She was an outlander! She didn’t look like the Qin, with their flat faces and broad cheeks. She was some other breed of outlander. She wore sumptuous silks, the kind of cloth only a rich woman could afford or that, if the stories were true, a rich man would lavish on a valuable bed slave. A broom lying slantwise across the walkway and a hem of dust on her silks betrayed that she’d been sweeping.

Avisha gaped. How could she risk dirtying such magnificent silks by wearing them to sweep in? What manner of person was she? Had she tried her luck at a marriage contract only to be rejected? Or did she live in this grand compound?

Jerad coughed as the river slacked to a trickle, and ceased.

“Who’s there?” said the girl in a cool, firm voice. You’d never have guessed she’d been crying.

Avisha stepped out from the pipewood, trying to keep her voice calm and her hands from shaking. “I’m sorry, verea. I was just waiting out in the courtyard with the others when my little brother had to pee. He’s just nine, you know how it is, and tired from all the waiting.”

The girl examined Avisha and the sleeping Zianna critically. “Where is he?” she asked with a pretty smile but a searching gaze.

“Here, Jer, come out,” said Avisha.

The boy stumbled out to the open square, still tying up his trousers. He saw the other woman, and his mouth dropped open. “Her eyes are pulled all funny. Is something wrong with her?”

“Hush! Don’t be rude! I’m so sorry, verea. He’s just a sprout. We’ve never been to the city before. We don’t see outlanders where we come from.”

“No offense taken,” said the girl as her shoulders relaxed. She squeezed back the last of her tears and sniffed hard, then wiped her nose with the back of a hand. The more she spoke, the more you could hear the funny way she had of speaking, the sounds squished tight so it was hard to understand her. “What is your name?”

“I’m called Avisha, verea. This is my brother Jerad, and my little sister Zianna.”

“You are here for the interview?”

“Surely I am. There’s quite a few out there, truly.”

“That’s a surprise. In the first five days after the announcement in the markets, only fourteen women came to the gate. I do not know why so many crowded in today.”

“Do you live here?” Avisha gestured to the peaked roofs that marked the buildings of the greater compound.

“I do.”

“Sheh! Whoever is gardener of this place should be hauled out and whipped. No one is taking care of these valuable plants!”

“It has been neglected, that is true.” The girl examined the garden as if she was really getting a good look at it for the first time. “Why are they valuable?”

“To start with, that’s a nice stand of hatmaker’s pipewood, although it needs thinning. My mam would crush the seeds of purple-thorn—there—to kill insects in the storeroom. You can perfume clothes with the rice-grain-flower . . .” Now that the girl’s flush of tears had faded and her face was more at ease, Avisha saw that she was lovely despite her odd features. She had lustrous black hair bound into a long tail with a ribbon; the tail hung to her hips. “Or you can put a spray of the flowers in your hair, like an ornament.”