‘He might quibble on “help you,”’ Cehmai said, and might as well have kept silent.
‘. . . then it’s clearly of critical importance to the Dai-kvo. I’ve heard the rumors. I know the Vaunyogi were looking to sell the library to some Westlands warden. That’s why Maati was sent here in the first place.’
Cehmai closed his eyes. Rumors and speculation had run wild, and perhaps it would have been a kindness to correct Baarath. But Otah had asked him to keep silent, and the letters from the Dai-kvo had encouraged this strategy. If it were known what the Galts had done, what they had intended to do, it would mean the destruction of their nation: cities drowned, innocent men and women and children starved when a quiet word heavy with threat might suffice instead. There was always recourse to destruction. So long as one poet held one andat, they could find a path to ruin. So instead of slaughtering countless innocents, Cehmai put up with the excited, inaccurate speculation of his old friend and waited for the days to grow longer and warmer.
‘If the collection is split,’ Baraath went on, his voice dropping to a rough whisper, ‘we might overlook the very thing that made the library so important. You have to move your collection over to the library, or terrible things might happen.’
‘Terrible things like what?’
‘I don’t know,’ Baraath said, his whisper turning peevish. ‘That’s what Maati-cha and I are trying to find out.’
‘Well, once you’ve gone through your collection and found nothing, the two of you can come to the poet’s house and look through mine.’
‘That would take years!’
‘I’ll make sure they’re well kept until then,’ Cehmai said. ‘Have you spoken with the Khai about his private collection?’
‘Who’d want that? It’s all copies of contracts and agreements from five generations ago. Unless it’s the most obscure etiquette ever to see sunlight. Anyone who wants that, let them have it. You’ve got all the good books. The philosophy, the grammars, the studies of the andat.’
‘It’s a hard life you lead,’ Cehmai said. ‘So close and still, no.’
‘You are an arrogant prig,’ Baraath said. ‘Everyone knows it, but I’m the only man in the city with the courage to say it to your face. Arrogant and selfish and small-souled.’
‘Well, perhaps it’s not too much to go over to the library. It isn’t as if it was that long a walk.’
Baraath’s face brightened for a moment, then, as the insincerity of the comment came clear, squeezed as if he’d taken a bite of fresh lemon. With a sound like an angry duck, he rose up and stalked from the baths and into the fog.
‘He’s a terrible person,’ the andat said.
‘I know. But he’s a friend of mine.’
‘And terrible people need friends as much as good ones do,’ the andat said, its tone an agreement. ‘More, perhaps.’
‘Which of us are you thinking of?’
Stone-Made-Soft didn’t speak. Cehmai let the warmth of the water slip into his flesh for a moment longer. Then he too rose, the water sluicing from him, and walked to the dressing rooms. He dried himself with a fresh cloth and found his robes, newly cleaned and dry. The other men in the room spoke among themselves, joked, laughed. Cehmai was more aware than usual of the formal poses with which they greeted him. In this quiet season, there was little work for him, and the days were filled with music and singing, gatherings organized by the young men and women of the utkhaiem. But all the cakes tasted slightly of ashes, and the brightest songs seemed tinny and false. Somewhere in the city, under her brother’s watchful eye, the woman he’d sworn to protect was locked away. He adjusted his robes in the mirror, smiled as if trying the expression like a party mask, and for the thousandth time noticed the weight of his decision.
He left the bathhouse, following a broad, low tunnel to the east where it would join a larger passage, one of the midwinter roads, which in turn ran beneath the trees outside the poet’s house before it broke into a thousand maze-like corridors running under the old city. Along the length of the passage, men and women stood or sat, some talking, some singing. An old man, his dog lying at his feet, sold bread and sausages from a hand cart. The girls he’d seen in the bathhouse had been joined by young men, joking and posing in the timeless rituals of courtship. Stone-Made-Soft was kneeling by the wall, looking out over all of it, silently judging what it would take to bring the roof down and bury them all. Cehmai reached out with his will and tugged at the andat. Still smiling, Stone-Made-Soft rose and ambled over.
‘I think the one on the far left was hoping to meet you,’ it said, gesturing to the knot of young men and women as it drew near. ‘She was watching you all the time we were in the baths.’
‘Perhaps it was Baraath she was looking at,’ Cehmai said.
‘You think so?’ the andat said. ‘I suppose he’s a decent-looking man. And many women are overcome by the romance of the librarian. No doubt you’re right.’
‘Don’t,’ Cehmai said. ‘I don’t want to play that game again.’
Something like real sympathy showed in the andat’s wide face. The struggle at the back of Cehmai’s mind neither worsened nor diminished as Stone-Made-Soft’s broad hand reached out to rest on his shoulder.
‘Enough,’ it said. ‘You did what you had to do, and whipping yourself now won’t help you or her. Let’s go meet that girl. Talk to her. We can find someone selling sweetcakes. Otherwise we’ll only go back to the rooms and sulk away another night.’
Cehmai looked over, and indeed, the girl farthest to the left - her long, dark hair unbound, her robes well cut and the green of jade - caught his eyes, and blushing, looked away. He had seen her before, he realized. She was beautiful, and he did not know her name.
‘Perhaps another day,’ he said.
‘There are only so many other days,’ the andat said, its voice low and gentle. ‘I may go on for generations, but you little men rise and fall with the seasons. Stop biting yourself. It’s been months.’
‘One more day. I’ll bite myself for one more day at least,’ Cehmai said. ‘Come on.’
The andat sighed and dropped its hand to its side. Cehmai turned east, walking into the dim tunnels. He felt the temptation to look back, to see whether the girl was watching his departure and if she was, what expression she wore. He kept his eyes on the path before him and the moment passed.
The Khai Machi had no other name now that he had taken his father’s office. It had been stripped from him in formal ceremony. He had renounced it and sworn before the gods and the Emperor that he would be nothing beyond this trust with which he had been charged. Otah had forced his way through the ceremony, bristling at both the waste of time and the institutional requirement that he lie in order to preserve etiquette. Of Itani Noygu, Otah Machi, and the Khai Machi, the last was the one least in his heart. But he was willing to pretend to have no other self and the utkhaiem and the priests and the people of the city were all willing to pretend to believe him. It was all like some incredibly long, awkward, tedious game. And so when the rare occasion arose when he could do something real, something with consequences, he found himself enjoying it more perhaps than it deserved.
The emissary from Galt looked as if he were trying to convince himself he’d misunderstood.
‘Most high,’ he said, ‘I came here as soon as our ambassadors sent word that they’d been expelled. It was a long journey, and winter travel’s difficult in the north. I had hoped that we could address your concerns and . . .’
Otah took a pose that commanded silence, then sat back on the black lacquer chair that had grown no more comfortable in the months since he’d first taken it. He switched from speaking in the Khaiate tongue to Galtic. It seemed, if anything, to make the man more uncomfortable.
‘I appreciate that the generals and lords of Galt are so interested in . . . what? Addressing my concerns? And I thank you for coming so quickly, even when I’d made it clear that you were not particularly welcome.’
‘I
apologize, most high, if I’ve given offense.’
‘Not at all,’ Otah said, smiling. ‘Since you’ve come, you can do me the favor of explaining again to the High Council how precarious their position is with me. The Dai-kvo has been alerted to all I’ve learned, and he shares my opinion and my policy.’
‘But I—’
‘I know the role your people played in the succession. And more than that, I know what happened in Saraykeht. Your nation survives now on my sufferance. If word reaches me of one more intervention in the matters of the cities of the Khaiem or the poets or the andat, I will wipe your people from the memory of the world.’
The emissary opened his mouth and closed it again, his eyes darting about as if there was a word written somewhere on the walls that would open the floodgates of his diplomacy. Otah let the silence press at him.
‘I don’t understand, most high,’ he managed at last.
‘Then go home,’ Otah said, ‘and repeat what I’ve told you to your overseer and then to his, and keep doing so until you find someone who does. If you reach the High Council, you’ll have gone far enough.’
‘I’m sure if you’ll just tell me what’s happened to upset you, most high, there must be something I can do to make it right.’
Otah pressed his steepled fingers to his lips. For a moment, he remembered Saraykeht - the feel of the poet’s death struggles under his own hand. He remembered the fires that had consumed the compound of the Vaunyogi and the screams and cries of his sister as her husband and his father met their ends.
‘You can’t make this right,’ he said, letting his weariness show in his voice. ‘I wish that you could.’
‘But the contracts . . . I can’t go back without some agreement made, most high. If you want me to take your message back, you have to leave me enough credibility that anyone will hear it.’
‘I can’t help you,’ Otah said. ‘Take the letter I’ve given you and go home. Now.’
As he turned and left the room, the letter in his hand sewn shut and sealed, the Galt moved like a man newly awakened. At Otah’s gesture, the servants followed the emissary and pulled the great bronze doors closed behind them, leaving him alone in the audience chamber. The pale silk banners shifted in the slight breath of air. The charcoal in the iron braziers glowed, orange within white. He pressed his hands to his eyes. He was tired, terribly tired. And there was so much more to be done.
He heard the scrape of the servants’ door behind him, heard the soft, careful footsteps and the faintest jingling of mail. He rose and turned, his robes shifting with a sound like sand on stone. Sinja took a pose of greeting.
‘You sent for me, most high?’
‘I’ve just sent the Galts packing again,’ Otah said.
‘I heard the last of it. Do you think they’ll keep sending men to bow and scrape at your feet? I was thinking how gratifying it must be, being able to bully a whole nation of people you’ve never met.’
‘Actually, it isn’t. I imagine news of it will have spread through the city by nightfall. More stories of the Mad Khai.’
‘You aren’t called that. Upstart’s still the most common. After the wedding, there was a week or so of calling you the shopkeeper’s wife, but I think it was too long. An insult can only sustain a certain number of syllables.’
‘Thank you,’ Otah said. ‘I feel much better now.’
‘You are going to have to start caring what they think, you know. These are people you’re going to be living with for the rest of your life. Starting off by proving how disrespectful and independent you can be is only going to make things harder. And the Galts carry quite a few contracts,’ Sinja said. ‘Are you sure you want me away just now? It’s traditional to have a guard close at hand when you’re cultivating new enemies.’
‘Yes, I want you to go. If the utkhaiem are talking about the Galts, they may talk less about Idaan.’
‘You know they won’t forget her. It doesn’t matter what other issues you wave at them, they’ll come back to her.’
‘I know. But it’s the best I can do for now. Are you ready?’
‘I have everything I need prepared. We can do it now if you’d like.’
‘I would.’
Three rooms had been her world. A narrow bed, a cheap iron brazier, a night pot taken away every second day. The armsmen brought her bits of candle - stubs left over from around the palaces. Once, someone had slipped a book in with her meal - a cheap translation of Westland court poems. Still, she’d read them all and even started composing some of her own. It galled her to be grateful for such small kindnesses, especially when she knew they would not have been extended to her had she been a man.
The only breaks came when she was taken out to walk down empty tunnels, deep under the palaces. Armsmen paced behind her and before her, as if she were dangerous. And her mind slowly folded in on itself, the days passing into weeks, the ankle she’d cracked in her fall mending. Some days she felt lost in dreams, struggling to wake only to wish herself back asleep when her mind came clear. She sang to herself. She spoke to Adrah as if he were still there, still alive. As if he still loved her. She raged at Cehmai or bedded him or begged his forgiveness. All on her narrow bed, by the light of candle stubs.
She woke to the sound of the bolt sliding open. She didn’t think it was time to be fed or walked, but time had become a strange thing lately. When the door opened and the man in the black and silver robes of the Khai stepped in she told herself she was dreaming, half fearing he had come to kill her at last, and half hoping for it.
The Khai Machi looked around the cell. His smile seemed forced.
‘You might not think it, but I’ve lived in worse,’ he said.
‘Is that supposed to comfort me?’
‘No,’ he said.
A second man entered the room, a thick bundle under his arm. A soldier, by his stance and by the mail that he wore under his robes. Idaan sat up, gathering herself, preparing for whatever came and desperate that the men not turn and close the door again behind them. The Khai Machi hitched up his robes and squatted, his back against the stone wall as if he was a laborer at rest between tasks. His long face was very much like Biitrah’s, she saw. It was in the corners of his eyes and the shape of his jaw.
‘Sister,’ he said.
‘Most high,’ she replied.
He shook his head. The soldier shifted. She had the feeling that the two movements were the continuation of some conversation they had had, a subtle commentary to which she was not privileged.
‘This is Sinja-cha,’ the Khai said. ‘You’ll do as he says. If you fight him, he’ll kill you. If you try to leave him before he gives you permission, he’ll kill you.’
‘Are you whoring me to your pet thug then?’ she asked, fighting to keep the quaver from her voice.
‘What? No. Gods,’ Otah said. ‘No, I’m sending you into exile. He’s to take you as far as Cetani. He’ll leave you there with a good robe and a few lengths of silver. You can write. You have numbers. You’ll be able to find some work, I expect.’
‘I am a daughter of the Khaiem,’ she said bitterly. ‘I’m not permitted to work.’
‘So lie,’ Otah said. ‘Pick a new name. Noygu always worked fairly well for me. You could be Sian Noygu. Your mother and father were merchants in . . . well, call it Udun. You don’t want people thinking about Machi if you can help it. They died in a plague. Or a fire. Or bandits killed them. It isn’t as if you don’t know how to lie. Invent something.’
Idaan stood, something like hope in her heart. To leave this hole. To leave this city and this life. To become someone else. She hadn’t understood how weary and exhausted she had become until this moment. She had thought the cell was her prison.
The soldier looked at her with perfectly empty eyes. She might have been a cow or a large stone he’d been set to move. Otah levered himself back to standing.
‘You can’t mean this,’ Idaan said, her voice hardly a whisper. ‘I killed Danat. I as much
as killed our father,’
‘I didn’t know them,’ her brother said. ‘I certainly didn’t love them.’
‘I did.’
‘All the worse for you, then.’
She looked into his eyes for the first time. There was a pain in them that she couldn’t fathom.
‘I tried to kill you.’
‘You won’t do it again. I’ve killed and lived with it. I’ve been given mercy I didn’t deserve. Sometimes that I didn’t want. So you see, we may not be all that different, sister.’ He went silent for a moment, then, ‘Of course if you come back, or I find you conspiring against me—’
‘I wouldn’t come back here if they begged me,’ she said. ‘This city is ashes to me.’
Her brother smiled and nodded as much to himself as to her.
‘Sinja?’ he said.
The soldier tossed the bundle to her. It was a leather traveler’s cloak lined with wool and thick silk robes and leggings wrapped around heavy boots. She was appalled at how heavy they were, at how weak she’d become. Her brother ducked out of the room, leaving only the two of them. The soldier nodded to the robes in her arms.
‘Best change into those quickly, Idaan-cha,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a sledge and team waiting, but it’s an unpleasant winter out there, and I want to make the first low town before dark.’
‘This is madness,’ she said.
The soldier took a pose of agreement.
‘He’s making quite a few bad decisions,’ he said. ‘He’s new at this, though. He’ll get better.’
Idaan stripped under the soldier’s impassive gaze and pulled on the robes and the leggings, the cloak, the boots. She stepped out of her cell with the feeling of having shed her skin. She didn’t understand how much those walls had become everything to her until she stepped out the last door and into the blasting cold and limitless white. For a moment, it was too much. The world was too huge and too open, and she was too small to survive even the sight of it. She wasn’t conscious of shrinking back from it until the soldier touched her arm.
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