'Not much farther to go,' she murmured, feeling the pain in her cheek magnified.
'But I did not think, Mistress, that you would take her to the whore's temple.'
'It's Ushara's temple, Tuvi! We must speak of it with respect, because we are Hundred folk now.'
'And you went with her, to partake of what is offered in the garden?'
She stumbled over her own feet, and he caught her arm and kept her walking as she covered her bruised cheek with a hand. 'Can that be how it looked to him? I went with her to plead her case to the Hieros!'
'His father betrayed him. His half brother betrayed him. His mother sent him away alone, to be raised among people he did not know. Then his wife betrayed him, and finally his uncle the var betrayed him, for he sent Anji east to the frontier to be killed, as we discovered only because Commander Beje felt obligated to repay Anji for the dishonor shown to him by the commander's own daughter. Now he wonders if you have betrayed him.'
'I would never! I only went there because I hoped the Hieros could help me… You haven't even asked what happened to Miravia.'
'Best I don't know, Mistress. Here we are.' He stopped her with a hand on her elbow as they reached the familiar gates of their compound. She smelled meat roasting, and the savory tang of a big kettle of spiced caul-petal soup. 'Take my advice, Mistress. Don't go to him. I'll have Priya bring you the child, for nursing.'
Her milk had let down, twin spots darkening the front of her taloos. She crossed her arms over her chest. 'Can we go in?'
'Don't go to him,' Tuvi repeated. 'Bathe yourself. Make yourself particularly beautiful, as you can, and preside over the supper table as if you are the queen and he a humble captain honored to be seated at your table. If you have nothing to apologize for, then do not apologize out of fear. Qin do not respect those who are afraid.'
'If you do it, don't be afraid,' she murmured.
'If you're afraid, don't do it. You have offended him, Mistress, but I know you, and I know you went to the temple with no thought for anything except the other woman. Yours is a generous heart. Do not be generous with your apologies. And if I must say so…' He twisted his beard hairs again, frowning. 'Do not ever under any circumstances go again into a temple dedicated to the Merciless One. Let the Hundred folk have their ways, as they must. No Qin woman would ever do such a thing. In this matter, the captain will never ever change.'
15
From the height, Joss marked the many humble fishing villages strung along the wide curve of Messalia Bay like so many variegated beads on a vast necklace. Folk were busy on the paths and beaches, about their end of the day business. Fish dried on racks; kelp marinated in vats; children got in a final round of hooks-and-ropes on a dusty field with the oval scraped out of the sandy dirt. Every council square — some as humble as a stone wall and not even a sheltering thatched roof — had been decorated with ribbons in the color of the season, the faded blues and dried out greens marking the Whisper Rains.
At the mouth of the River Messali, he and Scar flew over a substantial port town where every compound flew ribbons or banners in the old custom that Joss's mother and aunts had often talked about but which had fallen out of favor in his own lifetime. Leaving its wharves and markets behind, reeve and eagle skimmed over the water toward the band of islands and islets that beaded the mouth of the bay. The shallows and deeps of Messalia Bay were easily discerned as distinct shades of blue, sand pale beneath. If only people were as easily mapped. It was high tide and so the bay was full, lapping on white sands. The golden light of the late-afternoon sun glimmered on the flat water; no storms today.
At length, he caught sight of a watchtower on a stony islet. He flagged the sentry, who replied with a burst of activity, flagging Joss the 'clear' and then bending to shout unheard words to his fellows as Joss guided Scar to the outer landing islet of Bronze Hall, on the bayward side of the much larger island that housed the main hall and grounds.
A pair of fawkners approached, holding batons painted in the grandfather patterns, very old-fashioned. They tapped and gestured the full, wordless greeting of hall to visitor, which he'd learned in training but never had done since. Cursed if he could recall what he was supposed to do in reply.
They finished and stepped back, waiting.
'Greetings of the dusk,' he began, but he faltered when he heard how thin the market words sounded in the silence left by their formality.
Scar dipped his big head. He had watched it all with keen attention, and now he chirped in a distinct greeting and settled immediately despite being in a hall he barely knew.
Joss walked to the waiting fawkners. Four men, armed like ordinands, loitered by the archway that led to the bridge.
'If you please,' Joss said, 'could you let Marshal Nedo know I'd like a meeting with her. I'm Joss, commander at Clan Hall.'
The older fawkner began to laugh. The younger cast Joss a startled look and trotted over to the loitering ordinands; two took off as Joss frowned. 'Aui! Did I say something laughable?'
'Neh, sorry,' said the fawkner, wiping his eyes. 'Just never thought I'd see the day when a reeve would fly in here and call himself commander of Clan Hall and not even know the proper forms, eh? Not to say we haven't been warned. I'm Kagard and that is Lenni. Let's look at your eagle, then. Anything I need know, besides that he knows the old forms better than his reeve does?'
The words rankled, but Joss kept his temper jessed. 'Scar's calm, if you're calm. I'd appreciate your opinion on these two wing feathers.'
Scar accepted their attention, and flirted a little with the younger fawkner when he approached with a pair of files. Joss coped the one trouble spot on Scar's beak, and when they were finished he allowed Kagard to direct him and Scar to an empty loft, where a haunch of deer was brought in and tossed to the eagle after Joss had leashed him to his night's perch.
They walked outside onto the landing ground, now entirely in
shadow. Lenni called an assistant out of a storehouse to pull closed the barred gate.
'It's been years since I've been at Bronze Hall,' said Joss. 'I go out the archway and over the bridge to the main island, neh?'
Kagard touched him on the elbow in a friendly way, and smiled in a friendly way, and spoke in a friendly way. 'Best you wait here for marshal's people to give the go-ahead, eh? It shouldn't take long for them to get back.'
'For the go-ahead? Is there some kind of trouble?'
'Hasn't been any trouble since marshal instituted the new measures and talked to all the town councils in Mar.'
'Was there trouble before?'
'Trouble in the Beacons and in the Ossu Hills. But we've culled out most of that trouble.'
'What manner of trouble are you talking about?' Joss asked, feeling increasingly uneasy as he looked around the expanse of ground. The islet was a rocky outcropping artificially leveled to create the landing ground for visiting eagles; there was a good launching point at the prow of the islet. The place housed a dozen separate small lofts and a storehouse and barracks and, as he recalled, stairs cut into the rock beyond the archway that led down to a stone pier where supplies could be paddled in. The folk here did a lot of fishing, too.
'Not for me to say,' observed Kagard.
Joss knew a dismissal when he heard one. He licked the taste of salt off his lips, remembering his own childhood on the coast near Haya. 'Fish for dinner tonight, I'm hoping,' he said, and got a laugh from them, as he had hoped. They weren't thawing, though. They kept a formal stance. 'Your eagles here, you've got more known family groups than any of the other halls, neh?'
'We do,' agreed Kagard.
Lenni was more voluble, perhaps seeing an opening to show off his youthful knowledge under the gaze of his seniors. 'We've got cursed good records of family groupings. They say that Bronze Hall eagles cooperate better than those of any other hall. That's why we keep visitors out here. Fewer tangles.'