The captain broke in. “If you will. It appears the dispute rests on whether this man, Keshad, brother to Zubaidit, had a legal claim on the individual whose body he used as payment for his sister’s freedom. He exchanged a girl he found in the south for the outstanding balance on his sister’s accounts book, the unpaid balance of which kept her as a debt slave to the temple. Am I correct?”

“You are,” said the reeve.

“I accepted the female as payment because of her obvious value,” said the Hieros. “I would have been a fool to let such a treasure pass out of the temple’s hands. However, it appears she belonged to someone else.”

“This is the part I do not understand,” said the captain. “A man came to the temple, at night, and claimed the female. Did he have a contract? Proof of ownership? He might himself have been a thief, a clever con man, who cheated you and left the blame to fall on Keshad.”

There is a silence that soothes, and a silence that frightens. Silence can conceal, or reveal. It can make you stop and think, or it can be a warning. The garden lay quiet behind them, smothered in green growing things. Clouds scudded overhead, piling up over the Olo’o Sea. Kesh smelled rain coming, but it hadn’t reached them yet.

“He was a Guardian,” said the Hieros, “and so was the girl.”

Nine simple words, coolly spoken. A cold thrill woke in Kesh. Guardians walking the land again! He could not imagine what it might mean for the Hundred. Or for him.

He got up clumsily and glared all around. “Maybe it’s true, maybe it isn’t. But how would she ever have gotten to the Hundred, eh? Many months’ journey! She could never have made it alone, a naked girl, with nothing and no one, starving, mute, lost. I brought her here.”

“You have no idea what Guardians are capable of, or why she might have been walking in the south,” began the Hieros in a cruel voice. “You are the worst kind, making excuses for your crime, refusing to accept responsibility for the acts you have committed. Don’t think I don’t have reports of what you did as Master Feden’s factor, how you treated those in his employ, how you treated your fellow debt slaves, how you used them and discarded them—”

The captain broke in, politely. “I beg your pardon, holy one. It seems to me that, while you are perfectly reasonable in your assessment of the young man’s faults, they are not among the concerns that trouble us most in these days.”

“That he cheated the temple is of no concern to you?”

Captain Anji had a pleasant smile that deflected anger. “It is of greatest concern to me, although naturally you understand that as a newcomer to the Hundred, I do not worship at the altar of your gods for I do not know them. But I am aware that every land is tightly woven with its gods. This dispute is a matter to be judged carefully, and thoroughly. My concern is that you may have no chance to do so if other events overtake us in the meantime.”