A Betrayal in Winter lpq-2

by Abraham Daniel

  "We've an honored guest come to the city," Cehmai said.

  "We've had many honored guests in the city," the overseer said, with a

  grin. "Damn few in the bottom of the hole, though. There's no palaces

  down here."

  "But Machi's fortunes rest on its mines," Maati said. "So in a sense

  these are the deepest cellars of the palaces. The ones where the best

  treasures are hidden."

  The overseer grinned.

  "I like this one," he said to Cehmai. "He's got a quick head on him."

  "I heard about the pumps the Khai's eldest son had designed," Maati

  said. "I was wondering if you could tell me of them?"

  The grin widened, and the overseer launched into an expansive and

  delighted discussion of water and mines and the difficulty of removing

  the one from the other. Maati listened, struggling to follow the

  vocabulary and grammar particular to the trade.

  "He had a gift for them," the overseer said, at last. His voice was

  melancholy. "We'll keep at them, these pumps, and they'll get better,

  but not like they would have with Biitrah-cha on them."

  "He was here, I understand, on the day he was killed," Maati said. He

  saw the young poet's head shift, turning to consider him, and he ignored

  it as he had the andat's.

  "That's truth. And I wish he'd stayed. His brothers aren't bad men, but

  they aren't miners. And ... well, he'll be missed."

  "I had thought it odd, though," Nlaati said. "Whichever brother killed

  him, they had to know where he would be-that he would be called out

  here, and that the work would take so much of the day that he wouldn't

  return to the city itself."

  "I suppose that's so," the overseer said.

  "Then someone knew your pumps would fail," Maati said.

  The lamplight flickered off the surface of the water, casting shadows up

  the overseer's face as this sank in. Cehmai coughed. Maati said nothing,

  did not move, waited. If any man here had been involved with it, the

  overseer was most likely. But Maati saw no rage or wariness in his

  expression, only the slow blooming of implication that might be expected

  in a man who had not thought the murder through. So perhaps he could be

  used after all.

  "You're saying someone sabotaged my pumps to get him out here," the

  overseer said at last.

  Maati wished deeply that Cehmai and his andat were not presentthis was a

  thing better done alone. But the moment had arrived, and there was

  nothing to be done but go forward. The servants at least were far enough

  away not to overhear if he spoke softly. Maati dug in his sleeve and

  came out with a letter and a small leather pouch, heavy with silver

  lengths. He pressed them both into the surprised overseer's hands.

  "If you should discover who did, I would very much like to speak with

  them before the officers of the utkhaiem or the head of your House. That

  letter will tell you how to find me."

  The overseer tucked away the pouch and letter, taking a pose of thanks

  which Maati waved away. Cehmai and the andat were silent as stones.

  "And how long is it you've been working these mines?" Maati asked,

  forcing a lightness to his tone he did not feel. Soon the overseer was

  regaling them with stories of his years underground, and they were

  walking together toward the surface again. By the time Maati stepped out

  from the long, sloping throat of the mine and into daylight, his feet

  were numb. A litter waited for them, twelve strong men prepared to carry

  the three of them back to the palaces. Maati stopped for a moment to

  wring the water from the hem of his robes and to appreciate having

  nothing but the wide sky above him.

  "Why was it the Dai-kvo sent you?" Cehmai asked as they climbed into the

  wooden litter. His voice was almost innocent, but even the andat was

  looking at Maati oddly.

  "There are suggestions that the library may have some old references

  that the Dai-kvo lacks. Things that touch on the grammars of the first

  poets."

  "Ah," Cehmai said. The litter lurched and rose, swaying slightly as the

  servants bore them away hack to the palaces. "And nothing more than that?"

  "Of course not," Maati said. "What more could there he?"

  He knew that he was convincing no one. And that was likely a fine thing.

  Maati had spent his first days in Machi learning the city, the courts,

  the teahouses. The Khai's daughter had introduced him to the gatherings

  of the younger generation of the utkhaiem as the poet Cehmai had to the

  elder. Maati had spent each night walking a different quarter of the

  city, wrapped in thick wool robes with close hoods against the vicious

  cold of the spring air. He had learned the intrigues of the court: which

  houses were vying for marriages to which cities, who was likely to be

  extorting favors for whom over what sorts of indiscretion, all the petty

  wars of a family of a thousand children.

  He had used the opportunities to spread the name of Irani Noygu- saying

  only that he was an old friend Maati had heard might be in the city,

  whom he would very much like to see. There was no way to say that it was

  the name Otah Machi had invented for himself in Saraykeht, and even if

  there had been, Maati would likely not have done so. He had come to

  realize exactly how little he knew what he ought to do.

  He had been sent because he knew Otah, knew how his old friend's mind

  worked, would recognize him should they meet. They were advantages,

  Maati supposed, but it was hard to weigh them against his inexperience.

  There was little enough to learn of making discreet inquiries when your

  life was spent in the small tasks of the Dai-kvo's village. An overseer

  of a trading house would have been better suited to the task. A

  negotiator, or a courier. Liat would have been better, the woman he had

  once loved, who had once loved him. Liat, mother of the boy Nayiit, whom

  Maati had held as a babe and loved more than water or air. Liat, who had

  been Otah's lover as well.

  For the thousandth time, Maati put that thought aside.

  When they reached the palaces, Maati again thanked Cehmai for taking the

  time from his work to accompany him, and Cehmai-still with the

  half-certain stance of a dog hearing an unfamiliar soundassured him that

  he'd been pleased to do so. Maati watched the slight young man and his

  thick-framed andat walk away across the flagstones of the courtyard.

  Their hems were black and sodden, ruining the drape of the robes. Much

  like his own, he knew.

  Thankfully, his own apartments were warm. He stripped off his robes,

  leaving them in a lump for the servants to remove to a launderer, and

  replaced them with the thickest he had-lamb's wool and heavy leather

  with a thin cotton lining. It was the sort that natives of Machi wore in

  deep winter, but Maati pulled it close about him, vowing to use it

  whenever he went out, whatever the others might think of him. His boots

  thrown into a corner, he stretched his pale, numb feet almost into the

  fire grate and shuddered. He would have to go to the wayhouse where

  Biitrah Machi had died. The owners there had spoken to t
he officers of

  the utkhaiem, of course. They had told their tale of the moonfaced man

  who had come with letters of introduction, worked in their kitchens, and

  been ready to take over for a night when the overseers all came down

  ill. Still, he could not be sure there was nothing more to know unless

  he made his visit. Some other day, when he could feel his toes.

  The summons came to him when the sun-red and angry-was just preparing to

  slide behind the mountains to the west. Maati pulled on thick, warm

  boots of soft leather, added his brown poet's robes over the warmer

  ones, and let himself be led to the Khai Machi's private chambers. He

  passed through several rooms on his way-a hall of worked marble the

  color of honey with a fountain running through it like a creek, a

  meeting chamber large enough to hold two dozen at a single table, then a

  smaller corridor that led to chambers of a more human size. Ahead of

  him, a woman passed from one side of the corridor to the other leaving

  the impression of night-black hair, warm brown skin, and robes the

  yellow of sunrise. One of the wives, Maati knew, of a man who had several.

  At last, the servant slid open a door of carved rosewood, and Maati

  stepped into a room hardly larger than his own bedroom. The old man sat

  on a couch, his feet toward the fire that burned in the grate. His robes

  were lush, the silks seeming to take up the firelight and dance with it.

  They seemed more alive than his flesh. Slowly, the Khai raised a clay

  pipe to his mouth and puffed on it thoughtfully. The smoke smelled rich

  and sweet as a cane field on fire.

  Maati took a pose of greeting as formal as high court. The Khai Machi

  raised an ancient eyebrow and only smiled. With the stem of the pipe, he

  pointed to the couch opposite him and nodded to Maati that he should sit.

  "They make me smoke this," the Khai said. "Whenever my belly troubles

  me, they say. I tell them they might as well make it air, burn it by the

  bushel in all the firekeeper's kilns, but they only laugh as if it were

  wit, and I play along."

  "Yes, most high."

  There was a long pause as the Khai contemplated the flames. Maati

  waited, uncertain. He noticed the catch in the Khai Machi's breath, as

  if it pained him. He had not noticed it before.

  "Your search for my outlaw son," the Khai said. "It is going well?"

  "It is early yet, most high. I have made myself visible. I have let it

  be known that I am looking into the death of your son."

  "You still expect Otah to come to you?"

  "Yes."

  "And if he does not?"

  "Then it will take more time, most high. But I will find him."

  The old man nodded, then exhaled a plume of pale smoke. He took a pose

  of gratitude, his wasted hands holding the position with the grace of a

  lifetime's practice.

  "His mother was a good woman. I miss her. Iyrah, her name was. She gave

  me Idaan too. She was glad to have a child of her own that she could keep."

  Maati thought he saw the old man's eyes glisten for a moment, lost as he

  was in old memories of which Maati could only guess the substance. Then

  the Khai sighed.

  "Idaan," the Khai said. "She's treated you gently?"

  "She's been nothing but kind," Maati said, "and very generous with her

  time."

  The Khai shook his head, smiling more to himself than his audience.

  "That's good. She was always unpredictable. Age has calmed her, I think.

  There was a time she would study outrages the way most girls study face

  paints and sandals. Always sneaking puppies into court or stealing

  dresses she fancied from her little friends. She relied on me to keep

  her safe, however far she flew," he said, smiling fondly. "A mischievous

  girl, my daughter, but good-hearted. I'm proud of her."

  Then he sobered.

  "I am proud of all my children. It's why I am not of one mind on this,"

  the Khai said. "You would think that I should be, but I am not. With

  every day that the search continues, the truce holds, and Kaiin and

  Danat still live. I've known since I was old enough to know anything

  that if I took this chair, my sons would kill each other. It wasn't so

  hard before I knew them, when they were only the idea of sons. But then

  they were Biitrah and Kaiin and Danat. And I don't want any of them to die."

  "But tradition, most high. If they did not-"

  "I know why they must," the Khai said. "I was only wishing. It's

  something dying men do, I'm told. Sit with their regrets. It's likely

  that which kills us as much as the sickness. I sometimes wish that this

  had all happened years ago. That they had slaughtered each other in

  their childhood. Then I might have at least one of them by me now. I had

  not wanted to die alone."

  "You are not alone, most high. The whole court . .

  Maati broke off. The Khai Machi took a pose accepting correction, but

  the amusement in his eyes and the angle of his shoulders made a sarcasm

  of it. Maati nodded, accepting the old man's point.

  "I can't say which of them I would have wanted to live, though," the

  Khai said, puffing thoughtfully on his pipe. "I love them all. Very

  dearly. I cannot tell you how deeply I miss Biitrah."

  "Had you known him, you would have loved Otah as well."

  "You think so? Certainly you knew him better than I. I can't think he

  would have thought well of me," the Khai said. Then, "Did you go back?

  After you took your robes? Did you go to see you parents?"

  "My father was very old when I went to the school," Maati said. "He died

  before I completed my training. We did not know each other."

  "So you have never had a family."

  "I have, most high," Maati said, fighting to keep the tightness in his

  chest from changing the tone of his voice. "A lover and a son. I had a

  family once."

  "But no longer. They died?"

  "They live. Only not with me."

  The Khai considered him, bloodshot eyes blinking slowly. With his thin,

  wrinkled skin, he reminded Maati of a very old turtle or else a very

  young bird. The Khai's gaze softened, his brows tilting in understanding

  and sorrow.

  "It is never easy for fathers," the Khai said. "Perhaps if the world had

  needed less from us."

  Maati waited a long moment until he trusted his voice.

  "Perhaps, most high."

  The Khai exhaled a breath of gray, his gaze trapped by the smoke.

  "It isn't the world I knew when I was young," the old man said.

  "Everything changed when Saraykeht fell."

  "The Khai Saraykeht has a poet," Maati said. "He has the power of the

  andat."

  "It took the Dai-kvo eight years and six failed bindings," the Khai

  said. "And every time word came of another failure, I could see it in

  the faces of the court. The utkhaiem may put on proud faces, but I've

  seen the fear that swims under that ice. And you were there. You said so

  in the audience when I greeted you."

  "Yes, most high."

  "But you didn't say everything you knew," the Khai said. "Did you?"

  The yellowed eyes fixed on Maati. The intelligence in them was

  unnerving. Maati felt himsel
f squirming, and wondering what had happened

  to the melancholy dying man he'd been speaking with only moments before.

  "I ... that is ..."

  "There were rumors that the poet's death was more than an angry east

  island girl's revenge. The Galts were mentioned."

  "And Eddensea," Maati said. "And Eymond. There was no end of accusation,

  most high. Some even believed what they charged. When the cotton trade

  collapsed, a great number of people lost a great amount of money. And

  prestige."

  "They lost more than that," the Khai said, leaning forward and stabbing

  at the air with the stem of his pipe. "The money, the trade. The

  standing among the cities. They don't signify. Saraykeht was the death

  of certainty. They lost the conviction that the Khaiem would hold the

  world at bay, that war would never come to Saraykeht. And we lost it

  here too."

  "If you say so, most high."

  "The priests say that something touched by chaos is never made whole,"

  the Khai said, sinking back into his cushions. "Do you know what they

  mean by that, Maati-cha?"

  "I have some idea," Maati said, but the Khai went on.

  "It means that something unthinkable can only happen once. Because after

  that, it's not unthinkable any longer. We've seen what happens when a

  city is touched by chaos. And now it's in the back of every head in