Priya chuckled. "Were you a mare, or a stallion? I've wondered, sometimes, how it might feel to be a stallion-man or horse-and have such a-"

"Oh, stop teasing her!" Mai scolded, because the girl looked miserable. Or maybe not. Commander Beje had implied that the girl slept in the bed with his chief wife and that there was play between them. "Are you lonely, Sheyshi?"

Sheyshi wore a green silk cap from which hung shoulder-length streamers, some of green silk, some of gold and white beads, and one woven out of supple wire. Normally the arrangement left her face exposed, but with her head bowed the streamers concealed her expression.

"Hard to come by right now," said Priya as she rubbed, "but I can make sheaths out of sheep gut if you're wanting comfort with a man without catching a child in your sack."

Mai chuckled. "You made me no such offer, Priya! A sheep-gut sheath for a man's sword!"

"You are freeborn, and now a wife. You must get a child as soon as you can." She paused with a hand resting on the gentle curve of Mai's lower back. "Perhaps…"

"It's too early," said Mai, suddenly frightened. "Don't say anything."

Priya began kneading again as if nothing had been said. "I will pray to the Merciful One that you are blessed with seven sons, and three daughters."

It was good to change the subject. "How can it be, if there are always seven sons but only three daughters, that all the sons can get married? In Kartu, the clan banner goes only to the eldest son. But all my uncles got wives-well, except for Uncle Shai, and Uncle Hari, and Uncle Girish." She shuddered, remembering Girish. He'd paved his own path to the deepest hell.

"Priests and soldiers need not marry," said Priya. "This way we always have plenty of them."

"Ow! Ow! No, don't stop! Right there!" She groaned in blissful pain. "Yes, right there! It hurts!" Priya worked in silence while Mai kept her eyes shut and breathed into the knot of pain to try to loosen it.

Sheyshi shuffled around; there came footsteps, an opening and closing of the flap of the tent. Feet shushed along the carpet, and just before Mai opened her eyes to see what was going on, hands began massaging her again. These hands were firm and strong and callused, and no less knowing.

"Anji." She smiled as she opened her eyes.

He kept kneading with one hand and with the other slipped free the tortoiseshell comb that bound up her hair, uncoiling it and raking it out over her back. "I am the most fortunate of men," he murmured.

"I am the most flattered of women."

He laughed. "It is not flattery if it is true. Not one man among this company does not honor your beauty and good nature, Mai."

She rolled out from his hand, onto her side, and propped her head up on a bent elbow. "Is that what you seek? The envy of other men?"

He considered the comment, but his gaze roamed along her body and his hands twitched, although he did not-yet-touch her. "It is easy to be gratified by the envy of others, directed at what you yourself possess. But it weakens you. Half the secret of your beauty, plum blossom, is that you do not covet it or use it." Then he smiled. "Except in the marketplace, to drive a harder bargain."

"You will never let me forget that."

"I must know the measure of those I hold closest. Any commander must measure his troops in this manner."

"I am no different than your troops?"

He said nothing, and she understood abruptly that it would be foolish to press the conversation any further in this direction.

She groped for and found the scraper Priya would have used to clean the oil off her body. "When do I get my bath?"

He relaxed. "Soon." He took the scraper and worked methodically, but somehow by the time he had finished he was also undressed and she was warm and almost delirious with pleasure.

"Soon," he repeated, kissing her.

She wrapped her limbs around him and took what she wanted.

DO NOT FEAR happiness.

Is it dangerous to become too happy? To get what you want, and be blessed with good fortune? A kind husband. A missed bleeding. As Grandmother Mei used to say, in her querulous way, "Why do you think you'll get a drink from my cup just because I gave you one yesterday?"

She pondered this question at dawn as she rolled up the blankets and the sleeping carpets while, outside, Priya and O'eki released the tent ropes. She crawled out as the walls collapsed. Sheyshi collected the bedding and secured it to one of the packhorses. Anji stood beside the sentry fire talking with the man who rode that huge and intimidating eagle. Anji had an easy way of conversing with other men. He had a natural precision of movement, and he took up space in a way that made him noticeable without diminishing those in his company. He glanced her way, saw her, and without smiling-just a certain way of narrowing his eyes and the barest curve to his lips-made her flush.

Grandmother had not approved of happiness. She said it led to carelessness and trouble, or perhaps she had meant that happiness led you to carelessness, which in turn took your hand and walked you into trouble. Good fortune was fickle. You must never count on it.

Her hair was already pulled back in a mare's tail swishing down her back to her hips. She twisted it up deftly, and Priya thrust the tortoise comb through the mass of gathered hair to keep it in place. Mai walked over to the men.

"A good morning," said Joss appreciatively. He was the kind of man who smiles his admiration but shows restraint in the way he doesn't draw too close. She liked him. He was good-looking in the northern way, but pretty old. As old as her father, probably, although his coloring was so different that it was hard to tell. Father Mei walked old and talked old and frowned old and sighed old, but the reeve had the lively aura of a man who plunges through life because he wants to be happy.

It hit her all at once.

"You're an Ox," she said.

"Mai?" said Anji in a tone that almost crossed into a warning.

Joss laughed. "How did you know?"

"So am I. The Ox is hardworking and pragmatic, with a dreamer hidden inside."

"What gave me away?" He was still smiling, his eyes handsomely crinkled with amusement, and she gave in to the temptation to flirt, even though she knew she should not.

" 'The Ox walks with its feet in the clay, but its heart leaps to the heavens where it seeks the soul which fulfills it. The Ox desires happiness, which is a heavenly gift, but it accepts its burden of service on earth even if it knows that happiness has flown out of its grasp.' And anyway, the Ox is always beautiful."

She was aware at once of Anji's boots shifting on the dirt as a complicated expression altered the reeve's face before he found a harmless smile again. "Does it say somewhere that the Ox is a shrewd judge of character? Or did you serve your apprenticeship to Ilu as I did?"

"I don't know what 'Ilu' is."

He glanced at Anji and made his own judgment. "We'd best begin our trek. It's still five or six days' journey from here to Olossi. I won't rest easily until these two caravans are delivered to the safety of the market there."

Anji nodded, and the reeve left.

"He's been called handsome before," said Anji once the other man was out of earshot. "He's accustomed to the admiration of women. It was the talk of happiness that made him uncomfortable."

She looked at him closely. "You're a little mad at me."

"This is not the marketplace, Mai, and you are not selling peaches and almonds to unsuspecting men who will be stunned into paying full price by one glance from your beautiful eyes."

She raised a hand to her cheek, where Father Mei would have slapped her. "Forgive me," she said in a low voice, but she kept her gaze fixed to his.

He did not smile to soften his words. His voice was low and even. "Do not dishonor me."