Traitors Gate

The two slaves climbed the steps and passed into the outer audience chamber without removing their outdoor shoes, but Kesh stopped and took off his boots.

'Hurry!' snapped the factor.

It was remarkably easy to channel his anger into overly polite words. 'It's not our way to enter our homes shod in dirt, ver. Our mat makers pride themselves on their fine work. Why should we trample it as if it were no better than the street?'

He set his boots aside and ran a hand over his hair before entering behind the impatient factor. They crossed the matted floor on a trail smeared with dust tracked in from outside. The factor paused by the far doors and rang a hand bell. A door was slid opened; Kesh entered alone. Four low couches in the Sirniakan style had been placed in a square, a table set between them.

'Master Keshad.' Anji's mother reclined on one couch. 'Sit down.'

He sat opposite and rested his hands on his thighs. Female voices whispered and giggled from behind curtains strung across one side of the room. Where slits parted, he glimpsed eyes, or cheeks, or gauzy veils stitched with shimmering thread.

'The ladies admire your beauty, Master Keshad. They're commenting on it.'

'I beg your pardon, exalted lady,' he said as more giggles assaulted him. His cheeks burned. With the force of will that had gotten him through twelve years of slavery, he refused to look again toward the curtains. 'Your words startled me.'

'Are you not commonly praised for your beauty?'

'No, exalted lady.' He was unable to find a posture that did not make him uncomfortable. 'Why have you summoned me?'

But he could already guess.

'We traveled a long road together, Master Keshad. I will therefore presume upon our acquaintance to forego the usual pleasantries and formal words and strike directly to the heart of the matter. I made an offer to you many days ago. What is your answer?'

There was more than one way to make trouble!

'I hope you will forgive my blunt speaking, exalted lady.'

'I expect an honest answer.'

The gods-rotted women hiding behind their cursed curtain were still whispering, the sound as irritating as the whine of a disaffected customer who has gotten the worse of the bargaining session through their own hapless negotiation.

'I must decline your most generous offer. I cannot take the captain's wife off your hands. I do not want to marry her.'

'You need not marry her. You can take her as a concubine.'

'I am hesitant to correct your observations, exalted lady, but believe me when I say she is a rich woman who is well respected among the councils of this region.'

'She is very young!'

'Nevertheless. Most people credit her with convincing your son to fight the army that attacked Olossi last year. Also, the Olossi city council considers itself beholden to her for making it possible for them to overthrow the houses who railed the council for many years solely to enrich themselves and their allies. Also, it seems she's been instrumental in supporting local councils and in creating a regional council in Olo'osson so all folk can have their voices heard.'

She said nothing.

'And, to be blunter, exalted lady, your son will never allow another man to take her from him.'

'I can direct my son.'

'You can?'

'You doubt me?'

Keshad smoothed the fabric of his loose trousers over his legs, taking courage in the fine weave and reed green color; these were the best quality clothes he had ever owned. Yet her garb — the silk; the embroidery of gold thread; the headdress plated with gold rings and medallions — was as far above his rich merchant's fittings as his were above that of a beggar's tattered loincloth.

'I do not doubt you, exalted lady. But I must still decline your offer.'

'You have given up on the other one? She's a clever girl, if reckless and possibly even inclined to disrespect. However, her accounting skills are good, she knows herbcraft, and she can even read and write. These are skills not to be scorned.'

'I will win her over in my own time and in my own way.'

'You can have two wives.'

This was like talking to Zubaidit when she got going! 'Exalted lady, please listen to my words. It is not what I want.'

'But it is what I want. I can make it worth your while. Name your price.'

Goaded, he laughed. 'Exalted lady, your son will kill me if he ever learns that I — or I suppose any man — has… well… Mai-' Aui! He was blushing. 'Do you think he cannot?'

'I see.' She might have been a statue examined from a distance,

remote and unknowable. She clapped her hands three times, and a slave emerged from behind a curtain carrying a small sack, no bigger than a melon, in both hands. The slave offered the sack to Kesh.

'I beg your pardon, exalted lady. What is this?'

'Gold.'

The slave released the sack. Kesh caught it; his arms tensed under its unexpected weight. 'I can take no payment for an act I have refused to perform.'

She smiled with real amusement, and for an instant he saw the personality that had captivated an emperor. Captain Anji's smile was more spontaneous. Hers was a weapon.

'This is not payment. It is not obligation. Nor is it a reward or a bribe. It is a gift. If it were anything otherwise, you would know. But I have the pleasure of making gifts exactly as I wish. I respect your honesty, Master Keshad. Now you may leave.'

So he left, burdened with gold and with a sense that he had missed something important. As soon as he was out on the porch, as soon as he had pulled on his boots and began walking down through the quiet evening streets of Astafero where a man might perfectly well carry a bag of gold without fearing he would be robbed and killed, he saw away beyond the walls in the lowland plain a pair of torches marking Ushara's temple.

Sixth bell had not yet been rung.

32

The baby sprawled naked in his cot, netting draped over to keep off mosks and flies and gnats, to discourage scorpions and snakes. Here in the Barrens the houses had to be elevated off the ground to keep away vermin, or else, as in Kartu Town, furniture must elevate the body away from the earth where poisonous creatures scuttled.

The commander's complex of tents had likewise been built up off the ground, canvas raised over raised plank flooring. Mai knelt behind Miravia, combing out her hair, which had a tendency to snarl. They were alone except for the sleeping baby.

'It's very irritating,' said Mai, 'that we cannot sleep in the house we raised but must push Chief Berkei out of his accustomed place to accommodate us. Not that the chief complained.'

'You were invited to sleep in the house, were you not?'

'Anji was. In the suite of rooms set aside for his use just as if that woman had built and furnished the house and overseen the settlement. No doubt I was meant to sleep like a beggar on the steps.'

'She's been kind to me. Not kind, precisely, but- Ouch!'

'Don't move! There, I got the tangle out. Hard to imagine her as kind.'

'A poor choice of words. She has treated me with respect. She asked about you, but I pretended stupidity and told the other hirelings to do the same. I'm sure she did not believe us. She ordered me to take her shopping in the market and bargain for her. She seems to know no other way of talking to people except to command them. She talked a great deal about Keshad. He traveled with them all the way from the south. She seems to think he is a promising young man.'

'Do her words stand in his favor, or against him?'

Miravia raised a hand to a cheek.

'You're blushing!' said Mai with a laugh, although she could not see Miravia's face.