matter-of-fact. "But I can't think why I would."
"There's no reason for the council to be called."
"No reason? We're short a Khai, MIaati-cha."
"The last one left a son to take his place," Maati said. "No one in that
hall has a legitimate claim to the name Khai Machi."
Radaani laced his thick fingers over his belly and narrowed his eyes. A
smile touched his lips that might have meant anything.
"I think you have some things to tell me," he said.
Nlaati began not with his own investigation, but with the story as it
had unfolded. Idaan Machi and Adrah Vaunvogi, the backing of the Gaits,
the murder of Biitrah Machi. He told it like a tale, and found it was
easier than he'd expected. Radaani chuckled when he reached the night of
Otah's escape and grew somber when he drew the connection between the
murder of Danat Machi and the hunting party that had gone with him. It
was all true, but it was not all of the truth. In the long conversations
that had followed Baarath's delivery of Cehmai's letter, Otah and Maati,
Kiyan and Amiit had all agreed that the Gaits' interest in the library
was something that could be safely neglected. It added nothing to their
story, and knowing more than they seemed to might yet prove an
advantage. Watching Porsha Radaani's eyes, Maati thought it had been the
right decision.
He outlined what he wanted of the Radaani-the timing of the proposal to
disband, the manner in which it would he best approached, the support
they would need on the council. Radaani listened like a cat watching a
pigeon until the whole proposal was laid out before him. He coughed and
loosened the belt of his robe.
"It's a pretty story," Radaani said. "It'll play well to a crowd. But
you'll need more than this to convince the utkhaiem that your friend's
hem isn't red. We're all quite pleased to have a Khai who's walked
through his brothers' blood, but fathers are a different thing."
"I'm not the only one to tell it," Maati said. "I have one of the
hunting party who watched I)anat die to swear there was no sign of an
ambush. I have the commander who collected Otah from the tower to say
what he was bought to do and by whom. I have Cehmai Tyan and
Stone-Made-Soft. And I have them in the next room if you'd like to speak
with them."
"Really?" Radaani leaned forward. The chair groaned under his weight.
"And if it's needed, I have a list of all the houses and families who've
supported Vaunyogi. If it's a question what their relationships are with
Galt, all we have to do is open those contracts and judge the terms.
'T'hough there may be some of them who would rather that didn't happen.
So perhaps it won't be necessary."
Radaani chuckled again, a deep, wet sound. He rubbed his fingers against
his thumbs, pinching the air.
"You've been busy since last we spoke," he said.
"It isn't hard finding confirmation once you know what the truth is.
Would you like to speak to the men? You can ask them whatever you like.
"They'll back what I've said."
"Is he here himself?"
"Otah thought it might be better not to attend. Until he knew whether
you intended to help him or have him killed."
"He's wise. Just the poet, then," Radaani said. "The others don't matter."
Maati nodded and left the room. The teahouse proper was a wide, low room
with fires burning low in two corners. Radaani's servants were drinking
something that Maati doubted was only tea and talking with one of the
couriers of House Sivanti. There would be more information from that, he
guessed, than from the more formal meeting. At the door to the back
room, Sinja leaned back in a chair looking bored but corn- manding a
view of every approach.
"Well?" Sinja asked.
"He'd like to speak with Cehmai-cha."
"But not the others?"
"Apparently not."
"He doesn't care if it's true, then. Just whether the poets are hacking
our man," Sinja let his chair down and stood, stretching. "The forms of
power arc fascinating stuff. Reminds me why I started fighting for a
living."
Maati opened the door. The back room was quieter, though the rush of
rain was everywhere. Cehmai and the andat were sitting by the fire. The
huntsman Sinja-cha had tracked down was at a small table, half drunk. It
was best, perhaps, that Radaani hadn't wanted him. And three armsmcn in
the colors of House Siyanti also lounged about. Cehmai looked up,
meeting Maati's gaze. Maati nodded.
Radaadni's expression when Cehmai and Stone-Made-Soft entered the room
was profoundly satisfied. It was as if the young poet's presence
answered all the questions that were important to ask. Still, Maati
watched Cehmai take a pose of greeting and Radaani return it.
"You wished to speak with me," Cehmai asked. His voice was low and
tired. Maati could see how much this moment was costing him.
"Your fellow poet here's told me quite a tale," Radaani said. "He says
that Otah Machi's not dead, and that Idaan Machi's the one who arranged
her family's death."
"That's so," Cehmai agreed.
"I see. And you were the one who brought that to light?"
"That's so."
Radaani paused, his lips pursed, his fingers knotted around each other.
"Does the Dai-kvo back the upstart, then?"
"No," Maati said before Cehmai could speak. "We take no side in this. We
support the council's decision, but that doesn't mean we withhold the
truth from the utkhaiem."
"As Maati-kvo says," Cehmai agreed. "We are servants here."
"Servants with the world by its balls," Radaani said. "It's easy,
Cehmai-cha, to support a position in a side room with no one much around
to hear you. It's a harder thing to say the same words in front of the
gods and the court and the world in general. If I take this to the
council and you decide that perhaps it wasn't all quite what you've said
it was, it will go badly for me."
"I'll tell what I know," Cehmai said. "Whoever asks."
"Well," Radaani said, then more than half to himself, "Well well well."
In the pause that followed, another roll of thunder rattled the
shutters. But Porsha Radaani's smile had faded into something less
amused, more serious. We have him, Maati thought. Radaani clapped his
hands on his thighs and stood.
"I have some conversations I'll have to conduct, Maati-cha," he said.
"You understand that I'm taking a great personal risk doing this? Me and
my family both."
"And I know that Otah-kvo will appreciate that," Maati said. "In my
experience, he has always been good to his friends."
"TThat's best," Radaani said. "After this, I expect he'll have about two
of them. Just so long as he remembers what he owes me."
"He will. And so will the Kamau and the Vaunani. And I imagine a fair
number of your rival families will be getting less favorable terms from
the Galts in the future."
"Yes. That had occurred to me too."
Radaani smiled broadly and took a formal pose of leavetaking that
ineluded the room and all thr
ee of them in it-the two poets, the one
spirit. When he was gone, Maati went to the window again. Radaani was
walking fast down the street, his servants half-skipping to keep the
canopy over him. His limp was almost gone.
Maati closed the shutters.
"He's agreed?" Cehmai asked.
"As near as we can expect. He smells profit in it for himself and
disappointment for his rivals. That's the best we can offer, but I think
he's pleased enough to do the thing."
"That's good."
Maati sat in the chair Radaani had used, sighing. Cehmai leaned against
the table, his arms folded. His mouth was thin, his eyes dark. He looked
more than half ill. The andat pulled out the chair beside him and sat
with a mild, companionable expression.
"What did the Dai-kvo say?" Cehmai asked. "In the letter?"
"He said I was under no circumstances to take sides in the succession.
He repeated that I was to return to his village as soon as possible. He
seems to think that by involving myself in all this court intrigue, I
may he upsetting the utkhaiem. And then he went into a long commentary
about the andat being used in political struggle as the reason that the
Empire ate itself."
"He's not wrong," Cchmai said.
"Well, perhaps not. But it's late to undo it."
"You can blame me if you'd like," Cehmai said.
"I think not. I chose what I'd do, and I don't think I chose poorly. If
the Dai-kvo disagrees, we can have a conversation about it."
"He'll throw you out," Cchmai said.
Maati thought for a moment of his little cell at the village, of the
years spent in minor tasks at the will of the Dal-kvo and the poets se
nior to himself. Liat had asked him to leave it all a hundred times, and
he'd refused. The prospect of failure and disgrace faced him now, and he
heard her words, saw her face, and wondered why it had all seemed so
wrong when she'd said it and so clear now. Age perhaps. Experience. Some
tiny sliver of wisdom that told him that in the balance between the
world and a woman, either answer could be right.
"I'm sorry for all this, Cehmai. About Idaan. I know how hard this is
for you."
"She picked it. No one made her plot against her family."
"But you love her."
The young poet frowned now, then shrugged.
"Less now than I did two days ago," he said. "Ask again in a month. I'm
a poet, after all. There's only so much room in my life. Yes, I loved
her. I'll love someone else later. Likely someone that hasn't set
herself to kill off her relations."
"It's always like this," Stone-Made-Soft said. "Every one of them. The
first love always comes closest. I had hopes for this one. I really did."
"You'll live with the disappointment," Cehmai said.
"Yes," the andat said amiably. "There's always another first girl."
Maati laughed once, amused though it was also unbearably sad. The andat
shifted to look at him quizzically. Cehmai's hands took a pose of query.
Maati tried to find words to fit his thoughts, surprised by the sense of
peace that the prospect of his own failure brought him.
"You're who I was supposed to be, Cehmai-kvo, and you're much better at
it. I never did very well."
IDAAN LEANED FORWARD, HER HANDS ON THE RAIL. THE GALLERY BEHIND her was
full but restless, the air thick with the scent of their bodies and
perfumes. People shifted in their seats and spoke in low tones, prepared
for some new attack, and Idaan had noticed a great fashion for veils
that covered the heads and necks of men and women alike that tucked into
their robes like netting on a bed. The wasps had done their work, and
even if they were gone now, the feeling of uncertainty remained. She
took another deep breath and tried to play her role. She was the last
blood of her murdered father. She was the bride of Adrah Vaunyogi.
Looking down over the council, her part was to remind them of how
Adrah's marriage connected him to the old line of the Khaiem.
And yet she felt like nothing so much as an actor, put out to sing a
part on stage that she didn't have the range to voice. It had been so
recently that she'd stood here, inhabiting this space, owning the air
and the hall around her. Today, everything was the same-the families of
the utkhaiem arrayed at their tables, the leaves-in-wind whispering from
the galleries, the feeling of eyes turned toward her. But it wasn't
working. The air itself seemed different, and she couldn't begin to say why.
"The attack leveled against this council must not weaken us," Daaya, her
father now, half-shouted. His voice was hoarse and scratched. "We will
not be bullied! We will not be turned aside! When these vandals tried to
make mockery of the powers of the utkhaiem, we were preparing to
consider my son, the honorable Adrah Vaunyogi, as the proper man to take
the place of our lamented Khai. And to that matter we must return."
Applause filled the air, and Idaan smiled sweetly. She wondered how many
of the people now present had heard her cry out Cehmai's name in her
panic. Those that hadn't had no doubt heard it from other lips. She had
kept clear of the poet's house since then, but there hadn't been a
moment her heart hadn't longed toward it. He would understand, she told
herself. He would forgive her absence once this was all finished. All
would be well.
And yet, when Adrah looked up to her, when their gaze met, it was like
looking at a stranger. He was beautiful: his hair fresh cut, his robes
of jeweled silk. He was her husband, and she no longer knew him.
Daaya stepped down, glittering, and Adaut Kamau rose. If, as the
gossipmongers had told, the wasps had been meant to keep old Kamau
silent that day, this would be the moment when something more should
follow. The galleries became suddenly quiet as the old man stepped to
the stage. Even from across the hall, Idaan could see the red weal on
his face where the sting had marked him.
"I had intended," he said, "to speak in support of Ghiah Vaunani in his
urging of caution and against hasty decision. Since that time, however,
my position has changed, and I would like to invite my old, dear friend
Porsha Radaani to address the council."
With nothing more than that, old Kamau stepped down. Idaan leaned
forward, looking for the green and gray robes of the Radaani. And there,
moving between the tables, was the man striding toward the speaker's
dais. Adrah and his father were bent together, speaking swiftly and
softly. Idaan strained to hear something of what they said. She didn't
notice how tight she was holding the rail until her fingers started to
ache with it.
Radaani rose up in the speaker's pulpit, looking over the council and
the galleries for the space of a half-dozen breaths. His expression was
considering, like a man at a fish market judging the freshest catch.
Idaan felt her belly tighten. Below her and across the hall, Radaani
lifted his arms to the crowd.
"Brothers, we have come here in these solemn times to take the fate of
our city into our hands," he int
oned, and his voice was rich as cream.
"We have suffered tragedy and in the spirit of our ancestors, we rise to
overcome it. No one can doubt the nobility of our intentions. And yet
the time has come to dissolve this council. There is no call to choose a
new Khai Machi when a man with legitimate claim to the chair still lives."
The noise was like a storm. Voices rose and feet stamped. On the council
floor, half the families were on their feet, the others sitting with
stunned expressions. And yet it was as if it were happening in some
other place. Idaan felt the unreality of the moment wash over her. It
was a dream. A nightmare.
"I have not stood down!" Radaani shouted. "I have not finished! Yes, an
heir lives! And he has the support of my family and my house! Who among
you will refuse the son of the Khai Machi his place? Who will side with
the traitors and killers that slaughtered his father?"
"Porsha-cha!" one of the men of the council said, loud enough to carry
over the clamor. "Explain yourself or step down! You've lost your mind!"
"I'll better that! Brothers, I give my place before you to the son of
the Khai and his one surviving heir!"
Had she thought the hall loud before? It was deafening. No one was left
seated. Bodies pressed at her hack, jostling her against the railing as
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