“We’ll have to act before that,” Otah said.
“True enough, but that doesn’t mean we’d be wise to act now,” Amiit said. “We know, or guess well enough, what power is behind all this—the Galts. But we don’t know the mechanism. Who are they backing? Why? I don’t like the idea of moving forward without that in hand. And yet, time’s short.”
Amiit held out his open hands, and Otah understood this choice was being laid at his door. It was his life most at risk, and Amiit wasn’t going to demand anything of Otah that he wasn’t prepared to do. Otah sat, laced his fingers together, and frowned. It was Kiyan’s voice that interrupted his uncertainty.
“Either we stay here or we go to Machi. If we stay here, we’re unlikely to be discovered, but it takes half a day for us to get news, and half a day at least to respond to it. Amiit-cha thinks the safety might be worth it, but Lamaracha,” she gestured to the hook-nosed man, “has been arguing that we’ll want the speed we can only have by being present. He’s arranged a place for us to stay—in the tunnels below the palaces.”
“I have an armsman of the Saya family in my employ,”the hook-nosed Lamara said. His voice was a rough whisper, and Otah noticed for the first time a long, deep, old scar across the man’s throat. “The Saya are a minor family, but they will be at the council. We can keep clear on what’s said and by whom.”
“And if you’re discovered, we’ll all be killed,” Sinja said. “As far as the world’s concerned, you’ve murdered a Khai. It’s not a precedent anyone wants set. Especially not the other Khaiem. Bad enough they have to watch their brothers. If it’s their sons, too….”
“I understand that,” Otah said. Then, to Amiit, “Are we any closer to knowing who the Galts are backing?”
“We don’t know for certain that they’re backing anyone,” Amiit said. “That’s an assumption we’ve made. We can make some educated guesses, but that’s all. It may be that their schemes are about the poets, the way you suggested, and not the succession at all.”
“But you don’t believe that,” Otah said.
“And the poets don’t either,” the round-cheeked man said. “At least not the new one.”
“Shojen-cha is the man we set to follow Maati Vaupathai,” Amiit said.
“He’s been digging at all the major houses of the utkhaiem,” Shojen said, leaning forward, his rings glittering in the light. “In the last week, he’s had audiences with all the highest families and half the low ones. And he’s been asking questions about court politics and money and power. He hasn’t been looking to the Galts in particular, but it’s clear enough he thinks some family or families of the utkhaiem are involved in the killings.”
“What’s he found out?” Otah asked,
“We don’t know. I can’t say what he’s looking for or what he’s found, but there’s no question he’s conducting an investigation.”
“He’s the one who gave you over to the Khai in the first place, isn’t he, Otah-cha?” Lamara said in his ruined voice.
“He’s also the one who took a knife in the gut,” Sinja said.
“Can we say why he’s looking?” Otah asked. “What would he do if he discovered the truth? Report it to the utkhaiem? Or only the Dai-kvo?”
“I can’t say,” Shojen said. “I know what he’s doing, not what he’s thinking.”
“We can say this,” Amiit said, his expression dour and serious. “As it stands, there’s no one in the city who’ll think you innocent, Otah-cha. If you’re found in Machi, you’ll be killed. And whoever sticks the first knife in will use it as grounds that he should be Khai. The only protection you’ll have is obscurity.”
“No armsmen?” Otah asked.
“Not enough,” Amiit said. “First, they’d only draw attention to you, and second, there aren’t enough guards in the city to protect you if the utkhaiem get your scent in their noses.”
“But that’s true wherever he is,” Lamara said. “If they find out he’s alive on a desolate rock in the middle of the sea, they’ll send men to kill him. He’s murdered the Khai!”
“Then best to keep him where he won’t be found,” Amiit said. There was an impatience in his tone that told Otah this debate had been going on long before he’d come in the room. Tempers were fraying, and even Amiit Foss’s deep patience was wearing thin. He felt Kiyan’s eyes on him, and looked up to meet her gaze. Her half-smile carried more meaning than half a hand’s debate. They will never agree and you may as well practice giving orders now—if it goes well, you’ll be doing it for the rest of your life and I’m sorry, love.
Otah felt a warmth in his chest, felt the panic and distress relax like a stiff muscle rubbed in hot oils. Lamara and Amiit were talking over each other, each making points and suggestions it was clear they’d made before. Otah coughed, but they paid him no attention. He looked from one flushed, grim face to the other, sighed, and slapped his palm on the table hard enough to make the wine bowls rattle. The room went silent, surprised eyes turning to him.
“I believe, gentlemen, that I understand the issues at hand,” Otah said. “I appreciate Amiit-cha’s concern for my safety, but the time for caution has passed.”
“It’s a vice,” Sinja agreed, grinning.
“Next time, you can give me your advice without cracking my ribs,” Otah said. “Lamara-cha, I thank you for the offer of the tunnels to work from, and I accept it. We’ll leave tonight.”
“Otah-cha, I don’t think you’ve … ” Amiit began, his hands held out in an appeal, but Otah only shook his head. Amiit frowned deeply, and then, to Otah’s surprise, smiled and took a pose of acceptance.
“Shojen-cha,” Otah said. “I need to know what Maati is thinking. What he’s found, what he intends, whether he’s hoping to save me or destroy me. Both are possible, and everything we do will be different depending on his stance.”
“I appreciate that,” Shojen said, “but I don’t know how I’d discover it. It isn’t as though he confides in me. Or in anyone else that I can tell.”
Otah rubbed his fingertips across the rough wood of the table, considering that. He felt their eyes on him, pressing him for a decision. This one, at least, was simple enough. He knew what had to be done.
“Bring him to me,” he said. “Once we’ve set ourselves up and we’re sure of the place, bring him there. I’ll speak with him.”
“That’s a mistake,” Sinja said.
“Then it’s a mistake I’m making,” Otah said. “How long before we can be ready to leave?”
“We can have all the things we need on a cart by sundown,” Amiit said. “That would put us in Machi just after the half-candle. We could be in the tunnels and tucked as safely away as we’re likely to manage by dawn. But there are going to be some people in the streets, even then.”
“Get flowers. Decorate the cart as if we’re preparing for the wedding,” Otah said. “Then even if they think it odd to see us, they’ll have a story to tell themselves.”
“I’ll collect the poet whenever you like,” Shojen said, his confident voice undermined by the nervous way he fingered his rings.
“Also tomorrow. And Lamara-cha, I’ll want reports from your man at the council as soon as there’s word to be had.”
“As you say,” Lamara said.
Otah moved his hands into a pose of thanks, then stood.
“Unless there’s more to be said, I’m going to sleep now. I’m not sure when I’ll have the chance again. Any of you who aren’t involved in preparations for the move might consider doing the same.”
They murmured their agreement, and the meeting ended, but when later Otah lay in the cot, one arm thrown over his eyes to blot out the light, he was certain he could no more sleep than fly. He was wrong. Sleep came easily, and he didn’t hear the old leather hinges creak when Kiyan entered the room. It was her voice that pulled him into awareness.
“It’s a mistake I’m making? That’s quite the way to lead men.”
He stretched. His ribs still hu
rt, and worse, they’d stiffened.
“Was it too harsh, do you think?”
Kiyan pushed the netting aside and sat next to him, her hand seeking his.
“If Sinja-cha’s that delicate, he’s in the wrong line of work,” she said. “He may think you’re wrong, but if you’d turned back because he told you to, you’d have lost part of his respect. You did fine, love. Better than fine. I think you’ve made Amiit a very happy man.”
“How so?”
“You’ve become the Khai Machi. Oh, I know, it’s not done yet, but out there just then? You weren’t speaking like a junior courier or an east islands fisherman.”
Otah sighed. Her face was calm and smooth. He brought her hand to his lips and kissed her wrist.
“I suppose not,” he said. “I didn’t want this, you know. The wayhouse would have been enough.”
“I’m sure the gods will take that into consideration,” she said. “They’re usually so good about giving us the lives we expect.”
Otah chuckled. Kiyan let herself be pulled down slowly, until she lay beside him, her body against his own. Otah’s hand strayed to her belly, caressing the tiny life growing inside her. Kiyan raised her eyebrows and tilted her head.
“You look sad,” she said. “Are you sad, ‘Tani?”
“No, love,” Otah said. “Not sad. Only frightened.”
“About going back to the city?”
“About being discovered,” he said. And a moment later, “About what I’m going to have to say to Maati.”
Cehmai sat back on a cushion, his back aching and his mind askew. Stone-Made-Soft sat beside him, its stillness unbroken even by breath. At the front of the temple, on a dais where the witnesses could see her, sat Idaan. Her eyes were cast down, her robe the vibrant rose and blue of a new bride. The distance between them seemed longer than the space within the walls, as if a year’s journey had been fit into the empty air.
The crowd was not as great as the occasion deserved: women and the second sons of the utkhaiem. Elsewhere, the council was meeting, and those who had a place in it were there. Given the choice of spectacle, many others would choose the men, their speeches and arguments, the debates and politics and subtle drama, to the simple marrying off of an orphan girl of the best lineage and the least influence to the son of a good, solid family.
Cehmai stared at her, willing the kohl-dark eyes to look up, the painted lips to smile at him. Cymbals chimed, and the priests dressed in gold and silver robes with the symbols of order and chaos embroidered in black began their chanting procession. Their voices blended and rose until the temple walls themselves seemed to ring with the melody. Cehmai plucked at the cushion. He couldn’t watch, and he couldn’t look away. One priest—an old man with a bare head and a thin white beard—stopped behind Idaan in the place that her father or brother should have taken. The high priest stood at the back of the dais, lifted his hands slowly, palms out to the temple, and, with an embracing gesture, seemed to encompass them all. When he spoke, it was in the language of the Old Empire, syllables known to no one on the cushions besides himself.
Eyan ta nyot baa, dan salaa khai dan umsalaa.
The will of the gods has always been that woman shall act as servant to man.
An old tongue for an old thought. Cehmai let the words that followed it—the ancient ritual known more by its rhythm than its significance—wash over him. He closed his eyes and told himself he was not drowning. He focused on his breath, smoothing its ragged edges until he regained the appearance of calm. He watched the sorrow and the anger and the jealousy writhe inside him as if they were afflicting someone else.
When he opened his eyes, the andat had shifted, its gaze on him and expressionless. Cehmai felt the storm at the back of his mind shift, as if taking stock of the confusion in his heart, testing him for weakness. Cehmai waited, prepared for Stone-Made-Soft to press, for the struggle to engulf him. He almost longed for it.
But the andat seemed to feel that anticipation, because it pulled back. The pressure lessened, and Stone-Made-Soft smiled its idiot, empty smile, and turned back to the ceremony. Adrah was standing now, a long cord looped in his hand. The priest asked him the ritual questions, and Adrah spoke the ritual answers. His face seemed drawn, his shoulders too square, his movements too careful. Cehmai thought he seemed exhausted.
The priest who stood behind Idaan spoke for her family in their absence, and the end of the cord, cut and knotted, passed from Adrah to the priest and then to Idaan’s hand. The rituals would continue for some time, Cehmai knew, but as soon as the cord was accepted, the binding was done. Idaan Machi had entered the house of the Vaunyogi and only Adrah’s death would cast her back into the ghost arms of her dead family. Those two were wed, and he had no right to the pain the thought caused him. He had no right to it.
He rose and walked silently to the wide stone archway and out of the temple. If Idaan looked up at his departure, he didn’t notice.
The sun wasn’t halfway through its arc, and a fresh wind from the north was blowing the forge smoke away. High, thin clouds scudded past, giving the illusion that the great stone towers were slowly, endlessly toppling. Cehmai walked the temple grounds, Stone-Made-Soft a pace behind him. There were few others there—a woman in rich robes sitting alone by a fountain, her face a mask of grief; a round-faced man with rings glittering on his fingers reading a scroll; an apprentice priest raking the gravel paths smooth with a long metal rake. And at the edge of the grounds, where temple became palace, a familiar shape in brown poet’s robes. Cehmai hesitated, then slowly walked to him, the andat close by and trailing him like a shadow.
“I hadn’t expected to see you here, Maati-kvo.”
“No, but I expected you,” the older poet said. “I’ve been at the council all morning. I needed some time away. May I walk with you?”
“If you like. I don’t know that I’m going anywhere in particular.”
“Not marching with the wedding party? I thought it was traditional for the celebrants to make an appearance in the city with the new couple. Let the city look over the pair and see who’s allied themselves with the families. I assume that’s what all the flowers and decorations out there are for.”
“There will be enough without me.”
Cehmai turned north, the wind blowing gently into his face, drawing his robes out behind him as if he were walking through water. A slave girl was standing beside the path singing an old love song, her high, sweet voice carrying like a flute’s. Cehmai felt Maati-kvo’s attention, but wasn’t sure what to make of it. He felt as examined as the corpse on the physician’s table. At length, he spoke to break the silence.
“How is it?”
“The council? Like a very long, very awkward dinner party. I imagine it will deteriorate. The only interesting thing is that a number of houses are calling for Vaunyogi to take the chair.”
“Interesting,” Cehmai said. “I knew Adrah-cha was thinking of it, but I wouldn’t have thought his father had the money to sway many people.”
“I wouldn’t have either. But there are powers besides money.”
The comment seemed to hang in the air.
“I’m not sure what you mean, Maati-kvo.”
“Symbols have weight. The wedding coming as it does might sway the sentimental. Or perhaps Vaunyogi has advocates we aren’t aware of.”
“Such as?”
Maati stopped. They had reached a wide courtyard, rich with the scent of cropped summer grass. The andat halted as well, its broad head tilted in an attitude of polite interest. Cehmai felt a brief flare of hatred toward it, and saw its lips twitch slightly toward a smile.
“If you’ve spoken for the Vaunyogi, I need to know it,” Maati said.
“We’re not to take sides in these things. Not without direction from the Dai-kvo.”
“I’m aware of that, and I don’t mean to accuse you or pry into what’s not mine, but on this one thing, I have to know. They did ask you to speak for them, didn’t the
y?”
“I suppose,” Cehmai said.
“And did you speak for them?”
“No. Why should I?”
“Because Idaan Machi is your lover,” Maati said, his voice soft and full of pity.
Cehmai felt the blood come into his face, his neck. The anger at everything that he had seen and heard pressed at him, and he let himself borrow certainty from the rage.
“Idaan Machi is Adrah’s wife. No, I did not speak for Vaunyogi. Despite your experience, not everyone falls in love with the man who’s taken his lover.”
Maati leaned back. The words had struck home, and Cehmai pressed on, following the one attack with another.
“And, forgive me, Maati-cha, but you seem in an odd position to take me to task for following my private affairs where they don’t have a place. You are still doing all this without the Dai-kvo’s knowledge?”
“He might have a few of my letters,” Maati-kvo said. “If not yet, then soon.”
“But since you’re a man under those robes, on you go. I am doing as the Dai-kvo set me to do. I am carrying this great bastard around; I am keeping myself apart from the politics of the court; I’m not willing to stand accused of lighting candles while you’re busy burning the city down!”
“Calling me a bastard seems harsh,” Stone-Made-Soft said. “I haven’t told you how to behave.”
“Be quiet!”
“If you think it will help,” the andat said, its voice amused. Cehmai turned the fury inward, pressing at the space where he and Stone-Made-Soft were one thing, pushing the storm into a smaller and smaller thing. He felt his hands in fists, felt his teeth ache with the pressure of his clenched jaw. And the andat, shifted, bent to his fire-bright will, knelt and cast down its gaze. He forced its hands into a pose of apology.
“Cehmai-cha.”
He turned on Maati. The wind was picking up, whipping their robes. The fluttering of cloth sounded like a sail.
“I’m sorry,” Maati-kvo said. “I truly am very sorry. I know what it must mean to have these things questioned, but I have to know.”
A Betrayal in Winter (The Long Price Quartet Book 2) Page 29