Shadow and Betrayal

by Abraham Daniel

  ‘About going back to the city?’

  ‘About being discovered,’ he said. And a moment later, ‘About what I’m going to have to say to Maati.’

  12

  Cehmai sat back on a cushion, his back aching and his mind askew. Stone-Made-Soft sat beside him, its stillness unbroken even by breath. At the front of the temple, on a dais where the witnesses could see her, sat Idaan. Her eyes were cast down, her robe the vibrant rose and blue of a new bride. The distance between them seemed longer than the space within the walls, as if a year’s journey had been fit into the empty air.

  The crowd was not as great as the occasion deserved: women and the second sons of the utkhaiem. Elsewhere, the council was meeting, and those who had a place in it were there. Given the choice of spectacle, many others would choose the men, their speeches and arguments, the debates and politics and subtle drama, to the simple marrying off of an orphan girl of the best lineage and the least influence to the son of a good, solid family.

  Cehmai stared at her, willing the kohl-dark eyes to look up, the painted lips to smile at him. Cymbals chimed, and the priests dressed in gold and silver robes with the symbols of order and chaos embroidered in black began their chanting procession. Their voices blended and rose until the temple walls themselves seemed to ring with the melody. Cehmai plucked at the cushion. He couldn’t watch, and he couldn’t look away. One priest - an old man with a bare head and a thin white beard - stopped behind Idaan in the place that her father or brother should have taken. The high priest stood at the back of the dais, lifted his hands slowly, palms out to the temple, and, with an embracing gesture, seemed to encompass them all. When he spoke, it was in the language of the Old Empire, syllables known to no one on the cushions besides himself.

  Eyan ta nyot baa, dan salaa khai dan umsalaa.

  The will of the gods has always been that woman shall act as servant to man.

  An old tongue for an old thought. Cehmai let the words that followed it - the ancient ritual known more by its rhythm than its significance - wash over him. He closed his eyes and told himself he was not drowning. He focused on his breath, smoothing its ragged edges until he regained the appearance of calm. He watched the sorrow and the anger and the jealousy writhe inside him as if they were afflicting someone else.

  When he opened his eyes, the andat had shifted, its gaze on him and expressionless. Cehmai felt the storm on the back of his mind shift, as if taking stock of the confusion in his heart, testing him for weakness. Cehmai waited, prepared for Stone-Made-Soft to press, for the struggle to engulf him. He almost longed for it.

  But the andat seemed to feel that anticipation, because it pulled back. The pressure lessened, and Stone-Made-Soft smiled its idiot, empty smile, and turned back to the ceremony. Adrah was standing now, a long cord looped in his hand. The priest asked him the ritual questions, and Adrah spoke the ritual answers. His face seemed drawn, his shoulders too square, his movements too careful. Cehmai thought he seemed exhausted.

  The priest who stood behind Idaan spoke for her family in their absence, and the end of the cord, cut and knotted, passed from Adrah to the priest and then to Idaan’s hand. The rituals would continue for some time, Cehmai knew, but as soon as the cord was accepted, the binding was done. Idaan Machi had entered the house of the Vaunyogi and only Adrah’s death would cast her back into the ghost arms of her dead family. Those two were wed, and he had no right to the pain the thought caused him. He had no right to it.

  He rose and walked silently to the wide stone archway and out of the temple. If Idaan looked up at his departure, he didn’t notice.

  The sun wasn’t halfway through its arc, and a fresh wind from the north was blowing the forge smoke away. High, thin clouds scudded past, giving the illusion that the great stone towers were slowly, endlessly toppling. Cehmai walked the temple grounds, Stone-Made-Soft a pace behind him. There were few others there - a woman in rich robes sitting alone by a fountain, her face a mask of grief; a round-faced man with rings glittering on his fingers reading a scroll; an apprentice priest raking the gravel paths smooth with a long metal rake. And at the edge of the grounds, where temple became palace, a familiar shape in brown poet’s robes. Cehmai hesitated, then slowly walked to him, the andat close by and trailing him like a shadow.

  ‘I hadn’t expected to see you here, Maati-kvo.’

  ‘No, but I expected you,’ the older poet said. ‘I’ve been at the council all morning. I needed some time away. May I walk with you?’

  ‘If you like. I don’t know that I’m going anywhere in particular.’

  ‘Not marching with the wedding party? I thought it was traditional for the celebrants to make an appearance in the city with the new couple. Let the city look over the pair and see who’s allied themselves with the families. I assume that’s what all the flowers and decorations out there are for.’

  ‘There will be enough without me.’

  Cehmai turned north, the wind blowing gently into his face, drawing his robes out behind him as if he were walking through water. A slave girl was standing beside the path singing an old love song, her high, sweet voice carrying like a flute’s. Cehmai felt Maati-kvo’s attention, but wasn’t sure what to make of it. He felt as examined as the corpse on the physician’s table. At length, he spoke to break the silence.

  ‘How is it?’

  ‘The council? Like a very long, very awkward dinner party. I imagine it will deteriorate. The only interesting thing is that a number of houses are calling for Vaunyogi to take the chair.’

  ‘Interesting,’ Cehmai said. ‘I knew Adrah-cha was thinking of it, but I wouldn’t have thought his father had the money to sway many people.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have either. But there are powers besides money.’

  The comment seemed to hang in the air.

  ‘I’m not sure what you mean, Maati-kvo.’

  ‘Symbols have weight. The wedding coming as it does might sway the sentimental. Or perhaps Vaunyogi has advocates we aren’t aware of.’

  ‘Such as?’

  Maati stopped. They had reached a wide courtyard, rich with the scent of cropped summer grass. The andat halted as well, its broad head tilted in an attitude of polite interest. Cehmai felt a brief flare of hatred toward it, and saw its lips twitch slightly toward a smile.

  ‘If you’ve spoken for the Vaunyogi, I need to know it,’ Matti said.

  ‘We’re not to take sides in these things. Not without direction from the Dai-kvo.’

  ‘I’m aware of that, and I don’t mean to accuse you or pry into what’s not mine, but on this one thing, I have to know. They did ask you to speak for them, didn’t they?’

  ‘I suppose,’ Cehmai said.

  ‘And did you speak for them?’

  ‘No. Why should I?’

  ‘Because Idaan Machi is your lover,’ Maati said, his voice soft and full of pity.

  Cehmai felt the blood come into his face, his neck. The anger at everything that he had seen and heard pressed at him, and he let himself borrow certainty from the rage.

  ‘Idaan Machi is Adrah’s wife. No, I did not speak for Vaunyogi. Despite your experience, not everyone falls in love with the man who’s taken his lover.’

  Maati leaned back. The words had struck home, and Cehmai pressed on, following the one attack with another.

  ‘And forgive me, Maati-cha, but you seem in an odd position to take me to task for following my private affairs where they don’t have a place. You are still doing all this without the Dai-kvo’s knowledge?’

  ‘He might have a few of my letters,’ Maati-kvo said. ‘If not yet, then soon.’

  ‘But since you’re a man under those robes, on you go. I am doing as the Dai-kvo set me to do. I am carrying this great bastard around; I am keeping myself apart from the politics of the court; I’m not willing to stand accused of lighting candles while you’re busy burning the city down!’

  ‘Calling me a bastard seems harsh,’ Stone-Made-Soft said. ‘I haven’t
told you how to behave.’

  ‘Be quiet!’

  ‘If you think it will help,’ the andat said, its voice amused, and Cehmai turned the fury inward, pressing at the space where he and Stone-Made-Soft were one thing, pushing the storm into a smaller and smaller thing. He felt his hands in fists, felt his teeth ache with the pressure of his clenched jaw. And the andat, shifted, bent to his fire-bright will, knelt and cast down its gaze. He forced its hands into a pose of apology.

  ‘Cehmai-cha.’

  He turned on Maati. The wind was picking up, whipping their robes. The fluttering of cloth sounded like a sail.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Maati-kvo said. ‘I truly am very sorry. I know what it must mean to have these things questioned, but I have to know.’

  ‘Why? Why is my heart suddenly your business?’

  ‘Let me ask this another way,’ Maati said. ‘If you aren’t backing Vaunyogi, who is?’

  Cehmai blinked. His rage whirled, lost its coherence, and left him feeling weaker and confused. On the ground beside them, Stone-Made-Soft sighed and rose to its feet. Shaking its great head, it gestured to the green streaks on its robe.

  ‘The launderers won’t be pleased by that,’ it said.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Cehmai said, not to the andat, but to Maati-kvo. And yet, it was Stone-Made-Soft’s deep rough voice that answered him.

  ‘He’s asking you how badly Adrah Vaunyogi wants that chair. And he’s suggesting that Idaan-cha may have just married her father’s killer, all unaware. It seems a simple enough proposition to me. They aren’t going to blame you for these stains, you know. They never do.’

  Maati stood silently, peering at him, waiting. Cehmai held his hands together to stop their shaking.

  ‘You think that?’ he asked. ‘You think that Adrah might have arranged the wedding because he knew what was going to happen? You think Adrah killed them?’

  ‘I think it worth considering,’ Maati said.

  Cehmai looked down and pressed his lips together until they ached. If he didn’t - if he looked up, if he relaxed - he knew that he would smile. He knew what that would say about himself and his small, petty soul, so he swallowed and kept his head low until he could speak. Unbidden, he imagined himself exposing Adrah’s crime, rejoining Idaan with her sole remaining family. He imagined her eyes looking into his as he told her what Maati knew.

  ‘Tell me how I can help,’ he said.

  Maati sat in the first gallery, looking down into the great hall and waiting for the council to go on. It was a rare event, all the houses of the utkhaiem meeting without a Khai to whom they all answered, and they seemed both uncertain what the proper rituals were and unwilling to let the thing move quickly. It was nearly dark now, and candles were being set out on the dozen long tables below him and the speaker’s pulpit beyond them. The small flames were reflected in the parquet floor and the silvered glass on the walls below him. A second gallery rose above him, where women and children of the lower families and representatives of the trading houses could sit and observe. The architect had been brilliant - a man standing as speaker need hardly raise his voice and the stone walls would carry his words through the air without need of whisperers. Even over the murmurs of the tables below and the galleries above, the prepared, elaborate, ornate, deathly dull speeches of the utkhaiem reached every ear. The morning session had been interesting at least - the novelty of the situation had held his attention. But apart from his conversation with Cehmai, Maati had filled the hours of his day with little more than the voices of men practiced at saying little with many words. Praise of the utkhaiem generally and of their own families in particular, horror at the crimes and misfortunes that had brought them here, and the best wishes of the speaker and his father or his son or his cousin for the city as a whole, and on and on and on.

  Maati had pictured the struggle for power as a thing of blood and fire, betrayal and intrigue and danger. And, when he listened for the matter beneath the droning words, yes, all that was there. That even this could be made dull impressed him.

  The talk with Cehmai had gone better than he had hoped. He felt guilty using Idaan Machi against him that way, but perhaps the boy had been ready to be used. And there was very little time.

  He was relying now on the competence of his enemies. There would be only a brief window between the time when it became clear who would take the prize and the actual naming of the Khai Machi. In that moment, Maati would know who had engineered all this, who had used Otah-kvo as a cover, who had attempted his own slaughter. And if he were wise and lucky and well-positioned, he might be able to take action. Enlisting Cehmai in his service was only a way to improve the chances of setting a lever in the right place.

  ‘The concern our kind brother of Saya brings up is a wise one to consider,’ a sallow-faced scion of the Daikani said. ‘The days are indeed growing shorter, and the time for preparation is well upon us. There are roofs that must be made ready to hold their burden of snow. There are granaries to be filled and stocks to be prepared. There are crops to be harvested, for men and beasts both.’

  ‘I didn’t know the Khai did all that,’ a familiar voice whispered. ‘He must have been a very busy man. I don’t suppose there’s anyone could take up the slack for him?’

  Baarath shifted down and sat beside Maati. He smelled of wine, his cheeks were rosy, his eyes too bright. But he had an oilcloth cone filled with strips of fried trout that he offered to Maati, and the distraction was almost welcome. Maati took a bit of the fish.

  ‘What have I missed?’ Baarath said,

  ‘The Vaunyogi appear to be a surprise contender,’ Maati said. ‘They’ve been mentioned by four families, and praised in particular by two others. I think the Vaunani and Kamau are feeling upset by it, but they seem to hate each other too much to do anything about it.’

  ‘That’s truth,’ Baraath said. ‘Ijan Vaunani came to blows with old Kamau’s grandson this afternoon at a teahouse in the jewelers’ quarter. Broke his nose for him, I heard.’

  ‘Really?’

  Baarath nodded. The sallow man droned on half forgotten now as Baarath spoke close to Maati’s ear.

  ‘There are rumors of reprisal, but old Kamau’s made it clear that anyone doing anything will be sent to tar ships in the Westlands. They say he doesn’t want people thinking ill of the house, but I think it’s his last effort to keep an alliance open against Adrah Vaunyogi. It’s clear enough that someone’s bought little Adrah a great deal more influence than just sleeping with a dead man’s daughter would earn.’

  Baarath grinned, then coughed and looked concerned.

  ‘Don’t repeat that to anyone, though,’ he said. ‘Or if you do, don’t say it was me. It’s terribly rude, and I’m rather drunk. I only came up here to sober up a bit.’

  ‘Yes, well, I came up to keep an eye on the process, and I think it’s more likely to put your head on a pillow than clear it.’

  Baarath chuckled.

  ‘You’re an idiot if you came here to see what’s happening. It’s all out in the piss troughs where a man can actually speak. Didn’t you know that? Honestly, Maati-kya, if you went to a comfort house, you’d spend all your time watching the girls in the front dance and wondering when the fucking was supposed to start.’

  Maati’s jaw went tight. When Baarath offered the fish again, Maati refused it. The sallow man finished, and an old, thick-faced man rose, took the pulpit, announced himself to be Cielah Pahdri, and began listing the various achievements of his house dating back to the fall of the Empire. Maati listened to the recitation and Baraath’s overloud chewing with equal displeasure.

  He was right before, Maati told himself. Baarath was the worst kind of ass, but he wasn’t wrong.

  ‘I assume,’ Maati said, ‘that “piss troughs” is a euphemism.’

  ‘Only half. Most of the interesting news comes to a few teahouses at the south edge of the palaces. They’re near the moneylenders, and that always leads to lively conversations. Going to t
ry your luck there?’

  ‘I thought I might,’ Maati said as he rose.

  ‘Look for the places with too many rich people yelling at each other. You’ll be fine,’ Baarath said and went back to chewing his trout.

  Maati took the steps two at a time, and slipped out the rear of the gallery into a long, dark corridor. Lanterns were lit at each end, and Maati strode through the darkness with the slow-burning runout of annoyance that the librarian always seemed to inspire. He didn’t see the woman at the hallway’s end until he had almost reached her. She was thin, fox-faced, and dressed in a simple green robe. She smiled when she caught his eye and took a pose of greeting.

  ‘Maati-cha?’

  Maati hesitated, then answered her greeting.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I seem to have forgotten your name.’