A Betrayal in Winter (lpq-2) (31 page)

through the night. He could feel it when they moved from the paving of

the main road to a dirt track; he could hear the high grass hushing

against the wheels. They were taking him nowhere, and he couldn't think why.

He guessed it was almost three hands before the first light started to

come. Dawn was still nothing more than a lighter kind of darkness, the

commander's feet-the only part of the man Otah could see without lifting

his head-were a dim form of shadow within shadow. It was something. Otah

heard the trill of a daymartin, and then a rough rattling and the sound

of water. A bridge over some small river. When the cart lurched back to

ground, the commander turned.

"Have him stop," he said, and then a moment later, "I said stop the

cart. Do it."

One of the other two-the one who wasn't kneeling on Otah- shifted and

spoke to the driver. The jouncing slowed and stopped.

"I thought I heard something out there. In the trees on the left. Baat.

Go check. If you see anything at all get back fast."

The pressure on Otah's back eased and one of the men clambered out. Otah

turned over and no one tried to stop him. There was more light now. He

could make out the grim set of the commander's features, the unease in

the one remaining armsman.

"Well, this is interesting," the commander said.

"What's out there," the other man asked, his blade drawn. The commander

looked out the slit of cloth and motioned for the armsman to pass over

his sword. He did, and the commander took it, holding it with the ease

of long familiarity.

"It may be nothing," he said. "Were you with me when I was working for

the Warden of Elleais?"

"I'd just signed on then," the armsman said.

"You've always been a good fighter, Lachmi. I want you to know I respect

that."

With the speed of a snake, the commander's wrist flickered, and the

armsman fell hack in the cart, blood flowing from his opened neck. Otah

tried to push himself away as the commander turned and drove the sword

into the armsman's chest. He dropped the blade then, letting it fall to

the cart's floor, and took a pose of regret to the dying man.

"But," the commander said, "you should never have cheated me at tiles.

That was stupid."

The commander stepped over the body and spoke to the driver. He spoke

clearly enough for Otah to hear.

"Is it done?"

The driver said something.

"Good," the commander replied, and came hack. He flipped Otah onto his

belly with casual disregard, and Otah felt his bonds begin to loosen.

"All apologies, Otah-cha," the commander said. "But there's a lesson you

can take from all this: just because someone's bought a mercenary

captain, it doesn't mean his commanders aren't still for sale. Now I

will need your robes, such as they are."

Otah pulled the leather strap from around his head and spat out the

cloth, retching as he did so. Before he could speak, the commander had

climbed out of the cart, and Otah was left to follow.

They had stopped at a clearing by a river, surrounded by white oaks. The

bridge was old wood and looked almost too decrepit to cross. Six men

with gray robes and hunting bows were walking toward them from the

trees, two of them dragging the arrow-riddled body of the armsman the

commander had sent out. Two others carried a litter with what was

clearly another dead man-thin and naked. The commander took a pose of

welcome, and the first archer returned it. Otah stumbled forward,

rubbing his wrists. The archers were all smiling, pleased with

themselves. When he came close enough, Otah saw the second corpse was on

its back, and a wide swath of intricate black ink stained its breast.

The first half of an east island marriage mark. A tattoo like his own.

"That's why we'll need your robes, Otah-cha," the commander said. "This

poor bastard will have been in the water for a while before he reaches

the main channel of the river. But the closer he seems to you, the less

people will bother looking at him. I'll see whether I can find something

for you to wear after, but you might consider sponging off in the brook

there first. No offense, but you've been a while without a bath."

"Who is he?" Otah asked.

The commander shrugged.

"Nobody, now."

He clapped Otah on the shoulder and turned back toward the cart. The

archers were pitching the corpses of the two armsmen into the water.

Otah saw arrows rising from the river like reeds. The driver was coming

forward now, his thumbs stuck in his belt. He was a hairy man, his full

heard streaked with gray. He smiled at Otah and took a pose of welcome.

"I don't understand," Otah said. "What's happening?"

"We don't understand either, Itani-cha. Not precisely. We're only sure

that it's something terrible," the carter said, and Otah's mouth dropped

open. He spoke with the voice of Amiit Foss, his overseer in House

Siyanti. Amiit grinned beneath his heard. "And we're sure that it isn't

happening to you."

The first few breaths after she woke were like rising new horn. She

didn't know who or where she was, she had no thought of the night before

or the day ahead. There was only sensation-the warmth of the body beside

her, the crisp softness of the bedclothes, the netting above the bed

glowing in the captured light of dawn, the scent of black tea brought in

by a servant with cat-quiet footsteps. She sat up, almost smiling until

memory rushed in on her like a flood of black water. Idaan rose and

pulled on her robes. Adrah stirred and moaned.

"You should go," she said, lifting the black iron teapot. "You're

expected to go on a hunt today."

Adrah sat up, scratching his back and yawning. His hair stuck out in all

directions. He looked older than he had the day before, or perhaps it

was only how she felt. She poured a howl of tea for him as well.

"Have they found him?" Adrah asked.

"I haven't heard the screams or lamentations yet, so I'd assume not."

She held out the porcelain bowl. It was thin enough to see through and

hot enough to burn her fingertips, but Idaan didn't try to reduce the

pain. When Adrah took it from her, he drank from it straight, though she

knew it must have scalded. Perhaps what they'd done had numbed them.

"And You, Idaan-kya?"

"I'm going to the baths. I'll join you after."

Adrah drank the last of the tea, grimaced as if it was distilled wine,

and took a pose of leave-taking which Idaan returned. When he was gone,

she took herself to the women's quarters and the baths. She hardly had

time to wash her hair before the cry went up. The Khai Nfachi was dead.

Killed horribly in his chambers. Idaan dried herself with a cloth and

strode out to meet her brother. She was halfway there before she

realized her face was bare; she hadn't put on her paints. She was

surprised that she felt no need for them now.

Danat was pacing the great hall. The high marble archways echoed with

the sound of his boots. There was blood on his sleeve, and his face was

empty. When Idaan caught sight of him, she raised her chin but took no

formal pose. Danat stopped. The room was silent.

"You've heard," he said. There was no question to it.

""Tell me anyway."

"Otah has killed our father," Danat said.

"'t'hen yes. I've heard."

Danat resumed his pacing. His hands worried each other, as if he were

trying to pluck honey off them. Idaan didn't move.

"I don't know how he did it, sister. There must be people backing him

within the palaces. The armsmen in the tower were slaughtered."

"How did he find our father?" Idaan asked, uninterested in the answer.

"He must have found a secret way into the palaces. Someone would have

seen him."

Danat shook his head. There was rage in him, and pain. She could see

them, could feel them resonate in her own breast. But more than that,

there was an almost superstitious fear in him. The upstart had slipped

his bonds, had struck in the very heart of the city, and her brother

feared him like Black Chaos.

"We have to secure the city," he said. "I've called for more guards. You

should stay here. We can't know how far he will take his vendetta."

"You're going to let him escape?" Idaan demanded. "You aren't going to

hunt him down?"

"He has resources I can't guess at. Look! Look what he's done. Until I

know what I'm walking towards, I don't dare follow."

The plan was failing. Danat was staying safe in his walls with his

armsmcn around him like a blanket. Idaan sighed. It was tip to her, of

course, to save it.

"Adrah Vaunyogi has a hunt prepared. It was to be for fresh meat for my

wedding feast. You stay here, Danat-kya. I'll bring you Otah's head."

She turned and walked away. She couldn't hesitate, couldn't invite him

to follow her. He would see it in her gait if she were anything less

than totally committed. For a moment, she even believed herself that she

was going out to find her father's killer and bring him down-riding with

her hunt into the low towns and the fields to track down the evil Otah

Machi, her fallen brother. Danat's voice stopped her.

"I forbid you, Idaan. You can't do this."

She paused and looked back at him. He was thicker than her father had

been. Already his jaw line ran toward jowls. She took a pose that disagreed.

"I'm actually quite good with a bow," she said. "I'll find him. And I

will see him dead."

"You're my child sister," Danat said. "You can't do this."

Something flared in her, dark and hot. She stepped back toward Danat,

feeling the rage lift her up like a leaf in the wind.

"Ah, and if I do this thing, you'll be shamed. Because I have breasts

and you've a prick, I'm supposed to muzzle myself and be glad. Is that

it? Well I won't. You hear me? I will not be controlled, I will not be

owned, and I will not step hack from anything to protect your petty

pride. It's gone too far for that, brother. If a woman shrinks meekly

back into the shadows, then you he the woman. See how it feels to you!"

By the end she was shrieking. Her fists were balled so tight they hurt.

Danat's expression was hard as stone and as gray.

"You shame me," he said.

"Live with it," she said and spat.

"Send my body servant," he said. "I'll want my own bow. And then go to

Adrah. The hunt won't leave without me."

She was on the edge of refusing, of telling him that this wasn't

courage. He was only more afraid of losing the respect of the utkhaiem

than of dying, and that made him not only a coward but a stupid one. She

was the one with courage. She was the one who had the will to act. What

was he after all but a mewling kitten lost in the world, while she ...

she was Otah Machi. She was the upstart who had earned the Khai's chair.

She had killed her father for it; it was more than Danat would have done.

But, of course, truth would destroy everything. That was its nature. So

she swallowed it down deep where it could go on destroying her and took

an acquiescing pose. She'd won. He'd know that soon enough.

Once Danat's body servant had been sent scampering for his bow, Idaan

returned to her apartments, shrugged out of her robes and put on the

wide, loose trousers and red leather shirt of a hunter. She paused by

her table of paints, her mirror. She sat for a moment and looked at her

bare face. Her eyes seemed small and flat without the kohl. Her lips

seemed pale and wide as a fish's, her cheeks pallid and low. She could

be a peasant girl, plowing fields outside some low town. Her beauty had

been in paint. Perhaps it would be again, someday. '['his was a poor day

for beauty.

The huntsmen were waiting impatiently outside the palaces of the

Vaunyogi, their mounts' hooves clattering against the dark stones of the

courtyard. Adrah took a pose of query when he saw her clothes. ldaan

didn't answer it, but went to one of the horsemen, ordered him down,

took his blade and his bow and mounted in his place. Adrah cantered over

to her side. His mount was the larger, and he looked down at her as if

he were standing on a step.

"My brother is coming," she said. "I'll ride with him."

"You think that wise?" he asked coolly.

"I have asked too much of you already, Adrah-kya."

His expression was cold, but he didn't object further. Danat Nlachi rode