The Hieros touched fingers to her right ear and then her forehead, the gesture of hearing and understanding. “Very well. If you wish to walk in the temple, then come to me personally. Like all hierodules, I am trained in the act of cleansing a body in preparation for the act of worship. I am powerful enough to protect you against anything, within these walls, that might wish to harm you.”

The temple lad whistled under his breath, Bai looked baffled and Joss and Master Calon amazed, but the elderly hierodules made no comment at this remarkable offer. It was impossible to know what Captain Anji was thinking.

Tohon tugged on his left ear, blinked, and then met the Hieros’s steady gaze. “My thanks to you, holy one.”

Kesh hadn’t known the old bitch could smile in a friendly way, but she did so now, like a flirting girl all lit up when a boy agrees to meet her family. “That’s settled, then. Now to our other business.” The smile vanished. She turned a cold shoulder to Kesh quite deliberately, drawing attention to his disgrace. “Marshal Joss, you’ve fulfilled your duty and brought me these criminals. Zubaidit I absolve from fault, although naturally she will have to return her accounts bundle and resume her service with the temple. She can’t have known that her brother would use a stolen object to purchase her freedom. He, on the other hand, must pay full forfeit and be prosecuted for his crime of buying out the contract of a temple slave under false pretenses. He tried to cheat us. The temples cannot allow such behavior to go unpunished.”

“The girl came into my possession by finder’s right, which none of you can dispute,” objected Kesh. “How can I have known some envoy of Ilu would come along to make a claim on her? How do I even know you’re telling the truth? You could be trying to cheat me, to get Bai back into your claws.”

She continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “How the assizes choose to deal with any complaint in the matter brought by his former master, matters not to me. Master Feden is dead and his house disgraced—”

“I bought out my own contract with trade goods! Nothing illegal about that!”

“—so it may be that the heirs of the House of Quartered Flowers will bring no claim against him. But the temple certainly means to take back what is rightfully ours—”

“Only because you’d been cheating her all along, you old bitch—”

“Keshad!” snapped the reeve. “Be quiet!”

“I won’t be quiet! I’ve been found at fault without being allowed to speak in my own defense, or have any kind of representation at the assizes. She means to tilt the judgment against me before I ever stand up at the rail. What kind of justice is that? Or do the reeves simply stamp as justice what’s the wish of those in power?”

Ha! That stung!

The reeve examined Kesh with a look that hadn’t the hammer of the old bitch’s look but which was just as annoying, like someone poking into you to see what would make you squeak. Kesh shifted on his pillow and rubbed his throat. Tohon coughed into a hand. Bai watched the Hieros much as the ginnies had watched her.