A Betrayal in Winter

Chapter Fifteen

Maati rubbed the point between his eyes with his thumb, pressing hard to keep his annoyance at bay. He shouldn't have spoken to the boy, but now that he had, there was nothing for it.
"Your anger-" he began, but Cehmai cut him off.
"You're risking people's lives, Maati-kvo. You're hanging them on the thought that you can't be wrong about the upstart."
"Whose lives?"
"The lives of people he would kill."
"'There is no risk from Otah-kvo. You don't understand."
"'T'hen teach me." It was as much an insult as a challenge. Maati felt the blood rising to his cheeks even as his mind dissected Cehmai's reaction. There was something to it, some reason for the violence and frustration of it, that didn't make sense. The boy was reacting to something more than Nlaati knew. Maati swallowed his rage.
"I'll ask five days. Trust me for five days, and I will show you proof. Will that do?"
He saw the struggle in Cehmai's face. The impulse to refuse, to fight, to spread the news across the city that Otah Machi lived. And then the respect for his elders that had been ground into him from his first day in the school and for all the years since he'd taken the brown robes they shared. Maati waited, forcing himself to patience. And in the end, Cehmai nodded once, turned, and stalked away.
Five days, Maati thought, shaking his head. I wonder what I thought to manage in that time. I should have asked for ten.
THE RAINS CAME IN THE EARLY EVENING: LIGHTNING AND THE BLUE-GRAY bellies of cloudbank. The first few drops sounded like stones, and then the clouds broke with a sudden pounding-thousands of small drums rolling. Otah sat in the window and looked out at the courtyard as puddles appeared and danced white and clear. The trees twisted and shifted under gusts of wind and the weight of water. The little storms rarely lasted more than a hand and a half, but in that time, they seemed like doomsday, and they reminded Otah of being young, when everything had been full and torrential and brief. He wished now that he had the skill to draw this brief landscape before the clouds passed and it was gone. There was something beautiful in it, something worth preserving.
"You're looking better."
Otah shifted, glancing back into the room. Sinja was there, his long hair slicked down by the rain, his robes sodden. Otah took a welcoming pose as the commander strode across the room toward him, dripping as he came.
"Brighter about the eyes, blood in your skin again. One would think you'd been eating, perhaps even walking around a bit."
"I feel better," Otah said. "That's truth."
"I didn't doubt you would. I've seen men far worse off than you pull through just fine. They've found your corpse, by the way. Identified it as you, just as we'd hoped. There are already half a hundred stories about how that came to be, and none of them near the truth. Amiit-cha is quite pleased, I think."
"I suppose it's worth being pleased over," Otah said.
"You don't seem overjoyed."
"Someone killed my father and my brothers and placed the blame on me. It just seems an odd time to celebrate."
Sinja didn't answer this, and for a moment, the two men sat in silence broken only by the rain. Then Otah spoke again. "Who was he? The man with my tattoo? Where did you find him?"
"He wasn't the sort of man the world will miss," Sinja said. "Amiit found him in a low town, and we arranged to purchase his indenture from the low magistrate before they hung him."
"What had he done?"
"I don't know. Killed someone. Raped a puppy. Whatever soothes your conscience, he did that."
"You really don't care."
"No," Sinja agreed. "And perhaps that makes me a bad person, but since I don't care about that, either ..."
He took a pose of completion, as if he had finished a demonstration. Otah nodded, then looked away.
"Too many people die over this," Otah said. "Too many lives wasted. It's an idiot system."
"This is nothing. You should see a real war. There is no bigger waste than that."
"You have? Seen war, I mean?"
"Yes. I fought in the Westlands. Sometimes when the Wardens took issue with each other. Sometimes against the nomad bands when they got big enough to pose a real threat. And then when the Galts decide to come take another bite out of them. There's more than enough opportunity there."
A distant Hash of lightning lit the trees, and then a breath later, a growl of thunder. Otah reached his hand out, letting the cool drops wet his palm.
"What's it like?" he asked.
"War? Violent. Brutish, stupid. Unnecessary, as often as not. But I like the part where we win."
Otah chuckled.
"You seem ... don't mind my prying at you, but for a man pulled from certain death, you don't seem to be as happy as I'd expected," Sinja said. "Something weighing on you?"
"Have you even been to Yalakeht?"
"No, too far east for me."
"They have tall gates on the mouths of their side streets that they close and lock every night. And there's a tower in the harbor with a permanent fire that guides ships in the darkness. In Chaburi-Tan, the street children play a game I've never seen anywhere else. They get just within shouting distance, strung out all through the streets, and then one will start singing, and the next will call the song on to the next after him, until it loops around to the first singer with all the mistakes and misunderstandings that make it something new. They can go on for hours. I stayed in a low town halfway between Lachi and Shosheyn-Tan where they served a stew of smoked sausage and pepper rice that was the best meal I've ever had. And the eastern islands.
"I was a fisherman out there for a few years. A very bad one, but ... but I spent my time out on the water, listening to the waves against my little boat. I saw the way the water changed color with the day and the weather. The salt cracked my palms, and the woman I was with made me sleep with greased cloth on my hands. I think I'll miss that the most."
"Cracked palms?"
"The sea. I think that will be the worst of it."
Sinja shifted. The rain intensified and then slackened as suddenly as it had come. The trees stood straighter. The pools of water danced less.
"The sea hasn't gone anywhere," Sinja said.
"No, but I have. I've gone to the mountains. And I don't expect I'll ever leave them again. I knew it was the danger when I became a courier. I was warned. But I hadn't understood it until now. It's the problem in seeing too much of the world. In loving too much of it. You can only live in one place at a time. And eventually, you pick your spot, and the memories of all the others just become ghosts."
Sinja nodded, taking a pose that expressed his understanding. Otah smiled, and wondered what memories the commander carried with him. From the distance in his eyes, it couldn't all have been blood and terror. Something of it must have been worth keeping.
"You've decided, then," Sinja said. "Amiit-cha was thinking he'd need to speak with you about the issue soon. Things will be moving in Mach] as soon as the mourning's done."
"I know. And yes, I've decided."
"Would you mind if I asked why you chose to stay?"
Otah turned and let himself down into the room. He took two howls from the cabinet and poured the deep red wine into both before he answered. Sinja took the one he was offered and drank half at a swig. Utah sat on the table, his feet on the scat of the bench and swirled the red of the wine against the bone white of the bowl.
"Someone killed my father and nay brothers."
"You didn't know them," Sinja said. "Don't tell me this is love."
"They killed my old family. I)o you think they'd hesitate to kill my new one?"
"Spoken like a man," Sinja said, raising his howl in salute. "The gods all know it won't be easy. As long as the utkhaicm think you've done everything you're accused of, they'll kill you first and crown you after. You'll have to find who did the thing and feed them to the crowds, and even then half of them will think you're guilty and clever. But if you don't do the thing ... No, I think you're right. The options are live in fear or take the world by the balls. You can be the Khai Nlachi, or you can be the Khai Machi's victim. I don't see a third way."
"I'll take the first. And I'll be glad about it. It's only . .
"You mourn that other life, I know. It comes with leaving your boyhood behind."
"I wouldn't have thought I was still just a boy."
"It doesn't matter what you've done or seen. Every man's a child until he's a father. It's the way the world's made."
Otah raised his brows and took a pose of (Iuery only slightly hampered by the bowl of wine.
"Oh yes, several," Sinja said. "So far the mothers haven't met one another, so that's all for the best. But your woman? Kiyan-cha?"
Otah nodded.
"I traveled with her for a time," Sinja said. "I've never met another like her, and I've known more than my share of women. You're lucky to have her, even if it means freezing your prick off for half the year up here in the north."
"Are you telling me you're in love with my lover?" Otah asked, half joking, half serious.
"I'm saying she's worth giving up the sea for," Sinja said. He finished the last of his wine, spun the bowl on the table, and then clapped Otah's shoulder. Otah met his gaze for a moment before Sinja turned and strode out. Otah looked into the wine bowl again, smelled the memory of grapes hot from the sun, and drank it down. Outside, the sun broke through, and the green of the trees and blue of the sky where it peeked past the gray and white and yellow clouds showed vibrant as something newly washed.
Their quarters were down a short corridor, and then through a thin wooden door on leather hinges halfway to wearing through. Kiyan lay on the cot, the netting pulled around her to keep the gnats and mosquitoes off. Otah slipped through and lay gently beside her, watching her eyes flutter and her lips take up a smile as she recognized him.
"I heard you talking," she said, sleep slurring the words.
"Sinja-cha came up."
"What was the matter?"
"Nothing," he said, and kissed her temple. "We were only talking about the sea."
CEHMAI CLOSED THE DOOR OF THE POET'S HOUSE AGAIN AND STARTED PACing the length of the room. The storm in the back of his mind was hardly a match for the one at the front. Stone-Made-Soft, sitting at the empty, cold brazier, looked up. Its face showed a mild interest.
"Trees still there?" the andat asked.
"Yes."
"And the sky?"
"And the sky."
"But still no girl."
Cehmai dropped onto the couch, his hands worrying each other, restless. The andat sighed and went back to its contemplation of the ashes and fire-black metal. Cehmai smelled smoke in the air. It was likely just the forges, but his mind made the scent into Idaan's father and brother burning. He stood tip again, walked to the door, turned back and sat down again.
"You could go out and look for her," the andat said.
"And why should I find her now? The mourning week's almost done. You think if she wanted me, there wouldn't have been word? I just ... I don't understand it."
"She's a woman. You're a man."
"Your point being?"
The andat didn't reply. It might as well have been a statue. Cehmai probed at the connection between them, at the part of him that was the binding of the andat, but Stone-Made-Soft was in retreat. It had never been so passive in all the years Cehmai had held it. The quiet was a blessing, though he didn't understand it. He had enough to work through, and he was glad not to have his burden made any heavier.
"I shouldn't have been angry with Nlaati-kvo," Cehmai said. "I shouldn't have confronted him like that."
"No?"
"No. I should have gone hack to the Master of 'f'ides and told him what Maati-kvo had said. Instead, I promised him five days, and now three of them have passed and I can't do anything but chew at the grass.
"You can break promises," the andat said. "It's the definition, really. A promise is something that can be broken. If it can't, it's something else."
"You're singularly unhelpful," Cehmai said. The andat nodded as if remembering something, and then was still again. Cehmai stood, went to the shutters, and opened them. The trees were still lush with summer-the green so deep and rich he could almost see the autumn starting to creep in at the edge. In winter, he could see the towers rising up to the sky through the bare branches. Now he only knew they were there. He turned to look at the path that led hack to the palaces, then went to the door, opened it, and looked down it, willing someone to be there. Willing Idaan's dark eyes to greet his own.
"I don't know what to do about Adrah Vaunyogi. I don't know if I should back him or not."
"For something you consider singularly unhelpful, I seem to receive more than my share of your troubles."
"You aren't real," Cehmai said. "You're like talking to myself."
The andat seemed to weigh that for a moment, then took a pose that conceded the point. Cehmai looked out again, then closed the door.
"I'm going to lose my mind if I stay here. I have to do something," he said. Stone-Made-Soft didn't respond, so Cehmai tightened the straps of his boots, stood, and pulled his robes into place. "Stay here."
"All right."
Cehmai paused at the door, one foot already outside, and turned hack.
"Does nothing bother you?" he asked the andat.
"Being," Stone-Made-Soft suggested.
The palaces were still draped with rags of mourning cloth, the dry, steady beat of the funeral drum and the low wailing dirges still the only music. Cehmai took poses of greeting to the utkhaiem whom he passed. At the burning, they had all worn pale mourning cloth. Now, as the week wore on, there were more colors in the robes-here a mix of pale cloth and yellow or blue, there a delicate red robe with a wide sash of mourning cloth. No one went without, but few followed the full custom. It reminded Cehmai of a snow lily, green tinder the white and budding, swelling, preparing to burst out into new life and growth, new conflict and struggle. The sense of sorrow was slipping from Machi, and the sense of opportunity was coming forth.
He found he could not say whether that reassured or disgusted him. Perhaps both.
Idaan was, of course, not at her chambers. The servants assured him that she had been by-she was in the city, she hadn't truly vanished. Cehmai thanked them and continued on his way to the palace of the Vaunyogi. He didn't allow himself to think too deeply about what he was going to do or say. It would happen soon enough anyway.
A servant brought him to one of the inner courtyards to wait. An apple tree stood open to the air, its fruits unpecked by birds. Still unripe. Cehmai sat on a low stone bench and watched the branches bob as sparrows landed and took wing. His mind was deeply unquiet. On the one hand, he had to see Idaan, had to speak with her at least if not hold her against him. On the other, he could not bring himself to love Adrah Vaunyogi only because she loved him. And the secret he held twisted in his breast. Otah Machi lived....
"Cehmai-cha."
Adrah was dressed in full mourning robes. His eyes were sunken and bloodshot, his movements sluggish. He looked like a man haunted. Cehmai wondered how much sleep Adrah had managed in these last days. He wondered how many of those late hours had been spent comforting Idaan. The image of Idaan, her body entwined with Adrah's, flashed in his mind and was pressed away. Cehmai took a pose of grect- i ng.
"I'm pleased you've come," Adrah said. "You've considered what I said?"
"Yes, Adrah-cha. I have. But I'm concerned for Idaan-cha. I'm told she's been by her apartments, but I haven't been able to find her. And now, with the mourning week almost gone ..
"You've been looking for her, then?"
"I wished to offer my condolences. And then, after our conversation, I thought it would he wise to consult her on the matter as well. If it were not her will to go on living in the palaces after all that's happened, I would feel uncomfortable lending my support to a cause that would require it."
Adrah's eyes narrowed, and Cchmai felt a touch of heat in his checks. He coughed, looked down, and then, composed once again, raised his eyes to Adrah. He half expected to see rage there, but Adrah seemed pleased. Perhaps he was not so obvious as he felt. Adrah sat on the bench beside him, leaning in toward him as if they were intimate friends.
"But if you could satisfy yourself that this is what she would wish, you're willing? You would back me for her sake?"
"It's what would be best for the city," Cehmai said, trying to make it sound more like agreement than denial. "The sooner the question is resolved, the better we all are. And Idaan-cha would provide a sense of continuity, don't you think?"
"Yes," Adrah said. "I think she would."
They sat silent for a moment. The sense that Adrah knew or suspected something crept into Cehmai's throat, drawing it tight. Ile tried to calm himself; there was ultimately nothing Adrah could do to him. He was the poet of Machi, and the city itself rode on his shoulders and on Stone-Made-Soft. But Adrah was about to marry ldaan, and she loved him. "There was quite a bit Adrah might yet do to hurt her.
"We're allies, then," Adrah said at last. "You and I. We've become allies."
"I suppose we have. Provided Idaan-cha ..
"She's here," Adrah said. "I'll take you to her. She's been here since her brother died. We thought it would be best if she were able to grieve in private. But if we need to break into her solitude now in order to assure her future for the rest of her life, I don't think there's any question what the right thing is to do."
"I don't ... I don't mean to intrude."
Adrah grinned and slapped him on the back. He rose as he spoke.
"Never concern yourself with that, Cehmai-kya. You've come to our aid on an uncertain day. Think of us as your family now."
"That's very kind," Cehmai said, but Adrah was already striding away, and he had to hurry to keep pace.
He had never been so far into the halls and chambers that belonged to the Vaunyogi before. The dark stone passageways down which Cehmai was led seemed simpler than he had expected. The halls, more sparely furnished. Only the statuary-bronze likenesses of emperors and of the heads of the Vaunyogi-spoke of the wealth of a high family of the utkhaiem, and these were displayed in the halls and courtyards with such pride that they seemed more to point out the relative spareness of their surroundings than to distract from it. Diamonds set in brass.
Adrah spoke little, but when he did, his voice and demeanor were pleasant enough. Cehmai felt himself watched, evaluated. There was some reason that Adrah was showing him these signs of a struggling family-the worn tapestry, the great ironwork candleholders filled with half a hundred candles of tallow instead of wax, the empty incense burners, the long stairway leading up to the higher floors that still showed the marks where cloth runners had once softened the stone corners and no longer did-but Cehmai couldn't quite fathom it. In another man, at another time, it would have been a humbling thing to show a poet through a compound like this, but Adrah seemed anything but humble. It might have been a challenge or a play for Cehmai's sympathy. Or it might have been a boast. My house has little, and still Idaan chose me.
They stopped at last at a wide door-dark wood inlaid with bone and black stone. Adrah knocked, and when a servant girl opened the door a fraction, he pressed his way in, gesturing Cehmai to follow. They were summer quarters with wide arched windows, the shutters open to the air. Silk banners with the yellow and gray of the Vaunyogi bellied and fluttered in the breeze, as graceful as dancers. A desk stood at one wall, a brick of ink and a metal pen sitting on it, ready should anyone wish to use them. This room smelled of cedar and sandalwood. And sitting in one of the sills, her feet out over the void, Idaan. Cehmai breathed in deep, and let the air slide out slowly, taking with it a tension he'd only half known he carried. She turned, looking at them over her shoulder. Her face was unpainted, but she was just as lovely as she had ever been. The bare, unadorned skin reminded Cehmai of the soft curve of her mouth when she slept and the slow, languorous way she stretched when she was on the verge of waking.
He took a pose of formal greeting. There was perhaps a moment's surprise, and then she pulled her legs back into the room. Her expression asked the question.
"Cehmai-kya wished to speak with you, love," Adrah said.
"I am always pleased to meet with the servant of the I)ai-kvo," Idaan said. Her smile was formal and calm, and gave away nothing. Cehmai hoped that he had not been wrong to come, but feared that her pleasant words might cover anger.
"Forgive me," he said. "I hadn't meant to intrude. Only I had hoped to find you at your own quarters, and these last few days ..."
Something in her demeanor softened slightly, as if she had heard the deeper layer of his apology-I hurl to see yore, and there was no other wayand accepted it. Idaan returned his formal greeting, then sauntered to the desk and sat, her hands folded on her knees, her gaze cast down in what would have been proper form for a girl of the utkhaiem before a poet. From her, it was a bitter joke. Adrah coughed. Cehmai glanced at him and realized the man thought she was being rude.
"I had hoped to offer my sympathies before this, Idaan-cha," Cehmai said.
"Your congratulations, too, I hope," Idaan said. "I am to be married once the mourning week has passed."
Cehmai felt his heart go tighter, but only smiled and nodded.
"Congratulations as well," he said.
"Cehmai-kya and I have been talking," Adrah said. "About the city and the succession."
Idaan seemed almost to wake at the words. Her body didn't move, but her attention sharpened. When she spoke, her voice had lost a slowness Cehmai had hardly known was there.
"Is that so? And what conclusions have you fine gentlemen reached?"
"Cehmai-kya agrees with me that the longer the struggle among the utkhaiem, the worse for the city. It would be better if it were done quickly. That's the most important thing."
"I see," Idaan said. I let gaze, dark as skies at midnight, shifted to Cehmai. She moved to brush her hair back from her brow, though Cehmai saw no stray lock there. "Then I suppose he would be wise to back whichever house has the strongest claim. If he has decided to back anyone. The I)ai-kvo has been scrupulous about removing himself from these things."
"A man may voice an opinion," Adrah said, an edge in his voice, "without shouting on street corners."
"And what opinion would you voice, Cehmai-cha?"
Cehmai stood silent, his breath deep and fast. With every impotent thread of his will, he wished Adrah away. His hands were drawn toward Idaan, and he felt himself lean toward her like a reed in the wind. And yet her lover's eyes were on him, holding him back as effectively as chains.
"Whatever opinion you should choose," he said.
Idaan smiled, but there was more in her face than pleasure. Her jaw shifted forward, her eyes brightened. There was rage beneath her calm, and Cehmai felt it in his belly like an illness. The silence stretched out for three long breaths, four, five....
"Love," Adrah said in a voice without affection. "I know our good fortune at this unexpected ally is overwhelming, but-"
"I didn't want to take any action until I spoke to you," Cehmai said. "That's why I had Adrah-cha bring me here. I hope I haven't given offense."
"Of course not, Cehmai-cha," she said. "But if you can't take my husband's word for my mind, whose could you trust? Who could know me better than he?"
"I would still prefer to discuss it with you," Cehmai said, packing as much meaning into the words as he could without sounding forced. "It will have some influence over the shape your life takes, and I wouldn't wish to guess wrong."
A spark of amusement flashed in her eyes, and she took a pose of gratitude before turning to Adrah.
"Leave us, then."
"Leave you ..."
"Certainly he can't expect a woman to speak her mind openly with her husband floating above her like a hunting hawk. If Cehmai-cha is to trust what I say, he must see that I'm free to do my own will, ne?"
"It might be best," Cchmai agreed, trying to make his voice conciliatory. "If it wouldn't disturb you, Adrah-kya?"