"Exactly," said Anji, without looking at her. "There may be other agents involved that I am not aware of, merchants of some kind. But common sense suggests that the sons of my uncle Ufarihosh have an interest here. So we must ask ourselves, if she had ties to them, how did she come by those ties, and what message did she send, and did it reach them?"
"How can we possibly find out?" Mai asked. "Is there a chance the sons of Ufarihosh might give us asylum? If we can reach them?"
Raising two fingers to his lips to enjoin silence, Anji tilted his head back as if looking at the many-souled sky. He shut his eyes. Now she heard, fainter than a splash, the lap of water. He pointed toward the river's edge, away from the slow-moving channel that separated them from the shore. Chief Tuvi drew his sword. Toughid shifted five steps to the left, to cover more ground. Tohon was already gone. Reeds whispered as dark shapes pushed through them, soldiers converging on the bank, which she could not see from here. In the quiet, a horse snorted, and a bird's lazy koo-loo throated along the air.
A shout of surprise cut the silence, startling Mai so badly that she jumped. Priya clasped her hand.
Sengel and Tohon reappeared a few moments later. In their wake walked a dozen soldiers with two prisoners in tow. One was the handsome young man with the head covering whom Mai remembered well enough from the council meeting. The other was the older merchant who had defended them at the meeting, Master Calon.
"Look what we caught," said Tohon. "They came by boat. They say they bear a message for you, Captain."
Firelight lent glamour to the young man's pleasant features. He resembled ordinary people with his black-brown eyes and dark lashes, but there the resemblance ended. Although not ghostly pale in the manner of poor, dead Cornflower, he had a lighter complexion than Mai was used to seeing. And his eyes had a pull to them, stretched at the corners with a fold at the lid. She was herself known for having grandfather eyes, the sloe eyes seen more commonly in Kartu children long ago, so the grandmothers said, tantalizing for seeming exotic, for hinting of a promise as yet unmet. The legend of Dezara Mountain told of the long-ago time when a rotting plague killed all the men in what was then Kartu Village, followed by a terrible storm that had lashed the houses into splinters and burned the trees off the slopes, after which a ragged band of about fifty foreign hunters had walked down off the mountain saying that the wind had blown them far from their homeland. They were men of a handsome burnt-sugar complexion very different from the lovely red-bronze clay color common in that region, and they had handsomely slanted eyes, troubling and exciting to look upon. It was whispered they were demons wearing human form, but they were pleasant company and hard workers, and they kept their hair clean and combed. In the end, they had married the widows and maidens of Kartu Village and bred so many children that the village had grown to become a town.
Now here was a young man who had something of the look she had always supposed those grandfathers to have. If this one was a demon, he hid it well. Maybe the turban on his head was meant to conceal his horns. He grinned at her most flirtatiously, until Master Calon cuffed him with a genial swat.
"Here, now, cub. Show respect. I promised your father you'd not shame him."
"I am surprised to see you, Master Calon," said Anji before the young man could reply to Master Calon's scolding.
"You should not be." The merchant nodded briskly. "I think by your actions and speech at the council that you're not eager to return to the empire."
"I am not," agreed Anji.
"Then there's no sense in waiting through the opening measures before we start the dance. This is how it is."
He paused as might a man who wants to show his goods in the best light, making the buyer lick his lips before he gets a taste. Anji nodded, showing neither excitement or disdain.
"We have the votes, only we don't have the votes," broke in the young man, "because those bastards will always use the old law against us-"
"Hush!" Calon pressed a sandaled foot onto the exposed toes of the young man, who yelped in pain and fell silent.
"The Lesser Houses and the guilds possess only fifteen votes," said Mai, "while the Greater Houses hold sixteen."
"That's right!" said Master Calon with an admiring nod. "You must be a merchant yourself, verea. That's how they can always outvote us, although we are many more than they are, and with allies among more than just the Lesser Houses and the guilds. For instance, this cub is called Eliar sen Haf Gi Ri." He paused as if the news ought to astonish, or light a flame of recognition, and when Anji waited, the master glanced at Mai, at the others, and read what he could from their expressions. "That means nothing to you, then?"
"What does it mean to you?" asked Mai.
He grinned, and she liked him for it. "His people are outlanders, like you, who come to settle here."
Eliar waved a hand. Silver bracelets jangled at his wrists. "Whsst! A hundred years or more ago, my people came here! You can't call me an outlander any more than I can call you an outlander."
"It's true my folk came from the south not so long ago, but you will always be outlanders to Hundred folk until you cast away your strange way of dressing and naming and come to worship proper gods."
"Likely not!" said Eliar with a carefully measured sidelong glance at Mai. "You know that normally my fathers and uncles and kinsmen would never have made this agreement with you. It's a sign of our desperation."
"Thus you prove my point." Master Calon turned back to Anji. "Many among the Lesser Houses and their allies fear the Greater Houses too much to act against them. They will gripe-"
"So they will!" broke in Eliar. "Gripe! And do nothing about it!" Now she saw real passion furrow the young man's handsome face. His admiration of Mai's beauty came frivolously, no more than skin deep.
Calon nodded. "We of the Lesser Houses and the guilds and our other allies in town fear that the Greater Houses see only their own profit, this season's coming harvest, without attending to the storms that will come in the seasons beyond. They are blind to the shadows. We of the Lesser Houses, guilds, and other households in Olossi have a made a pact among ourselves. We cannot stand back any longer. If you are desperate enough, we hope you may consider an agreement with us."
"What manner of agreement?" asked Anji.
"Let me first explain what my allies and I have done to this point. If you will."
Anji stepped back as Tohon stepped out of the shadows, moved up beside him, and whispered in his ear. Master Calon waited as Anji gestured to Chief Tuvi, who ghosted away into the coarse grass that shielded the land-facing shore of the island.
"Some movement of guards has taken place among those set to watch the ford that links this island to the shore," said Anji to Calon. "Have you seen?" He pointed to where that distant torchlight wended its long descent toward Olossi. "Know you anything of what that light might portend?"
"I do not. Nor of any messenger coming into town this late." Calon turned to Eliar. "Think you it's news from Master Nokki and your cousin Shefen?"
Eliar winced. "Shefen is dead. I fear the others lost as well."
"You can't know he's dead. There's been no word. How did he die, then?"
Eliar shook his head. "I can say nothing, and I don't know anyway. This knowing is woman's magic, not the province of men. If they say he's dead, then he's dead. Anyway, it's unlikely they would travel at night."