"He didn't say he knew nothing of Reeve Joss," said Mai. "He said there was no reeve here for us to see, which could mean anything, quite the opposite. That woman suggested the reeve was some manner of villain falsely claiming to be a reeve. They know what's happened to him. There was a man dressed in similar fashion, another reeve, surely, who left before the meeting was over."
Anji nodded. "They are not dealing honestly with us."
"No surprise there," said Shai morosely.
Mai nudged him with her foot, bent close, and whispered in his ear. "Say something useful, or keep quiet!"
"Well, then," said Shai defiantly, "what of my brother's ring? I've heard talk of this town called Horn. That's where the story said the ring was found." He held up his own hand to display the family ring: the running wolf biting its own tail, with a black pearl inlaid into silver as its eye.
Her identical ring was hidden by her sleeve, although the quality of her pearl was finer than the one on Shai's ring, because she was Father Mei's eldest daughter rather than only a seventh, and excess, son. Everyone knew that six sons were plenty: two to marry, two to die, one for the priests, and one for spare. That's how it had been in their house: Father Mei and the second son, Terti, had married young and given birth so far to many healthy children. Third son Sendi had gone to the priests, while fourth son Hari, for spare, had been exiled and marched away by the Qin army, leaving fifth son Neni to marry unexpectedly in the wake of Grandmother's grief over Hari. Of course sixth son Girish had died a spectacular and well-deserved death, shame on her even to think so, except it was true because he was a nasty man. Shai, poor Shai, was left over, the unlucky seventh son with the curse of seeing ghosts that he must hide from his own family as well as every living soul in Kartu Town lest he be burned and hanged in the town square, like Widow Lae, although the widow hadn't actually seen ghosts but had done something just as bad when she had betrayed her Qin overlords.
"What was in Widow Lae's letter?" she asked. The men looked at her, Shai with his mouth popping open in a most ridiculous way, Tohon and Tuvi with puzzlement, but Anji with a faint smile.
"Widow Lae?" Chief Tuvi asked. "Who is that?"
"She was burned and hanged in Kartu Town square," said Mai, looking at Anji. "I know you remember that day."
"I saw her ghost," Shai muttered. "She said she was waiting for her reward."
Mai nodded. "What did she do? The order we heard read in the citadel square said she had insulted a Qin officer. But the whisper told us she'd asked a passing merchant to carry a letter to Tars Fort, in the east. When he wouldn't do it she sent a grandson instead. That merchant received a share of the proceeds of the sale of her estate and her kinsfolk, and then he left town by the Golden Road. What was she really executed for? I always wondered."
The fire snapped, its bridge of brittle driftwood collapsing into sparks. Tuvi gestured, and Pil came in from the gloom with an armful of new branches. The soldier arranged them on the coals and blew on the lattice until fire caught and flared high, burning strongly on the dry wood but without enough smoke to smother the horrid midges.
Anji batted a swarm away from his face, scratched his neck, and nodded. "Widow Lae," he said, musing over the name. "I think, Mai, that you have spotted the only blossom on the otherwise barren tree. I had forgotten about Widow Lae."
A bird's whistle startled out of the brush at the shoreline. The men leaped to their feet. Mai rose and clutched Priya's hand. Sengel strode away toward the sound. But Anji kept talking, as if nothing strange had happened.
"You're right that Widow Lae was not executed for insulting a Qin officer, except in the most general way."
She waited as he rubbed his chin. He lifted an arm to point. Every head turned to look toward the shore. Inland a tiny light-torchlight-advanced along what must be the main road, heading for Olossi. They watched in silence, because it was such a strange sight to see that pinprick of brightness aflame against the dark.
At length, Tohon muttered, "A runner, or a rider. Too fast to be walking."
Anji grunted. "It's an urgent message," he said evenly, "that travels into the night."
"The Sirniakans have night runners," said Priya, and she shuddered, releasing Mai's hand. "Agents of the red hounds."
"Do you think it could be the red hounds?" whispered Mai.
Anji caught her wrist. "Enough. We may never know, and it does no good to spin these thoughts when they have nowhere to go."
"The agents of the red hounds never travel alone," said Tohon.
Anji turned his head to look, in the most general way, toward the southwest, whence they had come. Out there lay the wide, flat delta, dark under the night sky. The river had a slow, deep voice here as it spilled away into a hundred channels and backwaters. Wind found a voice in the rushes and reeds and bushes growing everywhere. A nightjar clicked.
"I had forgotten until now," he mused, and for a moment Mai could not remember what they had been speaking about because she had not yet banished the vision of giant slavering red dogs panting and growling as they closed in for the kill. "She was executed for passing information to an agent of the Sirniakan Empire. To our enemy. To one of the red hounds, perhaps. Certainly a traitor must expect death. But now that I think on it, by the time Widow Lae was passing intelligence to an enemy agent, the var would already have sealed the secret treaty he made with my brother Azadihosh. Emperor Farazadihosh, I should say. Whose position as emperor is so weak that he must seek Qin aid in putting down his rivals. The orders for me to ride east came from my uncle, the var."
"He was sending you into a trap," said Tuvi.
"Just so."
"Did the commander of Kartu Town know of the new treaty?" asked Mai. "Did he send you east innocently, or did he know he was sending you to your death?"
"I don't know," said Anji. "But all the commanders in the eastern part of the Qin territories would have to be told of the treaty because of the major transfer of troops onto the eastern frontier. That means it's likely that the commander of Kartu knew of the treaty, and knew that the emperor was now our ally. If that's true, then I must ask myself, who was the enemy that Widow Lae was found to be passing intelligence to?"
"I never heard a whisper of rebellion in Kartu Town," said Shai.
Anji smiled softly. "Nor did I. The people of Kartu Town possess a pragmatic wisdom that has served them well."
Mai frowned. "You were an officer. Weren't there rumors in the garrison?"
"All we were told was that the widow was passing information to the enemy. Which we all took to mean that she had tried to pass information to the agents of the Sirniakan emperor. But we were wrong, because by that time, they were our allies, not our enemy. I never heard anything more about it after her execution. I never heard if the grandson-if there was a grandson-was ever found."
"There was a grandson," said Shai. "Everyone knew Widow Lae's grandson. A little older than me, a hard drinker, and he knew how to ride a horse."
"Huh," grunted Tuvi, who found this amusing. "Riding a horse is a capital offense, if you're not Qin!"
Shai grinned. Widow Lae's grandson had been one of those young men that you admired but disliked. "He vanished before she was arrested. That's why we all knew she was guilty. He was her favorite."
"What other enemy could there be?" asked Chief Tuvi. "If not the Sirniakan emperor?"
Mai said, "Who else was interested in the transaction? Who else might benefit, or take a loss, from any secret treaty signed between the emperor and the var? Who might wish to know of Qin troops moving into the empire? Or of trading privileges reserved for the Qin that might formerly have been available to others?"