"I would gladly hear the song. You sing with sincerity and a true voice."

"Maybe not such a strong one," she muttered. "But the tone is good, so I am told."

"You are still angry. I do not laugh at you, dearest Mai. I just have no taste for such tales. To me, they seem ridiculous."

"How are the tales ridiculous?"

He laughed. "Any man knows better than to leave a beautiful woman alone by the riverside in the middle of wilderness! Wild beasts and demons stalk everywhere, and not least among them the sort of bandits we drove away in Dast Korumbos. No, I have no patience for those stories."

"Mistress." Sheyshi came out of the dark carrying a copper basin filled with water. "Here is warmed water, if you want to wash your hair and face."

"Captain!" The reeve reappeared, barely visible in the gloom, and waved a hand. "If you will. There's something I would like you to see."

Anji nodded at her and went after Joss. Mai watched them fade into the twilight. She scanned the clearing and the trees but could see nothing exceptional, only merchants fussing at their wagons, soldiers grooming horses, and a dog slinking under the wheels of a cart. Guards ringed the prisoner's wagon, but they showed no sign of alarm as they maintained their vigil.

Movement beside one wagon attracted her gaze. Canvas had been stretched by means of an internal scaffolding to make a cabin over the bed, and two young women knelt beside a small fire, feeding sticks into it and stirring in a pot that hung on an iron tripod over the flames.

"Look there," said Mai to Priya. "I've noticed them before. They look a little like Sheyshi, don't they?"

"Slaves," said Priya. "See the bracelets and anklets, hung with bells so they cannot run away without alerting their master. Someone means to sell them here in the north. So it happened to me."

Mai took the other woman's arm, looking for the mark of shackles. "You have never worn such bracelets, Priya!"

"It is not the custom in Kartu. They were taken off me before I came to your father's house."

"Still." Mai scratched a forearm carelessly. "There's something about those two-or that wagon, anyway-that makes me itch. I don't know what. Like that time keder oil spilled on Ti's hand and made it blister. There's something hidden, but I don't know what."

A young man appeared by the fire, speaking to the girls, and he looked up as if he felt Mai's gaze. She had seen him before, among the merchants. He was young, with thick, curly black hair, and vivid with a kind of hunger of the spirit, a thing which gnaws at the underbelly and never lets up. He noted her, as men always did, but looked away quickly as if to say, "You cannot feed me, so I have no interest in you!"

"Find out his name," said Mai to Priya.

Priya brushed her fingers across Mai's knuckles. "You shouldn't stare at young men. Best we go on. Your water is ready."

She followed Sheyshi behind a canvas screen set up for privacy and, with the aid of her two slaves, stripped and had them pour the water over her just for the feel of it. It wasn't a true bath, with a scrub and afterward a hot soak, but she rubbed and soaped and afterward Sheyshi brought two more basins and rinsed her, and anyway it was better than the constant smear of dirt on her skin. She had dried and dressed and was sitting on a stool, sipping at this nasty drink called cordial while Priya combed out her hair, when Anji returned, accepted a cup from Sheyshi, and drained it without even a grimace at the sour taste.

"What was it?" she asked him.

"Just in the trees, a man found two skulls, bones scattered. Wild beasts got into them, but it isn't clear if the dead men were murdered or just died from some other cause-starvation, illness. Or where they came from or why, nothing but the bones, not even scraps of clothing, pieces of gear, nothing."

"It doesn't seem likely that naked people would go wandering in the forest. Unless these Hundred folk have strange customs."

He smiled, but sobered immediately. "The reeve tells me they have no holy followers of the Merciful One at all."

"No followers of the Merciful One? How can that be? We saw a shrine to the god, but it contained no statue, nothing but withered flowers."

"He kept thinking I was saying the Merciless One. It took us a while to sort it out. He had never heard of the Merciful One."

"You might as well say you have never heard of the color blue, or the sun and the moon!" she protested. "Surely all creatures know the Merciful One."

He smiled. "Not in Sirniaka, where Beltak, the King of Kings, Lord of Lords, the Shining One, rules alone."

"Everyone knows that this Shining One is only one aspect of the Merciful One."

"You would be burned alive for saying so."

"Then I am glad we did not have to stay in Sirniaka!"

He touched her hand, and cradled it between his. "Not even for another amaranth parasol?"

"I only needed one!" She laid her other hand atop his, thinking of the flash of jealousy he had displayed. Of course it was gratifying, but it scared her, too. "I only need one," she added, and his hand tightened on hers and he looked at her intently in a way that made her both bold and nervous, as though she stood in the court of judgment knowing she had done nothing to dishonor herself.

"Well," he said, releasing her hand and rising, breaking the gaze. Her shoulders relaxed. "They'll be given a proper funeral, however they do that kind of thing here. Still, it makes a man wonder."

"How they came to die?"

"How much trouble the Hundred folk are having in their lands, to find border guards working in league with bandits and bones abandoned in the forest. Another thing I wonder at." He paused, and she watched him as he regarded the starry heavens with a thoughtful gaze. His profile was a noble one, given a patina of unworldliness by night and stars and the fitful illumination of firelight. So might a man out of legend appear as he considers his destiny, because it is the duty of night to mask his thoughts and lend glamour to his fortitude.

She waited-she had always been good at waiting-and at length he continued.

"Their ghosts were still there. Where men die violently, there remains a whirlpool of rage and fear where the spirit was cut from the body. I had Shai come over. Do you know what he told me?"

"Poor Shai. He's so afraid of being burned for seeing ghosts."

He frowned. "It's true you Kartu folk have odd ideas, which we Qin often remarked on. Among the Qin, the few men and women who can see ghosts are honored. It's a rare gift. In the empire, a boy who sees ghosts is given to the priests and becomes a powerful man. It's also true, though, that a woman in the empire who saw ghosts would be executed. So, after all, on all counts, you're better off with me, Mai."

"Did I ever suggest otherwise?"

"You did not. But, hear this and wonder, as I do. Those ghosts claim to have been reeves, so Shai tells me. They were murdered, although they cannot say who killed them. Yet where are the bones of their eagles? How comes it that our good ally Reeve Joss had no inkling of these deaths? Are these reeves not soldiers together in one unit? Does a crime that assaults one not lash the rest into action? Why is he here alone? Where are those who must stand at his shoulder?"

"What are you saying? That he is a rogue? Or a liar?"

"I think he is an honorable man. But what of other reeves? Are they as honorable as he is?"

"Did you ask him? Maybe he had heard of the deaths but not thought to tell you."

"He said there is a fort-a hall, he called it-of reeves a few days' journey from here. He'll leave us tomorrow at a place he calls Old Fort, and fly to that place to meet with these other reeves, to see what they have heard of this situation. I am thinking he wonders why they have not acted, when all these crimes take place within the lands they are responsible to patrol."