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.
His mind went back to Kiyan, and the nights of music and stories and
gossip he had spent in her wayhouse, far away to the south. He wondered
what she was doing tonight, what music filled the warm air and competed
with the murmur of the river.
When the last note had faded to silence, the crowd applauded, yelped,
and howled their appreciation. Otah made his way to the singer-he was
shorter than Otah had thought-and took his hand. The keeper beamed and
blushed when Otah told him how good the music had been.
"We've had a few years practice, and there's only so much to do when the
days are short," the keep said. "The winter choirs in Machi make us
sound like street beggars."
Otah smiled, regret pulling at him that he would never hear those songs,
and a moment later he heard his name being spoken.
"Itani Noygu's what he was calling himself," one of the merchants said.
"Played a courier for House Siyanti."
"I think I met him," a man said whom Otah had never met. "I knew there
was something odd about the man."
"And the poet ... the one that had his belly opened for him? He's
picking the other Siyanti men apart like they were baked fish. The
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