She hiccoughed, sucked in a watery breath, and gave a bleating moan as she pounded her belly with a fist as if she were mourning. "I know it's not as bad as it could have been. But I can't bear to be parted from her! Ei! Ei! Ei!"
"She'll just be across town, at the citadel. You can see her every day."
"No! No! No! The news just came this morning, by messenger from Captain Anji. The garrison is being pulled out and sent east on the Golden Road. There's something going on there, I don't know what. Maybe there's war on the border. War! They're going east and she'll have to go with them, and we'll never see her again! Ever! Ever! Ever!"
He set down the adze on the bench, considerably startled by this news. "How soon?"
"In two days! The wedding is tomorrow, not next month! That's why you have to speak to Father Mei. Maybe they'll listen to you. All the other uncles… you know them! They always do what Father Mei says. Chicken-hearts! All but Uncle Hari. If he was here still, he'd put a stop to it."
"For shame, Ti!"
"I'm not sorry, even if no one else will talk about Uncle Hari! He was your favorite brother, too! You know it! You know he was the only one tough enough to stand up to Father Mei! He'd tell Father Mei to postpone the wedding. Wait 'til the garrison comes back. But they'll never come back. That's what Captain Anji knows. He knows they're never coming back and he's taking Mai away forever and ever and ever!" She once again fell to bawling.
Ti's outbursts were usually like cloudbursts in summer-frequent but short in duration, causing brief floods and then getting all that moisture sucked away as soon as the sun came back out-but this time she was truly upset. She and Mai were close as twins, born the same day in the same month in the same year to his eldest brother's first and second wives, who were themselves sisters. The two girls had never been apart in all their seventeen years.
No use trying to get any more work done today. He gathered up his tools into the cedar tool chest.
After a bit, when she could hear him, he said, "You could go as second wife."
"He won't take me!"she wailed. "I already asked, but Captain Anji told Father Mei he can only have one wife. And Father Mei won't let me go as her maid because it would be dishonorable, and anyway, Captain Anji said he won't take me even as a servant."
He'd be a madman to take you as wife or servant, Shai thought, although in truth he was shocked that Ti would suggest such a thing. A servant! Someday Ti's impulsive and stormy nature would get her, and the family, in big trouble.
A slender shape toiled up the path and resolved into the slave girl everyone called Cornflower, for her blue eyes. Ti saw her and got that look all the women in the house did whenever Cornflower appeared in a room. She wiped her eyes and nose before the slave halted twenty steps below them with hands clasped and body bent in a half bow. No need for Cornflower to say anything. Wind tugged at the slave's wool tunic and her trident braids of uncannily white-gold hair. Her bare feet and calves were burned a pinkish brown, but everyone knew she had unusually light skin beneath her clothes, not like that of normal people but more like that of ghosts, and there was something about the way she stood there so quietly, a well of stillness, that made him always think about what it would be like to…
"I better go," said Ti.
Shai started, unaware he'd been wandering. Cornflower served the two senior wives-Ti's mother and aunt-so her presence here was a summons for Ti. Her presence was unwelcome to any young man whose greatest ambition was to be left undisturbed.
"Promise me you'll come right now." Ti started down the path at a fast clip, Cornflower trotting behind, head lowered. Ti looked three times back over her shoulder, mouthing words, gesturing almost comically, trying to get Shai to hurry up.
He didn't see the point. He was the last person his eldest brother would listen to. But he whistled for his nephews and finished stowing the tools. His flush receded. His thoughts sank back into an orderly flow. The wind tugged at his sleeves, tied back to leave his lower arms bare. It wasn't warm enough to work bare-chested yet, although he preferred it when it was. He hated to go back down to town, back to the family compound, where sleeves had to be tied down to the wrists and any work you did or comment you made was overseen, overheard, and overruled by others.
Mai was fortunate. She was escaping.
Not that she would think of it that way.
His younger nephew came running, looking important and annoyed. "What is it?"
"I have to go down," Shai said, gesturing toward town. "I'll be back this afternoon."
"You better be. I don't want to sleep out here worrying about thieves!" He scuffed his feet among the wood shavings and sat down hard on the bench.
Not that there were thieves anymore, not since the Qin took over. Still, no one left good tools and precious wood unguarded, even so.
"What do you have to go down for, anyway?" The boy shaded his eyes and squinted toward town. "Uh!" He grunted and rolled his eyes, seeing his older cousin far down, retreating on the path. Because of Ti's way of walking, she could not be mistaken for anyone else: all bouncing sleeves, a spring like that of an antelope in her step. "That Ti! Just a big boiling teakettle, that one! It must be about Mai and the wedding, eh?"
Shai shrugged.
"Make sure you're back here soon. No shirking!" His nephew was eldest son of second brother and, therefore, had more clout than his young uncle Shai, but not enough to overrule Ti's request, because she was daughter of Father Mei. If Ti asked, Shai must go.
So Shai left. An ugly scene would no doubt ensue once he reached the compound, but there was no reason to worry about that on the walk down with the day so fine and the sky so merry and blue. The wind skated up from the east, which meant it was clear of dust torn up from the desert. The tips of the mountains to the northwest could be seen, three deep; that was unusual, quite striking. He thought he heard a hawk's piercing call but when he paused and spun slowly he saw no speck in the sky, nothing flying except one wispy cloud spinning out along the ridge of Dezara Mountain. The slopes still had a hint of spring green in them although they were fading to summer gold. The sheep were hidden above in a fold of land, but he heard a second flock bleating off to the right. That would be the Gandi clan's herd. There had been talk about a marriage between Mai and an elder Gandi boy, but of course the attentions of the Qin captain had cut those right off.
Poor Mai. No wonder she was crying. Still, it wasn't really a surprise. Mai had been doomed from the start.
He stared east, into the wind. Because it was so clear, he could see the old road winding along the mountains for an unexpectedly long way before haze and distance cloaked it. No clouds of dust betrayed a merchant train or travelers. All was quiet and at peace. Shai liked things at peace.
It wouldn't last.
He started down again and soon enough was nodding to the guards at the gate-two grizzled veterans of the town militia who had survived the Qin takeover-and crossed into the verdant oasis of the orchard gardens. The noise of the town was audible but muffled by green leaves and the laughter of the orchard workers. He crossed the Merciful Prayer bridge, passed under the arch of the inner wall, and came out into the sun-blasted citadel square, where no one walked at midday. By the commander's quarters, two stocky Qin soldiers rode patrol, their heads covered by felt caps whose tilted brims shaded their eyes.
The gallows and the posts cast almost no shadows. Widow Lae's remains, dangling from the middle post, clattered in the wind. Keeping his head low, Shai twisted his clan ring three times around his middle finger and walked, trying not to look at the strands of black hair fluttering from the widow's skull and the tattered remains of her red silk tunic, her best garment. Most of her flesh had been picked clean by wind and vultures and sun, leaving these strings of tendons that bound together her bones, the last remnants of hair and clothing, and her ghost.