Jagi was standing by the small gate painted with a winged horse. He touched his forehead, saluting her. She flushed. “All right,” she muttered. Jerad dashed off without replying, cutting so close past the new supplicants that they halted, trying not to look fools and yet also chuckling to see a child so free to run about the garden, which was a reassuring thing when you thought of it: a local boy at ease among the fearsome soldiers.

Chaji was not in the garden, maybe because he had already chosen her. A few matches were already being spoken of, and one girl was supposedly pregnant, a thing that had infuriated Chief Tuvi so much he had beaten the soldier who admitted to the act and demanded the girl be sent away for being a bad influence. Mai had intervened, though, and instead the pair had been carted off to the settlement in the Barrens to begin married life together.

The Barrens did not sound like a nice place, dry and brown, but they could be no more barren than a place where both her mother and father had died and where she had no hope of building a home for herself and the children no matter how much she missed the ash swales, the song of water rushing over the pebbled river shore, the call of the larks that nested in the third lintel over the gate to the temple of Ilu. She did not want to go back without her father braiding cord in his shop and telling her the tales of the Hundred, which he so loved.

“That’s done,” said Chief Tuvi. “Will you rest now, Mistress?”

Mai walked down the garden to the porch and, pausing in its shade, accepted a cup of tea brought on a tray by Sheyshi. The stupid girl had a smudge on her nose.

“Thank you, Sheyshi,” said Mai, more kindly than the ill-tempered little tramp deserved.

As Mai moved into the house with Sheyshi padding at her heels like a devoted dog, Priya touched Avisha’s arm. “Sheyshi has not a lively spirit, as you do, Avisha. It is not surprising the mistress prefers your company to hers. That does not mean she cannot feel excluded. For so long she and I were the mistress’s only female companions. She feels the loss of that intimacy. If you make an effort to be kind to her, it would speak well of your nature.”

Avisha hung her head, too shamed to reply, and Priya was too wise to keep beating that stake into the ground. They followed Mai into the spacious reception chamber with its mirrors and its painted rat screen, a lighthearted series of scenes of taloos- or jacket-clad rats at work counting coin and at play flying kites.

“I’m going to the livestock market,” said Mai to the chief.

He looked resignedly at Priya, and Priya shrugged. Caught by the reflection in one of the mirrors, Avisha saw Keshad standing behind the others but looking at Mai. Avisha shivered. If only he would look at her in that way!