“This is why I hate dealing with you people. In Eymond or Bakta, there’d be room to talk at least.”
“Because you’d have soldiers sitting outside the wall,” Amat said, dryly.
“Exactly. And then they’d find room to talk. See if one of the other houses is overstocked,” he said.
“Chadhami is. But Tiyan and Yaanani are in competition for a contract with a Western lord. If one could move more swiftly than the other, it might seal the issue. We could charge them for the earlier session with the andat, and then take part of their space later when our crop comes in.”
Marchat considered this. They negotiated the house’s strategy for some time. Which little alliance to make, and how it could most profitably be broken later, should the need arise.
Amat knew more than she said, of course. That was her job—to hold everything about the company clear in her mind, present her employer with what he needed to know, and deal herself with the things beneath his notice. The center of it all, of course, was the cotton trade. The complex web of relationships—weavers and dyers and sailmakers; shipping companies, farming houses, alum miners—that made Saraykeht one of the richest cities in the world. And, as with all the cities of the Khaiem, free from threat of war, unlike Galt and Eddensea and Bakta; the Westlands and the Eastern Islands. They were protected by their poets and the powers they wielded, and that protection allowed conferences like this one, allowed them to play the deadly serious game of trade and barter.
Once their decisions had been made and the details agreed upon, Amat arranged a time to bring the proposals by the compound. Doing business from a bathhouse was an affectation Wilsin-cha could only take so far, and dripping water on freshly-inked contracts was where she drew the line. She knew he understood that. As she rose, prepared to face the remainder of her day, he held up a hand to stop her.
“There’s one other thing,” he said. She lowered herself back into the water. “I need a bodyguard this evening just before the half candle. Nothing serious, just someone to help keep the dogs off.”
Amat tilted her head. His voice was calm, its tone normal, but he wasn’t meeting her eyes. She held up her hands in a pose of query.
“I have a meeting,” he said, “in one of the low towns.”
“Company business?” Amat asked, keeping her voice neutral.
He nodded.
“I see,” she said. Then, after a moment, “I’ll be at the compound at the half candle, then.”
“No. Amat, I need some house thug to swat off animals and make bandits think twice. What’s a woman with a cane going to do for me?”
“I’ll bring a bodyguard with me.”
“Just send him to me,” Wilsin said with a final air. “I’ll take care of it from there.”
“As you see fit. And when did the company begin conducting trade without me?”
Marchat Wilsin grimaced and shook his head, muttering something to himself too low for her to catch. When he sighed, it sent a ripple that spilled some of the tea.
“It’s a sensitive issue, Amat. That’s all. It’s something I’m taking care of myself. I’ll give you all the details when I can, but . . .”
“But?”
“It’s difficult. There are some details of the trade that . . . I’m going to have to keep quiet about.”
“Why?”
“It’s the sad trade,” he said. “The girl’s well enough along in the pregnancy that she’s showing. And there are some facets to getting rid of the baby that I need to address discreetly.”
Amat felt herself bristle, but kept her tone calm as she spoke.
“Ah. I see. Well, then. If you feel you can’t trust my discretion, I suppose you’d best not talk to me of it at all. Perhaps I might recommend someone else to take my position.”
He slapped the water impatiently. Amat crossed her arms. It was a bluff in the sense that they both knew the house would struggle badly without her, and that she would be worse off without her position in it—it wasn’t a threat meant seriously. But she was the overseer of the house, and Amat didn’t like being kept outside her own business. Marchat’s pale face flushed red, but whether with annoyance or shame, she wasn’t sure.
“Don’t break my stones over this one, Amat. I don’t like it any better than you do, but I can’t play this one any differently than I am. There is a trade. I’ll see to it. I’ll petition the Khai Saraykeht for use of his andat. I’ll see the girl’s taken care of before and after, and I’ll see that everyone who needs paying gets paid. I was in business before you signed on, you know. And I am your employer. You could assume I know what I’m doing.”
“I was just going to say the same thing, pointed the other way. You’ve consulted me on your affairs for twenty years. If I haven’t done something to earn your mistrust—”
“You haven’t.”
“Then why shut me out of this when you never have before?”
“If I could tell you that, I wouldn’t have to shut you out of it,” Marchat said. “Just take it that it’s not my choice.”
“Your uncle asked that I be left out? Or is it the client?”
“I need a bodyguard. At the half-candle.”
Amat took a complex pose of agreement that also held a nuance of annoyance. He wouldn’t catch the second meaning. Talking over his level was something she did when he’d upset her. She rose, and he scooped the lacquer tray closer and poured himself more tea.
“The client. Can you tell me who she is?” Amat asked.
“No. Thank you, Amat,” Wilsin said.
In the women’s chamber again, she dried herself and dressed. The street, when she stepped into it, seemed louder, more annoying, than when she went in. She turned toward the House Wilsin compound, to the north and uphill. She had to pause at a waterseller’s stall, buy herself a drink, and rest in the shade to collect her thoughts. The sad trade—using the andat to end a pregnancy—wasn’t the sort of business House Wilsin had undertaken before now, though other houses had acted as brokers in some instances. She wondered why the change in policy, and why the secrecy, and why Marchat Wilsin would have told her to arrange for the bodyguard if he hadn’t wanted her, on some level, to find answers.
MAATI HELD A POSE OF GREETING, HIS HEART IN HIS THROAT. THE PALE- skinned man walked slowly around him, black eyes taking in every nuance of his stance. Maati’s hands didn’t tremble; he had trained for years, first at the school and then with the Dai-kvo. His body knew how to hide anxiety.
The man in poet’s robes stopped, an expression half approval, half amusement on his face. Elegant fingers took a pose of greeting that was neither the warmest nor the least formal. With the reply made, Maati let his hands fall to his sides and stood. His first real thought, now that the shock of his teacher’s sudden appearance was fading, was that he hadn’t expected Heshai-kvo to be so young, or so beautiful.
“What is your name, boy?” the man asked. His voice was cool and hard.
“Maati Vaupathi,” Maati said, crisply. “Once the tenth son of Nicha Vaupathi, and now the youngest of the poets.”
“Ah. A westerner. It’s still in your accent.”
The teacher sat in the window seat, his arms folded, still openly considering Maati. The rooms, which had seemed sumptuous during the long worrisome days of Maati’s waiting, seemed suddenly squalid with the black-haired man in them. A tin setting for a perfect gem. The soft cotton draperies that flowed from the ceiling, shifting in the hot breeze of late afternoon, seemed dirty beside the poet’s skin. The man smiled, his expression not entirely kind. Maati took a pose of obeisance appropriate to a student before his teacher.
“I have come, Heshai-kvo, by the order of the Dai-kvo to learn from you, if you will have me as your pupil.”
“Oh, stop that. Bowing and posing like we were dancers. Sit there. On the bed. I have some questions for you.”
Maati did as he was told, tucking his legs beneath him in the formal way a student did in a lecture before the Dai-kvo.
The man seemed to be amused by this, but said nothing about it.
“So. Maati. You came here . . . what? Six days ago?”
“Seven, Heshai-kvo.”
“Seven. And yet no one came to meet you. No one came to collect you or show you the poet’s house. It’s a long time for a master to ignore his student, don’t you think?”
It was exactly what Maati had thought, several times, but he didn’t admit that now. Instead he took a pose accepting a lesson.
“I thought so at first. But as time passed, I saw that it was a kind of test, Heshai-kvo.”
A tiny smile ghosted across the perfect lips, and Maati felt a rush of pleasure that he had guessed right. His new teacher motioned him to continue, and Maati sat up a degree straighter.
“I thought at first that it might be a test of my patience. To see whether I could be trusted not to hurry things when it wasn’t my place. But later I decided that the real test was how I spent my time. Being patient and idle wouldn’t teach me anything, and the Khai has the largest library in the summer cities.”
“You spent your time in the library?”
Maati took a pose of confirmation, unsure what to make of the teacher’s tone.
“These are the palaces of the Khai Saraykeht, Maati-kya,” he said with sudden familiarity as he gestured out the window at the grounds, the palaces, the long flow of streets and red tile roofs that sprawled to the sea. “There are scores of utkhaiem and courtiers. I don’t think a night passes here without a play being performed, or singers, or dancing. And you spent all your time with the scrolls?”
“I did spent one evening with a group of the utkhaiem. They were from the west . . . from Pathai. I lived there before I went to the school.”
“And you thought they might have news of your family.”
It wasn’t an accusation, though it could have been. Maati pressed his lips thinner, embarrassed, and repeated the pose of confirmation. The smile it brought seemed sympathetic.
“And what did you learn in your productive, studious days with Saraykeht’s books.”
“I studied the history of the city, and its andat.”
The elegant fingers made a motion that both approved and invited him to continue. The dark eyes held an interest that told Maati he had done well.
“I learned, for example, that the Dai-kvo—the last one—sent you here when Iana-kvo failed to hold Petals-Falling-Away after the old poet, Miat-kvo, died.”
“And tell me, why do you think he did that?”
“Because Petals-Falling-Away had been used to speed cotton harvests for the previous fifty years,” Maati said, pleased to know the answer. “It could make the plant . . . open, I guess. It made it easier to get the fibers. With the loss, the city needed another way to make the process—bringing in the raw cotton and turning it to cloth—better and faster than they could in Galt or the Westlands, or else the traders might go elsewhere, and the whole city would have to change. You had captured Removing-The-Part-That-Continues. Called Sterile in the North, or Seedless in the summer cities. With it, the merchant houses can contract with the Khai, and they won’t have to comb the seeds out of the cotton. Even if it took twice as long to harvest, the cotton can still get to the spinners more quickly here than anywhere else. Now the other nations and cities actually send their raw cotton here. Then the weavers come here, because the raw cotton is here. And the dyers and the tailors because of the weavers. All the needle trades.”
“Yes. And so Saraykeht holds its place, with only a few more pricked fingers and some blood on the cotton,” the man said, taking a pose of confirmation with a softness to the wrists that confused Maati. “But then, blood’s only blood, ne?”
The silence went on until Maati, uncomfortable, grasped for something to break it.
“You also rid the summer cities of rats and snakes.”
The man came out of his reverie with something like a smile. When he spoke, his voice was amused and self-deprecating.
“Yes. At the price of drawing Galts and Westermen.”
Maati took a pose of agreement less formal than before, and his teacher seemed not to mind. In fact, he seemed almost pleased.
“I also learned a lot about the particular needle trades,” Maati said. “I wasn’t sure how much you needed to know about what happens with the cotton once you’re done with it. And sailing. I read a book about sailing.”
“But you didn’t actually go to the seafront, did you?”
“No.”
The teacher took a pose of acceptance that wasn’t approval or disapproval, but something of both.
“All this from one little test,” he said. “But then, you came through the school very young, so you must have a talent for seeing tests. Tell me. How did you see through the Dai-kvo’s little guessing games?”
“You . . . I’m sorry, Heshai-kvo. It’s . . . you really want to know that?”
“It can be telling. Especially since you don’t want to say. Do you?”
Maati took a pose of apology. He kept his eyes down while he spoke, but he didn’t lie.
“When I got to the school—I was still among the younger cohorts—there was an older boy who said something to me. We’d been set to turn the soil in the gardens, and my hands were too soft. I couldn’t do the work. And the black robe who was tending us—Otah-kvo, his name was—was very upset with me. But then, when I told him why I hadn’t been able to do as he asked, he tried to comfort me. And he told me that if I had worked harder, it wouldn’t have helped. That was just before he left the school.”
“So? You mean someone told you? That hardly seems fair.”
“He didn’t though. He didn’t tell me, exactly. He only said some things about the school. That it wasn’t what it looked like. And the things he said made me start thinking. And then . . .”
“And once you knew to look, it wasn’t hard to see. I understand.”
“It wasn’t quite like that.”
“Do you ever wonder if you would have made it on your own? I mean if your Otah-kvo hadn’t given the game away?”
Maati blushed. The secret he’d held for years with the Dai-kvo pried open in a single conversation. Heshai-kvo was a subtle man. He took a pose of acknowledgement. The teacher, however, was looking elsewhere, an expression passing over him that might have been annoyance or pain.
“Heshai-kvo?”
“I’ve just remembered something I’m to do. Walk with me.”
Maati rose and followed. The palaces spread out, larger than the village that surrounded the Dai-kvo, each individual structure larger than the whole of the school. Together, they walked down the wide marble staircase, into a vaulted hall. The wide, bright air was touched by the scents of sandalwood and vanilla.
“Tell me, Maati. What do you think of slaves?”
The question was an odd one, and his first response—I don’t—seemed too glib for the occasion. Instead, he took a pose requesting clarification as best he could while still walking more quickly than his usual pace.
“Permanent indenture. What’s your opinion of it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then think for a moment.”
They passed through the hall and onto a wide, flower-strewn path that lead down and to the south. Gardens rich with exotic flowers and fountains spread out before them. Singing slaves, hidden from view by hedges or cloth screens, filled the air with wordless melodies. The sun blared heat like a trumpet, and the thick air made Maati feel almost as if he was swimming. It seemed they’d hardly started walking before Maati’s inner robe was sticky with sweat. He found himself struggling to keep up.
As Maati considered the question, servants and utkhaiem passed, pausing to take poses of respect. His teacher took little notice of them or of the heat; where Maati’s robes stuck, his flowed like water over stone and no sweat dampened his temples. Maati cleared his throat.
“People who have entered into permanent indenture have either chosen to do so, in return for the pro
tection of the holders of their contracts, or lost their freedoms as punishment for some crime,” Maati said, carefully keeping any judgement out of the statement.
“Is that what the Dai-kvo taught you?”
“No. It’s just . . . it’s just the way it is. I’ve always known that.”
“And the third case? The andat?”
“I don’t understand.”
The teacher’s dark eyebrows rose on the perfect skin of his forehead. His lips took the slightest of all possible smiles.
“The andat aren’t criminals. Before they’re bound, they have no thought, no will, no form. They’re only ideas. How can an idea enter into a contract?”
“How can one refuse?” Maati countered.
“There are names, my boy, for men who take silence as consent.”
They passed into the middle gardens. The low halls spread before them, and wider paths almost like streets. The temple rose off to their right, wide and high; its sloping lines reminded Maati of a seagull in flight. At one of the low halls, carts had gathered. Laborers milled around, speaking with one another. Maati caught a glimpse of a bale of cotton being carried in. With a thrill of excitement he realized what was happening. For the first time, he was going to see Heshai-kvo wield the power of the andat.
“Ah, well. Never mind,” his teacher said, as if he had been waiting for some answer. “Only Maati? Later on, I’d like you to think about this conversation.”
Maati took a pose appropriate to a student accepting an assignment. As they drew nearer, the laborers and merchants moved aside to make room for them. Members of the utkhaiem were also there in fine robes and expensive jewelry. Maati caught sight of an older woman in a robe the color of the sky at dawn—the personal attendant of the Khai Saraykeht.
“The Khai is here?” Maati asked, his voice smaller than he would have liked.
“He attends sometimes. It makes the merchants feel he’s paying attention to them. Silly trick, but it seems to work.”
Maati swallowed, half at the prospect of seeing the Khai, half at the indifference in his teacher’s voice. They passed through the arches and into the shade of the low hall. Warehouse-large, the hall was filled with bale upon bale of raw cotton stacked to the high ceiling. The only space was a narrow gap at the very top, thinner than a bale, and another of perhaps a hand’s width at the bottom where metal frames held the cotton off the floor. What little space remained was peopled by the representatives of the merchant houses whose laborers waited outside and, on a dais, the Khai Saraykeht—a man in his middle years, his hair shot with gray, his eyes heavy-lidded. His attendants stood around him, following commands so subtle they approached invisibility. Maati felt the weight of the silence as they entered. Then a murmur moved through the hall, voices too low to make out words or even sentiments. The Khai raised an eyebrow and took a pose of query with an almost inhuman grace.