Shadowplay

No, she told herself. He and his father and his father's father have wanted to set their heel on Eion for years, especially Hierosol. She had heard it talked of enough in the Seclusion. This is only more of the same, if it's even true. And if he is coming, well, the walls will defeat him. And if they don't…

Then I will be gone. I escaped him once, I will escape him again. Despite her terror, she felt a stubborn little glow inside her, a heat like a burning coal. Or die. But one way or another, he won't have me…

"Nira?" Yazi was pulling at her sleeve. "Pay attention, girl! If Soryaza sees you staring at nothing that way, she'll whip us both."

Qi

As Qi

sideways movement, at odds with the rest of the crowd, arrested her alien tion. She felt sure someone had stepped back into the colo

"Nira, stop that," said Yazi. "I'm so tired my feet are on fire. Keep walk¬ing, will you?"

Qi

Qi

"What are you talking about, the sunset?" asked Yazi. "If your thoughts wandered any farther, girl, you'd have to put bells on them, like goats."

When Qi

Pigeon came bounding out to greet her when they reached the dor¬mitory hall, excited as a puppy. He threw his arms around her, then grabbed her hand to pull her back to the bed they shared, waving his free arm excitedly. He had taught her some of the hand-language he had spo¬ken with the other mute servants back in the Orchard Palace, but at times like this he didn't bother trying to make his thoughts known in a more subtle way, nor did he need to. Some of the other women looked up as he dragged Qi

had taken the wives of the autarch's Seclusion, dressed them in dirty smocks and sweat-stained dresses, then dumped them into this vast, de¬pressing hall that had once been the royal stables for some long-dead king of Hicrosol. These women were not so comely, and not so young-many of them were grandmothers-but otherwise there seemed little difference between this and her former home, or even the Hive where she had lived before.

Cages, she thought. Why do men fear us so that they must cage us all together and keep us apart from them? Hierosol was better than Xis, but even here there were strict rules about keeping out men, even for those of the washer¬women who were married. Only Soryaza's intervention with the dormi¬tory mistress had gained a place here for Pigeon, and he was one of but a dozen or so children, most babes in arms who stayed behind during the day to be cared for in an offhand way by a pair of washerwomen now too old to work, two crones who each morning found the su

"Soryaza says she has work for you again," Qi

Pigeon seemed less interested in this news than in tugging her the last few steps toward their bed. In the middle of it, nested in a pile of wood chips and shavings like the legendary phoenix, sat a slightly irregular carv¬ing of a bird-a pigeon, she saw after a moment. Pigeon pointed to the sculpture, then dug the small knife he had stolen from Axamis Dorza's house out of the chips and proudly displayed it, too.

"Did you make this bird? It's very fine." But she could not help frown¬ing a little. "I do wish you hadn't done it on the bed. I'll be sleeping in sliv¬ers tonight."

He looked at her with such hurt that she bent and picked up the carv¬ing to examine it. As she turned it over she saw that he had arduously carved her name (or at least his childish approximation of it) on the bot¬tom of it in Xixian letters-"Qinatan." A rush of love for the boy collided with a burst of fear to see her real name written on something, even a child's rough carving. Yazi and Soryaza were not the only women here who could speak the language of Xis, and some of them might read it too. She already had enough problems with people asking questions.

"It's beautiful," she whispered. "But you must remember my name Urn-is Nira, not… not the other. And you are Nonem, remember?"

This time he did not look hurt so much as anguished at his own mis take, and she had to pull him to her and hug him tight. "No, it's beauti¬ful, it is. Let me just take it for a moment. And the knife, please." She kissed him on top of his head, smelling the strange boy-smell of his sweat, then looked around. Several women on either side were watching. She smiled and showed them the bird, then took it with her and headed for the privies on the far side of the dormitory hall. She sat down in one of the small cubicles there, so like an animal's stall that she felt sure they had once been just that, and, when she felt sure no one was looking, took the knife and quickly scraped the boy's childish letters off the bottom of the bird.

On the way back she stopped off to borrow a looking-glass from one of the other serving-women. In return for the loan she gave the woman the round ball of soap she had assembled from discarded slivers in the laundry. The mirror was the size of Qi

"Mind you bring it back before bedtime," the woman warned.

Qi

When she reached her bed again she saw that Pigeon had done his best to clear away the remnants of his day's carvings. She set the carved bird on the empty barrel she shared as a table with the next bed over, and borrowed a comb from the girl whose bed that was, and who luckily did not ask any¬thing in trade.