The outer room was floored only with refurbished planks but the two sleeping rooms had fresh floor mats. The walls were washed white, as stark as the furnishings: pallets rolled up along one wall, a long low table, a stack of pillows, and an unlit brazier set in a corner next to a covered bucket.
'Will this suit you, verea?' asked the eldest, a woman so old that her back was bent, although her walk was spry. 'We haven't the fine furnishings and silks rich folk in Olossi can afford.'
'It's very pleasant,' said Mai with a smile. 'You have my thanks. If we might have water to wash in?'
'There's good baths in town, verea.' The old woman's gaze strayed to Miravia, and a frown flickered and vanished.
'If there is time, I'll go gladly to the baths,' said Mai, 'but for now, a basin of water to wash off the worst of the dirt would be much appreciated. And kama or sunfruit juice, if you've any. Khaif, perhaps? What is the market price here?'
'Neh, verea. The council will feed and house you. Without Captain Anji's militia, we'd not be back in our homes. Do you see how folk work in the fields? Carts and wagons on the roads? The ferry carrying again? To feed and house you is a small enough tithe in exchange. If there's anything else you need?'
'I would gladly meet with the council and indeed any merchant.'
'Do you represent the Olossi council, verea?'
'I have a seat on the council as a merchant, although I do not come today as "An official member. Yet I would gladly ask what problems and questions folk here may have regarding the security of the roads and the safety of trade within the region. I can discuss supplies of various oils, which I sell. Also, as you may have heard, we are still looking for women willing to consider marrying the Qin soldiers. Over the last six months I know of forty-nine marriages between Qin soldiers and local women. We hope to arrange more. So if you'll just give us time to wash and rest and eat something-'
A meeting was arranged, and the women hurried away to spread the word in town. Miravia had stood all this time not saying one word, but as soon as they were alone she limped into one of the sleeping chambers, eased down to her knees, and tugged open one of the pallets. She collapsed forward across it.
Mai took a basin of water brought by a curious pair of girls and carried it into the sleeping chamber while Priya and Sheyshi shook out their rain cloaks, hung them from rods set along the porch, and rinsed the mud off the outdoor shoes.
'Let me wash your hands and face,' said Mai. 'Is the ache better?'
'It's less worse.' Miravia's groan was half a laugh. 'Will I ever stop hurting?'
'Yes.' Mai bathed her hands and face as Miravia relaxed, the grimace of pain smoothing away.
Priya brought in a tray of juice and some rice cakes flavored with red berry, very tart, but restorative enough that Miravia sat up.
'Eiya! I never imagined it would hurt to ride. Where is Atani?'
'Anji took him to the encampment.'
'How he loves to display that baby! Not that Atani is not a fat and handsome boy, well worth showing off to everyone.'
'Best you walk around before you stiffen up.'
'Of course.'
She insisted on walking with Sheyshi to the well to help haul water. Tuvi had seen to the horses and to setting up guards around the compound. He paused on the porch beside Mai to watch Miravia and Sheyshi set off out the open gate toward the town well.
'She doesn't complain,' he said.
'No, she does not,' agreed Mai, carefully examining his face. But he was not looking after Miravia with the smiling sigh of a hopeful lover; he was just stating what he observed, as the Qin did.
The door to another room along the long porch slid open, and a woman and child peeked out. The child shrieked as the woman quickly shut the door.
'Refugees from the north,' said the chief. 'There's a steady stream of them coming through who've heard there's safety to be found in Olo'osson. Some are folk ferried down here by reeves, people who were stuck up on a rock in Toskala.'
'Toskala was attacked almost three months ago. That's a long time to be stuck on a rock.'
'Maybe they ran out of food. Best you remain inside the compound, Mistress. No running out into the market until the captain returns. Just as a precaution.'
Already locals were trickling in through the gate in twos and fours to take a seat on the council benches under an open-sided shelter. Mai knew better than to argue with Tuvi on such grounds. She went back into the outer room, washed her own face and hands and tidied her dress and hair; drank and nibbled, to refresh herself; sat cross-legged on the matted floor and shut her eyes for as long as it took to recite the Ten Blessings under her breath. Miravia and Sheyshi returned, lugging water for the barrel in a corner of the room.
'I'll just lie down,' said Miravia, and promptly fell asleep on a pallet.
Mai went outside and approached the council benches. 'Greetings of the day.'
'Sit,' they said, offering her a place.
Names, markets, goods, gossip, grievances. Mai had grown up in the marketplace; she knew this talk to her bones. The merchants and businessfolk of Candra Crossing had nothing but praise for the militia, but they were angry about the middlemen charging exorbitant rates to cart goods along the West Track from Olossi. Two clans who used to cart goods in this region had taken heavy losses in the attacks of last year; no one was willing to set up in their place out of respect for tradition, because those two clans had always been the local carters. Meanwhile, with their equipment stolen by the invaders and never recovered, the clans hadn't the wherewithal to regroup.
'Young women from those clans might consider marrying Qin soldiers stationed out here. We'll settle a fair price on such alliances, for we've a wish to see the men peacefully housed and connected with local families.'
'Are you trying to buy brides, verea?'
'Aren't most alliances settled with goods and coin, and a mutually beneficial agreement? Do you act otherwise when it comes time to marry your own children out of the clan?'
They did not, of course. No one did. And when she mentioned the trade in oil of naya, and the possibilities for business and herding and irrigation farming in the Barrens, folk listened more closely and asked more questions.
The council had absorbed the costs of housing refugees from Toskala, as well, people who must be fed and sent on their way with nai bread for the journey downriver to Olossi.
'They brought no coin with them from Toskala?' Mai asked.
Though traveling merchants and guildsmen certainly paid to stay at inns, a destitute or holy traveler was never charged, in honor of Hasibal the Pilgrim. At Mai's innocent question, a debate caught fire over the proper designation of refugees. Were they a kind of pilgrim, able therefore to ask for the gods' tithe to be fed and sheltered for a night or two before they moved on? Or were they properly to be treated as paying customers because they were going to set up a new life elsewhere?
'What do you think, verea?'
'Surely not every instance is the same. A young woman who comes to my gate asking for refuge and a chance to consider
marrying one of the Qin soldiers because her village has been burned down and her family is dead and she has nothing but the clothes on her back must be treated differently than I was myself treated on reaching Olossi. I had coin, a husband, a clan if you will call a troop of soldiers and grooms and servants a clan. For me, it would have seemed shameful to receive the gods' tithes not because I would consider it shameful to take food and shelter from the gods but because it might be better used to help those who truly have nothing. So if a refugee comes from Toskala with his sleeves full of strings of leya and a heavy chest of gold cheyt, then I would treat him differently from a poor woman and child who are hungry and lost. I don't think we have to be rigid in holding to the law. We must consider justice and mercy, and mix it with common sense.'