A Betrayal in Winter lpq-2

by Abraham Daniel

  he the new Khai Machi. And Idaan-cha, he'll be back in the city in time

  for your wedding!"

  On one end, the chain ended at a cube of polished granite the color of

  soot that stood as high as a man's waist. On the other, it linked to a

  rough iron collar around Otah's neck. Sitting with his back to the

  stone-the chain was not so long that he could stand-Otah remembered

  seeing a brown bear tied to a pole in the main square of a low town

  outside'lan-Sadar. Dogs had been set upon it three at a time, and with

  each new wave, the men had wagered on which animal would survive.

  Armsmen stood around him with blades drawn and leather armor, stationed

  widely enough apart to allow anyone who wished it a good view of the

  captive. Beyond them, the representatives of the utkhaiem in fine robes

  and ornate jewelry crowded the floor and two tiers of the balconies that

  rose up to the base of the domed ceiling far above him. The dais before

  him was empty. Otah wondered what would happen if he should need to

  empty his bladder. It seemed unlikely that they would let him piss on

  the fine parquet floor, but neither could he imagine being led away

  decorously. He tried to picture what they saw, this mob of nobility,

  when they looked at him. He didn't try to charm them or play on their

  sympathies. He was the upstart, and there wasn't a man or woman in the

  hall who wasn't delighted to see him debased and humiliated.

  The first of the servants appeared, filing out from a hidden door and

  spacing themselves around the chair. Otah picked out the brown poet's

  robe, but it was Cchmai with the bulk of his andat moving behind him.

  Maati wasn't with him; Cehmai was speaking with a woman in the robes of

  the Khaiem-Otah's sister, she would be. He wondered what her name was.

  The last of the servants and counselors took their places, and the crowd

  fell silent. The Khai Machi walked out, as graceful as a dying man could

  be. His robes were lush and full, and served to do little more than show

  how wasted his frame had become. Otah could see the rouge on his sunken

  cheeks, trying to give the appearance of vigor long since gone.

  Whisperers fanned out from the dais and into the crowd. The Khai took a

  pose of welcome appropriate to the opening of a ritual judgment. Utah

  rose to his knees.

  "I am told that you are my son, Utah Machi, whom I gave over to the

  poets' school."

  The whisperers echoed it through the hall. It was his moment to speak

  now, and he found his heart was so full of humiliation and fear and

  anger that he had nothing to say. He raised his hands and took a pose of

  greeting-a casual one that would have been appropriate for a peasant son

  to his father. "There was a murmur among the utkhaiem.

  "I am further told that you were once offered the poet's robes, and you

  refused that honor."

  Otah tried to rise, but the most the chain allowed was a low stoop. He

  cleared his throat and spoke, pushing the words out clear enough to be

  heard in the farthest gallery.

  "That is true. I was a child, most high. And I was angry."

  "And I hear that you have come to my city and killed my eldest child.

  Biitrah Machi is dead by your hand."

  "That is not true, father," Utah said. "I won't say that no man has ever

  died by my hand, but I didn't kill I3iitrah. I have no wish or intention

  to become the Khai Machi."

  "Then why have you come here?" the Khai shouted, rising to his feet. His

  face was twisted in rage, his fists trembled. In all his travels, Otah

  had never seen the Khai of any city look more like a man. Otah felt

  something like pity through his humiliation and rage, and it let him

  speak more softly when he spoke again.

  "I heard that my father was dying."

  It seemed that the murmur of the crowds would never end. It rolled like

  waves against the seashore. Otah knelt again; the awkward stooping hurt

  his neck and hack, and there was no point trying to maintain dignity

  here. They waited, he and his father, staring at each other across the

  space. Otah tried to feel some bond, some kinship that would bridge this

  gap, but there was nothing. The Khai Machi was his father by an accident

  of birth, and nothing more.

  He saw the old man's eyes flicker, as if unsure of himself. He couldn't

  have always been this way-the Khaiem were inhumanly studied in ritual

  and grace. It was the mark of their calling. Otah wondered what his

  father had been when he was young and strong. He wondered what he would

  have been like as a man among his children.

  The Khai raised a hand, and the crowd's susurrus tapered down to

  silence. Otah did not move.

  "You have stepped outside tradition," he said. "Whether you took a hand

  against my son is a question that has already gathered an array of

  opinion. It is something I must think on.

  "I have had other news this day. Danat Machi has won the right of

  succession. He is returning to the city even now. I will consult with

  him on your fate. Until then, you shall be confined in the highest room

  in the great tower. I do not care to have your accomplices taking your

  death in their own hands this time. Danat and I-the Khai Machi and the

  Khai yet to come-shall decide together what kind of beast you are.

  Otah took a pose of supplication. That he was on his knees only made the

  gesture clearer. He was dead, whatever happened. He could see that now.

  If there had been a chance of mercy-and likely there hadn't-having

  father and son converse would remove it. But in the black dread, there

  was this one chance to speak as himself-not as Itani Noygu or some other

  mask. And if it offended the court, there was little worse they could do

  to him than he faced now. His father hesitated, and Otah spoke.

  "I have seen many of the cities of the Khaiem, most high. I have been

  horn into the highest of families, and I have been offered the greatest

  of honors. And if I am here to meet my death at the hands of those who

  should by all rights love me, at least hear me out. Our cities are not

  well, father. Our traditions are not well. You stand there on that dais

  now because you killed your own. You are celebrating the return of

  Danat, who killed his brother, and at the same time preparing to condemn

  me on the suspicion that I did the same. A tradition that calls men to

  kill their brothers and discard their sons cannot be-"

  "Enough!" the Khai roared, and his voice carried. The whisperers were

  silent and unneeded. "I have not carried this city on my back for all

  these years to be lectured now by a rebel and a traitor and a poisoner.

  You are not my son! You lost that right! You squandered it! Tell me that

  this ..." The Khai raised his hands in a gesture that seemed to encom

  pass every man and woman of the court, the palaces, the city, the

  valley, the mountains, the world. ". . . this is evil? Because our

  traditions are what hold all this from chaos. We are the Khaiem! We rule

  with the power of the andat, and we do not accept instruction from

  couriers and laborers who ... who killed ..."

  The Khai closed his ey
es and seemed to sway for a moment. The woman to

  whom C'chmai had been speaking leapt up, her hand on the old man's

  elbow. Otah could see them murmuring to each other, but he had no idea

  what they were saying. The woman walked with him back to the chair and

  helped him to sit. His face seemed sunken in pain. The woman was

  crying-streaks of kohl black on her cheeks-but her bearing was more

  regal and sure than their father's had been. She stepped forward and spoke.

  "The Khai is weary," she said, as if daring anyone present to say

  anything else. "He has given his command. The audience is finished!"

  The voices rose almost as high and ran almost as loud as they had at

  anything that had gone before. A woman-even if she was his

  daughter-taking the initiative to speak for the Khai? The court would be

  scandalized. Otah already imagined them placing bets as to whether the

  man would live the night, and if he died now, whether it would he this

  woman's fault for shaming him so deeply when he was already weak. And

  Otah could see that she knew this. The contempt in her expression was

  eloquent as any oratory. He caught her eye and took a pose of approval.

  She looked at him as if he were a stranger who had spoken her name, then

  turned away to help their father walk back to his rooms.

  The march up to his cage led through a spiral stone stair so small that

  his shoulders touched each wall, and his head stayed bent. The chain

  stayed on his neck, his hands now bound behind him. He watched the

  armsman before him half walking, half climbing the steep blocks of

  stone. When Otah slowed, the man behind him struck with the butt of a

  spear and laughed. Otah, his hands bound, sprawled against the steps,

  ripping the flesh of his knees and chin. After that, he made a point to

  slow as little as possible.

  His thighs burned with each step and the constant turning to the right

  left him nauseated. He thought of stopping, of refusing to move. They

  were taking him up to wait for death anyway. There was nothing to he

  gained by collaborating with them. But he went on, cursing tinder his

  breath.

  When the stairs ended, he found himself in a wide hall. The sky doors in

  the north wall were open, and a platform hung level with them and

  shifting slightly in the breeze, the great chains taut. Another four

  armsmen stood waiting.

  "Relief?" the man who had pushed him asked.

  The tallest of the new armsmen took a pose of affirmation and spoke.

  "We'll take the second half. You four head up and we'll all go down

  together." The new armsmen led Otah to a fresh stairway, and the ordeal

  began again. He had begun almost to dream in his pain by the time they

  stopped. Thick, powerful hands pushed him into a room, and the door

  closed behind him with a sound like a capstone being shoved over an open

  tomb. The armsman said something through a slit in the door, but Otah

  couldn't make sense of it and didn't have the will to try. He lay on the

  floor until he realized that his arms had been freed and the iron collar

  taken from around his neck. The skin where it had rested was chafed raw.

  The voices of men seeped through the door, and then the sound of a winch

  creaking as it lowered the platform and its cargo of men. Then there

  were only two voices speaking in light, conversational tones. He

  couldn't make out a word they said.

  He forced himself to sit up and take stock. The room was larger than

  he'd expected, and bare. It could have been used as a storage room or

  set with table and chairs for a small meeting. There was a bowl of water

  in one corner, but no food, no candles, nothing but the stone to sleep

  on. The light came from a barred window. His hip and knees ached as Otah

  pulled himself up and stumbled over to it. He was facing south, and the

  view was like he'd become a bird. He leaned out-the bars were not so

  narrowly spaced that he couldn't climb out and fall to his death if he

  chose. Below him, the carts in the streets were like ants shuffling

  along in their lines. A crow launched itself from a crack or beam and

  circled below him, the sun shining on its black back. Trembling, he

  pulled himself back in. There were no shutters to close off the sky.

  He tried the door's latch, but it had been barred from without, and the

  hinges were leather and worked iron. Not the sort of thing a man could

  take apart with teeth. Otah knelt by the bowl of water and drank from

  his cupped hand. He washed out the worst of his wounds, and left a third

  in the bowl. There was no knowing how long it might be before they saw

  fit to give him more. He wondered if there were birds that came up this

  high to rest, and whether he would be able to trap one. Not that he

  would have the chance to cook it-there was nothing to burn here, and no

  grate to burn it in. Otah ran his hands over his face, and despite

  himself, laughed. It seemed unlikely they would allow him anything sharp

  enough to shave with. He would die with this sad little beard.

  Otah stretched out in a corner, his arm thrown over his eyes, and tried

  to sleep, wondering as he did whether the sense of movement came from

  his own abused and exhausted body, or if it were true that so far up

  even stone swayed.

  MAATI LOOKED AT THE FLOOR. HIS FACE WAS HARD WITH FRUSTRATION AND anger.

  "If you want him dead, most high," he said, his voice measured and

  careful, "you might at least have the courtesy to kill him."

  The Khai Machi raised the clay pipe to his lips. He seemed less to

  breathe the smoke in than to drink it. The sweet resin from it had

  turned every surface in the room slightly tacky to the touch. The

  servant in the blue and gold robes of a physician sat discreetly in a

  dim corner, pretending not to hear the business of the city. The

  rosewood door was closed behind them. Lanterns of sanded glass filled

  the room with soft light, rendering them all shadowless.

  "I've listened to you, Maati-cha. I didn't end him there in the audience

  chamber. I am giving you the time you asked," the old man said. "Why do

  you keep pressing me?"

  "He has no blankets or fire. The guards have given him three meals in

  the last four days. And l)anat will return before I've had word hack

  from the I)ai-kvo. If this is all you can offer, most high-"

  "You can state your case to l)anat-cha as eloquently as you could to

  me," the Khai said.

  "There'll be no point if Otah dies of cold or throws himself out the

  tower window before then," Maati said. "Let me take him food and a thick

  robe. Let me talk with him."

  "It's hopeless," the Khai said.

  "Then there's nothing lost but my effort, and it will keep me from

  troubling you further."

  "Your work here is complete, isn't it? Why are you bothering me,

  Maati-cha? You were sent to find Otah. He's found."

  "I was sent to find if he was behind the death of Biitrah, and if he was

  not, to discover who was. I have not carried out that task. I won't

  leave until I have."

  The Khai's expression soured, and he shook his head. His skin had grown

  thinner, the veins a
t his temples showing dark. When he leaned forward,

  tapping the howl of his pipe against the side of the iron brazier with a

  sound like pebbles falling on stone, his grace could not hide his

  discomfort.

  "I begin to wonder, Maati-cha, whether you have been entirely honest

  with me. You say that there is no great love between you and my upstart

  son. You bring him to me, and for that reason alone, I believe you.

  Everything else you have done suggests the other. You argue that it was

  not he who arranged Biitrah's death, though you have no suggestion who

  else might have. You ask for indulgences for the prisoner, you appeal to

  the Dai-kvo in hopes ..

  A sudden pain seemed to touch the old man's features and one

  nearskeletal hand moved toward his belly.

  "There is a shadow in your city," Maati said. "You've called it by

  Utah's name, but none of it shows any connection with Otah: not Biitrah,

  not the attack on me, not the murder of the assassin. None of the other

  couriers of any house report anything that would suggest he was more

  than he appeared. By his own word, he'd fled the city before the attack

  on me, and didn't return before the assassin was killed. How is it that

  he arranged all these things with no one seeing him? No one knowing his

  name? How is it that, now he's trapped, no one has offered to sell him

  in trade for their own lives?"

  "Who then?"

  "I don't ..."

  "Who else gained from these things?"

  "Your son, Danat," Maati said. "He broke the pact. If all this talk of

  Otah was a ploy to distract Kaiin from the real danger, then it worked,

  most high. Danat will be the new Khai Machi."