“My thanks,” said Kesh. “I’m just surprised. We heard trumpets last night, and now we’re told we can’t go into the market. It’s impossible to do business.”

“Those are my orders.”

And that, Kesh judged, was far enough to push this one. He waited while the inner gate was unlocked, a laborious process involving chains, locks, and keys, and cursed if Eliar didn’t trot up behind.

“Heya, Keshad. Where are you going? How did you get permission to leave? Are they opening the gates for the day, finally?”

“Move back,” said the sergeant in a curt way that made Eliar startle and Kesh smile. “No one allowed out.”

“He’s being allowed out!”

“Go on,” said the sergeant to Kesh before turning his back on Eliar and lounging against the wall of the guardhouse with every evident intention of flaunting his power.

Keshad hurried out, hearing voices raised behind him as other merchants saw the threshold gape and, then, slam shut in their faces.

He knew the route well and was careful to follow it exactly with the silent young guardsman at his back, a lad with an unpleasant face and look of pinching scorn to make it yet uglier. The truth was, the Sirniakans were not a handsome people, not the men Keshad had seen anyway, and of course except in the most distant and isolated villages on the route to the border with Mariha, he’d not seen women at all. Nothing but men, which was a tedious way to live, and as he walked he noted how this morning every gate was shut, the compounds whose walls lined the streets closed up as if night’s curfew hadn’t yet been lifted. Elderly men draped in robes approached the white gates at the edge of the caravan market where all foreigners must bide when in Sarida to trade. A few younger men walked in pairs and fours, murmuring quietly, some glancing curiously at him as he passed. No one spoke to him. It was very quiet, none of the waking market bustle that was normally fiercest at this early hour before the midday heat clobbered everyone.

Of course any city has only one temple, supervised by holy priests. Any believing man must, by the Exalted One’s decree, be permitted entry. But that didn’t mean that all men entered through the same holy gate or worshiped in the same holy court. Here at the wall of the caravan market, a gate opened into an alley confined by high whitewashed walls. It twisted and turned through the city in a circuitous route, bridged at intervals for the convenience of imperial citizens so they need never set foot where lesser men trod. Believers of a class not permitted free access within the city might approach the holy court, but they would certainly remain separate. Along this narrow way Keshad trudged, and though he listened, he heard no gossip, no news, nothing beyond a few halting discussions of rice crops, a horse race, and fishing.