'I can carry the baby, Mistress.' Sheyshi's wheedling tone made Keshad wince. Did he sound like that when he spoke to Miravia? Not that he had ever spoken to her except that one time in the market.
'I've been doing the accounts for the naya storehouses,' said Miravia. 'We've been shipping lots to Argent Hall for the last month. Just a few days ago two flights of reeves flew vessels out, although I wasn't told where they were headed.'
'You've been my trusted eyes and ears here in Astafero for the last months.' She kissed Miravia on the cheek. Kesh licked his lips, wishing they were his lips on that delicate skin. How envy stabbed! Was Mai taunting him on purpose? 'Indeed, I can scarcely bear to be separated from you, now we are together again,' she went on, and perhaps her gaze slid sidelong to pinion him, reminding him that he was the outsider. Or perhaps he was just imagining things.
As she wrapped Atani in the sling, the curtain was swept aside and Anji walked in accompanied by Tuvi. 'Mai, you'll attend me.'
Chief Tuvi looked up at the rippling ceiling and down again. 'Captain? Did I not recommend prudence?'
Tuvi-lo.' Anji's tone ended the conversation. 'Mai, I must absorb a full complement of Qin soldiers into my command. It is necessary for me to make them understand that you hold the position of my consort under Qin custom. For them to accept my command, as Commander Beje has ordered them to do, they must recognize and respect my chosen wife.'
'Is this about your mother, Anji?' his chosen wife asked tartly.
Tuvi sighed gustily. 'I recommend banking this fire rather than fanning it-'
'I haven't finished,' said the captain, glancing once around the chamber, marking who was listening and who was absent. He raised a hand and pointed a finger at O'eki so rudely that Mai flinched and Miravia looked away. But he was just gesturing in the outlander style, making an emphatic point. 'You understand me, Master O'eki? We spoke of this when I came to your house.'
The big man inclined his head, but Kesh noted a difference in how he addressed the captain now. He was respectful, even cautious, but not subservient. 'Priya and I both understand you.'
'What is there to understand?' demanded Mai. 'What aren't you telling me, Anji?'
Something in the look he gave her stopped her before she could go on with her questions and demands. Her lips thinned. Her gaze sparked.
Eihi!
Was she angry?
She raised her chin proudly, touched her hair as if to make sure the hair-sticks and combs were all in place, not that any man ever looked beyond her remarkable beauty to find fault in the details, and swept grandly off the porch and over to Anji's side. The baby
wanted his father; he always did; but for once Anji did not cater to his infant whims. He led Mai, with the baby, to the curtain.
'Can't I go with you, Mistress?' sniveled Sheyshi.
Ignoring Sheyshi, Mai turned to Tuvi with a parting blow. Tuvi-lo, please accompany Master O'eki, Master Keshad, and Miravia to the naya storehouses. I thank you.'
Cursed woman!
Priya came out from the antechamber. 'Ah, Sheyshi, just who I was looking for. There is no hand for mending as clever as yours, Sheyshi. You have the neatest stitch of anyone in the household. One of the master's robes has a tear right where a perfect butterfly is embroidered. Can you fix it?' She led Sheyshi away on this innocuous errand.
'Do we need the clerks?' asked the chief as O'eki fetched the accounts books. He indicated the young ones, who were sitting in the shade near the kitchen women and sipping cordial.
'I am competent to deal with the books,' said Miravia. 'I go the warehouses every day to discuss household requirements and cross-check the accounts books in Mai's name.'
The chief nodded at her. Did his gaze linger? Did she look at him a moment longer than was entirely necessary?
They walked, Chief Tuvi at the van, Master O'eki and Miravia in the middle, and Kesh fuming at the rear, to the warehouse complex built adjacent to the militia encampment and ringed by the same earthen walls. A level road had been cleared from the complex down to the strand, to make it easy to move supplies up or the volatile oil of naya down. The warehouse factor's greeting made it clear Miravia was not only familiar to him but had ingratiated herself. He was a middle-aged man. Did he admire her, too?
His counting room sat in the center of the warehouse complex. He took books from a chained cabinet and escorted them to a pair of low storehouses dug into the earth so that, in case of accident, fire could not spread. Guards stood outside the double-chained and bolted gates, which the factor unlocked. They descended an earthen ramp to a musty dirt floor; a wide corridor extended into darkness. Each brick-walled storage chamber had a separate entrance off this corridor.
'Each vessel is numbered according to the storehouse, the chamber within the storehouse, and its place within that chamber,' the factor was explaining to Tuvi, who carried a lantern in each hand. 'Mistress Miravia and I crosscheck each week when
we do a full accounting. We maintain a standing order with two Ri Amarah houses in Olossi, who take best-quality water white for medicinal purposes.' He manfully did not look at Miravia as he said this, although they all knew what she was: her brushstroke eyes, lighter skin and square face betrayed her origins. 'Otherwise, however, oil of naya is only conveyed to other militia encampments and to Argent Hall, by ship or via reeve flights. We control the naya trade, no one else. Mistress Miravia, will you mark off the vessels to be shipped?'
She took a lantern from Tuvi and moved into the first chamber.
'Chief, I would like to show you the locked vault where we keep the water white. We lost a single pot of water white two months ago to theft, so we've had to increase our security.' The factor led O'eki and Tuvi into the gloom of the back aisles.
Tuvi's voice drifted back. 'To theft? How can that be?'
Keshad drifted into the narrow chamber behind Miravia, who hung the lantern from a hook and began to mark a manifest as she logged the clay vessels. Such homely pots, to contain such treasure. The air was very close and the grit made him blink.
'Don't you worry the flame will light the oil and make everything burn?' he asked.
The scarf on her head could not contain her hair. Wisps trailed down the curve of her neck. Her profile, illuminated by the lantern's glow, had a glorious sheen; her eyelashes shadowed her dark eyes; her hand brushed steadily at the manifest.
'Why are you staring at me?' she said in a low voice, although she was not looking at him.
He had meant to be charming and patient, but what was the point?
'Because I love you.'
Still she did not look! Perhaps her brushstroke stuttered; her hand, holding the ink bowl, might have trembled. 'You can't love me. You don't know me. You must think you love me, and it must be some story you have told yourself about who I am that you love. But it can't be me.'
'I saw you that day in the courtyard in Olossi and ever after I can only think of you.'
Still writing, she licked her lips. The moisture made her lips glow, as kisses might. 'That means you want to devour me, not that you love me. There's an easy way to slake that thirst, isn't there? When a pair of young people wish to devour each other but are already contracted to wed other people because of clan alliances? Then they go to the temple and slake their thirst there? There's a small temple dedicated to Ushara here. We could meet there — and then I could stop-' Ink spattered; she ceased writing.
He was shaking as he took a step toward her. 'Then you could stop what?'
T could stop thinking of you all the time!' She stoppered the inkpot, shoulders heaving.
'You love me!'
She turned, shoulders stiff and lips pressed together with anger. When she spoke, her words emerged like daggers as she glared at him. T don't know you. I can't love you. Anyway, Mai wants me to marry Chief Tuvi. He's a good man. Why should you suppose I want to go off with you just because of wanting sex, and leave behind my dearest sister who is my only family?'