A Betrayal in Winter lpq-2

by Abraham Daniel

  yoked to Seedless. Trapped in the torture box just the way Heshai had

  been all those years. Heshai knew that, and he waited for me to do the

  thing."

  "And you did it."

  "I did."

  Maati was silent. Otah sat. His knees seemed less solid than he would

  have liked, but he didn't let the weakness stop him.

  "It was the worst thing I have ever done," Otah said. "I never stopped

  dreaming about it. Even now, I see it sometimes. Heshai was a good man,

  but what he'd created in Seedless...."

  "Seedless was only part of him. They all are. They couldn't be anything

  else. Heshai-kvo hated himself, and Seedless was that."

  "Everyone hates themselves sometimes. There isn't often a price in

  blood," Otah said. "You know what would happen if that were proven.

  Killing a Khai would pale beside murdering a poet."

  Maati nodded slowly, and still nodding, spoke.

  "I didn't ask on the Dai-kvo's behalf. I asked for myself. When

  Heshai-kvo died, Seedless ... vanished. I was with him. I was there. He

  was asking me whether I would have forgiven you. If you'd committed some

  terrible crime, like what he had done to Maj, if I would forgive you.

  And I told him I would. I would forgive you, and not him. Because ..."

  They were silent. Maati's eyes were dark as coal.

  "Because?" Otah asked.

  "Because I loved you, and I didn't love him. He said it was a pity to

  think that love and justice weren't the same. The last thing he said was

  that you had forgiven me."

  "Forgiven you?"

  "For Liat. For taking your lover."

  "I suppose it's true," Otah said. "I was angry with you. But there was a

  part of me that was ... relieved, I suppose."

  "Why?"

  "Because I didn't love her. I thought I did. I wanted to, and I enjoyed

  her company and her bed. I liked her and respected her. Sometimes, I

  wanted her as badly as I've ever wanted anyone. And that was enough to

  let me mistake it for love. But I don't remember it hurting that deeply

  or for that long. Sometimes I was even glad. You had each other to take

  care of, and so it wasn't mine to do."

  "You said, that last time we spoke before you left ... before Heshaikvo

  died, that you didn't trust me."

  "That's true," Otah said. "I do remember that."

  "But you've come to me now, and you've told me this. You've told me all

  of it. Even after I gave you over to the Khai. You've brought me in

  here, shown me where you've hidden. You know there are half a hundred

  people I could say a word to, and you and all these other people would

  be dead before the sun set. So it seems you trust me now."

  "I do," Otah said without hesitating.

  "Why?"

  Otah sat with the question. His mind had been consumed for days with a

  thousand different things that all nipped and shrieked and robbed him of

  his rest. To reach out to Maati had seemed natural and obvious, and even

  though when he looked at it coldly it was true that each had in some way

  betrayed the other, his heart had never been in doubt. He could feel the

  heaviness in the air, and he knew that I don't know wouldn't be answer

  enough. He looked for words to give his feelings shape.

  "Because," he said at last, "in all the time I knew you, you never once

  did the wrong thing. Even when what you did hurt inc, it was never wrong."

  To his surprise, there were tears on Maati's cheeks.

  "Thank you, Otah-kvo," he said.

  A shout went up in the tunnels outside the storehouse and the sound of

  running feet. Maati wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his robes, and

  Otah stood, his heart beating fast. The murmur of voices grew, but there

  were no sounds of blade against blade. It sounded like a busy corner

  more than a battle. Otah walked to the door and, Maati close behind him,

  stepped out into the main space. A knot of men were talking and

  gesturing one to the other by the mouth of the stairs. Otah caught a

  glimpse of Kiyan in their midst, frowning deeply and speaking fast.

  Amiit detached himself from the throng and strode to Otah.

  "What's happened?"

  "Bad news, Otah-cha. Daaya Vaunyogi has called for a decision, and

  enough of the families have hacked the call to push it through."

  Otah felt his heart sink.

  "They're hound to decide by morning," Amilt went on, "and if all the

  houses that hacked him for the call side with him in the decision, Adrah

  Vaunyogi will be the Khai Machi by the time the sun comes up."

  "And then what?" NIaati asked.

  "And then we run," Otah said, "as far and fast and quiet as we can, and

  we hope he never finds us."

  THE SUN HAD PASSED ITS HIGHEST POINT AND STARTED THE LONG, SLOW slide

  toward darkness. Idaan had chosen robes the blue-gray of twilight and

  bound her hair hack with clasps of silver and moonstone. Around her, the

  gallery was nearly full, the air thick with heat and the mingled scents

  of bodies and perfumes. She stood at the rail, looking down into the

  press of bodies below her. The parquet of the floor was scuffed with the

  marks of hoots. There were no empty places at the tables or against the

  stone walls, no quiet negotiations going on in hallways or teahouses.

  That time had passed, and in its wake, they were all brought here.

  Voices washed together like the hushing of wind, and she could feel the

  weight of the eyes upon her-the men below her sneaking glances up, the

  representatives of the merchant houses at her side considering her, and

  the lower orders in the gallery above staring down at her and the men

  over whom she loomed. She was a woman, and not welcome to speak or sit

  at the tables below. But still, she would make her presence felt.

  "How is it that we accept the word of these men that they are the

  wisest?" Ghiah Vaunani pounded the speaker's pulpit before him with each

  word, a dry, shallow sound. Idaan almost thought she could see flecks of

  foam at the corners of his mouth. "How is it that the houses of the

  utkhaiem are so much like sheep that they would consent to be led by

  this shepherd boy of Vaunyogi?"

  It was meant, Idaan knew, to be a speech to sway the others from their

  confidence, but all she heard in the words was the confusion and pain of

  a boy whose plans have fallen through. He could pound and rail and

  screech his questions as long as his voice held out. Idaan, standing

  above the proceedings like a protective ghost, knew the answers to every

  one, and she would never tell them to him.

  Below her, Adrah Vaunyogi looked up, his expression calm and certain. It

  had been late in the morning that she'd woken in the poet's house, later

  still when she'd returned to the rooms she shared now with her husband.

  He had been there, waiting for her. The night's excesses had weighed

  heavy on him. They hadn't spoken-she had only called for a bath and

  clean robes. When she'd cleaned herself and washed her hair, she sat at

  her mirror and painted her face with all her old skill and delicacy. The

  woman who looked out at her when she put down her brushes might have

  been the loveliest in Machi.

  Adra
h had left without a word. It had been almost half a hand before she

  learned that her new father, Daaya Vaunyogi, had called for the

  decision, and that the houses had agreed. No one had told her to come

  here, no one had asked her to lend the sight of her silent presence to

  the cause. She had done it, perhaps, because Adrah had not demanded it

  of her.

  "We must not hurry! We must not allow sentiment to push us into a

  decision that will change our city forever!"

  Idaan allowed herself a smile. It would seem to most people that the

  force of the story had won the day. The last daughter of the old line

  would be the first mother of the new, and if a quiet structure of money

  and obligation supported it, if she were really the lover of the poet a

  hundred times more than the Khai, it hardly mattered. It was what the

  city would see, and that was enough.

  Ghiah's energy was beginning to flag. She heard his words lose their

  crispness and the pounding on his table fall out of rhythm. The anger in

  his voice became merely petulance, and the objections to Adrah in

  particular and the Vaunyogi in general lost their force. It would have

  been better, she thought, if he'd ended half a hand earlier. Still

  insufficient, but less so.

  The Master of "fides stood when Ghiah at last surrendered the floor. He

  was an old man with a long, northern face and a deep, sonorous voice.

  Idaan saw his eyes flicker up to her and then away.

  "Adaut Kamau has also asked to address the council," he said, "before

  the houses speak on the decision to accept Adrah Vaunyogi as the Khai

  Machi......

  A chorus of jeers rose from the galleries and even the council tables.

  Idaan held herself still and quiet. Her feet were starting to ache, but

  she didn't shift her weight. The effect she desired wouldn't be served

  by showing her pleasure. Adaut Kamau rose, his face gray and pinched. He

  opened his arms, but before he could speak, a bundle of rough cloth

  arced from the highest gallery. A long tail of brown fluttered behind it

  like a banner as it fell, and in the instant that it struck the floor,

  the screaming began.

  Idaan's composure broke, and she leaned forward. The men at the tables

  nearest the thing waved their arms and fled, shrieking and pounding at

  the air. Voices buzzed and a cloud of pale, moving smoke rose toward the

  galleries.

  No. The buzzing was not voices, the cloud was not smoke. These were

  wasps. The bundle on the council floor had been a nest wrapped in cloth

  and wax. The first of the insects buzzed past her, a glimpse of black

  and yellow. She turned and ran.

  Bodies filled the corridors, panic pressing them together until there

  was no air, no space. People screamed and cursed-men, women, children.

  "Their shrill voices mixed with the angry buzz. She was pushed from all

  sides. An elbow dug into her back. The surge of the crowd pressed the

  breath from her. She was suffocating, and insects filled the air above

  her. Idaan felt something bite the flesh at the back of her neck like a

  hot iron burning her. She screamed and tried to reach back to hat the

  thing away, but there was no room to move her arm, no air. She lashed

  out at whoever, whatever was near. The crowd was a single, huge, biting

  beast and Idaan flailed and shrieked, her mind lost to fear and pain and

  confusion.

  Stepping into the open air of the street was like waking from a

  nightmare. The bodies around her thinned, becoming only themselves

  again. The fierce buzz of tiny wings was gone, the cries of pain and

  terror replaced by the groans of the stung. People were still streaming

  out of the palace, arms flapping, but others were sitting on benches or

  else the ground. Servants and slaves were rushing about, tending to the

  hurt and the humiliated. Idaan felt the back of her neck-three angry

  humps were already forming.

  "It's a poor omen," a man in the red robes of the needle wrights said.

  "Something more's going on than meets the eye if someone's willing to

  attack the council to keep old Kamau from talking."

  "What could he have said?" the man's companion asked.

  "I don't know, but you can be sure whatever it was, he'll be saying

  something else tomorrow. Someone wanted him stopped. Unless this is

  about Adrah Vaunyogi. It could be that someone wants him closed down."

  "Then why loose the things when his critics were about to speak?"

  "Good point. Perhaps ..."

  Idaan moved on down the street. It was like the aftermath of some

  gentle, bloodless battle. People bound bruised limbs. Slaves brought

  plasters to suck out the wasps' venom. But already, all down the wide

  street, the talk had turned back to the business of the council.

  Her neck was burning now, but she pushed the pain aside. There would he

  no decision made today. That was clear. Kaman or Vaunani had disrupted

  the proceedings to get more time. It had to be that. It couldn't he

  more, except that of course it could. The fear was different now, deeper

  and more complex. Almost like nausea.

  Adrah was leaning against the wall at the mouth of an alleyway. His

  father was sitting beside him, a serving girl dabbing white paste on the

  angry welts that covered his arms and face. Idaan went to her husband.

  His eyes were hard and shallow as stones.

  "May I speak with you, Adrah-kya?" she said softly.

  Adrah looked at her as if seeing her for the first time, then at his fa

  ther. He nodded toward the shadows of the alley behind him, and Idaan

  followed him until the noises of the street were vague and distant.

  "It was Otah," she said. "He did this. Iie knows."

  "Are you about to tell me that he's planned it all from the start again?

  It was a cheap, desperate trick. It won't matter, except that anyone who

  doesn't like us will say we did it, and anyone who has a grudge against

  our enemies will put it to them. Nothing changes."

  "Who would do it?"

  Adrah shook his head, impatient, and turned to walk back out into the

  street and noise and light. "Anyone might have. There's no point trying

  to solve every puzzle in the world."

  "Don't be stupid, Adrah. Someone's acted against-"

  The violence and suddenness of his movement was shocking. He was walking

  away, his hack to her, and then a heartbeat later, there was no more

  room between them than the width of a leaf His face was twisted,

  flushed, possessed by anger.

  "Don't be stupid? Is that what you said?"

  Idaan took a step hack, her feet unsteady beneath her.

  "How do you mean, stupid, Idaan? Stupid like calling out my lover's name

  in a crowd?"

  "What?"

  "Cehmai. The poet boy. When you were running, you called his name.

  "I did?"

  "Everyone heard it," Adrah said. "Everybody knows. At least you could

  keep it between us and not parade it all over the city!"

  "I didn't mean to," she said. "I swear it, Adrah. I didn't know I had."

  He stepped hack and spat, the spittle striking the wall beside him and

  dripping down toward the ground. His gaze locked on her, daring her to

/>   push him, to meet his anger with defiance or submission. Either would be

  devastating. Idaan felt herself go hard. It wasn't unlike the feeling of

  seeing her father dying breath by breath, his belly rotting out and

  taking him with it.

  "It won't get better, will it?" she asked. "It will go on. It will

  change. But it will never get better than it is right now."

  The dread in Adrah's eyes told her she'd struck home. When he turned and

  stalked away, she didn't try to stop him.

  FELL ME, HE'I) SAID.

  I can't, she'd replied.

  And now Cehmai sat on a chair, staring at the bare wall and wished that

  he'd left it there. The hours since morning had been filled with a kind

  of anguish he'd never known. He'd told her he loved her. He did love

  her. But ... Gods! She'd murdered her own family. She'd engineered her

  own father's death and as much as sold the Khai's library to the Galts.

  And the only thing that had saved her was that she loved him and he'd

  sworn he'd protect her. He'd sworn it.

  "What did you expect?" Stone-Made-Soft asked.

  "That it was Adrah. That I'd be protecting her from the Vaunyogi,"

  Cehmai said.

  "Well. Perhaps you should have been more specific."

  The sun had passed behind the mountains, but the daylight hadn't yet

  taken on the ruddy hues of sunset. This was not night but shadow. 'The