Tohon slid a screen to one side, and they emerged under an arbor roofed by vines and surrounded by a net of trees, some flowering and some boasting the small green bulbs of early fruit. A multicolored carpet had been thrown down over flagstones, and in the shade a stout man sat on a camp stool, his back to them, whittling. He set knife and carving on the carpet before rising to face Captain Anji.

He was a good ten years older than Father Mei, a robust man with a face red from too much drinking, and the typical Qin smile, generous and quick. "Anjihosh!" He wore slippers of gold silk embroidered with red poppies. On these he padded forward to slap the captain on either shoulder. Anji placed his right hand atop his left and bowed respectfully.

"Good you came." The commander's arkinga was a little different from Anji's. He voiced some of the words in a new way and sometimes used a phrase Mai had never heard before. "Who is this lovely orchid?"

"My wife, Mai'ili."

"Not concubine? She's not Qin."

"No. She is my wife."

Beje studied Mai for what seemed an interminable time. He had black eyes, and laugh lines that betrayed humor, but he looked her over in the same way a discriminating buyer handles peaches and melons, knowing which are ripe and which not ready for sale. She did not flinch, although she was desperately uncomfortable.

The father of Anji's first wife, of whom she knew nothing except that the woman was dead. Some of the aunts had speculated the Anji had beaten his first wife to death because the Qin were known for their violent temper as well as their hearty laugh, but if that were the case she couldn't understand how the father of that woman could greet Anji so affectionately.

"She can stay, then. If she's your wife, I'll treat her as if she were my daughter." He pointed to Priya. "No wife, this one. Why is she here?"

"She is educated. She can read and write."

"A woman of value! Bring khaif for everyone, Sheyshi."

The young woman stood so still within the curtain made by drooping vines that Mai actually didn't notice her until Beje said her name and she padded away through the trees on a white gravel path.

"Is she your concubine?" asked Anji, looking amused.

Beje looked confused. "Concubine? Sheyshi? No, just a slave. I don't like these Marihan girls. They smell funny, but Cherfa likes to be surrounded by pretty things, birds and kits and so on, and she likes pretty slave girls, too. She may sleep with them. I don't!"

"Who is Cherfa?" asked Mai.

"My chief wife. A good woman. She takes care of me. You take care of Anjihosh here, and he'll make you a good husband for all your days."

"Yes, sir," she said automatically, because he was the kind of man you addressed with respect. Then she flushed, thinking of lovemaking.

He chuckled, but turned somber as Tohon brought stools, unfolded them, and they all sat down. There was still no wind, and the air was warm but not unpleasantly sticky. It was so quiet that Mai could not even hear the noise of Anji's troop.

Beje sighed as he settled his bulk on the stool. "I'm sorry, Son. I'm still ashamed. You could have shamed my whole clan and harmed our position in the var's eyes, but you did not."

"It was not your fault," said Anji. "There was nothing you could have done."

"Maybe so. Maybe not. She was a headstrong girl."

Anji's smile ghosted, and vanished. "Precisely her charm." He glanced at Mai but said nothing more.

Beje looked at Mai, too, and nodded as if in answer to an unspoken question. "Truly, this one is a beautiful woman. I have seen many handsome women in my time, but this one I can see has been kissed by the Merciful One with grace of spirit. Still, no need to have married her as she is not Qin."

"A man may keep a knife hidden in his boot in case he falls onto hard times and needs to defend himself when attack is least expected. She is my knife."

Mai flushed again as Beje examined her, frowning.

"Is she? Hmm." They sat in silence.

How odd that it should be so very quiet, as if a spell veiled them. Mai kept her hands folded in her lap and examined first her husband and then the old commander, who after a bit picked up his knife and began to whittle. The whit whit of the knife strokes sounded like a bird's cry, heard from a distance. She couldn't tell what shape was emerging from the wood. Anji sat so still that she would have thought him asleep except his eyes were open, though he didn't precisely seem to be looking at anything. Lost in memory, perhaps. Surely he was thinking of his first wife, whoever or whatever she had been.

Headstrong. She had shamed her family.

That didn't sound promising.

I will never shame him or the Mei clan.

A bug tick tick ed. Leaves rustled. Beje set down his carving just as Sheyshi reappeared, bearing a tray with four painted bowls on it. Now Mai got a better look at her. Her complexion had a richer brown color than that of Kartu people, whom the creator of all had admixed with the clay and sandstone of the desert, and she had a more prominent nose, in some manner resembling Anji's. She had pretty eyes and pretty ways and a pretty smile as she offered Mai a pretty little bowl filled with steaming khaif, a real luxury, which Mai had only ever tasted once in her life at Grandmother's double-double anniversary four years ago, when she had counted four rounds of twelve years. Even Priya was handed a bowl, out of respect for her learning.

They sipped as the servant girl waited, kneeling, by the sliding door. Priya nodded appreciatively, but said nothing.

When they had each emptied their bowl and the heady aroma and flavor had quite gone to Mai's head, making the world seem large and pleasant indeed, Sheyshi collected the bowls and departed through the trees.

"So," said Beje. "So, Anjihosh, you are wondering."

"I am."

"Do you know why you were sent east?"

"Yes. To take over command of the garrison and army at Tars Fort."

"A lot of transfers, troops being moved along the border, and to the border."

"Yes. I have wondered about that also. The var is too wise to attack the empire. We can't defeat them."

"It seems unlikely. I can now tell you that all this movement is part of a larger plan, one the var has only recently unveiled to his regional commanders. We are massing an army along the border to ride to the aid of the emperor."

Anji blinked but otherwise revealed no emotion. "Why would the Qin act as servants, as hired soldiers, for the emperor?"

"The var wishes to maintain stability. No way to trade with the empire, or collect tribute from their outlying towns, if they're torn apart by civil war, is there?"

"Why would the empire have civil war? Emperor Farutanihosh is a strong administrator. The empire is at peace, and well run."

Beje reached inside his blue silk tunic-only Qin commanders were allowed to wear that particular shade of heaven blue-and withdrew a pristine folded-rice-paper message sealed with the stylized horse-stamp sigil that every merchant recognized because it represented the authority of the Qin var. Only the var's officials carried such seals. With a manifest bearing that seal, any officer could requisition a family's entire stock of grain or their best ram or bolts of silk hidden away for weddings and prayer offerings.

He held it up now. "Emperor Farutanihosh is dead."

Anji paled. The words struck him hard, but he said nothing.

"The emperor's eldest son Farazadihosh has become emperor. However, another claimant seeks the throne. There is dispute, and there is fighting in the southern provinces. The var has offered to help Emperor Farazadihosh put down his rival in exchange for the Qin receiving certain trading privileges. The new emperor has, it seems, not as many troops as the claimant, who seeks to oust him."