New Decameron Thirteen: Alter S. Reiss (Patreon)

Stone

Alter S. Reiss

Rael sat in the shade of the city wall and watched her father examining the block that had come down from the quarry. The sky was a pitiless blue, the line of shadow from the wall as sharp as if it had been drawn with a knife. A little time in the shade was welcome.

The long work of rebuilding the wall of Taraf the City was nearing completion, but they'd been getting fewer blocks and worse blocks from the quarry. The problems at the quarry were the same as everywhere else. Too much work, too few hands.

Which was why Rael was out in the shade of the city wall, rather than learning how to shape pottery and work looms. That, and the fact that she was a head taller than her brothers, and as broad across in her shoulders as her father. Work on the walls wasn't fitting for a woman, but it fit her fine. Those stones, though. The last few hadn't fit anywhere at all.

"It's second cut, Drase" said the quarry foreman. "Maybe not the best stone, but it's sound."

Rael wasn't sure if they were even second cut; the last couple of blocks hadn't been. This one looked like it might be sound, and it was large enough to serve as one of the main wall blocks. If she could get closer, she'd—

There was a hand on her arm. Tei, her youngest brother. Rael relaxed, settled back into her squat in the shadows. Usually, it'd be Tei pushing for a fight, but that was when it would be fun, and wouldn't cause much trouble. This time, Tei was right. If there was something wrong with the block, the quarry workers needed to hear it from her father. Drase moved slowly, and deferred to people who ought to be deferring to him, but Drase of the line of Peor was the finest stonemason in Taraf the City.

"Not sure they're sound, Braca," said her father.

"Ah, now, Drase," said the quarryman. "Maybe there's a surface crack or two, but—"

Drase had left his great hammer by the wall, but he had his carving hammer and chisels tucked into his belt. He took out a long-nose chisel, laid it on the slab, and brought the carving hammer down. Not hard, even. Just tapped it.

The whole slab fell apart.

Perhaps if Rael had been closer, she would have seen that some of the lines that she thought were veins in the rock were actually fractures. But she could have looked at that stone for a hundred years, without knowing that those fractures went to its heart. And she could have tried for longer than that, before she found the point that would shatter it. Drase of the line of Peor knew stone.

Unfortunately, the men from the quarry had just spent hours hauling a block down from the quarry that Drase had turned into useless rubble with a single stroke of his chisel. They started swearing, yelling at Drase, at their foreman, at the workers on the wall. Some of the men who had been working on the wall came up to shout back, including Izren, Rael's older brother. If it weren't for Tei sitting next to her, keeping his hand on her arm, Rael would've went in and done some shouting herself. The block might have looked sound, but it hadn't been sound; if they'd—

If a woman started yelling at the quarry workers, they wouldn't be able to either hit her or back down, so they'd hit someone else. If she stayed in the shadow of the wall and waited for things to calm down, there might not be a scuffle.

Rael's father just stood there as they yelled, holding his carving hammer and chisel. He looked down at the fragments, and then back up at the foreman. Who took a breath in his yelling. Then started laughing.

Drase started laughing too, shaking his head. Gradually, the others stopped their yelling, and looked at the chunks of the stone with something approaching awe. They had worked hard on that block, cutting it from the quarry, and bringing it down to the wall, and that work was wasted, gone. But what Drase had done . . . men who worked stone couldn't help but being impressed by it.

"Fine," said the foreman, after he stopped laughing. "Maybe it's third cut."

That set them to laughing again. It seemed that things had calmed down enough that Rael could head over, and pass around the water jug.

"There just aren't enough people in the quarry to look for a new line," said the foreman. "And the wall eats granite. Even a handsbreath narrower—"

"If it was a handsbreath narrower, it would be another handsbreath narrow beyond that," said Drase. "And then another. And then when the river flooded, it would be undercut, or if an army came against us, they would break through. A narrower wall might serve against the tribes, but it will not serve now. The Anoasath of the Anoasath has taken the five cities of the South, and has his eyes set on Taraf. It's not the time for a narrower wall, or for a wall with cracked stones in its heart."

The foreman shook his head, took another drink from the pitcher.

"Rael?" said Drase. "You and Tei go up to the quarry. They are having difficulty; perhaps you can help them."

The men from the quarry had relaxed a little, but they looked sour at that. Rael was a woman, and Tei hadn't made his full growth yet. But the quarry needed what the wall had to spare, and they were what the wall had to spare. Besides, Drase had just established that he understood stone, and while they didn't like the choice he'd made, they were willing to believe that it was right; they were still talking about it as they all started back towards the quarry.

Once they reached the long earthen ramp to the quarry, the men spread out a bit. Rael and Tei found themselves in the middle of the pack, Rael plodding grimly on toward the job that she had to do, and Tei was walking alongside her, keeping the pace.

"It's part of the work," said Tei, after a while.

Rael grunted.

"And it's until the gate is done. Won't be a bad idea to know one or two people up in the quarries."

"If I'd stepped up and argued," said Rael, "they'd have sent someone else to do it. Two or three of the Ard boys, probably. It's not like they know stone well enough that we can't do without them."

"Probably," said Tei. "But the quarry already has enough men from the line of Ard. You'll do the work of four Ard boys, and it'll all get done before Sheavesday."

That was true, but Rael didn't want to hear it. It was a long way up from the wall, and . . . .

"Well," she said. "Maybe you're right. It's not going to be easy, though."

"Stone never is," said Tei, which was something their father said, after every mistake or fracture or heavy day of work. Drase's proverb from Tei's mouth sounded silly, but it wasn't wrong. Drase of the line of Peor was wrong about things from time to time, but never about stone.

"There are times," said Rael, "that I would rather do something that was easy."

Tei shrugged, and tossed her the pitcher of water. Rael drank, stoppered it, and gave a whistle; the men who'd been trekking ahead of them turned, and she tossed them the pitcher. If they were worse at catching things than the men on the wall, it'd—

The one she aimed at caught it, gave her a nod, and drank. Well, maybe. It was all part of the work, anyway.

#

After Drase had shattered that block, the quarry probably would've started looking for a new line whether or not they had any extra workers. But Tei and Rael were certainly called on to do their share of the work, digging test pits down through layers of fractured stone, or cutting what was left of the Old Man Line to keep progress moving on the wall.

Hard work, tiring work, and not the hard, tiring work that Rael was used to. The quarry was so far from Taraf the city that they couldn't hear the city, they couldn't smell it, and when they looked down on it, the houses and walls of Taraf looked like childrens' toys, and the tiny figure of her father working on the wall was no different than that of a man in the marketplace, or a man in one of the caravans that crowded around the Western gate of Taraf.

At the quarry, Rael ate apart from the others. It had been the same at the wall, though at the wall, she had her father and her brothers with her. The men who worked at the quarries were married, or would be married before too long. It would not do for them to be overly familiar with a woman who was working in the quarry. And while Tei would eat with her some of the time, more often, he would eat with the others at the quarry.

Tei was Tei—he would find a sort of trouble to make, and laugh at the results. Never too much trouble, and never too mean; something to make the target wince, before joining in with the laughter. He'd be a fine father to children, when he was old enough to marry.

That day, he ate with her. The night before, they had broached the first date wine of the season, and Edre their mother had gotten a good cut of lamb from somewhere to accompany it. The bread had been made with lamb fat, rather than oil, and neither of them wanted to share with the others in the quarry.

"So," said Rael, when they sat down. "What is it today? Regrading the whole of the ramp down to the walls to make it easier to bring down the blocks from the quarry?"

"Well," said Tei, "it has been some time since they've regraded the ramp from the quarry to the wall; there are some parts which are getting dangerously steep."

"As a rule, you don't bother people about things that aren't necessary," said Rael. "Just about things that they aren't going to do."

"It is an important function," said Tei, his eyes dancing with mischief. "These are things which are necessary and overlooked, and which I—" He stopped, and looked off into the distance. Rael followed his look. Tribesmen. Two of them, red scarves across their shoulders, and a gazelle between them. When tribesmen made a kill like that, sometimes they would trade it with the quarrymen, for pitchers of date wine, or fine fabrics, or things of that sort.

Only the Red Scarf tribe had been declared anathema, so it would be forbidden to make any trade or friendly conversation with those tribesmen. Some gold had been stolen from a caravan camped at the western gate of Taraf, and while the old scholar-priest of Taraf the City had done his best to ignore it when the Red Scarves had done things like that before, Korem, the new scholar-priest of Taraf, had taken a harder line.

Not only had he ruled that Taraf the City was responsible for the caravans camped at its gate, he also ruled that the Red Scarves would be anathema, until they returned the stolen gold. Which meant that it would not be returned; the Red Scarves needed the trade with Taraf the City more than two basketweights of gold, but they were too proud to give up the gold after an attack like that. Of course they'd stolen the gold, but they would never admit it, after that.

But. . . well, while Rael had not followed the legal debate, there were those who were not pleased with the scholar-priest's ruling. And there were more who didn't argue the law, but who thought that declaring anathema on the Red Scarves was an over-reaction. And then there were some who didn't argue either position, but out in the quarry, beyond the sight of the walls, they might break the law to have meat for lunch instead of pulse and bread. "Tei," she said, warningly, as her brother stood up.

"It'll just be a moment," he said. "Nesdran is already going; I'll just help make sure that he's understood."

Nesdran was big, one of the biggest men in Taraf the City. Taller than Rael, and broader across in the shoulders than Drase; whatever he said would be understood. But Tei wanted to . . . Rael shrugged, took the bit of his bread that he'd left behind, and ate it. Perhaps next time, he'd care more about food than about causing trouble.

The two went out, the tribesmen came closer. They talked, briefly; Nesdran shook his head, the tribesmen argued, then turned, still carrying the gazelle. Then Tei said something, and the tribesmen said something, and then they all were going back. Nesdran had started going back first; Tei was behind him. So Nesdran and Tei didn't see the flash of metal in the sunlight, when the tribesman drew his blade. Rael saw, but she was too far away.

Tei didn't see, Nesdran didn't see, and at first, Rael thought the tribesman had just shoved Tei down to the ground. But then Rael heard the cry, even across all that distance. Nesdran turned, but the tribesmen were already running away, gazelle left behind, and Tei was lying still on the hilltop, the wind ruffling his robe.

Rael howled, the scream bursting from her chest, and she was up and running without knowing what she was doing. Nesdran was crouched beside Tei; Rael almost couldn't see them. She could only see the tribesmen running away. She ran after them, the sand pulling at her feet with every step.

She'd grabbed her great hammer when she'd stood. She hadn't realized that until she noticed its weight pulling back at her as she ran. Rael shouted again, as she passed by Tei and Nesdran, and she spun, the great hammer spinning out around her. She launched it towards the tribesmen with all the strength that she had. It flew, end over end over end, but she was not strong enough. It landed in the dirt behind the tribesmen, as they ran away. There was so much rage inside of her that Rael felt like she would burst. Rage and fear and. . .

She looked down, and saw Tei lying on his side, looking small and broken, the blood turning his robe red, and the sands dark beneath him. Nesdran moved to cover his face, and Rael howled again, falling down to her knees beside her brother, who was so still and silent on the sands.

The others had come up next to them, but they said nothing. One of the men took off his robe, and laid it down to cover over Tei, where he lay; Rael felt like she should fight him, she should force Tei to be well, to take back the last few moments. If she had said one different word, if she had held onto the corner of his robe and kept him from going, if. If.

She didn't remember what happened after that, not well. Someone tried to lead her away from Tei, and she shook off those hands, refusing to be separated from him as they picked him up and brought him down from the quarry. Drase and the others working on the wall saw that something was wrong, and they ran out to meet them. Drase, and Izren, and the others who Rael knew. One of the quarry men reached him before he reached the corpse, but Drase knocked him aside; the only time that Rael ever saw her father raise a hand in anger to another person.

He looked at her, and he knew. She had not known that she was crying, but her face was wet with tears, and she choked when she spoke. "I told him not to go, father," she said. "I should've. . . I . . . I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

Drase was shorter than Rael, but his arms were stronger. He took her, and held her to him, wrapping her up, as the men from the quarry told him what happened.

It was like a nightmare. It was like seeing a smashed pot, the date wine poured over the sands, and thinking about what had happened just before it had smashed, how even the slightest change could have avoided what happened. It wasn't Tei's body that Rael would never forget—she knew that, as her father held her. It was the moments before then, when she could have done something that would have stopped what was about to happen. If Tei had seen them a moment later, if she'd. . . there were endless ifs, but none of them had been what had happened.

What had happened was that she had let her brother get killed.

#

They buried Tei within the walls, before the sun had set on him. All the workers in stone were there—those who worked on the wall, and the quarry, and the houses, and those who repaired the drainage courses beneath the streets of Taraf—when Tei was laid down among his fathers. Edre was not able to stand, so Izren had to hold her up. Hevva was still and quiet, and kept shooting looks at Rael. Rael stood with Drase, clinging to him, like she was a little child; he was there and he was strong, but Tei was dead, and Rael could have stopped it.

She should have stopped it. Tei was a troublemaker, and she knew that he was a troublemaker, and—

The scholar-priest came out, and led them in the memorial psalms, and in the psalm of faith in God, which was sung to welcome children into the congregation, and at weddings, and at deaths. Tei's body had been washed clean, and wrapped up in an embroidered shroud. They laid sweet smelling herbs down upon him, and then they started to fill in the grave.

Edre had been too weak to stand; she looked old and gray and tired, for the whole service until then. When the first handful of dirt fell into Tei's grave, Edre gave a single cry, which sounded like an echo of Rael's cry, held back by the hills, and at long last coming back. After that cry, Edre sank down into Izren's arms, as though she had been stricken by the sun, or felled by a blow.

She did not rise up again for the rest of the service. They put a handful of dirt into her hand, so that she would be part of the ceremony, and she released it, not looking. Rael did the same, as did everyone else there, until Tei was beneath the earth, and they were all left alone above the earth, together, alone.

Korem spoke about what had happened. He praised Tei for his energy and how beloved he was, among the old men and the young, how the cruelty of the tribemen had deprived the world of not just Tei, but of all the children that Tei might have had, who would have shared all that was good about Tei.

Rael had been lost, out there in the quarry. She was lost again hearing that; it was a speech about a stranger. There were times when Tei was as beloved among the old men and the young as a fly on a hot day, always seeking the moisture at the corner of people's eyes, buzzing back no matter how often he was waved away. And he was . . . he was dead. He was dead, and the priest was talking about some pious young man, not her little brother, who kept stealing her tools and hiding them. Not her brother, who would sneak bites of stew until half the pot was gone, and who would then go find a pot of stew from a neighbor, saying that Rael had eaten everything in the house. Not her brother, who knew how far to push a fight, and held her back when it was wise for her to hold back. Not Tei, not her brother.

The funeral was agony, but the agony didn't end with the funeral. Rael had seen it all, but she could not help expecting Tei to be waiting for them at home, with a quip about their righteous devotion, or a question about how they could have said the psalm of faith in God despite nobody having been dead, despite it having been his prank all along.

But Tei was not there, and the other lines of workers in stone brought them the funeral bread, and sat talking with them, as was the tradition, until the sun went down, and it was time for them to leave for the evening service. No mourner was allowed in the house of God, so they sat together, not saying anything, all as shocked and still as broken bits of pottery.

"The Red Scarves should pay," said Izren, breaking the silence. 

"Pay?" said Edre. "For my boy? For the baby who—" a racking sob, that sounded more like a sheep being slaughtered than a woman crying. At the funeral, Korem had not even mentioned the Red Scarves. But the guests had, over and over. Perhaps an agreement could have been reached about the stolen gold. But now, after a murder without a blood payment. . 

"If they would offer it," said Drase, "even if we wished to take a price for the blood of my son, we could not take it. They are anathema; there is no business between us."

"And by the time they give back that gold," said Hevva, "the killer will have run off to some other tribe, and they'll laugh at us, for what they've done."

Rael had not said anything, no a single word since she had told her father what had happened. She didn't have anything to say, and wasn't sure she ever would.

"You should've known this was going to happen, Rael," said Hevva. "Tei could never keep his mouth shut, when he should. That's why father sent you up to the quarry, to make sure that Tei stayed out of trouble. And you couldn't even do that right."

Rael just looked at her, trying to come up with an argument, but there wasn't any. She should've known, she could've known, she should've stopped him.

"Tei was of the age of majority," said Drase. "Rael told him not to go, and he went. Would you have her grab him, hold him back, show the men of the quarry that her brother was not a man among men?"

"She could've stopped him," said Hevva, and there was the edge of tears in her voice. "I could've, why couldn't she? What was she doing there, anyway?"

"Doing there?" asked Drase. "She was working, to aid our family. I am sorry that your mother has never taught you what that means, Hevva. Your sister works and you sit idle, and now you blame her for something that was done by a tribesman's blade?"

Hevva was astonished. Nobody had ever spoken to her like that.

"She's not idle," said Rael. "She makes pottery for the house, and works on the loom, she plucks fowl of their feathers, and she scours clean our pots with sand. She is preparing to be a wife and the head of a house."

Drase was not as tall as Rael, but he was broader, and stronger. Now, he seemed to be carrying a weight that was too great even for his shoulders.

"This was not something you did, Rael. This was not your fault." He paused, then swallowed. "When I was but a little older than you, a block that was being put into position was not firmly seated; it fell on my brother's leg, and it crushed it. He died after three days. Tei is buried not far from him; they are so like each other, they would have been good friends. Every day, I thought about setting that stone, how I should have made certain that the splints were holding it into place, until it could be cut down to be secure. Every day, I thought about how I could simply have talked to him, three more words, four more words, and he would not have been in place when the stone fell."

They all knew that their uncle had died when a stone that had not been secure had been left in position, and someone had walked above it, jarring it loose. That was something Drase told them every time anyone did something unsafe; he would point out the error, mention his brother's death, and correct the error.

"That was stone," said Rael. "This—"

"Men can be harder than stone," said Drase. "And less forgiving."

He reached out, and took hold of Rael's shoulders, both of them. "I sent Tei up to the quarry, because I thought it would do him well to learn the work there, and because I thought it would do him well to work outside his father's gaze; he will be. . . he would have been married before too long, and a head of a house. That is why I sent him. I sent you to work on the quarry, because you are a good worker in stone, and because they need your strength in the quarry. The men there have told me that I was right to send you, that you do the work of two men, that you are careful when care is needed, that you do not shirk either your assigned duties or things that must be done by all those who work at the quarry. Do not believe anything else, Rael."

Rael felt herself tearing up, but she could not accept that. She had let her brother go, and he had died.

"I have lost a son this day," said Drase. "Do not go down into that valley after him, or because of him. It is not you who has done this thing."

They sat together, and they said the evening service quietly, each of them separate, not part of the congregation.

Later, Drase and Edre went up to the rooftop, to lay apart, both awake, both quiet. Rael lay quiet below, as did Izren, and Hevva, all of them awake, all of them silent. It was not her fault, but she could have stopped it. It was not any of their faults, but they all could have stopped it. A word of caution in the morning, or something cutting when he got up to go talk to that tribemen. If she'd just threatened to take his bread when he left, he probably would've sat, and everything would've been fine. But she hadn't. None of them had. His robes were still in the chest that Erde had brought with her into her marriage from Drase, smelling of the pine-trees of the plains, his bed still stood, untouched. When the mourning was done, the robes would be cut down to cloth, and sewn up for someone else, and the bed would be taken apart. It wasn't right, and none of them could make it right. So they each lay silent and alone, and tried to sleep.

It was a wound, like missing a hand. But though it didn't fade, the freshness of it grew less. Rael would still talk to him in her dreams as the mourning period progressed, but he went further away from her each time, until she feared that she wouldn't see him again.

The other families that worked in stone brought them bread and funeral meats, goat and sheep cooked with greens and with dried grapes. When Pire, Braca's wife, had died in childbirth, Edre and Hevva had made those funeral meals, talking quietly over them, their memories of Pire, how they would miss her, how Braca and his boys would be hurting. That had gone into the meals brought during the mourning for Tei as well. Rael knew it, and with every bite she took, she could almost hear their friends and neighbors talking of Tei as they ate those meals that were brought for them. She did not know what those women said when they were at home, cooking, but she heard them when they came to sit in Edre and Drase's house of mourning, and talk of the dead. Tei was not universally beloved. Rael could hear that in the pauses, when people fumbled for words, or cut stories about Tei short, so as not to offend.

Not beloved by everyone, not all the time. But he had been beloved, and he had been one of them. It hurt them all that Tei was gone, and that there was going to be no justice for his murder.

In time, the period of mourning ended. They broke up Tei's bed, and they cut the seams of his robes, so that they no longer belonged to a man who could no longer wear any robe but a shroud, and no longer lie in any bed but the earth.

Rael was not ready for the mourning to end. Neither was Drase, or Hevva. But once the last seam was cut, and the cloth laid down for sewing, Edre took Izren with her, and went to the house of Tanen the Scribe. There was work to be done, and she would have messages written for her relatives abroad, to come to Taraf to assist in the work. Stone did not care about the lives or the deaths of those who worked it; the wall had to be built.

When they set out that morning, Drase asked Rael if she wished to return to work on the wall. "Nobody will blame you, if you do not wish to continue in the quarry."

"They may not blame me," said Rael. "But they will blame Gur, for being a poor foreman, and they will blame Nesdran for not saving Tei's life. And they will think that I blame Gur and Nesdran and the others."

"Do you?" asked Drase.

Rael shook her head. "Less than I blame myself," she said. "But even if I did, only Izren is left to continue the line of Peor. We cannot afford to have a feud with the other families, or even ill-will between us."

Drase nodded. "Thank you," he said.

One of the workers in the quarry had recovered Rael's great hammer, and had brought it back during the period of mourning. She hadn't noticed who it was, and had not thanked them for it. But it was good that they had; the wood was cut to the length of her arms, and the iron of the head would not have been easy to replace. She shouldered it, and went to her work in the quarry.

While Rael and her family had sat in mourning, the Taraf of the Taraf had set men to build a watchtower from the broken stones that had been cleared from above the new line, and from spoil left behind when the blocks were shaped. When she returned to the quarry, that tower was built, and there were soldiers from the clan army of the Taraf there to keep a watch for the Red Scarves, and to drive them away from the quarry. Those soldiers did not even leave their post for the morning prayers, or the morning routine, and when tribesmen appeared on the horizon, they quickly disappeared, seeing that little tower.

With Tei gone, the men no longer let Rael eat her meals on her own. Gur sat with her, as did Nesdran, and Urs, and Incarrath, and all the others. They would talk with her about the stone, and the work, and how little they trusted the broken rock that lay above the vein that they were working. Incarrath was Nesdran's son, and he was the youngest one working on the quarry, though he was large for his age, round-faced and sullen. He had not had much to do with Tei—Tei had teased him a little, but stopped when he saw that Incarrath didn't join the laughter afterwards.

"He apologized to me," said Incarath, after they had eaten, and Nesdran had already gone back to work. "He didn't have to. It was not a bad joke; I had been complaining about the weight of a block, and he just gave me a look that . . . well."

Incarath cupped his hands under his belly, and gave it a jiggle. "I have my own weight to carry, as well as that of the blocks, it's true. I was embarrassed, and didn't say anything. But afterwards he said that he would not mock me again, and he didn't."

He looked at Rael, and looked away. "That was your brother." 

"He was more than that," said Rael. The line of Peor couldn't afford a feud with any of other families, but if Nesdran's fat son was going to reduce Tei to—

"No!" he took a step back. "I know; I don't know him. I just. . . he would be a little cruel, sometimes. But not very cruel, and he always made sure not to hurt too much. I didn't know . . . I'm sorry."

Rael waved him off, and got back to work. The new vein of granite went into the hillside, as they had hoped, but it went deeper than they had hoped. There was too much broken rock overhead for them to clear it, and still produce the quantity of stone that the wall needed. So instead of clearing the broken rock, they used timbers, cut from the Taraf's own reserve.

First they would clear a section of broken stone, enough to seat the timber. Then they would clear the layer of broken stone beneath the timbers, so that they could carve the block of sound stone beneath, cutting it loose on all sides from the mountain, before cutting spaces for wedges beneath the stone, and then clearing it fully.

Not a single part of that was simple. Gur did not trust anyone else to set the timber properly, and rightly so; any mistake there would mean deaths. Crawling between the timbers and the sound stone was far from comfortable, and cutting the blocks clear of the walls was far more difficult in a confined space than in the open. It was even hard to get good footing and space to swing the mallets to drive the wedges beneath the shaped blocks. And when it was done, they hauled the freed blocks down to the wall, pulled the timbers, and the whole thing started again.

Nobody trusted timber. Wood wasn't stone; timbers creaked and moaned under weight, and what they would hold one day, they would give way beneath the next day. Even though there was shade beneath the timbers, it was a relief to go out into the sun, where they weren't relying on wood to keep the weight of the hill at bay.

Every day was a deadly risk, and it would be months before they had enough stone to finish the work on the wall. If they had more timber, they'd be able to go deeper, work faster. But the deserts around Taraf were not the place to grow heavy timbers. Each time they took those beams out, they were more splinters and cracks than before. Each time they were checked, each time those which were not sound were sent back, for less dangerous work, and more were brought from the Taraf's dwindling private store.

The men at the quarry did not want Rael to be there when they pulled the timbers. If they pulled the poles in the wrong order, or if one of the timbers that had seemed sound proved weaker than expected, the rush of broken stones from above would take a life faster than a tribesman's knife.

But while the men of the quarry did not want to risk the life of another of Drase's children, Rael wasn't going to let them take the risk and the credit for the work that they were doing. She didn't insist on doing more than her fair share—she didn't have to be pulling timbers every time they were ready to move to another section of the rock face—but she stood her turn.

Hard work, frightening work. When the stones above shifted, little streams of dirt would drop down from above onto Rael's hair and shoulders. If she misjudged, even a little. If she moved one timber out of order, one post a fraction of a handsbreadth too far. Any mistake, and she would be dead between one breath and the next.

There was a temptation there. If she moved a post a handsbreadth too far, there would be some pain, but then everything would be cold and silent, and all of her pain would end. If she jostled a timber that was straining under the weight of the stone above, the true judge would rule her a suicide, even if no man knew it. But it would be a rest, a long and final rest, lying down beneath the comforting weight of stone, knowing that she would never have to rise up again and work.

Rael set the temptation aside; too much work had to be done for her to rest, either forever or for a time. Her mother had sent a letter to the south, to the family that she had left behind to marry into the line of Peor. Rael did not know when that letter would leave for the south, or if it would ever reach its destination; without trade from Taraf, the Red Scarves had turned to plundering caravans, and there were not many caravan masters who dared the open spaces between the South and Taraf. Even if that letter arrived, it might take forever before one of those relatives decided to leave his city and his home, and to go out into the wastes to cut stone for a lord who his family had never known.

The work could not wait until there were enough hands to complete it. There had been enough rain in the hills that the Brown Addic river had run every year, with enough water caught in the cisterns that they hadn't had to take water from the oasis of Taraf. But every five or six years, there would be a great rain in the desert, which would turn the hills bright with flowers, and which would turn the Brown Addic from a welcome friend to a raging beast.

It had been four years since the rain had fallen in the desert. If the wall wasn't finished before Winter Candles. . . well. If the river burst its banks, and the wall was not strengthened, it might be undercut. There were rumors from travelers and merchants that in addition to preying on caravans for what they had once traded for in Taraf, the Red Scarves were raising up other tribes to their banners, against Taraf the City. If the wall fell, there were not enough men who knew weapons in Taraf the City to save it from the tribes.

The stone masons knew what they were working towards, and they did not stint in their efforts. And while Rael had thought that their work had been accepted as part of what was required, and no more than that, it seemed that more notice than that had been taken. A month to the day after they had risen from their mourning, a messenger from the Taraf of the Taraf came, asking for the hospitality of their house for dinner, after the evening services were finished.

It was more usual for the Taraf to invite people to his palace, when he wished to show them favor. For him to ask for their hospitality was a signal honor. It was the sort of thing that, before Tei had died, would have puffed Edre up like nothing else. But Tei's death had hurt his mother more than it had hurt any of them. She did what was required. There was always bread and pulse to take out to work, and there was always greens and bread for dinner—sometimes meat, when it was available. But there had been no joy in Edre since her son's death, and there wasn't any joy when she heard the messenger's request. Edre bowed her head before the will of the lord of Taraf, and Rael could see her mother making the gray calculations of how much extra work she'd have to do.

Drase, at least, felt the honor that had been done to him. He set Hevva to readying the house for their distinguished guest, and he went out himself to spent what silver they had, for a young goat and pigeon's eggs, for Edre to prepare with the greens and with the bread and the pulse. Izren and Rael washed all the family's robes clean, which was hours of heavy work, and which used an entire basin of water. A visit from the Taraf meant work for all of them, on top of the work with stone that weighed down on them from morning to night. But it was a different sort of work; it was work that lightened the spirit, that made Drase hold his head high for the first time since Tei's death, remembering the honor and dignity of the line of Peor.

When the night came, Drase came home directly after the evening services, rather than studying the law with his friends and with the scholars, and made sure the tables were set properly, that the meat was tender and that the bread was properly cooked.

Rael felt uncomfortable in her freshly laundered robe, and Hevva and Izren sat quiet and stiff. They had seen the Taraf of the Taraf at the church and they had visited him on the holidays, part of the line that would talk with him for a word or two, in the entrance hall of his palace. But this was as though the church was coming to them, and none of them knew how to act.

Of all the family, only Edre didn't seem to notice, dishing the meat from the pot onto a plate, or filling a strainer-jug with palm wine. She worked like it was just another festive meal, a last meal of a long festival, when everyone had rested for too long, and was eager to return to work.

The Taraf of the Taraf came to their door soon after Drase returned. There were two men from his clan army with him, wearing armor and helmets, with axes at their belts, and spears in their hands. They did not come in with him; they stood outside the door, facing the street. Drase had taught Rael the laws of a clan-chief and his subjects, so she knew that this was another honor. It showed that the Taraf didn't fear any attack from within the house, only from without. Drase recognized it; she could see him swelling with pride.

They sat together, and ate, and drank palm wine. The Taraf asked them about work on the wall; he seemed to understand the problems that Drase and Izren mentioned, and didn't press them to finish unreasonably quickly, or to try to get the gate prepared without making sure the wall that led to the gate was sound. Then he asked Rael a few questions about her work on the quarry. It was difficult to answer him; Rael did not like talking to people she knew, let alone to the Taraf of the Taraf, her rightful lord, the man who held her honor, and the honor of her family.

Her answers were brief, but she was as truthful as if she was at her final judgment. They had found a good vein of granite, which would serve the city for generations, once they could clear the rock above it. For the moment, it was difficult to work with that overhang, and with the timbers. Nobody had gotten hurt yet. Rael thought that someone probably would be hurt, and badly, before they were done. But it was the only way to get the stones they needed before they were at risk for a winter rain.

"And would it make sense to move more men from the wall to the quarry?" asked the Taraf.

"With the new vein," said Drase, "the quarry is producing enough stone to keep everyone on the wall busy. In olden times, they raised the wall with mudbricks, and with the stone they could find in the valley. But mudbrick melts with every rain, and limestone melts as well, though so slowly it is almost unseen. In every rain we lose a portion of our wall. Even where the wall seems sound, there are fractures at its core. Nothing of the old wall can be used for the new. It is not rapid work, or easy work; the wall needs more men than it has, not fewer, if we are to complete the work in its due season."

"I understand," said the Taraf. "And I fear that I may be taking another man from the work on the wall. There is an opening in my clan army, and I have heard fine things about Izren, Drase's son; if he was interested in serving with my troops, I will be able to offer him a good contract for his labor."

Izren started, and Rael tried not to break out in a smile; that would not be good for the negotiations for the contract. They would not have been able to afford to let Izren go to the city army to get the training he needed before he could be considered for service in the clan army. But if the Taraf would take him directly, the silver from the contract might. . . .

"If the contract is well," said Drase, "I would counsel him to take it; this is an honor to him, and to his family. But it will be difficult to do the work before Winter Candles, losing another man from the wall."

"I know," said the Taraf. "And if you need to wait, I will understand that. But while I am bound by the chains of law from defending your rightful claim to a blood-price, your son fell in my service, and I have difficulty sleeping with this debt unpaid."

He wasn't bound by the chains of law from declaring war on the Red Scarf tribe. Just the chains of reason; the clan army and the city army could defend the walls against a dozen tribes, each larger than the Red Scarves. But they would have little chance of finding the Red Scarves, out in the wilderness, and forcing them to come to grips. Nobody mentioned that; they all bowed their head at what the Taraf of the Taraf had said.

As the lord of the city, the Taraf of the Taraf could not participate in mourning, could not visit a house of mourning, or comfort those left behind, not unless they were first-order relatives. But he offered comfort, saying that, and they all accepted it.

When the meal was done, and the Taraf of the Taraf had left with the two guards from his clan army, they sat together for a time. Rael hadn't wanted to eat too much, when the Taraf of the Taraf was there, lest she embarrassed herself. Now he was gone, so she wasn't frightened, but she was still hungry. So she started eating.

"I shouldn't," said Izren. "Not right away. Not with the wall—"

"You are going to serve in the clan army of the Taraf," said Erde.

"Mother," said Izren, trying for patience. "There aren't enough people working on the wall for us to spare—"

"Hevva will work on the wall," said Edre.

"What!" Hevva shook her head. "You know that Cerin son of Bran will make an offer for marriage after Sheavesday; do you want me to be at my wedding as a laboring girl, and with my hands—"

"Hevva," said Edre. "You will work on the wall, or you will leave this house. You are past the age of majority, and if you will not do as you are told, you may leave."

Hevva's eyes went wide. There were people who had to leave their parent's homes from time to time. If they were given to drunkenness, or violence, or. . . but Hevva was none of those things. That wasn't fair. Rael looked at Drase, who was looking at Edre.

"It is this important to you?" said Drase.

"It is the only blood price we will get for my Tei," she said. "My cousins will be here soon enough, to help with the work. If Hevva wishes to leave the house of Peor for the house of Ard, my blessings on the union. But she has spoken ill of her sister for doing the work of the house of Peor. Let her then see the work of the house of Peor, and know it, so that she does not speak ill of any of us in a stranger's house. We have spent a good deal to host the Taraf, and we will spend all that is left for this wedding, if it comes to pass. The clan army of the Taraf pays every month, on the day after the new moon; let us have some silver in our house, even if it will stain my daughter's beautiful hands."

"Mother, please," said Hevva.

"No," said Edre.

"This is not the reason," said Drase.

"Whatever the reason," said Edre, "this is what we shall do. Unless you disagree, my husband?"

For a moment, Rael thought that Drase might. He certainly didn't seem happy with the decision that Edre had reached. But no; he puffed his breath out. "If this is what you wish," he said, "I will not argue. But I hope that your cousins will arrive soon, and that they will be able to help us with the work."

"They will," said Edre, and then softly, almost to herself. "They will do the work that needs to be done."

Rael shrugged, and continued eating. If Hevva was going to work on the wall, she was going to come back hungry the next night, so this was likely to be her only chance to eat the kid goat and pigeon without having to fend off other people wanting their fair share.

#

Hevva did go to work on the wall. And for every night for the next month, she came back home sore in every muscle, aching in every joint, blisters on her hands and feet. And every morning before she left, she had dirty looks for Izren, as he headed out for his training in the clan armies. As far as Rael could tell, Izren was doing well; during his years of work on the wall, he had been practicing his morning routines and his evening routines, and he had always been better at martial skills than any of the other men who worked with stone. And as far as she could tell, Hevva was mostly kept doing light work. Helping to clear debris after rocks were broken, carrying jugs of water out from the cisterns to the workers on the wall. Sometimes she was one of those who came up to bring water for those in the quarry. She would sit for a bit after that, and watch Rael working, either down beneath the overhang, or up clearing the broken stones from above the new line, where their weight was too much for the timbers from the Taraf's supply.

Rael wasn't sure what Hevva hoped to gain from that; how to swing a great hammer, perhaps? But Drase would never let his daughter lift one, if he hadn't taught her to use it, and she would learn a good deal more from talking to her father than from watching her sister. Whatever it was, they didn't talk much when Hevva came by, just a word or two between them, and then Hevva went back down, trudging slowly along the great ramp that went down from the quarry to the walls of the city.

They were all happy when Edre's cousins finally reached the walls of Taraf, but nobody was happier than Hevva; she practically wept when she heard the news.

There were two of them, and when Edre went to meet them at the caravan encampment by the Western Gate, Rael went with her, to see how much help they would be. It was hard to tell just by looking, but while they were both shorter than Rael, they had well knit muscles, and there were callouses on their hands. Not just from the carving hammer and the great hammer, and from handling stones—they both had axe-handle callouses on the inside of the pad of their right thumbs. That was for the best; the Red Scarves had grown ever more wild since the anathema.

The men were exactly what Taraf the City needed, but Rael didn't think they were her mother's cousins. It was strange. She had known the names of her mother's lineage, and of her living relatives: that was something that every child learned. But while there was an Meren son of Arith and an Arith son of Arith in that lineage, Meren looked younger than he should have, and Arith older. And there was not as much talk of her relatives as Rael had expected. Whenever Edre talked with someone from Meidir the City, or the Reach Ezem, she would ask after her mother, and her two sisters, and her brother. When they met Meren and Arith she asked after them, of course, and after her uncle Arith, and her aunt, and her other cousins. But she just asked after them, didn't look for anything more than that, didn't trade stories, or anything more.

It made sense, more or less. They needed more men in the quarry and on the wall; Edre had decided that whether or not the Taraf of the Taraf wanted to allow strangers within his walls, she would call whoever wanted to claim to be her cousins her cousins. They would have a place to live and work, and her family would not be destroyed by the weight of the work that had been heaped up on their backs.

Only it meant that Edre was going to swear to a lie, before God and before the whole congregation, at the evening services. It meant that when Drase would swear to the honesty and good faith of his wife, so that her oath would be accepted, he would also be swearing to a lie. It was true that Rael would mumble the words of the morning prayers when dawn was early, and would find herself jerking awake during the evening services after a long day's work, Drase of the line of Peor would pour his soul into the prayers, every morning and every evening. Drase would drink the words of the law like he had not had any water all day, and he was dying for something grander than water. And now he was going to swear to a lie before God and before the congregation.

Rael wasn't sure what to do. She could tell her father her suspicions. She should. But her mother. . . but the wall. . . but Tei's corpse, still and silent on the sands, the wind riffling the cloth of his robe and his hair, Nesdran kneeling beside him.

Children could not testify on behalf or against their parents. Wives would be sworn for by their husbands, and husbands by their wives.

The false Meren and the false Arith followed Edre and Rael through the gate of the city, to the church, to wait there for the evening services, and for Edre's oath on their behalf. That was the way it was done, when people came to Taraf from the south. "Mother," said Rael, once they were alone on the street. "Does father know?"

Edre paused, just a little, between one step and another. "He knows," she said. "It is what needs to be done."

Rael wanted to argue, but she also didn't want to talk about this in the street. Her parents would face the Last Judge, for lying in his name before the congregation, but if they were caught in that lie, they would face the Taraf of the Taraf, and the scholar-priest Korem, and a judge from the scholars. The Taraf of the Taraf would not be pleased by how they had returned his favor. It was likely that their house would be taken from them and given to another, and that Drase, and Edre, and all those who lived in their house would not be allowed to live within the walls of Taraf. If they were caught in that lie, the lineage of Peor in Taraf would end.

"Mother," said Rael, hearing the pain in her own voice.

"It's what needs to be done," said Edre. "Don't worry about it. Now come; we will need to build beds for your cousins, so that they may sleep in our house this evening."

She could talk to Drase about the law. But this wasn't Tei, pulling on people's beards, to remind them not to hold their heads too high. She would be arguing with a decision that had already been made. Her choices were to be quiet about it, or to speak up in the congregation, and reveal the lie that she knew was about to be told. She would have to leave Taraf the city, but they would leave without having lied in front of God and in front of the congregation.

Because of her work in the quarry, Rael had learned about working with wood. She did not trust it, but she had learned some of its strengths and some of its weaknesses. As she turned the boards and beams that her mother had assembled into beds, Edre worked on preparing mattresses of cloth and bean-husks. When the beds were finished, Rael had decided that she would not speak out. They were not her cousins, and her mother would say that they were. That was her mother's choice and her mother's crime.

It was a crime that would mean that the wall would be finished before there was a flood, and tribesmen would not spill her blood in her courtyard. It was a crime that meant that Hevva would not be so miserable every morning and every night, doing work that did not suit her. A crime that brought forward the time when Rael could leave the quarry, where there were no shade when they worked, except for the dangerous shadow of the overhang, and the shadow of Tei, which gave no protection from the sun, but which lay everywhere on every stone they cut.

So when Edre got up and swore that these were men that she knew, who were from her family, and who were of good standing in the community where they had lived, and who had a trade that would benefit the city and protect it, Rael said nothing. And when Drase rose, and said that he did not know those men, but he knew his wife, and that her honor was his, his honor hers, and that he would stand by her oath, until death and beyond, Rael said nothing.

But at night, after welcoming the false Meren and the false Arith into their house, and showing them to beds, it took Rael a long time to fall asleep, despite being tired to the bone.

The next morning, it was decided that Hevva would remain at home to rest, and to help Edre in her work in the house. And it was decided that both Meren and Arith would work in the quarry with Rael, and that two of the boys from Ard's line would go down to learn the work on the wall from the line of Peor.

Rael bristled at that, but it made sense. Meren and Arith—it would be simplest to think of them as Meren and Arith, because whatever their names had been, they could not live as anything else, so long as they were in Taraf—were unknown to the men of the quarry. Rael was their cousin, so they would have someone they knew with them.

And while there were a lot of Ard boys, they couldn't lift the stones that needed lifting. Not unless five of them were pulling at the same rock. Maybe they'd learn a bit about fine dressing stones, working on the wall; that was something they'd be better at than work in the quarry. All of this was just until Winter Candles anyway, when they'd be done with the work on the wall, and Rael would be able to work on houses and pavements, and not have to trudge up the ramp to the quarry every morning.

As usual, when they walked up to the quarry, in the cool before dawn, the workers spread out, giving enough space for Rael to be alone with Meren and Arith, for the first time since they had come into the city.

"You aren't my cousins," she said, once they had privacy.

Neither of them said anything. "If you were, my mother would not have merely made certain that you knew the names of her relatives in Meidir the City and the Reach Ezem. She would have asked if her mother's leg was better, and if she had been drinking the pomegranate and pink-sorrel tea that the doctor had said would ease her pain in the mornings. She would have asked if her aunt Arevka had been caught trying to steal earth from her neighbor's garden again, because of the old feud she has with her neighbor, over great-grandfather's cucumbers and gourds, which that family stole."

"You are right," said Arith.

"Arith," said Meren, warningly.

"She's right," said Arith. "I hope that there aren't that many others who are so sharp-sighted. There isn't much use in denying it at this point; we could barely remember the whole lineage—our new lineage. There was no way to learn everything that we would need to know. I can say that your grandmother doesn't take her tea, because it tastes too sharp for her, unless she mixes in date-honey with the tea, and the doctor says that the date-honey will cause her joints to hurt more, not less. And that she wishes your family well, and that she was furious at us for leading your mother to lie, before God and the congregation."

"Then why?" asked Rael. "Why come here? Why lead my parents into sin like that?"

"It was the way your mother phrased her message," said Meren. "It told your grandmother that she needed people to come here and do the work that needed to be done, even if they weren't her cousins, even if she would have to lie for them."

"And Taraf is a rich city, compared to any of the five cities of the desert," said Arith.

"We had thought to go out beyond Taraf, to the cities of the plain," said Meren. "But that was too far. They follow schools we don't know, there and they celebrate holidays differently, and they practice different forms with spear and with axe. Nobody there would know our families, or our lineages, and they would not trust us. When the work here is done, perhaps we will move on to the cities of the plains, or return home."

"For now," said Arith. "There is work here that needs to be done."

That was true. It all sounded true. "To give up your names, though?" said Rael. "To live as someone else's cousin, to recite the names of a man who is not your father, and a woman who is not your mother, when the congregation prays for their families? You say that perhaps you will leave; perhaps, then, you will stay, to be married under a different name, to be buried under another name?"

"If we stay, it is to be buried under another name after a life of doing work that needed to be done," said Arith. "That is a better thing than to live without being needed, to fight to do work that someone else could have done just as well, and just as skillfully."

Rael shook her head. There was something admirable to that; to understand the difference between work where it was needed, and work for the sake of having work to do. But at such a cost?

"This is your choice," she said, finally. "It is too late to change your mind about the lie that was told, or the reasons for telling the lie. But I do not want you living under the same roof as me, or the same roof as my sister. It is only proper for cousins to live under the same roof as unmarried women because you have no family in this city. You are not my cousins, and I do not wish to lay down to sleep under the same roof as a stranger."

The sky had grown light enough for Arith to read their expressions; Meren's teeth flashed out in the darkness. If he would make mock of her fearing them, she would hit him. Perhaps she was not so delicate that she needed to fear the impropriety of being alone and asleep in the presence of a stranger. But Hevva was not strong enough to fight them off, and if these men would lead a god-fearing man like Drase to lie for them, Rael did not know what they would do.

"I understand," said Arith. "A lie engenders lies. When you are married, you will want to tell your husband that you have not slept beneath the same roof as a stranger."

"Arith, I—"

"She is correct," said Arith, sharply, cutting off whatever it was that Meren was about to say. "Are there empty houses in the district preferred by the workers in stone?"

"There had been three houses that had been the homes of the line of Peor," said Rael. "One of them is to be for my brother Izren, when he is married. The other had belonged to my uncle, before he died in an accident. It has fallen into disrepair since, but if you understand the work, I am sure that you can repair it."

Meren groaned. "Arith," he said. "We're going to be tired every night, after this quarrying. I'm tired already, just walking to the quarry! If we are going to spend our evenings and our rest-days working on a house, how can we—"

"She is right," said Arith. "And we are dependent on her good-will, and the good-will of her family. We're not going to abuse it by forcing her into a lie that she never chose."

"She's as dependent on the lie—"

"If I am forced to," said Rael, "I will take the consequences upon myself, and upon my family, and I will die without this sin upon my soul."

"There," said Arith. "You see? My apologies, Rael. We will begin the work on repairing the abandoned house of the line of Peor, as soon as we return from work this evening."

"Arith!" Meren wasn't pleased, but Arith didn't seem to care. Besides, they were close enough to the quarry that it was no longer safe for them to talk about such things.

Rael had difficulty during the morning services. She had never felt herself free of sin; there were always mistakes that she had made, carelessness in her devotions that she would never have allowed when working with stone. But she had never felt the weight of quite as much sin as she had then, knowing that she was supporting a lie, that she was complicit in her parents’ crime.

It was not a safe crime, either. The people in Meider the City would know that Meren and Arith had not left, and were still living in that city. It was true that strangers were not allowed within the walls of Taraf the City, and that caravan masters would not be expected to know every worker in stone in Taraf the City, or even in the city where they had acquired their gold or onycha. But a single unlucky conversation, a single incautious word, and the lie would be revealed for a lie.

When she was done with the prayers, she withdrew, and watched the men at their morning exercises. Meren and Arith had the same ponderous grace as the other workers in stone, and the routines that they knew were not exactly the same as those practiced in Taraf the City. But there was something in their routines that Rael did not see in the routines of the other men who practiced their fighting routine in the graying dawn of the quarry in the hills over Taraf the City. A sudden speed in their turns, the way their arm and their spear seemed to flow forward with more strength than they should have had.

In addition to the carving hammer and chisels in their belts, and the great hammers that they had carried with them, all the way from Medier the City, both Meren and Arith carried axes in their belts. There were a stock of poles that were left at the quarry, to serve as the spears for the morning routines, but there were few men there who brought axes with them. Not that it was unwise; if the tribesmen came in force, it would be difficult for the three men from the army of Taraf the City to do more than slow the attack.

But while Rael had seen the callouses on their hands, she hadn't believed that they were fighting men, until she saw that morning routine. When it was done, she understood. Most of the men who had been working had been wrapped up in their own routines, making sure that their hands and feet landed in the correct place. But some had been watching as well as moving in the routines, and they had understood better than Rael, who had simply watched.

It was enough to establish her supposed cousins as strong men, even if the men who worked the quarry were not yet convinced that the newcomers understood stone. Of course, nobody truly understood stone, not even Drase of the line of Peor. Stone was solid, and did not move unless moved, but there was always something that they did not know.

As it turned out, Meren and Arith knew stone about as well as could be expected. They were started on carrying off chunks of broken stone, from off on top of the new line, and over to the great gash that had been cut in the mountain, when they had been working the Old Man line. And they worked hard, lifting and carrying, despite the growing heat of the day, keeping their breaks short, and leaping directly back into work afterwards. When they used their great hammers to break stones into smaller pieces, to allow them to be carried, they struck well and precisely; none of the fumbling that Rael would sometimes see, with young men who did not understand the stone or tools. Nesdran's son Incarath had been set to work with them in the morning, and while he struggled to keep up with them when it came to carrying the broken rocks away from over where the men were working, he was fascinated by the way they used their great hammers.

"Never a second stroke," he explained, when eating his bread and pulse next to Rael. She had been working on the face of the new line, only seeing Arith and Meren when she took her breaks, or went to refresh her jug of water. But she heard what the others said about them. Incarath had taken to eating his lunch beside Rael. Rael had her reasons for not being too close to the other workers, and Incarath had his. By the size of his hands and his joints, he was growing into a man as large as his father. Which meant that he was constantly surprised by how broad his shoulders were and how long his arms had become, leaving him clumsy, as well as fat. It was not easy for him to fit in with the others, and while Rael would have preferred to eat alone, she did not mind his company.

"Some rocks need to be hit more than once," said Rael. "They always do."

Incarath scowled. "Fine," he said. "Never a wasted stroke, then. And most of the time, one stroke, where the Ard boys might have taken nine."

"Now that," said Rael, "that I can believe. The Ard boys know how to do what they're doing, but they don't have the heft to make the strokes count."

"Well," said Incarath. "I probably weigh as much as either of your cousins, and I can't hit stone like that."

Rael poked his belly. "That doesn't hit rocks," she said, getting up and stretching, so that her back popped and groaned with it. "Move your weight to arms and chest, and maybe you'll be able to break most of them in a single stroke."

"Maybe," said Incarath. "You don't like them?"

"I don't know them," said Rael. "It's hard to trust people who you don't know."

Incarath nodded, picking up his own tools. "They are good with stone, though. I mean, they're related to you. All your family knows stone."

"They aren't from the line of Peor," said Rael. "I know that my mothers family were workers in stone, but I have not worked with them."

"They are good, though," said Incarath. "All the men agree."

That was fine. Better than fine; if they didn't know stone, they'd be worse than no help—they'd be a menace. One hammer stroke in the wrong place, and the broken stone above the face they were working could collapse like that fractured block, when Drase had hit it.

But then, if they did not know how to work stone, they could have been sent back to where they had come from, ending the danger that the line of Peor was in.

True to his word, when they returned home from the quarry, Arith and Meren went to look at the house that had been abandoned when the line of Peor had grown too small to need three houses, around their courtyard. The beams of the roof had been taken down, and kept stored where it was neither too dry nor too wet, out of the sun, beside pots of date honey and wheat and dried lentils. The wood was still sound; Rael was certain of it.

As they worked, she sat in the courtyard with her mother, and with Hevva; there were peas that had come in from the fields, and they were peeling them for the pot.

"This is your doing," said Edre, nodding towards Arith and Meren, who were taking the beams from the store-house, and laying them out in the courtyard.

"Yes," said Rael. "I did not wish to lie in the same house with these men."

"Afraid for your virtue?" asked Hevva, her tone light.

Rael shrugged. "Afraid for yours," she said. "I don't know them."

"Rael," said Hevva, sharply. "They are your cousins; they are our mother's cousins."

"Tion, daughter of Aphra," said Rael. "That was an uncle, not a mother's cousins, but the closeness of blood did not help her."

That had been a scandal of ten years past, but while it wasn't spoken of, they all knew what Rael was talking about. Some families allowed a closeness that was not in accordance with the law. With Tion, it went beyond unlawful closeness. Tion was killed by her uncle, who had been unlawfully close to her. Then her uncle was killed by the officers of the court, and his name forgotten.

"Rael," said Edre. Not angry, exactly, but not interested in hearing more in that vein. "You will not speak of our cousins in the same breath as that affair."

"I am not saying that they are like Tion's uncle. I am saying that I don't know them. I asked them to perhaps renovate a house that is ours, and which has lain vacant. They agreed. This is better, I think."

"These men are strangers in a city that was never theirs," said Edre, still calm. "They have no relatives here besides us, to plead their case, if they enter a dispute. If their relatives do not support them, what hope do they have? If our neighbors think that we do not trust our cousins, why should they trust our cousins?"

"They still share our courtyard," said Rael. "I work with them, now, in the quarry, and the men there think that they know stone well enough. And besides—"

"Besides," said Hevva. "If they live under our roof for thirty nights in a row as cousins, they would be considered too close in blood for Rael to marry them."

Rael gave Hevva an angry scowl. That was. . .there was heat rising in Rael's cheeks. That wasn't what she'd meant, but when the story got out, people would think that she had meant that. "Hevva," she said, warningly.

"Rael," said Edre, still placid. "If you do not wish to help us with the peas, perhaps you could help your cousins with their work."

The peas were small, and it was difficult to squeeze the husks at just the right point, so that they would come open neatly, without mashing the peas between her fingers. But while she was much more suited to the sort of work Meren and Arith were doing, Rael sat with her mother and sister, and worked the peas out of their husks, and then tied sections of husk together, to be dried up on the rooftop and used for kindling, or as stuffing for mattresses.

#

It wasn't long before Meren and Arith had the roof beams back in place, and it wasn't long after that that they had laid down plaster and bricks, and had a roof of their own to lie beneath. Meren hadn't shown any great enthusiasm for the project, but once it was started, the two of them worked hard at it. And there wasn't any question that they were working hard at the quarry. They were not as strong as Nesdran, or as some of the others from Muldet's line, but they would also cut their breaks short when someone needed help, and they would always volunteer when there was difficult work that needed to be done.

Perhaps it was something that they had calculated would ingratiate them among the men at the quarry. If so, they were right. There were always things that needed to be done, which nobody wanted to do, and while neither Rael nor any of the men would take less than their fair share of work, it was a comfort to know that Meren or Arith would come in to help, when help was needed. But it didn't seem like something calculated; it seemed to flow from who they were. Meren and Arith were the sort of men who volunteered, when there was work that needed to be done.

And while Incarath wasn't right about them never using a second stroke of the hammer—they were working with granite, and granite was too strong for that—they did strike harder than they should have, given their size and their strength. Rael could lift almost a quarter again what Arith could lift, but when it came to work with the great hammer, he would hit harder than she could, and more often. It was galling, and since Rael didn't want to admit that she was galled, so she did her best to ignore it. Only while Arith was friendly, and reasonably quiet, he was also distressingly observant. He came by at lunch, after a few weeks of working together.

He was eating the same meals as she was; he and Meren had moved out from beneath Edre's roof, but they were still eating the meals that she cooked—they might not be actually related, but they were treated as relatives, and would be treated as relatives for as long as they lived and the lie held.

Rael tensed, then forced herself to relax, to smile when he sat beside her. He had taken great risks to aid her family and her city, and while she didn't trust him, she ought to trust him.

"You don't mind?" he asked.

"No," said Rael. "Sit, eat. There's something on your mind?"

Arith gave her an awkward sort of smile, before tearing into his bread. "I am worried that I will insult you," he said. "It isn't my intention, but you are of the line of Peor, and they hold their honor dear."

"No more so than any other line," said Rael.

Arith grinned, and Rael couldn't help grinning back; she had sounded a bit stiff, saying that. "Fine," she said. "Perhaps we do. But it's earned."

"I know," said Arith. "I have seen the walls of the city, and the walls of the house I share with my brother; the line of Peor come as close to knowing stone as anyone ever has. Which is why I fear that I will insult you by suggesting that you may be making a mistake in the use of your tools."

This was nothing to grin about. Rael's mouth was suddenly too dry to swallow her bread; she took a swig from her jug of water. "Oh?" she said, trying to keep her voice neutral.

"It is because you are stronger than anyone knows, I think," said Arith. "So, they see that you have done the work assigned, and do not imagine there is room to improve."

"What is it?" said Rael.

"You strike from your back and shoulders," said Arith. "It is more controlled, yes. When there is a target that needs to be hit precisely, that is the correct way to use the great hammer, though most of us can't manage it as well as you can. But when strength is needed, rather than control, you need to be more open. Here—let me show you."

He stood, great hammer in hand. Rael cautiously took another bite of her bread. It could be that he was right? Or it could be that he was insulting the line of Peor, or it could be that he didn't belong there in the first place. It also could be that he was well proportioned, against the deep blue of the sky, flecks of sand pale against his arm. "This is the sort of controlled strike that you use," he said, bringing the hammer up, and then down, raising puffs of sand where the hammer struck the ground. It seemed fine; she could see no problem with that.

"But watch, here," he said. "If you open your stance a hair, and pivot with hips and legs—like so?"

There wasn't that much difference between what he was doing, and what he had done before. A little bit of a twist, maybe.

"Hm," said Rael, rising slowly. In addition to teaching her as much as he could of the knowledge that the line of Peor had gathered in all the years that Taraf the City had stood, Drase had also taught her to learn what she could, from the stone, and from the others who worked stone. She lifted her great hammer, brought it down, trying to find the twist that Arith had been using.

"That's not quite. . . apologies," said Arith. "It would be easier to explain with my hands. But I. . . it would not be appropriate, so I will attempt with words. Your hips are closed up; you need to loosen them, so that the strike can move the length of your body."

"If you intend to joke about me opening my hips," said Rael, turning to face him, "I am not certain that I—"

"No!" said Arith, and while he was normally smooth, the panic that showed there was genuine. "I don't—I didn't—" he shook his head. "It's just. . . watch again?"

If it was a joke about her opening her hips, he would regret it. But . . . well, he wasn't acting like it was. His hammer went up, came down. Again. And again. It was not easy to watch that, to accept the lecture. It wasn't easy to watch his hips moving, either, for reasons that Rael wasn't ready to consider. But maybe, perhaps?

She tried again. "Closer," said Arith. "Do you feel the difference?"

"Maybe," said Rael. She paused, gritted her teeth. "Thank you," she said.

"You're welcome!" said Arith, cheerily. Then he wolfed down the last of his lunch, and headed back to the face, where he was working. Rael went back to the rocks over the face, and went back to breaking them, and carrying the chunks away.

As she worked, she tried to swing the way that Arith had indicated. He was right. It was very difficult to relax her control like that, to let the movement swing through her legs and her hips and her back, the head of the hammer following an arc that she didn't entirely control. But it was hitting harder, and it was taking less effort on her part to get it to hit harder. When she'd broken her share of rocks, Rael would shift to moving the fragments over to the dump that had been the Old Man line; when she left, and when she returned, she took care to watch the other workers who were breaking and clearing rocks whose weight would make it harder to work the face.

Most of them were letting their great hammers do most of the work; they would raise them high, and then the iron head of the hammer would pull it down to the rocks.

Rael would work like that when she was tired, or when the work was not urgent. It would break the rocks, sooner or later, but it would take strike after strike before the rocks would crack, without the strength of the worker bringing the hammer down.

Others, though. They did not have the sort of precision that Arith had; Rael doubted that they would be able to explain what they were doing that was any different from what Rael did, before Arith had taken her aside. But there was a looseness to their movement. All the workers in the quarry kept their robes tied back from their legs, to keep from tripping or being fouled in their movements, which let Rael watch the way their calves tensed and relaxed.

Arith was right. For most of the men who were doing most of the work of the quarry, the strokes of the great hammers moved up their whole bodies. Nesdran didn't swing like that. His legs were columns, and his back and chest did the work. But the others—Arith was right.

It wasn't something that Rael could change in a day, or even in a month. But she would work on it. It would not be easy to open up, to trust the hammer to follow its arc, rather than guiding it the whole way. But it would get the work done faster, and once she learned to trust the movement, it would serve her well, for the rest of her life.

Arith hadn't had to do that. It would have been easier and safer for him to let her work the way she had grown accustomed to working. Everyone else had, it seemed. Or they hadn't noticed, which . . .well. Men had not looked much at Rael, not the way they looked at Hevva. Too big, and too ungainly strong. There were offers, here and there, but they were offers because she was of the line of Peor, and she was likely to bear strong sons. Offers from men who couldn't find prettier wives, or richer wives, for whatever reason. But Arith had been watching her work, and he'd been watching closely. It was troubling, and it was troubling in a way that Rael wasn't used to being troubled.

Most women would talk about these matters with their mothers, but Edre was wrapped up in the preparations for Hevva's marriage. Cerin son of Bran had made his offer, earlier than expected—Arith and Meren had donated a share of their wages for the cost of the wedding meats, and since there was no longer a question of Hevva having to work on the walls, things were moving quickly.

Besides, while Edre understood a great deal that Rael didn't, she wouldn't understand about using the hammer. And even more, after what Edre had done, Rael wasn't sure if she trusted her mother. That was a terrible thing, but there it was. It was like Hevva, not entirely trusting Rael after what had happened with Tei.

So Rael decided to talk to her father, though it was harder to find privacy to talk with him; he was with the men on the wall in the morning, and then there was the evening services, dinner, and then back to the church, to study the law, with the scholars. So, during dinner, Rael asked him to show her the work that had been done on the wall. She had been in the quarry—if she wanted, it was clear that she would be welcome to spend the rest of her life in the quarry.

That might not be a bad idea, but she was from the line of Peor, and while it was good to learn stone before it was cut, to understand how it lay in lines in the hills, what she wanted to do was to build with stones. Rael wanted walls and houses and floors and palaces, not merely blocks of stone, to be trimmed by masons who used finer tools.

Drase could not deny her request. He had demoted her when he sent her to the quarry, and while it was necessary, she had done nothing to deserve that. So after dinner, he went with her to the eastern gate, to show the progress that they had made. After the granite blocks of the core were fitted into place, they would put layers of sandstone in front of it and behind it, sealing away the granite. There were only a few places where the pink granite of the Old Man line could still be seen. The rest of the core were the blocks of redder rocks, from the new face. They were big stones, fitted perfectly into place, not an eighth of a fingersbreath between the blocks. The rebuilt wall stretched almost up to the gate, and the gap that they left was a narrow one, as always, with rubble held up overhead, between timber posts—if there was an attack, the rubble could be released, closing the gap.

Everything on the wall was orderly and perfect, everything done as it should have been done. It was relaxing to see that, comforting in a way that nothing else could be. And yet. And yet there were blocks that Rael could remember Tei laying into place—he would tease about this and that, and drive everyone around him a trifle mad, like a loud fly on a quiet day, but when it came to working with stone, he was as careful as anyone from the line of Peor.

"So," said Drase, when he was done showing what they had done, how they had met the difficulties of the job. "What did you want to talk to me about?"

"It is these men who are supposed to be our cousins," said Rael. "Is it right, what we have done?"

Drase sighed. "I don't know," he said. "It is a sin, and a grave one, what I have done, and what Edre has done. But it was that, or face the ruin of our city."

"The tribes would—"

"Not the tribes, Rael," said Drase. "It is the king in the south, who rules over five cities, and who wishes to rule over six. Not all the caravaners are honest folk, and even those who are bring back news of what they have seen to men who serve that king. It's true that the old wall is not as strong as this wall which we have built. But the reason why the wall had to be rebuilt was because the old wall was built for a different age, when the greatest fear was that the tribes might mass against against us; that they would climb over the wall, and do mischief in the streets. The old wall was built tall and thin."

Rael looked along the length of the wall. The new construction was as high as the older wall had been, but it was wider, wide enough for three men to walk abreast along its length, in full harness.

"The new wall is proof against rams," said Drase. "And it is built to protect bowmen and slingers. The foundations of this wall reach down to bedrock, secure against any strategem. When this work is done, no enemy will ever be able to overtop the walls of Taraf the City, or breach them with rams. And there is no hope of a siege, not when we have a spring of living water within our walls, and nothing but a seasonal river to supply an army beyond the walls. The Anoasath of the Anoasath knows what we are building, and knows that the time for him to act is now, before this wall is completed."

"The cities of the south surrendered to him without war," said Rael.

Drase said nothing.

"Or so the stories go," said Rael, slowly. "He would bring an army against a city that is not his?"

"If the river flooded, and left a gap in our wall," said Drase, "and if there was an army from the south camped in the hills, near the gap? It would be his city, and it would be said to have surrendered to him without war. There are five cities whose armies are joined together as one. Already there are people who live within the walls of Taraf the City who would rather be ruled over by a king who rules many cities, than by a man whose family laid the first stones of this city, than by the family who God has granted the strength to found a reach, and to raise up that reach, until it was a full city. Facing an army of five cities, the Taraf of the Taraf would have to flee his city, if he wished to live, and that would be called taking the city without war."

Rael ran her hand along one of the stones of the wall, feeling the heat of the day still in the face of the stone; during the day, it would have a share of the cool of the night still in it. Stone balanced things, keeping heat where it was cool, holding onto cool despite the heat around it.

"There is no feud between the Taraf of the Taraf and the Anoasath of the Anoasath," said Rael. "If the king of the south would send an army to a city with which he has no feud. . . ." she shook her head. "There are advantages to being one of six cities, rather than a city standing alone, without even any reaches to support it. But God does not love kings, and how could anyone love a king who would conquer for his own reasons, not for the reasons of his honor and his faith in God?"

Drase shrugged. "There are those who do not value faith in God or honor so much as they value silver and gold."

"And these men," said Rael. "Who we address as my mother's cousins. Are they here because there is work that needs to be done, or because they love silver?"

Drase stood beside her, held onto the same block that she was touching. "I don't know," he said. "Only God can know the heart of man. I know your mother, and I love her. I know your mother's family, and I love them as well. I have made my choice of who I trust; I have trusted them that they would do right by us, and before God. You work with them both; I see them at meals, and at prayers. At meals they eat well, but not greedily; they wait for others to take before them, and do not choose the finest portion from the platter when it is passed before them. They know the words of their prayers, and they do not shirk from saying them, both quietly and aloud. This is what I know. You have seen them work; do they know how to work stone?"

"They know how to work stone," said Rael. "But I want to trust them, and I . . . I don't know, father."

Drase didn't let go of the stone that his son had set into place. But he put his other hand on his daughter's shoulder. "Arith is a good looking man," he said.

There was the heat of the day in the stone, and Rael felt the same way, burning in the cool of the night.

"That does not make someone trustworthy," said Rael.

"No," said Drase. "I don't know, Rael. Is he kind?"

She shrugged, aware of the weight of her father's hand on her shoulder. "I think so," she said. "I'm not sure."

"You work with him, and I do not," said Drase. "I can't tell you more than you know. I have made my own choices, and I don't know if they are right or not. When you know, you will know. I can say that these are men who came when we called for them. They seem strong and kind, and they know how to work with stone. Those are the answers I can give you; I don't have more."

"Thank you," said Rael.

"You are welcome," said Drase. "It is late, and I know that you are not inclined in this direction. But perhaps you will come with me to the church, to study the law?"

"Of course," said Rael, and she walked with him to the church.

There were women who served as scholar-priests, even as heads of schools. Those women had more patience for the subject than Rael. The discussion was about when a man sold a portion of a field, and had not specified which portion, how the field was to be divided. Most of the law that they were reciting concerned the fields and orchards of the plains, where a concern was that both the seller and the purchaser would be certain to gain their fair share of the rain that fell upon the field—if it was on a slope, the upper field would wash down both water and rich soil to the lower field.

If they gathered up all the rainwater that had fallen on the fields of Taraf the city over the last three years, it might fill a single cistern; if someone sold an orchard, and demanded more money for the lower part of the slope, because of the advantages of rain, he would be declared mad, and the transaction would be voided. But the point was not to make Rael a scholar priest; it was for to sit beside her father, when he studied the law among the scholars and the other students of the law in Taraf the city, so she did her best to pay attention to matters that would never concern her.

Nesdran's son Incarath sat among them, a text unscrolled on his lap, frowning at the words, trying to make sense of what the scholar-priest was saying, about swipe-wells and plunge-wells, and the rights of opening and closing the gates of irrigation canals during the dry season. Meren and Arith were both there as well, Meren with his nose in a similar scroll, and Arith sitting on the side, listening intently.

Arith noticed Rael when she came in, and gave her a friendly smile as she found her seat. Did he mean . . . no, it was just that the two of them were new in town, and not many strangers settled in Taraf the City. So she was someone they knew—she was as close as Arith had to a friend.

Which was close. It was scarcely his fault that when Edre had decided that Taraf the City needed men who could work stone, she had brought them in through a lie before God and the congregation. She didn't know Meren well, but he seemed decent. He certainly was more knowledgeable in the law, at least as far as how everyone reacted to what he had to say, but while Arith didn't contribute as much, he did seem to fill up with the words of the law, in much the same was as Drase.

It was true that Drase hadn't been able to tell her anything that she hadn't known. But it had helped to hear him say what she had already known.

#

When Cerin son of Bran offered marriage to Hevva daughter of Edre, Hevva accepted. Before their cousins had come to Taraf the city, it had been expected that the line of Peor would pay a good deal less than the line of Ard, for the establishment of the house of Cerin and Hevva. It was the accomplishments of the line of the Peor that made the match a good one, as well as Hevva's charms. And while Rael seldom found Hevva particularly charming, she had to admit that Hevva shone, after the engagement was announced.

With the help of their cousins the line of Peor was able to offer more than a little for the new home. A store of oil and flour, sufficient for a year, for two people. Three timbers for the roof, broad and strong. Arith and Meren had been earning the same as Rael and Drase, and unlike Rael and Drase, they had not been spending that silver to pay for the food of a family, or to pay the sums that Drase had vowed to the upkeep of the church, and for the support of the scholars of the town.

The engagement feast was held in the courtyard of the line of Ard. They had eighteen houses around that courtyard, and all of the Ard were there celebrating. Not just the Ard, and the Peor. All the other lines of those who worked in stone were celebrating as well, and there were guests and well wishers who did not work in stone, but who were Drase's friends, or who were friends with the Ard, or with Hevva.

Because it was Rael's sister who was getting married, she could not come late and leave early. Instead, she had to wear her hair up in braids, with pale dye on the tips of the braids, her robe freshly washed. And she had to accept the congratulations of the Ard, and of their friends, and of people who heard that there was an engagement, and wanted the date wine and seed-cakes that were served for celebrations.

It was not easy.

For the most part, workers in stone understood who Rael was, and what she did. They all knew about Tei, and what had happened there. But there were not only workers in stone at that party. And there were questions that were like long-nosed chisels, breaking through her, and twisting her apart. It was women, for the most part. Rael worked with stone. Wasn't that strange? Didn't that twist her insides, so that she would not have children? The doctors said no, but one of them had heard, or—

Then came the questions about Tei. Sly, niggling little things. Everyone who lived in Taraf the City knew that Tei son of Drase had been murdered by a Red Scarf tribesman. That had become even more of an issue than the three basket-weights of gold that had been stolen by the Red Scarves, and which had caused the scholar-priest of the city to read out an anathema against them from the dais of the church. There was no chance of any break in the excommunication, not with that blood on the hands of the Red Scarves.

There were some who were delighted that the Red Scarves were at last being treated as the thieves and murderers that they were. But there were weavers whose looms were empty, lacking the wool that came from the Red Scarf flocks, and there were merchants whose caravans were raided, as they crossed the desert, both to the north and to the south. The Red Scarves were not loved, but it was not so easy to live without them. Perhaps Tei was to blame for getting himself killed, but there was little joy in blaming a corpse, buried beneath the earth. Tei's sister was alive, and Tei's sister had been with him, and Tei's sister had let him provoke the Red Scarves to murder.

Questions, then, when Rael was sitting off to the side, trying to get one of the Ard girls to bring her another platter of seed-cakes. How long had the tribesman's knife been? Had Tei said anything that would give the tribesman legal cause to strike? And why hadn't she stopped him? She was his elder sister, after all—surely. . . 

Rael wanted to go home, but she couldn't leave her obligations behind. She also would've liked to drive those questions away, but if she started shouting, like she was at the wall or the quarry, it would spoil the celebration of her sister's engagement. So she answered the questions that she could, and did her best to avoid the questions that she could not.

Later, they brought out a whole goat, laid out on a bed of grain and pulse, with beets and onion. It had been a difficult day, and a difficult evening, and she was hungry; she heaped up a portion on a plate, and hoped that at least some of those who were asking her those questions would choke on small bones, or swallow an onion the wrong way.

Orei wife of Barates found her one her way back to where she had been seated.

"Oh, you are the daughter who works at the quarry, are you not?" she said.

Rael felt her eye twitch slightly. Orei and Barates were both merchants in incense. They were wealthy, even by the standards of the merchants of Taraf. Their line, the line of Curun, had a courtyard with twelve houses, all built by the line of Peor.

"I have been working in the quarries for some months now, yes," said Rael. "There are too few men to work both the quarry and the wall, and the gate had to be—"

"One fewer now, isn't there?" Orei clucked sadly. "Such a tragedy."

"Yes," said Rael. "Tei was my brother, and I miss him every day."

"I'm sure, I'm sure," said Orei. "But if you were at the quarry with him, surely you could have—"

"Have you ever worked?" asked Arith, who had appeared out of the crowd, at Rael's elbow.

Orei gave him a look of utter shock.

"I mean, have you ever raised up a sweat by labor?" asked Arith. "So that when it comes time to eat lunch, you sit and feel your joints unlock?"

"I am not certain how things are arranged in the places from which you come," said Orei. "But it is not considered appropriate here, for a man to interrupt a woman who is the head of a family, when she is talking."

"There are times when it is," said Arith. "There are times when it is not. But is never considered appropriate to blame someone innocent of causing a death for that death. In Meidir the City and the Reach Ezem, when a man or a woman would do a thing of this sort, it might be considered just cause for a duel, or for a feud between families."

Orei gave an incredulous laugh. "You think that a line of stone-workers could call a feud on a family of incense merchants, and survive such a thing? There are two men left in the line of Peor. It may be—"

"There are two men of the line of Peor left alive," said Arith. "And there are two men who are cousins, who live beneath the roof of the line of Peor. I have served a term in the City Army of Meidir the City. If it comes to a feud, I will kill your husband, and I will kill your sons, one after another."

Orei was about to say something else, but then she looked at the axe that Arith wore at his belt, and at his shoulders.

"I am not an expert in the law," said Rael. "My father understands this better than I do; he has done his best to instruct me, but I am too stupid to remember all that I have been taught. So perhaps I am wrong. What I recall is that the law is as follows: If a man insults another man, and if the second man takes this feud before the scholar-priest of the city, he may judge between them. If they cannot reach an agreement, the insulted man may ask for a duel, with axes or with spears. And the school of Daebara says, 'also when a woman insults another woman.' This is both for the judgment of a scholar priest, and for the judgment of a duel."

It was not common. The scholars said that this was more common among the cities of south, and the reaches of the plains, where the land was rich enough that people could waste time in disputes and feuds. There was perhaps one duel fought in a period of twelve years in Taraf the City, and those ended without any serious injury, more often than not.

Orei laughed. "You wear men's clothing, and carry a man's tools," she said. "Do you wish to impress a maiden, with puffery like this?"

Rael looked for somewhere to put her plate down; Arith saw that, and took it from her. Then she took Orei's cup of date wine from her hand. Orei was shocked.

Rael had worked with stone for a long time. Not with pottery. But she could feel the grain of the cup, the thickness of its walls. It was not so thick. Her hand closed, almost without thought on her part. It was a good cup, well shaped. It shattered, all at once, and there was date wine spilled on the stones of the courtyard.

"I see," said Orei. "You are very strong, I'm sure, and I am just a merchant, who buys and sells and does not sweat in the sun, like women of the line of Peor. But why couldn't you use this strength to save your brother's life? The gold might have been paid, or recovered. But this—the caravans out of Taraf are—"

"Do you think that Rael, daughter of Edre, let her brother die in order to interfere with your caravans?" asked Arith.

"No," said Orei. "But you. . ." she shook her head. "You have caused great trouble."

"I am sorry that I caused you trouble," said Rael. "I see this every night, Orei, wife of Barates. I see my brother laughing, and running out to talk to the tribesmen. I see him stabbed, and I see him die. Every night, just as I am falling asleep. He was my brother, and I loved him, and now his bed is broken, and his robes have been cut apart at the seams, and made into new clothing."

Orei looked at the shattered remnants of the cup in Rael's hands, and then up at her face. She must have seen something there, because she did not press further. "I am sure he was a . . . that he was a credit to the line of Peor." She shook her head. "But this is not the time for talk of such things." She looked as though she wanted to raise a cup in honor of the young couple, but her cup was in pieces at Rael's feet, so she pushed back into the crowd.

"How can you manage something like that?" said Arith. "To be so . . . my apologies for stepping in. I shouldn't have said anything."

"No," said Rael. She found herself smiling at him. "I appreciate that there was someone who would say something on my behalf."

Arith smiled back. "I wasn't, I mean, I didn't intend to start a feud or bring you dishonor—you don't think—"

"I don't think that the line of Curun will press this argument, if you don't," said Rael.

"If it comes to it, I meant every word I said."

"There are twelve houses around their courtyard," said Rael. "I don't know the numbers of every family, and of every line in Taraf. But there are probably thirty or forty men of the line of Curun."

"Oh," said Arith.

"Hevva would be able to give you more exact numbers," said Rael. "But even I know that Cade of the line of Curun is the general of the armies of Taraf the City."

"I. . ."

"Five of his sons are ranked high in that army," said Rael. "They are all accounted as experts with the axe, even by men who have no love for the line of Curun."

Arith's smile had wavered, but it came back. "Nonetheless," he said. "Nonetheless, if I was called upon to—"

Rael punched him in the shoulder. Not hard, but it rocked him back onto his heels.

"My father and one of my brothers are still alive, Arith son of Arith. And while Izren is in the clan army of the Taraf, he isn't the match for Cade, or for Cade's sons. If it was a duel, I imagine that I would be able to do more to Orei than break her cup. But before it reached that point, it would be a feud between the families. Let us say that you are the match of Cade, or of any of Cade's sons. But not all at once. They would drag you down to the ground, and kill you. And then would kill the rest of us as well, and nobody would dare raise a hand to aid us. I do not know the status of your family line in Meidir the city, but we are stoneworkers, not soldiers, and there aren't many of us. Don't start fights."

"I am sorry," said Arith, and this time he actually seemed a bit contrite. He found a pitcher of date wine, and mixed a cup for himself, and for Rael. "I don't know the town well enough to know who I can safely fight."

"The answer," said Rael. "Is nobody. It is safe to fight nobody. If you fight someone else who works stone, you will have to trust them when it is your turn to work on the face. If you fight with someone who does not work stone, the stone workers do not know you well enough to take up your cause. So the weavers or the merchants or whoever will outnumber you, and give you a thrashing, to teach us a lesson."

Arith blew out his cheeks. "Still would've liked to make her eat those words. How dare she? At your sister's engagement?"

"Well," said Rael, "I'm not going to argue with you on her behalf. For all that it is our line that built the house in which she lives and the church in which she prays, the death of Tei son of Drase is all that she knows about the line of Peor, and that's all she cares about. Which raises the question as to why she would come here and drink our wine and eat our seedcakes, but who am I to judge a stranger?"

She said that loud enough that her voice carried. Orei had moved into the crowds, but not far enough away that she couldn't hear that. The courtyard of the Ard was lit up with enough lamps that not only could Rael see Orei in the crowd, she could see her stiffen, and stamp away.

Arith held a hand over his mouth, to conceal a laugh. "I hope I've not convinced you to start trouble, after you've explained to me how I shouldn't."

Rael shrugged. "I'll be honest," she said. "It was good that you came around when you did. Or I would have given one of the crows picking at my brother's memory a thrashing, and then there would've been more than enough trouble for the morning after a party."

"And I'll be honest with you," said Arith. "I can't say whether or not it impressed any passing maidens. But it impressed at least one young man at this gathering. It took a strong woman to break that cup, and it took a stronger woman to end the conversation the way you did, rather than the way I tried."

Rael was not at all sure how to respond to that. She looked at her cup of wine, at her plate, back to Arith, back to her cup.

He smiled at her confusion, bowed, and went back to join the young men in their dancing, and Rael went back to sit beside her sister, and listen to her accepting the congratulations of friends and of strangers. Later in the evening, the Taraf of the Taraf himself came by, to bless Hevva and Cerin, and to extend his wishes for their wedding to be a joyful one. When the Taraf had gone, Korem, scholar-priest of Taraf, came to give his blessings as well. It was more than a stone-worker would expect for the wedding of his daughter, but Drase was also known as a student of the law. And there was the matter of the brother of the bride who was not at the celebration. Tei had died because of an anathema declared by the scholar-priest Korem, by enemies of the Taraf of the Taraf, and his family had been given no satisfaction, no blood-price. The Taraf and Korem both—they owed Drase and Edre a debt, and they were paying as much of it as they could.

#

The party lasted late into the night. The next day, they took up their tools and went to work with heavy heads, their arms and legs sore, the light of the sun too bright, the heat even less bearable than usual. Rael kept her head down, and tried not to see either Arith or Meren. Or even her father, when she passed him on the way up to the quarry.

The work went a little slower that day than it had on days before. Rael hoped that it was going slower on the wall as well, though it probably wasn't. Drase had been enjoying the party more than anyone, dancing with the young men, and drinking with every guest, but Drase of the line of Peor wouldn't let anything interfere with his work with stone. So they were going to be behind; there were only three blocks that went down from the quarry that day, when usually they would get four, or five.

It didn't take too long before they sweated out the worst of the date wine, but they'd woken up tired, and they went back to bed tired. The next day was the day to make up the work they had missed, which was what caused the problems.

They were still cutting a narrow section of the new line, digging into the face of the mountain, and moving the timbers when they got too deep into the face for it to be safe. The time had come to move the timbers out, and it was Rael's turn to help with that.

Sound stone required respect. If they tunneled too deeply where the stone was sound, if they did not leave sufficient supports in place, the sound stone would come down on their heads, as surely as the sun would rise in the morning. But they would know how far they could push sound stone, they would know if it was close to breaking. Nesdran was almost as good as figuring as Drase was; he would work with a stick and the sand, a knotted cord and a pile of counting-stones, and he could tell them how far they could safely go, down to the fingersbreath.

With fractured stone, like that which lay over the new face, it was anybody's guess. The stone would always groan, there would be streamers of dust, it would feel like it was about to come down on all their heads. But they never knew if it was going to collapse, or if it was going to stay in place. Sometimes, it would be as strong as sound stone; sometimes it would fall as soon as the timber beneath it was pulled loose.

Broken stone was worse than timber; they never fully trusted the timbers that were supposed to keep the fractured stone from off their heads, but when they took the timbers away, they did not even talk when they could avoid it. The breath of a bird or the weight of a word, and the stones could come down. Meren and Incarath were pulling the timbers loose, and passing them to Rael; not an easy job for any of them.

Incarath shouldn't have been there. He had a man's height, and beneath his child's fat, he had the strength of a man. That wasn't enough. He wasn't experienced enough to be working beneath all that fractured stone. But that was the way of young men; they wished to be older than they were, and insisted on doing a full share of the work. It was not Rael's place to object, but she didn't like it. She watched him carefully, as each timber beam was pulled from its place, breathing as lightly as she could, for fear of disturbing Incarath or Meren, of causing them to jostle something they should not jostle.

There were fifty-seven timbers that they would use for a section of the framework. Rael counted them off as Meren and Incarath took them out of their position, and passed them back to her. They would move all fifty-seven, and then they would go up and sit for a time, and drink water. Removing the timbers was easier work than cutting stones from the face, or clearing broken stones above the face, but none of them was ever ready to take up their other tools for some time after they came off of removing the framework. Not even Arith and Meren, who could be impossibly cool in the face of real danger. Arith had almost challenged the whole line of Curun to a fight, and hadn't been fazed by what he had done, even after Rael had explained it.

As they worked, Rael's mind wandered, just a little, but what happened wasn't her fault. Incarath had worked a beam loose; the rock above had groaned and creaked; Meren took hold of the beam, but as the two of them turned to pass it to Rael, they had not been paying close enough attention to the far end of the beam; it brushed against the stone that had been above it, before they had shifted it from position.

It happened too quickly for her to do anything. The rock above where that beam came down, like a river in the desert, when there had been strong rains in the hills; a sudden deadly rush, with no warning at all.

Incarath was clear of that section, but when that rock fell, the rocks above the rest of the framework also shifted. Rael grabbed the beam they gave her, flung it behind her, reaching forward, under the area they were clearing, as Incarath tried to get to her.

Incarath wasn't fast enough, and they had weakened the rest of the framework, by shifting the beams they had.

A rock, a good sized one, fell into the back of Incarath's leg, knocked him down.

Rael couldn't see everything, because of the dust. Meren was there, holding a beam with his body. Incarath lay stretched out beside him, his foot trapped beneath a pile of rock. There was dust falling, and the timber of the framework was buckling and splintering everywhere.

Meren was holding a timber pillar up with his body, straining with every muscle to keep the framework from collapsing entirely. And Incarath was struggling to get loose from beneath the pile of stones, like a lizard that didn't understand what had happened, after it had been caught beneath a stone.

No; no, the weight of the stones hadn't fallen entirely on to Incarath's leg; he was trapped, but not already crushed.

Rael grabbed him, underneath his arms, and pulled. He moved forward, a handsbreath at least. But not free. She could pull stones off from him, but that would send more down from above. It was that, or—

Meren was still holding, but he could not hold for much longer. And the men behind them were coming, but they would be too late. Rael let go of Incarath, despite the sudden fear in the boy's face. Broken stone couldn't be trusted, and a pile like the one that sat on Incarath could be trusted even less. But Rael chose her stone, and pulled it loose. The rocks above it held, the rocks below it settled, hard; despite the groans of the rock and the creaks of stone, Rael could hear the pain in Incarath's cry.

It would hurt more. She reached down, pulled again. Another cry, another handsbreath, the rocks turning red where she had pulled Incarath past them. Not enough time to do anything else; the dust and pebbles from above were falling faster.

Rael remembered Arith's lessons on the great hammer, as clear as the day. From her toes to her legs to her hips to her back, she pulled and twisted, pulling Incarath clear, tossing him out to where the other men were coming. Meren had been watching her; eyes gritted with pain. He still didn't move; Rael took two, three steps, past the edge of where they were working, and Meren was a half-step behind her, and that half-step. . . the rocks shattered behind them. A jagged chunk hit him high in the back, and he fell beside her, his leg bent awkwardly beneath him.

Rael had not breathed at all, not since that beam had jostled a loose rock, and brought the overhang down on the three of them. She breathed in, shakily, tasting the dust in the air, and the heat, and the fear, and the blood. Incarath's leg was red, and he was choking back pain with every breath, a boy dressed as a man, trying to act as a man, but unable to hide the fact that underneath his height and his strength, he was a child who was hurt, and who wanted to cry. And Meren was still, too still. He was breathing, but—

Rael looked at her hands, as the others came to help. There was dust on the back of her hand, coating everything; even the fine hairs on the back of her arm and her hand were white with it; only her palms looked like her hands, her sweat and Incarath's sweat leaving them clear.

Meren's eyes opened, blearily. He looked up at Rael, nodded, and then gave a rueful smile, and another nod. It felt like she had passed some sort of test, but she wasn't sure how, or why, or what it meant. Then one of the men touched Meren's leg, and he yelped in pain.

Nesdran had come down, and as the others wrapped torn bits of robe around the wound on Incarath's leg, Nesdran held his son in his arms, his eyes closed, rocking forward and back. At first, Incarath held back, just a bit, embarrassed. Then, all at once, Incarath collapsed, and sobbed into his father's neck.

Rael was unhurt. She wasn't even as tired as she should have been. She felt like she could pick up her tools, and get back to work. Nobody else was working. They were all crowding around Meren or around Nesdran and Incarath. Rael pushed past them, back to where she had left her tools and the bread that she had brought for lunch.

There was the watchtower off to the north, and there was Taraf the City to the east, and below, at the end of the long ramp. Rael wasn't as tired as she should've been, and she also wasn't hungry. It had been work in the heat of the day, so even though she was not thirsty, she drank water. And then had to fight to keep it down, as she sat on the sand, and watched the tiny figures of her father and the other men on the wall, working to trim the most recent block that had been sent down. The ropes and timbers were already set up, to carry it into position.

If Rael hadn't, or Meren hadn't—if all three of them had died, when the overhang had given way—Drase would still be working on that block. She was looking into the past, in a way. Things which had just happened in the quarry had not yet happened at the wall. It was . . . if she had died, there would have been a time when the quarry had known that she was dead, but the wall didn't. And then there would be a time when those at the wall knew, and those in the courtyard of Peor didn't.

Once everyone knew, once all the times had become the same, there would be blocks in the wall that she had trimmed. Her father would know that she had trimmed them. Perhaps some of the other workers in stone would remember who had done the work that Rael had done, for a generation. Perhaps even two. When those two generations had passed, her memory would be gone. 

Izren's children would be soldiers. If Rael married, on her father's death, her husband would become the head of the house of Peor. It would be up to her to teach her sons the secrets of the line of Peor. She was the timber on which the whole line had come to depend, and if she stepped wrong. . . she had seen timber twist and shatter under the weight of stone.

After a time, Nesdran came and sat down next to her. Rael passed him her flask of water. He unstoppered it, and drank deeply.

"Thank you," he said, quietly. He was a huge man; Rael had seen him lift half a main wall block, with four Ard straining to lift the other half. He did not sound large, that moment.

"How is Incarath?" asked Rael.

"He's lost some skin from his leg," said Nesdran. "The bandages were clean, and the wound was from stone, not from beast or iron or rusting brass; stone does not strike backward, like the mouth of a beast; stone's wounds are clean. He is hurt, but not badly. I hope that his hurts do not become worse."

"And Meren?"

Nesdran hesitated.

"He's not—"

"No," said Nesdran. "But he cannot put any weight on his leg, and he may have strained himself; there was blood in his sputum."

Those were bad. He wasn't going to die, at least not right away, but it could be that it would not heal right. Or perhaps it would? Rael didn't—

"This quarry has taken your brother from you, Rael," he said. "It almost took my son from me. It has hurt your cousin badly." Nesdran's family, the line of Muldet—they were quarry workers for generations; they had the size for it, and the strength, and the patience. But he did not seem to have much patience, when he said that.

"Go back down to the walls, Rael," he said. "Please. If you are hurt here, I will not be able to bear it."

"On the walls or in the quarry or in the shadows of my home," said Rael, "my life will end when God wills it to end. We need this work to be done, for the safety of the city."

"But—"

"Will Incarath be returning to the quarry?" asked Rael.

Nesdran was quiet.

"He has to," said Rael. "If he is driven away from the quarry, it will be known. He came close to death beneath that overhang, close enough to see the door opening, and the shadows of the next world reaching out for him. Now men will see what he does in response, and judge him for it."

"He's just a boy," said Nesdran, quietly. "He. . . oh, Rael. I could not have borne it. He will walk down from the quarry today, and his mother will fuss over him. We will not even talk of the possibility that his leg will not heal properly, but we will wake in a sweat over this, over and over. If the rock had fallen closer, by the breadth of a hair, if you had not been strong enough to pull him clear, I would have had to carry his body down from here to his mother. He's grown large, but he is still a boy, and he . . ."

Nesdran shook himself with a start, like he had fallen asleep during the speech the scholar-priest made, after evening services. "My apologies," he said. "I will not drive you from the quarry, though I wish you would return to the wall, and learn the beautiful work of dressing stone, and fitting the blocks into place. But if you shall insist on working on that face, I will go down with you every time. And you will not unseat those timbers again, and Meren will not unseat those timbers again. God has saved you from the risks of that task on this day, and one does not scorn the gifts of God."

"And Incarath will not face that task again," said Rael.

"And Incarath will not face that task again," said Nesdran. "And I will not face Incarath's mother, and tell her that I allowed Incarath to face that task again."

Rael smiled, and it felt strange; it was as though her face had forgotten that she could smile. "He is a strong young man," said Rael. "He'll be working that face when we are too old to work stone, and are sitting in the shade, with a jug of date wine."

"Yes," said Nesdran. "Thank you," he said, and this time, he sounded stronger. He rose, and returned to the other men.

And when he left, Arith joined her.

"Thank you for saving my brother's life," he said, when he sat down.

"Your brother?" asked Rael, and passed him her water flask.

"My brother," said Arith. "Though we are born to different parents, he has been closer to me than a brother for years before we left the south, and he will be my brother until we are both dead."

Rael sighed.

"No, that is not what I. . . I mean, there are men who call themselves brothers, and they intend a different sort of closeness. Meren is my brother; he will dance with me at my wedding, and without anything but joy."

That had been a difficult question to ask, and while Rael's heart lifted at that answer, it also made her felt vaguely queasy, like she had gulped down hot food too quickly.

"I came because the men are not sure why you have gone to sit by yourself," said Arith. "I tried to explain, that when the gates of death open up before you, it is hard to see people afterward. You see an ear, and you think about how life could leave a body, but the ear could remain exactly as it was. You see a person talking to you, and you know they could walk through that gate, between one breath and the next."

"I didn't want to be underneath the timbers of the face," said Rael. "And my water was here."

"Ah," said Arith. "Well, that too. You should go back and talk to them, though. They are men who work with stone, and they are not accustomed to seeing the gates of death open, and they do not know how it takes people. Mostly did not see what happened, and Incarath was trying to take all the blame, and so was Meren, which makes them think it was your fault."

Rael made a dismissive noise. "It was Incarath and Meren's fault," she said. "But we've all made worse mistakes. This time, the stone did not forgive."

"That was what Meren told me," said Arith. "He didn't blame you at all, and while he didn't want to blame the boy, it was clear they were both at fault."

"Also," said Rael. "I didn't save his life. He saved Incarath's life. He could've gotten clear, and I was not in danger, until I went forward to help Incarath."

"He could not have gotten clear," said Arith. "Not with a beardless boy trapped underneath rocks like that." He shook his head. "It is a failing, I think, his loyalty to those with whom he serves."

"A failing?"

"If Incarath's leg had been crushed," said Arith, "Meren would have done what he had done anyway. And you would not have left Incarath behind either. There would have been two more deaths because of Meren's failing, and because of your failing."

Rael looked at Arith.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I should not be talking about this now. I am . . . I had not thought about how much I relied on my brother, until now. He has frightened me. And you have frightened me, and the stone has frightened me."

Rael shrugged. "If stone doesn't frighten you, don't work with it. If it frightens you too much, don't work with it."

"No," said Arith. "No, I will work stone, with my brother or alone. Only. . ." he looked at Rael, bit his lip, looked away. "My apologies. I am not good company right now." He stood, and walked back to the men.

He wasn't wrong, though. Rael had acted without thinking. She could have died for it. If she'd grabbed Meren, and pulled him loose from that beam, he'd . . . well. It had worked. But just because it worked once, didn't mean that it would always work.

Arith also wasn't wrong about her needing to go back to the men. They had all worked beneath those timbers, they all knew what was risked each time they pulled the timbers loose, to set them further along the face of the quarry. Rael had seen the gates of death opening up before her, and they had all seen it as well, in the reflections in her eyes. They were all as scared as she was, and it wouldn't do to stand outside the group, while they were frightened. So she went, and had her back slapped, and had Incarath thank her, formally, frightened, embarrassed, embarrassingly grateful.

Meren was not doing as well. He concealed his pain, as well as he could, but despite the poultice that someone had tied to his ankle, it was clearly giving him a great deal of pain. He thanked her as well, just as sincerely, just as embarrassingly, and Arith remained with him, when the rest of them got back to work. Rael breathed in deeply, three, four times, watching the figures below, working on the wall. Then she went back to work herself, breaking fractured rock over the next place they'd have to open the face, and clearing the fragments. Hard work, out in the sun. But it was a bit easier, using the techniques that Arith had taught her.

#

Incarath walked back himself, only wobbling slightly, and nobody mentioned that his hand was tightly clasped in his father's. Meren did not walk back; they carried him down in an unwound robe, Arith and Rael each taking up one of the corners, men from the quarry taking the others.

There was talk about it, at the wall, and elsewhere. It was difficult, to be praised for a thing that she had done without thinking, when she had thought about stopping Tei, and hadn't. It was difficult to be a better person when she did not think, and it was difficult to have saved Incarath, and not to have saved her brother. It was also difficult when Meren did not recover quickly. The ankle was not better the next morning, or the morning after. He also coughed up blood, and did not eat with a good appetite. The Taraf's own doctor, a woman from among the scholars, came by to check at the wounds, and she gave a binding of bone-set and desert lavender and a few dried storm-rose petals for the ankle, and a tea of pink sorrel and hilltop mint, to help his stomach.

"It will be some months," she said, when she was done, and Meren was sleeping. "The bone is broken; it may heal well, or it may heal ill. If it heals well, it will be as if it never was broken; if it heals ill. . . it is in the hands of God. We shall do what we can, but it is in the hands of God. The stomach is less troubling; he is young, and that will heal."

Edre and Drase had not been as optimistic as that; they both feared that the internal tearing would be the death of him. Arith, though, listened stony faced, and talked quietly with Meren, into the night, for several days.

Several days later, he approached Rael, as they were heading down from the quarry, the sun setting behind them.

"I need your help," he said.

Rael shrugged, not sure how to answer.

"This was a thing that we planned—me, and Meren, and your mother. Edre does not know the whole of it, but she knows enough that if you ask her, she will tell you that it is just."

"What is it that you need to do?" asked Rael.

"When we came to Taraf the city, we brought with us barrels of wine and of oil, and other supplies that men might bring, when they don't know what welcome they will receive. Some of those bottles of oil. . . they are. . . "

Arith looked to the left and the right; Incarath had been close to them, but he had sped up, when Arith had started talking to Rael. There wasn't anyone there who could hear them. "I need your help, to carry one of those jars out into the desert for me. It is vitally important, and there is nobody else that I can trust with this task."

It had been a long day. True to his word, Nesdran worked beside her, every time she went down to work the face. It was not the same as working with Drase, certainly, but while the other workers in the quarry assumed that Rael knew her business, Nesdran would explain exactly what he was doing, where he was placing the rods, what needed to be done to bring the stone out from the face in blocks that were suited to the needs of the wall. Mostly, Incarath worked with him, and those explanations were directed toward his son. But they were intended for Rael as well, and she heard them. Once the wall was done, she had no intention of working at the quarry again, but knowing stone was knowing stone.

Rael had learned all she could, and had worked as hard as she could, and she was too tired to really understand what Arith was saying.

"What's in the—"

"No. I trust you. We have trusted you with our lives since the day we arrived in Taraf the City. But I will not tell you what is in those jars, and I will not tell you what I will do with them. If there is sin in this, it will be my sin to bear."

Rael gave an uncomfortable shrug. "I cannot tell you yes or no now. I am too tired to think."

There was a flash of Arith's teeth in the darkness. "Thank you," he said. "I had not considered that. No—better that you think things through, and then decide, rather than feel committed one way or another, because of something that you said when you were tired."

Arith had told her that he would not say what was in those jars. But he had not told her that Edre would not say what was in those jars. That night, Hevva went to visit her husband-to-be in his family's courtyard, as she always did, and Drase and Izren were in the church, studying the law with the scholars. So Rael and Edre were alone together, and Rael asked Edre what it was, that Arith was asking her to do.

"It is the blood-price of your brother," said Edre. "There has been no offer, not within the city, not without the city. If they wanted, they could have paid. But they did not want, and they did not pay. This will collect it."

"How?" asked Rael.

Edre shrugged. Rael recognized the gesture. Whether or not she knew, Rael's mother was not going to be answering any questions along those lines.

"Should I do this?" asked Rael. "To go out into the desert at night, with a man that I scarcely know, for a reason that I don't understand?"

"Yes," said Edre. "You should do this, and yes, you should trust him. Has he ever done anything to show that he is not worthy of trust?"

Rael considered the question. "He has lied before God and the congregation," she said. "And he has not challenged the lie you have told before God and the congregation."

Edre snorted. "You have the height of an adult," she said. "The height of an adult, and more. And you have the years of an adult, and your body is a woman's, not a girl. But if you insist on playing as a child, I will get a cloth, and soak an end in goat's milk, and let you suck upon it, while I sing for you a lullaby."

"Mother," said Rael.

"Child," said Edre. "It needed to be done. You know it needed to be done, and you know that it cannot be undone. Why do you cry about it now? This also needs to be done. Do it, or don't; you are too large for me to force you. But if you think that the lie that I told, and that your father told make it more likely that Arith will threaten you with a weapon when you are beyond the walls of the city, and take from you anything that you do not wish to give him, you are lying to yourself, which is worse than lying before any congregation."

That was true, more or less. Rael might be stronger than Arith, but she did fear him. Not violence from him, not exactly. But . . . well. There had been little curiosity from the other men about the techniques of stoneworking that Arith and Meren had learned, in places beyond sight of the walls of Taraf the City. It wasn't that they were sure that they were inferior to the way things were done in Taraf. But they were sure that they weren't the way things were done in Taraf, and while fear wasn't exactly the correct word, they did not want to know how to do things differently.

Perhaps fear was the correct word. Perhaps they did fear to do things differently from what they had learned from their fathers, from what they had learned from their friends, whose lineages they knew. Perhaps Rael did have that fear with Arith; the fear of things done differently, the fear of things she didn't know. The fear of being changed herself, into someone who was comfortable with things that Rael was uncomfortable with. Right or wrong, she didn't know them.

The closer that Rael grew to Arith—or whatever his name really was—the more differences there would be, in the way she would do things. And yet, and yet. She knew that she trusted Arith. He might have said that Meren made a mistake in holding that beam, and he might have been right about that. But while he had been frightened by how close his brother had come to death and had been lashing out at that fear, Rael knew that it was not just Meren who he was blaming for that fault. Arith saw himself, holding up a beam that was bound to break, causing three deaths instead of one.

The next morning, she told him that she would go out into the desert with him.

#

They did not leave immediately; Arith gave her a smile, and a nod, and walked a little straighter after that. But that night, Meren was not well, and they stayed with him, until at last he fell into a fitful sleep. And then it was the six days of preparation before Sheavesday, and they had to remain behind for the midnight services on the first and second of those nights. But there were no midnight services on the third day. By that time Meren was doing better; he still could not stand upon the ankle that was broken, but he was hopping about the courtyard with the aid of a cane. That night, after dinner and evening services, and after they had all laid down in their beds, Rael rose up quietly, and dressed, and headed out to the courtyard.

Izren was sleeping soundly. The work in the clan army of the Taraf was not as hard as working with stone, but as Izren explained it, it left him tired in ways that working with stone hadn't; both soldiers and stone workers strained their legs and arms and back, but they strained them differently. He certainly was tired enough when he came home. And while Hevva was not so tired, she was more eager to spend her time in dreams. Dreams of Cerin son of Bran, and of a wedding where everyone came and drank wine and ate meat, even the Taraf of the Taraf. Dreams of a house of her own, and children looking up at her, with eyes like clear water. Rael went past her, and listened at the base of the ladder, that went up to the roof. Drase's breath, slow and regular, but Edre . . . she was there, but she wasn't asleep. She knew what Rael was doing; at least, she knew what Arith had told her, and she had believed it.

So did Rael. She left quietly, and Arith was waiting in the courtyard. There was a two-man jar there, the bottom of the jar shaped into a long, straight handle. Rael lifted her half of the jar; it was heavy, but not too heavy. She'd be able to manage.

They went through the night streets of Taraf. There was a bird in one of the gardens that was singing, loud and liquid pure. Everything else was quiet, their steps the loudest sounds.

There was a pool of light by the gate, where the torches were lit. But there was the area where they were building; they climbed up and through the crack, just enough space for Rael to pass through, out from Taraf the City, into the desert.

There was just enough light from the stars and from the sliver of the moon for Rael to see where to put her feet. Arith knew where he was going. He would stop and check the stars, the shadows of the peaks of the mountains. They walked together, silently. It was like a dream; the heat of the sand, the chill of the air, the breeze, the weight of the jar. They went out to the dry course of the Brown Adic river, and followed it for a long time; longer than Rael had expected. Then Arith stopped to check the stars and the hills, and Rael stopped to rest her arms and her legs. That she could manage the work it didn't mean that it was easy.

When Arith stood, she stood too. "No," he said.

"No?" said Rael.

"Stay here; I will take this the last few paces."

"Arith," said Rael.

"Please," he said.

She sat back down, on a slab of stone that had been carried along when the Brown Adic had been in spate, smooth sandstone from the hills off to the east of Taraf the City. There were the sounds of the desert around her; the whisper of the sand in the wind, a distant hooting of hyenas, and Arith's steps and the swish of the jar being dragged through the sands, growing fainter and fainter, until she could not hear it at all.

If this was a moral story, this would be when the tribal raiders would appear out of the sand, and take her away into slavery. If . . . well. Rael tried to convince herself that was what was happening, that she was about to be punished for her sins, and for the sins of her parents. But she wasn't going to be. She didn't know Arith's real name, but she trusted him. He would do what he had come there to do, and then the two of them would go back into Taraf the city together. It was just. . . .

Rael was tired. Tired, and a little bit hungry. She had brought a flask of water with her, and she drank, which helped a little. She should've brought some food with her, but she hadn't realized how far Arith was planning on going. Tired, and hungry, and it was exciting, in a way that children's games had been exciting. Like when they had played at being soldiers, and she'd knocked down four Ard boys at once, two with each hand. The sort of exciting that made things seem interesting, that made her heart race.

It was also the sort of exciting which left her wanting to throw up, and made her legs jittery. It was very strange to feel that, as an adult.

When Arith returned, they headed back along the banks of the Brown Adic, quietly.

"What's your name," said Rael, finally.

"Arith, son of Arith," he said.

"What was your name before you came to Taraf the City?" asked Rael.

Arith was silent. "If I tell you this," he said. "It makes you complicit in what your parents have done, and what I have done. Even more than you already are. You are better off not knowing. I am better off if you don't know."

Rael didn't answer him; another long stretch of walking in the starlit sands, beside the dry river.

"Maset," he said. "Son of Nerin."

"Maset," said Rael.

"Arith."

"Fine," said Rael. "Arith. What was Nerin like?"

"He was a soldier," said Arith. "He fought against the Anoasath of the Anoasath, and when that fight was lost, and Meidir the City accepted the rule of the Anoasath, he did not know what to do. He gathered us together, and went with us to the church. He prayed, and we prayed with him. We were not sure what he would do; he had his axe with him, and his spear, and a merit chain from the Meidir of the Meidir, and a saw-toothed knife at his belt. I think that he was hoping that God would speak to him, and tell him what to do."

"What did God say?"

"I did not hear God say anything. But the Anoasath of the Anoasath heard that a captain general of Meidir the City had gone to the church with his weapons, to pray to God. And the Anoasath of the Anoasath went to the church, and spoke with my father. The Anoasath was not armed, and he came in alone; my father had his axe and spear and saw-toothed knife. But my father did not strike. He talked, and then he listened. And then he served as a captain general of Meidir the City."

"So where did you learn to work with stone?"

"That was my mother's family," said Arith. "The line of Sedran. My father sent us to work with stone, rather than in the army, even though he had taken the Anoasath's words when he had sought the word of God. So I learned the great hammer, and the carving hammer, and the chisels, and all that. But I also learned the axe and spear and knife. And . . ."

He was silent for a time. "And you miss him," said Rael.

"I miss him," said Arith. "When we agreed, when we disagreed. I was needed here, so I am here. But it is difficult, when I think of the family who I left."

"What have we done?" asked Rael.

"It is what I have done," said Arith.

"It is what we have done," said Rael. "Unless you could have carried that jar out here on your own. The water-course—"

"Please," said Arith. "I will tell you, if you ask again. But please don't ask."

Rael was silent. They had taken something out to the watercourse of the Brown Adic, far from the sight of the walls of Taraf the City, in the dead of night. Her mother had said that it was Tei's blood price, something that the Red Scarf tribe had not even attempted to pay. It was. . . Rael didn't ask. She walked together with Arith in the darkness, until the comforting bulk of the walls of Taraf loomed up in front of them. They slipped in through the gap in the wall, went back to their home, to snatch a little bit of sleep, before they had to go to work in the morning.

"Thank you," said Arith, when he went to his house. "For what you have done, and for the trust that you have placed in me."

Rael wasn't sure what to say. She felt flushed, and tired, and confused. And she was not sure what dreams she wanted, in those few hours that she had, before she had to go back to the quarry, and get back to work.

#

It was late in the afternoon, when the news came back, from the men of the army of Taraf the City, who had been patrolling out in the wastes. It was late enough that they were not going to be getting much work done, and it was the fourth day of preparation before Sheavesday; some of the men had already started their purification. So the men from the quarry, along with the guards from the army who had protecting them, went out to see what it was that had happened.

The Red Scarf tribe was dead. All of them, men and woman, children and sheep. They lay in groups, their scarves like slashes across their throats. When Rael realized what she was seeing, she was not much further away than she had been from Tei, when he had been killed. Remembering Tei made it easier, to see the scrawny bodies of the tribesmen laid out like that, their clothing fluttering in the wind. They had been killers and thieves and they had been a refuge for killers and thieves. They had killed Tei, and now they were dead.

It didn't make it easier enough for her to go any closer. She turned her head away, from the bodies, from the men of Taraf the City, who were walking among the dead. Some were already digging graves in the sands beside the course of the Brown Adic. Rael knew what she had done, and she did not want to see it. She turned, and walked back through the desert. Incarath had also gone down to see what had happened, and he walked back behind her.

"You don't have to—"

"The deserts alone aren't safe," said Incarath.

"They are now," said Rael.

He hadn't considered that. He stood there behind her, as she trudged back to Taraf the City, so that she could clean herself, before the evening services.

There were always men and women who did not make it to the evening services. Perhaps they had worked harder than Drase of the line of Peor, and had to sleep as soon as they returned home, or perhaps they had more to do that Edre wife of Drase, who had a family of seven for whom she did all the cooking and cleaning and weaving, while preparing for her daughter's wedding. There were also those who were ill, or unclean, or who had duties in the army, or had been employed to clean the streets, or were otherwise working at tasks that could not be put aside, even for prayers.

But that night, there was not a man nor a woman in Tarath who did not attend the evening services, unless their duties absolutely could not have been put aside. There voices were loud, when they were saying the psalms, and they were louder, when they sang the hymns of thanksgiving for the days of preparation before Sheavesday.

That night, when it came time for the scholar-priest to lecture to them on the law, he gave them the laws of celebrating a miracle. There were gifts that were to be made to the poor, to the support of the church, to the support of scholars; there were prayers of thanksgiving, there were the customs of giving gifts of new clothing to children, for those who could afford such things.

This was wrong. But how else would it have seemed? The tribes, particularly the Red Scarf tribe, had been strangling Taraf's trade with the south. This would mean food in their mouths, it would mean . . . what besides a miracle could destroy the enemies of a city, who would be able to flee before any army the city could mount? All at once, men and women, children and animals? This was the hand of God manifest.

Rael knew that it was not the hand of God made manifest; it was a two-man jar of something that Arith had brought up out of the South, and which she had helped him carry to a hidden cistern of the Red Scarf tribe.

It had done all those things; it had avenged Tei and it had avenged the theft of gold from a guest of Taraf, it taken the hand away from the throat of Taraf; it would mean that the caravans would return, both from the south, and to the north, and they would not have to fear raids and fires of the tribes. It had done good for Taraf, but it was no miracle. 

She had done that.

She had not gone close to where the corpses lay, but she heard from the men who had; there had been babies who had lived longer than their mothers—they had crawled in the sands, and they had died of the heat of the day, when it fell on them.

She had done that.

There were men who were found dead who had been known to the men of the army of Taraf the City. They were rievers, who had slaughtered the Reach Aurem, which Taraf had built a generation before; those men had still worn combs and beads that they had taken from the women of the reach in their hair, when they had been found. These were the raiders who had preyed on caravans that were too small, that had lost too many guards to the weather, or to other tribes. Now they were dead.

She had done that.

Rael did not know what to think, or what to say. Edre knew. Rael had read that in her mother's eyes when she returned after the scholar-priest had led them in celebrating the miracle after the evening services. But her father did not know. He had been troubled by what he had seen, when he went to help bury the bodies, that they not be left to jackals and hyenas. "They were men," he said, as they walked back through the streets of Taraf. "And they were women. They were the murderers of my son, they were our enemies. But it is best not to forget that they were men and that they were women."

If Rael talked to him about what she'd done. . . would he be able to look at her, as he had when they had gone out to see the new work on the wall? Would he. . .what would he think?

What did she think?

The day before Sheavesday, it was not customary to work. The men of the militia performed their exercises in public, along with every man who practiced his martial routines. The weavers seldom practiced, and the men who worked in fields seldom practiced, and the merchants and traders would only learn the martial routines if they had a post in the militia. But the men who worked with stone would always distinguish themselves, on days that the militia displayed. Rael went, and watched Arith moving with his axe in time with the other men, singing the words of the war hymn.

His father had been a fighting man. He worked with stone because his father preferred that to letting his sons fight for the king who had conquered his city. Arith still moved like a soldier, though there was the heaviness of the stone-worker's movement as well. His turns were sharp, his positions precise. If war came to Taraf the City, Arith son of Arith would stand on the front lines, and with honor, for all that he was not a member of the clan army, or the city army, or even the militia.

When the practice was over, Rael went to him. He could see that they wanted to talk, so he went with her to the plain beyond the eastern gate, where they could see the progress that had been made on the wall. Close enough that the men guarding the gate could see them, far enough away that they could not hear them. Privacy, without impropriety.

"What is it?" he asked.

"All of them?" asked Rael. "Even the babies?"

Arith shuddered at that, as though she had hit him. But then he settled his shoulders, looked at her directly. "Even the babies," he said. "If not, they would have known that Taraf the City had killed their families, and they would have raised up armies among the tribes, or they would have died from the shame of not raising up those armies. What life was there for them, what life was there for us, if this was not done?"

"Arith," said Rael. "They are calling this a miracle, and—"

"Rael," said Arith. "The blood of your brother was crying up from the sand. This was what needed to be done."

"I have walked in the desert," said Rael. "I never heard the blood of my brother. Just the wind, just people talking, above the sand. Just my memory of my brother. There were times he would urge others to fight, and there were times that he would urge us not to fight. He was right, usually. If he told me this was right. . ." she shook her head.

"Rael," said Arith, more softly. "I am sorry. Meren had come here to do this with me. But he couldn't, and if we delayed, the Red Scarves would have moved to further reaches of the wastes for the winter, where I would not have been able to find their cisterns. I asked for your help, because you were the only one I trusted. Now it is done. Tei was your brother, not mine. If you wish to talk to the scholar-priest, or to the Taraf of the Taraf, I will not contradict you, unless you say things that I know to be false. I led you out, I did not tell you what we were doing until it was done. If you wish for me to bear the consequences of this sin, I will not say a word or lift a hand against you."

"I don't. . ." No; that would help nothing. It wouldn't lessen her sin, it wouldn't—

"If you could make it so that it was undone—if we could go back out there, and refill the jar, and bring it back to the storeroom, so that none of of this had happened. Would you?"

Rael took a step back. That was a good question, and she didn't know the answer.

"We can't," she said.

"No," said Arith. "For better or worse, it is done. If it is something that you are glad was done, then let it rest; this is the price of living in a world where men sin against other men. If we all obeyed God, there would be no wars and no feuds. We do not. Sin begets sin, and the instrument of punishment is himself punished. It was a sin that I committed, that night. Now the Red Scarf Tribe will not commit the sins of theft and murder. I will be punished for the sin I committed, and the innocent will benefit."

That was. . . well, it made a sort of sense, but at the same time, Rael could not shake the image of the children, of the woman lying on the sand, with their scarves around their throats.

"I suppose," said Rael, uncertainly.

Arith nodded. "If you decide otherwise," he said. "I am completely in your power. Always."

There wasn't anything else to say about it; they went back into their city, and prepared themselves for the festival.

#

Sheavesday started at sunset, and the crowds gathered in the church for the evening services, wearing their festival clothing. However, instead of the harvest that usually decorated the front of the church, there were sealed jugs—wine, perhaps? But it was not customary, and there were grumbles from those in attendance, and people talked about it throughout the prayers. Rael had hoped to talk to God, to find out what she should do, in much the same way as Arith's father had talked to God, when his world had seemed to end. But she could not concentrate, not with those mutterings around her.

And after the prayers ended, instead of the scholar-priest rising to expound on the law, the Taraf of the Taraf rose up. He was wearing a festival mantle, with gold and red on the borders, but the main color was white; it looked more like what would be worn for a funeral than what would be worn for a holiday.

"There are those who have called what happened to the Red Scarf tribe as miracle," he said. "That it was God smiting the wicked, and leaving the righteous unharmed. These jars hold the water that was taken from a hidden cistern, found near where the Red Scarves lay. Those who believe that we had been given a miracle are welcome to drink from these jars, and see if God will smite them, or leave them unharmed."

Rael felt weak in her seat, like every eye in the church was on her.

"There are those who will call killing the innocent along with the guilty good, and who will call the laws of water in the desert evil. They are welcome to call things what they wish. But I will stand with the laws of God and I will stand with the customs of my clan against those who poison wells in the desert. There are those in this church who will say that the laws that God gave, concerning how a city is to be founded, and how a city is to be ruled evil and outmoded; they may say that God did not understand how things would change."

His gaze swept across the congregation; when it passed over Rael, she felt as though she was nailed to the bench on which she was sitting; there was no pity in his eyes, and there was no fear. He had declared a feud with the scholar-priest of his city, and even though he was the chief of the Taraf, that was a fight he might lose. She knew that, and he knew that. But he had decided to make this his stand.

"I am the Taraf of the Taraf," he said. "If there are those here who wish to abandon the clan that has founded this city, that has protected them since the first stone was laid, to whom they have all sworn their loyalty and their honor, I will not hold those people to their vows. You and your allies have poisoned the water of strangers, to allow you safe passage through the routes to the south. Take what they have given you, and go. I will remain here, and my family will remain here, and we shall not be shifted from this place, not by axe and spear, not by threats and whispers, not by poison and dagger."

Then he returned to his seat, beside Korem, scholar-priest of Taraf the City.

Korem was furious, and he half rose. But then he got a better look at the faces of the men and women who were in the church. He hesitated, rose further, but then sank back to his seat, and said nothing.

The people of Taraf the City did not love the Red Scarf tribe. There had been no protest, when the Red Scarf had been declared anathema. When it seemed that God had struck down the Red Scarves, the people of Taraf had been prepared to declare it a miracle, and offer prayers of thanksgiving and money to charity in celebration. But the laws of water in the desert did not bend, depending on who one liked, and they applied to those declared anathema as stringently as they applied to a man's own brother. The people of Taraf knew that. Rael had poisoned the water of strangers in the desert, Arith had poisoned the water of strangers in the desert, and if it was known, no mercy would temper the sentence they would face.

When it was clear that the scholar priest was not going to say anything, everyone else in the church decided to say something, all at once. Drase led his family out, and they went silently, as the crowds argued. They ate the festive meal, in the courtyard, with Arith and Meren. It was a festive meal, with bits of mutton cut into the pulse, but it was as glum a meal as Rael could remember. Not even the meals when they had been mourning Tei had been so quiet. She did not know what to say, or what to do. She went and lay in her bed, but could not sleep.

Hevva went out, after the meal ended, and came back later, furious.

Edre was in the courtyard, preparing the dough for the next day's meal.

"Father is needed," said Hevva. "He sits in the church, saying nothing, as people fight outside. How can he call himself a scholar of the law, when the scholar-priest of the city has been shown disrespect by the Taraf, and he does not dispute it? The young men—"

"Your young man is fighting?" asked Edre.

"Of course he is!" said Hevva. "The Taraf called the scholar-priest a poisoner, in front of God and in front of the whole congregation. How can anyone who loves God and who loves the law not fight?"

"By staying at home with his family, or staying in the church and studying the law," said Edre.

"Mother!"

"Or do you think that the young men will be able to drag the Taraf of the Taraf out into the streets, and whip him for his insolence?"

"It will show him that he cannot act like this, to a scholar-priest of the city!" said Hevva. "It will show him that—"

"That he needs to call out the clan army of the Taraf, and that he needs to use force to restore order to his city," said Edre. "Do you wish for your brother to have to hold his father's head in one of those buckets, until he drinks and dies?"

"He. . ." Hevva gave a scornful laugh.

There was the crisp, sudden sound of a slap. "If you challenge the Taraf, when it is his army on the gates, and it is his army on the streets, and when the people of his city know that the scholar-priest of the city declared poisoning wells to be a miracle? You will be lucky if your young man is not given the traitor scar on his forehead, and forced to live beyond the walls of the city. My husband is not so great a fool."

Hevva was silent. "Scarred?" she said, finally.

"If it goes beyond young men shoving other young men, there will be examples made. We would be better served—"

"We would be better served with a king," said Hevva. "The wells. . . maybe that wasn't right, but the Red Scarves were murderers, and we know it. We know it better than most. If there was a king, there would be enough men in his armies to trap a tribe like the Red Scarves, and defeat them honestly, in open battle."

"And do you think that shoving people in the street will open the gates of Taraf the City to a king?" asked Edre. "If God wants for us a king, God will deliver us a king. Acting foolish in the hope of gaining a king will do us no good."

Hevva had no argument for that. Rael had no argument for that. She didn't want there to be an argument for that. What they had done had killed people, and now it seemed like the fact that they had killed people would get other people killed. If she could lose herself in the law, she would. But where Drase saw a beauty that he could not put into words, Rael just saw dry argument, discussion of things that mattered in places that weren't the desert, to people who weren't her.

Besides, her problem was not that the law was unclear, or that she needed more cases, so that she could deduce a rule from them, and apply it to her life. Her problem was that she had assisted in the poisoning of water in the desert. Arith had said that if she gave a report to the Taraf of the Taraf, he would not try to stop her; he would try to help her to avoid the consequences of what she had done, even if she did that, as best he could. But she had seen the Taraf's face, and she had seen the faces in the crowd. If she told them that she had assisted in the poisoning of water in the desert, Arith would die for it, and she would die with him.

Whether or not she deserved it, she did not want to die, and she did not want Arith to die. She could see him helping the others, as they worked in the quarry, she could see his smile in the night, the strength of his arms and of his will, the way he talked, when he spoke of his father. He had taken a sin upon himself for the good of the community. God would judge him for that, but. . . but Rael would work. Her problems were her problems, but she did not wish to end them all.

#

Sheavesday was difficult, and the days after Sheavesday were no easier. Those jars did not leave the front of the church, not until someone broke them all, late at night, to the fury of the Taraf. The men of his clan army went out through the streets, to asking anyone had seen anyone going to the church in those hours, and they received answers to their questions. While Hevva's young man did not have to stand before the court, for scuffling with soldiers or smashing jars, three other young men did. The scholar-priest Korem, The Taraf of the Taraf, and Leselle, a woman from amidst the scholars, sat in their mantles in the courtyard of the church, to hear the case before them.

Rael was working that day, as was Drase, and Edre kept Hevva home, to help with preparing the gifts for her wedding. But Izren stood as a guard to that trial. As he told it, if the boys had said that they broke the jars because they wished to destroy, or because they did not wish the church to be defiled by poison standing before the dais, or for any other reason, their families would have had to pay a fine to the Taraf of the Taraf, for the breaking of his jugs. Instead, they said that they did not believe that the Taraf had the authority to put things in the church, and they said that he lied about having taken it from a cistern beside where the Red Scarves had fallen.

The scholar priest Korem, and Leselle, the woman from among the scholars, tried to convince the boys to make other arguments, but the boys would not.

The Taraf then had the parents of those boys go out with his soldiers, to the place where the Red Scarves had been found, and to the hidden cistern which his men had uncovered. They drew up water there—the parents of the boys who were standing at trial—and brought it back to Taraf the City.

The parents and the soldiers confirmed what they had done, and the Taraf of the Taraf asked the boys if they wanted to drink from that water.

They were all old enough to be counted as men, but they were none of them older than fifteen. Two of them did not wish to drink; the third one took the jar from his mother's hands, but before he could drink, his father dashed it from his hands. When the Taraf tried to offer a jar himself, the scholar-priest argued that it was not right; then the Taraf offered it to the scholar-priest Korem to drink, if he believed that it was a mystery from God, and not poison in the cistern. Faced with that choice, the scholar-priest Korem did not drink, and gave the ruling that the boys were to be marked with the rod, and scarred as traitors, and sent to live outside the gates of the town.

As was the father who had knocked the cup from his son's lips. Izren had found that to be the most troubling of the sentences that he had seen carried out.

"The boys. . . that should not have been pursued, but then they should not have said what they did. They were given every chance to be sensible, and they had chosen to slander the Taraf of the Taraf, while they were before him in judgment. But the father—"

"He interfered with a ruling of the court," said Drase. "That is the law; when a court of three judges, which includes a scholar-priest of a reach or of a city, or the chief of a reach or a city, chooses to gather evidence for the ruling, any who interfere with this gathering of evidence are given seventeen stripes with a willow-rod, or with a strap of calf-skin, and are marked with a scar, so that all may know that they can not be trusted to keep the laws of man and of God."

"But what should he have done?" asked Izren. "Let his son drink poison from his mother's hand?"

Drase considered the question. "I don't know," he said, finally. "Perhaps it was not poison?"

"It was poison," said Rael, flatly. Her mother flashed her a warning look, but that was all that she was going to say.

"The Taraf of the Taraf would not have brought those jars to the church unless he tested the water of that cistern on a goat or a sheep," said Edre. "He was willing to see a child kill himself, for his pride."

"Not for his pride," said Drase. "For his authority. These were not children; they had fifteen years, and the signs of manhood. They declared him a liar, in front of the court, and in front of the congregation. The court gave a merciful sentence for that; they are lucky they did not lose their heads."

Edre shrugged. "At least the jars of poison will be gone from the church, for Hevva's wedding. That would not be a good omen, being married in the sight of those things."

Hevva shuddered, dramatically.

"The Taraf would have removed them for the wedding," said Rael. "He sees himself as being in our debt."

"If—" Edre swallowed back whatever she was about to say, went back to preparing the dough.

"This way," said Hevva, "we did not have to ask him for a favor, and let him feel that he has paid us back for what he has done."

Rael shrugged. No point in arguing that.

It was true that the church would not have looked so welcoming, had there been jars of poisoned water—jars of water that she had poisoned—standing beside the dais, when Hevva and Cerin son of Bran stood on the dais, and declared themselves to be husband and wife, according to law and to custom.

In ordinary times, the lines of Ard and Peor would have had someone from the scholars bless the wedding. Perhaps even someone ordained as a scholar-priest, because Drase was respected among the scholars. But these times were not ordinary, and it was an occasion when the scholar-priest of Taraf the City, and the Taraf of the Taraf could join together in celebration. So they were together there, and they danced together, and they both gave pigeons, and pigeon eggs, and fine old wines from their own store for the wedding celebrations.

The ceremony was fine, and touching, Hevva radiant in her mantle of sky-blue and purple, Cerin looking solemn and frightened and impossibly young in red and yellow, Drase and Edre smiling, fully smiling, the first time since Tei had died. The meal was finer than that—it was the only time Rael could ever remember feeling not even the least bit hungry, when there was still meat upon the platters, as well as breads made with drippings from pigeon and sheep and goats, and seed-cakes, and pastries.

This time, nobody pushed at Rael for Tei's death. Perhaps stories had spread about what she had said and done at the engagement celebrations. More likely, now that the Red Scarf tribe was dead, that affair was closed, and there was no longer any need to have someone to blame.

Arith remained close, though. He wore a festive mantle, and he wore it well, the power of his shoulders clear beneath the waves embroidered on his mantle. Perhaps he was hoping to defend her, if she was once again attacked. Or perhaps there were too many people who he did not know. Or, perhaps, he was there because he wished to be close to her.

That was an uncomfortable thought. If it was a simple thing—if he needed her to poison a well in the desert, or if he was staying close to her to make certain that she didn't speak of it, that would be one thing. But he gave no indication of wanting to do anything else; they had brought that poison up from the south, intending to use it, and they had used it. And if she said anything, no matter what excuse she gave, she was as guilty as he was.

Besides, he didn't sound like someone who wanted something from her. He would bring her food, and they'd talk about this and that; the people there, the floor and the walls of the church, which had been laid by the line of Peor, five generations back. He'd laugh when Rael said anything unkind about the other guests at the wedding, and he was interested in the old lines from the quarry that had given the blacker granite of the floor, and of the columns behind the dais.

Whenever Rael had a cup of date wine, Arith would have one as well. So eventually he staggered back home, and while he was helping Meren, Rael wasn't sure which of them was walking less steadily.

She watched them fondly, hoping that they didn't fall over, and get hurt. Meren still couldn't put much weight on his leg. And Arith had not been mixing enough water with his wine; he'd been drinking three parts water to one part wine, instead of the proper four or five.

"He didn't live under our roof for thirty days, you know," said Hevva, who'd appeared suddenly behind her. Rael turned, a little unsteadily. She had been drinking five parts water to one part wine, but she'd had a bit too much to drink herself.

"I am aware," said Rael. Hevva looked good. Her feet and hands had been painted with yellow ochre for the wedding, but she had been dancing so much, there were just smudges of yellow left, here and there, behind her knuckles and on her ankles, and she was as sweaty as if she'd been working on the wall all day, instead of at a wedding.

"Good," said Hevva. "He's a fine man, and he looks at you well; you should marry him."

"Yes mother," said Rael. "You are certainly an old expert at being married."

Hevva laughed, and gave Rael a hug.

Rael was unbalanced a little, because of the wine, and because of Hevva's warm, sweaty weight, pressed against her waist and side, like when she had been little, and had jumped and caught onto Rael, like a desert rat on its mother.

Rael smiled, steadied them both.

"I'm sorry," said Hevva.

"What?" said Rael. "Why? What have you done?"

Hevva shook her head, still holding on, not laughing. "I blamed you for what happened to Tei. I knew that it wasn't your fault. But it didn't make any sense—he was there in the morning, and it was fine. I needed to blame someone who was there, and I hated you for months."

Rael patted her sister's head, awkwardly. "I know," she said. "I didn't mind. I should've—"

"No," said Hevva. "No, you work very hard. I hadn't really seen that. I don't know if anyone has. Father doesn't watch you, when he's working—his attention is fixed on the stone, and at his tools, and when he wasn't paying attention to those things, he'd be thinking about them. Everyone else, they watch themselves, or the stone, or they think of other things."

"But you watched me," said Rael.

"Yes," said Hevva. "I think that Arith also watched you, a little. And you are. . . if you were like me, or like mother—maybe I could blame you, even just a little. But you are like more like father than any of us. You're more like father than father! When Tei wanted to go, you had to let him go; that is your nature. I don't blame him for being Tei, I don't blame you for being Rael. I blame the tribesman who stabbed him, and he is dead, and those who sheltered him are dead, so all is well."

All wasn't well, not really. But . . . "Thank you," said Rael. "But it is your wedding, and the flute players, and the drummers aren't tired. Let's dance."

Hevva pulled back, looked up at Rael, and smiled. "You are a terrible dancer," she said.

"Yes," said Rael. "But that's not really the point, is it?"

"No," said Hevva. They danced together, and the women and the young men whirled around them. And Rael danced with Cerin son of Bran, who had a worried look, like he'd either just realized that he was getting married, and what that meant, or that he was afraid that Rael would step on his feet, which she might have, but didn't.

And then she went home herself, to think about the wedding, and what Hevva had said, and how Arith and Meren had looked, staggering back to their bachelor home, across the courtyard from the house of Drase and Edre.

#

Despite what Hevva had said, all was not well. Meren's ankle kept troubling him, and after the celebrations that followed the wedding, he decided to join a caravan headed back to Meidir the City. Well, he had said that he was going back the reach Ezem, where Rael's cousins lived, but Rael knew where his real parents lived.

It was a difficult choice, difficult for Meren, difficult for Arith, difficult for all the men who worked in the quarry and on the wall. Incarath thought that he was responsible for Meren's injury, and was desperate to come up with some way that Meren would be cured. But there wasn't any way. He had looked better at the wedding, but afterwards, that ankle was worse than ever; if it was not healing, it would not heal.

"It's not that we were poor, in Meidir," explained Arith, when he had a few minutes of privacy with Rael, on their way back from the quarry. "It's just that there wasn't meaningful work for us to do. We came here because there were things that needed to be done here. If Meren will not work in the quarries and on the wall—and he cannot, and he will not be able to for some time—it is best for him to recover beneath his mother's roof."

To recover beneath his mother's roof, or to die beneath his mother's roof—when a bone was broken, and did not heal right, it was not unusual for death to follow. Or. . .

"Meren will not drink too little water, when the caravan is traveling," said Rael. "Or let himself fall behind, because of his leg."

"No," said Arith. "No; I have talked to him. If he does not recover, he will learn pottery, and he will study the law, and support himself in that fashion."

"Good," said Rael, and didn't say any more about it. Arith believed that Meren did not intend to die, and she hoped that Arith was right. Self-murder was a grave sin, and though there were some scholars who argued that taking insufficient care was no worse than making a risky voyage, or in fighting where it was not clear who was right, none of those scholars were from the Daebara school; the scholars from Daebara knew the deserts too well to believe there was any chance involved at all. Going to the desert without sufficient water was as certain as opening a vein.

The next day, Nesdran led Incarath down from the quarry, with Rael, with the most recent block they had taken from the new face. The earthen ramp that went down from the quarry to the wall was a work of generations; the slope carefully chosen, so that the stones could be brought down from the hills without requiring too much heavy pulling, and also without the stones leaping free, and crashing forward.

When one of the Ard boys had said something about stone having a mind of its own, Drase had been furious. Stones did not have minds, and did not have spirits—stones were not living things. Stone would act when acted upon, and would not act unless acted upon. If a stone fell, it was because it was insufficiently braced; every stone of that weight and shape would fall the exact same way. There was no malice in stone, and no choices. But Rael had to admit that there were times that it felt like stone had a mind of its own. When they led that stone down the slope, it would slow sulkily, and then threaten to run ahead, the ropes twisting in their hands as it tried to go off to the sides.

Perhaps any other stone of that weight and that shape would have pulled in precisely the same way, as they went down that precise ramp. But while Rael accepted that as a matter of faith, her faith did not stop her from swearing under her breath at every twist of the rope in her hands, and threatening the slab with a session with her great hammer, once it was down below.

Once they reached the base of the ramp, the stone no longer tried to lurch off to the sides, or ahead. It was simply a great, rough-cut slab of granite, which they had to pull out to where the working on the wall had reached. Rael knew stone, and worked stone, but it was not easy for her to like stone, when she was pulling a dirty great slab like that along the sand, with the sun on her back, and the wall stretching out in front of her.

Nesdran took up a working hymn, and they followed along, the stone lurching forward with each response from the others from the quarry. It worked; they moved it to where it needed to go, to where the workers at the wall would build their framework while they dressed the stone, and then tie their ropes and harness to lift it up into place.

Rael sat in the shade of the wall, and gulped down her water. Nesdran talked a little with Drase before he sat, and then ambled over to her, and drank down his water.

"The last time I asked you not to return to the quarry," said Nesdran, "you asked if Incarath would be returning to work in the quarry. Drase has approved, and Incarath will be staying here, to work on the wall, until it is finished. You will do the same."

"Nesdran," said Rael.

"The quarry has taken your brother, and it has maimed your cousin," he said. "I do not want you to return. Your father will send other men up, to replace you, and Meren, and Incarath. This is your place, and Incarath will learn how to dress stone for the wall; this will give him choices that he did not previously have."

"And Arith?" asked Rael. "I do not see him here."

"When he hears that you are not going to be returning to the quarry," said Nesdran, "he will arrange things that he can come down to work on the wall, and arrange for someone to replace him as well. I have seen the way that he watches you when you work; you need not be disturbed on that score."

"You thought it would be easier to convince me than to convince him?" said Rael. "I do not intend to shy away from the work."

"It is not fear to see that the luck in a place is bad for your line," said Nesdran. "And it isn't that I think it would be easier to convince you than Arith. I know that it will be easier to convince you than both you and Arith, when you are together. If I had brought him down, you would have to have been convinced as well, or you would have remained in the quarry, and been unhappy."

Rael took a long drink from the water jug, and passed it to Nesdran, who drank just as deeply.

"I have brought your great hammer with me," said Nesdran, and Rael bristled, as Nesdran untied it from his back, and leaned it against the wall beside them. She had worn her carving hammer and chisels at her waist, as one did, but generally, one left their great hammer behind, when moving a heavy stone. It wasn't right for anyone else to handle her tools, and Nesdran knew that. He was embarrassed by what he had done, but he was not apologizing.

That was what convinced her, in the end. If Nesdran would go so far as to take her hammer without her knowing about it, carry it down the whole way from the quarry to the wall, it was more important to him than Rael had thought. And what was she fighting for? She had learned about the work in the quarry, and learned that she could do it properly. But the line of Peor were expert in dressing and setting stone, more than anyone. This was where she belonged.

"You don't have to take Incarath out of his place," said Rael.

"I talked with him about this," said Nesdran.

That was not something men did with their sons; they decided, and their sons obeyed. Except about issues like marriage or leaving for a newly founded reach. Rael was stunned into silence.

"He is a man, and not yet a man," said Nesdran. "He has learned more from you than he has from any of the other workers in the quarry. It would be difficult for him, to think that you lost a place that you did not intend to lose, because he was insufficiently careful when removing a timber beam. I hope that he will learn a great deal here, and be able to teach our line something of fine dressing of stone."

"Nesdran," said Rael, warningly.

"It will keep him busy with something new," said Nesdran. "If I leave him to do the same thing that he has done, he will think about mistakes made, and he will not concentrate on the stone."

Rael took the jug from him, and drank again.

He shook his head when she offered it back, and then looked away, back up to the hills, where, in the distance, they could see the marks that the quarry had made on the slope of the hill. "Please," said Nesdran. "I would not be able to concentrate on my own work, otherwise."

Rael couldn't find the words. She nodded, took one last swallow, put the stopper in the water jug, and went to talk to her father. And then to Incarath, to show him the use of the measuring strings that the line of Peor used. It was not the same as the techniques used by his family, the line of Muldet, and he concentrated fiercely.

When Rael let him try what he had learned, his measurements of the block they had brought down were off by four knots in depth, and two in width; concentration was not an adequate substitution for practice. Still, four and two wasn't bad at all. He'd probably get it before too long.

Despite everything else, it was good to work with her father again. As everyone else set to their tasks, she measured the gap where the stone would sit, and then inspected the block for fractures or weak points, made sure that it could be trimmed to fit that gap. No words spoken, other than those concerning the stone and the wall, but there was more than that said.

As Nesdran had predicted, Arith came down to work with them the next day. He also didn't measure with the techniques of the line of Peor, and while his measurements were only off by a half-knot in width, and less than that in depth and length, those measurements were off. If Arith had insisted, Drase would have let him dress the stone, but it would've hurt Drase to see someone whose chisels he didn't know cutting one of the main wall blocks. Cut it a quarter-knot too tight, and they'd have to adjust their design, or fit it somewhere that would leave a gap. Fortunately, Arith didn't insist. He helped with the rough cut, and then went to work on tearing down the sections of the old wall.

"He does that well," said Drase, as Rael and him worked on smoothing the faces of the granite. It was the inner wall, and it wouldn't be seen, but it would be smooth, so that there would not be any spaces within the wall for snakes and scorpions to nest, or for rock to chip and fracture and fall.

Rael looked over her shoulder, and watched Arith bring his great hammer down on a cracking limestone block, encrusted with the remains of mudbrick. It shuddered on the impact, dust falling from the stone. Hammer went up, and came back down; the stone cracked beneath it. There was that power flowing through ankles and calves and hips and . . . she turned back away from that, and back to the stone that she was smoothing. She was not there to watch Arith.

"I've said before," said Drase, seemingly unaware of what Rael was thinking, "that I am not a judge of men. I would add to that, I am not a judge of stone."

"Father!" snapped Rael.

"No," said Drase. "I can tell you if a stone is sound or fractured, where it would serve best, and where it ought not be used. But I can't tell you if a stone is good or evil."

"Stones aren't good or evil," said Rael.

"Then they don't need a judge," said Drase. "Men do, but I am not a judge of men. I do not know what is in that young man's heart; I do not know if he is good or evil. But he is sound, not fractured—he will do what he is intending to do."

"I am sure he will," said Rael, crossly. "And if you can spare some attention to the stone in front of us?"

Drase laughed, and clapped her on the shoulder, and they got back to work. That was all that he was going to say on the subject, and it had been good to hear. And it was good to work with her father. The quarry had been an education, but this was what she was meant to do.

#

They worked on the wall together for more than a month. Stones from the old wall were removed, and broken up, and taken for other uses. Slabs came down from the quarry, and they were cut, and dressed, and smoothed, and lifted into place. The work of the renewal of the wall of Taraf the City had begun, years ago, just beyond the eastern gate. Now they had reached the eastern gate again. If the renewal had begun with the gate, rather than beside it, they would be done. But they'd left that task for last, and it wasn't a simple one.

The timber for the gates of Taraf had come from beyond the northern plains, from some distant land, where trees grew as close as palm trees beside an oasis, wild and strong. Those gates had worn grooves in the limestone of the old gate, and the design had been a simple thing, two gates, one in front of the other, with a small chamber between. The new gate had been designed by Drase of the line of Peor, and those gates were not going to be a simple thing. The chamber between the inner gate and the outer gate was long and narrow and twisting, and there was to be a tower built above those gates, to house soldiers, and let them rain down arrows and stones upon any who came up and tried to force the gate. This was not the dressing of slabs from the quarry, it was cutting stones carefully, to precise measurements, and then trying to fit them into an arch, like they were working with mud bricks, rather than granite.

This was where the difference between the systems of the line of Peor and the other lines mattered. Any man could measure a stone block, and be accurate to a knot or two; Incarath had done nearly that well, the first time he had measured a stone for trimming. Improving that was difficult, but took not great ability or insight. This was different. Seeing the whole mechanism of a gate in one's mind, to know the stones that would be needed, that took Drase of the line of Peor. Rael could help, but she could not have done the work. Nobody else came close. Drase would lay the stones down on the sand, after they had been cut, and then they would see if they fit, twice, three times. Then they would fit, exactly, not a tenth of a knot off from where he thought they would sit.

The framework for holding the stones in place while they worked was woven reeds and timbers, the last that the Taraf of the Taraf had to spare. It would creak and groan beneath them as they climbed it, raising up stones to fit them into place. Always raising stones up, never lowering them back down to recut them; Drase's figures were too accurate for that. The line of Peor did not work with mortar when it could be avoided, but there was no avoiding the use of mortar in an arch like the one that they were building for the eastern gate of Taraf the City. So there was the smell of burning lime in the air, as well as the creak of timber and reeds beneath their feet, as the gate took form.

Up in the quarry, they were not sending down any more stones; everything that was needed had been cut and delivered. Nesdran and the others were clearing the fractured stone above Tei's Line, so that they would be able to send down large slabs of clean granite, the next time Taraf had need of stone of that quality.

During the construction, the gate could not be closed. And though the threat from the tribes had ended with the Red Scarf tribe, there were always men from the army of Taraf the City, as well as men from the Taraf clan army on guard there; there were times that Rael could see her brother Izren standing in armor, his axe at his belt, and a spear in his hands. Though he had not been in the army for even a year, he was in command of ten men. He showed his confidence, and pride in his position, his back straight, his eyes always on the far hills, or on his men. That was a fine thing to see, while she worked.

Once the arch spanned the gap between the walls, and heavier stones were above, there were fewer troops on guard. If danger appeared, they would be able to retreat within the city, and break the supports holding the stones up overhead. The arch was a marvel, one of the great works of the age, but until it was finished and protected by heavy blocks of granite, it could be brought down with a few strikes of the great hammer at the correct point. Once everything was finished, and they lifted those timber doors up, to open and close according to the word of the Taraf of the Taraf, the gates of Taraf would stand forever.

While they were still working on the second arch for the first gate, there was a sudden warning from Izren, who was in command of the troops at the gate, and his men went down in front of the gate, spears at the ready, the slingers behind them, stones already in their slings. Visitors to Taraf the City came by the western gate. By custom, usually, but by the force of law, while the construction continued.

Some of the stone workers went back behind the gate. Drase looked to Rael, who was not moving, so he had to remain. And Incarath remained beside her. Arith, though, gave them both a polite bow, and retreated. Showed who had sense in the family, but Rael wanted to see who it was that was approaching.

It was not an army, sent from the cities of the south. It was a small company of men—before the tribes had been driven to retreat by what Rael and Arith had done, it would have been too small a group to be safe in the deserts. When they grew closer, and Rael could see the man at the head of the party, old, but still walking with vigor, and with a gold and white mantle thrown over his shoulders, with the green and blue of the Daebara school all around its border.

Korem, the scholar-priest of Taraf, wore green and blue on the collar of all his mantles, but not all around the border. That was reserved for the head of a school.

All the other men of the party, even the soldiers who stood on the outside of the group, wore the collars of scholar-priests. The slingers let their slings stop spinning, the stones falling to the sand in front of them, and the soldiers raised up their spears, so they were not pointing weapons at the head of the Daebara school, and the scholar-priests who accompanied him, when they came to Taraf the City.

Messengers must have started running through the streets of the city as soon as the strangers were spotted, because the Taraf of the Taraf came up to the gate just a little before the scholar-priest of the Daebara school came to it. There was sweat at the back of his neck, and on his tunic, but his face was impassive.

The Daebara stopped by the gate, and looked up at the arches, then at the Taraf of the Taraf. He was old, and his eyes were dark and deeply-set. "I bring greetings from the school of Daebara," said the Daebara.

"Thank you," said the Taraf, but he didn't step aside, or welcome the Daebara to his city. "What has brought you so far from your school, and from Quinat the City?"

"There have been questions of law raised that need to be answered," said the Daebara.

"The central question is a simple one," said the Taraf of the Taraf. "Would you call the poisoning of water in the desert a miracle?"

Rael took a step back, she was that shocked. One didn't talk that way to a scholar-priest, let alone to the head of a school. She half expected the Daebara to call down lightning from the clear blue sky.

"It might be," said the Daebara, and he didn't raise his voice, or given any sign of anger. "It would depend firstly, on whether this event occurred as described. If it did not, I would not call it a miracle; only things that have happened can be miracles. If it did occur as described, it is possible for a well to be miraculously poisoned, just as it is possible for foul water to miraculously become clear. I would have to determine whether the well was poisoned by man, or by a natural process, or by the direct working of the hand of God. I have come to Taraf the City seeking answers for this question, and other, related questions."

The Taraf of the Taraf shook his head, not entirely satisfied.

"The law says, do not judge in haste," said the Daebara. "Examine the evidence, according to the law, and examine the witnesses alone and together, so that the facts of the matter are clear. Once the facts are established, then let the affair be judged by the scholar-priest of the city, and by the clan chief of the city, and by a third judge who is from the scholars, or who has authority in the matter being judged. And only then can there be a ruling on a question such as the one that has been put before me."

"The clan chief of the city?" asked the Taraf. "There are five cities of the south, but the chiefs of four of those clans have been died without their heirs being recognized before God and the congregation. Are there then no matters decided in four of the five cities of the south, since these tragedies have occurred?"

The stone workers and the soldiers had both been shocked to hear the Taraf of the Taraf take this tone with the head of the Daebara school, and now they were shocked to hear something spoken openly, which had not even been addressed behind closed doors.  

It was true that the Anoasath of the Anoasath held the cities of the south in his palm, and that the Daebara school had allowed his reign to continue. It was true that the Anoasath was the enemy of the Taraf, and that they would likely remain enemies until one or the other was dead. But Taraf the City had taken its scholar-priests from the Daebara school for seventeen generations. Only the Daebara had its school in a desert city, and only the Daebara had examined the matters of law that applied to the deserts. For the Taraf to acknowledge that the Daebara was on the side of the enemy of the Taraf was. . . it was a crack in the foundation stone of the city. 

"Until such time as the crisis passes," said the Daebara, and Rael could hear the edge of grief in his voice, "there is one who acts in the role of clan chief, for matters of law."

"But did not the Daebara school rule that a crisis of this sort could not last longer than five years? And was this ruling made not fifteen years ago?"

"The ruling was in error," said the Daebara.

"Fifteen years from now," said the Taraf of the Taraf, "what errors will be discovered, to change the requirement for there to be a crisis into a thing that endures forever, that allows a king to appoint his son to be a king after him, that ends the rights of the families that built reaches into cities?"

"The future is not known to any man," said the Daebara. "And all men make errors."

"Why have you come to my city?" asked the Taraf. "Is it to determine whether the crisis here is such that I must be killed, and my children exiled, so that a man make temporarily take the rule of clan chief, in matters of law, just until the skies empty themselves and the seas swallow the world?"

"No," said the Daebara. "That is not why I have come. I have come to determine the fitness of the scholar-priest Korem to serve as the scholar-priest of a city. There have been reports that have come to the school of Daebara in the holy city of Quinat concerning rulings that he has made, and laws that he has recited from the dais that make me doubt that he is competent to serve. If there is a crisis, I do not know of it."

"And when an army comes to this gate, will you tell them that they are in violation of the law? Will you stand for the rights of a city, against the whims of a man who calls himself a king?"

"No," said the Daebara. "My school has not done so in the past, and will not do so in the future. We study the law, and rule on the law; we do not defend city gates."

There was a silence between them.

"If I am not welcome in Taraf the City," said the Daeabara, "I will go. And fit or not, the scholar-priest Korem will not spend a night within the walls of a city where his teacher is not welcome; this is the law."

For a moment, just for a moment, Rael thought that the Taraf of the Taraf might tell the Daebara to leave, and leave Taraf the City without a scholar-priest, until he could get one to come down from one of the schools of the plains. It would mean trusting matters of law to the scholars of his city, and they would know that there was going to be a scholar-priest coming who would adhere to different versions of the law than the ones that they had learned.

But he bowed his head. "You are welcome in my city," he said. "Please, come and eat with me, and drink water in my house."

The Daebara bowed in return, and went through the eastern gate of Taraf the City, his head held high.

It took some hours after that before Rael could find enough privacy to talk to Arith, without fear of being overheard. "What happens?" she said. "When the Daebara investigates, and learns the truth of what happened that night, out in the desert? He has said that he will investigate; what happens when he discovers the truth?"

Arith looked unsteady. "He is a man," he said. "As he said, all men make errors. Perhaps he will not discover the truth?"

"And if he does?"

"Then I die for what I did," he said. "And you will be punished for what I convinced you to do; if you lie to the court, you will die as well. If you don't lie to the court. . . I don't know. I don't know if there is any way for you to escape the punishment for my crime. I am sorry, Rael; I hadn't thought that the Daebara would come out to look into this matter himself."

"You didn't fear the scholar-priest of the city, or the Taraf," said Rael. Arith had thrown out the possibility of the Daebara not discovering the truth, but he hadn't believed it. Rael knew him well enough to see that.

"No," said Arith. "But the Daebara. . ." he shook his head. "It is believed here that the Daebara fears the Anoasath of the Anoasath. But this is not believed in the cities of the south.  When the Anoasath sent troops after the children of the Erai of the Erai, the Daebara declared him anathema, until the sons of Erai were allowed to pass through all the armies of the Anoasath, to dwell in the plains, and to spread hatred of the Anoasath in every ear that will hear them. If. . . I do not believe that even if the Taraf of the Taraf abandons his city to the Anoasath, that the Daebara will give up this investigation. There is nobody who will protect you from what I have done. And if the Daebara decides that the Anoasath is responsible for the violation of the laws of water in the desert. . ." Arith shook his head. "I don't know what will pass."

"You do not fear God's vengeance for what you have done," said Rael. "But you fear a man of God's vengeance."

Arith looked as though he would argue. Then he puffed out his cheeks, and let his shoulders slump. "You're right," he said. "That is a difficult thing to hear without arguing, but you are right. I will have to think about this."

"And does the Daebara, or those priests with him—do any of them know who you are, really?"

"No," said Arith. "I have seen him from a distance, three times before today. I believe that your cousins have never seen him. Still; I will stay away from the church, when I can, and if he will engage me in talk about Medir the City or the reach Ezem, I will act even more frightened of him than I already am."

"If you urinate on your robe out of fear," said Rael, "you would be unclean for three days, until the morning of the fourth day."

Arith winced, then shook his himself, like he had been asleep, and was trying to wake up. "Perhaps I am more frightened than I should be. But in the cities of the south, there is the Anoasath and there is the Daebara, and we fear them both, and we fear when the time comes when the two of them will battle with each other. Even among the most loyal servants of the Anoasath of the Anoasath, and the most passionate scholars of the Daebara school do not know who will triumph in that battle."

The Taraf of the Taraf had nearly turned the Daebara away from the gate of his city, and the Daebara had been willing to leave. If the Anoasath of the Anoasath turned the priests of the Daebara school out of his cities, what could they do? The people would not love him for depriving them of teachers of the law, but the fact was, they had allowed the Anoasath of the Anoasath to kill the lords of their cities, and exile the remainder of the families of the founders of their cities. She could not understand Arith fearing the Daebara more than he feared God.

#

The Daebara and the priests with him moved into the houses that had been set aside for visiting scholars of the law, in the years when Taraf the City had allowed strangers to spend the night within its walls. Every night, the Daebara spoke from the pulpit. And while Rael was afraid every day for what God would do to her for what she had done to the Red Scarf tribe, she did not begin by fearing the head of the Daebara school. He was old, and he put his weight upon a lectern when he recited from the law.

But where Korem would ask questions and give answers, or quote from the rulings of three or four different schools before saying how the Daebara ruled, the Daebara would ask questions that would worm their way in her mind, twisting and turning throughout the lecture; when he was done, and he explained how the school of Daebara ruled, Rael understood that that was the only way that they could have ruled. It was as though she became a scholar of the law, during his disquisitions; somehow, his questions had clearer answers in them than any answers that Rael had heard, either from the lectern, or from her father, or from the books of the law. It was a very strange thing, and it made her fear that his investigations into the miracle of that cistern, before Sheavesday.

All she heard was rumors, and second-hand talk from Izren, who would sometimes guard the Daebara, as he looked into what had happened. The Taraf of the Taraf had taken some water from the cistern on the first day his men had found it, and had kept it hidden away. The Daebara gave some of that water to a goat, and who died in convulsions, with a froth on its lips.

This was a poison that had come from the south, according to the scholar of medicine that he had brought with him. So he started looking through the lists of caravans that had arrived at Taraf the city, and which of them might have brought a sufficient quantity of that poison to leave an entire cistern so deadly, that any who drank from its waters would die.

Sooner or later they would reach the caravan that had brought Arith to Taraf the City. And while Edre was prepared to swear that the jar that had gone missing from Arith's stores had been used for Hevva's wedding celebration, Rael was certain that any lie she might tell would be caught by the bird-lime hidden in the questions that the Daebara would ask. Even if they could lie to him, it wouldn't matter; he would interview witnesses, he would send messengers back through the desert, and he would learn that Arith son of Arith was not Arith son of Arith. They could not hope to avoid that. Arith, and Drase, and Edre—none of them would be able to avoid the consequences of what they had done.

They worked, as the tower went up. If Rael had died in the quarry accident that had maimed Meren—if Arith changed his mind, and decided to return to the city of his birth, maybe they would be able to escape. But she had not, and he would not, not even when Rael asked him to go.

Perhaps she had been wrong to press him to fear the wrath of God more than the wrath of man. Now he intended to stand and to answer, and if he was able to escape, that would be in God's hands, not those of man. Arith said that if he ran, that would confirm who he feared, and who he did not fear, and he did not wish to die in that state. Rael could find no argument to contradict that, so all there was left to do was to work on the gate.

Rael felt like a condemned man who was kneeling in the courtyard of the church, his neck bare, as the scholar-priest of the city inspected the axe that was to be used to kill him, making sure that the blade was clean of nicks and scratches, and that it would be suitable for an execution. Every breath was heady as wine, every grain of sand seemed to have a world of meaning in it, everything had an infinite weight, because of how soon she would have to leave it.

And every breath of wind was a threat, every shadow made her jump. When judgment fell upon them, it would not only fall upon Rael and Arith, for their murders. The Taraf of the Taraf had come to their house for a meal, and he had made Izren a captain of men in his own family army, and he had danced at Hevva's wedding. What he would do, when he found out how the line of Peor had betrayed him?

Rael had accused Arith of fearing man more than he feared God. But the truth was, she worried more about the harm that her words had done to a man who she had not known for even a year, than she did about the sin that she had committed before God, than the sins that she had allowed to stand unchallenged before God. She cared more about what would fall upon Arith's neck, than what would fall on her own, or upon those of her parents and siblings.

That night, she went and prayed in the church. It was difficult, to stand there, and to say the words that were said by the penitent. Rael wasn't even certain that she was a penitent. Two Red Scarves had killed her brother, and the rest of them had sheltered that murderer. They had stolen things that weren't theirs, and refused to give them back. There was crime upon crime that the Red Scarves had committed, and they had enjoyed the fruits of those crimes for generations. It was wrong to poison water in the desert, yes, and a sin. But nothing else had been done about the Red Scarves, and nothing was ever going to be done about them. God and man had conspired to shelter her brother's killers. Could she have let that slide? Would it have been right to let that slide, to allow the murderers to laugh and drink above the sand, while her brother slept below it?

If the Daebara pulled the truth out by its roots, she was going to die for it, and Arith was going to die for it, and her parents were going to die for it. Even if the Taraf did nothing to her, what would Hevva do then? A new-wedded bride, with all her relatives rightly executed, to the excoriation of the whole community? There would be no way for Izren to continue in the Taraf's army. Where would he go, once he was expelled?

Arith had to leave. Whether he wanted to or not, he had to go; she would make that clear.

And God?

She was in a church, and she was supposed to open up her heart before God. So she did, and she told him that she was not going to submit to his law, that she was not going to allow Arith to face the consequences of his sin, she was not going to let her parents face the consequences of their sins, and that she would face his justice in the long silence of the underworld, not before the judges of Taraf and the whole congregation.

But though she thought those words in her heart, they left her feeling sick and dizzy, like she'd spent too long in the sun without water. The fact was, she knew her obligations to her family and to her city and to Arith and to God, and they were all in conflict. There wasn't any end that would satisfy them all; they would all be disappointed, whatever she did.

After the services, the Daebara stood, and one of the scholars brought forward a lectern for him to lean on.

"What are the laws of a clan who has founded a reach, and has made that reach a city?" asked the Daebara. There were murmurs in the crowd about this; they did not expect the founder of a school that had tolerated a king to say anything that would be acceptable to the Taraf of the Taraf, who sat in his accustomed place on the dais.

Korem, the scholar-priest of Taraf, could not sit in the lectern when his teacher spoke, so he sat among the scholars, one scholar among many.

And at first, it seemed as though the Daebara was going to speak out in favor of kingship. The laws that he quoted, acknowledged by major schools—they all allowed for kings at certain times, for certain purposes. It was not the usual thing for a reach to become a city quickly enough that the man who was the first chief of a city would still have his father living in the city which founded that reach. But if that happened, the lord of the reach owed more fealty to his father than the lords of any of the cities of the south owed to the Anoasath of the Anoasath. If there was a war of many cities against many cities, there could be a paramount chief, who would have the same authority as the Anoasath, and there were attested cases where the situation lasted for three, or even four generations, without demur by any school.

But when the Daebara gave those rulings, explained the findings of the different schools in all those cases, he undermined them as well. It was true that there were kings, from time to time. But the lines of kings never ended well; God allowed for them, but God did not love kings. Yes, the army of a king might conquer a city; there were laws concerning conquest of that sort, taught by all the schools. But it was the duty of all men of the city to resist an attack by a king; even a child who did not show the signs of manhood, even women who had never had the bleeding of a woman, they were obligated to take up what weapons they could, to fight against a king who had come to conquer.

Then came the closing psalms, and then they went home.

Drase had to know the danger that he was in, had to know the fate that was rushing towards him. But he went to the church in the evenings with a faster step than he had ever had before; the words of the Daebara were like wine to him, and he went to hear them like a drunk to a wedding.

When Drase left, Rael tried to find Arith, to talk to him, but his door was barred, and he did not answer Rael's knocking.  

She sat there for a time, her back against the wall of Arith's house, as though it was the city wall, and she was taking a break in the shade, before getting back to work. She was so empty that her bones were not even bearing her weight. She was stacked up like a pile of timber, waiting for the hand of the craftsman.

It would end. It had to. The end would hurt, and it would hurt everyone she loved. It would be hard to stand before the congregation and admit what she did. It would be harder to see her parents executed, to see Hevva watching them all die, to see Arith brought out to the courtyard and killed. But it would end. It would be over, and at long last, she could give over the load that she carried, end her day of work, and sleep.

#

Once the arches of the new gate were built, the rest of the work moved faster. The more weight they put over the arches, the stronger those arches became, forced to hold their position by the weight on them. The workings were complete enough that the army would only send a small complement to stand guard, keeping watch from above the gate, as the tower went up around them. The mechanism to open and close the great timber gates was complicated, so that while the holes and channels for the ropes had been prepared, the ropes themselves had yet been fitted.

Rael hoped that the tower would be finished before the line of Peor had to face the consequences of their actions. It would be the last thing that the line of Peor would do, and it would pain her to leave it incomplete, to be finished by the Ard, and by men like Incarath. They were well meaning, but they did not know stone well enough to do justice to Drase's design.

Izren was there that morning, with the men of his command. He had never given any indication of knowing that Arith had been born someone other than Arith son of Arith, nephew of Edre wife of Drase. So he would not know what would happen when the Daebara took a closer look at this immigrant from the southern city. He was proud in his armor and weapons, and Rael could see the way the men of his command looked to him—he was a leader to them, and they admired his dedication to his role.

She wanted to tell him, and wanted to shelter him, and she very much wanted to put down her load and rest. But, instead, she shared her lunch with him. Neither of them said much, but it was good to see him again, to eat together in the shadow of the wall, like they had ever since they were old enough to carry food out to their father as he worked.

After lunch came work. Rael and Drase were working below, working on one of the last heavy slabs the quarry workers had brought down, cutting out stones for the tower. Then something caught Rael's eyes, off in the distance.

The soldiers on the gate had sounded no warning, but there were men coming from the hills, and this was not the head of a school with his priests, or a caravan that had taken a wrong turning, or even a pack of tribal raiders. This was a line of men, approaching in good order, and over the sands, Rael could hear the distant strains of the battle hymn. Rael had heard that before, but it was one thing to hear it in church, or even on holidays, when the militia sang the battle hymn as they mustered, and another to hear it by men in armor, weapons bare, coming across the desert towards her.

Rael shouted, and the other stone workers looked up.

Up on the wall, Izren and his men looked away from the men who were coming toward the city. And Arith stood in front of the pillar that held up the base of the arch, his axe in his hands.

Drase looked where she was looking, and Rael could see him understand what had happened. What his son was doing, what Arith was doing, what was planned for Taraf the City, and for the Taraf of the Taraf, the part he had played in all of that. He looked like Incarath had looked, when those stones had fallen on him. But then he chose, put his hand on Rael's shoulder, pulling her toward the city.

Rael shook his hand off. He gave her a long, questioning look. Then her father left, back into the city, in order to allow what was planned to happen.

The men were coming across the sands. There were shouts from within the city, from further along on the wall.

Rael stood there, her tears dripping down on the sand.

Incarath was standing in the shadow of the gate, looking at Arith, holding his great hammer.

"Go!" shouted Rael.

Incarath stood his ground, took a step towards Arith.

"Don't make him kill you," said Rael. "He will, and he will regret it."

"But—"

"Go!" repeated Rael. "I will deal with this."

Incarath went.

It was just Arith and Rael. She picked up her great hammer from where she left it. The shadows had shifted since she had put it down, so it had been out in the sun. The wood was warm to the touch, and the hammer felt light in her hands.

"I—" Arith looked at her. "This is how we can live, and not die," he said. "This is what Taraf the City needs, to live, to prosper. If it's not this, we die. It will not save the city from the Anoasath; a long war will come, and a siege, and it will fall regardless. Children will starve."

Rael said nothing. There were tears falling from her eyes, spatting on the sands like the first drops of a desert rain. She stepped toward him.

"Who dies?" she said.

"The Taraf of the Taraf," said Arith. "And those of his men who stand by him. No more than that."

Rael shook her head. It had all been leading to this. This was why he had come to Taraf the City. "The Red Scarves—the tribes would have given a warning to Taraf the City, before what happened to the Red Scarves," she said.

"They also killed your brother," said Arith.

"They. . ." that was true. But that wasn't what Arith had come there to do. "How much was true?" she said. "How much was lies?"

"I. . . " Arith shook his head. "There are things which started as lies, but which are no longer lies. Against my father's wishes, I joined the armies of the Anoasath of the Anoasath, and I intended to continue in those armies. But I would rather live out my life as Arith son of Arith, a worker in stone. If you would have me, that is. The rest—you will have to look into your heart, and decide what is truth and what is falsehood. As before, so again; my life is in your hands, and I will abide by your judgment."

The men were coming up behind them. The thunder of the battle hymn rattled her bones, though they were still not close. The law said that when an army came up against a city, even children, even the elderly—if there was no feud, if there was no case at law which had been lost, they were obligated to stand in defense of their city. Arith stood before the pillar, and his axe was in his hands. She saw him then as Arith son of Arith, but also as Masit, son of Neram, whose father had been ready to kill all his family in a church of God, until the Anoasath of the Anoasath had talked to him, and showed him that he could serve with honor.

Arith's beard was neatly trimmed, the short dark hairs bright in the sun, tightly curled. He had the strength of a soldier, and also the strength of a worker in stone. For better or worse, Arith knew stone. For better or worse, Rael knew stone.

Stone, sound stone, was not like wood, which would bend, and would bend a little further. Stone did not bend; when too much weight lay upon it, it broke.

Rael was not sure if Arith intended to keep his word. It didn't matter. Her great hammer was moving with no thought. It was the stroke that Arith had taught her, coming from her toes and up and around and through, with no stiffness in hips or shoulders. His eyes widened, maybe; she could not be sure. By the time he could do any more than widen his eyes, the hammer was moving too quickly to be stopped. It went where Rael chose, and it shattered his skull like it was a pigeon’s egg.

Arith dropped to the sand, dead, dead, dead, his blood and gore covering the front of Rael's robe. But the war hymn was still shaking the air, the men were still charging toward Taraf the city. If she. . . Rael stepped forward, swung her great hammer again, just as Arith had taught her, finding the weak place of the stone of the pillar, just as Drase had taught her. The rock fractured, and the gate above her groaned, and dust trickled down, just as it had when Meren had saved Incarath's life.

Beyond the gate, Incarath watched, open mouthed. How much had he heard, how—

It didn't matter. A sling stone cracked against the pillar, and she could see the fracture marks spreading in the stone; if a shot like that hit her arm, it would break it, if it hit her back, it would kill her. Another swing. That was it. Like when Drase had hit the cracked slab that they had brought down from the quarry, that had been the correct amount of force, at just the right place. The last strike was not a heavy one; it was from her shoulders, tight, controlled. The fractures spread, and the pillar shattered.

Rael took a step back, automatically, the way one did after hitting a column that would bring down the building above. If she had thought. . . there was no way she could have crossed underneath the whole of the gate. But she could have taken a step forward, rather than back, and died beside Arith, as broken by the falling stone as he had been by her great hammer. She had not.

Now she was outside the wall, alone in the face of an advancing army, with her back to the pile of fallen stone and timber than had been the eastern gate of Taraf the city. In the distance, from somewhere else on the wall, horns sounded a warning. Up above, Izren was shouting, and his men were shouting, but Rael did not care. She was done, she was dead—she had never felt as empty as she did then, not even when she had seen Tei killed. Arith was—her first thought was what she would say, how she would phrase it to make him smile at her. But she had killed him; the army that was coming towards her was almost an afterthought.

They saw the ruin of the gate. One more stone from a sling buzzed past her, to crack against the fallen stones of the gate, but the captain of the troop held up his hand, and the rest stopped. Behind her, soldiers came up on the wall at the sides of the ruin of the gate, soldiers who were there to defend the city, unlike Izren and his troop, and Rael could hear the whirring of their slings.

The captain of the troop that had been advancing toward Taraf bowed, and he was close enough that Rael could see that it was Meren, and that there was nothing false or sarcastic about that bow. There had never been anything false about Meren. But while there could have been no faking of the injuries he sustained at the quarry, it seemed that he had been concealing his recovery from those injuries. When the approaching army wheeled, and retreated toward the hills, Meren ran as fleetly as any of them.

Rael sat down, suddenly. Like a young child, who had just learned to stand and to walk, and who could no longer bear to take the effort. It was near where she had been working. She sat there, and drank deeply of the water that she had brought out in the morning, when she had gone to do her share of work on the wall that was supposed to protect Taraf the City from the Anoasath of the Anoasath, who had made himself a king in the south.

#

It took some time before there was order on the wall above them. And longer still before someone found a ladder, and lowered it down to Rael. Her parents were not home, when they brought her to their house. Had they already been executed? Rael had known what she was doing. If she had let the army through the gate, Arith would have been talking with his friends, and with the other soldiers. Izren would be raised up in the ranks of the army of Taraf the City. He would be gathering up troops of men who thought like he did, and they would be preparing in case those who were loyal to the Taraf decided to fight instead of run. Edre would be home, making dinner ready, and Drase would already be back on the wall, finishing his work on the gate.

She had chosen a lord that she scarcely knew over everything and everyone she had ever loved. That was what God required of her, and what the law required of her, but it was not an easy weight to bear.

The soldiers who had brought her back to her house looked at each other, before speaking.

"What is it?" asked Rael.

"The Taraf of the Taraf and the Daebara both," said one of them. "They want to speak with you. If you have a clean robe—"

"They want to speak to me because of what I have done," said Rael. "The blood is there because of what I have done."

"It is unclean," said the other. "The chief of a city is not contaminated by blood that is spilled on his behalf. But the head of a school cannot be in the presence of blood, without it rendering him unclean."

Rael remembered an argument on matters of law that had seemed to her to be the usual niggling over things that would never happen. "Blood on clothing," she said, "does not contaminate, unless it is covers more than half of the clothing. I will wash myself, if that is permitted, and then I will go to speak to the Daebara and the Taraf of the Taraf."

It was permitted, and though water in Taraf was never wasted, Rael washed thoroughly, her hair and her whole body, and then she put back on her clothing, still stained with Arith's blood, to see the lord of her city, and the head of the school that had supplied scholar-priests to her city for seventeen generations.

There were more soldiers waiting by the entrance to the courtyard of the line of Peor. For a moment, Rael considered climbing up the wall, like she had when she was a girl, and fleeing, running as fast as she could to the wall, and then out into the desert, to die like a child of the Red Scarves, too young to drink water, baked by the heat, crying for her mother's milk.

Instead, she bowed to the soldiers, and they formed up ranks around her. An honor guard, and not an honor guard. There was gratitude and thanks on many of the faces in the street, but there was also disbelief and hatred. Even if there had been only one person who had shown that, Rael would have felt it more deeply than all the honor they were attempting to give her. She did not agree with the honor.

The palace of the Taraf of the Taraf had tall ceilings and broad halls. The Taraf of the Taraf alone waited for her in his hall, and he bowed to her, as she entered into the hall. "Rael, daughter of Edre," he said. "I owe to you my throne, and my life, and the peace of my family. Whatever else is said, I want you to know this. Your life is as precious to me as my own; I wish for you to know this, as well."

"Thank you," said Rael. She ought to have been frightened into silence simply because she was in the presence of the Taraf of the Taraf, let alone in his hall, being told that her life was as precious to him as his own. But in that moment, when her great hammer had flown like a falling star, to crush the skull of the man who she had thought she loved, she seemed to have lost her fright.

"And the life of my brother?"

"Ah," said the Taraf. "Walk with me, please."

The Taraf turned and headed through the hall; Rael followed him.

"Your brother swore his loyalty to me, before God and before the congregation. I gave him a place in my own clan army; I raised him up above his fellows as an officer, and I thought to make him a captain, if he could show that he deserved it through his service. He conspired with my enemy, to bring a hostile army within my walls, to slay me in my hall. I cannot live within the same walls as your brother."

There was hope there. Not much, but there was hope there.

"But before we talk too deeply about these matters there are others who we shall have to talk with, and have to hear. Please—this way."

There was a courtyard in the Taraf's palace. There were hibiscus flowers growing there, and a fountain, making a light, watery noise, and there were birds in the vines along the walls. The Daebara sat on a bench, and watched the fountain. Korem, scholar-priest of Taraf the City, stood behind the head of his school.

The Daebara stood, and bowed to Rael. "In the presence of virtue," he said, "there is little to say."

"Master," said Korem, "the blood on her clothing—this is the mortal blood of a man. If you stay, you will be—"

"Blood on clothing does not contaminate, unless it covers more than half of the clothing," said the Daebara. "And while there are only a few places on the front of Rael's robe that are not covered in blood, the back is entirely clean."

"Perhaps the only thing left in my city that is," said the Taraf.

"Perhaps," said the Daebara. "But you have questions, I think?"

"Who poisoned that well?" said the Taraf.

"I did," said Rael, before the Daebara could respond.

They all looked at her; she couldn't read their expressions. Rael shrugged. "Or at least, I helped. Arith—the man who you knew as Arith son of Arith—asked me to help him carry a jar that he had brought up from the south out into the desert. He told me that it was not a jar of oil, and that it had within it a blood price for my brother. Meren—I don't know his real name, but I know that he was not Meren son of Arith—had been hurt, and Arith needed my help. At least, I thought Meren had been hurt. He was able to run quickly enough, a few hours ago."

"He had been hurt," said the Taraf. "I have talked to the doctor. He might have feigned the injuries caused by strain, but there can be no doubt concerning the injury to his ankle; the doctor felt the break in the bone. However, the doctor did not examine him as carefully as she should have, when checking on the progress of his injuries. I did not suspect then that he had been looking through my city for weakness, to bring it back to an approaching army."

"So Arith needed me to help. I helped carry the jar out into the desert. I was not told exactly what it held, and Arith walked the last few paces himself. I never saw the cistern, but I knew that it was something that would harm the Red Scarf tribe. If it was not for my help, he would not have been able to carry that jar out as far as he did."

The Taraf's expression was hard to read. "If there had been money offered by the tribe—"

Rael shook her head. "My mother would not have accepted it, and I would have followed her example. The man who killed my brother never had to face the family of his victim; he never—" Rael bit off her words.

"I suppose I have other questions," said the Taraf. "And I should like to ask them to the scholar-priest of my city, a man who has eaten from my table for nine years, every noon and every night."

The Daebara inclined his head.

"What is the penalty for a woman who has done this thing?" asked the Taraf. "Who has aided in the poisoning of a well in the desert?"

"It is death," said Korem, not looking at Rael.

"Of course," said the Taraf. "And the penalty for a woman who swore a false oath, and who led her husband to swear a false oath, and who allowed a murderer into a city, from which he committed his murders?"

"Death," repeated Korem.

"And for the man who swore an oath that his wife was trustworthy, that her honor was his, when she was false?"

"He is to receive seventy-one lashes, and be exiled to live beyond the walls of the city."

"And for a man of the clan army of the Taraf, who saw an enemy approaching, and who did not sound the alarm, and who led his men not to sound the alarm, so that the enemy would be able to enter the city?"

"He is to be beaten with the rods, four times, seventy-one lashes each time, and he is to see his men executed before him, and then he is to be burned to death."

"And what is the penalty for a scholar-priest of a city, who has caused all of these things to happen, by refusing to allow a blood-price to be negotiated?"

Korem's head went up, his beard shaking with his rage. "I have administered the law according to right and custom all my days," he said. "That you were too weak to keep the Red Scarves in line was your sin, not mine. That you did not allow the hospitality of your walls to guests is your sin, not mine. That you could not recover the gold that was stolen from your invited guests is your sin, not mine. You cannot put this tragedy upon me; I—"

"Where was that gold, when the entire Red Scarf tribes was poisoned in the desert?" asked the Taraf. "Why was it not found among their tents and among their possessions?"

Korem paused, gaped at the Taraf. Then he shrugged. "So they traded it to another tribe," he said. "I—"

"What did they acquire, for that trade?" asked the Taraf. "Where was their store of new weapons, where were their beautiful foreign wives, where were their new flocks of sheep, where was their fabric of red cloth and of blue cloth? Why was the Red Scarf tribe so poor when they drank that poisoned water, that they didn't have more than three days of flour in their packs? Why were all of their bellies drawn so tight, scholar-priest of Taraf the City?"

"So some other tribe stole what they had stolen," said Korem. "I don't know the dealings of the tribes. If they had been willing to admit to their theft, we—"

"They had little left besides pride," said the Taraf. "They would not admit to a theft they had not committed."

"What was the evidence that the Red Scarves were responsible for this theft?" asked the Daebara.

"There was a man from the Red Scarf tribe spotted near the place where the caravan of Malca of Far Eimath had camped," said Korem. "He was known as a thief, and his tribe was known to harbor thieves. There had been several instances of men of the Red Scarf tribe stealing from the caravans that were not permitted within the walls of Taraf the City. These facts were all attested to by several witnesses; the sentence was passed in accordance with the law."

"When there is no direct proof of a theft," said the Daebara, "the scholar-priest adjudicating the matter is encouraged not to pronounce anathema even on an individual, let alone an entire tribe."

Korem shook his head. "This was not the first time this had happened, and it was not going to be the last; it was necessary—"

"It was necessary to investigate the saddlebags and water jugs of Malca of Far Eimath," said the Taraf, "Malca complained that three basket-weights of gold had been taken from him in his encampment outside the walls of Taraf the City. Not three months after he left Taraf the city, he sold three basket-weights of gold to Beimar of Far Eimath."

"How would you—" Korem shook his head. "He is a merchant! He buys and sells many things."

"But," said the Daebara, "he is not so wealthy a merchant that one would expect him to recover completely from the loss of three basket-weights of gold. And yet, his household grew no smaller, there was no reduction to the number of soldiers who he keeps in private employ, or the alms that he has given. If anything, he seemed to have grown more prosperous since this supposed theft."

"The Red Scarves didn't steal that gold?" asked Rael.

"No," said the Taraf.

"It is not proven," said the Daebara. "But it seems that they did not."

"Then all of this—"

"All the sins of your family," said the Taraf of the Taraf, "they were in keeping with the plans of the Anoasath of the Anoasath. He created tension between the Red Scarves and Taraf the city, and I have no doubt at all that he rejoiced when he heard of your brother's death; that was according to his design, and to the design of Korem of the Daebara school, scholar-priest of Taraf the City."

"No," said Korem. "No. I heard the complaints of the caravaners, I heard the news from the cities of the south, and it seemed to me that the weakness of Taraf in the face of the tribes was leading us to disaster."

"A disaster that could be avoided," said the Taraf of the Taraf, "if I was put out of the way, and the banner of the Anoasath of the Anoasath was hung from my battlements."

"Yes," said Korem. "I will not deny that I think that the city and the people who dwell within it would be better served if the Anoasath of the Anoasath was lord here. But I have committed no sin, in holding these beliefs."

"You pressed for an excommunication on inferior proof," said the Daebara. "You failed to allow the excommunicants to argue their case, as is required by law."

"Tribals?" said Korem. "According to the Maret school, and the elder school of Baern, that requirement is waived entirely, and—"

"According to the Daebara school," said the Daeabara. "It is not."

"Those murderers—"

"You made them murderers!" roared Rael. She had left her great hammer behind, by the wall, when the ladder had been put down for her to climb up. If she had it with her, she would have. . . She took a step forward, reaching for Korem. The Taraf of the Taraf's hand clamped around Rael's arm, and though he was not a large man, his hand was like a vise of iron; it held her in place. "They were hungry, and we denied them food, they were thirsty and we. . . and I. . ."

"The reason that this requirement is not waived by the Daebara school," said the Daebara, sounding completely calm, "is because that while in the plains, the tribes cannot do much against the cities, in the desert, things are different. It is true that the tribes allowed the armies of the Anoasath to pass unhindered, because of what happened to the Red Scarf tribe. And it is true that the tribes have not been able to meet the joint armies of the cities under the sway of the Anoasath, but I am not sure how well this will obtain, once the news of what was learned here spreads in the desert wastes."

"You would allow this to happen?" asked Korem. "You would allow those beasts to mass against Quinat the City, and Far Eimath, and—"

"I do not see how I can stop it," said the Daebara. "This is the crisis that has allowed the rule of the Anoasath to be extended as long as it has—once his grip loosens, the tribes will make war upon the cities, for what he has done to the tribes. If the rains do not fall, the tribes can redirect the water from the rivers in the desert, anywhere along their routes. Even with five cities, the Anoasath cannot mount an army large enough to prevent that. Now, I believe that the Taraf of the Taraf has asked you a questions, scholar-priest Korem, which you have not answered. What is the penalty for a scholar-priest of a city, who has caused all of these things to happen, by refusing to allow a blood-price to be negotiated? And to the sins that he mentioned, you may also add the ruin of at least one of the cities of the south, perhaps all the cities of the south."

Korem was silent.

"If I was asked this question," said the Daebara, "I would not know the answer either. There is no precedent. We will have to bring a scholar-priest who committed these crimes to a full tribunal of the school. Perhaps if we consult with the elders of the Windward Tribes, they may have memory of a text that we have lost."

"Tell me this," asked the Taraf of the Taraf. "If the scholar-priest Korem were to meet with an accident in the desert, what will the Daebara school say, concerning what has happened? If the truth would mean that the cities of the South will be cast down, who will bear the sin of telling lies?"

"I would, if it were necessary," said the Daebara. "As you know. And what will the Taraf of the Taraf do, with this truth in his hands? There is an oasis in Taraf; I have seen it, and it is a fine one, with enough water for orchards of date palms, and fields of grain. But the wealth of Taraf the City comes from the cities of the south. Will the chief of this city allow those cities to burn?"

"When I die, I will face God with blood on my hands," said the Taraf of the Taraf. "Rael, daughter of Edre, wears blood on her robe; all of us wear blood on our souls. If there is a sin in letting those cities burn, is it any blacker than the sins I already bear? Either the blood of the Red Scarf tribe, or the blood of the cities of the south will weigh upon my soul."

None of them disagreed, not even Korem, who had been denying all responsibility and all wrongdoing. Was this how the world was? Everyone carrying the weight of so many mortal sins, they did not even consider the weight of yet another sin?

"Every one of the cities of the south has a hundred times more people in it than there were in the Red Scarf tribe," said the Taraf. "Every one of the cities of the south has scholars who have added to the study of the law, men and women who fashion fine things, who serve God and man, who deserve to live and not to die; if all that blood were to be spilled, it would fill the rivers of the desert, and cause flowers to bloom without rain."

The Taraf was looking only at the Daebara; the Daebara was looking only at him.

"There was less blood in the Red Scarf tribe," said the Taraf. "And much of it was the blood of murderers and thieves. And yet, God gave us the laws of water in the desert. I am not the head of a school, and I am not a scholar of the law. But believe this. I will face God with every single drop of blood from every man, and woman, and child of all the cities of the South on my soul, rather than that of a single tribesman of the Red Scarves. I did not conspire against them. I did not poison their water in the desert. Whatever the consequences may be, between the two, I choose the blood of my enemies." 

"Children," said the Daebara, "beneath the age of three years, are nobody's enemies."

"Then I will bear the blood of the children of my enemies as well as the blood of my enemies," said the Taraf. "And the blood of the aged who live amongst my enemies, and of the scholars who teach at the churches of my enemies. I will bear all of this, even if it means that Taraf the City is reduced to a few families, living off what God gives them through their oasis. At least then my city will not bear the sin of a deed that was instigated and carried out by the agents of my enemy."

He probably hadn't meant Rael by that, but she had been just that—an agent of the enemy of the Taraf of the Taraf. And still, the Daebara didn't argue, and Korem didn't argue.

"This is a crisis that has lasted indefinitely," said the Taraf of the Taraf. "And it will last indefinitely. When the son of the Anoasath of the Anoasath takes up his father's throne—will the law then say that it would be well to excommunicate him, for his power? But what then of the tribes, who are only held at bay by the strength of his alliance? And when it is his grandson? And then, when it is his great-grandson, it will be said that the school of Daebara prefers cities to be ruled by the kings than families, because there is an eternal war against the tribes—the tribes who are our brothers, with whom we share water, and bread, who trade with us the fruit of the desert for the fruit of the cities."

The Daebara bowed his head. "I cannot say that you are wrong," he said. "But I will say this. If you turn the scholar-priest Korem over to the officers of the Daebara school, his case will be examined in the school of the Daebara. And we will consult the traditions of the elders of every tribe, to see if they have come up with a ruling similar to this."

Korem was astonished. "The law is not with this," he said, weakly.

"The law is with this," said the Daebara.

"The Anoasath of the Anoasath will not allow this," said Korem, with a stronger voice.

"If you believe he will interfere with the trial," said the Daebara, "perhaps you are right. But he will not succeed unless he destroys our school, root and branch. The Anoasath of the Anoasath will have to massacre the scholars of the Daebara school, and those who studied from the scholars of the Daebara school. He shall have to heap up their bodies in their homes and in the churches; he will have to slay us at our stations on the dais, and let every festival be a festival of blood. And when that work is done, he will also have to massacre the elders of as many tribes as will gather for this trial. I do not know the will of the cities of the south, or of their people. But I know the elders of my school. We will not make our practice of the law contingent on the rulings of the Anoasath of the Anoasath. Perhaps he will burn our school to the ground; perhaps he will slaughter the scholars of our school. If he does, perhaps it will benefit him. But while I cannot say what he will do, and while I do not see the ends of things in their beginnings, I do not believe he will benefit by that course of action."

Korem glared at them. The Daebara gestured, and two of those burlier scholar priests, who had walked on the outside of the column of men which had come to Taraf the City, and laid hands on Korem's shoulders. They led him away from the courtyard of the Taraf of the Taraf, followed by men of the clan army of the Taraf.

"If he dies in the desert," said the Taraf.

"The question will still be raised," said the Daebara. "If this axe is to fall upon the south, it will become known that it is the Anoasath and his allies who have caused this thing to come to pass. It is to be hoped that it will only be that line which suffers the consequences of what he has done."

"And will this be spoken of in the streets of Anoasath the City, or Far Eimath?" asked the Taraf.

"No in the streets, no," said the Daebara. "Perhaps in the back-alleys. The Anoasath of the Anoasath has a keen ear for whispers, and a way of ending those which displease him."

"I see," said the Taraf of the Taraf. "Well. There are men in the desert tribes who I trust, and who will pass word along; if this does not spread the way you wish, it will be spread in different ways. If nothing else, people will wish to know why Taraf the City has sought a scholar-priest from a school other than the Daebara, for the first time in seventeen generations."

"Ah," said the Daebara, sadly.

"Even if Korem had been an unwitting accomplice to these murders, and to this plot to take my city by sudden storm, I cannot have an unwitting scholar-priest. And I cannot trust another scholar-priest from Quinat the City to be anything other than an agent of the Anoasath of the Anoasath. I do not wish to repeat mistakes. I have sent for a scholar-priest from the school of Sayar. She should arrive in a few days."

The Daebara bowed. "I hope that she serves better than the scholar-priest of my school," he said.

The Taraf turned to Rael. "She cannot serve better than you have. I had discovered one enemy within my walls, but I had forgotten how swiftly my enemies could move. The army that you stopped at the gate of Taraf would have been led by a man who knew my streets, where my troops were, and their strengths. They did not bring tools for a siege, or a sufficiency of water; with one stroke, you changed the course of a city, and of all the south. I would give you anything I can—"

"My brother's life," said Rael. "And the lives of my parents."

The Taraf nodded. "They await my ruling. According to the law, the penalties must be severe, but I am the injured party, and I will set that aside, and allow them to choose either exile or a trial. If they choose the trial—" He looked at the Daebara, who was watching the flow of the fountain. "There are accomplished jurists here, but I can see only one verdict that can be reached, in all their cases."

Rael nodded. They would take exile over death. Not because they would prefer exile to death—those two would almost seem the same. But because of the shame of exile would be less that their deaths would cause.

The Taraf went to the door to the courtyard, and called out for a messenger; they waited as he told him the message that he was to give to the line of Peor; exile, not death. It was good to hear those words spoken, as soon as it had been decided. Exile was a hard thing to bear, but not so hard as waiting would have been.

"And as for yourself?" asked the Taraf, when that was done.

"If it is to come to a choice between a trial and exile," said Rael, "I will take the trial."

The Taraf was startled, but the Daebara wasn't. "I have not interfered with your business," said the Daebara, not looking away from the Taraf's fountain. "But I will offer advice here. This is a woman with nothing; she has given it all. She will take this trial, to cleanse her of what she has done."

For a moment there was nothing but the sounds of the water, as they considered what the Daebara had said. "It will mean her death," added the Daebara. "According to the law. I do not know if that is just, but it is the law; it will benefit her spirit, according to the word of God. But while the story of why Taraf the City has chosen a scholar-priest from the Sayar school will run through streets and alleys, the news of the execution of Rael daughter of Edre would fly on wings. And all who hear it will understand the rewards of loyal service to the line of Taraf."

"Nonetheless," said the Taraf of the Taraf. "If that is what you want, you will have it, Rael, daughter of Edre."

To have a trial, to give her testimony openly, in front of the judges, to accept their judgment and bear the consequences—that was something that she had not known that she wanted, but which seemed better than many other things which she could ask for; better than gold or jewels, or a courtyard with a fountain and hibiscus and birds.

"It is something I desire" said Rael. "But it is not the only thing I desire. There is the gate that I brought down. Many of the stones can be salvaged, and I don't think there is anyone else in the city who understands my father's designs well enough to rebuild the western gate of the city of Taraf."

"So you would stay here, and work stone?" asked the Taraf. "I offer you a reward, and you ask for work."

"I ask for my place," said Rael. "The one I am suited to fill. I. . . I have to talk to my parents, before they go. But I don't know where they are going, and I don't know what sort of place they will find where they are going. But I know Taraf. I know the streets, and the families. I know the stones of Taraf, all of them, in the streets and the walls, in the church and in the houses. I would rather die than leave, but I do not desire death enough for me to leave."

It was a bolder speech than she had intended to make. Rael lowered her eyes, saw the red-brown stain of Arith's blood all across her robe. She would not cry; she had already cried, and she would not cry. She looked back up to the Taraf of the Taraf. "It has been four years since there were rains in Taraf the City; perhaps there will be rains this year, or next year, and we will see the desert plains and hills covered flowers like a sea of flames, pink and red and yellow and orange. I wish to live here, I wish to see this again. If you believe that I have earned this, I will take this."

"It will be some time before people come to you, asking for you to build their houses," said the Taraf. "And there are those who do not love the rule of the line of Taraf, in Taraf the City. They will blame you for the failure of the plan to add our city to that of the Anoasath of the Anoasath."

"If I am killed on the streets of the city," said Rael, "it is as good a place to die as the deserts, or the plains, or a strange city, where nobody knows who I am, or my lineage. If I am not killed, it will take a good deal of time before the gate is repaired. When that is done, people will be able to judge my work by that gate, and decide if they wish for me to build their houses."

"To be judged by our work is all that any of us can hope to see," said the Daebara. "I will warn you, though—the trial of the scholar-priest Korem will involve the elders of many tribes, and will be conducted according to the law and the will of God. They will hear second-hand your testimony of what happened to the hidden cistern of the Red Scarf tribe. It may be that they will desire to hear your testimony directly, and when they do, they may rule you responsible for a share of those deaths."

"Then they will know where to find me," said Rael. "If called to judgment, I will go."

"Of course," said the Daebara. "If you will excuse me? It is drawing close to the time for the evening services, and I would like to put my thoughts in order. I believe that there will be people who shall be interested in what I have to say from the dais."

There absolutely would be. And the Taraf of the Taraf hadn't been able to stop the Daebara from coming into his city, when he had known that the scholar-priest that the Daebara had sent had done everything in his power to destroy the power of the Taraf in Taraf the City; he certainly couldn't stop him from going to prepare his recitation of the law, before the evening services.

It was just the two of them in that courtyard, and the guards of the Taraf. "If you will let me walk with you," he said, "I will take you to where your parents wait."

Rael bowed. She could change into a fresh robe—but no. The reasons she had not changed for her audience with the Taraf of the Taraf remained true. This was what she had done; she would bear the consequences of her actions.

"It will not be easy," said the Taraf, walking with her, out to the western gate, where the caravans gathered.

That was a strange thing for him to say. "I work in stone," said Rael. "It is not easy, and it is not hard. It is as difficult as it is, and there is no changing that."

"I don't know stone," said the Taraf. "But some stones are more complicated than others."

"That's true enough," said Rael. "The gate isn't going to be as elegant as my father had designed it, and it will not be as well built."

"No," said the Taraf of the Taraf. "But it will be better than if you left."

Then they had reached the western gate. He bowed to her, and turned back toward his palace. There were men from the army of Taraf the city, and from the clan army of Taraf waiting there, and they made as if they were going to accompany her; Rael waved them off. She could see her mother and Hevva, drawing water from the cistern that was in place for the caravaners, and their animals. Rael pushed past the donkeys and sheep, as Hevva and Edre watched her, and Drase turned away from the caravaner he'd been talking to, Cerin at one of his sides, Izren at the other.

Hevva hadn't been exiled, but. . . well, it made sense that she would be leaving. Her father and her brother had been involved in the revolt against the Taraf of the Taraf, and her husband had been one of the rioters who had objected to the Taraf of the Taraf arguing with the scholar-priest. It would be difficult for her, on the road, but it would be more difficult for her if she stayed. Especially given what Rael had done.

"Rael," said Edre.

"Mother," said Rael.

"Rael, why have you done this thing?" asked Edre. "Arith was a good man, and he loved you. How could you do this?"

"Mother," said Hevva. "Every morning, and every night, we would go together to the church. And you would tell us to listen to the scholar-priest, to take his lessons to heart in reading, and in writing, and in learning the law. Rael could do this, because you told her to do this."

"The law," said Edre. "Your father is an expert in the law, and he has not said a word against any of this. Do you love the law more than you loved your brother, Rael?"

"I don't know," said Rael. Her tears had already fallen upon the sand, the same sand beneath the gate, that she had stained with Arith's blood. "I did not think. I did what my heart told me was right."

"Your heart!" said Izren. "This is—"

"Mother," said Rael. "The Red Scarves never stole the gold. This was a lie that the merchant told. He sold the gold to a different merchant, when he returned to Far Eimath."

There was a long moment, as Edre swallowed that fact, and what it meant. She took a step back, and shook her head.

"Why would you tell us this?" said Izren.

"Because it is the truth," said Drase.

"How would you know!" said Edre, turning to Drase.

"Because I know my daughter," he said.

Edre turned back to Rael, and looked at her, searchingly.

"I heard the Taraf of the Taraf confront the scholar-priest Korem about this. First he tried to retreat to the law to protect him from what that meant, and then he turned to the Daebara. When the law didn't avail, and when the Daebara would not protect him, he tried to protect himself with the name of the Anoasath of the Anoasath. And while the Daebara will not shout this from the streets of Anoasath the City, or Far Eimath, or any of the cities of the south, he is going to gather up the elders of all the Windward Tribes, to judge the crime that the scholar-priest Korem has committed."

"Why would you tell us this?" repeated Izren, and Rael could see the anger rising up in him. "Why do you come here wearing your lover's blood like a flag, and why do you tell us this thing? This is a matter for kings and chiefs, not for people like us. We cannot change what has been done. We have already been forced to leave our home; do you want us to live out in the desert, with nobody to support us at all?"

"I had thought that Rael was my foolish child, and you were the clever one," said Edre, without turning her head to look at Izren. "If you think this changes nothing, you are a greater fool than Rael ever was."

"But—"

"You have played at being a soldier," said Edre. "You have practiced with your axe and your spear, and counted yourself strong. Never in your life has a single man raised a hand to you in anger, and you call yourself a soldier. All that we have done was in the service of the man who caused the death of my son."

"You insisted that I betray my every oath, that I give up my every ambition, to allow the troops of the Anoasath of the Anoasath to pass through the eastern gate. I have given up everything to obey you. I am a traitor because you told me to betray; if that is foolishness, then I am a fool. Perhaps I have never been a soldier. But I know this—when the stone is slung, there is no changing its course; when the axe has begun its arc, it must continue its stroke. The only place we have left is with your family, mother, and that is in the cities of the south. We will have to—"

"Rael has told us that the law was right," said Drase. "And that we were wrong. We betrayed a city on behalf of the man responsible for the death of my son. I would sooner live in the desert than to spend one night within the walls held by that man."

"Desert," said Edre, with a disgusted shake of her head. "South is not the only direction. We have some silver, and we all have our tools with us. We will find some reach in the north, where they need men who can work with stone, or with axe and spears, and we will make ourselves a place. Or we will die, begging on doorsteps." Edre's back straightened, and she looked Rael in the eye. "Better than that than living on fat lamb tails and roasted quail, given to us by the man who had Tei killed, and has never offered any blood price for his crime."

Rael's breath gusted out of her, and her shoulders dropped. "Thank you," she said.

Izren turned away, and said nothing. That was . . . the stone had left the sling; it would fly where it was going to fly.

Edre didn't pay attention to that. She nodded, and patted Rael's cheek. "You will be the last of the line of Peor in Taraf the City," she said. "There will be proposals of marriage, if only for your houses and courtyard. Choose carefully, and choose a man who knows stone. He will have to take the lineage of Peor on his shoulders, so don't choose someone who will dishonor that. I imagine that Nesdran will make inquiries concerning his son Incarath. You will have to—"

"Incarath? But that was before all this. He saw—"

"It will not be long before you are exempt from the laws concerning respect to your parents," said Edre. "But until then, I would ask that you not interrupt me. If he saw you, all the better. But you will have to tell him about what happened in the desert, with Arith. And you must not rule over him; he is young and he has seen what you have done, so he will allow that. But it is not mete for a woman to rule over her husband."

There were laws concerning the respect due to parents. So Rael did not interrupt, and she did not raise questions about whether it was Drase or Edre who had decided to betray Taraf the City, or whether it was Drase or Edre who was telling her how to run the house of Peor. And the truth was, while those might be legitimate questions, Rael also couldn't say that Edre was wrong. Things might have been better if Drase had run his household.

"If he offers," said Rael, "it would not be for this year. And not for the next. Perhaps after that."

"You will not be younger in three years than you are now," said Edre. "And children are not easier when you are older. But I suppose you will do what you think is right."

Rael's robe was still red from doing what she had thought was right. It did not seem an endorsement.

"It was the northward support pillar that you broke?" asked Drase.

Rael nodded.

"You will need to cut a new pillar, then. The men at the quarry will not like having to cut a long slab, and they will find it difficult to bring one down without causing fractures. But I believe they will do it for you."

"I believe they might," said Rael.

Drase nodded. "And you understand the design? The arch of the inner gate is—"

"I understand," said Rael. "Most of the stones are still sound. It will take some time to separate them, and we shall have to cut some down, to fit in places where they were not cut to fit."

Drase winced. Rael knew stone, but she wasn't Drase of the line of Peor. Only one man was.

"And after the gate is completed?" asked Drase.

"I believe," said Rael. She had not known what she would do after the gate was repaired, but now she knew. "I believe that I shall attend to small jobs, and to repairs, until the broken rock above Tei's line at the quarry is cleared. Then I will approach the Taraf of the Taraf, and ask if he will pay for a wall beyond the western gate, so that caravans may rest in the shadow of Taraf the City, and not have to worry about thieves and raiders from the tribes in the hills around. It will not be as significant a project as the city wall, but it is a thing that is needed by Taraf the City."

"More walls," said Drase, but then he did smile. "Tei was right about that, wasn't he?"

"He usually was," said Rael. She stepped forward, and pulled her father close to her. Drase's hug was stronger than hers; she could feel her ribs creaking against the power of it. Like when she was a girl, and she had done something to make him proud.

"I am sorry," he said. "You asked me questions, and I gave you poor answers."

"No," said Rael. "You gave me the best answers you could; this fault is on me, and on Arith, and on kings and scholar-priests and clan chiefs. You sought only good for me."

"I hope for only good for you with all my heart, my Rael," he said. The hug was already strong; he squeezed tighter. "Be good," he said, softly. "Be well."

"When we find somewhere, and have the silver to spare," said Hevva, when Drase stepped finally let her go, "we'll send you a letter. Have the scribe read it to you?"

"I will give everything I own to hear your words," said Rael.

"No," said Hevva. "Just pay what the scribe asks." Then she hugged Rael again, lightly, her arms around Rael's waist, like they had been at the wedding. "It might have been better if you . . . well. You did what you had to do."

Izren was not looking at her, and neither was Cerin. Rael didn't blame them. They had made their choices, and Rael had made hers; her choices had ruined the lives they had seen for themselves. There was nothing that she could say to them which would change that.

Rael turned away, and went back to Taraf the city, as Edre went to talk to one of the caravan masters who was headed north. She had made her point, with the robe, but she would take it off, have it buried with Arith, when his body was recovered. She would put on a different robe, and get to work; there was still enough daylight to start clearing the stones that she had knocked down, and seeing which pieces could be salvaged, and which would have to be discarded.

************************************************************************

"That was amazing," Maya says. "How come I never heard of him before?"

"He's mostly published short stuff," he says. "Here. Breakfast," He hands Maya flatbread stuffed with roast kid and roast pigeon. 

She takes it. "But even so. If there's someone that good and I haven't heard of them and I haven't been reading their work there's something wrong somewhere. I hope he writes lots of novels and I can read them. What did you say the other one was called?"

"Sunset Mantle," he says, with his mouth full. 

The cat comes up and starts winding himself around Maya's legs and purring. She gives him a sliver of pigeon, and he purrs loudly enough to echo.

"There are some pastries too, from the wedding feast," he says, and hands her a triangular pastry filled with sticky poppy seeds. 

"Yum. No, cat, you don't want poppy seeds!" The cat insists on making sure, but Maya is right, he doesn't like poppy seeds. "All right, my hands are all sticky, so time to wash them." Maya gets up.

He is licking his fingers carefully, and the cat is licking his hind leg in exactly the same way. Maya laughs. "What?"

"You look silly," she says, and runs towards the bathroom. He jumps up and runs after her, and she keeps running, and laughing, until they are back where they started, because each floor of the library is a hollow square around the courtyard in the centre. Then they go to the bathroom, like sensible people.

"It's good to see you acting more confident," he says, when she comes back to their chairs.

"I think it was that book. It made me feel things are possible."

He looks at her, and starts to speak, then stops. "What shall we read next?" he asks.

"What have we got?" The cat jumps up on her lap.

"How about Sherwood Smith's Commando Bats?"

"I love her Inda books," Maya says happily. And they read.