‘It may not be only that,’ Maati said softly.
‘No?’
Maati sat forward, his elbows on his knees, and looked into the fire as he spoke. His voice was hard as slate.
‘There’s something I promised not to speak of. And I’m going to break that promise. I’ve done something terrible, Otah-kvo. I didn’t mean to, and if I could undo it, I swear by all the gods I would. While you were away, Liat and I . . . there was no one else for us to speak with. We were the only two who knew all the truth. And so we spent time in each other’s company . . .’
I need you to stay, Liat had said before he’d left for the Dai-kvo. I need someone by my side.
And Seedless when he’d returned: Heshai fell in love and lost her, and he’s been chewed by guilt ever since. Maati will do the same.
Otah sat back, his chair creaking under his shifting weight. With a rush like water poured from a spout, he knew what he was seeing, what had happened. He put down his bowl of wine. Maati was silent, shaking his head back and forth slowly. His face was flushed and although there was no thickness in his voice, no hidden sob in his breath, still a single tear hung from the tip of his nose. It would have been comical if it had been someone else.
‘She’s a wonderful woman,’ Otah said, carefully. ‘Sometimes maybe a little difficult to trust, but still a good woman.’
Maati nodded.
‘Perhaps I should go,’ Otah said softly.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Maati whispered to the fire. ‘Otah-kvo, I am so very, very sorry.’
‘You didn’t do anything that hasn’t been done a thousand times before by a thousand different people.’
‘But I did it to you. I betrayed you. You love her.’
‘But I don’t trust her,’ Otah said softly.
‘Or me. Not any longer,’ Maati said.
‘Or you,’ Otah agreed, and pulling his robes close around him, he walked out of the poet’s house and into the darkness. He closed the door, paused, and then hit it hard enough to bloody his knuckle.
The pain in his chest was real, and the rage behind it. And also, strangely, an amusement and a sense of relief. He walked slowly down to the edge of the pond, wishing more than anything that the courier Orai had been on his way to Saraykeht instead of Machi. But the world was as it was. Maati and Liat had become lovers, and it was devouring Maati just as some other tragedy had broken his teacher. Amat Kyaan was pursuing her suit before the Khai Saraykeht in a matter of days. Everything Seedless had said to him appeared to be true. And so he stood in the chill by the koi pond, and he waited, throwing stones into the dark water, hearing them strike and sink and be forgotten. He knew the andat would come to him if he were only patient. It wasn’t more than half a hand.
‘He’s told you, then,’ Seedless said.
The pale face hovered in the night air, a rueful smile on the perfect, sensual lips.
‘You knew?’
‘Gods. The world and everyone knew,’ the andat said, stepping up beside him to look out over the black water. ‘They were about as discreet as rutting elk. I was only hoping you wouldn’t hear of it until you’d done me that little favor. It’s a pity, really. But I think I bear up quite well under failure, don’t you?’
Otah took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. He thought perhaps he could see just the wisps of it in the cold. Beside him the andat didn’t breathe because whatever it looked like, it was not a man.
‘And . . . I have failed,’ Seedless said, his tone suddenly careful, probing. ‘Haven’t I? I can spill your secrets, but that’s hardly worth murder. And I can’t expect you to kill a man in order to protect your faithless lover and the dear friend who bedded her, now can I?’
Otah saw again Maati’s angry, self-loathing, empty expression and felt something twist in his belly. An impulse born in him as a child in a bare garden of half-turned earth, half a life ago. It didn’t undo the hurt or the anger, but it complicated them.
‘Someone told me once that you can love someone and not trust them, or you can bed someone and not trust them, but never both.’
‘I wouldn’t know,’ the andat said. ‘My experience of love is actually fairly limited.’
‘Tell me what I need to know.’
In the moonlight, pale hands took a pose that asked for clarification.
‘You said you knew where he would be. How long it would take him to drink himself to sleep. Tell me.’
‘And you’ll do what I asked?’
‘Tell me what I need to know,’ Otah said, ‘and find out.’
The morning after Liat’s arrival at the comfort house - two days ago now - she’d awakened to the small sounds of Amat Kyaan sleeping. Only the faintest edge of daylight came through the shutters - these were the rooms of an owl. The faintest scent of Itani had still haunted her bedding then. When she rose, aching and awkward and half-sorry for the sex she’d insisted on in the night, Amat woke and took her downstairs. The workings of the house were simple enough - the sleeping chambers where the whores were shelved like scrolls in their boxes, cheap cloth over the bunks instead of netting; the kitchens in the back; the wide bath used for washing clothes and bodies during the day, then refilled and scented with oils before the clients came at night. The front parts of the house Amat explained were forbidden to her. Until the case against House Wilsin was made, she wasn’t to leave the comfort house, and she wasn’t to be seen by the clients. The stakes were too high, and Wilsin-cha had resorted to violence once already.
Since then, Liat had slept, eaten, washed herself, sat at Amat-cha’s desk listening to musicians on the street below, but no word had come from Itani or from Maati. On her second night, Liat had sent out a message to the barracks where Itani’s cohort slept. It had come back in the morning with a response from Muhatia-cha. Itani Noyga had left, breaking his indenture in violation of contract; he was not with the men of the house, nor was he welcome. Liat read the words with a sense of dread that approached illness. When she took it to Amat Kyaan, her old master had frowned and tucked the letter into her sleeve.
‘What if Wilsin-cha’s killed him?’ Liat said, trying to keep the panic she felt from her voice.
Amat Kyaan, sitting at her desk, took a reassuring pose.
‘He wouldn’t. I have you and Maj to say what he would have said. Killing him would make our suit stronger, not weaker. And even then, I have the impression that your boy is able to take care of himself,’ Amat said, but seeing how little the assurances comforted her, she went on, ‘Still I can have Torish-cha’s men ask after him.’
‘He’d have come back if things were well.’
‘Things aren’t well,’ Amat said, her eyes hard and bright and tired. ‘But that doesn’t mean he’s in danger. Still, perhaps I should have had him stay as well. Have you sent to the poet’s boy? Perhaps Maati’s heard of him. He might even be staying there.’
Amat took her cane and rose, gesturing at the desk, fresh paper and ink.
‘I have some things to attend to,’ she said. ‘Use what you need and we’ll send him a runner.’
Liat took a pose of gratitude and sat, but when she took up the pen, her hand trembled. The nib hovered just over the page, waiting, it seemed, to see which name she would write. In the end, it was Maati’s name on the outside leaf. She wanted to be sure that someone would read it.
With the runner gone, Liat found there was little to do but pace. At first, she walked the length of Amat’s rooms, then, as the day moved past its midpoint, her anxiety drove her downstairs. The common room smelled of roast pork and wine, and platters of bones still sat on the tables waiting to be cleared away. The whores were asleep, the men who worked the front rooms either sleeping in bunks as well or gone off to apartments away from the house. The soft quarter ran on a different day than the world Liat knew; daylight here meant rest and sleep. That Amat was awake and out of the house with Mitat and an armed escort meant that her old teacher was missing sleep. There were only five days until the case
was to be made before the Khai Saraykeht.
Liat walked through the empty common room, stopping to scratch an old black dog behind the ears. It would be easy to step out the back as if going to the kitchens, and then out to the street. She imagined herself finding Itani, bringing him back to the safety of the comfort house. It was a bad idea, of course, and she wouldn’t go, but the dream of it was powerful. The dream that she could somehow make everything come out right.
It was a small sound - hardly more than a sigh - that caught her attention. It had come from the long alcove in the back, from among the sewing benches and piles of cloth and leather where, according to Amat Kyaan, the costumes and stage props of the house were created. Liat moved toward it, walking softly. Behind the unruly heaps of cloth and thread, she found Maj sitting cross-legged, her hair pulled back. Her hands worked with something in her lap, and her expression was of such focus that Liat was almost afraid to interrupt. When Maj’s hands shifted, she caught a glimpse of a tiny loom and black cloth.
‘What is it?’ Liat asked, pushed to speak by curiosity and her own buzzing, unfocused energy.
‘Mourning cloth,’ Maj said without looking up. Her accent was so thick, Liat wasn’t entirely sure she’d understood her until Maj continued. ‘For the dead child.’
Liat came closer. The cloth was thin and sheer, black worked with tiny beads of clear glass in a pattern of surprising subtlety. Folds of it rested beside Maj’s leg.
‘It’s beautiful,’ Liat said.
Maj shrugged. ‘It fills time. I am working on it for weeks now.’
Liat knelt. The pale eyes looked up at her, questioning - maybe challenging - then returned to the small loom. Liat watched Maj’s hands shifting thread and beads in near silence. It was very fine thread, the sort that might not make more than two or three hand-spans of cloth in a whole day’s work. Liat reached out and ran her fingers along the folds of finished cloth. It was as wide as her two hands together and as long, she guessed, as Maj was tall.
‘How long do you make it?’
‘Until you finish,’ Maj said. ‘Usually is something to make while the pain is fresh. When done with day’s work, make cloth. When wake up in the middle night, make cloth. When time comes you want to go sing with friends or swim in quarry pond and not make cloth, is time to stop weaving.’
‘You’ve made these before. Mourning cloths.’
‘For mother, for brother. I am much younger then,’ Maj said, her voice heavy and tired. ‘Their cloth smaller.’
Liat sat, watching as Maj threaded beads and worked them into the black patterns, the loom quiet as breathing. Neither spoke for a long time.
‘I’m sorry,’ Liat said at last. ‘For what happened.’
‘Was your plan?’
‘No, I didn’t know anything about what was really happening.’
‘So, why sorry?’
‘I should have,’ Liat said. ‘I should have known and I didn’t.’
Maj looked up and put the loom aside.
‘And why did you not know?’ she said, her gaze steady and accusing.
‘I trusted Wilsin-cha,’ Liat said. ‘I thought he was doing what you wanted. I thought I was helping.’
‘And is this Wilsin who does this to you?’ Maj asked, gesturing at the bandages and straps on Liat’s shoulder.
‘His men. Or that’s what Amat-cha says.’
‘And you trust her?’
‘Of course. Don’t you?’
‘I am here for a season, more than a season. At home, when a man does something evil, the kiopia pass judgment and like this . . .’ Maj clapped her hands ‘. . . he is punished. Here, it is weeks living in a little room and waiting. Listening to nothing happen and waiting. And now, they say that the Khai, he may take his weeks to punish who killed my baby. Why wait except he doesn’t trust Amat Kyaan? And if he doesn’t why do I stay? Why am I waiting, if not for justice done?’
‘It’s complicated,’ Liat said. ‘It’s all complicated.’
Maj snorted with anger and impatience.
‘Is simple,’ she said. ‘I thought before perhaps you know back then, perhaps you come now to keep the thing from happening, but instead I think you are just stupid, selfish, weak girl. Go away. I am weaving.’
Liat stood, stung. She opened her mouth as if to speak, but there was nothing she could think to say. Maj spat casually on the floor at her feet.
Liat spent the next hours upstairs, out on the deck that overlooked the street, letting her rage cool. The winter sun was strong enough to warm her as long as the air was still. The slightest breeze was enough to chill her. High clouds traced scratch marks on the sky. Her heart was troubled, but she couldn’t tell any longer if it was Maj’s accusation, Itani and Maati, or the case about to go before the Khai that bothered her. Twice, she turned, prepared to go back down to Maj and demand an apology or else offer another of her own. Both times, she stopped before she had passed Amat Kyaan’s desk, swamped by her own uncertainties. She was still troubled, probing her thoughts in search of some little clarity, when a figure in the street caught her eye. The brown robe fluttered as Maati ran toward the house. His face was flushed. She felt her heart flutter in sudden dread. Something had happened.
She took the wide, wooden stairs three at a time, rushing down into the common room. She heard Maati’s voice outside the rear door, raised and arguing. Unbolting the door and pulling it open, she found one of the guards barring Maati’s way. Maati was in a pose of command, demanding that he be let in. When he saw her, he went silent, and his face paled. Liat touched the guard’s arm.
‘Please,’ she said. ‘He’s here for me.’
‘The old woman didn’t say anything about him,’ the guard said.
‘She didn’t know. Please. She’d want him to come through.’
The guard scowled, but stood aside. Maati came in. He looked ill - eyes glassy and bloodshot, skin gray. His robes were creased and wrinkled, as if they’d been slept in. Liat took his hand in her own without thinking.
‘I got your message,’ Maati said. ‘I came as soon as I could. He isn’t here?’
‘No,’ Liat said. ‘I thought, since he stayed with you after he came back from the Dai-kvo, maybe he’d come to you and . . .’
‘He did,’ Maati said, and sat down. ‘After he brought you here, he took a bunk at the seafront. He came to see me last night.’
‘He didn’t stay?’
Maati pressed his lips thin and looked away. She was aware of Maj, standing in the alcove, watching them, but the shame in Maati’s face was too profound for her to care what the islander made of this. Liat swallowed, trying to ease the tightness in her throat. Maati carefully, intentionally, released her hand from his. She let it drop to her side.
‘He found out?’ Liat asked, her voice small. ‘He knows what happened? ’
‘I told him,’ Maati said. ‘I had to. I thought he would come back here, that he’d be with you.’
‘No. He never did.’
‘Do you think . . . if Wilsin found him . . .’
‘Amat doesn’t think Wilsin would do anything against him. There’s nothing to gain from it. More likely, he only doesn’t want to see us.’
Maati sank to a bench, his head in his hands. Liat sat beside him, her unwounded arm around his shoulders. Itani was gone, lost to her. She knew it like her own name. She rested her head against Maati, and closed her eyes, half-desperate with the fear that he would go as well.
‘Give him time,’ she murmured. ‘He needs time to think. That’s all. Everything is going to be fine.’
‘It isn’t,’ Maati said. His tone wasn’t despairing or angry, only matter-of-fact. ‘Everything is going to be broken, and there’s nothing I can do about it.’
She closed her eyes, felt the rise and fall of his breath like waves coming to shore. Felt him shift as he turned to her and put his arms around her. Her wounds ached with the force of his embrace, but she would have bitten her tongue bloody before she com
plained. Instead she stroked his hair and wept.
‘Don’t leave me,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t stand to lose you both.’
‘I’ll stop breathing first,’ Maati said. ‘I swear I’ll stop breathing before I leave you. But I have to find Otah-kvo.’
The painful, wonderful arms unwrapped, and Maati stood. His face was serious to the point of grave. He took her hand.
‘If Otah-kvo . . . if the two of you cannot reconcile . . . Liat, I would be less than whole without you. My life isn’t entirely my own - I have duties to the Dai-kvo and the Khaiem - but what is mine to choose, I’d have you be part of.’
Shadow and Betrayal Page 36
