“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.
“What?” Amat asked.
“The other business,” Mitat said. “About Maj and the Galts? I had a man come by from a hired laborers’ house asking if you were only paying for information about this island girl, or if you wanted to know about the other one too.”
Amat stopped chewing.
“The other one?” Amat asked.
“The one Oshai brought in last year.”
Amat took a moment, sitting back, as the words took time to make sense. In the darkness of her exhaustion, hope flickered. Hope and relief.
“There was another one?”
“I thought you might find that interesting,” Mitat said.
MAATI SAT ON THE WOODEN STEPS OF THE POET’S HOUSE, STARING OUT AT trees black and bare as sticks, at the dark water of the pond, at the ornate palaces of the Khai with lanterns glittering like fireflies. Night had fallen, but the last rays of sunlight still lingered in the west. His face and hands were cold, his body hunched forward, pulled into itself. But he didn’t go into the warmth of the house behind him. He had no use for comfort.
Otah and Liat had left just before sunset. They might, he supposed, be in the soft quarter by now. He imagined them walking briskly through the narrow streets, Otah’s arm across her shoulder protectively. Otah-kvo would be able to keep her safe. Maati’s own presence would have been redundant, unneeded.
Behind him, the small door scraped open. Maati didn’t turn. The slow, lumbering footsteps were enough for him to know it was his teacher and not Seedless.
“There’s chicken left,” Heshai-kvo said. “And the bread’s good.”
“Thank you. Perhaps later,” Maati said.
Grunting with the effort, the poet lowered himself onto the step beside Maati, looking out with him over the bare landscape as it fell into darkness. Maati could hear the old poet’s wheezing breath over the calling of crows.
“Is she doing well?” Heshai asked.
“I suppose so.”
“She’ll be going back to her house soon. Wilsin-cha . . .”
“She’s not going back to him,” Maati said. “The old overseer—Amat Kyaan—is taking her up.”
“So House Wilsin loses another good woman. He won’t like that,” Heshai said, then shrugged. “Serves the old bastard right for not treating them better, I’d guess.”
“I suppose.”
“I see your friend the laborer’s back.”
Maati didn’t answer. He was only cold, inside and out. Heshai glanced over at him and sighed. His thick-fingered hand patted Maati’s knee the way his father’s might have had the world been something other than it was. Maati felt tears welling unbidden in his eyes.
“Come inside, my boy,” the poet said. “I’ll warm us up a little wine.”
Maati let himself be coaxed back in. With Heshai-kvo recovered, the house was slipping back into the mess it had been when he’d first come. Books and scrolls lay open on the tables and the floor beside the couches. An inkblock hollowed with use stained the desk where it sat directly on the wood. Maati squatted by the fire, looking into the flames as he had the darkness, and to much the same effect.
Behind him, Heshai moved through the house, and soon the rich scent of wine and mulling spices began to fill the place. Maati’s belly rumbled, and he forced himself up, walking over to the table where the remains of the evening meal waited for him. He pulled a greasy drumstick from the chicken carcass and considered it. Heshai sat across from him and handed him a thick slice of black bread. Maati sketched a pose of gratitude. Heshai filled a thick earthenware cup with wine and passed it to him. The wine, when he drank it, was clean and rich and warmed his throat.
“Full week coming,” Heshai-kvo said. “There’s a dinner with the envoys of Cetani and Udun tomorrow I thought we should attend. And then a religious scholar’s talking down at the temple the day after that. If you wanted to . . .”
“If you’d like, Heshai-kvo,” Maati said.
“I wouldn’t really,” the poet said. “I’ve always thought religious scholars were idiots.”
The old poet’s face was touched by mischief, a little bit delighted with his own irreverence. Maati could see just a hint of what Heshai-kvo had looked like as a young man, and he couldn’t help smiling back, if only slightly. Heshai-kvo clapped a hand on the table.
“There!” he said. “I knew you weren’t beyond reach.”
Maati shook his head, taking a pose of thanks more intimate and sincere than he’d used to accept the offered food. Heshai-kvo replied with one that an uncle might offer to a nephew. Maati stirred himself. This was as good a time as any, and likely better than most.
“Is Seedless here?” Maati asked.
“What? No. No, I suppose he’s out somewhere showing everyone how clever he is,” Heshai-kvo said bitterly. “I know I ought to keep him closer, but that torture box . . .”
“No, that’s good. There was something I needed to speak with you about, but I didn’t want him nearby.”
The poet frowned, but nodded Maati on.
“It’s about the island girl and what happened to her. I think . . . Heshai, that wasn’t only what it seemed. Marchat Wilsin knew about it. He arranged it because the Galtic High Council told him to. And Amat Kyaan—the one Liat’s gone to stay with—she’s getting the proof of it together to take before the Khai.”
The poet’s face went white and then flushed red. The wide frog-lips pursed, and he shook his wide head. He seemed both angry and resigned.
“That’s what she says?” he asked. “This overseer?”
“Not only her,” Maati said.
“Well, she’s wrong,” the poet said. “That isn’t how it happened.”
“Heshai-kvo, I think it is.”
“It’s not,” the poet said and stood. His expression was closed. He walked to the fire, warming his hands with his back to Maati. The burning wood crackled and spat. Maati, putting down the still-uneaten bread, turned to him.
“Amat Kyaan isn’t the only—”
“They’re all wrong, then. Think about it for a moment, Maati. Just think. If it had been the High Council of Galt behind the blasted thing, what would happen? If the Khai saw it proved? He’d punish them. And how’d you think he’d do it?”
“The Khai would use you and Seedless against them,” Maati said.
“Yes, and what good would come of that?”
Maati took a pose of query, but Heshai didn’t turn to see it. After a moment, he let his hands fall. The firelight danced and flickered, making the poet seem almost as if he were part of the flame. Maati walked toward him.
“It’s the truth,” he said.
“Doesn’t matter if it is,” Heshai-kvo said. “There are punishments worse than the crimes. What happened, happened. There’s nothing to be gotten by holding onto it now.”
“You don’t believe that,” Maati said, and his voice was harder than he’d expected it to be. Heshai-kvo shifted, turned. His eyes were dry and calm.
“There’s nothing that will put life back into that child,” Heshai-kvo said. “What could possibly be gained by trying?”
“There’s justice,” Maati said, and Heshai laughed. It was a disturbing sound, more anger than mirth. Heshai-kvo stood and moved toward him. Without thinking Maati stepped back.
“Justice? Gods, boy, you want justice? We have larger problems than that, you and I. Getting through another year without one of these small gods flooding a city or setting the world on fire. That’s important. Keepi
ng the city safe. Playing court politics so that the Khaiem never decide to take each other’s toys and women by force. And you want to add justice to all that? I’ve sacrificed my life to a world that wouldn’t care less about me as a man if you paid it. You and I, both of us were cut off from our brothers and sisters. That boy from Udun who we saw in the court was slaughtered by his own brother and we all applauded him for doing it. Am I supposed to punish him too?”
“You’re supposed to do what’s right,” Maati said.
Heshai-kvo took a dismissive pose.
“What we do is bigger than right and wrong,” he said. “If the Dai-kvo didn’t make that clear to you, consider it your best lesson from me.”
“I can’t think that,” Maati said. “If we don’t push for justice . . .”
Heshai-kvo’s expression darkened. He took a pose appropriate to asking guidance from the holy, his stance a sarcasm. Maati swallowed, but held his ground.
“You love justice?” Heshai asked. “It’s harder than stone, boy. Love it if you want. It won’t love you.”
“I can’t think that—”
“Tell me you’re never transgressed,” Heshai interrupted, his voice harsh. “Never stolen food from the kitchens, never lied to a teacher. Tell me you’ve never bedded another man’s woman.”
Maati felt something shift in him, profound as a bone breaking, but painless. His ears hummed with something like bees. He took the corner of the table and lifted. Food, wine, papers, books all spilled together to the ground. He took a chair and tossed it aside, scooped up the winebowl with a puddle of redness still swirling in its curve and threw it against the wall. It shattered with a loud, satisfying pop. The poet looked at him, mouth gaping as if Maati had just grown wings.
And then, quickly as it had come, the rage was gone, and Maati sank to his knees like a puppet with its strings cut. Sobs wracked him, as violent as being sick. Maati was only half-aware of the poet’s footsteps as he came near, as he bent down. The thick arms cradled him, and Maati held Heshai-kvo’s wide frame and cried into the brown folds of his cloak while the poet rocked him and whispered I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
It felt like it would go on forever, like the river of pain could run and run and run and never go dry. It wasn’t true—in time exhaustion as much as anything else stilled him. Maati sat beside his master, the overturned table beside them. The fire had burned low while he wasn’t watching it—embers glowed red and gold among ashes still arched in the shapes of the wood they’d once been.
“Well,” Maati said at last, his voice thick, “I’ve just made an ass of myself, haven’t I?”
Heshai-kvo chuckled, recognizing the words. Maati, despite himself, smiled.
“A decent first effort, at least,” Heshai-kvo said. “You’ll get better with time. I didn’t mean to do that to you, you know. It was unfair bringing Liat-kya into it. It’s only that . . . the island girl . . . if I’d done better work when I first fashioned Seedless, it wouldn’t have happened. I just don’t want things getting worse. I want it over with.”
“I know,” Maati said.
They were silent for a time. The embers cooled a shade, the ashes crumbled.
“They say there’s two women you don’t get past,” Heshai-kvo said. “Your first love and your first sex. And then, if it turns out to be the same girl . . .”
“It is,” Maati said.
“Yes,” Heshai said. “It was the same for me. Her name was Ariat Miu. She had the most beautiful voice I’ve ever heard. I don’t know where she is now.”
Maati leaned over and put his arm around Heshai as if they were drinking companions. Heshai nodded as if Maati had spoken. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“Well, we’d best get this cleaned up before the servants see it. Stoke the fire, would you? I’ll get some candles burning. Night’s coming on too early these days.”
“Yes, Heshai-kvo,” Maati said.
“And Maati? You know I won’t tell anyone about this, don’t you?”
Maati took a pose of acknowledgement. In the dim light he couldn’t be sure that Heshai had seen it, so he let his hands fall and spoke.
“Thank you,” he said into the dark.
THEY WALKED SLOWLY, HAMPERED BY LIAT’S WOUNDS. THE TWO MERCEnaries walked one before and one behind, and Otah walked at her side. At first, near the palaces, he had put his arm around her waist, thinking that it would be a comfort. Her body told him, though, that it wasn’t. Her shoulder, her arm, her ribs—they were too tender to be touched and Otah found himself oddly glad. It freed him to watch the doorways and alleys, rooftops and food carts and firekeepers’ kilns more closely.
The air smelled of wood smoke from a hundred hearths. A cool, thick mist too dense to be fog, too insubstantial to be rain, slicked the stones of the road and the walls of the houses. In her oversized woolen cloak, Liat might have been anyone. Otah found himself half-consciously flexing his hands, as if preparing for an attack that never came.
When they reached the edge of the soft quarter, passing by the door of Amat Kyaan’s now-empty apartments, Liat motioned to stop. The two men looked to Otah and then each other, their expressions professional and impatient, but they paused.
“Are you all right?” Otah asked, his head bent close to the deep cowl of Liat’s cloak. “I could get you water . . .”
“No,” she said. Then, a moment later. ” ‘Tani, I don’t want to go there.”
“Where?” he asked, his fingertips touching her bound arm.
“To Amat Kyaan. I’ve done everything so badly. And I can’t think she really wants me there. And . . .”
“Sweet,” Otah said. “She’ll keep you safe. Until we know what’s . . .”
Liat looked at him directly. Her shadowed face showed her impatience and her fear.
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t,” she said. “Only that I don’t want it.”
Otah leaned close, kissing her gently on the lips. Her good hand held him close.
“Don’t leave me,” she said, hardly more than a whisper.
“Where would I go,” he said, his tone gentle to hide that his answer was also a question. She smiled, slight and brave, and nodded. Liat held his hand in hers for the rest of the way.
The soft quarter never knew a truly quiet night. The lanterns lit the streets with the dancing shadows of a permanent fire. Music came from the opened doors of the houses: drums and flutes, horns and voices. Twice they passed houses with balconies that overlooked the street with small groups of underdressed, chilly whores leaning over the rails like carcasses at a butcher’s. The wealth of Saraykeht, richest and most powerful of the southern cities, eddied and swirled around them. Otah found himself neither aroused nor disturbed, though he thought perhaps he should be.
They reached the comfort house, going through an ironbound doorway in a tall stone wall, through a sad little garden that separated the kitchens from the main house, and then into the common room. It was alive with activity. The red-haired woman, Mitat, and Amat had covered the long common tables with papers and scrolls. The island girl, Maj, paced behind them, gnawing impatiently at a thumbnail. As the two guards who’d accompanied them moved deeper into the house greeting other men similarly armed and armored, Otah noticed two young boys, one in the colors of House Yanaani, the other wearing the badge of the seafront’s custom house, waiting impatiently. Messengers. Something had happened.
Amat’s closer than she knows. There isn’t much time.
“Liat-kya,” Amat said, raising one hand in a casual greeting. “Come here. I’ve something I want you ask you.”
Liat walked forward, and Otah followed her. There was a light in Amat’s eyes—something like triumph. Amat embraced Liat gently, and Otah saw the tears in Liat’s eyes as she held her old master with one uninjured arm.
“I’m sorry,” Amat said. “I though you’d be safe. And there was so much that needed doing, that . . . I didn’t understand the situation deeply enough. I should
have warned you.”
“Honored teacher,” Liat said, and then had no more words. Amat’s smile was warm as summer sunlight.
“You know Maj, of course. This is Mitat, and that brute against that wall is Torish Wite, my master of guard.”
When Maj spoke, she spoke the Khaiate tongue. Her accent was thick but not so much that Otah couldn’t catch her words.
“I didn’t think I was to be seeing you again.”
Liat’s smile went thin.
“You speak very well, Maj-cha.”
“I am waiting for weeks here,” Maj said, coolly. “What else do I do?”
Amat looked over. Otah saw the woman called Mitat glance up at her, then at the island girl, then away. Tension quieted the room, and for a moment, even the messengers stopped fidgeting and stared.
“She’s come to help,” Amat said.
“She is come because you called her,” Maj said. “Because she needs you.”
“We need each other,” Amat said, command in her voice. She drew herself to her full height, and even leaning on her cane, she seemed to fill the room. “She’s come because I wanted her to come. We have almost everything we need. Without her, we aren’t ready.”
Maj stared at Amat, then slowly turned and took a pose of greeting as awkward as a child’s. Otah saw the flush in the pale cheeks, the brightness of her eyes, and understood. Maj was drunk. Amat gathered Liat close to the table, peppering her with questions about dates and shipping orders, and what exactly Oshai and Wilsin-cha had said and when. Otah sat at the table, near enough to hear, near enough to watch, but not a part of the interrogation.
For a moment, he felt invisible. The intensity and excitement, desperation and controlled violence around him became like an epic on a stage. He saw it all from outside. When, unconsciously, he met the island girl’s gaze, she smiled at him and nodded—a wordless, informal, unmistakable gesture; a recognition between strangers. She, with her imperfect knowledge of language and custom, couldn’t truly be a part of the conspiracy now coming near to full bloom before them. He, by contrast, could not because still heard Seedless laying the consequences of Amat’s success before him—Liat may be killed, innocent blood will wash Galt, Maati will suffer to the end of his days, I will betray you to your family—and that private knowledge was like an infection. Every step that Amat made brought them one step nearer that end.