A Betrayal in Winter

by Daniel Abraham

  Adrah whispered a curse, but Oshai's eyes were on Idaan. He smiled thinly, his eyes dead as a fish's. He saw it when she understood, and he nodded, stepped back from the bars, and opened his arms like a man overwhelmed by the beauty of a sunrise. Idaan's first arrow took him in the throat. There were two others after that, but she thought they likely didn't matter. The first shouts of the watch echoed. The smoke was thickening. Idaan walked away, down the route she had meant to take when the prisoners were free. She'd meant to free them all, adding to the chaos. She'd been a fool.

  "What have you done?" Daaya Vaunyogi demanded once they were safely away in the labyrinth. "What have you done?"

  Idaan didn't bother answering.

  Back in the garden, they sank the blades and the cloaks in a fountain to lie submerged until Adrah could sneak back in under cover of night and get rid of them. Even with the dark hoods gone, they all reeked of smoke. She hadn't foreseen that either. Neither of the men met her eyes. And yet, Oshai was beyond telling stories to the utkhaiem. So perhaps things hadn't ended so badly.

  She gave her farewells to Daaya Vaunyogi. Adrah walked with her hack through the evening-dimmed streets to her rooms. That the city seemed unchanged struck her as odd. She couldn't say what she had expected-what the day's events should have done to the stones, the air-but that it should all be the same seemed wrong. She paused by a beggar, listening to his song, and dropped a length of silver into the lacquered box at his feet.

  At the entrance to her rooms, she sent her servants away. She did not wish to be attended. They would assume she smelled of sex, and best that she let them. Adrah peered at her, earnest as a puppy, she thought. She could see the distress in his eyes.

  "You had to," he said, and she wondered if he meant to comfort her or 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 islanders he'd lived with had laughed at him and pretended to mistake him for a woman. After Cetani, it would take another twenty days to reach the docks outside Amnat-tan. And then, if he could find a fishing boat that would take him on, he would be among those men again, singing songs in a tongue he hadn't tried out in years, explaining again, either with the truth or outrageous stories, why his marriage mark was only half done.

  He would die there-on the islands or on the sea-under whatever new name he chose for himself. Itani Noygu was gone. He had died in Machi. Another life was behind him, and the prospect of beginning again, alone in a foreign land, tired him more than the walking.

  "Now, southern wood's too soft to really build with. The winters are too warm to really harden them. Up here there's trees that would blunt a dozen axes before they fell," the old man said.

  "You know everything, don't you grandfather?" Otah said. If his annoyance was in his voice, the old man noticed nothing, because he cackled again.

  "It's because I've been everywhere and done everything," the old man said. "I even helped hunt down the Khai Amnat-Tan's older brother when they had their last succession. "There were a dozen of us, and it was the dead of winter. Your piss would freeze before it touched ground. Oh, eh ..."

  The old man took a pose of apology to the young woman and her babe, and Otah swung himself out of the cart. It wasn't a story he cared to hear. The road wound through a valley, high pine forest on either side, the air sharp and fragrant with the resin. It was beautiful, and he pictured it thick with snow, the image coming so clear that he wondered whether he might once have seen it that way. When the clatter of hooves came from the west, he forced himself again to relax his shoulders and look as curious and excited as the others. Twice before, couriers on fast horses had passed the 'van, laden with news, Otah knew, of the search for him.

  It had taken an effort of will not to run as fast as he could after he had been discovered, but the search was for a false courier either plotting murder or fleeing like a rabbit. No one would pay attention to a plodding laborer off to stay with his sister's family in a low town outside Cetani. And yet, as the horses approached, tension grew in his breast. He prepared himself for the shock if one of the riders had a familiar face.

  There were three this time-utkhaiem to judge by their robes and the quality of their mounts-and none of them men he knew. They didn't slow for the 'van, but the armsmen of the 'van, the drivers
, the dozen hangers-on like himself all shouted at them for news. One of them turned in his saddle and yelled something, but Otah couldn't make it out and the rider didn't repeat it. Ten days on the road. Six more to Cetani. The only challenge was not to be where they were looking for him.

  They reached a wayhouse with the sun still three and a half hands above the treetops. The building was of northern design: stone walls thick as the span of a man's arm and stables and goat pen on the ground floor where the heat of the animals would rise and help warm the place in the winter. While the merchants and armsmen argued over whether to stop now or go farther and sleep in the open, Otah ran his eyes over the windows and walked around to the back, looking for all the signs Kiyan had taught him to know whether the keeper was working with robbers or keeping an unsafe kitchen. The house met all of her best marks. It seemed safe.

  By the time he'd returned to the carts, his companions had decided to stay. After Otah had helped stable the horses, they shifted the carts into a locked courtyard. The caravan's leader haggled with the keeper about the rooms and came to an agreement that Otah privately thought gave the keep the better half. Otah made his way up two flights of stairs to the room he was to share with five armsmen, two drivers, and the old man. He curled himself up in a corner on the floor. It was too small a room, and one of the drivers snored badly. A little sleep when things were quiet would only make the next day easier.

  He woke in darkness to the sound of music-a drum throbbed and a flute sighed. A man's voice and a woman's moved in rough harmony. He wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his robe and went down to the main room. The members of his 'van were all there and half a dozen other men besides. The air smelled of hot wine and roast lamb, pine trees and smoke. Otah sat at a rough, worn table beside one of the drivers and watched.

  The singer was the keep himself, a pot-bellied man with a nose that had been broken and badly set. He drew the deep heat from a skin and earthenware drum as he sang. His wife was shapely as a potato with an ugly face and a missing eye tooth, but their voices were well suited and their affection for each other forgave them much. Otah found himself tapping his fingertips against the table to match the drumbeats.