Shai cleared his throat and groped for a topic of conversation to draw attention off of her. "Have you made this particular journey many times, Captain Anji? You seem to know the way well."

"Only once, and that traveling west," said the captain. "But every troop such as mine takes scouts. They're soldiers trained to know the routes and water holes and landmarks along every road our armies travel. Chief Tuvi has been this way before."

"So I have," said Tuvi, an entire world of implication flowering in three words.

"May we know where we are going?" asked Shai, feeling bolder as the conversation unfolded so amiably. "Where we are traveling so far?"

"No. Not now." Anji's tone did not invite further questions on the topic.

There was an awkward silence, broken by Mai. "How could you only have traveled once, and that west? The Qin come from the west. You would have to have gone east and come back."

"Ah," said the captain with a pleased smile. "You have caught out the flaw in my story." He offered the barest nod to Chief Tuvi, whose answering frown seemed resigned and amused.

Mai had a most charming way of looking puzzled, eyebrows drawn together, cherry lips pressed together winsomely. Much of her beauty was her lack of self-consciousness. Other beautiful women could not compare because they arranged their faces to suit the needs of their audience. "Will you explain it to me, or is it something I'm not meant to know?"

"Not now. Uncle Shai, have you traveled well?"

"I am a little sore," he said, rubbing his thighs.

"It will be worse tomorrow," said Chief Tuvi with a laugh. "But you stuck it out well for a flatfoot."

"You must learn to ride as well, Mai'ili," said the captain. "The palanquin slows us down, but it was expected by your family."

"Learn to ride? A horse?" She stared at him. "But that's forbidden! There was a man in Kartu Town who was hanged for riding."

"So there was, but you and your uncle are under my command now. I need you to learn to ride."

"Do Qin women ride?" Shai asked.

Anji's smile had a pleasant tilt. He seemed an easygoing man in some ways, and yet Shai did not think he was. "They do. My mother taught me to ride. It is a mother's duty to teach her children to ride. When we have sons, Mai'ili, you must be the one to teach them, not me."

She put a hand to her mouth and glanced toward the palanquin, racked across parallel rows of fallen stones to keep it off the ground for the night. The twilight shadowed her expression, but Shai guessed that she was frightened, thinking of what normally passed between man and woman on their wedding night.

"Ah. "Anji raised his forefinger. Chief Tuvi set his da bowl on the table and retreated, strolling out into camp. "Uncle Shai, stay please." He rose and went into the dusk.

Priya crept forward and knelt at Mai's feet. Mai clutched her hand and wiped away a tear, and the slave whispered into Mai's ear words Shai couldn't hear.

"Is it wrong of me to be frightened, Shai?" Her voice was so steady, but her hands, gripping Priya's, shook. "How will he treat me? I'm afraid, but I know I have to endure whatever happens. He is my master now. I will not shame Father Mei and our clan."

Shai did not know what to say. No one ever asked him for advice.

"Shhh, Mistress," hissed Priya. "He returns."

Her hiss lengthened strangely. From out of the night erupted a shout of alarm and a series of sharp slaps. An arrow skittered over the ground, coming to rest at Shai's feet. He gaped. Mai's eyes widened. Calls and shouts rousted the camp, and men went running out of sight but well within hearing. That whistling hiss was the song of arrows rushing out of the dark, and Qin arrows-white death-streaking outward in reply.

"Down!" Priya pushed Mai down between couch and fire. "Crawl over to the house! The walls will give protection."

Captain Anji appeared at the edge of the fire's light. "Mai! Take shelter!" He tossed a glittering object toward her, and it smacked into the dirt beside her. A knife in a sheath, curved at the tip. Jewels studded the hilt, catching the firelight. "That's for you, Mai. Shai! Come with me!"

Shai grabbed the arrow and staggered after Captain Anji. His thoughts were disordered; he couldn't think straight. The captain brought him to a mud-brick wall eroded to chest height, where Chief Tuvi oversaw the chaos. Out in the gloom, figures circled on horseback, keeping just at the edge of the distance arrows could reach. At intervals one would ride in, shoot, and turn hard to dash back out again. It was impossible to judge how many there were, but surely there were more than twenty, and less than fifty.

"Can you use a bow?" asked the captain.

"No."

"A sword?"

"It's forbidden."

The captain snorted. "A staff? You shepherds haven't even sparred with your staffs up in the hills where we can't catch you?"

Shai burned with shame and anger. "It's forbidden, Captain. Men were hanged for weapons training."

"Sheep!" said Chief Tuvi with a bark of laughter. "No wonder they were so easy to fleece."

"Take this spear." Captain Anji thrust the shaft into Shai's hands. "Don't disgrace my bride by showing yourself a coward."

Then he was gone, moving off into the ruined village to direct the fight elsewhere.

Shai found he had moisture enough in his mouth to speak. "Are they bandits?"

"They're not ghosts, but they might be demons." Tuvi lifted his bow, tracked one of the circling horsemen, and released the arrow. It flew, its white fletching visible as it streaked through the dusk and buried its point into the breast of one of the riders. The man reeled but did not fall.

Arrows hit all at once around them. Shai ducked down behind the wall as a half-dozen arrows struck the uneven top, flipped end over point, and slid down to land at his feet. Chief Tuvi didn't move but calmly sighted with his bow again and loosed a second arrow. Shaking, Shai rose to his feet in time to see a second man take the impact. This one fell, but his foot caught in the stirrup. His body flopped and dangled from the stirrups as the horse galloped out into the night.

Behind them, on the other side of the village, Captain Anji shouted a command.

His soldiers, all together, cried out: "Hu! Hu! Hai!"

The shout resounded; it echoed off distant hills. Shai shivered down to his feet. The Qin were the fiercest warriors in the world. They had swept in from the west as a wave of black banners and white death.

Now that shout faded into the night, but surely it had given the bandits a better guess at their numbers. The riders circled once more before vanishing into what was now night. The moon's glamour illuminated the hills and flats, but the shadows swallowed the bandits so quickly that Shai would have doubted whether they had ever been there at all, except for the evidence of the arrows scattered throughout camp.

Captain Anji appeared beside Tuvi, holding a bow and a lantern.

"They hadn't more than thirty men," said the chief. "But we'll keep a double watch for the rest of the journey. I'm surprised that group hasn't been tracked down and slaughtered like the wolves they are."

Anji shook his head. The wind fluttered the ribbons in his hair. "They weren't bandits. They were demons, pretending to be men. I saw at least ten take hits, but we'll find no bodies in the morning."

"If they are demons, then why would arrows stop them?" Shai demanded, finding now that he was shaking as relief hit. Still alive! He would see the new dawn! "How can you tell the difference between men, and demons pretending to be men?"

"Demons fight silently. Sometimes they use bone whittled down for the shafts of their arrows." He picked up one of the bandits' arrows and twirled it through his fingers with the ease of a man who has long familiarity with weapons. "But this is common sapwood, a little heavy for arrows but one of the few woods that can be found up in the northern hills. Maybe there were a few men among them."

"Men ride with demons?"

Anji glanced back toward the tidy row of tents set up as the night's camp. "Your concubine is demon's get."

"She's not my concubine!"

Chief Tuvi laughed. "If not now, she will be soon! Or else what's that stirring in your drawers?"

Nothing to say to that! Why should even talk of Cornflower get him hardening?

"Tuvi-lo," Anji said gently, "demons' get are difficult to resist. They have their spells and charms, a perfume to them, that tugs a man even if he doesn't want to go that way. But they're poison in the end. I can have the creature killed, if you like, Shai. Leave the body at the edge of the desert. Her kinfolk will collect her at the full moon."

It was tempting. Just thinking of how easy it would be to let Captain Anji remove the burr that chafed him made him sweat. But he couldn't do it.

"No. It's not her fault she's demon's get. My brother bought her in the marketplace two years back. Just like any other slave. He even had a holy man cast a seeing over her, and the holy man said she was as human as you or me."

Chief Tuvi shook his head, exchanging a knowing glance with the captain but addressing Shai. "These demon get are good at disguise. They look just like humans, but they're not. There's a whole tribe of them who live west of my ancestors' lands. Out there demons rule. No one dare ride past the sunset. No man who rides that way ever returns."

"What about women?"

Tuvi hesitated, glancing toward Anji, but the captain just nodded his head, giving some kind of permission.

Tuvi shrugged. "The demons fear human women, but they'll sleep with them just the same and spawn their demon get in their bellies. Some women go that way to capture a lover. Hu! I suppose the demon males pull women by their jewel the same way the demon women catch us men by the cock."

Shai flushed. To cover his embarrassment, he bent to pick up arrows. Among such men, he would always be at a disadvantage. After a moment he straightened. "Is it true you would teach me to fight? That I'd not be executed for it?"

Chief Tuvi gave his amused bark.

Captain Anji was distracted, looking toward the main fire, but he turned back now. "Yes, we'll teach you. Come. Mai will be wondering what has happened." He gave both bow and lantern to Tuvi and walked away.

Amazingly, Mai was already sitting out by the fire on the divan, hands clasped over the knife in her lap. Shai was taken aback to see spots of color high in her cheeks. Priya stood behind her, touching her mistress on the shoulder as if in warning as the two men approached out of the darkness.

"I have something to say," said Mai in a cool voice. Only the tension in her hands betrayed her agitation. "What is the custom of your people, Captain? Am I meant to kill myself with this knife if bandits overtake our party and attempt to rape me?"

Anji raised both eyebrows, pausing a body's length from the divan. His hands betrayed nothing; they hung loose at his thighs. "No. I gave you the knife so you could kill any man who attacked you. In time you will learn to shoot a bow as well, I hope, if you feel you are willing to try. No need to hide when you can kill your enemies instead."

She blinked three times, as much surprise as she ever commonly revealed. "Do Qin women kill their enemies?"

"When they can."

"What if they can't? What if you'd been killed and those bandits had overrun the camp? Should I kill myself then?"

"Why? A woman as beautiful as you wouldn't be killed. She'd be taken prisoner and hauled off to become concubine of their prince."

"Even if he is a demon?" asked Shai boldly.

"Especially if he is a demon. Women have survived rape before and gone on to prosper, or even to regain their freedom."

"But the shame . . ." said Shai.

Mai waited for Anji to speak.

He shrugged, as Qin often did. "What shame is it to be taken against your will when you have no power? Those who were meant to protect you are shamed, certainly. You survive if you can, and pray for a merciful death if life and freedom are denied you."

"There is shame!" Mai rose and tossed the knife at Shai's feet. "There's shame on the head of the man who attacks a helpless woman. During the fighting I heard noises from the walls next door to the place I was hiding-just there!" She pointed to the dark slope of a wall beyond the irregular outline of the ruined house just behind them. In the silence that followed, with Mai's arm outstretched and her sleeve swept gracefully toward the ground, they all heard huffing and grunting.

"I looked! And there was one of the Qin soldiers raping Cornflower! Right in the middle of the battle, when he should have been fighting. Will there be any punishment for him? Or will you allow your slave to be abused, Shai?"

Anji looked at Shai. "Uncle Shai?"

Shai had a blinding insight: Anji already knew about the arrangement. Either Mountain had consulted him or the captain had discovered it on his own. But he gave no sign in any wise of his opinion of the matter. No use trying to hide it.

"It wasn't rape, Mai, although I admit I'm surprised Mountain started so quickly and in the middle of the skirmish! It was a business arrangement. There's only the two women with the troop. I agreed to let Mountain hire her out-no more than five men a night-for a little extra money. It's always wise to keep some money in reserve. I don't want her for myself anyway. I didn't ask for her to come along. Father Mei just gave her to me to be rid of her. Your mother's been wanting her out of the compound ever since she came to us."

She lowered her arm, still looking toward the shadows. The grunting quickened, then spilled over into a drawn-out gasp and sigh. Mai's expression did not change, but her hands were fists.

"What? Isn't it my turn next?" a man's voice asked. "Aren't you done yet? How long does it take you, Chaji?"

Mai still would not look at either man. "Do you think she doesn't cry herself to sleep every night?"

The words were like kicks, slamming into his chest. "How would you know?" Shai demanded. He was hot everywhere, but not from lust.

Now she did turn to look at him, and he wished she hadn't. Never in his life had he seen such a glare from that normally placid and sweet face. "Blind men don't have to see what they wish to ignore! I thought you were better than Father Mei and the other uncles, but now I see you are not. Just because you have power over someone doesn't mean you have to use it. I'm ashamed of you!" She spat toward Shai, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and with a swirl of silk ran to the palanquin and crawled inside. The curtain slithered down behind her. Priya stood in shocked silence behind the divan.

Shai picked up the knife. The jeweled hilt seemed to burn his fingers. Maybe he should just drive it into his heart and be done with this misery at once. Mai had never spoken like that in her entire life. Never. Never. Never.

"Some miasma from the demons must have gotten into her," he said, breathless as he hadn't been with arrow fire raining over him. "That's not Mai!"

Anji laughed. "Have you and your family been so blind all these years that you don't know what she is?" He raised his voice. "Mai! Come back."

"About time, Chaji!" said the man's voice. "How is she?"

"A little dry. But her peaches are just right-not too soft, not too firm. Ummm!"

The curtain parted. Mai walked back with stately grace, head high and hands hidden in her sleeves. Her expression was as smooth as an untouched pool. Was this the real Mai, so calm and composed? Who was that other person who had spoken through her lips?

She sank to the ground and knelt submissively before Captain Anji, hands on knees, head bent. She said nothing.

Anji crossed her arms and studied her. "I don't talk to women who are on their knees before me. Stand, or sit, but do not act as a slave must. You are my wife."

She rose. Her chin trembled, then stilled. A single tear slipped from an eye. "Forgive me if my behavior has shamed you."

"It has not dishonored me, nor has it dishonored you. Have you other things you wish to say?"

She was brave enough to meet his gaze. "Will you put a stop to it?"

"No. Uncle Shai is my companion but not under my command. The slave's life belongs to him."

"What about your men? Doesn't it shame them?"

"My men visit brothels. I see no difference."

"I'll buy her from Shai."

"You will not because I won't have her in my household. There is no argument on this point."