Maati walked slowly to his teacher. The poet’s gaze flickered up to him and then away. Maati took a pose that asked forgiveness even before he spoke.
‘I don’t understand, Heshai-kvo. There must be a way to refuse the trade. If the Dai-kvo . . .’
‘If the Dai-kvo starts overseeing the small work of the Khaiem, let’s call him Emperor and be done with it,’ Heshai-kvo said. ‘And then in a generation or so we’ll see how well he’s done training new poets. We’re degenerate enough without asking for incompetence as well. No, the Dai-kvo won’t step in over something like this.’
Maati knelt. Members of the utkhaiem began to come through the hall, some conferring over scrolls and stacks of paper.
‘You could refuse.’
‘And what would they say of me then?’ Heshai managed a wan smile. ‘No, it’s nothing, Maati-kya. It’s an old man being stupidly nostalgic. This is an unpleasant thing, I’ll admit that. But it is what I do.’
‘Killing superfluous children out of rich women,’ Seedless said, his voice as impudent, but with an edge to it Maati hadn’t heard before. ‘Just part of the day’s work, isn’t it?’
Heshai looked up, anger in his expression. His hands balled into thick fists and fierce concentration furrowed his brow. Maati heard Seedless fall even before he turned to look. The andat was prone, his hands splayed before him in a pose of abject apology so profound that Maati knew the andat would never take it of his own will. Heshai’s lips quivered.
‘It’s something that . . . I’ve done before,’ he said, his voice tight. ‘It isn’t something anyone wishes for. Not the woman, not anyone. The sad trade earns its name every time it’s made.’
‘Heshai-cha?’ a woman’s voice said.
She stood beside the prostrate andat, her haughty demeanor shaken by the odd scene. Maati stood, falling into a pose of welcome. Heshai released his hold on Seedless, allowing the andat to rise. Seedless shook imagined dust off his robes, fixing the poet with a look of arch reproach, before turning to the woman.
‘Liat Chokavi,’ the andat said, his perfect hands touching her wrist, intimate as old friends. ‘We’re so pleased to see you. Aren’t we, Heshai?’
‘Delighted,’ the poet snapped. ‘Nothing quite like being handed to a half-tutored apprentice to keep me in my place.’
The shock in the girl’s face was subtle, there only for an instant. Her self-assured mask slipped, her eyes widening a fraction, her mouth hardening. And then she was as she had been before. But Maati knew, or thought he knew, how hard Heshai’s blow had struck, and against someone who had done nothing but be an opportune target.
Heshai rose and took a pose appropriate to opening a negotiation, but with a stony formality that continued the insult. Maati found himself suddenly ashamed of his teacher.
‘The meeting room’s this way,’ Heshai said, then turned and trundled off. Seedless strode behind him, leaving Liat Chokavi and Maati to follow as they could.
‘I’m sorry,’ Maati said quietly. ‘The sad trade bothers him. You didn’t do anything wrong.’
Liat shot a glance at him that began with distrust, then as she saw distress on his face, softened. She took a pose of gratitude, small and informal.
The meeting room was spare and uncomfortably warm. A single small window stood shuttered until Heshai pushed it open. He sat at the low stone table and motioned Liat to sit across from him. She moved awkwardly, but took her place, plucking a packet of papers from her sleeve. Seedless stood at the window, looking down at the poet with a predatory smirk as Heshai drew the papers to him and looked them over.
‘May I be of service, Heshai-kvo?’ Maati asked.
‘Get us some tea,’ the poet said, looking at the papers. Maati looked first to the girl, and then back to Heshai. Seedless, seeing his reluctance, frowned. Then comprehension bloomed in the andat’s black eyes. The perfect hands took a pose that asked permission for something - though Maati didn’t know what, and Seedless dropped the pose before leave could be given.
‘Heshai, my dear, you have a better student than you deserve. I think he doesn’t want to leave you alone,’ Seedless smirked. ‘He thinks you’ll go on bullying this fine young lady. If it were me, you understand, I’d be quite pleased to watch you make an ass of yourself, but . . .’
Heshai shifted, and the andat shuddered in pain or something like it. Seedless’ hands shifted again into a pose of apology. Maati saw, however, the scowl on the poet’s face. Seedless had shamed his master into behaving kindly to the girl. At least for a time.
‘Some tea, Maati. And for our guest as well,’ Heshai said, gesturing to Liat.
Maati took a pose of acceptance. He caught Seedless’ dark eyes as he left and nodded thanks. The andat answered with the smallest of all possible smiles.
The corridors of the hall were full of men and women: traders, utkhaiem, servants, slaves, and guards. Maati strode out, looking for a palace servant. He followed the path he knew to the main hall, impatient to return to the negotiation. The main hall was as full as the corridors, or worse. Conversations filled the space as thick as smoke. He caught a glimpse of the pale yellow robe of a palace servant moving toward the main door and made for it as quickly as he could.
Halfway to the main door, he brushed against a young man. He wore the same green and bronze colors that Liat Chokavi and Marchat Wilsin had, but his hands were stained and callused, his shoulders those of a laborer. Thinking that he could pass his errand off to this man, Maati stopped and grabbed the man’s arm. The long face looked familiar, but it wasn’t until he spoke that the blood rushed from Maati’s face.
‘Forgive me,’ the laborer said, taking a pose of apology. ‘I know I’m supposed to wait outside, but I was hoping Liat Chokavi . . .’
His voice trailed off, made uneasy by what he saw in Maati’s eyes.
‘Otah-kvo?’ Maati breathed.
A moment of shocked silence, and then the laborer clapped a hand over Maati’s mouth and drew him quickly into a side corridor.
‘Say nothing,’ Otah said.
‘Nothing.’
6
Years fell away, the events of Otah’s life taking on a sudden unreality at the sound of his name. The hot, thick days he had worked the seafront of Saraykeht, the grubbing for food and shelter, the nights spent hungry sleeping by the roadside. The life he had built as Itani Noyga. All of it fell away, and he remembered the boy he had been, full of certainty and self-righteous fire, trudging across cold spring fields to the high road. It was like being there again, and the strength of the memory frightened him.
The young poet went with him quietly, willingly. He seemed as shaken as Otah felt.
Together, they found an empty room, and Otah shut the door behind them and latched it. The room was a small meeting room, its window looking into a recessed courtyard filled with bamboo and sculpted trees. Even with the rain still falling - drops tapping against the leaves outside the window - the room seemed too bright. Otah sat on the table, his hands pressed to his mouth, and looked at the boy. He was younger by perhaps four summers - older than Otah had been when he’d invented his new name, his new history, and taken indenture with House Wilsin. He had a round, open face and a firm chin and hands that hadn’t known hard labor in many years. But more disturbing than that, there was pleasure in his expression, like someone who’d just found a treasure.
Otah didn’t know where to start.
‘You . . . you were at the school, then?’
‘Maati Vaupathai,’ the poet said. ‘I was in one of the youngest cohorts just before you . . . before you left. You took us out to turn the gardens, but we didn’t do very well. My hands were blistered . . .’
The face became suddenly familiar.
‘Gods,’ Otah said. ‘You? That was you?’
Maati Vaupathai, whom Otah had once forced to eat dirt, took a pose of confirmation that seemed to radiate pleasure at being remembered. Otah leaned back.
‘Please. You can’t tell anyone about me. I never took the brand. If my brothers found me . . .’
‘They’d try to kill you,’ Maati said. ‘I know. I won’t tell anyone. But . . . Otah-kvo.’
‘Itani,’ Otah said. ‘My name’s Itani now.’
Maati took a pose of acceptance, but still one appropriate for a student to a teacher. Still the sort that Otah had seen presented when he wore the black robes of the school.
‘Itani, then. I didn’t think. I mean, to find you here. What are you doing here?’
‘I’m indentured to House Wilsin. I’m a laborer.’
‘A laborer?’
Otah took a confirming pose. The poet blinked, as if trying to make sense of a word in a different language. When he spoke again, his voice was troubled. Perhaps disappointed.
‘They said that the Dai-kvo accepted you. That you refused him.’
It was a simple description, Otah thought. A few words that held the shape his life had taken. It had seemed both clearer and more complex at the time - it still seemed that way in his mind.
‘That’s true,’ he said.
‘What . . . forgive me, Otah-kvo, but what happened?’
‘I left. I went south, and found work. I knew that I needed a new name, so I chose one. And . . . and that’s all, I suppose. I’ve taken indenture with House Wilsin. It’s nearly up, and I’m not sure what I’ll do after that.’
Maati took a pose of understanding, but Otah could see from the furrows in his brow that he didn’t. He sighed and leaned forward, searching for something else to say, some way to explain the life he’d chosen. On top of all the other shocks of the day, he was disturbed to find that words failed him. In the years since he had walked away, he had never tried to explain the decision. There had never been anyone to explain it to.
‘And you?’ Otah asked. ‘He took you on, I see.’
‘The old Dai-kvo died. After you left, before I even took the black. Tahi-kvo took his place, and a new teacher came to the school. Naani-kvo. He was harder than Tahi-kvo. I think he enjoyed it more.’
‘It’s a sick business,’ Otah said.
‘No,’ Maati said. ‘Only hard. And cruel. But it has to be. The stakes are so high.’
There was a strength in Maati’s voice that, Otah thought, didn’t come from assurance. Otah took a pose of agreement, but he could see that Maati knew he didn’t mean it, so he shrugged it away.
‘What did you do to earn the black?’ Otah asked.
Maati blushed and looked away. In the corridor, someone laughed. It was unnerving. He’d spent so little time with this boy whom he hardly knew, and he’d almost forgotten where they were, and that there were people all around them.
‘I asked Naani-kvo about you,’ Maati said. ‘He took it poorly. I had to wash the floors in the main hall for a week. But then I asked him again. It was the same. In the end . . . in the end, there was a night when I cleaned the floors without being told. Milah-kvo asked me what I was doing, and I explained that I was going to ask again in the morning, so I wanted to have some of the work done beforehand. He asked me if I was so in love with washing stones. Then he offered me the robes.’
‘And you took them.’
‘Of course,’ Maati said.
They were silent for a long moment, and Otah saw the life he’d turned away. And thought, perhaps, he saw regret in the boy’s face. Or if not that, at least doubt.
‘You can’t tell anyone about me,’ Otah said.
‘I won’t. I swear I won’t.’
Otah took a pose that witnessed an oath, and Maati responded in kind. They both started when someone rattled the door.
‘Who’s in there?’ a man’s voice demanded. ‘We’re scheduled for this room.’
‘I should go,’ Maati said. ‘I’m missing my negotiation with . . . Liat. You said you were waiting for Liat Chokavi, didn’t you?’
‘Unlatch the door!’ the voice outside the door insisted. ‘This is our room.’
‘She’s my lover,’ Otah said, standing. ‘Come on. We should leave before they go for the Khai.’
The men outside the door wore the flowing robes and expensive sandals of the utkhaiem, and the disgust and anger on their faces when Otah - a mere laborer, and for a Galtic house at that - opened the door faded to impatience when they saw Maati in his poet’s robes. Otah and Maati walked out to the main hall together.
‘Otah-kvo,’ Maati said as they reached the still-bustling space.
‘Itani.’
Maati took a pose of apology that seemed genuinely mortified. ‘Itani. I . . . there are things I would like to discuss with you, and we . . .’
‘I’ll find you,’ Otah promised. ‘But say nothing of this. Not to anyone. Especially not to the poet.’
‘No one.’
‘I’ll find you. Now go.’
Maati took a pose of farewell more formal than any poet had ever offered a laborer, and, reluctance showing in every movement, walked away. Otah saw an older woman in the robes of the utkhaiem considering him, her expression curious. He took a pose of obeisance toward her, turned, and walked out. The rain was breaking now, sunlight pressing down like a hand on his shoulder. The other servants who had borne gifts or poles for the canopy waited now in a garden set aside for them. Epani-cha, house master for Marchat Wilsin, sat with them, laughing and smiling. The formal hurdles of the day were cleared, and the men were light hearted. Tuui Anagath, an older man who had known Otah since almost before he had become Itani, for almost his whole false life, took a pose of welcome.