Shai could not stop peeking through the bitter-heart. Her braids had a caressing way of sliding to and fro over her shoulders and upper arms. They were fastened at each tip by tiny nets sewn with lazulite beads as blue as her eyes. Shai shut his eyes.
Thank goodness the ceremony of receiving had almost reached its conclusion! The family had been out here for a while, while Shai was dawdling.
The sigh that escaped Younger Mei's lips was as fragile as the ghost of a wind passing through scattered rose leaves. Shai looked at him, squeezed his arm, and lifted his own chin: Hold firm! Mei gave Shai a look, like that of a frightened rabbit determined to bite the hawk that has cornered it but not sure it will survive the altercation. Then he stepped out from behind the hedge.
The heir's place, of course, was to stand at his father's right hand. Mei did so, taking up position smoothly and without a sound. Captain Anji flashed the merest glance Mei's way but did not otherwise betray that anything was amiss or that another man might have taken insult at the heir's belated arrival. Shai waited behind the hedge, partly because he was so aroused by the sight of Cornflower in her bedroom silks but mostly because no one had bothered to place a chair for him with the rest of the uncles and he refused to kneel with the children. Ti was seated first among the children, her hands clenched and her round face streaked with dirty tears. She looked as if she'd rubbed her face in the dust. But she kept her mouth shut.
The last glass was sipped dry. With an annoyed gesture, Father Mei's elder wife Drena sent Cornflower back inside. It hadn't been the choice of the women, then, to see if Captain Anji could be embarrassed by revealing Cornflower's charms.
"I apologize that we must speak in such haste," said Father Mei, although the ceremony of receiving always took at least an hour and the usual opening negotiating formalities might take an equal amount of time. "I had thought the negotiations done and the contract sealed, Captain Anji, but now it appears otherwise. What brings you to us?"
Captain Anji had a soldier's bluntness. "I sent a messenger ahead to inform you of my situation. You already know my predicament. I've received a change of orders. My company rides out in two days. I would like to marry tomorrow so my bride can journey with me. It is the fondest desire of my heart."
Now he did smile, nodding at Mai. Shai could not see Mai's reaction because he could see only the back of her head, but he thought her shoulders tightened slightly; it was hard to tell because she was so heavily draped in the layers of blue silk appropriate to an affianced bride. Then again, lots of things were hard to tell with Mai. All loved her for her accommodating, placid nature. She was beautiful, but a little stupid.
"It will be a hardship for my clan to hurry the rites. It will cost us to pay the law courts to move the day, and to make room tomorrow in their schedule, and we won't have ready the many fine luxuries we wish to dower her with."
"I have some resources. I can pay the law court what they need. I ask nothing of you except your daughter, Father Mei."
How coolly he said those words! Shai was impressed. Father Mei would inflate the costs and keep the difference for the family, but Captain Anji was apparently no merchant or bargainer and thereby, according to the rule of the marketplace, ripe for plucking. Or else he simply did not care. Beauty in women captured men that way sometimes.
"We will sustain a loss by having her torn from the house before her time."
As if on cue, Younger Mei sniffled, then stiffened, knowing he must show no emotion. Emotion gave the opponent a bargaining chip.
The captain slipped a hand into the folds of one sleeve, searched for something, and withdrew his hand, now cupped. "I possess nothing to recompense you for your loss, which is extreme. However, two days ago I purchased an item which I think might be of interest to the Mei clan."
He unfolded his hand to reveal a ring. It was silver, shaped to resemble a running wolf with its mouth biting into its tail. A rare and perfect black pearl was inlaid as the wolf's eye.
Grandmother bolted upright in her chair. Her hands gripped the arms like a hawk's talons. "Girish, bring it to me!" she said querulously.
The wives whispered, horrified. The uncles coughed and hemmed. Ti giggled nervously. Father Mei's big hands closed, opened, and with his right thumb and middle finger he made the warding sign, but because he did not speak, no one spoke. No one dared correct Grandmother.
Captain Anji raised an eyebrow, puzzled by the exchange.
She seemed to collect herself, and her memory. "Shai!" she snapped. "Nothing-good boy! Hu! I don't know why Grandfather thought you so clever! Come quickly. Get it and bring it here."
He padded forward from behind the hedge. The uncles and wives and children seemed surprised to see him. Father Mei grunted, a sign that he was holding his legendary temper in check. It always exploded afterward. But as soon as Shai got between the captain and his eldest brother, blocking Father Mei's view, Captain Anji winked at Shai as if in sympathy before dropping the ring into his hand.
"Hari," breathed Shai, not meaning to talk, but the touch of the ring actually hit so hard that he rocked back on his heels and struggled against a wave of dizziness.
It was Hari's ring. No doubt of that.
He took in a breath to steady himself, then walked back to his mother and placed it gently in her right hand. She slapped him hard with her left, the crack stinging and bitter.
He choked back his surge of anger. He'd gotten so good at doing it that it had become reflexive. The bitch would be dead soon, and he wouldn't miss her. Anyway, her slap-her dislike of him-didn't hurt nearly as much as contact with the ring had.
Hari was dead.
He'd known it as soon as the ring had touched his skin, just as he knew that no one else would feel it. Hari was dead. He'd been wearing the ring when he died; he'd been angry in an amused kind of way-the anger lingered in the ring. But surely Hari's spirit had already fled earth through Spirit Gate. There was nothing to hold him here, after all. Anger and bitterness hadn't chained him in Kartu Town. He'd not waste time lingering on earth as a ghost when there were adventures to face in the afterlife. Not Hari, the boldest and handsomest and most delightful of brothers.
"Fool boy," muttered his mother sharply. Her hands shook as she struggled to hide her tears, and Father Mei finally took the ring and examined it. As soon as it was out of her hands, she hid her face behind a sleeve.
"This belonged to my younger brother," Father Mei said. "Hari marched east as a mercenary with one of your regiments six years ago. We have never heard from him. Where did this come from?"
Shai shuffled to the side, turning, to see Captain Anji shrug.
"Certain peddlers have a license to travel from fort to fort selling small wares, curiosities, such things. I found this yesterday among the goods offered for sale by a man who had come from the east along the Golden Road. He said it came from a place called 'the Hundred,' which lies north of the Sirniakan Empire. He bought it from a Hundred merchant, traveling in Mariha, who said it was found near a town he called 'Horn.' There'd been a battle there. Internal matters, lord fighting lord or some such. I'm not sure of the details. The Hundred folk are barbarians, it seems. They've never had a var-a king-to lead them. Scavengers will always pick clean the fields of battle, and it seems it was no different with this ring. I don't know how many hands it passed through to get this far from the place it was found. But I recognized the ring at once. Mai has a ring like it."
As did every blood member of the Mei clan.
"Does it bring joy or grief to your house?" the captain asked.