‘Something else,’ he said, taking a pose that kept the phrase vague.
‘It was hard. The first few months, I thought I’d starve. Those things they taught us about hunting and foraging? They work, but only barely. When I got a bowl of soup and half a loaf of stale bread for cleaning out a henhouse, I felt like I’d been given the best meal of my life.’
Maati laughed. Otah smiled at him and shrugged.
‘And you?’ Otah asked, changing the subject. ‘Was the Dai-kvo’s village what you thought?’
‘I suppose so. It was more work than the school, but it was easier. Because there was a reason for it. It wasn’t just hard to be hard. We studied old grammars and the languages of the Empire. And the history of the andat and the poets who bound them, what the bindings were like. How they escaped. I didn’t know how much harder it is to bind the same andat a second time. I mean there are all the stories about some being captured three or four times, but I don’t . . .’
Otah laughed. It was a warm sound, mirthful but not mocking. Maati took a pose of query. Otah responded with one of apology that nearly spilled his wine.
‘It’s just that you sound like you loved it,’ Otah said.
‘I did,’ Maati said. ‘It was fascinating. And I’m good at it, I think. My teachers seemed to feel that way. Heshai-kvo isn’t what I’d expected though.’
‘Him either, eh?’
‘No. But, Otah-kvo, why didn’t you go? When the Dai-kvo offered you a place with him, why did you refuse?’
‘Because what they did was wrong,’ Otah said, simply. ‘And I didn’t want any part of it.’
Maati frowned into his wine. His reflection looked back at him from the dark, shining surface.
‘If you had it again, would you do the same?’ Maati asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Even if it meant just being a laborer?’
Otah took two deep breaths, turned, and sat on the railing, considering Maati with dark, troubled eyes. His hands moved toward a pose that might have been accusation or demand or query, but that never took a final form.
‘Is this really so bad, what I do?’ Otah asked. ‘You, Liat. Everyone seems to think so. I started out as a child on the road with no family, no friends. I didn’t even dare use my real name. And I built something. I have work, and friends, and a lover. I have good food and shelter. And at night I can go and listen to poets or philosophers or singers, or I can go to bathhouses or teahouses, or out on the ocean in sailing boats. Is that so bad? It that so little?’
Maati was surprised by the pain in Otah’s voice, and perhaps by the desperation. He had the feeling that the words were only half meant for him. Still, he considered them. And their source.
‘Of course not,’ Maati said. ‘Something doesn’t have to be great to be worthy. If you’ve followed the calling of your heart, then what does it matter what anyone else thinks?’
‘It can matter. It can matter a great deal.’
‘Not if you’re certain,’ Maati said.
‘And someone, somewhere, is actually certain of the choices they made? Are you?’
‘No, I’m not,’ Maati said. It was easier than he’d expected, voicing this deepest of doubts. He’d never said it to anyone at the school or with the Dai-kvo. He’d have died before he said it to Heshai-kvo. But to Otah, it wasn’t such a hard thing to say. ‘But it’s done. I’ve made all my decisions already. Now it’s just seeing whether I’m strong enough to follow through.’
‘You are,’ Otah said.
‘I don’t think so.’
Silence flowed in. Below them, in the street, a woman shrieked and then laughed. A dog streets away bayed as if in response. Maati put down his cup of wine - empty now except for the dregs - and slapped a gnat from his arm. Otah nodded, more to himself than to Maati.
‘Well, there’s nothing to be done then,’ Otah said.
‘It’s late and we’re drunk,’ Maati said. ‘It’ll look better by morning. It always does.’
Otah weighed the words, then took a pose of agreement.
‘I’m glad I found you,’ Maati said. ‘I think perhaps I was meant to.’
‘Perhaps,’ Otah-kvo agreed.
‘Wilsin-cha!’ Epani’s voice was a whisper, but the urgency of it cut through Marchat’s dream. He rolled up on one elbow and was pushing away his netting before he was really awake. The house master stood beside the bed holding his robe closed with one hand. Epani’s face, lit only by the night candle, was drawn.
‘Wha?’ Marchat said, still pulling his mind up from the depths he’d been in moments before. ‘What’s the matter? There’s a fire?’
‘No,’ Epani said, trying a pose of apology, but hampered by the needs of his robes. ‘Someone’s here to see you. He’s in the private hall.’
‘He? He who?’
Epani hesitated.
‘It,’ he said.
It took Marchat the time to draw in a breath before he understood what Epani meant. He nodded then, and motioned to a robe that hung by his wardrobe. The night candle was well past its middle mark - the night nearer the coming dawn than yesterday’s sunset. Apart from the soft rustle of the cloth as Marchat pulled his robes on and tied them, there was no sound. He ran his fingers through his hair and beard and turned toward Epani.
‘Good enough?’ he asked.
Epani took a pose of approval.
‘Fine,’ Marchat said. ‘Bring us something to drink. Wine. Or tea.’
‘Are you sure, Wilsin-cha?’
Marchat paused and considered. Every movement in the night ran the risk of waking someone, someone besides himself or Epani or Oshai. A glimmer of anger at the andat for coming here, now, like this, shone in the dark setting of his unease. He took a pose of dismissal.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Don’t bring us anything. Go to bed. Forget this happened. You were dreaming.’
Epani left. Marchat took up his night candle and walked in its near-darkness to the private hall. It was near his own quarters because of meetings like this. Windowless, with a single entrance and its own atrium so that anyone within could hear if someone was coming. When he stepped into the room, the andat was perched on the meeting table like a bird, his arms resting on his knees. The blackness of his cloak spread out behind him like a stain.
‘What are you playing at, Wilsin?’
‘I was playing at being asleep until a few moments ago,’ Marchat said, bluster welling up to hide his fear. The dark eyes in the pale face shifted, taking him in. Seedless tilted his head. They were silent except for Marchat’s breathing. He was the only one there breathing.
‘Is this about something?’ Marchat asked. ‘And get your boots off my table, will you? This isn’t some cheap teahouse.’
‘Why is your boy courting mine?’ the andat demanded, ignoring him.
Marchat put the night candle squarely on the table, pulled out a chair, and sat.
‘I don’t have the first idea what you’re talking about,’ he said, crossing his arms. ‘Talk sense or go haunt someone else. I’ve got a busy day tomorrow.’
‘You didn’t send one of your men to take Heshai’s student out to the teahouses?’
‘No.’
‘Then why did he come?’
Marchat read the distrust in the andat’s expression, or imagined he did. He set his jaw and leaned forward. The thing in human form didn’t move.
‘I don’t know who you mean,’ Marchat said, deliberately. ‘And you can drink piss if you don’t believe me.’
Seedless narrowed his eyes as if he was listening for something, then sat back. The anger that had been in his voice and face faded and was replaced by puzzlement.
‘One of your laborers came tonight to see Maati,’ Seedless said. ‘He said they’d met during the negotiations and arranged to go out together.’
‘Well,’ Marchat said. ‘Perhaps they met during the negotiations and arranged to go out together.’
‘A poet and a laborer?’ Seedless scoffed. ‘An
d maybe the fine ladies of the utkhaiem are out this evening playing tiles in the soft quarter. Heshai was delighted, of course. It smells wrong to me, Wilsin.’
Marchat turned it over slowly, chewing on his lip. It did seem odd. And with the ceremony coming so quickly, the stakes were high. He pulled out a chair, its wooden legs scraping against the stone floor, and sat. Seedless swung his legs over the side, still sitting on the tabletop, but without seeming quite as predatory.
‘Which man was it?’
‘He said his name was Itani. Big man, broad across the shoulders. Face like a northerner.’
The one Amat had sent out with him. That wasn’t good. Seedless read something in his face and took a pose half query and half command.
‘I know the one you mean. You’re right. Something’s odd. He was my bodyguard when I came out to the low town. And he’s Liat Chokavi’s lover.’
Seedless took a moment to consider that. Marchat watched the dark eyes, the beautiful mouth that turned into the faintest of smiles.
‘Has he warned Liat of anything?’ the andat asked. ‘Do you think she suspects?’
‘She doesn’t. If she had any reservations, you could read them from across the room. I think Liat may be the worst liar I’ve ever met. It’s part of what makes her so good at this.’
‘If he hasn’t told Liat, perhaps he isn’t trying to spoil our little game. You’ve had no word of your vanished overseer?’
‘No,’ Marchat said. ‘Oshai’s thugs have been offering good prices for her, but there’s been no sign. And no one at the seafront or on the roads remembers seeing her go. And even if she’s gone to ground inside the city, there’s no reason to think she’s out to stop . . . the trade.’
‘Oshai can’t find her, and that’s enough to make me nervous. And this boy, this Itani. Either he is her agent or he isn’t. And if he is . . .’
Marchat sighed. There was no end of it. Every time he thought he’d reached the last crime he’d be called upon to commit, one more appeared behind it. Liat Chokavi - silly, short-sighted, kind, pretty girl that she was - would be humiliated when the thing went wrong. And now it seemed she wouldn’t have her man behind her to offer comfort.
‘I can have him killed,’ Marchat said, heavily. ‘I’ll speak with Oshai in the morning.’
‘No,’ Seedless said. The andat leaned back, crossing one knee over the other and lacing his hands over it. They were women’s hands - thin and graceful. ‘No. If he’s sent to tell the tale, it’s too late. Maati will know by now. If he isn’t, then killing him will only draw attention.’
‘I could have the poet boy killed too,’ Marchat said.
‘No,’ Seedless said again. ‘No, we can kill the laborer if it seems the right thing, but no one touches Maati.’
‘Why not?’
‘I like him,’ Seedless said, a subtle surprise in his voice, as if this were something he’d only just realized. ‘He’s . . . he’s good-hearted. He’s the only person I’ve met in years who didn’t see me as a convenient tool or else the very soul of evil.’
Marchat blinked. For a moment, something like sadness seemed to possess the andat. Sadness or perhaps longing. In the months Marchat had spent preparing this evil scheme, he’d built an image of the beast he was treating with, and this emotion didn’t fit with it. And then it was gone and Seedless grinned at him.
‘You, for instance, think I’m chaos made flesh,’ Seedless said. ‘Ripping a wanted child from an innocent girl’s womb just to make Heshai-kvo suffer.’
‘It doesn’t matter what I think.’
‘No. It doesn’t, but that won’t stop you from thinking it. And when you do think, remember it was your men who approached me. It may be my design, but it’s your money.’
‘It’s my uncle’s,’ Marchat said, perhaps more sharply than he’d intended. ‘I didn’t choose any of this. No one asked my opinion.’
A terrible amusement lit the andat’s face, and the beautiful smile had grown wider.
‘Puppets. Puppets and the puppets of puppets. You should have more sympathy for me, Wilsin-cha. I’m what I am because of someone else, just the way you are. How could either of us ever be responsible for anything?’
The poisonous thought tickled the back of Marchat’s mind - what if I’d refused? He pushed it away.
‘We couldn’t be less alike,’ Marchat said. ‘But it doesn’t matter. However we got here, we’re married now. What of Itani?’
‘Have him followed,’ he said. ‘Our boy Itani may be nothing, but the game’s too important to risk it. Find out what he is, and then, if we have to, we can kill him.’
8
‘After the fire, we agreed . . .’ Amat said, and the back of Ovi Niit’s hand snapped her head to the side. She turned back slowly, tasting her own blood. Her lips tingled in the presentiment of pain, and a trickle of warmth going cool on her chin told the part of her mind that wasn’t cringing in fear that one of his rings had cut her.
‘Agreed,’ Ovi Niit spat. ‘We agree what I say we agree. If I change it, it changes. There’s no agreement to be made.’
He paced the length of the room. The evening sun pressed at the closed shutters, showing only their outlines. It was enough light to see by, enough to know that Ovi Niit’s eyes were opened too wide - the stained whites showing all the way round. His lips moved as if he were on the verge of speaking.
‘You’re stalling!’ he shouted, slamming his hand down on her desk. Amat balled her fists and willed herself to sit quietly. Anything she said would be a provocation. ‘You think that by stretching it out, you’ll be safer. You think that by letting that thief take my money, you’ll be better off. But you won’t!’
With the last word, he kicked the wall. The plaster cracked where he’d struck it. Amat considered the damage - small lines radiating out from a flattened circle - and felt her mind shift. It was no bigger than an egg, and looking at it, she knew that sometime not long from now Ovi Niit wouldn’t direct his rage at the walls. He would kill her, whether he meant to or not.
How odd, she thought as she felt the nausea descend on her, that it would be that little architectural wound that would resolve her when all his violence against people hadn’t.
‘I will have my answer by dawn,’ he shouted. ‘By dawn. If you don’t do what I say, I’ll cut off your thumbs and sell you for the five lengths of gold. It’s not as if Oshai’s going to care that you’re damaged.’
Amat took a pose of obeisance so abject that she was disgusted by it. But it came naturally to her hands. Ovi Niit grabbed her by a handful of hair and pulled her from her chair, spilling her papers and pens. He kicked over the desk and stalked out. As the door slammed shut behind him, Amat caught a glimpse of shocked faces.
She lay in the darkness, too tired and ill to weep. The stone floor was rough against her cheek. The blood from her cut face pulled on her skin as it dried. She’d have a scar. When her mind would obey her again, the room was utterly black. She forced herself to think. The days had blurred - bent over half-legible books from the moment she woke until the figures shifted on the page and her hands bent themselves into claws. And then to dream about it, and come back and begin again. And there had been no point. Ovi Niit was a thug and a whoremaster. His fear and violence grew with the wine and drugs he took to ease them. He would have been pitiful from the right distance.
But days. The question was days.
She counted slowly, struggling to recall. Three weeks at least. More than that. It had to be more than that. Perhaps four. Not five. It was too early to be sure of Marchat’s amnesty. She surprised herself by chuckling. If she’d counted wrong, the worst case would be that they found her face down in the river and Ovi Niit lost five lengths of gold. That wouldn’t be so bad.
She pushed herself upright, then stood, breathing through the pain until she felt as little stooped as she could manage. When she was ready, she took up her cane and put on the expression she used when she wanted no one to see her true feeli
ngs. She was Amat Kyaan, after all, overseer of House Wilsin. Streetgirl of Saraykeht made good. Let them see that she was unbroken. If she could make the whores of the comfort house believe it, she would start to believe it again, too.
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