“It was evil, Marchat.”
“Yes. Yes, it was evil. Yes, it was wrong,” he said, motioning so violently that his tea splashed, the red tint of if diffusing quickly in the bath. “But it was decided before anyone consulted us. By the time you or I or any of us were told, it was already too late. It needed doing, and so we’ve done it.
“Tell me, Amat, what happens if you’re the Khai Saraykeht and you find out your pet god’s been conspiring with your trade rivals? Do you stop with the tools, because that’s all we are. Tools. Or do you teach a lesson to the Galts that they won’t soon forget? We haven’t got any andat of our own, so there’s nothing to restrain you. We can’t hit back. Do our crops fail? Do all the women with child in Galt lose their children over this? They’re as innocent as that island girl, Amat. They’ve done as little to deserve that as she has.”
“Lower your voice,” Amat said. “Someone will hear you.”
Marchat leaned back, glancing nervously at the windows, the door. Amat shook her head.
“That was a pretty speech,” she said. “Did you practice it?”
“Some, yes.”
“And who were you hoping to convince with it? Me, or yourself?”
“Us,” he said. “Both of us. It’s true, you know. The price would be worse than the crime, and innocent people would suffer.”
Amat considered him. He wanted so badly for it to be true, for her to agree. He was like a child, a boy. It made her feel weighted down.
“I suppose it is,” she said. “So. Where do we go from here?”
“We clean up. We try to limit the damage. Ah, and one thing. The boy Itani? Do you know why the young poet would call him Otah?”
Amat let herself be distracted. She turned the name over in her mind, searching for some recollection. Nothing came. She put her bowl of tea on the side of the bath and took a pose pleading ignorance.
“It sounds like a northern name,” she said. “When did he use it?”
“I had a man follow them. He overheard them speaking.”
“It doesn’t match anything Liat’s told me of him.”
“Well. Well, we’ll keep a finger on it and see if it moves. Damned strange, but nothing’s come from it yet.”
“What about Maj?”
“Who? Oh, the girl. Yes. We’ll need to keep her close for another week or two. Then I’ll have her taken home. There’s a trading company making a run to the east at about the right time. If the Khai’s men are done with her, I’ll pay her passage with them. Otherwise, it may be longer.”
“But you’ll see her back home safely.”
“It’s what I can do,” Marchat said.
They sat in silence for a long minute. Amat’s heart felt like lead in her breast. Marchat was as still as if he’d drunk poison. Poor Wilsin-cha, she thought. He’s trying so hard to make this conscionable, but he’s too wise to believe his own arguments.
“So, then,” she said, softly. “The contracts with the dyers. Where do we stand with them?”
Marchat’s gaze met hers, a faint smile on his bushy lips. For almost two hands, he brought her up to date on the small doings of House Wilsin. The agreements they’d negotiated with Old Sanya and the dyers, the problems with the shipments from Obar State, the tax statements under review by the utkhaiem. Amat listened, and without meaning to she moved back into the rhythm of her work. The parts of her mind that held the doings of the house slid back into use, and she pictured all the issues Wilsin-cha brought up and how they would affect each other. She asked questions to confirm that she’d understood and to challenge Marchat to think things through with her. And for a while, she could almost pretend that nothing had happened, that she still felt what she had, that the house she had served so long was still what it had been to her. Almost, but not entirely.
When she left, her fingertips were wrinkled from the baths and her mind was clearer. She had several full days work before her just to put things back in order. And after that the work of the autumn: first House Wilsin’s—she felt she owed Marchat that much—and then perhaps also her own.
THE POET’S HOUSE HAD BEEN FULL FOR TWO DAYS NOW, EVER SINCE Heshai had taken to his bed. Utkhaiem and servants of the Khai and representatives from the great trading houses came to call. They came at all hours. They brought food and drink and thinly-veiled curiosity and tacit recrimination. Maati welcomed them as they came, accepted their gifts, saw them to whatever seats were available. He held poses of gratitude until his shoulders ached. He wanted nothing more than to turn them out—all of them.
The first night had been the worst. Maati had stood outside the door of Heshai-kvo’s room and pounded and demanded and begged until the night candle was half-burned. And when the door finally scraped open, it was Seedless who had unbarred it.
Heshai had lain on his cot, his eyes fixed on nothing, his skin pale, his lips slack. The white netting around him reminded Maati of a funeral shroud. He had had to touch the poet’s shoulder before Heshai’s distracted gaze flickered over to him and then away. Maati took a chair beside him, and stayed there until morning.
Through the night, Seedless had paced the room like a cat looking for a way under a woodpile. Sometimes he laughed to himself. Once, when Maati had drifted into an uneasy sleep, he woke to find the andat on the bed, bent over until his pale lips almost brushed Heshai’s ear—Seedless whispering fast, sharp syllables too quietly for Maati to make sense of them. The poet’s face was contorted as if in pain and flushed bright red. In the long moment before Maati shouted and pushed the andat away, their gazes locked, and Maati saw Seedless smile even as he murmured his poison.
When the morning came, and the first pounding of visitors, Heshai roused himself enough to order Maati down to greet them. The bar had slid home behind him, and the stream of people had hardly slacked since. They stayed until the first quarter of the night candle had burned, and a new wave arrived before dawn.
“I bring greetings from Annan Tiyan of House Tiyan,” an older man said loudly as he stood on the threshold. He had to speak up for his words to carry over the conversation behind Maati. “We had heard of the poet’s ill health and wished . . .”
Maati took a brief pose of welcome and gratitude that he didn’t begin to mean and ushered the man in. The flock of carrion crows gabbled and talked and waited, Maati knew, for news of Heshai. Maati only took the food they’d brought and laid it out for them to eat, poured their gift wine into bowls as hospitality. And upstairs, Heshai . . . It didn’t bear thinking about. A regal man in fine silk robes motioned Maati over and asked him gently what he could do to help the poet in his time of need.
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 notic
e 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 judgement.
“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.
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 aga
inst 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 himself 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.