A Betrayal in Winter lpq-2

by Abraham Daniel

  assassin appeared, moving like darkness itself in his back cotton robe.

  He put down his lantern and took a pose of welcome before dusting a

  crate with his sleeve and sitting. His expression was pleasant as a

  fruit seller in a summer market. It only made Idaan like him less.

  "So," Oshai said. "You called, I've come. What seems to be the problem?"

  She had intended to begin with Maati Vaupathai, but the pretense of

  passive stupidity in Oshai's eyes annoyed her. Idaan raised her chin and

  her brows, considering him as she would a garden slave. Adrah looked

  back and forth between the two. The motion reminded her of a child

  watching his parents fighting. When she spoke, she had to try not to spit.

  "I would know where our plans stand," she said. "My father's ill, and I

  hear more from Adrah and the palace slaves than from you."

  "My apologies, great lady," Oshai said without a hint of irony. "It's

  only that meetings with you are a risk, and written reports are

  insupportable. Our mutual friends ..."

  "The Galtic High Council," Idaan said, but Oshai continued as if she had

  not spoken.

  ". . . have placed agents and letters of intent with six houses.

  Contracts for iron, silver, steel, copper, and gold. The negotiations

  are under way, and I expect we will be able to draw them out for most of

  the summer, should we need to. When all three of your brothers die, you

  will have been wed to Adrah, and between the powerful position of his

  house, his connection with you, and the influence of six of the great

  houses whose contracts will suddenly ride on his promotion to Khai, you

  should be sleeping in your mother's bed by Candles Night."

  "My mother never had a bed of her own. She was only a woman, remember.

  Traded to the Khai for convenience, like a gift."

  "It's only an expression, great lady. And remember, you'll be sharing

  Adrah here with other wives in your turn."

  "I won't take others," Adrah said. "It was part of our agreement."

  "Of course you won't," Oshai said with a nod and an insincere smile. "My

  mistake."

  Idaan felt herself flush, but kept her voice level and calm when she spoke.

  "And my brothers? Danat and Kaiin?"

  "They are being somewhat inconvenient, it's true. They've gone to

  ground. Frightened, I'm told, by your ghost brother Utah. We may have to

  wait until your father actually dies before they screw up the courage to

  stand against each other. But when they do, I will be ready. You know

  all this, Idaan-cha. It can't be the only reason you've asked me here?"

  The round, pale face seemed to harden without moving. "There had best be

  something more pressing than seeing whether I'll declaim when told."

  "Maati Vaupathai," Idaan said. "The Dai-kvo's sent him to study in the

  library."

  "Hardly a secret," Oshai said, but Idaan thought she read a moment's

  unease in his eyes.

  "And it doesn't concern your owners that this new poet has come for the

  same prize they want? What's in those old scrolls that makes this worth

  the risk for you, anyway?"

  "I don't know, great lady," the assassin said. "I'm trusted with work of

  this delicate nature because I don't particularly care about the points

  that aren't mine to know."

  "And the Galts? Are they worried about this Maati Vaupathai poking

  through the library before them?"

  "It's ... of interest," Oshai said, grudgingly.

  "It was the one thing you insisted on," Idaan said, stepping toward the

  man. "When you came to Adrah and his father, you agreed to help us in

  return for access to that library. And now your price may be going away.

  Will your support go, too? The unasked question hung in the chill air.

  If the Galts could not have what they wanted from Adrah and Idaan and

  the books of Machi, would the support for this mad, murderous scheme

  remain? Idaan felt her heart tripping over faster, half hoping that the

  answer might be no.

  "It is the business of a poet to concern himself with ancient texts,"

  Oshai said. "If a poet were to come to Machi and not avail himself of

  its library, that would be odd. 't'his coincidence of timing is of

  interest. But it's not yet a cause for alarm."

  "He's looking into the death of Biitrah. He's been down to the mines.

  He's asking questions."

  "About what?" Oshai said. The smile was gone.

  She told him all she knew, from the appearance of the poet to his

  interest in the court and high families, the low towns and the mines.

  She recounted the parties at which he had asked to he introduced, and to

  whom. The name he kept mentioning-Itani Noygu. 'T'he way in which his

  interest in the ascension of the next Khai Machi seemed to be more than

  academic. She ended with the tale she'd heard of his visit to the

  Daikani mines and to the wayhouse where her brother had died at Oshai's

  hands. When she was finished, neither man spoke. Adrah looked stricken.

  Oshai, merely thoughtful. At length, the assassin took a pose of gratitude.

  "You were right to call me, Idaan-cha," he said. "I doubt the poet knows

  precisely what he's looking for, but that he's looking at all is had

  enough."

  "What do we do?" Adrah said. The desperation in his voice made Oshai

  look up like a hunting dog hearing a bird.

  "You do nothing, most high," Oshai said. "Neither you nor the great lady

  does anything. I will take care of this."

  "You'll kill him," Idaan said.

  "If it seems the best course, I may...."

  Idaan took a pose appropriate to correcting a servant. Oshai's words faded.

  "I was not asking, Oshai-cha. You'll kill him."

  The assassin's eyes narrowed for a moment, but then something like

  amusement flickered at the corners of his mouth and the glimmer of

  candlelight in his eyes grew warmer. He seemed to weigh something in his

  mind, and then took a pose of acquiescence. Idaan lowered her hands.

  "Will there be anything else, most high?" Oshai asked without taking his

  gaze from her.

  "No," Adrah said. "'T'hat will be all."

  "Wait half a hand after I've gone," Oshai said. "I can explain myself,

  and the two of you together borders on the self-evident. All three would

  be difficult."

  And with that, he vanished. Idaan looked at the sky doors. She was

  tempted to open them again, just for a moment. To see the land and sky

  laid out before her.

  "It's odd, you know," she said. "If I had been born a man, they would

  have sent me away to the school. I would have become a poet or taken the

  brand. But instead, they kept me here, and I became what they're afraid

  of. Kaiin and Danat are hiding from the brother who has broken the

  traditions and come back to kill them for the chair. And here I am. I am

  Otah Machi. Only they can't see it."

  "I love you, Idaan-kya."

  She smiled because there was nothing else to do. He had heard the words,

  but understood nothing. It would have meant as much to talk to a dog.

  She took his hand in hers, laced her fingers with his.

  "I love you too, Adrah-kya. And I will be happy once we've done all this

  and tak
en the chair. You'll be the Khai Machi, and I will be your wife.

  We'll rule the city together, just as we always planned, and everything

  will be right again. It's been half a hand by now. We should go."

  They parted in one of the night gardens, he to the east and his family

  compound, and she to the south, to her own apartments, and past them and

  west to tree-lined path that led to the poet's house. If the shutters

  were closed, if no light shone but the night candle, she told herself

  she wouldn't go in. But the lanterns were lit brightly, and the shutters

  open. She paced quietly through the grounds, peering in through windows,

  until she caught the sound of voices. Cehmai's soft and reasonable, and

  then another. A man's, loud and full of a rich selfimportance. Baarath,

  the librarian. Idaan found a tree with low branches and deep shadows and

  sat, waiting with as much patience as she could muster, and silently

  willing the man away. The full moon was halfway across the sky before

  the two came to the door, silhouetted. Baarath swayed like a drunkard,

  but Cehmai, though he laughed as loud and sang as poorly, didn't waver.

  She watched as Baarath took a sloppy pose of farewell and stumbled off

  along the path. Cehmai watched him go, then looked back into the house,

  shaking his head.

  Idaan rose and stepped out of the shadows.

  She saw Cehmai catch sight of her, and she waited. He might have another

  guest-he might wave her away, and she would have to go back through the

  night to her own apartments, her own bed. The thought filled her with

  black dread until the poet put one hand out to her, and with the other

  motioned toward the light within his house.

  Stone-Made-Soft brooded over a game of stones, its massive head cupped

  in a hand twice the size of her own. The white stones, she noticed, had

  lost badly. The andat looked up slowly and, its curiosity satisfied, it

  turned back to the ended game. The scent of mulled wine filled the air.

  Cehmai closed the door behind her, and then set about fastening the

  shutters.

  "I didn't expect to see you," the poet said.

  "Do you want me to leave?"

  'T'here were a hundred things he could have said. Graceful ways to say

  yes, or graceless ways to deny it. He only turned to her with the

  slightest smile and went back to his task. Idaan sat on a low couch and

  steeled herself. She couldn't say why she was driven to do this, only

  that the impulse was much like draping her legs out the sky doors, and

  that it was what she had chosen to do.

  "Daaya Vaunyogi is approaching the Khai tomorrow. He is going to

  petition that Adrah and I be married."

  Cehmai paused, sighed, turned to her. His expression was melancholy, but

  not sorrowful. He was like an old man, she thought, amused by the world

  and his own role in it. There was a strength in him, and an acceptance.

  "I understand," he said.

  "Do You?"

  "No.'

  "He is of a good house, their bloodlines-"

  "And he's well off and likely to oversee his family's house when his

  father passes. And he's a good enough man, for what he is. It isn't that

  I can't imagine why he would choose to marry you, or you him. But, given

  the context, there are other questions."

  "I love him," Idaan said. "We have planned to do this for ... we have

  been lovers for almost two years."

  Cehmai sat beside a brazier, and looked at her with the patience of a

  man studying a puzzle. The coals had burned down to a fine white ash.

  "And you've come to be sure I never speak of what happened the other

  night. To tell me that it can never happen again."

  The sense of vertigo returned, her feet held over the abyss.

  "No," she said.

  "You've come to stay the night?"

  "If you'll have me, yes."

  The poet looked down, his hands laced together before him. A cricket

  sang, and then another. The air seemed thin.

  "Idaan-kya, I think it might be better if-"

  "Then lend me a couch and a blanket. If you ... let me stay here as a

  friend might. We are friends, at least? Only don't make me go back to my

  rooms. I don't want to be there. I don't want to be with people and I

  can't stand being alone. And I ... I like it here."

  She took a pose of supplication. Cehmai rose and for a moment she was

  sure he would refuse. She almost hoped he would. Scoot forward, no more

  effort than sitting up, and then the sound of wind. But Cehmai took a

  pose that accepted her. She swallowed, the tightness in her throat

  lessening.

  "I'll be hack. The shutters ... it might be awkward if someone were to

  happen by and see you here."

  "Thank you, Cehmai-kya."

  He leaned forward and kissed her mouth, neither passionate nor chaste,

  then sighed again and went to the back of the house. She heard the

  rattle of wood as he closed the windows against the night. Idaan looked

  at her hands, watching them tremble as she might watch a waterfall or a

  rare bird. An effect of nature, outside herself. The andat shifted and

  turned to look at her. She felt her brows rise, daring the thing to

  speak. Its voice was the low rumble of a landslide.

  "I have seen generations pass, girl. I've seen young men die of age. I

  don't know what you are doing, but I know this. It will end in chaos.

  For him, and for you."

  Stone-Made-Soft went silent again, stiller than any real man, not even

  the pulse of breath in it. She glared into the wide, placid face and

  took a pose of challenge.

  "It that a threat?" she asked.

  The andat shook its head once-left, and then right, and then still as if

  it had never moved in all the time since the world was young. When it

  spoke again, Idaan was almost startled at the sound.

  "It's a blessing," it said.

  "WHAT DID HE LOOK LIKE?" MAA'I'I ASKED.

  Piyun See, chief assistant to the Master of 'rides, frowned and glanced

  out the window. The man sensed that he had done something wrong, even if

  he could not say what it had been. It made him reluctant. Maati sipped

  tea from a white stone bowl and let the silence stretch.

  "A courier. He wore decent robes. He stood half a head taller than you,

  and had a good face. Long as a north man's."

  "Well, that will help me," Maati said. He couldn't keep his impatience

  entirely to himself.

  Piyun took a pose of apology formal enough to be utterly insincere.

  "He had two eyes and two feet and one nose, Maati-cha. I thought he was

  your acquaintance. Shouldn't you know better than I what he looks like?"

  "If it is the man."

  "He didn't seem pleased to hear you'd been asking after him. He made an

  excuse and lit out almost as soon as he heard of you. It isn't as if 1

  knew that he wasn't to be told of you. I didn't have orders to hold back

  your name."

  "Did you have orders to volunteer me to him?" Maati asked.

  "No, but ..."

  Maati waved the objection away.

  "House Siyanti. You're sure of that?"

  "Of course I am."

  "How do I reach their compound?"

  "They don't have one. House Siy
anti doesn't trade in the winter cities.

  He would be staying at a wayhouse. Or sometimes the houses here will let

  couriers take rooms."

  "So other than the fact that he came, you can tell me nothing," Maati said.

  This time the pose of apology was more sincere. Frustration clamped

  Maati's jaw until his teeth hurt, but he forced himself into a pose that

  thanked the assistant and ended the interview. Piyun See left the small

  meeting room silently, closing the door behind him.

  Otah was here, then. He had come back to Machi, using the same name he

  had had in Saraykeht. And that meant ... Maati pressed his fingertips to

  his eyes. That meant nothing certain. That he was here suggested that

  Biitrah's death was his work, but as yet it was only a sug gestion. He

  doubted that the Dai-kvo or the Khai Machi would see it that way. His

  presence was as much as proof to them, and there was no way to keep it

  secret. Piyun See was no doubt spreading the gossip across the palaces

  even now-the visiting poet and his mysterious courier. He had to find

  Otah himself, and he had to do it now.

  He straightened his robes and stalked out to the gardens, and then the

  path that would lead him to the heart of the city. He would begin with