"Maati-kvo! You're hurt."
"Be careful!" Maati said. "He's got a knife."
Cehmai glanced at the assassin struggling in the stone and shook his head. The poet looked very young, and yet familiar in a way that Maati hadn't noticed before. Intelligent, sure of himself. Maati was struck by an irrational envy of the boy, and then noticed the blood on his own hand. He looked down, and saw the wetness blackening his robes. There was so much of it.
"Can you walk?" Cehmai said, and Maati realized it wasn't the first time the question had been asked. He nodded.
"Only help me up," he said.
The younger poet took one arm and the andat the other and gently lifted him. The warmth in Maati's belly was developing a profound ache in its center. He pushed it aside, walked two steps, then three, and the world seemed to narrow. He found himself on the ground again, the poet leaning over him.
"I'm going for help," Cehmai said. "Don't move. Don't try to move. And don't die while I'm gone."
Maati tried to raise his hands in a pose of agreement, but the poet was already gone, pelting down the street, shouting at the top of his lungs. Maati rolled his head to one side to see the assassin struggling in vain and allowed himself a smile. A thought rolled through his mind, elusive and dim, and he shook himself, willing a lucidity he didn't possess. It was important. Whatever it was bore the weight of terrible significance. If he could only bring himself to think it. It had something to do with Otah-kvo and all the thousand times Maati had imagined their meeting. The andat sat beside him, watching him with the impassive distance of a statue, and Maati didn't know that he intended to speak to it until he heard his own words.
"It isn't Otah-kvo," he said. The andat shifted to consider the captive trapped by stone, then turned back.
"No," it agreed. "Too old."
"No," Maati said, struggling. "I don't mean that. I mean he wouldn't do this. Not to me. Not without speaking to me. It isn't him."
The andat frowned and shook its massive head.
"I don't understand."
"If I die," Maati said, forcing himself to speak above a whisper, "you have to tell Cehmai. It isn't Otah-kvo that did this. There's someone else."
The chamber was laid out like a temple or a theater. On the long, sloping floor, representatives of all the high families sat on low stools or cushions. Beyond them sat the emissaries of the trading houses, the people of the city, and past them rank after rank of servants and slaves. The air was rich with the smells of incense and living bodies. Idaan looked out over the throng, though she knew proper form called for her gaze to remain downcast. Across the dais from her, Adrah knelt, his posture mirroring hers, except that his head was held high. He was, after all, a man. His robes were deep red and woven gold, his hair swept back and tied with bands of gold and iron like a child of the Empire. He had never looked more handsome. Her lover. Her husband. She considered him as she might a fine piece of metalwork or a well-rendered drawing. As a likeness of himself.
His father sat beside him on a bench, dressed in jewels and rich cloth. Daaya Vaunyogi was beaming with pride, but Idaan could see the unease in the way he held himself. The others would sec only the patriarch of one high family marrying his son into the blood of the Khaiem-it was reason enough for excitement. Of all the people there, only Idaan would also see a traitor against his city, forced to sit before the man whose sons he conspired to slaughter and act as if his pet assassin was not locked in a room with armsmen barring the way, his intended victim alive. Idaan forced herself not to smirk at his weakness.
Her father spoke. His voice was thick and phlegmy, and his hands trembled so badly that he took no formal poses.
"I have accepted a petition from House Vaunyogi. They propose that the son of their flesh, Adrah, and the daughter of my blood, Idaan, be joined."
He waited while the appointed whisperers repeated the words, the hall filled, it seemed, with the sound of a breeze. Idaan let her eyes close for a long moment, and opened them again when he continued.
"This proposal pleases me," her father said. "And I lay it before the city. If there is cause that this petition he refused, I would know of it now.
The whisperers dutifully passed this new statement through the hall as well. There was a cough from nearby, as if in preparation to speak. Idaan looked over. There in the first rank of cushions sat Cehmai and his andat. Both of them were smiling pleasantly, but Cehmai's eyes were on hers, his hands in a pose of offering. It was the same pose he might have used to ask if she wanted some of the wine he was drinking or a lap blanket on a cold night. Here, now, it was a deeper thing. Would you like me to stop this? Idaan could not reply. No one was looking at Cehmai, and half the eyes in the chamber were on her. She looked down instead, as a proper girl would. She saw the movement in the corner of her eye when the poet lowered his hands.
"Very well," her father said. "Adrah Vaunyogi, come here before me."
Idaan did not look up as Adrah stood and walked with slow, practiced steps until he stood before the Khai's chair. He knelt again, with his head bowed, his hands in a pose of gratitude and submission. The Khai, despite the grayness in his skin and the hollows in his cheeks, held himself perfectly, and when he did move, the weakness did not undo the grace of a lifetime's study. He put a hand on the boy's head.
"Most high, I place myself before you as a man before his elder," Adrah said, his voice carrying the ritual phrases through the hall. Even with his hack turned, the whisperers had little need to speak. "I place myself before you and ask your permission. I would take Idaan, your blood issue, to be my wife. If it does not please you, please only say so, and accept my apology."
"I am not displeased," her father said.
"Will you grant me this, most high?"
Idaan waited to hear her father accept, to hear the ritual complete itself. The silence stretched, profound and horrible. Idaan felt her heart begin to race, fear rising up in her blood. Something had happened; Oshai had broken. Idaan looked up, prepared to see armsmen descending upon them. But instead, she saw her father bent close to Adrah-so close their foreheads almost touched. There were tears on the sunken cheeks. The formal reserve and dignity was gone. The Khai was gone. All that remained was a desperately ill man in robes too gaudy for a sick house.
"Will you make her happy? I would have one of my children be happy."
Adrah's mouth opened and shut like a fish pulled from the river. Idaan closed her eyes, but she could not stop her ears.
"I ... most high, I will do ... Yes. I will."
Idaan felt her own tears forcing their way into her eyes like traitors. She hit her lip until she tasted blood.
"Let it be known," her father said, "that I have authorized this match. Let the blood of the Khai Maehi enter again into House Vaunyogi. And let all who honor the Khaiem respect this transfer and join in our celebration. The ceremony shall be held in thirty-four days, on the opening of summer."
The whisperers began, but the hush of their voices was quickly drowned out by cheering and applause. Idaan raised her head and smiled as if the smears on her cheeks were from joy. Every man and woman in the chamber had risen. She turned to them and took a pose of thanks, and then to Adrah and his father, and then, finally, to her own. He was still weeping-a show of weakness that the gossips and hackbiters of the court would be chewing over for days. But his smile was so genuine, so hopeful, that Idaan could do nothing but love him and taste ashes.
"Thank you, most high," she said. He bowed his head, as if honoring her.
The Khai Nlachi left the dais first, attended by servants who lifted him into his litter and others who bore him away. "I 'hen Idaan herself retreated. The others would escape according to the status of their families and their standing within them. It would be a hand and a half before the chamber was completely empty. Idaan strode along white marble corridors to a retiring room, sent away her servants, locked the door and sobbed until her heart was empty again. Then she washed her face in cool water
from her basin, arrayed her kohl and blush, whitener and lip rouge before a mirror and carefully made a mask of her skin.
There would be talk, of course. Even without her father's unseemly display of humanity-and she hated them all for the laughter and amusement that would occasion-there would be enough to pick apart. The strength of Adrah's voice would be commented on. The way in which he carried himself. Even his unease when the ritual slipped from its form might speak well of him in people's memory. It was a small thing, of course. In the minds of the witnesses, it had been clear that she would be the daughter of a Khai only very briefly and merely sister to the Khai was a lower status. House Vaunyogi was buying something whose value would soon drop. It must be a love match, they would say, and pretend to be touched. She wondered if it wouldn't be bettercleaner-to simply burn the city and everyone in it, herself included. Let a hot iron clean and seal it like searing a wound. It was a passing fantasy, but it gave her comfort.
A knock came, and she arranged her robes before unlocking the door. Adrah stood, his house servants behind him. He had not changed out of his ritual robes.
"Idaan-kya," he said, "I was hoping you might come have a bowl of tea with my father."
"I have gifts to present to your honored father," Idaan said, gesturing to a cube of cloth and bright paper the size of a boar. It was already lashed to a carrying pole. "It is too much for me. Might I have the aid of your servants?"
Two servants had already moved forward to lift the burden.
Adrah took a pose of command, and she answered with one of acquiescence, following him as he turned and left. They walked side by side through the gardens, not touching. Idaan could feel the gazes of the people they passed, and kept her expression demure. By the time they reached the palaces of the Vaunyogi, her cheeks ached with it. Idaan and Adrah walked with their entourage through a hall of worked rosewood and mother-of-pearl, and to the summer garden where Daaya Vaunyogi sat beneath a stunted maple tree and sipped tea from a stone bowl. His face was weathered but kindly. Seeing him in this place was like stepping into a woodcut from the Old Empire-the honored sage in contemplation. The gift package was placed on the table before him as if it were a meal.
Adrah's father put down his bowl and took a pose that dismissed the servants.
"The garden is closed," he said. "We have much to discuss, my children and I."
As soon as the doors were shut and the three were alone, his face fell. He sank back to his seat like a man struck by fever. Adrah began to pace. Idaan ignored them both and poured herself tea. It was overbrewed and bitter.
"You haven't heard from them, then, Daaya-cha?"
"The Galts?" the man said. "The messengers I send come back empty handed. When I went to speak to their ambassador, they turned me away. Things have gone wrong. The risk is too great. They won't hack us now."
"Did they say that?" Idaan asked.
Daaya took a pose that asked clarification. Idaan leaned forward, holding back the snarl she felt twisting at her lip.
"Did they say they wouldn't back us, or is it only that you fear they won't?"
"Oshai," Daaya said. "He knows everything. He's been my intermediary from the beginning. If he tells what he knows-"
"If he does, he'll be killed," Idaan said. "That he injured a poet is bad enough, but he murdered a son of the Khaiem without being a brother to him. He knows what would happen. His best hope is that someone intercedes for him. If he speaks what he knows, he dies badly."
"We have to free him," Adrah said. "We ha-(- to get him out. We have to show the Galts that we can protect them."
"We will," Idaan said. She drank down her tea. "The three of us. And I know how we'll do it."
Adrah and his father looked at her as if she'd just spat out a serpent. She took a pose of query.
"Shall we wait for the Galts to take action instead? They've already begun to distance themselves. Shall we take some members of your house into our confidence? Hire some armsmen to do it for us? Assume that our secrets will be safer the more people know?"
"But ...... Adrah said.
"If we falter, we fail," Idaan said. "I know the way to the cages. He's kept underground now; if they move him to the towers, it gets harder. I asked that we meet in a place with a private exit. This garden. There is a way out of it?"
Daaya took an acknowledging pose, but his face was pale as bread dough.
"I thought there would be others you wished to consult," he said.
"There's nothing to consult over," Idaan said and pulled open the gifts she had brought to her new marriage. Three dark cloaks with deep hoods, three blades in dark leather sheaths, two unstrung hunter's bows with dark-shafted arrows, two torches, a pot of smoke pitch and a bag to carry it. And beneath it, a wall stand of silver with the sigils of order and chaos worked in marble and bloodstone. Idaan passed the blades and cloaks to the men.
"The servants will only know of the wall stand. "These others we can give to Oshai to dispose of once we have him," Idaan said. "The smoke pitch we can use to frighten the armsmen at the cages. The bows and blades are for those that don't flee."
"Idaan-kya," Adrah said, "this is madness, we can't. .
She slapped him before she knew she meant to. He pressed a palm to his cheek, and his eyes glistened. But there was anger in him too. That was good.
"We do the thing now, while there are servants to swear it was not us. We do it quickly, and we live. We falter and wail like old women, and we die. Pick one."
Daaya Vaunyogi broke the silence by taking a cloak and pulling it on. His son looked to him, then to her, then, trembling began to do the same.
"You should have been born a man," her soon-to-be father said. There was disgust in his voice.
The tunnels beneath the palaces were little traveled in spring. The long winter months trapped in the warrens that laced the earth below Machi made even the slaves yearn for daylight. Idaan knew them all. Long winter months stealing unchaperoned up these corridors to play on the river ice and snow-shrouded city streets had taught her how to move through them unseen. They passed the alcove where she and Janat Saya had kissed once, when they were both too young to think it more than something that they should wish to do. She led them through the thin servant's passage she'd learned of when she was stealing fresh applecakes from the kitchens. Memories made the shadows seem like old friends from better times, when her mischief had been innocent.
They made their way from tunnel to tunnel, passing through wide chambers unnoticed and passages so narrow they had to stoop and go singly. The weight of stone above them made the journey seem like traveling through a mine.
They knew they were nearing the occupied parts of the tunnels as much by the smell of shit from the cages and acrid smoke as by the torchlight that danced at the corridor's mouth. Thick timber beams framed the hall. Idaan paused. This was only a side gallery-little used, rarely trafficked. But it would do, she thought.
"What now?" Adrah asked. "We light the pitch? Simulate a fire?"
Idaan took the pot from its hag and weighed it in her hands.
"We simulate nothing, Adrah-kya," she said. She tossed the pot at the base of a thick timber support and tossed her lit torch onto the blackness. It sputtered for a moment, then caught. Idaan unslung the bow from her shoulder and draped a fold of the cloak over it. "Be ready."
She waited as the flames caught. If she waited too long, they might not be able to pass the fire. If she was too quick, the armsmen might be able to put out the blaze. A deep calm seemed to descend upon her, and she felt herself smile. Now would be a fine moment, she thought, and screamed, raising the alarm. Adrah and Daaya followed her as she stumbled through the darkness and into the cages. In the time it took for her to take two breaths of the thickening air, they found themselves in the place she'd hoped: a wide gallery in torchlight, the air already becoming dense with smoke, and iron cages set into the stone where prisoners waited on the justice of the Khai. Two armsmen in leather and bronze armor s
cuttled to the three of them, their eyes round with fear.
"There's a fire in the gallery!" Daaya shrilled. "Get water! Get the watch!"
The prisoners were coming to the front of the cages now. Their cries of fear added to the confusion. Idaan pretended to cough as she considered the problem. There were two more armsmen at the far end of the cages, but they were coming closer. Of the first two who had approached, one had raced off toward the fire, the other down a well-lit tunnel, she presumed towards aid. And then midway down the row of cages on the left, she caught a glimpse of the Galts' creature. There was real fear in his eyes.
Adrah panicked as the second pair came close. With a shriek, he drew his blade, hewing at the armsmen like a child playing at war. Idaan cursed, but Daaya was moving faster, drawing his bow and sinking a dark shaft into the man's belly as Idaan shot at his chest and missed. But Adrah was lucky-a wild stroke caught the armsman's chin and seemed to cleave his jaw apart. Idaan raced to the cages, to Oshai. The moon-faced assassin registered a moment's surprise when he saw her face within the hood, and then Oshai closed his eyes and spat.
Adrah and Daaya rushed to her side.
"Do not speak," Oshai said. "Nothing. Every man here would sell you for his freedom, and there are people who would buy. Do you understand?"
Idaan nodded and pointed toward the thick lock that barred the door. Oshai shook his head.
"The Khai's Master of Blades keeps the keys," Oshai said. "The cages can't be opened without him. If you meant me to leave with you, you didn't think this through very well."
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