A Betrayal in Winter lpq-2

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A Betrayal in Winter lpq-2 Page 15

by Abraham Daniel


  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 t
han

  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 scuttled 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."

  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 deli
ghted 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

 

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