'I'm pleased you can tell the difference. Everyone here has to be judged for one reason or another, so get in line. You're not the only one who's brought in an outlander. I'll call you forward in due time.'
They waited the rest of the morning. Shai measured the height
of the walls, the speed and frequency of traffic — all as Tohon had taught him — but after a while he began to think his efforts pointless. The soldiers stood, or sat, or went to relieve themselves; two mounted an expedition for food and returned some time later with a heaping bowl of noodles that they shared out between them. Shai got nothing. His stomach rumbled with hunger, but he'd endured worse and, even so, he had never suffered the abuses forced on the children he'd been held captive with for many weeks. Had Eridit and the others found Tohon? Had their party reached Nessumara safely? He murmured a prayer to the Merciful One: Shower mercy over them; protect them; grant them refuge. But he had no offering gift except the pain and fear and grief in his heart.
Clouds gave intermittent protection from the sun. It was not as steamy as it had been earlier in the year. The season was changing. Having grown up in a distant land where the round of the year was utterly predictable, he could not hope to know what this new season would bring. He considered the knife concealed within his boot and offered a brief prayer to the Merciful One: Let them not search me.
Was Lord Radas himself conducting interrogations?
'Heya!' The familiar voice jolted him. 'What are you lot doing with my slave, eh?' Zubaidit strolled up in her tight sleeveless vest, her kilt swinging with each twitch of her shapely hips.
'So you're the whore,' said the sergeant with a laugh.
'I'll thank you not to use that insulting word, Sergeant. I'm an honest merchant.'
'Taking coin for sex is not honest work,' said Milas with a sneer.
She looked him up and down until he blushed. 'Like you never paid? Just how long have you been marching with the army, ver? Or do you sharpen your tool yourself?' His comrades laughed. 'You lot scorn the Devouring temples, so I figure that gives us something in common.' A medallion in the shape of an eight-pointed star hung by a leather thong around her neck, just like the ones worn by all the soldiers. 'Can I have my slave back? I'll make it worth your while.'
The sergeant placed himself between her and Shai. 'Listen, verea. You look like a tasty morsel, that's for sure. You've got the look of a hierodule.'
'I was a hierodule, truly, until I left, because the old bitch of a
hieros kicked me out.' She was a bold woman who knew how to attract the eye, but Shai recognized the strength in her shoulders and the taut muscular grace of her legs, signs the soldiers ignored in favor of the sexual charms she flaunted to put them off their guard.
The sergeant grinned in reply. 'Well, lass, I don't like to be the one bearing bad news, but all you camp followers have been told to get out. Any one of you found within sight of the city by day's end will be cleansed.' With a jerk of his chin, he indicated the poles lining the road, an avenue of death.
Zubaidit did not even look at the suffering. 'Whew! That's cold comfort for those who served the army all this way. You lot figuring to settle in here? Else who will help you on your further campaigns?'
'Not my problem. It may be those bed warmers who have pleased the officers get dispensation to stay with the army, but I wouldn't take my chances even on that. We saw a soldier's favorite lass with a baby born of his getting, cut down by Captain Dessheyi just for being in his way. Why don't you get on, then? No cause to get yourself in trouble, eh?'
She regarded him with a quizzical look, a moment of sympathy, perhaps, or something more complicated. Then the expression vanished, and the mocking smile reappeared. 'I'll just take my slave and get out of here.'
'Neh, can't let you do that. How'd you afford a brawny lad like this, anyway?'
'He was cheap. He's dumb as an ox. That's what I call him, anyway. Ox.'
Shai took the hint. 'Mistress, I waited for you. Then they made me go. They're taking me to see some fancy cloth. I tried to wait, Mistress. Please don't whip me.'
The soldiers snickered.
Bai's smile was its own whip. 'Are you sure it's worth wasting the time of your, interrogator, Sergeant? You see what I mean.'
'There's a reward if we bring in outlanders.'
'Eiya! I thought no one cared for outlanders here. I've been trying to hire him out for the novelty of it, but he's too cursed stupid to know what to do with women, or with men, for that matter. I think he can only tup sheep.'
That got them roaring. Shai was just grateful there were no sheep around, lest they amuse themselves by suggesting he perform.
'Heya!' The captain in charge of the line beckoned. 'Sergeant! Come.'
'You can't just steal him from me like that,' objected Bai.
'Go back to your village and get yourself a respectable shop or a respectable husband,' said the sergeant in a manner meant to be kindly. 'You don't want to find yourself like that lass and her infant babe who are dead.'
Bai did not protest as they led him away. She could not. Anyway, they both knew he had to take a chance at the cloak.
At the gatehouse, coin changed hands, and the sergeant and his cadre took off, happy to be rid of him. He was shoved down a corridor and fetched up in a spacious courtyard between high walls where a horse grazed on a patch of grass. Cloth had been strung along rope to conceal one half of the courtyard. The sun's light revealed three figures against the cloth: one kneeling abjectly and one waiting with a soldier's alert posture over to the side, half turned away. The third man stood with a slumped tilt to broad shoulders Shai thought he recognized.
'Please, I beg you.' By the motion of clasped hands, Shai guessed it was the kneeling figure who spoke. It was painful to hear a man reduced to such wretched sobs. 'You've seen into my very heart, you know all my secrets. It wasn't my choice to hide those barrels of wine, nor the ale. It was my sister. It was her idea!'
The third man slapped a hand to his head in an exaggerated gesture Shai had seen before. 'Of all things, I detest folk who betray their own to protect themselves. Sniveling, selfish bastard.'
The sound of that voice knifed into Shai's heart.
'I might have seen fit to show mercy to a merchant who, not unreasonably, sought to salvage some of his goods rather than see them looted. But to blame your own sister, when you and I know perfectly well that you told her to do it — sheh!'
The Hundred word — for shame! — fell easily from those lips, and Shai shuddered as, his strength failing him, he dropped to his knees.
'Captain Arras, take this one away for cleansing. Quickly. He stinks.'
'Can't we just execute him, my lord?'
'I have to throw them a few bones, you know that. He disgusts me. Just take him.'
The condemned man shrieked and struggled as soldiers entered
from the other side and dragged him out past Shai. Past the briefly opened curtain, Shai saw a trim man of military bearing, the same watchful captain from the line. The captain lifted hands to shield his face, turning to face the third figure, still concealed as the cloth slithered down to seal away the area.
'They've brought the outlander, as you commanded, my lord.'
'Ah.'
A brown hand pulled aside the cloth. A man emerged from behind the curtain, dressed in the local fashion and wearing a cloak for the rains. Shai had been little more than a boy when, six years ago, his favorite brother had been marched in chains out of Kartu Town, a prisoner of the Qin conquerors.
Hari was dead. Yet here he stood, looking at Shai with a well-known and much-loved sardonic smile on his blessedly familiar face.
'Hello, little brother,' Hari's ghost said, smile lingering. 'You've grown up.'