'll all be escorted from the compound before we put it to the torch. You're dismissed.'
'Captain.' She slid the door open and went out.
He turned the bowl all the way round, then tapped it on the table's top as he frowned.
'Captain?' Giyara looked in.
'Did you hear all that?' he asked, because Giyara's expression reminded him of a darkness in Zubaidit's eyes.
'I did.'
'What do you make of it?'
'She's a strange one. Yet she's right. No matter what you've proclaimed, there are soldiers who will force sex on captives. It's just wrong to steal what the Devourer offers. I hope most of your veterans would agree. You've got to come down hard on the First Cohort soldiers.'
'The commanders of this army won't care one way or the other. Maybe those who order cleansings have no argument with other forms of torture. Where does that leave us, Giyara?'
She'd seen too much to make light of his concerns. Like him, she'd walked a hard road to get to this place. She was good at what she did. She trusted him, and he trusted her, because they'd set their boundaries and stuck to them. There were things a person simply refused to do, because they were shameful.
She knew what he meant without him having to explain himself. 'We walk cautiously, Captain. And try not to attract much notice.'
'These children Zubaidit found hiding — Eiya! That wasn't mice I heard!' She looked a question at him, but he waved a hand. 'Never mind. Look over the prisoners. We'll release the refugees, and recruit or release those with debt marks and any young ones.'
'And the hirelings and assistants from Copper Hall? Cleanse them?'
Someone had to take the blow. War was a hard business. It was idiotic to pretend otherwise. 'No cleansings. Kill them, but make it clean and quick. When the compound burns, let it have a necklace of dead to remind the people hereabouts that the reeves, and those who support them, are going down to defeat.'
Stage by stage, day by day, the caravan journeyed to Old Fort. The amount of local traffic on the road shocked Kesh. Men led donkeys piled high with firewood. Lads and lasses shepherded flocks in grassy clearings. Women walked — alone! — with baskets of mushrooms gathered from the forest, calling out a cheerful greeting to the soldiers. Now and again they saw an eagle and reeve overhead, patrolling. At every village they crossed a guard post with a barrier blocking the road while the escort sent with them from Dast Korumbos cleared their passage.
'I've never seen the roads so secure,' said Kesh for the hundredth time. 'You could send a cursed child walking from here to Dast Korumbos and not fear for its safety.'
'All under the watchful eye of the Olo'osson militia,' said Eliar.
'As long as they're protecting me.' Kesh pushed forward to keep pace with the soldiers assigned them at the border. 'Are the roads safe all the way north, even to Nessumara?'
They were local lads, clear-featured and well disciplined, wearing their black hair up in topknots to mimic the Qin. 'Neh, things are cursed bad in the north,' they said with serious looks.
Kesh bit back a grin to make it a grimace. 'No one traveling up to trade in Nessumara and Toskala then, eh?'
They scoffed. 'Tss! You'd be good as dead, you would. But we hear-' They bent closer, confidingly. 'As soon as our army is ready to march, we'll do to them gods-rotted Stars of Life criminals, won't we?'
'Surely you will,' agreed Kesh, surprised by the fervor in their expressions.
They descended toward a familiar hill, its ancient ruins overlooking the glittering expanse of the Olo'o Sea caught in the ruddy light of late afternoon. Old Fort's palisade gates were open. Folk worked in fields and orchards scattered all the way up to the upland highlands where the southern shore of the grassy Lend washed against the foothills. They labored in stinking butcheries and tanning yards, sawed and sledged in the big lumber yard by the water where ten ships were drawn up awaiting logs and planks. No sooner had their caravan rumbled in to the large encampment grounds then young and old alike swarmed them with wares to barter or sell, freshly roasted meat on skewers, kama juice, barsh. A pair of young women had set up a slip-fry stand and got to work as the newly arrived Qin solders stared.
In procession with her eunuchs, the captain's mother presented herself to the slip-fry girls. Kesh hurried over, Eliar at his heels.
'What are these items? In what manner are you cooking them? Is this typical in this country? What do you charge? Extra for use of a bowl?'
The girls did not know to be intimidated. Even the watching Qin soldiers did not frighten them, being, evidently, so common a sight in these days they were considered as unexceptional as passing sheep. 'This is radish, verea, very crisp from my aunt's garden. Oil pressed from olives, verea, very healthy. For you, a special price because we've never seen a woman of your years come out of the south. We would never haggle with an auntie.'
They then named an outrageous sum that made Kesh choke and even Eliar change color, a flush rising in his cheeks. The girls saw him, and they giggled and goggled at the young good-looking Silver in their midst, just as the newly arrived Qin soldiers stared at the girls, although without the lighthearted laughter.
The old woman speared Keshad with her gaze. 'You will obtain a sample of local food so my people may taste what they can expect to eat. It smells awful.'
She swept away with her attendants.
'The hells!' exclaimed the older slip-fry girl. 'That was rude!'
Kesh distributed vey to the first dozen soldiers. 'You pay this much and then return the bowl and leave,' he said to them. 'Make a line. That's how we do things here.'
Mollified by paying customers, the girls got to work.
'This will be interesting,' said Eliar in Kesh's ear.
'Did you ever believe otherwise? Now help me do as she asked. I don't know about you, but I don't want to have to stand before Captain Anji after she's filled his ear with complaints of our service.'
'It must be twenty years since he's seen her. Didn't she send him away?'
'Yes, at the age of twelve, so he wouldn't be murdered in the imperial women's quarters you are so fond of. What's that to you?'
'That the Sirniakans are barbarians isn't my fault! I'm just remarking that it's not as if she raised him after that time. It's the age a boy leaves his mother's care and moves among men into a man's life. Why should he listen to her after all these years beyond the kindly respect any son must show a mother?'
You're an idiot. But Kesh held his tongue, thinking of Miravia. Maybe she had months ago been married off to the old goat, but perhaps there was time, since the roads north still weren't safe. Old goats died, and left the young goats behind. There was no telling what had happened while he was gone. He had to be patient.
'Heya! Heya!' The local guardsmen waved to get his attention.
A party of mounted men were riding up from the track that led west around the Olo'o Sea. The incoming troops were about one third Qin, the rest young local men who dressed and acted as if they wished they were Qin. Kesh was surprised to see Chief Deze at their head.
'Chief?' He hurried to meet them as the wiry soldier dismounted. 'How are you come here so quickly? We left you at the border.'