Kate Elliott - Traitors Gate

'What is that?' Nallo gestured toward the smithy.

'Eh?' She looked around in the manner of someone who can't see anything except what she expects to see. 'What?'

'That, uh, that — oh, the hells!' Cursed if the creature wasn't already looking in their direction as if it could hear every word

over the boom and hammer coming from inside the confines of the smoky forge. 'It's a delving, isn't it? Just like in the tales.'

'A delving?' asked Pil.

'Country cousins, eh?' Ju'urda laughed in a way that stung, but immediately she tipped back her head and spoke past them, not shouting as a normal person would have to, to have a hope of being heard above the racket. 'Heya, Be. These are reeves visiting from another hall. One's an outlander and the other has never seen your kind before. Their apologies.

It raised an arm to acknowledge her speech and glided back inside the smithy carrying the empty bucket.

'The delvings can be cursed touchy, not that I blame them,' said the steward. 'It doesn't pay to insult them. Your grandchildren might find themselves with a ban still held against them when they least expect it.'

'What is a delving?' asked Pil.

'No time.' She glanced at Nallo. 'How in the hells did an outlander get to be a reeve?'

'No time,' said Nallo with a grin meant to have an edge, but Ju'urda laughed with real amusement, then set off at a trot, leading them down the alley. Nallo could see nothing of the hall grounds or the city beyond because they were hemmed in by buildings, none more than two stories tall and all with railings along the flat roofs and canvas set up over bare roof beams as if folk lived up there, too.

Ju'urda was soon flagging, although the jog seemed easy enough to Nallo. Pil, of course, was as tough as any man she'd ever met. Born, raised, and trained as a Qin soldier, he would die rather than show weakness.

Which made it all the more curious, Nallo supposed, that when he saw a creature he did not recognize, he immediately identified it as a fearful demon. Maybe they had more demons in the lands outside the Hundred. The gods had ordered the Hundred; naturally they had desired variety, for weren't there three languages spoken in the Hundred, and weren't there Four Mothers, and eight 'children' — thinking creatures — shaped by the Mothers? Weren't there five feasts, six reeve halls, and seven gods?

That's what made this marauding army all the worse. They all wore a medallion they called the Star of Life. They didn't respect the gods. They burned altars and ransacked temples, and worst of all, they flouted the law on which the Hundred was built. It was

like digging out your foundation from under your house without concern for what would happen afterward.

They emerged onto a clear area of docks emplaced along a channel of murky gray water. The slimy stench made Nallo flinch. The water heaved with sludge and garbage. On the far side of the channel, buildings crammed the far bank. Boats and barges and slender canoes clogged the waterway.

A barge lodged at the dock had disgorged a pair of men wearing the distinctive wrapped turbans that marked them as Silvers. The elder was arguing with a furious Kesta.

'-bare-faced and parading around half naked-' The Silver was very old but vigorous despite the wrinkle of years on his face. He spoke in the loud voice Nallo associated with people who, having lost their own hearing, assume no one else can hear well.

'You might as well throw swill in my face,' said Kesta, a flush darkening her cheeks. 'How dare you speak to a reeve-?'

'Throw swill I would, for it's the only fitting punishment for a woman who flaunts herself-'

'Here, now, Grandfather,' said the weedy grandson with a fluttering gesture.

The old man whacked him across the back with his cane. 'Shut your mouth, pup!' He looked up, seeing Pil. 'Here, now, ver. You're one of those Qin outlanders I've heard story of, aren't you?' The women might as well not have existed. T brought rice and nai to feed one hundred adults for one month, a generous allotment, if I must say so myself. Five cheyt for the lot. To be delivered in an even split of unhusked rice and whole nai. Nai flour will spoil, so you'll have to pound your own.'

Pil looked at Kesta, but she was too choked with anger to speak. He looked at Nallo and lifted a hand, palm up: What do I do?

Nallo was no clerk of Sapanasu, to add up such staggeringly large numbers in her head; she had never even seen a gold cheyt coin, not once in her twenty years of living. But she'd fed a household. In the village, a tey of rice sold for ten vey and was enough to feed one adult for one day. Nai was more filling, and cost less. Sixty vey equaled one leya, and sixty leya one cheyt… 'It seems like a fair price.'

'I–It's — cursed — generous,' huffed Ju'urda in a low voice. 'Just — cursed — clasp — agreement — so — his — hirelings — can — unload.'

Pil looked uncomfortable as he addressed the old man. 'It is agreed to be a fair price, ver.'

'It's not a fair price! It's a bargain, a steal, a quarter of what I could get on the open market, and no doubt in these dire times I could raise my prices to gouge the desperate if it weren't forbidden to make a profit from the suffering of others.'

'Yes, Grandfather, you're as generous as the sun. Everyone knows it. Especially since you're expecting a favor from the reeves in return.' Silver bracelets ringed the grandson's forearm halfway to the elbow as he extended the arm.

As senior reeve, Kesta took a step forward in response.

The old man's forearms were entirely bound in silver rings, jangling and flashing every time he shifted, as he did now, thwap-ping the lad on the rump. 'Touch her, and you'll never be allowed to marry, stupid pup. I'll toss you out the door and you'll have to live on the street.'

Nallo nudged Pil from behind, the movement unseen by the older man but in clear sight of the younger, who had the grace to look embarrassed. Pil knew how to obey orders. He and the other young man exchanged the traditional clasp of agreement.

'It's no wonder this unholy army is stampeding across the Hundred,' shouted the old man, stabbing at the air with his cane. 'Where are all the men, if they are not in their proper place?'

He stomped to the barge and shouted across the gangplank. Laborers swarmed up, hauling sacks off the boat and dumping them on the dock.

The young Silver released Pil's hand and blushed, easy to see on his paler skin. 'The old goat is in a particularly foul mood. My apologies.'

'What gives him leave to think he can talk to a reeve that way?' Kesta said.

'He calls it an affront for women to stand in authority in public,' said the youth.

'An affront to women, you mean! Him talking like that!'

'He's gotten worse as the gout has ailed him, and his hearing has gotten very bad, so he tightens his hold on his memories of the past, although I admit to you I'm sure the old days weren't as he pretends to recall them.'

Ju'urda pressed a hand on Kesta's arm. 'No use digging into this wound, eh? Say nothing more of it, Yeshen. It's a cursed generous offer, well under market value.'

Kesta whistled. 'It'll take us some time to haul it all north, one sack per eagle.'

'What will happen now the commander of Clan Hall is dead?' asked Ju'urda. 'There's no one in charge.'

'We've sent messengers to the other halls.' Kesta's gaze drifted to the sacks piling up in rows. The hirelings worked efficiently despite the old man throwing comments like knives.

'Don't drop that, you clumsy nit! Aren't you strong enough? Move faster!'

Kesta shook her head. 'Is that scrap of coin all he really wants? Hard to see him as generous.'

Yeshen frowned. 'He's got an affianced bride in Olossi he wants flown up here.'