He ate strips of dried apple and plum, chewing the sweet flesh slowly as he thought and noticing the subtlety of the flavors as they changed. It wasn’t so bad a life, Itani Noyga’s. His work was simple, straightforward. He was good at it. With only a little more effort, he could find a position with a trading house, or the seafront authority, or any of a hundred places that would take a man with numbers and letters and an easy smile. And half a year ago, he would have thought it enough. Otah or Itani. It was still the question.
“You’re up,” a soft voice said. “And the men of the house are still out. That’s good. We have things to talk about, you and I.”
Seedless leaned against a bookshelf, his arms crossed and his dark eyes considering. Otah popped the last sliver of plum into his mouth and took a pose of greeting appropriate for someone of low station to a member of the utkhaiem. There was, so far as he knew, no etiquette appropriate for a common laborer to an andat. Seedless waved the pose away and flowed forward, his robes—blue and black—hissing cloth against cloth.
“Otah Machi,” the andat said. “Otah Unbranded. The man too wise to be a poet and too stupid to take the brand. And here you are.”
Otah met the glittering black gaze and felt the flush in his face. His words were ready, his hands already halfway to a pose of denial. Something in the perfect pale mask of a face stopped him. He lowered his arms.
“Good,” Seedless said, “I was hoping we might dispense with that part. We’re a little short of time just now.”
“How did you find out?”
“I listened. I lied. The normal things anyone would do who wanted to know something hidden. You’ve seen Liat?”
“Not yet, no.”
“You know what happened to her, though? The tiles?”
“Maati told me.”
“It wasn’t an accident,” the andat said. “They were thrown.”
Otah frowned, aware that Seedless was peering at him, reading his expressions and movement. He forced himself to remain casual.
“Was it you?”
“Me? Gods, no,” Seedless said, sitting on a couch, his legs tucked up beneath him like they were old friends chatting. “In the first place I wouldn’t have done it. In the second, I wouldn’t have missed. No, it was Marchat Wilsin and his men.”
Otah leaned forward, letting the smile he felt show on his face. The andat didn’t move, even to breathe.
“You know there’s no sane reason that I should believe anything you say.”
“True,” the andat said. “But hear me out first, and then you can disbelieve my little story entirely instead of just one bit at a time.”
“There’s no reason Wilsin-cha would want to hurt Liat.”
“Yes, there is. His sins are creeping back to kill him, you see. That little incident with the island girl and her dead get? It was more than it seemed. Listen carefully when I say this. It’s the kind of thing men are killed for knowing, so it’s worth paying attention. The High Council of Galt arranged that little mess. Wilsin-cha helped. Amat Kyaan—his overseer—found out and is dedicating what’s left of her life to prying the whole sordid thing open like it was shellfish. Wilsin-cha in his profoundly finite wisdom is cleaning up anything that might be of use to Amat-cha. Including Liat.”
Otah took a pose of impatience and stood, looking for his cloak.
“I’ve had enough of this . . .”
“I know who you are, boy. Sit back down or I’ll end all your choices for you, and you can spend the rest of your life running from your brothers over a chair you don’t even want to sit in.”
Otah paused and then sat.
“Good. The Galtic Council had a plan to ally themselves with the andat. We poor suffering spirits get our freedom. The Galts kick out the supports that keep the cities of the Khaiem above the rest of the world. Then they roll over you like you were just another Westlands warden, only with more gold and fewer soldiers. It’s a terrible plan.”
“Is it?”
“Yes. Andat aren’t predictable. That’s what makes us the same, you and I. Ah, relax, Otah-cha. You look like I have a knife at your belly.”
“I think you do,” Otah said.
The andat leaned back, gesturing at the empty house around them—the crackling fire, the falling rain.
“There’s no one to hear us. Anything we say to each other, you and I, is between us unless we choose otherwise.”
“And I should trust you to keep quiet?”
“Of course not. Don’t be an ass. But the less you say, the less I can repeat to others, eh? Right. Amat’s near getting what she needs. And she won’t stop. She’s a pit hound at heart. Do you know what happens when she does?”
“She’ll take it to the Khai.”
“Yes!” the andat said, clapping his hands together once as if it were a festival game and Otah had earned a prize. “And what would he do?”
“I don’t know.”
“No? You disappoint me. He’d do something bloody and gaudy and out of all proportion. Something that sounded like a plague from the old epics. My guess—it’s only my opinion, of course, but I consider myself fairly expert on the subject of unrestrained power—he’ll turn me and Heshai against whatever Galtic women are carrying babes when he learns of it. It will be like pulling seeds out of a cotton bale. A thousand, maybe. More. Who can say?”
“It would break Heshai,” Otah said. “Doing that.”
“No. It wouldn’t. It would bend him double, but it wouldn’t break him. Seeing the one child die in front of him didn’t do it, and tragedy fades with distance. Put it close enough to your eye, and a thumb can blot out a mountain. A few thousand dead Galt babies will hurt him, but he won’t have to watch it happen. A few bottles of cheap wine, a few black months. And then he’ll train Maati. Maati will have all the loneliness, all the self-hatred, all the pain of holding me in check for all the rest of his life. That’s already happening. Heshai fell in love and lost her, and he’s been chewed by guilt ever since. Maati will do the same.”
“No, he won’t,” Otah said.
Seedless laughed.
“More the fool, you. But let it go. Let it go and look at the near term. Here’s my promise, Otah of Machi. Amat will make her case. Liat may be killed before it comes before the Khai, or she may not, but Amat will make her case. Innocent blood will wash Galt. Maati will suffer to the end of his days. Oh, and I’ll betray you to your family, though I think it’s really very small of you to be concerned about that. Your problems don’t amount to much, you know.” Seedless paused. “Do you understand me?”
“Yes.”
“Then you see why we have to act.”
“We?”
“You and I, Otah. We can stop it. Together we can save them all. It’s why I’ve come to you.”
The andat’s face was perfectly grave now, his hands floating up into a plea. Slowly, Otah took a pose that was a query. Wind rattled the shutters and a chill touched the back of Otah’s neck.
“We can spare the people we love. Saraykeht will fall, but there’s no helping that. The city will fall, and we will save Liat and Maati and all those babies and mothers who had nothing to do with this. All you have to do is kill a man who—and I swear this—would walk onto the blade if you only held it steady. You have to kill me.”
“Kill you, or Heshai?”
“There isn’t a difference.”
Otah stood, and Seedless rose with him. The perfect face looked pained, and the pose of supplication Seedless took was profound.
“Please,” he said. “I can tell you where he goes, how long he stays, how long it takes him to drink himself to sleep. All you’ll need is—”
“No,” Otah said. “Kill someone? On your word? No. I won’t.”
Seedless dropped his hands to his sides and shook his head in disappointment and disgust.
“Then you can watch everyone you care for suffer and die, and see if you prefer that. But if you’re going to change your mind, do it quickly, my dear
. Amat’s closer than she knows. There isn’t much time.”
17
> +
Her rooms were dark, the windows and wide doors covered with tapestries that held in the heat as well as blocking the light. Downstairs, the girls and the children were all sleeping—even Mitat, even Maj. Only not Amat or Torish. She ached to rest, only not quite yet.
“I’m aware of what we can and cannot have,” Amat said. “I’ll see to it.”
The thug, the murderer, the captain of her personal guard shook his head. His expression was grim.
“All respect, grandmother,” he said. “But you’ve sung that song before. The island girl’s trouble. Another stern talking to isn’t going to do more than the last one did.”
Amat drew herself up, anger filling her chest partly because she knew what he said was true. She took a pose of query.
“I had not known this was your house to run,” she said.
Torish shook his wide, bear-like head again, his eyes cast down in something like regret or shame.
“It’s your house,” he said. “But they’re my men. If you’re going to be putting them on the wrong side of the watch, there isn’t enough silver in the soft quarter to keep them here. I’m sorry.”
“You’d break contracts?”
“No. But I won’t renew. Not on those terms. This is one of the best contracts we’ve had, but I won’t take a fight I know we can’t win. You put that girl on a leash, or we can’t stay with you. And—truly, all respect—you need us.”
“She lost a child last summer,” Amat said.
“Bad things happen,” Torish Wite said, his voice surprisingly gentle. “You move past them.”
He was right, of course, and that was the galling thing. In his position, she would have done the same. Amat took a pose of acceptance.
“I understand your position, Torish-cha. I’ll see to it that Maj doesn’t endanger your men or your contract with me. Give me a day or so, and I’ll see it done.”
He nodded, turned, left her rooms. He had the grace not to ask what it was she intended. She wouldn’t have been able to say. Amat rose, took her cane, and walked out the doors to her deck. The rain had stopped, the whole great bowl of the sky white as bleached cotton. Seagulls screamed to one another, wheeling over the rooftops. She took a deep breath and let herself weep. The tears were as much about exhaustion as anything else, and they brought her no relief.
Between the late hour of the morning and the rain that had fallen all the last day and through the night, the streets of the soft quarter were near deserted. The two boys, then, who came around the corner together caught her attention. The older was broad across the shoulders—a sailor or a laborer—with a long, northern face and a robe of formal cut. The younger boy at his side—smaller, softer—wore the brown robes of a poet. Amat knew as they stepped into the street that there would even now be no rest for her. She watched them until they came too near the comfort house to see without leaning over into the street, then went inside and composed herself. It took longer than she’d expected for the guard to come and announce them. Perhaps Torish-cha had seen how tired she felt.
The older boy proved to be Itani Noyga, Liat’s vanished lover. The younger, of course, was the young poet Maati. Amat, seated at her desk, took a pose of welcome and gestured to chairs she’d had brought in for them. Both boys sat. It was an interesting contrast, the pair or them. Both were clearly in earnest, both wore expressions of perfect seriousness, but Itani’s eyes reminded her more of her own—focused out, on her, on the room, searching, it seemed, for something. The poet boy was like his master—brooding, turned inward. Like his master, or like Marchat Wilsin. Amat put her hand on her knees and leaned a degree forward.
“And what business brings you young gentlemen?” she asked. Her tone was light and pleasant and gave nothing away. Her subtlety was lost on them, though. The older boy, Itani, clearly wasn’t looking to finesse an advantage.
“Amat-cha,” he said. “I’m told you hope to prove that the High Council of Galt conspired with the andat Seedless when he killed the child out of the island girl last summer.”
“I’m investigating the matter,” Amat said, “and I’ve broken with House Wilsin, but I don’t know that it’s fair to say the Galtic Council must therefore be . . .”
“Amat-cha,” the poet boy, Maati, broke in. “Someone tried to kill Liat Chokavi. Marchat Wilsin is keeping it quiet, but I was there. And . . . Itani thinks it was something to do with you and House Wilsin.”
Amat felt her breath catch. Marchat, the old idiot, was panicking. Liat Chokavi was his best defense, if he could trust her to say the right things before the Khai. Except that he wouldn’t. She was too young, and too unskilled at these games. It was why he had used her in the first place. Something like nausea swept through her.
“It may have been,” Amat said. “How is she?”
“Recovering in the Khai’s palaces,” Itani said. “But she’s doing well. She’ll be able to go back to her house tomorrow. Wilsin-cha will expect her.”
“No,” Amat said. “She can’t go back there.”
“It’s true, then,” Itani said, his voice somber. Perhaps he had a talent for finesse after all. Amat took a pose of acknowledgement.
“I wasn’t able to stop the crime against Maj from happening, but yes. House Wilsin knew of the deceit. I believe that the Galtic Council did as well, though I can’t prove that as yet. That I think it is hardly a great secret, though. Anyone might guess as much. That I’m right in thinking it . . . is more difficult.”
“Protect Liat,” Maati said, “and whatever we can do for you, we will.”
“Itani-cha? Are those your terms as well?”
“Yes,” the boy said.
“It may mean speaking before the Khai. Telling him where you went the night you acted as Wilsin-cha’s bodyguard.”
Itani hesitated, then took a pose of acceptance.
Amat sat back, one hand up, requesting a moment to herself. This wasn’t something she’d foreseen, but it might be what she’d needed. If the young poet could influence Heshai or find some scrap of memory from the negotiations that showed Marchat Wilsin knew that all wasn’t what it seemed . . . But there was something more in this—she could feel it as sure as the tide. One piece here didn’t fit.
“Itani-cha’s presence I understand,” Amat said. “What is the poet’s interest in Liat Chokavi.”
“She’s my friend,” Maati said, his chin lifted a fraction higher than before. His eyes seemed to defy her.
Ah! she thought. So that’s how it is. She wondered how far that had gone and whether Itani knew. Not that it made any difference to her or to what was called for next.
Liat. It had always been a mess, of course, what to do with Liat. On the one hand, she might have been able to help Amat’s case, add some telling detail that would show Marchat had known of the translator Oshai’s duplicity. On the other hand, pulling the girl into it was doing her no favors. Amat had thought about it since she’d come to the house, but without coming to any conclusions. Now the decision was forced on her.
Liat could room with Maj, Amat supposed, except that the arrangement had the ring of disaster. But she couldn’t put her out with the whores. Perhaps a cot in her own rooms, or an apartment in one of the low towns. With a guard, of course. …
Later. That could all come later. Amat rose. The boys stood.
“Bring her here,” she said. “Tonight. Don’t let Wilsin-cha know what you’re doing. Don’t tell her until you have to. I’ll see her safe from there. You can trust me to it.”
“Thank you, Amat-cha,” Itani said. “But if this business is going to continue . . . I don’t want to burden you with
this if it’s something you don’t want to carry forever. This investigation might go on for years, no?”
“Gods, I hope not,” Amat said. “But I promise you, even if it does, I’ll see it finished. Whatever it costs, I will bring this to light.”
“I believe you,” Itani said.
Amat paused, there was a weight to the boy’s tone that made her think he’d expected to hear that. She had confirmed something he already suspected, and she wondered what precisely it had been. She had no way to know.
She called in Torish-cha, introduced the boys and let them speak until the plans had been made clear. The girl would come that night, just after sundown, to the rear of the house. Two of Torish’s men would meet them at the edge of the palace grounds to be sure nothing odd happened along the way. Itani would go along as well, and explain the situation. Amat sent them away just before midday, easing herself into bed after they left, and letting her eyes close at last. Any fear she had that the day’s troubles would keep her awake was unfounded—sleep rolled over her like a wave. She woke hours later, the falling sun shining into her eyes through a gap where one of her tapestries had slipped.
She called Mitat up for the briefing that opened the day. The red-haired woman came bearing a bowl of stewed beef and rice and a flask of good red wine. Amat sat at her desk and ate while Mitat spoke—the tiles man thought he knew how the table was being cheated and should know for certain by the end of the night, Little Namya had a rash on his back that needed to be looked at by a physician but Chiyan was recovering well from her visit to the street of beads and would be back to work within a few more days. Two of the girls had apparently run off, and Mitat was preparing to hire on replacements. Amat listened to each piece, fitting it into the vast complexity that her life had become.
“Torish-cha sent his men out to recover the girl you discussed with him this morning,” Mitat went on. “They should be back soon.”
“I’ll need a cot for her,” Amat said. “You can put it in my rooms, against the wall there.”
Mitat took a pose of acknowledgement. There was something else in it, though, a nuance that Amat caught as much from a hint of a smile as the pose itself. And then she saw Mitat realize that she’d noticed something, and the red-haired woman broke into a grin.