Part 22 (1/2)

Shoka bowed. ”That's very generous.”

Taizu gave him a furious frown. ”No.”

”I'll talk with my wife,” Shoka said. ”I'm minded to accept, master Yi. It's a very kind offer.”

”It's too slow!” Taizu said; and Shoka said: ”Excuse me,” and bowed to the caravan-master, stood up and seized Taizu by the wrist, dragging her up and off to have a word with her on Jiro's other side. ”It's good sense!” Shoka said. ”Speed isn't enough. We can go as far as Ygotai with this lot! Use your head, girl!”

”That man is already suspicious! If we stay around he's going to go on wondering and pretty soon he'll start figuring you could be wanted by the law and there might be some money in us!”

Thatwas a thought, audacious and crooked, decidedly a thought on Taizu's side of the slate.

”I trustus! ” Taizu said. ”I trustyou , I don't trust this master Yi and his people. They're barbarians! G.o.ds know what thoughts might get into their heads. They could get scared if they get to thinking you could be wanted! They could do all sorts of things and if we're sleeping with them and eating with them there's no way we can defend ourselves! I don't like it, I don't like it, I don't like it.”

Sheknew stealth. She had gotten from Hua to Hois.h.i.+, alive.

And G.o.ds knew-outland traders might not know his face or his gear; but someone they met on the road might, and might talk, and an outland trader might get ideas what his life could be worth in gold. . . .

In certain terms, he was more danger than protection to Taizu; she was right in that; and that both galled him and worried him.

”All right,” he said. ”All right. I'll agree with you.”

She drew a quick breath and let it go without a word.

And he led her back to master Yi and bowed. ”Master Yi, thank you, but my wife is shy of strangers, and I've humored her this far. I thank you profoundly for your good advice, but a married man, you understand how it is with wives-”

Doubtless master Yi suspected how it must be with this one. Shoka put on a rueful face and tried to look as embarra.s.sed as possible, not quite looking master Yi in the eye, and not missing, either, master Yi's shake of the head.

”M'lord, I trust you know what you're doing. I can't urge you strongly enough,”

”Women,” Shoka said. He bowed again. ”I certainly admire you, sir.” And as he walked away: ”Four wives. That's truly amazing.”

”I recommend the stick,” master Yi called after him.

Taizu started to turn around. Shoka grabbed her by the shoulder and marched her over to pick up the baggage. He climbed up to the saddle as Taizu thrust her arms through the ropes of the bedroll and the rest of their gear, and started off, with yet another bow to master Yi.

”Not a word,” he said under his breath. ”Not aword , Taizu.”

She managed quite well, walking along with her head down while they pa.s.sed beside the caravan, picking their way on the brushy margin, among rocks and in and out among the wagons as one side or the other of the trail offered sufficient room. Caravaneers stared at them. No few leered at Taizu, and two exchanged words in their outland tongue and laughed. It was not easy, that pa.s.sage. He thought fondly of taking that pair who laughed and seeing whether their humor extended to a beating. But satisfaction was much too expensive.

Down the long, long row of wagons, until they were well into the clear of the road, and rounding the curve of the hill.

Then Taizu turned half-about and said, indignantly: ”They were making fun of you!”

”If we want them to report us to the nearest magistrate I can certainly go back and teach them proper respect: that should get our descriptions up and down the road as fast as anything I can think of.”

”You didn't need to bow to them!”

”Dear wife, I thought I did rather well. We're well ahead of them, and if they mention us to the magistrate in Ygotai let's hope they report a doting fool and his spoiled wife who probably left their bones in the forest. I was Shoka to my intimates, not to folk at large, and I doubt they'll connect that name with Saukendar-but they might, if I'd cracked their heads. Wouldn't they?”

She still frowned, but she made no more argument, ”I didn't use the demon story.”

”Oh, no, thenext caravan through the village will pick that up, and we'll be famous!”

”Another reason why I thought you might just be right about making speed on this stretch. Their logical a.s.sumption is that we turned north at Ygotai, ahead of the caravan-ifthey realize it's me. We told them the truth about Hua. That's precisely what they'll think is a lie. So they won't look on that road.”

Taizu turned around again as she walked, her expression thunderous. ”On the other hand they just could believe Saukendar wouldn't lie.”

”I hope I had a reputation for being smart. -Look out for that bus.h.!.+”

She glanced back and skipped around it and the rock behind it. ”All I can say is, ifI was the magistrate in Ygotai and they told me about a gentleman clear out here with all that expensive armor,I'd be suspicious, and I'd know he was in some kind of trouble, and I'd know there wasn't any lord Shoka because that's not a proper name.”

”He'd know there were a couple of mercenaries, that's what, one female.”

”Who didn't want hire with the caravan.”

”Because they had better prospects elsewhere. Gitu was hiring them ten years ago. I don't think he's changed. And youm'lord anybody with a full rig of armor. I'm at least a mercenarycaptain , and that's more than master Yi can hire. He knows that. If he believes the wife story, that's fine; if he doesn't he'll think we're mercenaries-”

”Who walked out letting those fools laugh at us!”

”They won't sleep well tonight. Mark me. That was stupid of them, letting us among them to see how many they are. That's why Iacted the fool, and they laughed at the situation. When they get to thinkingback on the style of the gear and the rest of it, they're going to have two and three thoughts on it, none of which agree, all of which are going to make master Yi d.a.m.n nervous from here on, much more than if we were a simple pair of bullies they might have feathered outright.We walked away. They shouldn't have let us do that. And now I'm sure they're thinking about that and hoping we were fools.”

She looked at him with her mouth open, walking sideways and backward. ”You're so tangled up!

You've told them so many things they'll suspect us for sure!”

”They won't know what we are. Till, as you say, some other traders overtake them.Then they'll know, and by then we'd best keep ahead of the rumors.” He thought of plaguing her again about going back.

And thought:G.o.ds, there is no going back, is there? Ghita will know, soon or late. And a.s.sa.s.sins will come again. Even on the mountain there's no safety now.

Well, I knew as much when I began this. No helping it. No helping anything now.

Straight in and straight out, and maybe, if we're very lucky-go for the south and the mountains, and lose ourselves there, where even the imperial guard won't follow.

d.a.m.nable mess this woman's talked me into.

The sun became a golden glow behind the hills on the other side of the river, and a touch of gold at the peaks of the hills that rose high on their right.

That went too, as they came to the place where the river ran noisier over rocks, and where the hills of the Barrens truly closed in.

Beyond this was not a place to travel in the dark, a narrow place fit for ambushes, where the river flowed in a riven, sometimes wooded gap and the ground was stony and the hills were broken and tumbled on either side.

”This is where we stop,” he said, when a turn of the hills brought them face to face with that.

”I did it by dark,” Taizu said. ”But I didn't have any horse, and I hid a lot, whenever I could.”

He shook his head, thinking of her with that d.a.m.ned great basket, light as she had packed it; and her alone in that place made for ambushes.

And he climbed down and led Jiro off where there was still a little ground free of rocks.