A Betrayal in Winter

by Daniel Abraham

  Her own rooms were set in the back; small apartments with rich tapestries of white and gold on the walls. They might almost have been mistaken for the home of some merchant leader-the overseer of a great trading house, or a trade master who spoke with the voice of a city's craftsmen. If only she had been born one of those. As she entered, one of her servants met her with an expression that suggested news. Idaan took a pose of query.

  "Adrah Vaunyogi is waiting to see you, Idaan-cha," the servant girl said. "It was approaching midday, so I've put him in the dining hall. There is food waiting. I hope I haven't ..."

  "No," Idaan said, "you did well. Please see that we're left alone."

  He sat at the long, wooden table, and he did not look up when she came in. Idaan was willing to ignore him as well as to be ignored, so she gathered a bowl of food from the platters-early grapes from the south, sticky with their own blood; hard, crumbling cheese with a ripe scent that was both appetizing and not; twice-baked flatbread that cracked sharply when she broke off a piece-and retired to a couch. She forced herself to forget that he was here, to look forward at the bare fire grate. Anger buoyed her up, and she clung to it.

  She heard it when he stood, heard his footsteps approaching. It was a little victory, but it pleased her. As he sat cross-legged on the floor before her, she raised an eyebrow and sketched a pose of welcome before choosing another grape.

  "I came last night," he said. "I was looking for you."

  "I wasn't here," she said.

  The pause was meant to injure her. Look how sad youu've made me, Idaan. It was a child's tactic, and that it partially worked infuriated her.

  "I've had trouble sleeping," she said. "I walk. Otherwise, I'd spend the whole night staring at netting and watching the candle burn down. No call for that."

  Adrah sighed and nodded his head.

  "I've been troubled too," he said. "My father can't reach the Galts. With Oshai ... with what happened to him, he's afraid they may withdraw their support."

  "Your father is an old woman frightened there's a snake in the night bucket," Idaan said, breaking a corner of her bread. "They may lie low now, but once it's clear that you're in position to become Khai, they'll do what they promised. They've nothing to gain by not."

  "Once I'm Khai, they'll still own me," Adrah said. "They'll know how I came there. They'll be able to hold it over me. If they tell what they know, the gods only know what would happen."

  Idaan took a bite of grape and cheese both-the sweet and the salt mingling pleasantly. When she spoke, she spoke around it.

  "They won't. They won't dare, Adrah. Give the worst: we're exposed by the Galts. We're deposed and killed horribly in the streets. Fine. Lift your gaze up from your own corpse for a moment and tell me what happens next?"

  "There's a struggle. Some other family takes the chair."

  "Yes. And what will the new Khai do?"

  "He'll slaughter my family," Adrah said, his voice hollow and ghostly. Idaan leaned forward and slapped him.

  "He'll have Stone-Made-Soft level a few Galtic mountain ranges and sink some islands. Do you think there's a Khai in any city that would sit still at the word of the Galtic Council arranging the death of one of their own? The Galts won't own you because your exposure would mean the destruction of their nation and the wholesale slaughter of their people. So worry a little less. You're supposed to he overwhelmed with the delight of marrying me."

  "Shouldn't you be delighted too, then?"

  "I'm busy mourning my father," she said dryly. "Do we have any wine?"

  "How is he? Your father?"

  "I don't know," Idaan said. "I try not to see him these days. He makes me ... feel weak. I can't afford that just now."

  "I heard he's failing."

  "Men can fail for a long time," she said, and stood. She left the bowl on the floor and walked back to her bedroom, holding her hands out before her, sticky with juice. Adrah followed along behind her and lay on her bed. She poured water into her stone basin and watched him as she washed her hands. He was a boy, lost in the world. Perhaps now was as good a time as any. She took a deep breath.

  "I've been thinking, Adrah-kya," she said. "About when you become Khai."

  He turned his head to look at her, but did not rise or speak.

  "It's going to he important, especially at the first, to gather allies. Founding a line is a delicate thing. I know we agreed that it would always be only the two of us, but perhaps we were wrong in that. If you take other wives, you'll have more the appearance of tradition and the support of the families who hind themselves to us."

  "My father said the same," he said.

  Oh did he? Idaan thought, but she held her face still and calm. She dried her hands on the basin cloth and came to sit on the bed beside him. To her surprise, he was weeping; small tears corning from the outer corners of his eyes, thin tracks shining on his skin. Without willing it, her hand went to his cheek, caressing him. He shifted to look at her.

  "I love you, Idaan. I love you more than anything in the world. You are the only person I've ever felt this way about."

  His lips trembled and she pressed a finger against them to quiet him. These weren't things she wanted to hear, but he would not be stopped.

  "Let's end this," he said. "Let's just be together, here. I'll find another way to move ahead in the court, and your brother ... you'll still be his blood, and we'll still be well kept. Can't we ... can't we, please?"

  "All this because you don't want to take another woman?" she said softly, teasing him. "I find that hard to believe."

  He took her hand in his. He had soft hands. She remembered thinking that the first time they'd fallen into her bed together. Strong, soft, wide hands. She felt tears forming in her own eyes.

  "My father said that I should take other wives," he said. "My mother said that, knowing you, you'd only agree to it if you could take lovers of your own too. And then you weren't here last night, and I waited until it was almost dawn. And you ... you want to ..."

  "You think I've taken another man?" she asked.

  His lips pressed thin and bloodless, and he nodded. His hand squeezed hers as if she might save his life, if only he held onto her. A hundred things came to her mind all at once. Yes, of course I have. How dare you accuse me? Cehmai is the only clean thing left in my world, and you cannot have him. She smiled as if Adrah were a boy being silly, as if he were wrong.

  "That would be the stupidest thing I could possibly do just now," she said, neither lying nor speaking the truth of it. She leaned forward to kiss him, but before their mouths touched, a voice wild with excitement called out from the atrium.

  "Idaan-cha! Idaan-cha! Come quickly!"

  Idaan leapt up as if she'd been caught doing something she ought not, then gathered herself, straightened her robes. The mirror showed that the paint on her mouth and eyes was smudged from eating and weeping, but there wasn't time to reapply it. She pushed hack a stray lock of hair and stormed out.

  The servant girl took a pose of apology as Idaan approached her. She wore the colors of her father's personal retinue, and Idaan's heart sank to her belly. He had died. It had happened. But the girl was smiling, her eyes bright.

  "What's happened?" Idaan demanded.

  "Everything," the girl said. "You're summoned to the court. The Khai is calling everyone."

  "Why? What's happened?"

  "I'm not to say, Idaan-cha," the girl said.

  Idaan felt the rage-blood in her face as if she were standing near a fire. She didn't think, didn't plan. Her body seemed to move of its own accord as she slid forward and clapped her hand on the servant girl's throat and pressed her to the wall. There was shock in the girl's expression, and Idaan sneered at it. Adrah fluttered like a bird in the corner of her vision.

  "Say," Idaan said. "Because I asked you twice, tell me what's happened. And do it now."

  "The upstart," the girl said. ""They've caught him."

  Idaan stepped back, dropping her hand. The
girl's eyes were wide. The air of excitement and pleasure were gone. Adrah put a hand on Idaan's shoulder, and she pushed it away.

  "He was here," the girl said. "In the palaces. The visiting poet caught him, and they're bringing him before the Khai."

  Idaan licked her lips. Otah Machi was here. He had been here for the gods only knew how long. She looked at Adrah, but his expression spoke of an uncertainty and surprise as deep as her own. And a fear that wasn't entirely about their conspiracy.

  "What's your name?" she asked.

  "Choya," the girl said.

  Idaan took a pose of abject apology. It was more than a member of the utkhaiem would have normally presented to a servant, but Idaan felt her guilt welling up like blood from a cut.

  "I am very sorry, Choya-cha. I was wrong to-"

  "But that isn't all," the servant girl said. "A courier came this morning from 'Ian-Sadar. He'd been riding for three weeks. Kaiin Machi is dead. Your brother Danat killed him, and he's coming hack. The courier guessed he might be a week behind him. I)anat Machi's going to he the new Khai Machi. And Idaan-cha, he'll be back in the city in time for your wedding!"

  On one end, the chain ended at a cube of polished granite the color of soot that stood as high as a man's waist. On the other, it linked to a rough iron collar around Otah's neck. Sitting with his back to the stone-the chain was not so long that he could stand-Otah remembered seeing a brown bear tied to a pole in the main square of a low town outside'lan-Sadar. Dogs had been set upon it three at a time, and with each new wave, the men had wagered on which animal would survive.

  Armsmen stood around him with blades drawn and leather armor, stationed widely enough apart to allow anyone who wished it a good view of the captive. Beyond them, the representatives of the utkhaiem in fine robes and ornate jewelry crowded the floor and two tiers of the balconies that rose up to the base of the domed ceiling far above him. The dais before him was empty. Otah wondered what would happen if he should need to empty his bladder. It seemed unlikely that they would let him piss on the fine parquet floor, but neither could he imagine being led away decorously. He tried to picture what they saw, this mob of nobility, when they looked at him. He didn't try to charm them or play on their sympathies. He was the upstart, and there wasn't a man or woman in the hall who wasn't delighted to see him debased and humiliated.

  The first of the servants appeared, filing out from a hidden door and spacing themselves around the chair. Otah picked out the brown poet's robe, but it was Cchmai with the bulk of his andat moving behind him. Maati wasn't with him; Cehmai was speaking with a woman in the robes of the Khaiem-Otah's sister, she would be. He wondered what her name was.

  The last of the servants and counselors took their places, and the crowd fell silent. The Khai Machi walked out, as graceful as a dying man could be. His robes were lush and full, and served to do little more than show how wasted his frame had become. Otah could see the rouge on his sunken cheeks, trying to give the appearance of vigor long since gone. Whisperers fanned out from the dais and into the crowd. The Khai took a pose of welcome appropriate to the opening of a ritual judgment. Utah rose to his knees.

  "I am told that you are my son, Utah Machi, whom I gave over to the poets' school."

  The whisperers echoed it through the hall. It was his moment to speak now, and he found his heart was so full of humiliation and fear and anger that he had nothing to say. He raised his hands and took a pose of greeting-a casual one that would have been appropriate for a peasant son to his father. "There was a murmur among the utkhaiem.

  "I am further told that you were once offered the poet's robes, and you refused that honor."

  Otah tried to rise, but the most the chain allowed was a low stoop. He cleared his throat and spoke, pushing the words out clear enough to be heard in the farthest gallery.

  "That is true. I was a child, most high. And I was angry."

  "And I hear that you have come to my city and killed my eldest child. Biitrah Machi is dead by your hand."

  "That is not true, father," Utah said. "I won't say that no man has ever died by my hand, but I didn't kill I3iitrah. I have no wish or intention to become the Khai Machi."

  "Then why have you come here?" the Khai shouted, rising to his feet. His face was twisted in rage, his fists trembled. In all his travels, Otah had never seen the Khai of any city look more like a man. Otah felt something like pity through his humiliation and rage, and it let him speak more softly when he spoke again.

  "I heard that my father was dying."

  It seemed that the murmur of the crowds would never end. It rolled like waves against the seashore. Otah knelt again; the awkward stooping hurt his neck and hack, and there was no point trying to maintain dignity here. They waited, he and his father, staring at each other across the space. Otah tried to feel some bond, some kinship that would bridge this gap, but there was nothing. The Khai Machi was his father by an accident of birth, and nothing more.

  He saw the old man's eyes flicker, as if unsure of himself. He couldn't have always been this way-the Khaiem were inhumanly studied in ritual and grace. It was the mark of their calling. Otah wondered what his father had been when he was young and strong. He wondered what he would have been like as a man among his children.

  The Khai raised a hand, and the crowd's susurrus tapered down to silence. Otah did not move.

  "You have stepped outside tradition," he said. "Whether you took a hand against my son is a question that has already gathered an array of opinion. It is something I must think on.

  "I have had other news this day. Danat Machi has won the right of succession. He is returning to the city even now. I will consult with him on your fate. Until then, you shall be confined in the highest room in the great tower. I do not care to have your accomplices taking your death in their own hands this time. Danat and I-the Khai Machi and the Khai yet to come-shall decide together what kind of beast you are.

  Otah took a pose of supplication. That he was on his knees only made the gesture clearer. He was dead, whatever happened. He could see that now. If there had been a chance of mercy-and likely there hadn't-having father and son converse would remove it. But in the black dread, there was this one chance to speak as himself-not as Itani Noygu or some other mask. And if it offended the court, there was little worse they could do to him than he faced now. His father hesitated, and Otah spoke.

  "I have seen many of the cities of the Khaiem, most high. I have been horn into the highest of families, and I have been offered the greatest of honors. And if I am here to meet my death at the hands of those who should by all rights love me, at least hear me out. Our cities are not well, father. Our traditions are not well. You stand there on that dais now because you killed your own. You are celebrating the return of Danat, who killed his brother, and at the same time preparing to condemn me on the suspicion that I did the same. A tradition that calls men to kill their brothers and discard their sons cannot be-"

  "Enough!" the Khai roared, and his voice carried. The whisperers were silent and unneeded. "I have not carried this city on my back for all these years to be lectured now by a rebel and a traitor and a poisoner. You are not my son! You lost that right! You squandered it! Tell me that this ..." The Khai raised his hands in a gesture that seemed to encom pass every man and woman of the court, the palaces, the city, the valley, the mountains, the world. ". . . this is evil? Because our traditions are what hold all this from chaos. We are the Khaiem! We rule with the power of the andat, and we do not accept instruction from couriers and laborers who ... who killed ..."

  The Khai closed his eyes and seemed to sway for a moment. The woman to whom C'chmai had been speaking leapt up, her hand on the old man's elbow. Otah could see them murmuring to each other, but he had no idea what they were saying. The woman walked with him back to the chair and helped him to sit. His face seemed sunken in pain. The woman was crying-streaks of kohl black on her cheeks-but her bearing was more regal and sure than their father's had been. She steppe
d forward and spoke.

  "The Khai is weary," she said, as if daring anyone present to say anything else. "He has given his command. The audience is finished!"

  The voices rose almost as high and ran almost as loud as they had at anything that had gone before. A woman-even if she was his daughter-taking the initiative to speak for the Khai? The court would be scandalized. Otah already imagined them placing bets as to whether the man would live the night, and if he died now, whether it would he this woman's fault for shaming him so deeply when he was already weak. And Otah could see that she knew this. The contempt in her expression was eloquent as any oratory. He caught her eye and took a pose of approval. She looked at him as if he were a stranger who had spoken her name, then turned away to help their father walk back to his rooms.

  The march up to his cage led through a spiral stone stair so small that his shoulders touched each wall, and his head stayed bent. The chain stayed on his neck, his hands now bound behind him. He watched the armsman before him half walking, half climbing the steep blocks of stone. When Otah slowed, the man behind him struck with the butt of a spear and laughed. Otah, his hands bound, sprawled against the steps, ripping the flesh of his knees and chin. After that, he made a point to slow as little as possible.

  His thighs burned with each step and the constant turning to the right left him nauseated. He thought of stopping, of refusing to move. They were taking him up to wait for death anyway. There was nothing to he gained by collaborating with them. But he went on, cursing tinder his breath.

  When the stairs ended, he found himself in a wide hall. The sky doors in the north wall were open, and a platform hung level with them and shifting slightly in the breeze, the great chains taut. Another four armsmen stood waiting.

  "Relief?" the man who had pushed him asked.

  The tallest of the new armsmen took a pose of affirmation and spoke. "We'll take the second half. You four head up and we'll all go down together." The new armsmen led Otah to a fresh stairway, and the ordeal began again. He had begun almost to dream in his pain by the time they stopped. Thick, powerful hands pushed him into a room, and the door closed behind him with a sound like a capstone being shoved over an open tomb. The armsman said something through a slit in the door, but Otah couldn't make sense of it and didn't have the will to try. He lay on the floor until he realized that his arms had been freed and the iron collar taken from around his neck. The skin where it had rested was chafed raw.