A Betrayal in Winter

by Daniel Abraham

  "My fault," the librarian said. "I thought you had noticed me. You were scowling, after all."

  Maati didn't know whether to laugh at that, so he only took a pose of gratitude as Baarath blew across the still damp pages. The damage was minor. Even where the ink had smudged, he knew what he had meant. Baarath fumbled in his sleeve and drew out a letter, its edges sewn in green silk.

  "It's just come for you," he said. "The I)ai-kvo, I think?"

  Maati took it. The last he had reported, Otah had been found and turned over to the Khai Machi. It was a faster response than he had ex peered. He turned the letter over, looking at the familiar handwriting that formed his name. Baarath sat across the table from him, smiling as if he were, of course, welcome, and waiting to see what the message said. It was one of the little rudenesses to which the librarian seemed to feel himself entitled since Nlaati's apology. Maati had the uncomfortable feeling Baarath thought they were becoming friends.

  He tore the paper at the sewn scams, pulled the thread free, and unfolded it. The chop was clearly the Dai-kvo's own. It began with the traditional forms and etiquette. Only at the end of the first page did the matter become specific to the situation at hand.

  ihith Otah discovered and given over to the Khai, your work in Machi is completed. Your suggestion that he be accepted again as a poet is, of course, impossible but the sentiment is commendable. I am quite pleased with you, and trust that this will mark a change in your work. %here are many tasks that a man in your position might take on to the benefit of all-we shall discuss these opportunities upon your return.

  The critical issue now is that you withdraw, from Mllachi. Me have performed our service to the Khai, and your continued presence would only serve to draw attention to the fact that he and whichever of his sons eventually takes his place were unable to discover the plot without aid. It is dangerous for the poets to involve themselves with the politics of the courts.

  For this reason, I now recall you to my side. You are to announce that you have found the citations in the library that I had desired, and must now return them to me. I will expect you within five weeks....

  It continued, though Maati did not. Baarath smiled and leaned forward in obvious interest as Nlaati tucked the letter into his own sleeve. After a moment's silence, Baarath frowned.

  "Fine," he said. "If it's the sort of thing you have to keep to yourself, I can certainly respect that."

  "I knew you could, Baarath-cha. You're a man of great discretion."

  "You needn't flatter me. I know my proper place. I only thought you might want someone to speak with. In case there were questions that someone with my knowledge of the court could answer for you."

  "No," Maati said, taking a pose that offered thanks. "It's on another matter entirely."

  Maati sat with a pleasant, empty expression until Baarath huffed, stood, took a pose of leave-taking, and walked deeper into the galleries of the library. Maati turned hack to his notes, but his mind would not stay focused on them. After half a hand of frustration and distress, he packed them quietly into his sleeve and took himself away.

  The sun shone bright and clear, but to the west, huge clouds rose white and proud into the highest reaches of the sky. There would be storms later-if not today, in the summer weeks to come. Maati imagined he could smell the rain in the air. He walked toward his rooms, and then past them and into a walled garden. The cherry trees had lost their flowers, the fruits forming and swelling toward ripeness. Netting covered the wide branches like a bed, keeping the birds from stealing the harvest. Maati walked in the dappled shade. The pangs from his belly were fewer now and farther between. The wounds were nearly healed.

  It would be easiest, of course, to do as he was told. The Dai-kvo had taken him back into his good graces, and the fact that things had gone awry since his last report could in no way be considered his responsibility. He had discovered Otah, and if it was through no skill of his own, that didn't change the result. He had given Otah over to the Khai. Everything past that was court politics; even the murder of the Khai was nothing the [)ai-kvo would want to become involved with.

  Maati could leave now with honor and let the utkhaiem follow his investigations or ignore them. The worst that would happen was that Otah would be found and slaughtered for something he had not done and an evil man would become the Khai Machi. It wouldn't be the first time in the world that an innocent had suffered or that murder had been rewarded. The sun would still rise, winter would still become spring. And Maati would be restored to something like his right place among the poets. He might even be set over the school, set to teach boys like himself the lessons that he and Otah-kvo and Heshai-kvo and Cehmai had all learned. It would be something worth taking pride in.

  So why was it, he wondered, that he would not do as he was told? Why was the prospect of leaving and accepting the rewards he had dreamed of less appealing than staying, risking the Dai-kvo's displeasure, and discovering what had truly happened to the Khai Machi? It wasn't love of justice. It was more personal than that.

  Maati paused, closed his eyes, and considered the roiling anger in his breast. It was a familiar feeling, like an old companion or an illness so protracted it has become indistinguishable from health. He couldn't say who he was angry with or why the banked rage demanded that he follow his own judgment over anyone else's. He couldn't even say what he hoped he would find.

  He plucked the Dai-kvo's letter from his sleeve, read it again slowly from start to finish, and began to mentally compose his reply.

  Most high Dai-kvo, I hope you will forgive me, but the situation in Machi is such that ...

  Most high Dai-kvo, I am sure that, had you known the turns of event since my last report ...

  Most high, I must respectfully ...

  Most high Dai-kvo, what have you ever done for me that I should do anything you say? Why do I agree to be your creature when that agreement has only ever caused inc pain and loss, and you still instruct me to turn my hack on the people I care for most?

  Most high Dai-kvo, I have fed your last letter to pigs....

  "Maati-kvo!"

  Maati opened his eyes and turned. Cehmai, who had been running toward him, stopped short. Maati thought he saw fear in the boy's expression and wondered for a moment what Cehmai had seen in his face to inspire it. Maati took a pose that invited him to speak.

  "Otah," Cehmai said. "'They've found him."

  Too late, then, Maati thought. I've been too slow and come too late.

  "Where?" he asked.

  "In the river. There's a bend down near one of the low towns. They found his body, and a man in leather armor. One of the men who helped him escape, or that's what they've guessed. The Master of Tides is having them brought to the Khai's physicians. I told him that you had seen Otah most recently. You would be able to confirm it's really him."

  Maati sighed and watched a sparrow try to land on the branch of a cherry tree. The netting confused it, and the bird pecked at the lines that barred it from the fruit just growing sweet. Nlaati smiled in sympathy.

  "Let's go, then," he said.

  There was a crowd in the courtyard outside the physician's apartments. Armsmen wearing mourning robes barred most of the onlookers but parted when Maati and Cehmai arrived. The physician's workroom was wide as a kitchen, huge slate tables in the center of the room and thick incense billowing from a copper brazier. The bodies were laid out naked on their bellies-one thick and well-muscled with a heaped pile of black leather on the table beside it, the other thinner with what might have been the robes of a prisoner or cleaning rags clinging to its back. The Master of Tides-a thin man named Saani Vaanga-and the Khai's chief physician were talking passionately, but stopped when they saw the poets.

  The Master of Tides took a pose that offered service.

  "I have come on behalf of the Dai-kvo," Maati said. "I wished to confirm the reports that Otah Machi is dead."

  "Well, he isn't going dancing," the physician said, pointing to the t
hinner corpse with his chin.

  "We're pleased by the Dai-kvo's interest," the Master of Tides said, ignoring the comment. "Cehmai-cha suggested that you might be able to confirm for us that this is indeed the upstart."

  Maati took a pose of compliance and stepped forward. The reek was terrible-rotting flesh and something deeper, more disturbing. Cehmai hung back as Maati circled the table.

  Maati gestured at the body, his hand moving in a circle to suggest turning it over that he might better see the dead man's face. The physician sighed, came to Maati's side, and took a long iron hook. He slid the hook under the body's shoulder and heaved. There was a wet sound as it lifted and fell. The physician put away the hook and arranged the limbs as Maati considered the bare flesh before him. Clearly the body had spent its journey face down. The features were bloated and fisheaten-it might have been Otah-kvo. It might have been anyone.

  On the pale, water-swollen flesh of the corpse's breast, the dark ink was still visible. The tattoo. Maati had his hand halfway out to touch it before he realized what he was doing and pulled his fingers back. The ink was so dark, though, the line where the tattoo began and ended so sharp. A stirring of the air brought the scent fully to his nose, and Maati gagged, but didn't look away.

  "Will this satisfy the Dai-kvo?" the Master of Tides asked.

  Maati nodded and took a pose of thanks, then turned and gestured to Cehmai that he should follow. The younger poet was stone-faced. Maati wondered if he had seen many dead men before, much less smelled them. Out in the fresh air again, they navigated the crowd, ignoring the questions asked them. Cehmai was silent until they were well away from any curious ear.

  "I'm sorry, Maati-kvo. I know you and he were-"

  "It's not him," Maati said.

  Cehmai paused, his hands moved up into a pose that spoke of his confusion. Maati stopped, looking around.

  "It isn't him," Maati said. "It's close enough to be mistaken, but it isn't him. Someone wants us to think him dead-someone willing to go to elaborate lengths. But that's no more Otah Machi than I am."

  "I don't understand," Cehmai said.

  "Neither do I. But I can say this, someone wants the rumor of his death but not the actual thing. They're buying time. Possibly time they can use to find who's really done these things, then-"

  "We have to go back! You have to tell the Master of Tides!"

  Maati blinked. Cehmai's face had gone red and he was pointing back toward the physician's apartments. The boy was outraged.

  "If we do that," Maati said, "we spoil all the advantage. It can't get out that-"

  "Are you blind? Gods! It is him. All the time it's been him. This as much as proves it! Otah Machi came here to slaughter his family. To slaughter you. He has hackers who could free him from the tower, and he has done everything that he's been accused of. Buying time? He's buying safety! Once everyone thinks him dead, they'll stop looking. He'll be free. You have to tell them the truth!"

  "Otah didn't kill his father. Or his brothers. It's someone else."

  Cehmai was breathing hard and fast as a runner at the race's end, but his voice was lower now, more controlled.

  "How do you know that?" he asked.

  "I know Otah-kvo. I know what he would do, and-"

  "Is he innocent because he's innocent, or because you love him?" Cehmai demanded.

  "This isn't the place to-"

  ""Tell me! Say you have proof and not just that you wish the sky was red instead of blue, because otherwise you're blinded and you're letting him escape because of it. There were times I more than half believed you, Maati-kvo. But when I look at this I see nothing to suggest any conspiracy but his."

  Maati rubbed the point between his eyes with his thumb, pressing hard to keep his annoyance at bay. He shouldn't have spoken to the boy, but now that he had, there was nothing for it.

  "Your anger-" he began, but Cehmai cut him off.

  "You're risking people's lives, Maati-kvo. You're hanging them on the thought that you can't be wrong about the upstart."

  "Whose lives?"

  "The lives of people he would kill."

  "'There is no risk from Otah-kvo. You don't understand."

  "'T'hen teach me." It was as much an insult as a challenge. Maati felt the blood rising to his cheeks even as his mind dissected Cehmai's reaction. There was something to it, some reason for the violence and frustration of it, that didn't make sense. The boy was reacting to something more than Nlaati knew. Maati swallowed his rage.

  "I'll ask five days. Trust me for five days, and I will show you proof. Will that do?"

  He saw the struggle in Cehmai's face. The impulse to refuse, to fight, to spread the news across the city that Otah Machi lived. And then the respect for his elders that had been ground into him from his first day in the school and for all the years since he'd taken the brown robes they shared. Maati waited, forcing himself to patience. And in the end, Cehmai nodded once, turned, and stalked away.

  Five days, Maati thought, shaking his head. I wonder what I thought to manage in that time. I should have asked for ten.

  THE RAINS CAME IN THE EARLY EVENING: LIGHTNING AND THE BLUE-GRAY bellies of cloudbank. The first few drops sounded like stones, and then the clouds broke with a sudden pounding-thousands of small drums rolling. Otah sat in the window and looked out at the courtyard as puddles appeared and danced white and clear. The trees twisted and shifted under gusts of wind and the weight of water. The little storms rarely lasted more than a hand and a half, but in that time, they seemed like doomsday, and they reminded Otah of being young, when everything had been full and torrential and brief. He wished now that he had the skill to draw this brief landscape before the clouds passed and it was gone. There was something beautiful in it, something worth preserving.

  "You're looking better."

  Otah shifted, glancing back into the room. Sinja was there, his long hair slicked down by the rain, his robes sodden. Otah took a welcoming pose as the commander strode across the room toward him, dripping as he came.

  "Brighter about the eyes, blood in your skin again. One would think you'd been eating, perhaps even walking around a bit."

  "I feel better," Otah said. "That's truth."

  "I didn't doubt you would. I've seen men far worse off than you pull through just fine. They've found your corpse, by the way. Identified it as you, just as we'd hoped. There are already half a hundred stories about how that came to be, and none of them near the truth. Amiit-cha is quite pleased, I think."

  "I suppose it's worth being pleased over," Otah said.

  "You don't seem overjoyed."

  "Someone killed my father and my brothers and placed the blame on me. It just seems an odd time to celebrate."

  Sinja didn't answer this, and for a moment, the two men sat in silence broken only by the rain. Then Otah spoke again. "Who was he? The man with my tattoo? Where did you find him?"

  "He wasn't the sort of man the world will miss," Sinja said. "Amiit found him in a low town, and we arranged to purchase his indenture from the low magistrate before they hung him."

  "What had he done?"

  "I don't know. Killed someone. Raped a puppy. Whatever soothes your conscience, he did that."

  "You really don't care."

  "No," Sinja agreed. "And perhaps that makes me a bad person, but since I don't care about that, either ..."

  He took a pose of completion, as if he had finished a demonstration. Otah nodded, then looked away.

  "Too many people die over this," Otah said. "Too many lives wasted. It's an idiot system."

  "This is nothing. You should see a real war. There is no bigger waste than that."

  "You have? Seen war, I mean?"

  "Yes. I fought in the Westlands. Sometimes when the Wardens took issue with each other. Sometimes against the nomad bands when they got big enough to pose a real threat. And then when the Galts decide to come take another bite out of them. There's more than enough opportunity there."

  A dis
tant Hash of lightning lit the trees, and then a breath later, a growl of thunder. Otah reached his hand out, letting the cool drops wet his palm.

  "What's it like?" he asked.

  "War? Violent. Brutish, stupid. Unnecessary, as often as not. But I like the part where we win."

  Otah chuckled.

  "You seem ... don't mind my prying at you, but for a man pulled from certain death, you don't seem to be as happy as I'd expected," Sinja said. "Something weighing on you?"

  "Have you even been to Yalakeht?"

  "No, too far east for me."

  "They have tall gates on the mouths of their side streets that they close and lock every night. And there's a tower in the harbor with a permanent fire that guides ships in the darkness. In Chaburi-Tan, the street children play a game I've never seen anywhere else. They get just within shouting distance, strung out all through the streets, and then one will start singing, and the next will call the song on to the next after him, until it loops around to the first singer with all the mistakes and misunderstandings that make it something new. They can go on for hours. I stayed in a low town halfway between Lachi and Shosheyn-Tan where they served a stew of smoked sausage and pepper rice that was the best meal I've ever had. And the eastern islands.

  "I was a fisherman out there for a few years. A very bad one, but ... but I spent my time out on the water, listening to the waves against my little boat. I saw the way the water changed color with the day and the weather. The salt cracked my palms, and the woman I was with made me sleep with greased cloth on my hands. I think I'll miss that the most."

  "Cracked palms?"

  "The sea. I think that will be the worst of it."

  Sinja shifted. The rain intensified and then slackened as suddenly as it had come. The trees stood straighter. The pools of water danced less.

  "The sea hasn't gone anywhere," Sinja said.

  "No, but I have. I've gone to the mountains. And I don't expect I'll ever leave them again. I knew it was the danger when I became a courier. I was warned. But I hadn't understood it until now. It's the problem in seeing too much of the world. In loving too much of it. You can only live in one place at a time. And eventually, you pick your spot, and the memories of all the others just become ghosts."