A Betrayal in Winter (lpq-2) (11 page)

the teahouses. The Khai's daughter had introduced him to the gatherings

of the younger generation of the utkhaiem as the poet Cehmai had to the

elder. Maati had spent each night walking a different quarter of the

city, wrapped in thick wool robes with close hoods against the vicious

cold of the spring air. He had learned the intrigues of the court: which

houses were vying for marriages to which cities, who was likely to be

extorting favors for whom over what sorts of indiscretion, all the petty

wars of a family of a thousand children.

He had used the opportunities to spread the name of Irani Noygu- saying

only that he was an old friend Maati had heard might be in the city,

whom he would very much like to see. There was no way to say that it was

the name Otah Machi had invented for himself in Saraykeht, and even if

there had been, Maati would likely not have done so. He had come to

realize exactly how little he knew what he ought to do.

He had been sent because he knew Otah, knew how his old friend's mind

worked, would recognize him should they meet. They were advantages,

Maati supposed, but it was hard to weigh them against his inexperience.

There was little enough to learn of making discreet inquiries when your

life was spent in the small tasks of the Dai-kvo's village. An overseer

of a trading house would have been better suited to the task. A

negotiator, or a courier. Liat would have been better, the woman he had

once loved, who had once loved him. Liat, mother of the boy Nayiit, whom

Maati had held as a babe and loved more than water or air. Liat, who had

been Otah's lover as well.

For the thousandth time, Maati put that thought aside.

When they reached the palaces, Maati again thanked Cehmai for taking the

time from his work to accompany him, and Cehmai-still with the

half-certain stance of a dog hearing an unfamiliar soundassured him that

he'd been pleased to do so. Maati watched the slight young man and his

thick-framed andat walk away across the flagstones of the courtyard.

Their hems were black and sodden, ruining the drape of the robes. Much

like his own, he knew.

Thankfully, his own apartments were warm. He stripped off his robes,

leaving them in a lump for the servants to remove to a launderer, and

replaced them with the thickest he had-lamb's wool and heavy leather

with a thin cotton lining. It was the sort that natives of Machi wore in

deep winter, but Maati pulled it close about him, vowing to use it

whenever he went out, whatever the others might think of him. His boots

thrown into a corner, he stretched his pale, numb feet almost into the

fire grate and shuddered. He would have to go to the wayhouse where

Biitrah Machi had died. The owners there had spoken to the officers of

the utkhaiem, of course. They had told their tale of the moonfaced man

who had come with letters of introduction, worked in their kitchens, and

been ready to take over for a night when the overseers all came down

ill. Still, he could not be sure there was nothing more to know unless

he made his visit. Some other day, when he could feel his toes.

The summons came to him when the sun-red and angry-was just preparing to

slide behind the mountains to the west. Maati pulled on thick, warm

boots of soft leather, added his brown poet's robes over the warmer

ones, and let himself be led to the Khai Machi's private chambers. He

passed through several rooms on his way-a hall of worked marble the

color of honey with a fountain running through it like a creek, a

meeting chamber large enough to hold two dozen at a single table, then a

smaller corridor that led to chambers of a more human size. Ahead of

him, a woman passed from one side of the corridor to the other leaving

the impression of night-black hair, warm brown skin, and robes the

yellow of sunrise. One of the wives, Maati knew, of a man who had several.

At last, the servant slid open a door of carved rosewood, and Maati

stepped into a room hardly larger than his own bedroom. The old man sat

on a couch, his feet toward the fire that burned in the grate. His robes

were lush, the silks seeming to take up the firelight and dance with it.

They seemed more alive than his flesh. Slowly, the Khai raised a clay

pipe to his mouth and puffed on it thoughtfully. The smoke smelled rich

and sweet as a cane field on fire.

Maati took a pose of greeting as formal as high court. The Khai Machi

raised an ancient eyebrow and only smiled. With the stem of the pipe, he

pointed to the couch opposite him and nodded to Maati that he should sit.

"They make me smoke this," the Khai said. "Whenever my belly troubles

me, they say. I tell them they might as well make it air, burn it by the

bushel in all the firekeeper's kilns, but they only laugh as if it were

wit, and I play along."

"Yes, most high."

There was a long pause as the Khai contemplated the flames. Maati

waited, uncertain. He noticed the catch in the Khai Machi's breath, as

if it pained him. He had not noticed it before.

"Your search for my outlaw son," the Khai said. "It is going well?"

"It is early yet, most high. I have made myself visible. I have let it

be known that I am looking into the death of your son."

"You still expect Otah to come to you?"

"Yes."

"And if he does not?"

"Then it will take more time, most high. But I will find him."

The old man nodded, then exhaled a plume of pale smoke. He took a pose

of gratitude, his wasted hands holding the position with the grace of a

lifetime's practice.

"His mother was a good woman. I miss her. Iyrah, her name was. She gave

me Idaan too. She was glad to have a child of her own that she could keep."

Maati thought he saw the old man's eyes glisten for a moment, lost as he

was in old memories of which Maati could only guess the substance. Then

the Khai sighed.

"Idaan," the Khai said. "She's treated you gently?"

"She's been nothing but kind," Maati said, "and very generous with her

time."

The Khai shook his head, smiling more to himself than his audience.

"That's good. She was always unpredictable. Age has calmed her, I think.

There was a time she would study outrages the way most girls study face

paints and sandals. Always sneaking puppies into court or stealing

dresses she fancied from her little friends. She relied on me to keep

her safe, however far she flew," he said, smiling fondly. "A mischievous

girl, my daughter, but good-hearted. I'm proud of her."

Then he sobered.

"I am proud of all my children. It's why I am not of one mind on this,"

the Khai said. "You would think that I should be, but I am not. With

every day that the search continues, the truce holds, and Kaiin and

Danat still live. I've known since I was old enough to know anything

that if I took this chair, my sons would kill each other. It wasn't so

hard before I knew them, when they were only the idea of sons. But then

they were Biitrah and Kaiin and Danat. And I don't want any of them to die."

"But tradition, most high. If they did not-"

"I know why they must," the Khai said. "I was only wishing. It's

something dying men do, I'm told. Sit with their regrets. It's likely

that which kills us as much as the sickness. I sometimes wish that this

had all happened years ago. That they had slaughtered each other in

their childhood. Then I might have at least one of them by me now. I had

not wanted to die alone."

"You are not alone, most high. The whole court . .

Maati broke off. The Khai Machi took a pose accepting correction, but

the amusement in his eyes and the angle of his shoulders made a sarcasm

of it. Maati nodded, accepting the old man's point.

"I can't say which of them I would have wanted to live, though," the

Khai said, puffing thoughtfully on his pipe. "I love them all. Very

dearly. I cannot tell you how deeply I miss Biitrah."

"Had you known him, you would have loved Otah as well."

"You think so? Certainly you knew him better than I. I can't think he

would have thought well of me," the Khai said. Then, "Did you go back?

After you took your robes? Did you go to see you parents?"

"My father was very old when I went to the school," Maati said. "He died

before I completed my training. We did not know each other."

"So you have never had a family."

"I have, most high," Maati said, fighting to keep the tightness in his

chest from changing the tone of his voice. "A lover and a son. I had a

family once."

"But no longer. They died?"

"They live. Only not with me."

The Khai considered him, bloodshot eyes blinking slowly. With his thin,

wrinkled skin, he reminded Maati of a very old turtle or else a very

young bird. The Khai's gaze softened, his brows tilting in understanding

and sorrow.

"It is never easy for fathers," the Khai said. "Perhaps if the world had

needed less from us."

Maati waited a long moment until he trusted his voice.

"Perhaps, most high."

The Khai exhaled a breath of gray, his gaze trapped by the smoke.

"It isn't the world I knew when I was young," the old man said.

"Everything changed when Saraykeht fell."

"The Khai Saraykeht has a poet," Maati said. "He has the power of the

andat."

"It took the Dai-kvo eight years and six failed bindings," the Khai

said. "And every time word came of another failure, I could see it in

the faces of the court. The utkhaiem may put on proud faces, but I've

seen the fear that swims under that ice. And you were there. You said so

in the audience when I greeted you."

"Yes, most high."

"But you didn't say everything you knew," the Khai said. "Did you?"

The yellowed eyes fixed on Maati. The intelligence in them was

unnerving. Maati felt himself squirming, and wondering what had happened

to the melancholy dying man he'd been speaking with only moments before.

"I ... that is ..."

"There were rumors that the poet's death was more than an angry east

island girl's revenge. The Galts were mentioned."

"And Eddensea," Maati said. "And Eymond. There was no end of accusation,

most high. Some even believed what they charged. When the cotton trade

collapsed, a great number of people lost a great amount of money. And

prestige."

"They lost more than that," the Khai said, leaning forward and stabbing

at the air with the stem of his pipe. "The money, the trade. The

standing among the cities. They don't signify. Saraykeht was the death

of certainty. They lost the conviction that the Khaiem would hold the

world at bay, that war would never come to Saraykeht. And we lost it

here too."

"If you say so, most high."

"The priests say that something touched by chaos is never made whole,"

the Khai said, sinking back into his cushions. "Do you know what they

mean by that, Maati-cha?"

"I have some idea," Maati said, but the Khai went on.

"It means that something unthinkable can only happen once. Because after

that, it's not unthinkable any longer. We've seen what happens when a

city is touched by chaos. And now it's in the back of every head in

every court in all the cities of the Khaiem."

Maati frowned and leaned forward.

"You think Cehrnai-cha is in some danger?"

"What?" the Khai said, then waved the thought away, stirring the smoky

air. "No. Not that. I think my city is at risk. I think Otah ... my

upstart son ..."

He's forgiven you, a voice murmured in the back of Maati's mind. The

voice of Seedless, the andat of Saraykeht. They were the words the andat

had spoken to Maati in the instant before Heshai's death had freed it.

It had been speaking of Otah.

"I've called you here for a reason, Maati-cha," the Khai said, and Maati

pulled his attention back to the present. "I didn't care to speak of it

around those who would use it to fuel gossip. Your inquiry into

Biitrah's death. You must move more quickly."

"Even with the truce?"

"Yes, even at the price of my sons returning to their tradition. If I

die without a successor chosen-especially if Danat and Kaiin are still

gone to ground-there will be chaos. The families of the utkhaiem start

thinking that perhaps they would sit more comfortably in my chair, and

schemes begin. Your task isn't only to find Otah. Your task is to