As Joss entered, Anji looked up and smiled. “Sit, my friend. Let me finish, if you will. I have received a letter from my wife.”

“Are you reading?”

“Is that so surprising?”

“Not in one of the Lantern’s hierophants. Mai can write?”

“She can tally an accounts books. As for writing, I believe she may be learning the temple script. However, it is Priya who has written this to her dictation.”

“Priya? The slave?”

“She was a priest before she was taken captive. She is an educated woman.” His gaze drifted back to the page, and he smiled absently as if he could hear Mai’s voice through the words. “Heh. That pretty girl Mai took in. It seems Chief Tuvi attempted to marry her, but she turned him down and chose one of the tailmen instead.”

“A good-looking one? The young are enamored of looks.”

Anji glanced up. “Not only the young.”

“I’m hit!” Joss staggered, a hand clapped over his heart.

Anji laughed. “Sit. Since you came yourself, your message must be important. Let me just . . .” His voice trailed off as his gaze tracked lines from top to bottom. The smile drifted back.

Joss settled himself on one of the pillows. With Mai in the distant Barrens, he thought it likely that Anji had himself chosen the elegant furnishings: masterfully painted silk wall scrolls depicting lush green stands of pipe-brush, embroidered gold silk pillows, five vases filled with yellow and white flowers. The stubby legs of the desk had been lathed by a master into smooth curves. Was Anji’s weakness that he loved beauty too well, starting with his wife? Hard to say. Certainly any man might stumble in the face of beauty, and desire yet more comforts. It was possible, and yet Mai herself possessed other qualities that made her formidable. Anji slept, it seemed, on a simple pallet on the floor, and a single ebony chest sufficed to hold his possessions.

“As news comes in that men in the Barrens settlement are finding wives, the men stationed here and at other postings become anxious, although I have given permission for a few to—how do you say it—sit on the bench. Have you ever married?”

Joss shrugged uncomfortably. “It always seemed I was too occupied with reeve’s work.”

Anji rolled up the letter and set it aside. “What news?”

Joss mentally scrambled back through thoughts of his mother and aunties inquiring in their gently persistent way about his prospects, now that he was getting older, and older. And older. “Eiya! Yes. A cloaked man like to a Guardian has been sighted on the Rice Walk, accompanied by about three hundred soldiers, marching northeast. They’ve been marching at night, when reeves can’t spy them out, and camping under cover of trees during the day. A local villager alerted a pair of reeves on patrol after his village was ransacked for supplies. They scouted the road at dawn and dusk and caught a look.”

“About three hundred? The reeves didn’t count exact numbers?”