Stone-Made-Soft at his side, peering through the funereal throng for the
one familiar face. ldaan had to be there, but he could not find her.
The lower priests also passed through the crowds, singing dirges and
beating the dry notes of drums. Slaves in ceremonially torn robes passed
out tin cups of bittcrcd water. (,'China] ignored them. The burning
would go on through the night until the ashes of the men and the ashes
of the coal were indistinguishable. And then a week's mourning. And then
these men weeping or staring, grim or secretly pleased, would meet and
decide which of their number would have the honor of sitting on the dead
family's chair and leading the hunt for the man who had murdered his own
father. Cehmai found himself unable to care particularly who won or
lost, whether the upstart was caught or escaped. Somewhere among all
these mourners was the woman he'd come to love, in more pain than she
had ever been in since he'd known her. And he-he who could topple towers
at a whim and make mountains flow like floodwater-couldn't find her.
Instead, he found Maati in brown poet's robes standing on a raised
walkway that overlooked the mourning throng. 'T'hough they were on the
edge of the ceremony, Cehmai saw the pyre light reflecting in Maati's
fixed eyes. Cehmai almost didn't approach him, almost didn't speak.
'T'here was a darkness wrapped around the poet. But it was possible he
had been there from the ceremony's beginning. He might know where Idaan
was. Cehmai took a pose of greeting which Maati did not return.
"Maati-kvo?"
Maati looked over first at Cehmai, then Stone-Made-Soft, and then back
again at the fire. After a moment's pause, his face twisted in disgust.
"Not kvo. Never kvo. I haven't taught you anything, so don't address me
as a teacher. I was wrong. From the beginning, I was wrong."
"Otah was very convincing," Cehmai said. "No one thought he would-"
"Not about that. He didn't do this. Baarath ... Gods, why did it have to
be Baarath that saw it? Prancing, self-important, smug ..."
Maati fumbled with a sewn-leather wineskin and took a long deep, joyless
drink from it. He wiped his mouth with the back of a hand, then held the
skin out in offering. Cehmai declined. Maati offered it to the andat,
but Stone-blade-Soft only smiled as if amused.
"I thought it was someone in the family. One of his brothers. It had to
be. Who else would benefit? I was stupid."
"Forgive me, N,laati-kvo. But no one did benefit."
"One of them did," he said, gesturing out at the mourners. "One of them
is going to he the new Khai. He'll tell you what to do, and you'll do
it. He'll live in the high palaces, and everyone else in the city will
lick his ass if he tells them to. That's what it's all about. Who has to
lick whose ass. And there's blood enough to fill a river answering
that." He took another long pull from the wineskin, then dropped it idly
to the ground at his feet. "I hate all of them."
"So do I," Stone-Made-Soft said, his tone light and conversational.
"You're drunk, Maati-kvo."
"Not half enough. Here, look at this. You know what this is?"
Cehmai glanced at the object Maati had pulled from his sleeve.
"A book."
"This is my teacher's masterwork. Heshai-kvo, poet of Saraykeht. The
Dai-kvo sent me to him when I was hardly younger than you are now. I was
going to study under him, take control of Seedless.
Removing-the-Part-ihat-Continues. We called him Seedless. This is
Heshai-kvo's examination of everything he'd done wrong. Every
improvement he could have made to his binding, if he'd had it to do over
again. It's brilliant."
"But it can't work, can it?" Cehmai said. "It would he too close...."
"Of course not, it's a refinement of his work, not how to bind Seedless
again. It's a record of his failure. I)o you understand what I'm saving?"
Cchmai grasped for a right answer to the question and ended with honesty.
"No," he said.
"Heshai-kvo was a drunkard. He was a failure. He was haunted his whole
life by the woman he loved and the child he lost, and every measure of
the hatred he had for himself was in his binding. I Ic imagined the
andat as the perfect man and implicit in that was the disdain he
imagined such a man would feel looking at him. But Heshai was strong
enough to look his mistake in the face. He was strong enough to sit with
it and catalog it and understand. And the I)ai-kvo sent me to him.
Because he thought we could he the same. tic thought I would understand
him well enough to stand in his place."
"Nlaati-kvo, I'm sorry. Have you seen Idaan?"
"Well," Maati said, ignoring the question as he swayed slightly and
frowned at the crowd. "I can face my stupidities just as well as he did.
The I)ai-kvo wants to know who killed Biitrah? I'll find out. He can
tell me it's too late and he can tell me to come home, but he can't make
me stop looking. Whoever gets that chair ... whoever gets it ..."
Maati frowned, confused for a moment, and a sudden racking sob shook
him. He leaned forward. Cehmai moved to him, certain for a moment that
Maati was about to pitch off the walkway and down to the distant ground,
but instead the older poet gathered himself and took a pose of apology.
"I'm ... making an ass of myself," he said. "You were saying something."
Cehmai was torn for a moment. He could see the red that lined Maati's
eyes, could smell the sick reek of distilled wine on his breath and
something deeper-some drug mixed with the wine. Someone needed to see
Maati back to his apartments, needed to see that he was cared for. On
another night, Cehmai would have done it.
"Idaan," he said. "She must have been here. They're burning her brother
and her father. She had to attend the ceremony."
"She did." Nlaati agreed. "I saw her."
"Where's she gone?"
"With her man, I think. He was there beside her," Maati said. "I don't
know where they went."
"Are you going to he all right, Maati-kvo?"
Nlaati seemed to think about this, then nodded once and turned hack to
watch the pyre burning. The brown leather hook had fallen to the ground
by the wineskin, and the andat retrieved it and put it back in Maati's
sleeve. As they walked away, Cehmai took a pose of query.
"I didn't think he'd want to lose it," the andat said.
"So that was a favor to him?" Cehmai said. Stone-Made-Soft didn't reply.
They walked toward the women's quarters and Idaan's apartments. If she
was not there, he would go to the Vaunyogi's palace. He would say he was
there to offer condolences to Idaan-cha. That it was his duty as poet
and representative of the Dai-kvo to offer condolences to Idaan Machi on
this most sorrowful of days. It was his duty. Gods. And the Vaunyogi
would be chewing their own livers out. They'd contracted to marry their
son to the Khai 1MIachi's sister. Now she was no one's family.
"Maybe they'll cancel the arrangement," Stone-Made-Soft said. "It isn't
as if anyone would blame them. She could come live with us."
"You can be quiet now," Cehmai said.
At Idaan's quarters, the servant boy reported that Idaan-cha had been
there, but had gone. Yes, Adrah-cha had been there as well, but he had
also gone. The unease in the boy's manner made Cehmai wonder. Part of
him hoped that they had been fighting, those two. It was despicable, but
it was there: the desire that he and not Adrah Vaunyogi be the one to
comfort her.
He stopped next at the palace of the Vaunyogi. A servant led him to a
waiting chamber that had been dressed in pale mourning cloth fragrant
from the cedar chests in which it had been stored. The chairs and
statuary, windows and floors were all swathed in white rags that
candlelight made gold. The andat stood at the window, peering out at the
courtyard while Cehmai sat on the front handspan of a seat. Every breath
he took here made him wonder if coming had been a mistake.
The door to the main hall swung open. Adrah Vaunyogi stepped in. His
shoulders rode high and tight, his lips thin as a line drawn on paper.
Cehmai stood and took a pose of greeting which Adrah mirrored before he
closed the door.
"I'm surprised to sec you, Cchmai-cha," Adrah said, walking forward
slowly, as if unsure what precisely he was approaching. Cehmai smiled to
keep his unease from showing. "My father is occupied. But perhaps I
might be able to help you?"
"You're most kind. I came to offer my sympathies to ldaan-cha. I had
heard she was with you, and so ..."
"No. She was, but she's left. Perhaps she went back to the ceremony."
Adrah's voice was distant, as if only half his attention was on the
conversation. His eyes, however, were fixed on Cehmai like a snake on a
mouse, only Cehmai wasn't sure which of them would be the mouse, which
the serpent.
"I will look there," Cehmai said. "I didn't mean to disturb you."
"We are always pleased by an audience with the poet of Machi. Wait.
Don't ... don't go. Sit with me a moment."
Stone-Made-Soft didn't shift, but Cehmai could feel its interest and
amusement in the back of his mind. Cehmai sat in it rag-covered chair.
Adrah pulled a stool near to him, nearer than custom required. It was as
if Adrah wanted to make him feel they were in a smaller room together.
Cehmai kept his face as placid as the andat's.
"The city is in terrible trouble, Cehmai-cha. You know how had these
things can get. When it's only the three sons of the Khai, it's bad
enough. But with all the utkhaicm scheming and fighting and betraying
one another, the damage to the city ...
"I'd thought about that," Cehmai said, though in truth he cared more
about Idaan than the political struggles that the coming weeks would
bring. "And there's still the problem of Otah. He has a claim ..."
"He's murdered his own father."
"Have we proven that?"
"You doubt that he did the thing?"
"No," Cehmai said after a moment's pause. "No, I don't." Rrit,lfaati- kt
o still does.
"It would be best to end this quickly. To name the new Khai before
things can get out of control. You are a man of tremendous power. I know
the Dai-kvo takes no sides in matters of succession. But if you were to
let it be known that you favored some particular house, without taking
any formal position, it would make things easier."
"Only if I backed a house that was prepared to win," Cehmai said. "If I
chose poorly, I'd throw some poor unprepared family in with the pit hounds."
"My family is ready. We are well respected, we have partners in all the
great trading houses, and the silversmiths and ironworkers are closer to
us than to any other family. Idaan is the only blood of the old Khai
remaining in the city. Her brothers will never be Khai Machi, but
someday, her son might."
Cehmai considered. Here was a man asking his help, asking for political
backing, unaware that Cehmai knew the shape and taste of his lover's
body as well as he did. It likely was in his power to elevate Adrah
Vaunyogi to the ranks of the Khaiem. He wondered if it was what Idaan
would want.
"That may be wise," Cehmai said. "I would need to think about it, of
course, before I could act."
Adrah put his hand on Cehmai's knee, familiar as if they were brothers.
The andat moved first, ambling toward the door, and then Cehmai stood
and adopted a pose appropriate to parting. The amusement coming from
Stone-Made-Soft was like constant laughter that only Cehmai could hear.
When they had made their farewells, Cehmai started cast again, toward
the burning bodies and the priests. His mind was a jumbleconcern for
Idaan, frustration at not finding her, unease with Adrah's proposal, and
at the hack, stirring like something half asleep, a dread that seemed
wrapped tip with Maati Vaupathai staring drunk into the fire.
One of them, Maati had said, meaning the high families of the utkhaiem.
One of them would benefit. Unless Cehmai took a hand and put his own
lover's husband in the chair. That wasn't the sort of thing that could
have been planned for. No scheme for power could include the supposition
that Cehmai would fall in love with Idaan, or that her husband would ask
his aid, or that his guilt and affection would drive him to give it. It
was the kind of thing that could come from nowhere and upset the perfect
plan.