A Betrayal in Winter

by Daniel Abraham

  "I see," Maati said.

  "I've written a letter. It looks like something I'd have sent Kiyan before, when I was in Chaburi-Tan. It talks about the night I left Saraykeht. It says that on the night I came back to the city, I found the two of you together. That I walked into her cell, and you and she were in her cot. It makes it clear that I didn't touch her, that I couldn't have fathered a child on her. Kiyan's put it in her things. If we have to flee, we'll take it with us and find a way for it to come to light-we can hide it at her wayhouse, perhaps. If we're found and killed here, it will be found with us. You have to back that story."

  Maati steepled his fingers and leaned back in the chair.

  "You've put it with Kiyan-cha's things to be found in case she's slaughtered?" he asked.

  "Yes," Otah said. "I don't think about it when I can help it, but I know she could die here. There's no reason that your son should die with us."

  Maati nodded slowly. He was struggling with something, Otah could see that much, but whether it was sorrow or anger or joy, he had no way to know. When the question came, though, it was the one he had been dreading for years.

  "What did happen?" Maati asked at last, his voice low and hushed. "The night Heshai-kvo died. What happened? Did you just leave? Did you take Mai with you? Did . . . did you kill him?"

  Otah remembered the cord cutting into his hands, remembered the way Mai had balked and he had taken the task himself. For years, those few minutes had haunted him.

  "He knew what was coming," Otah said. "He knew it was necessary. The consequences if he had lived would have been worse. Heshai was right when he warned you to let the thing drop. The Khai Saraykeht would have turned the andat against Galt. There would have been thousands of innocent lives ruined. And when it was over, you would still have been yoked to Seedless. Trapped in the torture box just the way Heshai had been all those years. Heshai knew that, and he waited for me to do the thing."

  "And you did it."

  "I did."

  Maati was silent. Otah sat. His knees seemed less solid than he would have liked, but he didn't let the weakness stop him.

  "It was the worst thing I have ever done," Otah said. "I never stopped dreaming about it. Even now, I see it sometimes. Heshai was a good man, but what he'd created in Seedless...."

  "Seedless was only part of him. They all are. They couldn't be anything else. Heshai-kvo hated himself, and Seedless was that."

  "Everyone hates themselves sometimes. There isn't often a price in blood," Otah said. "You know what would happen if that were proven. Killing a Khai would pale beside murdering a poet."

  Maati nodded slowly, and still nodding, spoke.

  "I didn't ask on the Dai-kvo's behalf. I asked for myself. When Heshai-kvo died, Seedless ... vanished. I was with him. I was there. He was asking me whether I would have forgiven you. If you'd committed some terrible crime, like what he had done to Maj, if I would forgive you. And I told him I would. I would forgive you, and not him. Because ..."

  They were silent. Maati's eyes were dark as coal.

  "Because?" Otah asked.

  "Because I loved you, and I didn't love him. He said it was a pity to think that love and justice weren't the same. The last thing he said was that you had forgiven me."

  "Forgiven you?"

  "For Liat. For taking your lover."

  "I suppose it's true," Otah said. "I was angry with you. But there was a part of me that was ... relieved, I suppose."

  "Why?"

  "Because I didn't love her. I thought I did. I wanted to, and I enjoyed her company and her bed. I liked her and respected her. Sometimes, I wanted her as badly as I've ever wanted anyone. And that was enough to let me mistake it for love. But I don't remember it hurting that deeply or for that long. Sometimes I was even glad. You had each other to take care of, and so it wasn't mine to do."

  "You said, that last time we spoke before you left ... before Heshaikvo died, that you didn't trust me."

  "That's true," Otah said. "I do remember that."

  "But you've come to me now, and you've told me this. You've told me all of it. Even after I gave you over to the Khai. You've brought me in here, shown me where you've hidden. You know there are half a hundred people I could say a word to, and you and all these other people would be dead before the sun set. So it seems you trust me now."

  "I do," Otah said without hesitating.

  "Why?"

  Otah sat with the question. His mind had been consumed for days with a thousand different things that all nipped and shrieked and robbed him of his rest. To reach out to Maati had seemed natural and obvious, and even though when he looked at it coldly it was true that each had in some way betrayed the other, his heart had never been in doubt. He could feel the heaviness in the air, and he knew that I don't know wouldn't be answer enough. He looked for words to give his feelings shape.

  "Because," he said at last, "in all the time I knew you, you never once did the wrong thing. Even when what you did hurt inc, it was never wrong."

  To his surprise, there were tears on Maati's cheeks.

  "Thank you, Otah-kvo," he said.

  A shout went up in the tunnels outside the storehouse and the sound of running feet. Maati wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his robes, and Otah stood, his heart beating fast. The murmur of voices grew, but there were no sounds of blade against blade. It sounded like a busy corner more than a battle. Otah walked to the door and, Maati close behind him, stepped out into the main space. A knot of men were talking and gesturing one to the other by the mouth of the stairs. Otah caught a glimpse of Kiyan in their midst, frowning deeply and speaking fast. Amiit detached himself from the throng and strode to Otah.

  "What's happened?"

  "Bad news, Otah-cha. Daaya Vaunyogi has called for a decision, and enough of the families have hacked the call to push it through."

  Otah felt his heart sink.

  "They're hound to decide by morning," Amilt went on, "and if all the houses that hacked him for the call side with him in the decision, Adrah Vaunyogi will be the Khai Machi by the time the sun comes up."

  "And then what?" NIaati asked.

  "And then we run," Otah said, "as far and fast and quiet as we can, and we hope he never finds us."

  THE SUN HAD PASSED ITS HIGHEST POINT AND STARTED THE LONG, SLOW slide toward darkness. Idaan had chosen robes the blue-gray of twilight and bound her hair hack with clasps of silver and moonstone. Around her, the gallery was nearly full, the air thick with heat and the mingled scents of bodies and perfumes. She stood at the rail, looking down into the press of bodies below her. The parquet of the floor was scuffed with the marks of hoots. There were no empty places at the tables or against the stone walls, no quiet negotiations going on in hallways or teahouses. That time had passed, and in its wake, they were all brought here. Voices washed together like the hushing of wind, and she could feel the weight of the eyes upon her-the men below her sneaking glances up, the representatives of the merchant houses at her side considering her, and the lower orders in the gallery above staring down at her and the men over whom she loomed. She was a woman, and not welcome to speak or sit at the tables below. But still, she would make her presence felt.

  "How is it that we accept the word of these men that they are the wisest?" Ghiah Vaunani pounded the speaker's pulpit before him with each word, a dry, shallow sound. Idaan almost thought she could see flecks of foam at the corners of his mouth. "How is it that the houses of the utkhaiem are so much like sheep that they would consent to be led by this shepherd boy of Vaunyogi?"

  It was meant, Idaan knew, to be a speech to sway the others from their confidence, but all she heard in the words was the confusion and pain of a boy whose plans have fallen through. He could pound and rail and screech his questions as long as his voice held out. Idaan, standing above the proceedings like a protective ghost, knew the answers to every one, and she would never tell them to him.

  Below her, Adrah Vaunyogi looked up, his expression calm
and certain. It had been late in the morning that she'd woken in the poet's house, later still when she'd returned to the rooms she shared now with her husband. He had been there, waiting for her. The night's excesses had weighed heavy on him. They hadn't spoken-she had only called for a bath and clean robes. When she'd cleaned herself and washed her hair, she sat at her mirror and painted her face with all her old skill and delicacy. The woman who looked out at her when she put down her brushes might have been the loveliest in Machi.

  Adrah had left without a word. It had been almost half a hand before she learned that her new father, Daaya Vaunyogi, had called for the decision, and that the houses had agreed. No one had told her to come here, no one had asked her to lend the sight of her silent presence to the cause. She had done it, perhaps, because Adrah had not demanded it of her.

  "We must not hurry! We must not allow sentiment to push us into a decision that will change our city forever!"

  Idaan allowed herself a smile. It would seem to most people that the force of the story had won the day. The last daughter of the old line would be the first mother of the new, and if a quiet structure of money and obligation supported it, if she were really the lover of the poet a hundred times more than the Khai, it hardly mattered. It was what the city would see, and that was enough.

  Ghiah's energy was beginning to flag. She heard his words lose their crispness and the pounding on his table fall out of rhythm. The anger in his voice became merely petulance, and the objections to Adrah in particular and the Vaunyogi in general lost their force. It would have been better, she thought, if he'd ended half a hand earlier. Still insufficient, but less so.

  The Master of "fides stood when Ghiah at last surrendered the floor. He was an old man with a long, northern face and a deep, sonorous voice. Idaan saw his eyes flicker up to her and then away.

  "Adaut Kamau has also asked to address the council," he said, "before the houses speak on the decision to accept Adrah Vaunyogi as the Khai Machi......

  A chorus of jeers rose from the galleries and even the council tables. Idaan held herself still and quiet. Her feet were starting to ache, but she didn't shift her weight. The effect she desired wouldn't be served by showing her pleasure. Adaut Kamau rose, his face gray and pinched. He opened his arms, but before he could speak, a bundle of rough cloth arced from the highest gallery. A long tail of brown fluttered behind it like a banner as it fell, and in the instant that it struck the floor, the screaming began.

  Idaan's composure broke, and she leaned forward. The men at the tables nearest the thing waved their arms and fled, shrieking and pounding at the air. Voices buzzed and a cloud of pale, moving smoke rose toward the galleries.

  No. The buzzing was not voices, the cloud was not smoke. These were wasps. The bundle on the council floor had been a nest wrapped in cloth and wax. The first of the insects buzzed past her, a glimpse of black and yellow. She turned and ran.

  Bodies filled the corridors, panic pressing them together until there was no air, no space. People screamed and cursed-men, women, children. "Their shrill voices mixed with the angry buzz. She was pushed from all sides. An elbow dug into her back. The surge of the crowd pressed the breath from her. She was suffocating, and insects filled the air above her. Idaan felt something bite the flesh at the back of her neck like a hot iron burning her. She screamed and tried to reach back to hat the thing away, but there was no room to move her arm, no air. She lashed out at whoever, whatever was near. The crowd was a single, huge, biting beast and Idaan flailed and shrieked, her mind lost to fear and pain and confusion.

  Stepping into the open air of the street was like waking from a nightmare. The bodies around her thinned, becoming only themselves again. The fierce buzz of tiny wings was gone, the cries of pain and terror replaced by the groans of the stung. People were still streaming out of the palace, arms flapping, but others were sitting on benches or else the ground. Servants and slaves were rushing about, tending to the hurt and the humiliated. Idaan felt the back of her neck-three angry humps were already forming.

  "It's a poor omen," a man in the red robes of the needle wrights said. "Something more's going on than meets the eye if someone's willing to attack the council to keep old Kamau from talking."

  "What could he have said?" the man's companion asked.

  "I don't know, but you can be sure whatever it was, he'll be saying something else tomorrow. Someone wanted him stopped. Unless this is about Adrah Vaunyogi. It could be that someone wants him closed down."

  "Then why loose the things when his critics were about to speak?"

  "Good point. Perhaps ..."

  Idaan moved on down the street. It was like the aftermath of some gentle, bloodless battle. People bound bruised limbs. Slaves brought plasters to suck out the wasps' venom. But already, all down the wide street, the talk had turned back to the business of the council.

  Her neck was burning now, but she pushed the pain aside. There would he no decision made today. That was clear. Kaman or Vaunani had disrupted the proceedings to get more time. It had to be that. It couldn't he more, except that of course it could. The fear was different now, deeper and more complex. Almost like nausea.

  Adrah was leaning against the wall at the mouth of an alleyway. His father was sitting beside him, a serving girl dabbing white paste on the angry welts that covered his arms and face. Idaan went to her husband. His eyes were hard and shallow as stones.

  "May I speak with you, Adrah-kya?" she said softly.

  Adrah looked at her as if seeing her for the first time, then at his fa ther. He nodded toward the shadows of the alley behind him, and Idaan followed him until the noises of the street were vague and distant.

  "It was Otah," she said. "He did this. Iie knows."

  "Are you about to tell me that he's planned it all from the start again? It was a cheap, desperate trick. It won't matter, except that anyone who doesn't like us will say we did it, and anyone who has a grudge against our enemies will put it to them. Nothing changes."

  "Who would do it?"

  Adrah shook his head, impatient, and turned to walk back out into the street and noise and light. "Anyone might have. There's no point trying to solve every puzzle in the world."

  "Don't be stupid, Adrah. Someone's acted against-"

  The violence and suddenness of his movement was shocking. He was walking away, his hack to her, and then a heartbeat later, there was no more room between them than the width of a leaf His face was twisted, flushed, possessed by anger.

  "Don't be stupid? Is that what you said?"

  Idaan took a step hack, her feet unsteady beneath her.

  "How do you mean, stupid, Idaan? Stupid like calling out my lover's name in a crowd?"

  "What?"

  "Cehmai. The poet boy. When you were running, you called his name.

  "I did?"

  "Everyone heard it," Adrah said. "Everybody knows. At least you could keep it between us and not parade it all over the city!"

  "I didn't mean to," she said. "I swear it, Adrah. I didn't know I had."

  He stepped hack and spat, the spittle striking the wall beside him and dripping down toward the ground. His gaze locked on her, daring her to push him, to meet his anger with defiance or submission. Either would be devastating. Idaan felt herself go hard. It wasn't unlike the feeling of seeing her father dying breath by breath, his belly rotting out and taking him with it.

  "It won't get better, will it?" she asked. "It will go on. It will change. But it will never get better than it is right now."

  The dread in Adrah's eyes told her she'd struck home. When he turned and stalked away, she didn't try to stop him.

  FELL ME, HE'I) SAID.

  I can't, she'd replied.

  And now Cehmai sat on a chair, staring at the bare wall and wished that he'd left it there. The hours since morning had been filled with a kind of anguish he'd never known. He'd told her he loved her. He did love her. But ... Gods! She'd murdered her own family. She'd engineered her own fath
er's death and as much as sold the Khai's library to the Galts. And the only thing that had saved her was that she loved him and he'd sworn he'd protect her. He'd sworn it.

  "What did you expect?" Stone-Made-Soft asked.

  "That it was Adrah. That I'd be protecting her from the Vaunyogi," Cehmai said.

  "Well. Perhaps you should have been more specific."

  The sun had passed behind the mountains, but the daylight hadn't yet taken on the ruddy hues of sunset. This was not night but shadow. 'The andat stood at the window, looking out. A servant had come from the palaces earlier bearing a meal of roast chicken and rich, dark bread. The smell of it filled the house, though the platter had been set outside to be taken away. He hadn't been able to eat.

  Cehmai could barely feel where the struggle in the back of his mind met the confusion at the front. Idaan. It had been Idaan all along.

  "You couldn't have known," the andat said, its tone conciliatory. "And it isn't as if she asked you to be part of the thing."

  "You think she was using me."

  "Yes. But since I'm a creature of your mind, it seems to follow that you'd think the same. She did extract a promise from you. You're sworn to protect her."

  "I love her."

  "You'd better. If you don't, then she told you all that under a false impression that you led her to believe. If she hadn't truly thought she could trust you, she'd have kept her secrets to herself."

  "I do love her."

  "And that's good," Stone-Made-Soft said. "Since all that blood she spilled is part yours now."

  Cehmai leaned forward. His foot knocked over the thin porcelain bowl at his feet. The last dregs of the wine spilled to the floor, but he didn't bother with it. Stained carpet was beneath his notice now. His head was stuffed with wool, and none of his thoughts seemed to connect. He thought of Idaan's smile and the way she turned toward him, nestling into him as she slept. Her voice had been so soft, so quiet. And then, when she had asked him if he was horrified by her, there had been so much fear in her.