A Betrayal in Winter lpq-2

by Abraham Daniel

  Idaan crossed her arms.

  "You also have to be careful. Especially if Adrah wants to become Khai

  Machi," Cehmai said. "It's the other thing I came for. The body they

  found was false. Your brother Otah is alive."

  He might have told her that the plague had come. Her face went pale and

  empty. It was a moment before she seemed able to draw a breath.

  "What ... ?" she said, then coughed and began again. "How do you know that?"

  "If I tell you, will you still send inc away?"

  Something washed through Idaan's expression-disappointment or depair or

  sorrow. She took a pose that accepted a contract.

  "Tell me everything," Idaan said.

  Cehmai did.

  Idaan walked through the halls, her hands clenched in fists. Her body

  felt as if a storm were running through it, as if flood waters were

  washing out her veins. She trembled with the need to do something, but

  there was nothing to be done. She remembered seeing the superstitious

  dread with which others had treated the name Otah Machi. She had found

  it amusing, but she no longer knew why.

  She had made Cehmai repeat himself until she was certain that she'd

  understood what he was saying. It had taken all the pain and sorrow of

  seeing him again and put it aside. Cehmai had meant to save her by it.

  Adrah was in the kitchens, talking with his father's house master. She

  took a pose of apology and extracted him, leading him to a private

  chamber, pulling closed the shutters, and sliding home the door before

  she spoke. Adrah sat in a low chair of pale wood and red velvet as she

  paced. The words spilled out of her, one upon another as she repeated

  the story Cehmai had told her. Even she could hear the tones of panic in

  her voice.

  "Fell me," she said as the news came to its end. ""Fell me it's not

  true. Nell me you're sure he's dead."

  "He's dead. It's a mistake. It has to be. No one knew when he'd he

  leaving the city. No one could have rescued him."

  "'Tell me that you know!"

  Adrah scowled.

  "How would I do that? We hired men to free him, take him away, and kill

  him. They took him away, and his body floated hack down the river. But I

  wasn't there, I didn't strangle him myself. I can't keep these men from

  knowing who's paid their fee and also be there to hold their hands,

  Idaan. You know that."

  Idaan put her hands to her mouth. Her fingers were shaking. It was a

  dream. It was a sick dream, and she would wake from it. She would wake

  up, and none of it would have been true.

  "He's used us," she said. "Otah's used us to do his work."

  "What?"

  "Look at it! We've done everything for him. We've killed them all. Even

  ... even my father. We've done everything he would have needed to do. He

  knew. He knew from the start. He's planned for everything we've done."

  Adrah made an impatient sound at the back of his throat.

  "You're imagining things," he said. "He can't have known what we were

  doing, or how we would do it. He isn't a god, and he isn't a ghost."

  "You're sure of that, are you? We've fallen into his trap, Adrah! It's a

  trap!"

  "It is a rumor started by Cehmai'Iyan. Or maybe it's Maati Vaupathai

  who's set you a trap. He could suspect us and say these things to make

  us panic. Or Cehmai could."

  "He wouldn't do that," Idaan said. "(:ehmai wouldn't do that toto us."

  "TO you, you mean," Adrah said, pulling the words out slow and bitter.

  Idaan stopped her pacing and took a pose of query, her gaze locked on

  Adrah's. As much challenge as question. Adrah leaned hack in his chair,

  the wood creaking tinder his weight.

  "He's your lover, isn't he?" Adrah said. "This limp story about wanting

  to offer condolences and being willing to back my claim only if he could

  see you, could speak with you. And you sending me away like I was a

  puppy you'd finished playing with. Do you think I'm dim, Idaan?"

  Her throat closed, and she coughed to loosen it, only the cough didn't

  end. It became laughter, and it shook her the way a dog might shake a

  rat. It was nothing about mirth, everything about violence. Adrah's face

  went red, and then white.

  "This?" Idaan finally managed to stammer. "This is what we're going to

  argue about?"

  "Is there something else you'd prefer?"

  "You're about to live a life filled with women who aren't me. You and

  your father must have a list drawn up of allies we can make by taking

  their daughters for wives. You have no right to accuse me of anything."

  "That was your choice," he said. "We agreed when we started this ...

  this landslide. It would he the two of us, together, no matter if we won

  this or lost."

  "And how long would that have lasted after you took my father's place?"

  she asked. "Who would I appeal to when you broke your word?"

  Adrah rose to his feet, stepping toward her. His hand open flat, pointed

  toward her like a knife.

  "That isn't fair to me. You never gave me the chance to fail you. You

  assumed it and went on to punish me as though it had happened."

  "I'm not wrong, Adrah. You know I'm not wrong."

  "There's a price for doing what you say, do you know that? I loved you

  more than I loved anything. My father, my mother, my sisters, anything

  or anyone. I did all of this because it was what you wanted."

  "And not for any gain of your own? How selfless. Becoming Khai Machi

  must be such a chore for you."

  "You wouldn't have had me if my ambition didn't match yours," Adrah

  said. "What I've become, I've become for you."

  "That isn't fair," Idaan said.

  Adrah whooped and turned in a wide circle, like a child playing before

  an invisible audience.

  "Fair! When did this become about fair? When someone finally asked you

  to take some responsibility? You made the plans, love. This is yours,

  Idaan! All of it's yours, and VOL] won't blame me that you've got to

  live with it!"

  He was breathing fast now, as if he'd been running, but she could see in

  his shoulders and the corners of his mouth that the rage was failing. He

  dropped his arms and looked at her. His breath slowed. His face relaxed.

  They stood in silence, considering each other for what felt like half a

  hand. There was no anger now and no sorrow. He only looked tired and

  lost, very young and very old at once. He looked the way she felt. It

  was as if the air they both breathed had changed. He was the one to look

  away and break the silence.

  "You know, love, you never said Cehmai wasn't your lover."

  "He is," Idaan said, then shrugged. The battle was over. They were both

  too thin now for any more damage to matter. "He has been for a few weeks."

  "Why?"

  "I don't know. Because he wasn't part of all this. Because he was clean."

  "Because he is power, and you're drawn to that more than anything?"

  Idaan hit back her first response and let the accusation sit. "Then she

  nodded.

  "Perhaps a bit of that, yes," she said.

  Adrah sighed and leaned against the wall. Slowly, he slid down until he

  was sitting on the floor, his a
rms resting on his knees.

  "There is a list of houses and their women," he said. ""There was before

  you and Cehmai took tip with each other. I argued against it, but my

  father said it was just as an exercise. Just in case it was needed

  later. Only tell me ... today, when he came ... you didn't ... the two

  of you didn't ..."

  Idaan laughed again, but this was a lower sound, gentler.

  "No, I haven't lain down for another man in your house, Adrah-kya. I

  can't say why I think that would be worse than what I have done, but I do."

  Adrah nodded. She could see another question in the way he shifted his

  eyes, the way he moved his hands. They had been lovers and conspirators

  for years. She knew him as if he were her family, or a distant part of

  herself. It didn't make her love him, but she remembered when she had.

  "The first time I kissed you, you looked so frightened," she said. "Do

  you remember that? It was the middle of winter, and we'd all gone

  skating. "There must have been twenty of us. We all raced, and you won."

  "And you kissed me for the prize," he said. "Noichi Vausadar was chewing

  his own tongue, he was so jealous of me."

  "Poor Noichi. I half did it to annoy him, you know."

  "And the other half?"

  "Because I wanted to," she said. "And then it was weeks before you came

  hack for another."

  "I was afraid you'd laugh at me. I went to sleep every night thinking

  about you, and woke up every morning just as possessed. Can you imagine

  only being afraid that someone would laugh at you?"

  "Now? No."

  "Do you remember the night we both went to the inn. With the little dog

  out front?"

  "The one that danced when the keep played flute? Yes."

  Idaan smiled. It had been a tiny animal with gray hair and soft, dark

  eyes. It had seemed so delighted, rearing up on its hind legs and

  capering, small paws waving for balance. It had seemed happy. She wiped

  away the tear before it could mar her kohl, then remembered that her

  eyes were only her eyes now. In her mind, the tiny dog leapt and looked

  at her. It had been so happy and so innocent. She pushed her own heart

  out toward that memory, pleading with the cold world that the pup was

  somewhere out there, still safe and well, trusting and loved as it had

  been that day. She didn't bother wiping the tears away now.

  "We were other people then," she said.

  They were silent again. After a moment, Idaan went to sit on the floor

  beside Adrah. I Ic put his arm across her shoulder, and she leaned into

  him, weeping silently for too many things for one mind to hold. He

  didn't speak until the worst of the tears had passed.

  "Do they bother you?" he asked at last, his voice low and hoarse.

  "Who?"

  "'I'hem," he said, and she knew. She heard the sound of the arrow again,

  and shivered.

  "Yes," she said.

  "Do you know what's funny? It isn't your father who haunts me. It should

  be, I know. He was helpless, and I went there knowing what I was going

  to do. But he isn't the one."

  Idaan frowned, trying to think who else there had been. Adrah saw her

  confusion and smiled, as if confirming something for himself. Perhaps

  only that she hadn't known some part of him, that his life was something

  different from her own.

  "When we went in for the assassin, Oshal. There was a guard. I hit him.

  With a blade. It split his jaw. I can still see it. Have you ever swung

  a thin bar of iron into hard snow? It felt just like that. A hard, fast

  arc and then something that both gave way and didn't. I remember how it

  sounded. And afterward, you wouldn't touch me."

  "Adrah ..."

  He raised his hands, stopping anything that might have been sympathy.

  Idaan swallowed it. She had no right to pardon him.

  "Men do this," Adrah said. "All over the world, in every land, men do

  this. They slaughter each other over money or sex or power. The Khaiem

  do it to their own families. I never wondered how. Even now, I can't

  imagine it. I can't imagine doing the things I've done, even after I've

  done them. Can you?"

  "There's a price they pay," Idaan said. "The soldiers and the armsmen.

  Even the thugs and drunkards who carve each other up outside comfort

  houses. They pay a price, and we're paying it too. That's all."

  She felt him sigh.

  "I suppose you're right," he said.

  "So what do we do from here? What about Otah?"

  Adrah shrugged, as if the answer were obvious.

  "If Maati Vaupathai's set himself to be Otah's champion, Otah will

  eventually come to him. And Cehmai's already shown that there's one

  person in the world he'll break his silence for."

  "I want Cehmai kept out of this."

  "It's too late for that," Adrah said. His voice should have been cold or

  angry or cruel, and perhaps those were in him. Mostly, he sounded

  exhausted. "He's the only one who can lead us to Otah Machi. And you're

  the only one he'll tell."

  PORSHA RADAANI GESTURED TOWARD MAA'I'I'S BOWL, AND A SERVANT BOY moved

  forward, graceful as a dancer, to refill it. Maati took a pose of

  gratitude toward the man. There were times and places that he would have

  thanked the servant, but this was not one of them. Maati lifted the bowl

  and blew across the surface. The pale green-yellow tea smelled richly of

  rice and fresh, unsmoked leaves. Radaani laced thick fingers over his

  wide belly and smiled. His eyes, sunk deep in their sockets and padded

  by generous fat, glittered like wet stones in a brook.

  "I confess, Maati-cha, that I hadn't expected a visit from the Daikvo's

  envoy. I've had men from every major house in the city here to talk with

  me these last few days, but the most high Dai-kvo usually keeps clear of

  these messy little affairs."

  Maati sipped his tea though it was still too hot. He had to be careful

  how he answered this. It was a fine line between letting it be assumed

  that he had the Dai-kvo's hacking and actually saying as much, but that

  difference was critical. He had so far kept away from anything that

  might reach hack to the Dal-kvo's village, but Radaani was an older man

  than Ghiah Vaunani or Admit Kamati. And he seemed more at home with the

  bullying attitude of wealth than the subtleties of court. Maati put down

  his bowl.

  "The Dai-kvo isn't taking a hand in it," Nlaati said, "but that hardly

  means he should embrace ignorance. The better he knows the world, the

  better he can direct the poets to everyone's benefit, nc?"

  "Spoken like a man of the court," Radaani said, and despite the smile in

  his voice, Maati didn't think it had been a compliment.

  "I have heard that the Radaani might have designs on the Khai's chair,"

  Maati said, dropping the oblique path he had intended. It would have

  done no good here. "Is that the case?"

  Radaani smiled and pointed for the servant boy to go. The boy dropped

  into a formal pose and retreated, sliding the door closed behind him.

  Maati sat, smiling pleasantly, but not filling the silence. It was a

  small room, richly appointed-wood varnished until it seemed to glow
and

  ornaments of worked gold and carved stone. The windows were adorned with

  shutters of carved cedar so fine that they let the breeze in and kept

  the birds and insects out even as they scented the air. Radaani tilted

  his head, distant eyes narrowing. Maati felt like a gem being valued by

  a merchant.

  "I have one son in Yalakeht, overseeing our business interests. I have a

  grandson who has recently learned how to sing and jump sticks at the

  same time. I can't see that either of them would be. well suited to the

  Khai's chair. I would have to either abandon my family's business or put

  a child in power over the city."

  "Certainly there must be some financial advantages to being the Khai

  Machi," Maati said. "I can't think it would hurt your family to exchange

  your work in Yalakcht to join the Khaiem."

  "Then you haven't spoken to my overseers," Radaani laughed. "We are

  pulling in more gold from the ships in Yalakeht and Chaburi-Tan than the

  Khai Machi can pull out of the ground, even with the andat. No. If I

  want power, I can purchase it and not have to compromise anything.

  Besides, I have six or eight daughters I'd be happy for the new Khai to