"I'm doing this to placate the merchants' guild and the transport guild, it's true. I've told them you'll patrol as escort for five days out of Toskala, after which you're to return to Clan Hall with your report. I also want you three to range wide, keep your eyes open, and return each night to camp with the company you're assigned to. I want you to listen to what the guild masters are saying among themselves."

"You don't trust them?" asked Peddo.

Her smile vanished, and she bent her head, eyes narrowing in an expression that did, at last, soften her. The gods knew everyone liked Peddo, and for good reason. He had never stabbed anyone in the back, or gossiped in order to cause harm, or told tales out of turn to get a man in trouble, or intimidated witnesses and pushed around locals just for the kick of feeling his power.

"Oh, Peddo. My dear boy. You're a good lad, and a competent reeve."

The commander's instinct for trouble was legendary. Indeed, it was the other reason she had risen to her post: She had never gotten caught flat-footed. That instinct had allowed her to escape the hammer, the perfect ambush designed to slaughter her and her eagle which she and the raptor had instead survived. Not like Marit and Flirt. She touched the crutch beside her, without which she no longer could walk. She had survived, but not unscathed.

"No, I'm not feeling very trusting in these days. Nor should you."

4.

They took flight at dawn from the prow of Toskala, riding the updraft high and higher until the city could be glimpsed as a whole below them. In days of old, Toskala had been founded on the promontory below which the muddy yellow-brown waters of River Istri, flowing inexorably down out of the north, met the bluer waters of its tributary, the Lesser Istri, rushing in from the northwestern foothills. The city had expanded beyond the original city wall onto the broadening spit of land between the two rivers, and was now protected by an outer wall and earthworks that spanned the ground from the western bank of the Istri to the facing bank of the Lesser Istri. The first ferries of the day had already started their crossings, men turning winches and hauling on rope as the flat vessels strained with the current.

Toskala was known as "the crossroads" because here a person had the choice of five major roads. Peddo and his eagle, Jabi, banked south, heading out over the Flats. The Snake, and Trouble, followed the Lesser Walk.

Joss was assigned to the fifth and least of the roads, the Ili Cutoff, which speared straight east through cultivated fields and orchards to the town of River's Bend on the River Ili, halfway between Toskala and the valley of Iliyat. He and Scar flew sweeps all morning, routine patterns over cultivated land that revealed nothing except folk out preparing fields for the coming rains.

The heavens shone blue, untouched by cloud. The landscape was open, cut by streams, swales, well-tended orchards, overgrown pastureland, and a few dense tangles of undergrowth and pockets of uncut trees. Fish ponds and small reservoirs dug for irrigation glittered in the hard sunlight, water drained low here at the tail end of the dry season. Twice he flew over the skirts of the Wild, an impenetrable forest so broad that no human had ever been known to traverse it on foot although several forester clans worked its fringes. The day was hot, as it always was in the last weeks before the rains, but not as hot as it had been in previous years. Not as hot as it could be.

At intervals he crossed back over the ridgeward Istri Walk, keeping track of a large guild caravan that had hired an entire cohort of guards for the journey to High Haldia, Seven, and Teriayne. Once, he glimpsed Trouble off to his left, on a sweep. A really beautiful bird, she had an especially golden gleam, which made it all the more annoying that she had chosen the Snake as her reeve nine years back after Barda's awful death.

Midway through the afternoon, as the heat melted over the land, he and Scar glided back over the Ili Cutoff. The caravan was pulling to a stop under the shade of a pair of ancient Ladytrees, a sweet resting spot beside a watering hole. Hirelings and slaves led the parched beasts to drink, and produced food and drink for the masters. Joss left Scar on a high rock towering over the far side of the pond, the kind of place he and his friends would have dived from when they were lads. The eagle settled on this perch and began preening. Joss strolled over to the Ladytrees. Distinct groups had already formed among the company: under the smaller of the Ladytrees gathered the apprentices and hirelings and slaves permitted to take a break while their brethren worked.

The elder Ladytree was, like a vast chamber, sufficient for "many families to gather in their separate houses under one roof," as the tale had it. The four Herelian merchants kept to themselves. When they saw him enter under the cloak of the tree, they turned their backs and sought the fringes of the shade offered by the vast superstructure of overhanging branches and boundary shoots rooted and growing thick like a fence.

A foresting master bound for the Wild and the cart master who supervised this train of wagons acknowledged him with a respectful touch of two fingers to the temple: I recognize you. He offered the same gesture in return. He would talk to them later.

He bent his path to where the other groups of masters had settled in three distinct clots. The first group was a trio of Iliyat merchants, two women and a man, wearing sturdy but plain traveling gear and deep in conversation. The second group rested apart from the others. Seated on a folding stool, a merchant wearing expensive silks inappropriate for travel was gesticulating as another man, also on a folding stool, listened with head bent and gaze directed toward the ground. This man's rank could be told not by his clothing but by the retainers hovering close by: a pair of armed guards, a servant holding a tray with a capped pitcher and cups, and a young man wearing slave bracelets and wielding a large fan to cool his master.

Joss halted beside the third group, five Haldian merchants seated on a single blanket. "Greetings of the day to you, Masters. I'm called Joss, out of Clan Hall."

The commander was the kind of person who kept digging into a wound long after the infection was cut out, just for the sake of probing. He meant to give her no satisfaction today by flinching from that which she guessed would cause him a pang. He nodded at the man he knew among their group of five. "Master Tanesh."

"Greetings of the day to you, reeve." That might have been a gleam of triumph in the merchant's expression, or else he was just perspiring from the heat.

"The journey finds you steady on your feet, I trust?"

"I've not much farther to go. I'll be home within my walls by sunset. But my guild-kin, these here, all live up by the highlands. They've an uncertain journey before them, eight or twelve days more."

His guild-kin introduced themselves: Alon, Darya, Kasti, Udit. A range of ages, they nevertheless had a tight bond: They were gossiping about the other members of the caravan. Master Tanesh magnanimously offered Joss a bowl of cold melon soup, and invited him to sit with them. Kasti and Udit moved apart to make room on the blanket. Udit, by some years the youngest of the group, measured Joss with the same eye she likely used to peruse goods available in the market. Then she smiled, a swift, inviting grin, and passed him a cup of cordial as a chaser to the soup. Joss sipped, listening as the conversation flowed around him in lowered voices.

"Those Herelians, I don't trust them."

"Did you see the bolts of silk they offered at the market? That was first-grade Sirniakan silk. How they'd get that, with the roads out of Herelia blockaded, eh? Or so they claim. Yet they got passage down for the conclave."

"They're shipping it in."

"Around Storm Cape? Unlikely."

"Out of the north, maybe."

"Nah, nah. It would be too dangerous. There's barbarians living in the drylands, beyond Heaven's Ridge, you know."

"How would you know? You've never been there. That's outside the Hundred. No one lives there."

"Someone lives there! These pasture men, with their herds, always wandering. The 'Kin,' they call themselves. And other tribes, too, farther out. Real savages those are. I heard there's a tribe out there that cuts up their women's faces, like marking a slave's debt, to show they are married."

The company hooted and laughed until the speaker, Udit, had to admit this detail was only marketplace gossip heard tenth-hand.

Tanesh shushed them. "Don't believe every tale you hear, Udit. But that doesn't mean there isn't a grain of truth where there's talk of trade. Even savages can be hired to guard merchant trains."

"Savages can't be trusted."

"Who can be trusted, these days?" Joss asked mildly, with a grin to take the sting off the words.

Not even Tanesh took offense at the words. He and his comrades considered them grimly. An aged slave filled their cups with more cordial.

In their silence as they drank, the loud voice of the well-dressed merchant of the second group floated easily under the canopy. "But I fear that the members of the Lesser Houses will not cooperate. Worse, we suspect they are ready to rebel against-" The man's voice dropped abruptly. The rest of his complaint was too low to hear across the gap.

Udit elbowed Joss. "I don't know who that merchant is, but the other man, the one with him, that's Lord Radas, lord of Iliyat. He came down with his retinue for the conclave. They say his family comes out of a merchant clan. He rules the guilds of Iliyat with a tight hand, I'll tell you."

"What manner of tight hand?" Joss knew his region well, all the local rulers, arkhons, captains, and hierarchs with whom he dealt on a regular basis as well as other community leaders, guild masters, and prominent artisans, and various local eccentrics and ne'er-do-wells. The valley of Iliyat was normally under the purview of Copper Hall, but he had flown there a few times in recent years because of the trouble in Herelia. He had seen the lord of Iliyat twice, in passing, but not to speak with. "He seems a quiet manner of man."

"Oh, he's as strange as the daffer stork," said Tanesh. "Never looks a person in the eye, too shy to talk. You're thinking he rules with the tight hand of an ordinand, sword or spear at the ready, Kotaru's Thunder well in his grip. That's not it. He rules with the hand of an accountant.'Every stalk of rice in and every one out is counted,' as it says in the tale." He sketched the accompanying gestures with a hand, counting and grasping and a reluctance to let go, and the others chuckled. "He must have served his apprentice year in the temple of the Lantern as a clerk, to be so tight."

Joss had to admire the graceful efficiency of Tanesh's talking-hand gestures. "And you served at the Lady's temple, I see," said Joss. "That's the real skill you have. The Lady's gift."

"Aui! So am I found out." Tanesh was a man who liked praise. All their past differences might be forgiven if Joss only threw fulsome appreciation his way.

"I spoke the truth, that's all," Joss said curtly. He hadn't the stomach for more. He rose and gave cup and bowl to a slave. "I thank you for the hospitality."

He made his courtesies and continued his sweep, hearing Tanesh's company fall immediately back into a buzz of gossip. The three merchants out of Iliyat greeted him courteously and offered him food and drink, the same as they were themselves eating.

"How was your conclave?" he asked them.

Like all merchants, they enjoyed talk. They described Toskala. The two women-dealers in oil and spices-had disliked the city, thinking it too large and loud and crowded and smelly and filthy with refuse. But the young man had found it exciting to wander in so many grand squares and marketplaces, to see such a variety of shops.

"Just to see Flag Quarter-for I buy and sell banners and flags and tent cloth and such manner of working cloth, not clothing, so it's of particular interest to me-where a person might have a shop selling just game banners or just boundary flags or only the ink for printing your mark on the fabric. That was something! I trade in all cloth, all in my one shop!"

"Was it your first time in Toskala, ver?"

"Oh, indeed! My uncle and cousins used to make the trip, but they died last year so I was handed the mantle." He tugged on his cloak; he wore a pale-blue mantle appropriate to the season, lightest weight cotton and only reaching to his elbows. Its hem was trimmed with the house mark, spades crossed with needles, something to do with digging and sewing.

"How did they die?"

The man dipped his head and sighed. The women shook their heads, frowning at Joss as though to scold him for asking the question.

At length, the older of the women gestured toward Lord Radas. "Things run smoothly in the Iliyat valley. We're well governed. But I'll tell you that we don't go near the northern border. We keep our distance from the hills and Herelia."

"Is there much raiding out of the hills or Herelia into Iliyat these days?"

"Oh, we think not," said the man at last, dabbing at his eyes. "The roads are blockaded. No one crosses the Liya Pass anymore, though there's a trading post up where the village of Merrivale was before it got burned down. There's plenty of militia to man the borders, even young men hired in from outside. One of my cousin's daughters married a young man who walked all the way from Sund just to get the work. We're well protected."

"From Herelia?"

The man shrugged. "My kin were not in Iliyat when they died. They'd taken the Thread north, to Seven. We told them to take the Istri Walk, but they didn't want to take the extra mey, all the way to the river, you know, and then north, not when the Thread is a decent track wide enough to handle sturdy wagons. You never could tell my uncle anything. He had a hasty manner."

Joss nodded. "May their spirits have passed through the Gate," he said reflexively, and they all touched right shoulder, upper lip, and left temple, drawing out the spirit's passage to peace. "I'm sorry to hear it, but the Thread's a dangerous road these days, up against the highlands as it is. Very rough country, heavily forested. Plenty of places to hide along there. We can't patrol it all."

"No, it's been seen you reeves can't," said the older woman, with a bite to her voice that ended the conversation. "Will have you more rice?"

It was cold and congealed and lumpy, but flavored with a generous mix of spices and a touch of nutty til oil. He ate gratefully. They watched him in a silence heavy with judgment.

They don't trust the reeves any longer. So the circle of distrust widens, grows, like the shadows as the sun sets.

He made his courtesies and walked to the second group. The well-dressed merchant was so intent on the sound of his own voice that he did not notice Joss approaching. "We of the Greater Houses spent so many hours arguing over it, but in the end we decided we had no choice lest we lose everything our houses had worked for and achieved. Which is why-"

The lord of Iliyat shifted his foot. The merchant glanced up, startled, and saw Joss. He flushed, then wiped at his chin with the back of a hand as though he thought he had a stain there that needed to be rubbed away.

"May I sit down?" asked Joss, stopping beside them.

The merchant coughed harshly. "I beg your pardon, reeve. I wasn't expecting you. I thought you were keeping your eyes on the road."

Lord Radas lifted a hand, as consent. His voice was soft, almost inaudible. "It was good of your Commander to offer us this escort. We've had a great deal of trouble out of Herelia in recent years." His gaze flashed past Joss, outward, toward the pond. Scar was visible through a gap in the leafy fence of branches. The raptor had spread his wings to sunbathe.

"Yes," said Joss. "So you have, Lord Radas. And so have we reeves." He unclasped his short cloak and spread it on the dirt, then settled down cross-legged upon it. "I'm called Joss, out of Clan Hall. I admit to some surprise, seeing a man of your inheritance at the guild meeting."

"Do you so?" asked the lord, with the ghost of smile, although he still kept his gaze fixed on the earth. The lack of eye contact made him seem awkward and ill at ease, or it might have been a vanity, a refusal to grant recognition. Hard to tell. He dressed plainly, loose linen trousers dyed indigo and an undyed tunic tied with cloth loops, nothing more ornamental than the clothing worn by his own servants. His hair was braided back into a single rope; he wore no head covering. His only affectation was a long gold silk cloak, although Joss was frankly shocked to see him sitting on the lower part of it, as though it were an ordinary ground cloth, not highest-quality fabric far too expensive for the everyday householder. "My family rose out of a merchant branch of our local clan. We still maintain those ties. It was the basis of our wealth and our later authority."

Joss turned to regard the other man. "And you, ver?"

"Feden. That's my name." He lifted an arm to display an ivory bracelet masterfully carved to resemble a series of quartered flowers linked petal-to-petal. "That's my house mark."

"You're not from Toskala. I don't recognize your mark."

"Olossi."

"It's a long way from Olossi to Toskala," remarked Joss in a friendly manner, without mentioning that the Ili Cutoff certainly did not lead south.

"Oil," said Master Feden. "I'm seeking whale oil from the Bay of Istria. A fine quality oil, bright-burning, and of particular use in the manufacture of leather goods. Fortunately, I was able to bring oil of naya with me, for trade. I was thankful that I reached Toskala in one piece, for I don't mind telling you, reeve, that we in the south are having a great deal of trouble with our roads." Once started, he scarcely paused for breath, going on in the manner of a man accustomed to having his complaints listened to with exceptional attentiveness. "A great deal of trouble all around, if you ask me. Trading charters revoked. Terms of sale refused. Agreements that have held for many rounds of years stomped into the dirt just because certain people feel they've been hard used, as if we who are struggling to keep things in order aren't the ones being hard used, I tell you. I see many people in these days who insist on ingratitude."

He took a sip from the cup he held in his hands, then continued.

"Aui! It's bad times. I don't know who to trust. I hate to think of being close-hearted, for it goes against the Teachings, but there you are. I can't even send my usual factors south into the empire anymore. These past few years I've had to send one of my own slaves down to do what trading he can. That way he can risk his own stake instead of mine. It's a great opportunity for him, naturally, and I must say it's not every master would be so generous, as many of my colleagues have said to me. But of course I stand to lose even so, if he's killed, for he cost quite a string of coin to purchase and then of course the later investment in his upbringing, feeding, and training, but mind you, speculating with my own coin and goods in a larger venture just isn't worth the risk these days. You would think I could trust my own factors, some of them clansmen, but even some of them have cheated me and my house. I tell you! How can any person believe it's come to this? How can the gods have let this come to pass, I ask you? What can we do? What can we do?"

As he caught his breath to gain strength for the next volley, Joss cut in.

"Where are you headed now, ver? I'd have thought you would be with one of the other companies. There was a group headed west on the Lesser Walk and another traveling south on the Flats. You can't get to Olossi this way, unless you mean to take ship in Arsiya and sail the storms all the way round the Turian Cape and the roil of Messalia. Even then you'd have to put to shore and take some rough paths through the foothills of the Spires to reach Olossi."

He recognized his mistake at once. He'd thought Master Feden's bluster was born out of obliviousness mixed with arrogance and conceit, so his feint hadn't been subtle enough. The gaze turned on him now measured him shrewdly, eyes narrowed with a dawning distrust. Joss knew that look well. Reeves saw it all the time, though not from the innocent. Master Feden was smarter than he chose to seem.

"Where are any of us headed, in times like these?" mused the merchant. "We stumble in the dark hoping to find any light that may guide us to a safe haven. We are desperate, truly. Folk are none too careful what well they drink from if they've had no drink at all for many days. That's just how it is."

"True words," said Joss, thinking of the commander's agreement with Master Tanesh. He glanced at the lord of Iliyat, but the man made no polite reply to this heartfelt comment. He didn't even look up, as if bare dirt were the most interesting companion a man could have. Joss had an idea that Lord Radas was about his own age, more or less forty, although the lord looked younger. Some men had all the luck, although the lord of Iliyat did not seem to be the kind of man who coaxed women, not with those reticent manners. "And you, Lord Radas. How do you keep the valley of Iliyat at peace in these troubled times?"

"With a fence," said the lord curtly. "A wall at our borders, strong guards, a vigilant eye, and respect for the law. Within Iliyat, we hold to the law."

There was a passion in the lord's voice that surprised Joss, even pleased him, yet also, and all at the same time, the skin at the base of his neck tingled with an uneasy shiver, the way it did when his instincts warned him that something wasn't right.

"The Hundred is fractious," the lord went on so softly that Joss strained to hear him. "Too many fight, too many argue, too many look away because they have it well enough, although others struggle. Alone, each is frail and selfish. Each town, each clan, each hall lies separate, suspicious of the others, clutching tight to their own small field. Some hold to the law while others give themselves leave to do what they wish while justifying their actions by lying to themselves and to others. Some have already stepped into the shadows." He looked up, and met Joss's gaze.

Hammered as by the sun. A vivid flash of memory: Five years after Marit's death, Joss stands under the humble thatched awning that shelters Law Rock. Drunk, grieving, and angry, he stares at the first lines, hewn long ago into the pillar of granite: With law shall the land be built.

The law shall be set in stone, as the land rests on stone.

The rock into which the law is bound shall be set aside, in a separate precinct. A bridge shall guard access to this precinct. Both rock and bridge shall be inviolate.

Here is the truth: The only companion who follows even after death, is justice.

The Guardians serve justice.

The reeves serve justice.

The reeves serve justice, and so he would. He had nothing else to hold to. Then Lord Radas's soft voice tore him out of the memory.

"While some, for all their weakness, remain incorruptible."

Joss blinked, fighting back dizziness. The filtered light cast all things sheltered under the Ladytree in a gentle glow. Feden was sipping at his tea, as though he'd noticed nothing. From all around murmured the sounds of folk at rest, eating, chatting, burping, chortling, while farther out beasts lowed and whuffled, a dog barked, and-there-Scar called out an interrogatory yelp, as if the raptor had been caught in that vision and needed to know Joss was safe.

Lord Radas was staring at the dirt again, eyes half closed, as though he were about to fall asleep. Behind, a youthful slave raised and lowered the large fan like the steady, hypnotic beat of a wing. The air stirred by that fan stung Joss's eyes, raising tears.

Shaken, he made his courtesies. He went out beyond the Ladytree to let Scar see him, then walked aside to take a piss, to collect himself, to breathe the air although the heat was itself a hammer. No wonder he'd gotten dizzy.

At length, he retreated back to the cooling shelter of the Ladytree and approached the forester and cart master with some trepidation. The cart master had a pair of medium-sized dogs who, as Joss walked up, pulled back their lips to display big teeth. Their ominous growl rumbled so low that he barely heard it, although his neck prickled. But when their master made his greetings, the dogs shimmied over at once for a friendly rub. They had expressive ears held at point when they were alert and flopped over when they relaxed, and their short gray-wire coats were unexpectedly soft.

He and the two men visited for a while, sharing rice wine and dry rice cake, all of it musty, the remnants of journey food. The wine was good, and he nibbled at the rice cake for courtesy's sake as they discussed the day, the season, the dead year and the new one, and the lands all around.

"Nah, I haven't seen nothing of raids where I'm from." The forester had a clipped accent and a strange way of pronouncing some of his words. He was human, though. Not everything that came out of the Wild was. "My fields are the forest. I keep to my place there in the skirts of the Wild, and the wildings keep to theirs in the heart. I've never gone farther north than Sandalwood Crossing, for that matter. Once a year I do walk down into Toskala to the Guild Hall on behalf of my clansmen in the Wild. We keep a steady harvest of logs coming out of the Wild, according to our charter. We keep to the boundaries, as the gods did order when the world rose out of the sea."

"I have a hard time thinking that outlaws would shelter in the Wild," said Joss.