A Betrayal in Winter (lpq-2) (19 page)

convince himself. She took a pose of agreement. He stepped forward, his

arms curving to embrace her.

"Don't touch me," she said, and he stepped hack, paused, lowered his

arms. Idaan saw something die behind his eyes, and felt something wither

in her own breast. So this is what we are, she thought.

"Things were good once," he said, as if willing her to say and they will

be again. The most she could give him was a nod. They had been good

once. She had wanted and admired and loved him once. And even now, a

part of her might love him. She wasn't sure.

The pain in his expression was unbearable. Idaan leaned forward, kissed

him briefly on the lips, and went inside to wash the day off her skin.

She heard his footsteps as he walked away.

Her body felt wrung out and empty. There were dried apples and sugared

almonds waiting for her, but the thought of food was foreign. Gifts had

arrived throughout the day-celebrations of her being sold off. She

ignored them. It was only after she had bathed, washing her hair three

times before it smelled more of flowers than smoke, that she found the note.

It rested on her bed, a square of paper folded in quarters. She sat

naked beside it, reached out a hand, hesitated, and then plucked it

open. It was brief, written in an unsteady hand.

Daughter, it said. I had hoped that you might be able to spend some part

of this happy day with me. Instead, I will leave this. Know that you

have my blessings and such love as a weary old man can give. You have

always delighted me, and I hope for your happiness in this match.

When her tears and sobbing had exhausted her, Idaan carefully gathered

the scraps of the note together and placed them together under her

pillow. Then she bowed and prayed to all the gods and with all her heart

that her father should die, and die quickly. That he should die without

discovering what she was.

MAATI WAS LOST FOR A TIME IN PAIN, THEN DISCOMFORT, AND THEN PAIN again.

He didn't suffer dreams so much as a pressing sense of urgency without

goal or form, though for a time he had the powerful impression that he

was on a boat, rocked by waves. His mind fell apart and reformed itself

at the will of his body.

He came to himself in the night, aware that he had been half awake for

some time; that there had been conversations in which he had

participated, though he couldn't say with whom or on what matters. The

room was not his own, but there was no mistaking that it belonged to the

Khai's palace. No fire burned in the grate, but the stone walls were

warm with stored sunlight. The windows were shuttered with shaped stone,

the only light coming from the night candle that had burned almost to

its quarter mark. Maati pulled back the thin blankets and considered the

puckered gray flesh of his wound and the dark silk that laced it closed.

He pressed his belly gently with his fingertips until he thought he knew

how delicate he had become. When he stood, tottering to the night pot,

he found he had underestimated, but that the pain was not so

excruciating that he could not empty his bladder. After, he pulled

himself back into bed, exhausted. He intended only to close his eyes for

a moment and gather his strength, but when he opened them, it was morning.

He had nearly resolved to walk from his bed to the small writing table

near the window when a slave entered and announced that the poet Cehmai

and the andat Stone-Made-Soft would see him if he wished. Maati nodded

and sat up carefully.

The poet arrived with a wide plate of rice and river fish in a sauce

that smelled of plums and pepper. The andat carried a jug of water so

cold it made the stone sweat. Maati's stomach came to life with a growl

at the sight.

"You're looking better, Maati-kvo." the young poet said, putting the

plate on the bed. The andat pulled two chairs close to the bed and sat

in one, its face calm and empty.

"I looked worse than this?" Maati asked. "I wouldn't have thought that

possible. How long has it been?"

"Four days. The injury brought on a fever. But when they poured onion

soup down you, the wound didn't smell of it, so they decided you might

live after all."

Maati lifted a spoon of fish and rice to his mouth. It tasted divine.

"I think I have you to thank for that," Maati said. "My recollection

isn't all it could be, but ..."

"I was following you," Cehmai said, taking a pose of contrition. "I was

curious about your investigations."

"Yes. I suppose I should have been more subtle."

"The assassin was killed yesterday."

Maati took another bite of fish.

"Executed?"

"Disposed of," the andat said and smiled.

Cehmai told the story. The fire in the tunnels, the deaths of the

guards. The other prisoners said that there had been three men in black

cloaks, that they had rushed in, killed the assassin, and vanished. Two

others had choked to death on the smoke before the watchmen put the fire

out.

"The story among the utkhaiem is that you discovered Utah Machi. The

Master of Tides' assistant said that you'd been angry with him for being

indiscreet about your questions concerning a courier from Udun. Then the

attack on you, and the fire. They say the Khai Machi sent for you to

hunt his missing son, Utah."

"Part true," Maati said. "I was sent to look for Otah. I knew him once,

when we were younger. But I haven't found him, and the knife man was ...

something else. It wasn't Otah."

"You said that," the andat rumbled. "When we found you, you said it was

someone else."

"Otah-kvo wouldn't have done it. Not that way. He might have met me

himself, but sending someone else to do it? No. He wasn't behind that,"

Maati said, and then the consequence of that fell into place. "And so I

think he must not have been the one who killed Biitrah."

Cehmai and his andat exchanged a glance and the young poet drew a bowl

of water for Maati. The water was as good as the food, but Maati could

see the unease in the way Cehmai looked at him. If he had ached less or

been farther from exhaustion, he might have been subtle.

"What is it?" Maati asked.

Cehmai drew himself up, then sighed.

"You call him Otah-kvo."

"He was my teacher. At the school, he was in the black robes when I was

new arrived. He ... helped me."

"And you saw him again. When you were older."

"Did I?" Maati asked.

Cehmai took a pose that asked forgiveness. "The Dai-kvo would hardly

have trusted a memory that old. You were both children at the school. We

were all children there. You knew him when you were both men, yes?"

"Yes," Maati said. "He was in Saraykeht when ... when Heshai-kvo died."

"And you call him Otah-kvo," Cehmai said. "He was a friend of yours,

Maati-kvo. Someone you admired. He's never stopped being your teacher."

"Perhaps. But he's stopped being my friend. That was my doing, but it's

done."

"I'm sorry, Maati-kvo, but are you certain Otah-kvo is innocent because

he's innocent, or only because you're certain? It would be hard to

accept that an old friend might wish you ill ..."

Maati smiled and sipped the water.

"Otah Machi may well wish me dead. I would understand it if he did. And

he's in the city, or was four days ago. But he didn't send the assassin."

"You think he isn't hoping for the Khai's chair?"

"I don't know. But I suppose that's something worth finding out. Along

with who it was that killed his brother and started this whole thing

rolling."

He took another mouthful of rice and fish, but his mind was elsewhere.

"Will you let me help you?"

Maati looked up, half surprised. The young poet's face was serious, his

hands in a pose of formal supplication. It was as if they were back in

the school and Cehmai was a boy asking a boon of the teachers. The andat

had its hands folded in its lap, but it seemed mildly amused. Before

Maati could think of a reply, Cehmai went on.

"You aren't well yet, Maati-kvo. You're the center of all the court

gossip now, and anything you do will be examined from eight different

views before you've finished doing it. I know the city. I know the

court. I can ask questions without arousing suspicion. The Dai-kvo

didn't choose to take me into his confidence, but now that I know what's

happening-"

"It's too much of a risk," Maati said. "The Dal-kvo sent me because I

know Otah-kvo, but he also sent me because my loss would mean nothing.

You hold the andat-"

"It's fine with me," Stone-Made-Soft said. "Really, don't let me stop you.

"If I ask questions without you, I run the same risks, and without the

benefits of shared information," Cehmai said. "And expecting me not to

wonder would be unrealistic."

"The Khai Machi would expel me from his city if he thought I was

endangering his poet," Maati said. "And then I wouldn't be of use to

anyone.

Cehmai's dark eyes were both deadly serious and also, Maati thought,

amused. "This wouldn't be the first thing I've kept from him," the young

poet said. "Please, Maati-kvo. I want to help."

Maati closed his eyes. Having someone to talk with, even if it was only

a way to explore what he thought himself, wouldn't be so had a thing.

The Dai-kvo hadn't expressly forbidden that Cehmai know, and even if he

had, the secret investigation had already sent Otah-kvo to flight, so

any further subterfuge seemed pointless. And the fact was, he likely

couldn't find the answers alone.

"You have saved my life once already."

"I thought it would be unfair to point that out," Cehmai said.

Maati laughed, then stopped when the pain in his belly bloomed. He lay

back, blowing air until he could think again. The pillows felt better

than they should have. He'd done so little, and he was already tired. He

glanced mistrustfully at the andat, then took a pose of acceptance.

"Come back tonight, when I've rested," Maati said. "We'll plan our

strategy. I have to get my strength hack, but there isn't much time."

"May I ask one other thing, Maati-kvo?"

Maati nodded, but his belly seemed to have grown more sensitive for the

moment and he tried not to move more than that. It seemed laughing

wasn't a wise thing for him just now.

"Who are Liat and Nayiit?"

"My lover. Our son," Maati said. "I called out for them, did I? When I

had the fever?"

Cehmai nodded.

"I do that often," Maati said. "Only not usually aloud."

There were four great roads that connected the cities of the Khaiem, one

named for each of the cardinal directions. The North Road that linked

Cetani, Machi, and Amnat-Ian was not the worst, in part because there

was no traffic in the winter, when the snows let men make a road

wherever desire took them. Also the stones were damaged more by the

cycle of thaw and frost that troubled the north only in spring and

autumn. In high summer, it rarely froze, and for a third of the year it

did not thaw. The West Road-far from the sea and not so far south as to

keep the winters warm-required the most repair.

"They'll have crews of indentured slaves and laborers out in shifts,"

the old man in the cart beside Otah said, raising a finger as if his

oratory was on par with the High Emperor's, back when there had been an

empire. "They start at one end, reset the stones until they reach the

other, and begin again. It never ends."

Otah glanced across the cart at the young woman nursing her babe and

rolled his eyes. She smiled and shrugged so slightly that their orator

didn't notice the movement. The cart lurched down into and up from

another wide hole where the stones had shattered and not yet been replaced.

"I have walked them all," the old man said, "though they've worn me more

than I've worn them. Oh yes, much more than I've worn them."

He cackled, as he always seemed to when he made this observation. The

little caravan-four carts hauled by old horses-was still six days from

Cetani. Otah wondered whether his own legs were rested enough that he

could start walking again.

He had bought an old laborer's robe of blue-gray wool from a rag shop,

chopped his hair to change its shape, and let his thin beard start to

grow in. Once his whiskers had been long enough to braid, but the east