‘Of course it was,’ Seedless said. ‘Why would anyone ask forgiveness for something they’d done that was right? But tell me, since we’re on the subject of judgment and clemency, why would you ask for something you don’t deserve?’
‘You sound like Heshai-kvo.’
‘Of course I do, you’re evading. If you don’t like that question, leave it aside and answer me this instead. Would you forgive me? What I did was wrong, and I know it. Would you do for me what you’d ask of him?’
‘Would you want me to?’
‘Yes,’ Seedless said, and his voice was strangely plaintive. It wasn’t an emotion Maati had ever seen in the andat before now. ‘Yes, I want to be forgiven.’
Maati sipped the wine, then shook his head.
‘You’d do it again, wouldn’t you? If you could, you’d sacrifice anyone or anything to hurt Heshai-kvo.’
‘You think that?’
‘Yes.’
Seedless bowed his head until his hair tipped over his hands.
‘I suppose you’re right,’ he said. ‘Fine, then this. Would you forgive Heshai-kvo for his failings? As a teacher to you, as a poet in making something so dangerously flawed as myself. Really, pick anything - there’s no end of ways in which he’s wanting. Does he deserve mercy?’
‘Perhaps,’ Maati said. ‘He didn’t mean to do what he did.’
‘Ah! And because I planned, and he blundered, the child is more my wrong than his?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then you’ve forgotten again what we are to each other, he and I. But let that be. If your laborer friend - you called him Otah-kvo, by the way. You should be more careful of that. If Otah-kvo did something wrong, if he committed some crime or helped someone else commit one, could you let that go?’
‘You know . . . how did you . . .’
‘I’ve known for weeks, dear. Don’t let it worry you. I haven’t told anyone. Answer the question; would you hold his crimes against him as you hold mine against me?’
‘No, I don’t think I would. Who told you that Otah was . . .’
Seedless leaned back and took a pose of triumph.
‘And what’s the difference between us, laborer and andat, that you’ll brush his sins aside and not my own?’
Maati smiled.
‘You aren’t him,’ he said.
‘And you love him.’
Maati took a pose of affirmation.
‘And love is more important than justice,’ Seedless said.
‘Sometimes. Yes.’
Seedless smiled and nodded.
‘What a terrible thought,’ he said. ‘That love and injustice should be married.’
Maati shifted to a dismissive pose, and in reply the andat took the brown book back up, leafing through the handwritten pages as if looking for his place. Maati closed his eyes and breathed in the fumes of the wine. He felt profoundly comfortable, like sleep - true sleep - coming on. He felt himself rocking slowly, involuntarily shifting in time with his pulse. A sense of disquiet roused him and without opening his eyes again, he spoke.
‘You mustn’t tell anyone about Otah-kvo. If his family finds him . . .’
‘They won’t,’ Seedless said. ‘At least not through me.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘This time, you can. Heshai-kvo did his best by you. Do you know that? For all his failings, and for all of mine, to the degree that our private war allowed it, we have taken care of you and . . .’
The andat broke off. Maati opened his eyes. The andat wasn’t looking at him or the book, but out, to the south. It was as if his sight penetrated the walls, the trees, the distance, and took in some spectacle that held him. Maati couldn’t help following his gaze, but there was nothing but the rooms of the house. When he glanced back, the andat’s expression was exultant.
‘What is it?’ Maati asked, a cold dread at his back.
‘It’s Otah-kvo,’ Seedless said. ‘He’s forgiven you.’
The single candle burned, marking the hours of the night. On the cot where Otah had left him, the poet slept, all color leached from his face by the dim light. The poet’s mouth was open, his breath deep and regular. Maj, at his side, knelt, considering the sleeping man’s face. Otah shut the door.
‘Is him,’ Maj said, her voice low and tense. ‘Is the one who does this to me. To my baby.’
Otah moved forward, careful not to rattle the bottles on the floor, not to make any sound that would wake the sleeper.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It is.’
Silently, Maj pulled a knife from her sleeve. It was a thin blade, long as her hand but thinner than a finger. Otah touched her wrist and shook his head.
‘Quiet,’ he said. ‘It has to be quiet.’
‘So how?’ she asked.
Otah fumbled for a moment in his own sleeve and drew out the cord. It was braided bamboo, thin and supple, but so strong it would have borne Otah’s weight without snapping. Wooden grips at each end fit his fingers to keep it from cutting into his flesh when he pulled it tight. It was a thug’s weapon. Otah saw it in his own hands as if from a distance. The dread in his belly had suffused through his body, through the world, and disconnected him from everything. He felt like a puppet, pulled by invisible strings.
‘I hold him,’ Maj said. ‘You do this.’
Otah looked at the sleeping man. There was no rage in him to carry him through, no hatred to justify it. For a moment, he thought of turning away, of rousing the man or calling out for the watch. It would be so simple, even now, to turn back. Maj seemed to read his thoughts. Her eyes, unnatural and pale, met his.
‘You do this,’ she said again.
He would walk onto the blade . . .
‘His legs,’ Otah said. ‘I’ll worry about his arms, but you keep him from kicking free.’
Maj moved in so close to the cot, she seemed almost ready to crawl onto it with Heshai. Her hands flexed in the space above the bend of the poet’s knees. Otah looped the cord, ready to drop it over the poet’s head, his fingers in the curves that were made for them. He stepped forward. His foot brushed a bottle, the sound of glass rolling over stone louder than thunder in the silence. The poet lurched, lifted himself, less than half awake, up on his elbow.
As if his body had been expecting it, Otah dropped the cord into place and pulled. He was dimly aware of the soft sounds of Maj struggling, pulling, holding the poet down. The poet’s hands were at his throat now, fingers digging for the cord that had vanished, almost, into the flesh. Otah’s hands and arms ached, and the broad muscles across his shoulders burned as he drew the cord as tight as his strength allowed. The poet’s face was dark with blood, his wide lips black. Otah closed his eyes, but didn’t loose his grip. The struggle grew weaker. The flailing arms and clawing fingers became the soft slaps of a child, and then stopped. In the darkness behind his eyes, Otah still pulled, afraid that if he stopped too soon it would all have to be done again. There was a wet sound, and the smell of shit. His back knotted between his shoulder blades, but he counted a dozen breaths, and then a half dozen more, before he looked up.
Maj stood at the foot of the cot. Her robes were disarranged and a bad bruise was already blooming on her cheek. Her expression was as serene as a statue’s. Otah released the cord, his fingers stiff. He kept his gaze high, not wanting to see the body. Not at any price.
‘It’s done,’ he said, his voice shaky. ‘We should go.’
Maj said something, not to him but to the corpse between them. Her words were flowing and lovely and he didn’t know what they meant. She turned and walked solemn and regal out of the room, leaving Otah to follow her. He hesitated at the doorway, caught between wanting to look back and not, between the horror of the thing he had done and the relief that it was over. Perversely, he felt guilty leaving Heshai like this without giving some farewell; it seemed rude.
‘Thank you, Heshai-kvo,’ he said at last, and took a pose appropriate for a pupil to an honored teacher. After a moment, he
dropped his hands, stepped out, and closed the door.
The air of the alleyway was sharp and cold, rich with the threat of rain. For a brief, frightened moment, he thought he was alone, that Maj had gone, but the sound of her retching gave her away. He found her doubled over in the mud, weeping and being sick. He placed a hand on her back, reassuring and gentle, until the worst had passed. When she rose, he brushed off what he could of the mess and, his arm around her, led her out from the alleyway, to the west and down, towards the seafront and away at last from Saraykeht.
‘What do you mean?’ Maati asked. ‘How has Otah-kvo . . .’
And then he stopped because, with a sound like a sigh and a scent like rain, Seedless had vanished, and only the mourning robes remained.
20
Morning seemed like any other for nearly an hour, and then the news came. When Liat heard it humming through the comfort house - Maj gone, the poet killed - she ran to the palaces. She forgot her own safety, if there was safety to be had anywhere. When she finally crossed the wooden bridge over water tea-brown with dead leaves, her sides ached, her wounded shoulder throbbed with her heartbeat.
She didn’t know what she would say. She didn’t know how she would tell him.
When she opened the door, she knew there was no need.
The comfortable, finely appointed furniture was cast to the walls, the carpets pulled back. A wide stretch of pale wooden flooring lay bare and empty as a clearing. The air smelled of rain and smoke. Maati, dressed in formal robes poorly tied, knelt in the center of the space. His skin was ashen, his hair half-wild. A book lay open before him, bound in leather, its pages covered in beautiful script. He was chanting, a soft sibilant flow that seemed to echo against the walls and move back into itself, as complex as music. Liat watched, fascinated, as Maati shifted back and forth, his lips moving, his hands restless. Something like a wind pressed against her without disturbing the folds of her robes. A sense of profound presence, like standing before the Khai only a thousand times as intense and a thousand times less humane.
‘Stop this!’ she screamed even, it seemed, as she understood. ‘Stop!’
She rushed forward, pushing through the thick presence, the air as oppressive as a furnace, but with something besides heat. Maati seemed to hear her voice distantly. His head turned, his eyes opened, and he lost the thread of the chant. Echoes fell out of phase with each other, their rhythms collapsing like a crowd that had been clapping time falling into mere applause. And then the room was silent and empty again except for the two of them.
‘You can’t,’ she said. ‘You said that it was too near what Heshai had done before. You said that it couldn’t work. You said so, Maati.’
‘I have to try,’ he said. The words were so simple they left her empty. She simply folded beside him, her legs tucked beneath her. Maati blinked like he was only half-awake. ‘I have to try. I think, perhaps, if I don’t wait . . . if I do it now, maybe Seedless isn’t all the way gone . . . I can pull him back before Heshai’s work has entirely . . .’
It was what she needed, hearing the poet’s name. It gave her something to speak to. Liat took his hand in hers. He winced a little, and she relaxed her grip, but not enough to let him go.
‘Heshai’s dead, Maati. He’s gone. And whether he’s dead for an hour or a year, he’s just as dead. Seedless . . . Seedless is gone. They’re both gone.’
Maati shook his head.
‘I can’t believe that,’ he said. ‘I understand Heshai better than anyone else. I know Seedless. It’s early, and there isn’t much time, but if I can only . . .’
‘It’s too late. It’s too late, and if you do this, it’s no better than sinking yourself in the river. You’ll die, Maati. You told me that. You did. If a poet fails to capture the andat, he dies. And this . . .’ She nodded to the open book written in a dead man’s hand. ‘It won’t work. You’re the one who said so.’
‘It’s different,’ he said.
‘How?’
‘Because I have to try. I’m a poet, love. It’s what I am. And you know as well as I do that if Seedless escapes, there’s nothing. There’s nothing to take his place.’
‘So there’s nothing,’ she said.
‘Saraykeht . . .’
‘Saraykeht is a city, Maati. It’s roads and walls and people and warehouses and statues. It doesn’t know you. It doesn’t love you. It’s me who does that. I love you. Please, Maati, do not do this.’
Slowly, carefully, Maati took his hand from hers. When he smiled, it was as much sorrow as fondness.
‘You should go,’ he said. ‘I have something I need to do. If it works out as I hope, I’ll find you.’
Liat rose. The room was hazy with tears, but sorrow wasn’t what warmed her chest and burned her skin. It was rage, rage fueled by pain.
‘You can kill yourself if you like,’ she said. ‘You can do this thing now and die, and they may even talk about you like a hero. But I’ll know better.’
She turned and walked out, her heart straining. On the steps, she stopped. The sun shone cool over the bare trees. She closed her eyes, waiting to hear the grim, unnatural chant begin again behind her. Crows hopped from branch to branch, and then as if at a signal, rose together and streamed off to the south. She stood for almost half a hand, the chill air pressing into her flesh.
She wondered how long she could wait there. She wondered where Itani was now, and if he knew what had happened. If he would ever forgive her for loving more than one man. She chewed at the inside of her cheek until it hurt.
Behind her, the door scraped open. Maati looked defeated. He was tucking the leatherbound book into his sleeve as he stepped out to her.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘I’ll have to go back to the Dai-kvo and tell him I’ve failed.’
She stepped close to him, resting her head against his shoulder. He was warm, or the day had cooled her even more than she’d thought. For a moment, she remembered the feeling of Itani’s broad arms and the scent of his skin.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
It was three weeks now since the poet had died. Three weeks was too long, Amat knew, for a city to hold its breath. The tension was still there - the uncertainty, the fear. It showed in the faces of the men and women in the street and in the way they held their bodies. Amat heard it in the too-loud laughter, and angry words of drunkards in the soft-quarter streets. But the initial shock was fading. Time, suspended by the sudden change of losing the andat, was moving forward again. And that, as much as anything, drew her out, away from the protection of the comfort house and into the city. Her city.
In the gray of winter fog, the streets were like memories - here a familiar fountain emerged, took shape, and form and weight. The dark green of the stone glistened in the carvings of ship and fish, eagle and archer. And then as she passed, they faded, becoming at last a darkness behind her, and nothing more. She stopped at a stand by the seafront to buy a paper sack of roasted almonds, fresh from the cookfire and covered with raw sugar. The woman to whom Amat handed her length of copper took a pose of gratitude, and Amat moved to the water’s edge, considering the half-hidden waves, the thousand smells of the seafront - salt and spiced foods, sewage and incense. She blew sharply through pursed lips to cool the sweets before she bit into them, as she had when she was a girl, and she prepared herself for the last meeting. When the sack was empty, she crumpled it and let it drop into the sea.
House Wilsin was among the first to make its position on the future known by its actions. Even as she walked up the streets to the north, moving steadily toward the compound, carts passed her, heading the other way. The warehouses were being cleared, the offices packed into crates bound for Galt and the Westlands. When she reached the familiar courtyard, the lines of men made her think of ants on sugarcane. She paused at the bronze Galtic Tree, considering it with distaste and, to her surprise, amusement. Three weeks was too long, apparently, for her to hold her breath either.
‘Amat-cha?’
She shifted. Epani, her thin-faced, weak-spirited replacement, stood in a pose of welcome belied by the discomfort on his face. She answered it with a pose of her own, more graceful and appropriate.
‘Tell him I’d like to speak with him, will you?’
‘He isn’t . . . that is . . .’
‘Epani-cha. Go, tell him I’m here and I want to speak with him. I won’t burn the place down while you do it.’
Perhaps it was the dig that set him moving. Whatever did it, Epani retreated into the dark recesses of the compound. Amat walked to the fountain, listening to the play of the water as though it was the voice of an old friend. Someone had dredged it, she saw, for the copper lengths thrown in for luck. House Wilsin wasn’t leaving anything behind.