"Gah!" he said, as he tried to speak. A shadow covered him. Tumna loomed above.
She wants to be rid of me.
Then the cruel beak came down.
52
At dawn, Eliar's mother came to the guesthouse and, in a gesture offered in the most casual manner imaginable, invited Mai to take khaif with the other adult women in the women's tower. To do this meant entering the family gate.
Sheyshi must be left behind because no unmarried woman not born to the Ri Amarah could ever be allowed within the walls. Priya, offered the gate, told Mai she thought it best to remain behind.
"You will keep your head about you," she said to Mai. "But this one may panic if I am not here to calm her down. I will also keep an eye on our possessions."
"I don't think they're likely to steal what they could have taken at any time," said Mai, but she did not press the point.
Eliar's mother opened the gate herself; no servant performed this mundane chore for her, as one would have in the Mei clan. Behind the gate lay a brick-walled room, already uncomfortably hot, with slats in the roof and one heavy gate in the opposite wall. She rang a bell, and waited as a series of bolts were shot on the other side.
"You can see," said Eliar's mother, "that we guard ourselves well."
"It is kind of you to admit me."
Mai had to skip back as the doors opened out. A second set of doors, set right up against the first when closed, had already been opened. They passed through a dim corridor and emerged into a vast rectangular garden with well-tended greenery, benches, and several open shelters for shade. A covered porch stretched along the other three sides. All along the edge of the raised porch were scattered indoor and outdoor slippers in matched, or mismatched, pairs.
The narrow end of the garden opposite their gate abutted a three-storied tower. One long wall opened to living quarters, many sleeping and sitting rooms alive at this hour with children running in and out and along the covered porch. A harassed matron tried to herd them into some manner of hall whose doors were slid open to give light and air. The other wall opened onto kitchens set back from the main buildings.
As Eliar's mother led her along a gravel path the length of the garden, the children were chivvied inside and seated in rows alternating between boys and girls. At some command Mai could not hear, they bowed their heads and cupped hands over mouths and noses. Not one peeped.
At the porch, Mai followed the example of Eliar's mother and exchanged one pair of shoes for a pair of cloth slippers. Inside, the ground floor of the tower was a warren of narrow halls with whitewashed walls and polished plank floors. Where wall and floor met curved an inlaid strip of blond wood minutely carved with vines and flowers. Now and then a plain wooden door banded with iron stood closed. Oddly, these were not normal house doors, but fitted in the same manner as gates in a wall, with hinges, so that they opened inward. Hanging on each door was a chalked board on which were scrawled strange symbols.
"This way," said Eliar's mother.
Mounting stairs, they passed through a weaving hall with its clatter and chatter just getting started. A second set of stairs took them through the second floor, a spacious chamber open on all sides to a screened balcony and furnished with low tables, cubbyholed shelves, the entire apparatus of a merchant's counting room. This room was empty.
A final flight of stairs took them into the open air. Bright silk awnings, and trellises green with lush vines, offered shelter from the morning sun. The aroma of herbs and flowers growing in troughs of earth melded with the spicy sharp smell of freshly brewed khaif.
The women of the house of the Haf Gi Ri had already gathered for their morning ritual, presided over by the aged grandmother. The pouring proceeded in silence, but although Mai watched carefully she could discern no obvious order in which the women were served, only that the aged grandmother gestured to various women and then, with trembling hands, poured for each one. Mai's turn came last.
She returned to a pillow, beside Eliar's mother. All sipped. Grandmother pronounced it good. Then her intimidating gaze fixed on Mai.
"Certain men of our house attended the council meeting yesterday, as is their habit, and their right as merchants holding a license to trade in Olossi. The head of our delegation spoke admiringly of your bargaining skills when you spoke before the council. He said that you overset the Greater Houses before they realized what you were doing, and further that you then took advantage of this victory to drive a harder bargain than the Lesser Houses and guilds expected. Because these acts are worthy of a kinswoman, it was deemed proper by both house councils that you be treated as a cousin."
Every eye bent to Mai, a circle of women waiting on her answer. This was more daunting than the council meeting! She did not smile, as she would have were they men.
"I thank you for the honor you show me by allowing me inside your walls. Are cousins allowed to thank their hosts by name?"
Eliar's mother lightly touched Mai's knee: As warning? As admonition? As comfort? As encouragement?
Grandmother's smile discouraged. She gestured, and a young woman offered Mai, first among all, a sticky bun from a platter. The matter of introductions, it seemed, was not to be discussed. They fell to talking about yesterday's council meeting and the preparations of Olossi for the army marching on its gates. Although not one woman had been present at the council meeting, they were remarkably well informed, not speculating and gossiping in a frivolous way but discussing plans, logistics, construction, and financing as if they had been consulted and now needed to work out additional details. They asked Mai specific questions, although none that probed into her own plans and strategies. Some of these questions she could answer: What words had she said, what words had she heard? Who had replied? Some she could not answer because she did not know the people and fashions involved: Which subfactions had been standing together? Were certain persons wearing colors indicative of their allegiance and mood?
At length, the ritual came to an end. Cups, and a platter's worth of uneaten sticky buns, were gathered up. Women rose and took themselves off down the stairs. Eliar's mother found a broom in a corner and began sweeping. Several women began to work in the troughs, among the plants. Miravia appeared on the roof and walked over to Mai.
They clasped hands, and kissed each other on the cheek.
"I thought you were not allowed up here," said Mai cautiously, "because you are not an adult."
"Only for the morning convocation. I am training as an herbalist. It is one of my tasks to care for the garden, here, where we keep some of our rarest and most potent plants. Come. You can help me."
For a while Mai stood alongside while Miravia told her the names of plants, and they chattered in low voices about the council as Miravia weeded, plucked leaves, tested the moisture of the soil, and examined buds. Master Feden, in disgrace, had nevertheless managed to account for himself a lucrative warehouse lease. Eliar was furious that he hadn't been allowed to ride out with the militia who had gone with the Qin soldiers. The warehouses in the inner city were being filled with refugees. A pair of men had been caught thieving from a closed shop in the outer city. A child had been lost, and a troop of disreputable entertainers accused of her kidnapping.
A bell rang. Both young women looked up in time to see a pair of eagles dropping fast toward Assizes Square. Mai crossed to the opposite side of the roof. She gripped the lattice. Through the interwoven strips, she looked out over the city and the surrounding countryside.
Olossi was built on a substantial swell, with two flattened high points and a saddle of ground between them; below this ridge the hill fell away into the lower ground, in some places steeply and in others more gradually. Avenues curved up the gentle slopes while stairs cut up the steep ones. The Haf Gi Ri compound lay almost opposite Fortune Square, where she and Anji had faced the council. To the northwest, the height of the second hill cut off her view of the delta and the sea. Here and there other three-storied towers blocked a portion of her view, nor could she see the courtyard of Assizes Square because of the angle of buildings and slope. Yet despite this frustration, she nevertheless gazed at a magnificent vista, over the city's rooftops and beyond, where the lower town and fields stretched to the south and west and even into the east. She could just make out a line that must be West Track, so distant, cutting down from the southern escarpment, that it seemed no more than a filament. Walking along the roof, she found a line of sight that allowed her to look over the flat plain lying north of the river. A raised road struck straight through a tidy patchwork of fallow fields. If there was traffic on that road, a returning company of black-clad riders, she could not see them. She watched for a long time.