Spirit Gate: Book One of Crossroads (56 page)

The shine of the river drew his gaze toward the sea. Far off, he saw the white walls of a Devourer’s temple sited on a rocky island in the midst of delta channels. It was possible that the woman who had tried to murder him had come from there, and no doubt he would have to go speak to their Hieros. That would be an interview he did not relish.

A shout rang up from the ground. Below, folk gathered at a gate marked by a temple to Sapanasu were pointing up at him. He turned a last time and swung in low as Scar raised his wings and fanned out pin and tail feathers for the landing. They hit in a dusty field a short walk from the gate.

He tested the jesses on Scar’s legs, and stepped back while giving the hand signal for flight and return. Scar thrust and beat upward, circling once to mark Joss’s position before flying toward the distant bluff that marked the upland and its potential hunting ground. The reeve slung pack and hood across his shoulders. He walked across the field, kicking up dust, and reached a path that met up with a lane that struck into the roadway. He paid a vey as toll to pass through Crow’s Gate and passed the colonnade where the clerks of Sapanasu had already begun their day’s accounting. The caravan with Captain Anji had not yet come through; they were likely two or three days out. He had a few days to work before he would have to meet them and the prisoner.

Business moved early in Olossi, especially in the season of Furnace Sky. A woman and her daughter had set up a stall selling fried palm bread and green mango. He bought one of each—the palm bread still hot from the griddle and the mango peeled, sliced to make petals of its flesh, and impaled on a stick—and ate as he walked along the road that led to the inner gate. Wagons lurched and rumbled along the stone. Women walked with baskets balanced atop their heads. A pair of children bent beneath a yoke from which hung buckets stinking of night soil.

Olossi’s council guard manned the wide gates that allowed traffic to enter and leave the inner city. The pair on duty saw his reeve’s leathers and his dusty boots and immediately called a captain, who delegated a young man to escort him up the winding avenues to the council hall. They crossed the Assizes Court where a line had already formed in front of the timber hall, whose double doors were still closed. Behind the hall, the square Assizes Tower rose.

From here they climbed the hill. Blocks of houses rose around them as they strode up the steady slope of the avenue that spiraled its way to the top. They passed a tricolored, three-layered gateway that marked the entrance to a tiny garden sanctuary dedicated to Ilu the Herald. A slave carried a pair of covered buckets in through the entrance to a large family compound where smoke threaded up from cook fires within. A pair of stone lanterns holy to Sapanasu flanked the narrow opening to one of the Lantern’s holy temples. At one corner, he smelled the sweet flavor of pastry-baking. A pair of very young ordinands lounged, yawning, at the open doors of one of Kotaru’s forts; the snap and crack of arms training drifted out from the interior. A “hatched eye” sacred to Taru the Witherer had been painted on a circular door set into high, whitewashed walls; fruit trees flourished in the hidden garden behind, their scent a fleeting perfume in the air, and flowering vines spilled over the top of the wall. A lane branched off the main avenue, flying the gold and silver pennants of gold- and silversmiths. Beyond this, seen floating away over rooftops, lay Olossi’s Sorrowing Tower. Kites spun their slow circles above its pale stone crenellation.

Despite the early hour, Joss was sweating by the time they reached the highest point in Olossi, with its Fortune Square, the rectangular council hall, and the smooth curve of the dark stone watchtower with its open roof and fire cage.

At this hour of the day, a line of supplicants had formed on the steps of the council hall. The guardsman led him past these up onto the sheltered porch where a line of benches sat empty, and through the sliding doors into an entry chamber. This chamber, which stretched the width of the hall, was paneled with screens charmingly painted with the story of the Silk Slippers. Its only inhabitant was a woman with pleasant features who was no longer in the first blush of youth. She wore a loose tunic with a scoop neck that draped low enough for him to see the blue-purple tattoos running up either side of her neck—the wave-scallops marking her as kin of the Water Mother. Safe to flirt with. Like the woman who had tried to kill him. The image of that one, so sensual, so strong, flashed so powerfully in his mind that he was for a moment disoriented.

“Can I help you?”

“Sorry. Change in light made me lose my footing. I’m a reeve sent from Clan
Hall in Toskala. Legate Joss. I need urgently to discuss with the council this matter of the recent border disturbances up on the Kandaran Pass, and along West Spur.”

“Yes, we’ve had a lot of complaints about safety on the roads this year. But I didn’t know it was serious enough to call a reeve out of Toskala.” She was some manner of clerk, seated at a table with a sheaf of documents placed at her left elbow, and a quill and ink stand to her right. She wore Sapanasu’s lantern on a necklace as a mark of her service. “The thing is, the council only meets in the evenings. Even so, there’s no meeting until Wakened Crane.”

Four days from now.

“A few council members might come by after Shade Hour to take tea,” she added, with a faint flicker of eyelids, not
quite
flirting but surely interested.

“Can I wait and talk to them? If not the council, what of Olossi’s militia?”

“No. Every able-bodied man, and any woman who qualifies, must serve a turn, but the captains are hired and fired by the council. You could go to Argent Hall.”

He considered, and decided to be bold. “I’ve been there, but they’re not interested. Can you tell me where the carters’ guild is located?”

“I can, but it’s all the way down and beyond the gates. You’re in luck, though, given the day. Usually the guildsmen take a drink up here at sunset, nothing formal, but it’s traditional on Wolf days, kind of a thanksgiving for trips survived without incident. Do you want to go all the way down, or do you fancy a rest up here? I can show you to the garden. Or you can sit on one of the benches outside.”

He rested fisted hands on the table and leaned there, with a smile that made her blush. “Now that I think of that long walk, and my restless night, I guess I fancy a rest in the garden.”

She blushed brighter. Shrugged. Tongue-tied. He was pushing too hard with this one. Possibly she was married, but no red bracelets circled her wrists. He straightened, and she relaxed.

“I do fancy a rest,” he added, “but in truth I should go down right away, if you’re willing to give me the direction.”

At the door, a man stuck his head in, saw them talking, and withdrew.

“My name is Jonit,” she said suddenly, and he guessed, by the shy tremor of a new smile and by the way her eyelids flickered and her lashes dipped to shadow her eyes, that she was definitely not married or allianced. “I don’t have to open until the hour bell. If you want to, you can wash your hands and face and sit down a moment before you take that long walk back down the hill. If you want.”

“That is tempting.”

She licked her lips, seemed by the way she bit at her lower lip to make a decision, and let out a breath. Rising and moving out from behind the table, she revealed a petite figure, winsome and nicely rounded, wrapped in gold and pearl-white layers of silk tunic and shawl with deep blue pantaloons. Her feet were bare except for three gold anklet rings. A woman with prosperous connections. It seemed surprising she wasn’t married.

She saw him assessing her. She had a teasing smile that made her prettier. “It’s a nice garden. There’s even a fountain, but you might miss the entrance if someone doesn’t show you where it is.”

She began to walk away. Heavy footfalls pounded on the steps outside. She shifted to look back at him, beckoning, but her eyes widened and mouth dropped open. He turned as five guardsmen pushed into the chamber led by a captain in a stiff leather tunic.

“Yes, that’s him,” said the young guardsman, the very same one who had escorted him up. The youth stepped away, disassociating himself from trouble.

“What’s this?” asked Jonit.

Their captain stepped forward, hand on his sword. “I’m Captain Waras, of the Olossi militia, under the authority of the Olossi council. You’re under arrest, by order of the council.”

“I am?” asked Jonit, looking bewildered.

“No, this reeve here. You’re the one who calls yourself Legate Joss? Who claims to be here under the authority of the Commander of Clan Hall in Toskala?”

“I am,” he said.

“If you will come with us. . . .” The polite phrase was meant to intimidate.

“Where do you mean to take me?” He did not move but felt keenly the cool touch of the whistle against his chest, hidden beneath his clothing. Scar could land on the peaked roof, but it would be a difficult climb to get up to him.

“Assizes Tower.”

“What is the charge? You cannot prosecute me until an advocate from Clan Hall is here to witness. This is very serious, accusing a reeve. You know the laws.”

“Murder is a serious charge,” said the captain.

That was the kick, but Joss was already drawn too tightly to flinch. Indeed, he was getting angry. “Certainly it is. Who am I supposed to have murdered, and where?”

Jonit backed away, staring at him as though he were welted with plague. Shadows lined the porch and moved along the rice paper walls of the sliding doors and windows as folk crowded up outside to listen.

“One of the Thunderer’s ordinands. A captain stationed most recently at the border fort at the terminus of West Spur, on the Kandaran Pass. Name of Beron.”

He almost staggered, hit so hard and quickly, but reeves learned to keep their feet under them. “I just arrested such a man,” he said quietly, “for conspiring with a band of ospreys to rob caravans coming up from the south over the pass. But he’s in transit here, with a caravan, under guard.”

Captain Waras shrugged. “I hold the order. Nothing more. If you’ll come with me, there’ll be no trouble.” One of his guards leaned in and whispered, and the captain had the grace to look embarrassed before he held out a hand. “If you please, give me the whistle they say you carry. The one that will call your eagle to you.”

“I will not! None but a marshal has the right to take that from me.”

“If you’re innocent, you’ve nothing to fear.”

Joss laughed. It was all he could do. He had no idea how far the rot had spread, even now, even here. “I’ll come to Assizes Tower and wait for a witness from Clan Hall, as is my right. I’ll agree to bide peacefully until the caravan arrives. They are witness to my operations. But I’ll give up nothing, not my weapons, not my whistle, nothing. When the caravan arrives, you’ll see this is a false charge.”

He pushed past them and out the door, head held high, praying to the gods but especially to Ilu the Herald, that Captain Anji was an honest man and as clever as he looked. Wheels were spinning within wheels here, and even the Herald might not be able to guide him out of this labyrinth.

The folk gathered on the porch scattered back as he reached the stairs. He started down, and on the third step crossed from shade into the blast of the sun. Blinking, lifting a hand to shade his eyes. A gasp warned him, a woman’s choked shriek. A whisper of air chased his ear. The haft of a spear smacked into the side of his head.

He dropped hard, spinning in and out of darkness as consciousness wavered. Images flashed: the assassin striking with her knife; the captain’s stabbing accusation; beware the third blow.

He hit the ground, tried to raise himself on a hand, but hadn’t the strength.

A man’s stocky form loomed above him, blocking the sun. “Take him to the tower, and lower him into the dungeon. And take that damned whistle off his neck!”

He blacked out.

After the reeve left, Anji kept Mai close beside them as they rode. She learned to enjoy the constant movement up and down the line of march. As the days passed, she watched for what interested her, spent a great deal of time finding out what coin and other measures of barter the folk here used, and how much things cost. She also looked for and mentioned things she thought Anji might find of interest: a lame horse; an abandoned doll; a shuttered hut; a carter with sores around his mouth that could be the sign of a corrupting disease. Most of the time he or Chief Tuvi or one of the men had already noticed these things, but not always. Sometimes things troubled her that interested them not at all.

The morning they came into sight of their destination for the first time, they paused to survey the river plain, the distant fields, the delta, and the sprawling town with its inner heart and its outer skirts. Anji and Chief Tuvi pulled their horses off to one side and conferred about lines of entry and exit, visible roads and paths, and their options for escape should they receive a hostile greeting. The caravan rattled past. Mai’s gaze drifted to watch the faces of the merchants as they recognized that today—at long last!—they would reach the market they longed for. Such a range of pleasure and enthusiasm, relief and laughter!

Yet one man’s brows were wrinkled with anxiety. One man, walking past beside his wagon, was not lightened by the sight. As usual, his cargo remained hidden within the canvas tent that covered his small wagon. Mai knew a mystery when she saw one.

She waited for Anji to finish. When at last they rode forward again, passing the slower-moving wagons as they rode toward the vanguard, she watched for one merchant in particular. She marked him easily; he was almost stumbling, hanging on to
the wagon as though he were sick and dizzy. As they came up from behind, she slowed her horse to keep pace with his wagon.

“Are you well, merchant?” she asked him.

Startled, he looked up at her. He paused, forced a smile that did not touch his eyes, and tried out formal words on his tongue. “A long, weary journey, Mistress.” He let go of the pole and wiped his sweating brow.

She smiled, hoping to reassure him. “Close now, I see. Is Olossi your home?”