The Law of Becoming: 4 (The Novels of the Jaran) by Kate Elliott Page A

swam on the rippling current. On this side of the river lay the princedom of Hereti-Manas, across it that of Gelasti, but the land looked exactly the same to Vassily. A ford lay down at the bend in the river, and on the other bank stood the town of Manas the Smaller, itself a kind of younger cousin to the city of Greater Manas, the prince’s seat.
    Here where they camped, the merchants’ wagons covered a whole grassy area, bounded by trees on one side and on the other by the high grass and reeds of the damp ground nearest the river. Insects riddled the air, except where fire and smoke drove them away. Riasonovsky had a third of his men on watch, but many of the rest had wandered over to the little bazaar the merchants had set up. A fair number of people, mostly women and old men, had forded the river from Manas the Smaller to come to bargain and barter and buy.
    Even the newest boy sent to the army from the plains could have as many copper coins as he could carry, so Vasha and Stefan had money. They paid two copper coins each to the merchant from Parkilnous who doled out kava in tin cups. They lingered at the edge of his stall, sipping at the hot, bitter drink while they surveyed the makeshift bazaar, which they had come to know well in the twenty days since Riasonovsky had agreed to let the little caravan of five merchants and their entourages and goods travel with the jahar.
    Master Larenin, the Parkilnese merchant, sold spices and seeds and nuts and beans, as well as salt, and the exotic smells alone were reason enough to linger by his stall. A Jedan man, Benefract, displayed his usual array of utensils and pots. Skins and worked leather and furs, some of which were traded for local varieties, came from the stall of the Yossian merchant Hunyati, who hailed from the Yos kingdom of Dushan.
    But Vasha found Sister Yvanne’s tables most interesting. Sister Yvanne sat, as she usually did, in a heavy brocaded chair and supervised while two young men (Vasha wasn’t sure if they were her sons, her nephews, her apprentices, or her slaves) did a brisk business in what Katerina had condescendingly informed him were religious goods. Tiny silver knives, pendants to hang from gold and silver chains, rested on cloth. There were boxes, too, some of them small enough to hang on necklaces, other, larger ones made and decorated in different styles: cloisonné enameling, painted wood, even one that appeared to be carved from black bone. Once Vasha had seen Sister Yvanne open one (they each had some secret way of opening) for a customer; he could have sworn there was a bit of frail yellowed bone tucked inside, a fingerbone, perhaps. There were also leatherbound books in any one of several languages, stamped with gold leaf titles. The ones in Rhuian and Taor read The Recitation. Strangely, Sister Yvanne only sold this one particular book, and commentaries on it. She did not have a whole sampling of books such as a book merchant in Jeds might have.
    “Look,” said Stefan, elbowing Vasha. “There she is.” He hastily handed his empty cup back to Master Larenin’s apprentice and sidled over toward Sister Yvanne’s tables.
    She was the very young and very pretty wife of Merchant Bathori, a fat, middle-aged man who always seemed to Vasha to have been recently dipped in lard. She stood staring at the tiny silver knives, wringing her hands together and biting prettily at her lower lip, while Sister Yvanne eyed her with evident disapproval. Each woman wore a scarf to hide her hair, but while Sister Yvanne’s drab gray scarf matched her shapeless robes and covered her hair entirely, the young woman’s scarf was gaily bright. Wisps of pale hair escaped from under it to curl around her face.
    “How can she stand to be married to that horrible old man?” Stefan whispered. “I didn’t think the khaja men marked women.”
    “No, but a girl’s parents might sell her to a rich man, or a rich girl might be sent with some of her riches to a