"I remember your case, ver," he said politely to the merchant seated cross-legged on a brocade pillow to the right of the commander's desk.

"Considering the trouble you caused me out at my estate in Allauk, I should think you would." The man wore an overtunic of a florid purple brocade silk, embroidered with silver- and gold-thread flowers in case you were wondering how rich he really was. And if there was still then any doubt, it could be put to rest by admiring the strings of pearls adorning the loops of his threefold braid.

"I simply followed the law, ver.'When a person sells their body into servitude in payment for a debt, that person will serve eight years and in the ninth go free.' "

"In the ninth to go free," agreed the man, raising his forefinger as though he were lecturing an ignorant apprentice, "but there's nothing said in the law about additional debt run up in the meantime, which must be repaid in coin or in service, which all agree is fair. I was genuinely shocked by the decision. I don't mind saying that I was offended by it as well, bullying my factor as this reeve did, and humiliating him in front of the witnesses just because he could."

"The law is clear," said Joss, who was beginning to get irritated all over again although he could not show it. The merchant's factor had possessed just this same manner of self-importance. "Indeed, we can walk up to Law Rock and see that the law is carved in stone."

"Legate Joss!" The commander rapped the table with her baton.

"You'd think he was wed to a Silver the way he goes on," added the merchant. "If it were allowed, that is. And I don't mind saying I am not the only one who has gotten tired of those people putting in their petition every year at the Flowering Festival, although what right such outlanders think they have to change our holy laws I can't imagine."

"The Ri Amarah clans are not the issue under discussion," said the commander.

He backed down unctuously. "No, no, not at all. That's right. Let's stick to the business at hand. It's just one of my grievances that I'm sometimes on about."

No doubt he had a dozen wagonloads of grievances.

"The matter will go before the Legate's Council next week," continued the commander, "and I assure you that you will not be disappointed in the ruling."

"The law is clear," objected Joss. "I found according to the law that the man in question had served his eight years' servitude in payment for his debt and was unlawfully retained against his wishes past the ninth year."

"In truth, Legate Joss," said the commander, "the law doesn't say anything about debt compounding through actions of the slave which accrue further debt during the period of servitude. Master Tanesh, if you will, we'll send you a messenger when the case comes up next week."

The merchant rose and fussed and bowed. The commander, naturally, did not get up, and so he went on his way expeditiously. When the doors had slid shut behind him and a decent interval had passed in which the old reeve could escort him at least as far as out of the garden court beyond the possibility of overhearing any further conversation, she addressed Joss.

"We're already fighting what appears to be a losing battle, one that is spreading day by day, that might as well be a wildfire burning out of our control. You know that better than any person here, by the names of all the gods."

"You know he's wrong! These people pad out debts and assign frivolous fines and make arrangements with corrupt clerks to work debt in their favor. That's the beauty of the law. It's simple, and it understands how to get around some people's desire to take more than they ought just because they are greedy-"

"Joss!"

"Is it any wonder there's been a rash of reports of slaves running out on their debts? Why shouldn't they, if they believe the law is being twisted to work against them? Indenture was meant to be a temporary measure, not a permanent one."

"Legate Joss! You have to fight these battles when there is peace to fight them in."

"How can there be peace when the shadows have corrupted even the law? Hells, it isn't the shadows that corrupted the law. It's us, who have allowed it to happen by making an exception here, and another there."

"Certainly it would be easier to abide by the law of the Guardians if there were Guardians left to preside at the assizes. But there aren't. As you know best of any of us."

In training, you learned how to absorb the force of a blow from a staff by bending to absorb the impact or melting out from under it, but this hit him straight on.

"That's silenced him, thank the gods," muttered the Snake.

He could not speak, not even to cut that damned snake to pieces. That Peddo was hiding his eyes behind a hand did not blunt the shock.

The commander studied him. There was not a hint of softening, not in her, not even though she had let him into her bed off and on for over a year about twelve years back, before he became a legate and she the commander. Before her injury. She was not a woman swayed by fond memories. She was not sentimental, not as he was. If nightmares haunted her, she gave no sign of it. She was cold and hard and in charge of an impossible situation.

The Guardians are dead and gone.

And the young Joss, that utterly stupid and bullheaded youth who had thought far too much of himself back in those days, was the one who had brought that knowledge back to the reeve halls while abandoning his lover and her eagle to be murdered at the hands of a band of criminals who had never been caught and bound to justice for the deed. Maybe, somehow, by breaking the boundaries, he was the one who had brought it down on their heads.

As if the commander knew the way his thoughts were tending, and because she would not have said those words if she hadn't meant to hurt him, she went on.

"So. That leaves us with a hundred towns, a hundred villages, a hundred arkhons, a hundred captains, a hundred lords and landowners, a hundred local guild masters, a hundred times over, according to the holy tales recorded by Sapanasu's clerks and chanted by the Lady's mendicants. Any of these towns and villages and lords and guilds may be governed by a wise or by a foolish council, according to what fortune or misfortune has befallen their leading clans. Any of these councils may support an indifferent or a useful militia, according to their custom and that of the surrounding clans. That leaves the holy temples, whose authority is unquestioned but diffuse. And that leaves us, the six reeve halls, over whom I stand as Commander. Which position, as you know, gives me no authority except that of suggestion and coordination. Not in the halls, and not in the temples, and not in the Hundred. This is the strength we possess against an enemy who may not even be an enemy, one who cannot be found or grasped."

"It's part of what's happened in Herelia," said Peddo suddenly. "Every village and town asking reeves to depart and never come back. No reeve patrols in Herelia now. The folk there came to hate us because they didn't trust us. Because they feared someone or something else even more. There's a power at work in Herelia, everywhere north of Iliyat and the Haya Gap. Yet we can't track it down."

Her gaze, bent on Peddo, caused him to sit back and grin nervously, as does a boy called out for whispering to his neighbor during recitation drill.

"This is the strength we possess," she repeated. "And it is failing us." She turned that gaze on Joss. He stood his ground, even under her harsh stare. "I need Master Tanesh. He has supported the city by providing triple rations of grain and meat, although he's under no obligation to increase his tithing, and a doubled complement of young folk to serve their rotation in Toskala's militia."

"All of which serve to protect his estates and investments."