Traitors Gate

'I did not!'

Yet the young woman was seated in the shadows behind Anji. A tray with tea bowls and a ceramic pot sat next to her, but by the way her head was sagging forward, Mai guessed she was dozing off, no doubt bored by the lengthy reports concerning the spacing and timing of patrols along the network of roads and paths in Olo'osson.

'How odd,' added Mai. 'Priya must have told her-'

'Priya went to the baths.''

'Of course she did, at dawn. Hu! Perhaps Sheyshi thought of bringing the tea herself!'

She and Tuvi laughed at this absurd notion as they started walking down the hill, paced by their escort, but Miravia was not amused.

'Is it not wrong to belittle her? Besides that, why should any slave show initiative when they take no benefit from their labors?' She glanced at Mai and flushed deeply. 'Begging your pardon, Mai. I do not mean-'

Mai took her hand. 'I value your friendship because you are honest. Do not change merely to spare my feelings. I know you disapprove of slavery. That you wish I did not keep slaves in my own house.'

'Certainly you treat your slaves with more consideration than many do, Mistress.' Tuvi kept pace beside them with one hand tucked around his sword hilt and the other hanging at his side, his posture relaxed although Mai knew he was always alert, eyes and senses attuned to potential dangers.

'You gave me shelter, Mai. I don't mean to slap you in the face for it.'

'Neh, let's get it out in the open now you live with us. You must see every day that Priya, O'eki, and Sheyshi are slaves.'

'Not to mention the many debt slaves working off their debts here in the settlement,' added Tuvi with that typical Qin instinct for going for the throat. He nodded politely at Miravia. 'It is all very well to hold such views, just as it is all very well to chant prayers in the temples, but when we walk through the world we walk through things as they are. I had an older brother who became a priest of the Merciful One. I w,as a small boy. Once a year I would ride with my mother and sisters to visit him. How I admired him and the handsome temple buildings! He even learned to read the holy script, ring the bells, and chant the holy words. Then war came. He and his brother priests were cut down in the hall and the gold ornaments and silk vestments taken by soldiers. So I thought after that, that it was better to be a soldier.'

'Did he not pray to the Qin gods?' Miravia asked. 'Did he turn his back on the faith of his own people?'

'We Qin are not like you other folk. Our ancestors quarrel, and we are involved in the quarrels since we are their children. Besides that, the heavens watch over us. But that does not mean another holy one cannot walk on the earth. The Merciful One walks in some hearts and not in others. Yet a prayer does not stop a man, or a woman, from becoming a slave. Priya could tell you that. She is a wise woman. And like my older brother, she can read.'

'Among my people, all children are taught to read. Isn't that better?'

'Yet you chose to flee your own people rather than remain among them in the marriage they had chosen for you,' he replied. 'So maybe you did not like that life so much among your own people who do not approve of slavery. Is it not to a form of slavery you compared the betrothal? If you believe the men of your people treat their women as slaves, then how can you condemn other people for keeping slaves or owning a debt that must be worked off by labor?'

'That I chose to flee — at a great cost to me — losing my family — never to see my dear brothers and mother again — has nothing to do with my statement that slavery is always wrong! You mistake the general for the particular, Chief Tuvi.'

He smiled. 'Maybe I do. But I don't understand how the Ri Amarah can insist that slavery is always wrong and then keep

their women closed away behind walls. My mother and sisters would never have put up with that!'

'If the world is not as it is meant to be, then we must work to correct it.' She turned with passion to Mai, grasping her arm. 'You must dislike hearing us argue!'

'Was that an argument?' asked Tuvi, his pace not faltering.

The four soldiers kept an even distance at all four points. As they passed the thatched roof of the council square, six council members chatting over a morning tea rose to greet Mai.

'Verea! Well come. That you are here makes the day bright.'

'Will you preside over an assizes before you leave again, verea?'

'You have not come alone, verea?'

'No, indeed,' she replied, greeting each one by name. 'Here is my sister, Miravia. She will be running my household in Astafero.' Mai studied their expressions as they eyed Miravia's face; they clearly knew what she was, rumor having traveled ahead. 'If there is ever any question that needs my attention when I am in Olossi, that for some unlikely reason you cannot solve yourselves although I cannot imagine why that would be so, then you must bring the question to Miravia's attention. She will write a message which can be flown to Olossi by a reeve. She has my complete trust.'

'Ah! Eh! Very good!' They revised their expectations, smiled more warmly.

Tuvi settled back as Mai stepped into the shade with the women. She asked after their businesses and their families. Mistress Sarana had married a Qin soldier and was noticeably pregnant; it wasn't so many months, really, since the first marriages had been blessed at the gods' altars. Maybe that rice had been nibbled on early! But wasn't that the way folk did go about things here, casual about sex in a way inconceivable to any woman in Kartu Town? Yet when she thought of how Anji had slapped her, her cheek still burned.

'Verea?'

'Just wondering how your daughter is, Mistress,' she said to Behara, now head of Astafero's council. 'I hear she ate Chief Deze's rice!'

'She did, and we hope there will be fruit soon, but too early to tell, eh? Anyway, he's been posted to West Track, so she'll live here for now and he comes to visit as often as he can.'

That was the way things worked in Astafero. Some of the newly married women chose to migrate to new towns to follow their husbands on assignment. Others remained at the settlement, with families growing as kinfolk who were struggling to eat came to live where there was work and food to be had. Miravia watched and listened, not saying a word.

When Mai extricated herself from the conversation, they walked down into the market with its familiar dried fish smell. There were new shops set up in crude storefronts with canvas walls and older shops newly refurbished with brick. They sold cloth, banners, harness, tools, dishes and serving utensils of everyday quality, storage chests of precious wood, baskets, bedding, mats, and spices and bean paste shipped or carted in from elsewhere. Miravia trailed behind as Mai chatted with every person she knew and met new people, because folk were coming to Astafero as people did where there was security in an insecure world. Yet Miravia did shyly smile at people who, despite being taken aback by her features, politely engaged her in the casual talk of the marketplace. At length, they worked their way down to the main gate. Mai surveyed the further sprawl of brickyards, smithies, fish racks, workshops, and the green patches of burgeoning fields watered from the underground channels still being dug. But she did not suggest venturing past the gate's shadow.

'The Ri Amarah have lived in the Hundred for four generations, and you not even two years, but you are treated as a cousin while my people are still seen as outlanders,' said Miravia in a low voice. T want to be part of the Hundred, Mai. Not an outlander all my life.'

Tuvi had climbed the ladder to the parapet and was speaking to the soldier in charge of gate duty; the two men were pointing quite rudely — how she would ever cure the Qin of finger pointing she did not know! — at some object or movement much farther out.