A Betrayal in Winter lpq-2

by Abraham Daniel

  thicker. It had been a mad hope, and even in its failure, at least Kiyan

  would be safe. It was past time, perhaps, that people stopped paying

  prices for knowing him.

  He could feel himself shaking. When he sat, his hands were perfectly

  still, though he could still feel the trembling in them.

  "So what are you going to do?" Otah asked.

  "In a moment, I'm going to call in the armsmen that are waiting outside

  that door," Maati said, his voice deceptively calm. He was trembling as

  well. "I am going to bring you before the Khai, who will at some point

  decide either that you are a murderer who has killed his son Biitrah and

  put you to the sword, or else a legitimate child of Machi who should be

  set loose for one of your older brothers to kill. I will speak on your

  behalf, and any evidence I can find that suggests Biitrah's murder

  wasn't your work, I will present."

  "Well, thank you for that, at least."

  "Don't," Maati said. "I'm doing it because it's true. If I thought you'd

  arranged it, I'd have said that."

  "Loyalty to the truth isn't something to throw out either."

  Maati took a pose that accepted the gratitude, and then dropped his

  hands to his sides.

  "There's something you should know," Otah said. "It might ... it seems

  to be your business. When I was in the islands, after Saraykeht, there

  was a woman. Not Maj. Another woman. I shared a bed with her for two,

  almost three years."

  "Otah-kvo, I admire your conquests, but . .

  "She wanted a child. From me. But it never took. Almost three years, and

  she bled with the moon the whole time. I heard that after I left, she

  took up with a fisherman from it tribe to the north and had a baby girl."

  "I see," Maati said, and there was something in his voice. A brightness.

  "Thank you, Otah-kvo."

  "I missed you as well. I wish we had had more time. Or other circumstances."

  "As do I. But it isn't ours to choose. Shall we do this thing?"

  "I don't suppose I could shave first?" Otah asked, touching his chin.

  "I don't see how," Maati said, rising. "But perhaps we can get you some

  better robes."

  Otah didn't mean to laugh; it simply came out of him. And then Maati was

  laughing as well, and the birds startled around them, lifting up into

  the sky. Otah rose and took a pose of respect appropriate to the closing

  of a meeting. Maati responded in kind, and they walked together to the

  door. Maati slid it open, and Otah looked to see whether there was a gap

  in the men, a chance to dodge them and sprint out to the streets. He

  might as well have looked for a stone cloud. The armsmen seemed to have

  doubled in number, and two already had hare blades at the ready. The

  young poet-the one Maati said wasn't his student-was there among them,

  his expression serious and concerned. Maati spoke as if the bulky men

  and their weapons weren't there.

  "Cehmai-cha," he said. "Good that you're here. I would like to introduce

  you to my old friend, Otah, the sixth son of the Khai Machi. Otahkvo,

  this is Cchmai Tyan and that small mountain in the back is the andat

  Stone-Made-Soft which he controls. Cehmai assumed you were an assassin

  come to finish me off."

  "I'm not," Otah said with a levity that seemed at odds with his

  situation, but which felt perfectly natural. "But I understand the

  misconception. It's the heard. I'm usually better shaved."

  Cehmai opened his mouth, closed it, and then took a formal pose of

  welcome. Maati turned to the armsmen.

  "Chain him," he said.

  EVEN AT THE HEIGHT OF MORNING, THE WIVES' QUARTERS OF THE HIGH palace

  were filled with the small somber activity of a street market starting

  to close at twilight. In the course of his life, the Khai Machi had

  taken eleven women as wives. Some had become friends, lovers,

  companions. Others had been little more than permanent guests in his

  house, sent as a means of assuring favor as one might send a good

  hunting dog or a talented slave. Idaan had heard that there were several

  of them with whom he had never shared a bed. It had been Biitrah's wife,

  Hiami, who'd told her that, trying to explain to a young girl that the

  Khaiem had a different relationship to their women than other men had,

  that it was traditional. It hadn't worked. Even the words the older

  woman had used-your father chooser not to-had proven her point that this

  was a comfort house with high ceilings, grand halls, and only a single

  client.

  But now that was changing, not in character, but in the particulars. The

  succession would have the same effect on the eight wives who remained,

  whoever took the seat. It would be time for them to leavemake the

  journey back to whatever city or family had sent them forth in the first

  place. The oldest of them, a sharp-tongued woman named Carai, would be

  returning to a high family in Yalakeht where the man who would choose

  her disposition had been a delighted toddler grinning and filling his

  pants the last time she'd seen him. Another woman-one of the recent ones

  hardly older than Idaan herself-had taken a lover in the court. She was

  being sent hack to Chaburi-"[an, likely to be turned around and shipped

  off to another of the Khaicm or traded between the houses of the

  utkhaiem as a token of political alliance. Many of the wives had known

  each other for decades and would now scatter and lose the friends and

  companions they had known best. And on and on, every one of them a life

  shaped by a man's will, constrained by tradition.

  Idaan walked through the wide, bright corridors, listened to these women

  preparing to depart when the inevitable news came, anticipating the

  grief in a way that was as hard as the grief itself. Perhaps harder. She

  accepted their congratulations on her marriage. She would be able to

  remain in the city, and should her man die before her, her family would

  be there to support her. She, at least, would never he uprooted. Hiami

  had never understood why Idaan had objected to this way of living. Idaan

  had never understood why these women hadn't set the palaces on fire.

  Her own rooms were set in the back; small apartments with rich

  tapestries of white and gold on the walls. They might almost have been

  mistaken for the home of some merchant leader-the overseer of a great

  trading house, or a trade master who spoke with the voice of a city's

  craftsmen. If only she had been born one of those. As she entered, one

  of her servants met her with an expression that suggested news. Idaan

  took a pose of query.

  "Adrah Vaunyogi is waiting to see you, Idaan-cha," the servant girl

  said. "It was approaching midday, so I've put him in the dining hall.

  There is food waiting. I hope I haven't ..."

  "No," Idaan said, "you did well. Please see that we're left alone."

  He sat at the long, wooden table, and he did not look up when she came

  in. Idaan was willing to ignore him as well as to be ignored, so she

  gathered a bowl of food from the platters-early grapes from the south,

  sticky with their own blood; hard, crumbling cheese with a ripe scent

  th
at was both appetizing and not; twice-baked flatbread that cracked

  sharply when she broke off a piece-and retired to a couch. She forced

  herself to forget that he was here, to look forward at the bare fire

  grate. Anger buoyed her up, and she clung to it.

  She heard it when he stood, heard his footsteps approaching. It was a

  little victory, but it pleased her. As he sat cross-legged on the floor

  before her, she raised an eyebrow and sketched a pose of welcome before

  choosing another grape.

  "I came last night," he said. "I was looking for you."

  "I wasn't here," she said.

  The pause was meant to injure her. Look how sad youu've made me, Idaan.

  It was a child's tactic, and that it partially worked infuriated her.

  "I've had trouble sleeping," she said. "I walk. Otherwise, I'd spend the

  whole night staring at netting and watching the candle burn down. No

  call for that."

  Adrah sighed and nodded his head.

  "I've been troubled too," he said. "My father can't reach the Galts.

  With Oshai ... with what happened to him, he's afraid they may withdraw

  their support."

  "Your father is an old woman frightened there's a snake in the night

  bucket," Idaan said, breaking a corner of her bread. "They may lie low

  now, but once it's clear that you're in position to become Khai, they'll

  do what they promised. They've nothing to gain by not."

  "Once I'm Khai, they'll still own me," Adrah said. "They'll know how I

  came there. They'll be able to hold it over me. If they tell what they

  know, the gods only know what would happen."

  Idaan took a bite of grape and cheese both-the sweet and the salt

  mingling pleasantly. When she spoke, she spoke around it.

  "They won't. They won't dare, Adrah. Give the worst: we're exposed by

  the Galts. We're deposed and killed horribly in the streets. Fine. Lift

  your gaze up from your own corpse for a moment and tell me what happens

  next?"

  "There's a struggle. Some other family takes the chair."

  "Yes. And what will the new Khai do?"

  "He'll slaughter my family," Adrah said, his voice hollow and ghostly.

  Idaan leaned forward and slapped him.

  "He'll have Stone-Made-Soft level a few Galtic mountain ranges and sink

  some islands. Do you think there's a Khai in any city that would sit

  still at the word of the Galtic Council arranging the death of one of

  their own? The Galts won't own you because your exposure would mean the

  destruction of their nation and the wholesale slaughter of their people.

  So worry a little less. You're supposed to he overwhelmed with the

  delight of marrying me."

  "Shouldn't you be delighted too, then?"

  "I'm busy mourning my father," she said dryly. "Do we have any wine?"

  "How is he? Your father?"

  "I don't know," Idaan said. "I try not to see him these days. He makes

  me ... feel weak. I can't afford that just now."

  "I heard he's failing."

  "Men can fail for a long time," she said, and stood. She left the bowl

  on the floor and walked back to her bedroom, holding her hands out

  before her, sticky with juice. Adrah followed along behind her and lay

  on her bed. She poured water into her stone basin and watched him as she

  washed her hands. He was a boy, lost in the world. Perhaps now was as

  good a time as any. She took a deep breath.

  "I've been thinking, Adrah-kya," she said. "About when you become Khai."

  He turned his head to look at her, but did not rise or speak.

  "It's going to he important, especially at the first, to gather allies.

  Founding a line is a delicate thing. I know we agreed that it would

  always be only the two of us, but perhaps we were wrong in that. If you

  take other wives, you'll have more the appearance of tradition and the

  support of the families who hind themselves to us."

  "My father said the same," he said.

  Oh did he? Idaan thought, but she held her face still and calm. She

  dried her hands on the basin cloth and came to sit on the bed beside

  him. To her surprise, he was weeping; small tears corning from the outer

  corners of his eyes, thin tracks shining on his skin. Without willing

  it, her hand went to his cheek, caressing him. He shifted to look at her.

  "I love you, Idaan. I love you more than anything in the world. You are

  the only person I've ever felt this way about."

  His lips trembled and she pressed a finger against them to quiet him.

  These weren't things she wanted to hear, but he would not be stopped.

  "Let's end this," he said. "Let's just be together, here. I'll find

  another way to move ahead in the court, and your brother ... you'll

  still be his blood, and we'll still be well kept. Can't we ... can't we,

  please?"

  "All this because you don't want to take another woman?" she said

  softly, teasing him. "I find that hard to believe."

  He took her hand in his. He had soft hands. She remembered thinking that

  the first time they'd fallen into her bed together. Strong, soft, wide

  hands. She felt tears forming in her own eyes.

  "My father said that I should take other wives," he said. "My mother

  said that, knowing you, you'd only agree to it if you could take lovers

  of your own too. And then you weren't here last night, and I waited

  until it was almost dawn. And you ... you want to ..."

  "You think I've taken another man?" she asked.

  His lips pressed thin and bloodless, and he nodded. His hand squeezed

  hers as if she might save his life, if only he held onto her. A hundred

  things came to her mind all at once. Yes, of course I have. How dare you

  accuse me? Cehmai is the only clean thing left in my world, and you

  cannot have him. She smiled as if Adrah were a boy being silly, as if he

  were wrong.

  "That would be the stupidest thing I could possibly do just now," she

  said, neither lying nor speaking the truth of it. She leaned forward to

  kiss him, but before their mouths touched, a voice wild with excitement

  called out from the atrium.

  "Idaan-cha! Idaan-cha! Come quickly!"

  Idaan leapt up as if she'd been caught doing something she ought not,

  then gathered herself, straightened her robes. The mirror showed that

  the paint on her mouth and eyes was smudged from eating and weeping, but

  there wasn't time to reapply it. She pushed hack a stray lock of hair

  and stormed out.

  The servant girl took a pose of apology as Idaan approached her. She

  wore the colors of her father's personal retinue, and Idaan's heart sank

  to her belly. He had died. It had happened. But the girl was smiling,

  her eyes bright.

  "What's happened?" Idaan demanded.

  "Everything," the girl said. "You're summoned to the court. The Khai is

  calling everyone."

  "Why? What's happened?"

  "I'm not to say, Idaan-cha," the girl said.

  Idaan felt the rage-blood in her face as if she were standing near a

  fire. She didn't think, didn't plan. Her body seemed to move of its own

  accord as she slid forward and clapped her hand on the servant girl's

  throat and pressed her to the wall. There was shock in the girl's

  expression, an
d Idaan sneered at it. Adrah fluttered like a bird in the

  corner of her vision.

  "Say," Idaan said. "Because I asked you twice, tell me what's happened.

  And do it now."

  "The upstart," the girl said. ""They've caught him."

  Idaan stepped back, dropping her hand. The girl's eyes were wide. The

  air of excitement and pleasure were gone. Adrah put a hand on Idaan's

  shoulder, and she pushed it away.

  "He was here," the girl said. "In the palaces. The visiting poet caught

  him, and they're bringing him before the Khai."

  Idaan licked her lips. Otah Machi was here. He had been here for the

  gods only knew how long. She looked at Adrah, but his expression spoke

  of an uncertainty and surprise as deep as her own. And a fear that

  wasn't entirely about their conspiracy.

  "What's your name?" she asked.

  "Choya," the girl said.

  Idaan took a pose of abject apology. It was more than a member of the

  utkhaiem would have normally presented to a servant, but Idaan felt her

  guilt welling up like blood from a cut.

  "I am very sorry, Choya-cha. I was wrong to-"

  "But that isn't all," the servant girl said. "A courier came this

  morning from 'Ian-Sadar. He'd been riding for three weeks. Kaiin Machi

  is dead. Your brother Danat killed him, and he's coming hack. The

  courier guessed he might be a week behind him. I)anat Machi's going to