A Betrayal in Winter (lpq-2) (5 page)

out, and he hadn't bothered to relight it. Morning would come when it came.

The door slid open and then shut. He didn't turn to look.

"You're brooding, Itani," Kiyan said, calling him by the false name he'd

chosen for himself, the only one he'd ever told her. Her voice was low

and rich and careful as a singer's. He shifted now, turning to his side.

She knelt by the grate-her skin smooth and brown, her robes the formal

cut of a woman of business, one strand of her hair fallen free. Her face

was thin-she reminded him of a fox sometimes, when a smile just touched

her mouth. She placed a fresh log on the fire as she spoke. "I half

expected you'd be asleep already."

He sighed and sketched a pose of contrition with one hand.

"Don't apologize to me," she said. "I'm as happy having you in my rooms

here as in the teahouse, but Old Mani wanted more news out of you. Or

maybe just to get you drunk enough to sing dirty songs with him. He's

missed you, you know."

"It's a hard thing, being so loved."

"Don't laugh at it. It's not a love to carry you through ages, but it's

more than some people ever manage. You'll grow into one of those pinched

old men who want free wine because they pity themselves."

"I'm sorry. I don't mean to make light of Old Mani. It's just ..."

He sighed. Kiyan closed the window and relit the night candle.

"It's just that you're brooding," she said. "And you're naked and not

under the blankets, so you're feeling that you've done something wrong

and deserve to suffer."

"Ah," Otah said. "Is that why I do this?"

"Yes," she said, untying her robes. "It is. You can't hide it from me,

Itani. You might as well come out with it."

Otah held the thought in his mind. I'm not who I've told you I am. Itani

Noygu is the name I picked for myself when I was a child. My father is

dying, and brothers I can hardly recall have started killing each other,

and I find it makes me sad. He wondered what Kiyan would say to that.

She prided herself on knowing him-on knowing people and how their minds

worked. And yet he didn't think this was something she'd already have

guessed.

Naked, she lay beside him, pulling thick blankets up over them both.

"Did you find another woman in Chaburi-Tan?" she asked, halfteasing. But

only half. "Some young dancing girl who stole your heart, or some other

hit of your flesh, and now you're stewing over how to tell me you're

leaving me?"

"I'm a courier," Otah said. "I have a woman in every city I visit. You

know that."

"You don't," she said. "Some couriers do, but you don't."

"No?"

"No. It took me half a year of doing everything short of stripping bare

for you to notice me. You don't stay in other cities long enough for a

woman to chip through your reserve. And you don't have to push away the

blankets. You may want to be cold, but I don't."

"Well. Maybe I'm just feeling old."

"A ripe thirty-three? Well, when you decide to stop running across the

world, I'd always be pleased to hire you on. We could stand another pair

of hands around the place. You could throw out the drunks and track down

the cheats that try to slip away without paying."

"You don't pay enough," Otah said. "I talk to Old Mani. I know what your

wages are.

"Perhaps you'd get extra for keeping me warm at nights."

"Shouldn't you offer that to Old Mani first? He's been here longer than

I have."

Kiyan slapped his chest smartly, and then nestled into him. He found

himself curling toward her, the warmth of her body drawing him like a

familiar scent. Her fingers traced the tattoo on his breast-the ink had

faded over time, blurring lines that had once been sharp and clear.

"Jokes aside," she said, and he could hear a weariness in her voice, "I

would take you on, if you wanted to stay. You could live here, with me.

Help me manage the house."

He caressed her hair, feeling the individual strands as they flowed

across his fingertips. There was a scattering of white among the black

that made her look older than she was. Otah knew that they had been

there since she was a girl, as if she'd been born old.

"That sounds like you're suggesting marriage," he said.

"Perhaps. You wouldn't have to, but ... it would be one way to arrange

things. That isn't a threat, you know. I don't need a husband. Only if

it would make you feel better, we could ..."

He kissed her gently. It had been weeks, and he was surprised to find

how much he'd missed the touch of her lips. Weeks of travel weariness

slipped away, the deep unease loosened its hold on his chest, and he

took comfort in her. He fell asleep with her arm over his body, her

breath already soft and deep with sleep.

In the morning, he woke before she did, slipped out of the bed, and

dressed quietly. The sun was not up, but the eastern sky had lightened

and the morning birds were singing madly as he took himself across an

ancient stone bridge into Udun.

A river city, Udun was laced with as many canals as roadways. Bridges

humped up high enough for barges to pass beneath them, and the green

water of the Qiit lapped at old stone steps that descended into the

river mud. Otah stopped at a stall on the broad central plaza and traded

two lengths of copper for a thick wedge of honey bread and a bowl of

black, smoky tea. Around him, the city slowly came awakethe streets and

canals filling with traders and merchants, beggars singing at the

corners or in small rafts tied at the water's edge, laborers hauling

wagons along the wide flagstoned streets, and birds bright as shafts of

sunlight-blue and red and yellow, green as grass, and pink as dawn. Udun

was a city of birds, and their chatter and shriek and song filled the

air as he ate.

The compound of House Siyanti was in the better part of the city, just

downstream from the palaces, where the water was not yet fouled by the

wastes of thirty thousand men and women and children. The red brick

buildings rose up three stories high, and a private canal was filled

with barges in the red and silver of the house. The stylized emblem of

the sun and stars had been worked into the brick archway that led to the

central courtyard, and Otah passed beneath it with a feeling like coming

home.

Amiit Foss, the overseer for the house couriers, was in his offices,

ordering around three apprentices with sharp words and insults, but no

blows. Otah stepped in and took a pose of greeting.

"Ah! The missing Itani. Did you know the word for half-wit in the tongue

of the Empire was itani-nah?"

"All respect, Amiit-cha, but no it wasn't."

The overseer grinned. One of the apprentices-a girl of perhaps thirteen

summers-whispered something angrily, and the boy next to her giggled.

"Fine," the overseer said. "You two. I need the ciphers rechecked on

last week's letters."

"But I wasn't the one . . . ," the girl protested. The overseer took a

pose that commanded her silence, and the pair, glowering at each other,

stalked away.

"I get them when they're just growing old enough to flirt," Amiit said,

sighing. "Come back to the meeting rooms. The journey took longer than

I'd expected."

"There were some delays," Otah said as he followed the older man hack.

"Chaburi-'Ian isn't as tightly run as it was last time I was out there."

"No?"

"There are refugees from the Westlands."

"There are always refugees from the Westlands."

"Not this many," Otah said. "There are rumors that the Khai ChaburiTan

is going to restrict the number of Westlanders allowed on the island."

Amiit paused, his hands on the carved wood door of the meeting rooms.

Otah could almost see the implications of this thought working

themselves out behind the overseer's eyes. A moment later, Amiit looked

up, raised his eyebrows in appreciation, and pushed the doors open.

Half the day was spent in the raw silk chairs of the meeting rooms while

Amiit took Otah's report and accepted the letters-sewn shut and written

in cipher-that Otah had carried with him.

It had taken Otah some time to understand all that being a courier

implied. When he had first arrived in Udun six years before, hungry,

lost and half-haunted by the memories he carried with him, he had still

believed that he would simply be carrying letters and small packages

from one place to another, perhaps waiting for a response, and then

taking those to where they were expected. It would have been as right to

say that a farmer throws some seeds in the earth and returns a few

months later to sec what's grown. He had been lucky. His ability to win

friends easily had served him, and he had been instructed in what the

couriers called the gentleman's trade: how to gather information that

might be of use to the house, how to read the activity of a street

corner or market, and how to know from that the mood of a city. How to

break ciphers and re-sew letters. How to appear to drink more wine than

you actually did, and question travelers on the road without seeming to.

He understood now that the gentleman's trade was one that asked a

lifetime to truly master, and though he was still a journeyman, he had

found a kind of joy in it. Amiit knew what his talents were, and chose

assignments for him in which he could do well. And in return for the

trust of the house and the esteem of his fellows, Otah did the best work

he could, brokering information, speculation, gossip, and intrigue. He

had traveled through the summer cities in the south, west to the plains

and the cities that traded directly with the Westlands, up the eastern

coasts where his knowledge of obscure east island tongues had served him

well. By design or happy coincidence, he had never gone farther north

than Yalakeht. He had not been called on to see the winter cities.

Until now.

"There's trouble in the north," Amiit said as he tucked the last of the

opened letters into his sleeve.

"I'd heard," Otah said. "The succession's started in Machi."

"Amnat-"Ian, Machi, Cetani. All of them have something brewing. You may

need to get some heavier robes."

"I didn't think House Siyanti had much trade there," Otah said, trying

to keep the unease out of his voice.

"We don't. That doesn't mean we never will. And take your time. There's

something I'm waiting for from the west. I won't be sending you out for

a month at least, so you can have some time to spend you money. Unless ..."

The overseer's eyes narrowed. His hands took a pose of query.

"I just dislike the cold," Otah said, making a joke to cover his unease.

"I grew up in Saraykeht. It seemed like water never froze there."

"It's a hard life," Amiit said. "I can try to give the commissions to

other men, if you'd prefer."

And have them wonder why it was that I wouldn't go, Otah thought. He

took a pose of thanks that also implied rejection.

"I'll take what there is," he said. "And heavy wool robes besides."

"It really isn't so bad up there in summer," Amiit said. "It's the

winters that break your stones."

"Then by all means, send someone else in the winter."

They exchanged a few final pleasantries, and Otah left the name of

Kiyan's wayhouse as the place to send for him, if he was needed. He

spent the afternoon in a teahouse at the edge of the warehouse district,

talking with old acquaintances and trading news. He kept an ear out for

word from Machi, but there was nothing fresh. The eldest son had been

poisoned, and his remaining brothers had gone to ground. No one knew

where they were nor which had begun the traditional struggle. There were

only a few murmurs of the near-forgotten sixth son, but every time he

heard his old name, it was like hearing a distant, threatening noise.

He returned to the wayhouse as darkness began to thicken the treetops

and the streets fell into twilight, brooding. It wasn't safe, of course,

to take a commission in Machi, but neither could he safely refuse one.

Not without a reason. He knew when gossip and speculation had grown hot

enough to melt like sugar and stick. There would be a dozen reports of

Otah Mach] from all over the cities, and likely beyond as well. If even

a suggestion was made that he was not who he presented himself to be, he

ran the risk of being exposed, dragged into the constant, empty, vicious