'No need for such a look, ver,' said a voice she recognized as that of one of the hirelings. 'We just took the coin like any hire.'
The palanquin thumped hard to the boards. Weren't the hirelings going to pick her up and start back to the city? She bit her lip and reached for the curtain, to tell them, kindly but firmly, that they had to go right away.
'I beg your pardon, ver, but them who hires the palanquins have to be able to expect privacy-'
The curtain was abruptly pulled back. She looked into Chief Tuvi's face, his expression so blank she thought it hid a deeper emotion. His mouth quirked, as if he had a wish to speak but could not. At a movement behind him, he flipped the curtain up over the roof of the palanquin and stepped out of the way.
There stood Anji, his riding whip clenched in his left hand and his normally neat topknot as frayed as if he'd bound his hair up in haste. To come riding after her.
Her breath caught in her chest; her fingers went cold; her cheeks flushed hot.
But not this cringing. One sharp breath she took in, and then with her market face as bland as ever she could make it, she stepped out of the palanquin with the baby in her arms and
smiled with blander politeness at him, facing it out with pleasant words in the tone with which she would greet a treasured acquaintance.
'Anji, I was just-'
He slapped her, the back of his hand to her cheek, the blow so sharp and unexpected that all grounding in time and place fell away for forever and one instant as she fell and she drowned
he's furious
he's reaching for his sword
he's going to kill me now
Merciful One, please give me the strength to endure this
She was too stunned to react when instead of cutting her down he took the baby out of her arms and turned his back on her. Then he paused, shoulders tense like coiled steel, and turned halfway back.
'Bring her,' he said to Tuvi.
He walked to his horse, mounted, and rode away.
'Hu!' Tuvi sighed, and as through a haze Mai saw him take his hand off his sword's hilt. Her cheek was stinging.
All kinds of people were staring, old and young and laborers and merchants and debt slaves and girls at their harborside slip-fry pans with mouths dropped open. Everyone was staring, except the Qin soldiers detailed to escort her, who were carefully looking elsewhere. The river churned behind her.
'Follow my lead, Mistress,' Tuvi said in a low voice. 'It's best if you ride, so they can see you are still honored among us. Do not let them see you cry. You've nothing to feel shame over.' He paused, fingering his wisp of beard as he studied her. 'Do you?'
Her face was really hurting now, a throb that reached to her left eye. 'It wasn't wrong to help Miravia.' Her voice was a scrape over tears held in. 'Are you angry with me, Tuvi? I couldn't bear that on top of the… other.'
He shook his head, as if she'd given the wrong answer. 'Ride with me, Mistress.'
She had no more of a choice than the day Anji had approached her father and proposed that Father Mei might be interested in marrying his daughter to a Qin officer, a polite way of saying: I'm taking her. He could have hauled her out of the marketplace where she had sold produce, and done whatever he wanted; no one could or would have stopped him. The family would then have taken her back in shame, or left her to make her own way as
a whore. It happened to women all the time, didn't it? Only the old stories and songs made it seem glamorous.
She struggled to gather calm as she turned to the porters. 'The second half of your payment is waiting at Crow's Gate when you return the palanquin, as was agreed.' She followed Tuvi to the waiting soldiers.
But of course it was impossible to ride in a taloos. Trembling and embarrassed, she had after all to call the bearers and return to Crow's Gate sitting within the palaquin as the Qin soldiers plodded before and after like jailers. She wept once and then wiped her eyes. Her cheek hurt if she touched it, so probably it was going to bruise, and then she wept again, and after that she thought of what Tuvi had said and she was done with weeping. She had done nothing wrong! Even if everyone said otherwise — that of course a young person must marry according to the wishes of the clan — she could not stand aside while her beloved friend was handed over to a man who had already killed three wives.
They arrived' at Crow's Gate. The line at the gate moved slowly, and when she peeked out from behind the curtains, it was to see sober young militiamen interviewing each incoming party and clerks of Sapanasu checking accounts books. She leaned out, but did not see Anji among those waiting in line.
'Set me down, please.' The bearers did so, and she climbed out and walked over to Chief Tuvi. 'How long will this take, Chief? Don't they let Qin soldiers through?'
'They do not, on orders of the captain. If the locals must endure these delays in order to make the roads safe, then so must we when we are about the ordinary business of the day. Lest we appear as outlanders in their eyes, taking privileges we deny to them.'
'No, of course Anji is right.' She looked away, pretending that her bracelets must be turned. Her breasts were beginning to ache, a sense of fullness that anticipated a feeding, for although Atani did not take much at any one time, he nursed frequently.
Tuvi dismounted and handed his reins to one of the soldiers. 'You four escort us, two before and two behind. The rest of you wait your turn and be sure that the bearers and palanquin owners are properly paid.'
'Tuvi, are you sure-?'
'Do you want to stay in the palanquin, Mistress? I can engage its services to return you to the compound.'
'I'd rather walk.' To delay returning home to face Anji's anger. To feel the sun on her face, to pray for the grace of the Merciful One to cover her heartache.
He led their little cadre up to the gate and invoked captain's privilege to pass them through ahead of others.
'That's the outlander, the captain's wife,' someone said in the crowd.
Another called out, 'Greetings of the day to you, verea! You brought good fortune to my cousin's husband's sister, who married one of the soldiers after her own husband was killed on West Track. She'd have had to sell herself into debt slavery otherwise.'
'Council members say you're the one bargained those cursed Greater Houses down until they begged for mercy.' This comment brought general raucous laughter. 'Thanks to you, verea. They say it's thanks to you the Qin soldiers fought at all.'
'Out Dast Olo way, eh? Getting a taste at the temple? For sure you've earned it.'
A flush rose in her cheeks, maybe enough to hide the red mark.
Folk made pretty greetings as Tuvi inexorably led her forward. She spoke words of greeting in return, nodding and smiling at every person who nodded and smiled at her, but all she could see was Anji's face in the instant after he had struck her, a man she did not recognize.
They worked free of the crowd and walked up the road to the inner gate. People were too busy going about their business to pay any mind to Qin soldiers; it was nothing they didn't see every day.
'Hard to know where to start,' said Tuvi. 'Let me tell you a story. One time, you see, there was a boy named Anjihosh, the son by the Sirni emperor sired on a Qin princess, who was herself sister of the Qin var. The Qin var had handed his very own sister over to the emperor to seal a treaty. That's the way of things.'
'I know, but Miravia-'
'Best to let me speak,' he continued in a soft voice that as good as cut her throat. 'For a while the Qin princess was much in favor with the emperor because she was not like any of the other women in his household, and be assured that he had many women in his household, confined to a special palace reserved for the emperor's women into which only the emperor or his cut-men — eunuchs — could enter. Now I suppose most of those women were slaves, chosen for their beauty or some special skill like weaving or herb knowledge or cooking. But a few were wives according to the Sirni