The first sign Maati had that something had changed was the sudden silence. All conversations stopped, and Maati rushed to the front of the house to find himself looking into the dark, angry eyes of the Khai Saraykeht.
‘Where is your master?’ the Khai demanded, and the lack of an accompanying pose made the words seem stark and terrible.
Maati took a pose of welcome and looked away.
‘He is resting, most high,’ he said.
The Khai looked slowly around the room, a single vertical line appearing between his brows. The visitors all took appropriate poses - Maati could hear the shuffle of their robes. The Khai took a pose of query that was directed to Maati, though his gaze remained on the assembled men.
‘Who are these?’ the Khai asked.
‘Well-wishers,’ Maati said.
The Khai said nothing, and the silence grew more and more excruciatingly uncomfortable. At last, he moved forward, his hand taking Maati by the shoulder and turning him to the stairs. Maati walked before the Khai.
‘When I come down,’ the Khai said in a calm, almost conversational tone, ‘any man still here forfeits half his wealth.’
At the top of the stairs, Maati turned and led the Khai down the short hall to Heshai’s door. He tried it, but it was barred. Maati turned with a pose of apology, but the Khai moved him aside without seeming to notice it.
‘Heshai,’ the Khai said, his voice loud and low. ‘Open the door.’
There was a moment’s pause, and then soft footsteps. The bar scraped, and the door swung open. Seedless stepped aside as the Khai entered. Maati followed. The andat leaned the bar against the wall, caught Maati’s gaze, and took a pose of greeting appropriate to old friends. Maati felt a surge of anger in his chest, but did nothing more than turn away.
The Khai stood at the foot of Heshai’s bed. The poet was sitting up, now. Sometime in the last day, he had changed from his brown ceremonial robes to robes of pale mourning cloth. The wide mouth turned down at the corners and his hair was a wild tangle. The Khai reached up and swept the netting aside. It occurred to Maati how much Khai and andat were similar - the grace, the beauty, the presence. The greatest difference was that the Khai Saraykeht showed tiny lines of age at the corners of his eyes and was not so lovely.
‘I have spoken with Marchat Wilsin of House Wilsin,’ the Khai said. ‘He extends his apologies. There will be an investigation. It has already begun.’
Heshai looked down, but took a pose of gratitude. The Khai ignored it.
‘We have also spoken with the girl and the overseer for House Wilsin who negotiated the trade. There are . . . questions.’
Heshai nodded and then shook his head as if clearing it. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and took a pose of agreement.
‘As you wish, most high,’ he said. ‘I will answer anything I can.’
‘Not you,’ the Khai said. ‘All I require is that you compel your creature.’
Heshai looked at Maati and then at Seedless. The wide face went gray, the lips pressed thin. Seedless stiffened and then, slowly as a man wading through deep water, moved to the bedside and took a pose of obeisance before the Khai. Maati moved a step forward before he knew he meant to. His impulse to shield someone - Heshai, the Khai, Seedless - was confused by his anger and a deepening dread.
‘I think this was your doing. Am I wrong?’ the Khai asked, and Seedless smiled and bowed.
‘Of course not, most high,’ he said.
‘And you did this to torment the poet.’
‘I did.’
Andat and Khai were glaring at each other, so only Maati saw Heshai’s face. The shock of surprise and then a bleak calm more distressing than rage or weeping. Maati’s stomach twisted. This was part of it, he realized. Seedless had planned this to hurt Heshai, and this meeting now, this humiliation, was also part of his intention.
‘Where may we find the translator Oshai?’ the Khai said.
‘I don’t know. Careless of me, I know. I’ve always been bad about keeping track of my toys.’
‘That will do,’ the Khai said, and strode to the window. Looking down to the grass at the front of the house, the Khai made a gesture. In the distance, Maati heard a man call out, barking an order.
‘Heshai,’ the Khai Saraykeht said, turning back. ‘I want you to know that I understand the struggles a poet faces. I’ve read the old romances. But you . . . you must understand that these little shadow plays of yours hurt innocent people. And they hurt my city. In the last day, I have heard six audiences asking that I lower tariffs to compensate for the risk that the andat will find some way to act against you that might hurt the cotton crop. I have had two of the largest trading houses in the city ask me what I plan to do if the andat escapes. How will I maintain trade then? And what was I to tell them? Eh?’
‘I don’t know,’ the poet said, his voice low and rough.
‘Nor do I,’ the Khai said.
Men were tramping up the stairway now. Maati could hear them, and the temptation to go and see what they were doing was almost more than his desire to hear when the Khai said next.
‘This stops now,’ the Khai said. ‘And if I must be the one to stop it, I will.’
The footsteps reached the door and two men in workmen’s trousers pushed in, a thick, heavy box between them. Maati saw it was fashioned of wood bound with black iron - small enough that a man might fit inside it but too short to stand, too narrow to sit, too shallow to turn around. He had seen drawings of it in books with the Dai-kvo. They had been books about the excesses of the imperial courts, about their punishments. The men placed the box against Heshai-kvo’s wall, took poses of abject obeisance to the Khai, and left quickly.
‘Most high,’ Maati said, his voice thick. ‘You . . . this is . . .’
‘Rest yourself, boy,’ the Khai said as he stepped to the thing and pulled the bar that opened the iron grate. ‘It isn’t for my old friend Heshai. It’s only to keep his things in when he isn’t using them.’
With a clank, the black iron swung open. Maati saw Seedless’ eyes widen for a moment, then an amused smile plucked the perfect lips. Heshai looked on in silence.
‘But most high,’ Maati said, his voice growing stronger. ‘A poet and his work are connected. If you lock a part of Heshai-kvo into a torture box . . .’
The Khai took a sharp pose that required silence, and Maati’s words died. The man’s gaze held him until Seedless laughed and stepped between them. For a fleeting moment, Maati almost felt that the andat had moved to protect him from the anger in the Khai’s expression.
‘You forget, my dear,’ the andat said, ‘the most high killed two of his brothers to sit in his chair. He knows more of sacrifice than any of us. Or so the story goes.’
‘Now, Heshai,’ the Khai said, but Maati saw no effort in Heshai-kvo as Seedless stepped backward into the box, crouching down, knees bent. The Khai shut the grate, barred it, and slid a spike in to hold the bar in place. The pale face of the andat was crossed with shadows and metal. The Khai turned to the bed, standing still until Heshai adopted a pose that accepted the judgment.
‘It doesn’t roam free,’ the Khai said. ‘When it isn’t needed, it goes in its place. This is my order.’
‘Yes, most high,’ Heshai said, then lay down and turned away, pulling his sheet over him. The Khai snorted with disgust and turned to leave. At the doorway, he paused.
‘Boy,’ he said, taking a pose of command. Maati answered with an appropriate obeisance. ‘When your turn comes, do better.’
After the Khai and his men were gone, Maati stood, shaking. Heshai didn’t move or speak. Seedless in his torture box only crouched, fingers laced with the metal grate, the black eyes peering out. Maati pulled the netting back over his master and went downstairs. No one remained - only the remains of the offerings of sympathy and concern half consumed, and an eerie silence.
Otah-kvo, he thought. Otah-kvo will know what to do. Please, please let Otah-kvo know what to do.
br />
He hurried, gathering an apple, some bread, and a jug of water, and taking them to the unmoving poet before changing into fresh robes and rushing out through the palace grounds to the street and down into the city. Halfway to the quarters where Otah-kvo’s cohort slept, he noticed he was weeping. He couldn’t say for certain when he’d begun.
‘Itani!’ Muhatia-cha barked. ‘Get down here!’
Otah, high in the suffocating heat and darkness near the warehouse roof, grabbed the sides of his ladder and slid down. Muhatia-cha stood in the wide double doors that opened to the light and noise of the street. The overseer had a sour expression, but mixed with something - eagerness, perhaps, or curiosity. Otah stood before him with a pose appropriate to the completion of a task.
‘You’re wanted at the compound. I don’t know what good they think you’ll do there.’
‘Yes, Muhatia-cha.’
‘If this is just your lady love pulling you away from your duties, Itani, I’ll find out.’
‘I won’t be able to tell you unless I go,’ Otah pointed out and smiled his charming smile, thinking as he did that he’d never meant it less. Muhatia-cha’s expression softened slightly, and he waved Otah on.
‘Hai! Itani!’ Kaimati’s familiar voice called out. Otah turned. His old friend was pulling a cart to the warehouse door, but had paused, bracing the load against his knees. ‘Let us know what you find, eh?’
Otah took a pose of agreement and turned away. It was an illusion, he knew, that the people he passed in the streets seemed to stare at him. There was no reason for the city as a whole to see him pass and think anything of him. Another laborer in a city full of men like him. That it wasn’t true did nothing to change the feeling. The sad trade had gone wrong. Liat was involved, as was Maati. For two days, he had seen neither. Liat’s cell at the compound had been empty, the poet’s house too full for him to think of approaching. Otah had made do with the gossip of the street and the bathhouse.
The andat had broken loose and killed the girl as well as her babe; the child had actually been fathered by the poet or the Khai or, least probably, the andat Seedless himself; the poet had killed himself or been killed by the Khai or by the andat; the poet was lying sick at heart. Or the woman was. The stories seemed to bloom like blood poured in water - swirling in all directions and filling all mathematical possibilities. Every story that could be told, including - unremarkably among its legion of fellows - the truth, had been whispered in some corner of Saraykeht in the last day. He had slept poorly, and awakened unrefreshed. Now, he walked quickly, the afternoon sun pushing down on his shoulders and sweat pouring off him.
He caught sight of Liat on the street outside the compound of House Wilsin. He recognized the shape of her body before he could see her face, could read the exhaustion in the slope of her shoulders. She wore mourning robes. He didn’t know if they were the same that she’d worn to the ceremony or if the grief was fresher than that. When she caught sight of him, she walked to him. Her eyes were sunken, her skin pale, her lips bloodless. She stepped into his embrace without speaking. It was unseemly, of course, a laborer holding an overseer this way - his cheek pressed to her forehead - in the street. It was too hot for the sensation to be pleasant. She held him fiercely, and he felt the deepness of her breath by the way she pressed against him.
‘What happened, love?’ he asked, but Liat only shook her head. Otah stroked her unbound hair and waited until, with a shuddering sigh, she pulled back. She didn’t release his hand, and he didn’t try to reclaim it.
‘Come to my cell,’ she said. ‘We can talk there.’
The compound was subdued, men and women passing quickly though their duties as if nothing had happened, except for the air of tension. Liat led the way in silence, pushed open the door of her cell and pulled him into the shadows. A thin form lay on the cot, swathed in brown robes. Maati sat up, blinking sleep out of his eyes.
‘Otah-kvo?’ the boy asked.
‘He came this morning looking for you,’ Liat said, letting go of Otah’s hand at last and sitting at her desk. ‘I don’t think he’d eaten or had anything to drink since it happened. I brought him here, gave him an apple and some water, put him to bed, and sent a runner to Muhatia-cha.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Maati said. ‘I didn’t know where to find you, and I thought Liat-cha might . . .’
‘It was a fine plan,’ Otah said. ‘It worked. But what happened?’
Maati looked down, and Liat spoke. Her voice was hard as slate and as gray. Speaking softly, she told the story: she’d been fooled by the translator Oshai and the andat at the price of Maj and her babe. Maati took the narrative up: the poet was ill, eating little, drinking less, never leaving his bed. And the Khai, in his anger, had locked Seedless away. As detail grew upon detail, problem upon problem, Otah felt his chest grow tighter. Liat wouldn’t meet his gaze, and Otah wished Maati were elsewhere, so that he could take her in his arms. But he also knew there was nowhere else that Maati could turn. It was right that he’d come here. When Maati’s voice trailed off at last, Otah realized the boy was looking at him, waiting for something. For a decision.
‘So he admitted to it,’ Otah said, thinking as he spoke. ‘Seedless confessed to the Khai.’
Maati took a pose of confirmation.
‘Why?’ Otah asked. ‘Did he really think it would break Heshaikvo’s spirit? That he’d be freed?’
‘Of course he did,’ Liat snapped, but Maati took a more thoughtful expression and shook his head.
‘Seedless hates Heshai,’ Maati said. ‘It was a flaw in the translation. Or else not a flaw but . . . a part of it. He may have only done it because he knew how badly Heshai would be hurt.’
‘Heshai?’ Liat demanded. ‘How badly Heshai would be hurt? What about Maj? She didn’t do anything to deserve this. Nothing!’
‘Seedless . . . doesn’t care about her,’ Maati said.
‘Will Heshai release him?’ Otah asked. ‘Did it work?’
Maati took a pose that both professed ignorance and apologized for it. ‘He’s not well. And I don’t know what confining Seedless will do to him—’
‘Who cares?’ Liat said. Her voice was bitter. ‘What does it matter whether Heshai suffers? Why shouldn’t he? He’s the one who controls the andat. If he was so busy whoring and drinking that he couldn’t be bothered to do his work, then he ought to be punished.’
‘That’s not the issue, love,’ Otah said, his gaze still on Maati.
‘Yes, it is,’ she said.
‘If the poet wastes away and dies or if this drives him to take his own life, the andat goes free. Unless . . .’
‘I’m not ready,’ Maati said. ‘I’ve only just arrived here, really. A student might study under a full poet for years before he’s ready to take on the burden. And even then sometimes people just aren’t the right ones. I might not be able to hold Seedless at all.’
‘Would you try?’
It took a long time before Maati answered, and when he did, his voice was small.
‘If I failed, I’d pay his price.’
‘What’s his price?’ Liat asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Maati said. ‘The only way to find out is to fail. Death, most likely. But . . . I could try. If there was no one else to.’
‘That’s insane,’ Liat said, looking to Otah for support. ‘He can’t do that. It would be like asking him to jump off a cliff and see if he could learn to fly on the way down.’
‘There isn’t the choice. There aren’t very many successful bindings. There aren’t many poets who even try them. There may be no replacement for Seedless, and even if there were, it might not work well with the cotton trade,’ Maati said. He looked pale and ill. ‘If no one else can take the poet’s place, it’s my duty—’
‘It hasn’t come to that. With luck, it won’t,’ Otah said. ‘Perhaps there’s another poet who’s better suited for the task. Or some other andat that could take Seedless’ place if he escaped—’
‘We could send to the Dai-kvo,’ Liat said. ‘He’d know.’
‘I can’t go,’ Maati said. ‘I can’t leave Heshai-kvo here.’
‘You can write,’ Liat said. ‘Send a courier.’
‘Can you do that?’ Otah asked. ‘Write it all out, everything: the sad trade, Seedless, how the Khai’s responded. What you’re afraid may happen. All of it.’
Maati nodded.
‘How long?’ Otah asked.
‘I could have it tomorrow. In the morning.’
Otah closed his eyes. His belly felt heavy with dread, his hands trembling as if he were about to attack a man or else be attacked. Someone had to carry the message, and it couldn’t be Maati. It would be him. He would do it himself. The resolve was simply there, like a decision that had been made long before.