‘I didn’t say I wouldn’t,’ she said. ‘Only that I don’t want it.’
Otah leaned close, kissing her gently on the lips. Her good hand held him close.
‘Don’t leave me,’ she said, hardly more than a whisper.
‘Where would I go,’ he said, his tone gentle to hide that his answer was also a question. She smiled, slight and brave, and nodded. Liat held his hand in hers for the rest of the way.
The soft quarter never knew a truly quiet night. The lanterns lit the streets with the dancing shadows of a permanent fire. Music came from the opened doors of the houses: drums and flutes, horns and voices. Twice they passed houses with balconies that overlooked the street with small groups of underdressed, chilly whores leaning over the rails like carcasses at a butcher’s. The wealth of Saraykeht, richest and most powerful of the southern cities, eddied and swirled around them. Otah found himself neither aroused nor disturbed, though he thought perhaps he should be.
They reached the comfort house, going through an ironbound doorway in a tall stone wall, through a sad little garden that separated the kitchens from the main house, and then into the common room. It was alive with activity. The red-haired woman, Mitat, and Amat had covered the long common tables with papers and scrolls. The island girl, Maj, paced behind them, gnawing impatiently at a thumbnail. As the two guards who’d accompanied them moved deeper into the house greeting other men similarly armed and armored, Otah noticed two young boys, one in the colors of House Yanaani, the other wearing the badge of the seafront’s custom house, waiting impatiently. Messengers. Something had happened.
Amat’s closer than she knows. There isn’t much time.
‘Liat-kya,’ Amat said, raising one hand in a casual greeting. ‘Come here. I’ve something I want to ask you.’
Liat walked forward, and Otah followed her. There was a light in Amat’s eyes - something like triumph. Amat embraced Liat gently, and Otah saw the tears in Liat’s eyes as she held her old master with one uninjured arm.
‘I’m sorry,’ Amat said. ‘I though you’d be safe. And there was so much that needed doing, that . . . I didn’t understand the situation deeply enough. I should have warned you.’
‘Honored teacher,’ Liat said, and then had no more words. Amat’s smile was warm as summer sunlight.
‘You know Maj, of course. This is Mitat, and that brute against that wall is Torish Wite, my master of guard.’
When Maj spoke, she spoke the Khaiate tongue. Her accent was thick but not so much that Otah couldn’t catch her words.
‘I didn’t think I was to be seeing you again.’
Liat’s smile went thin.
‘You speak very well, Maj-cha.’
‘I am waiting for weeks here,’ Maj said, coolly. ‘What else do I do?’
Amat looked over. Otah saw the woman called Mitat glance up at her, then at the island girl, then away. Tension quieted the room, and for a moment, even the messengers stopped fidgeting and stared.
‘She’s come to help,’ Amat said.
‘She is come because you called her,’ Maj said. ‘Because she needs you.’
‘We need each other,’ Amat said, command in her voice. She drew herself to her full height, and even leaning on her cane, she seemed to fill the room. ‘She’s come because I wanted her to come. We have almost everything we need. Without her, we aren’t ready.’
Maj stared at Amat, then slowly turned and took a pose of greeting as awkward as a child’s. Otah saw the flush in the pale cheeks, the brightness of her eyes, and understood. Maj was drunk. Amat gathered Liat close to the table, peppering her with questions about dates and shipping orders, and what exactly Oshai and Wilsin-cha had said and when. Otah sat at the table, near enough to hear, near enough to watch, but not a part of the interrogation.
For a moment, he felt invisible. The intensity and excitement, desperation and controlled violence around him became like an epic on a stage. He saw it all from outside. When, unconsciously, he met the island girl’s gaze, she smiled at him and nodded - a wordless, informal, unmistakable gesture; a recognition between strangers. She, with her imperfect knowledge of language and custom, couldn’t truly be a part of the conspiracy now coming near to full bloom before them. He, by contrast, could not because he still heard Seedless laying the consequences of Amat’s success before him -
Liat may be killed, innocent blood will wash Galt, Maati will suffer to the end of his days, I will betray you to your family
- and that private knowledge was like an infection. Every step that Amat made brought them one step nearer that end.
And to his unease, Otah found that his refusal of the andat was not so certain a thing as he had thought it.
For nearly a quarter-candle, Amat and Mitat, Liat and sometimes even Torish Wite chewed and argued. The messengers were questioned, the letters they bore added to the growing stacks, and they were sent away with Amat’s replies tucked in their sleeves. Otah listened and watched as the arguments to be presented before the Khai Saraykeht became clearer. Proofs of billing, testimonies, collisions of dates and letters from Galt, and Maj - witness and centerpiece - to stand as the symbol of it all. And then the whole web of coincidence repeated a year earlier with some other girl who had taken fright, the story said, and escaped. There was no proof - no evidence which in itself showed anything. But like tile chips in a mosaic, the facts related to one another in a way that demanded a grim interpretation.
And only so much proof, of course, was required. Amat’s evidence need only capture the imagination of the court, and the avalanche would begin. What she said was true, and once the full powers of the court were involved, Heshai-kvo would be brought before it, and Seedless. And the andat, when forced, would have to speak the truth. He might even be pleased to, bringing in another wave of disaster as a second-best to his own release.
As the night passed - the moon moving unseen overhead - Liat began to flag. Amat noticed it and met Otah’s gaze.
‘Liat-kya, I’m being terrible,’ Amat said, taking a pose of apology. ‘You’re hurt and tired and I’ve been keeping you awake.’
Liat made some small protest, but its weakness was enough to show Amat’s argument valid. Otah moved to her and helped her to her feet, and Liat, sighing, leaned into him.
‘There’s a cot made up upstairs,’ Mitat said. ‘In Amat-cha’s rooms.’
‘But where will ’Tani sleep?’
‘I’m fine, love,’ he said before Amat - clearly surprised by the question - could think to offer hospitality. ‘I’ve a place with some of my old cohort. If I didn’t come back, they’d worry.’
It wasn’t true, but that hardly mattered. The prospect of staying at the comfort house while Amat’s plans reached fruition held no appeal. Only the sleepy distress in Liat’s eyes made him wish to stay, and then for her more than himself.
‘I’ll stay until you’re asleep,’ he said. It seemed to comfort her. They gave their goodnights and walked up the thick wooden stairs, moving slowly for Liat’s benefit. Otah heard the conversation begin again behind him, the plan moving forward.
He closed the door of Amat’s rooms behind him. The shutters were fast but the dull orange of torchlight from the street glowed at their seams. The night candle on Amat’s desk was past its half-mark. Its flame guttered as they passed. The cot was thick canvas stretched over wood with a mattress three fingers thick and netting strung over it even though there were few insects flying so late in the winter. With his arm still around Liat’s thin frame, their single shadow flickered against the wall.
‘She hates me, I think,’ Liat said, her voice low and calm.
‘What are you talking about. Amat-cha was perfectly . . .’
‘Not her. Maj.’
Otah was silent. He wanted to deny that too - to tell Liat that no one thought ill of her, that everything would be fine if only she’d let it. But he didn’t know it was true, or even if it would be wise to think it. They had thought no particular ill of Wilsin-cha, and Liat could have died for that. He felt his silence spread like cold. Liat shrugged him away and pulled at the ties of her cloak.
‘Let me,’ Otah said. Liat held still as he undid her cloak, folded it on the floor under her cot.
‘My robe too?’ she asked. In the near darkness, Otah felt her gaze as much as saw it. An illusion, perhaps. It might only have been something in the tone of her voice, an inflection recognized after months of being her lover, sharing her bed and her body. Otah hesitated for more reasons than one.
‘Please,’ Liat said.
‘You’re hurt, love. It was hard enough even walking upstairs . . .’
‘Itani.’
‘It’s Amat-cha’s room. She could come up.’
‘She won’t be up for hours. Help me with my robe. Please.’
Objections pushed for position, but Otah moved forward, drawn by her need and his own. Carefully, he untied the stays of her robes and drew them from her until she stood naked but for her straps and bandages. Even in the dim light, he could see where the bruises marked her skin. She took his hand and kissed it, then reached for the stays of his own robe. He did not stop her. It would have been cruel, and even if it hadn’t, he did not want to.
They made love slowly, carefully, and he thought as much in sorrow as in lust. Her skin was the color of dark honey in the candlelight, her hair black as crows. When they were both spent, Otah lay with his back to the chill wall, giving Liat as much room on the cot as she needed to be comfortable. Her eyes were only half-open, the corners of her mouth turned down. When she shivered, he half rose and pulled her blanket over her. He did not climb beneath it himself, though the warmth would have been welcome.
‘You were gone for so long,’ Liat said. ‘There were days I wondered if you were coming back.’
‘Here I am.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Here you are. What was it like? Tell me everything.’
And so he told her about the ship and the feeling of wood swaying underfoot, the creaking of rope and the constant noise of water. He told her about the courier with his jokes and stories of travelling, and the way Orai had known at once that he’d left a woman behind. About Yalakeht with its tall gray buildings and the thin lanes with iron gates at the mouth that could lock whole streets up for the night like a single apartment.
And he could have gone on - the road to the Dai-kvo’s village, the mountain, the town of only men, the Dai-kvo himself, the odd half-offer to take him back. He might even have gone as far as Seedless’ threats, and the realization he was still struggling with - that Itani Noyga would be exposed as the son of the Khai Machi. That if Seedless lived, Itani Noyga would have to die. But Liat’s breath was heavy, deep, and regular. When he lifted himself over her, she murmured something and curled herself deeper into the bedding. Otah pulled on his robes. The night candle was past the three-quarter mark, the darkness moving closer and closer to dawn. For the first time, he noticed the fatigue in his limbs. He would need to find someplace to sleep. A room, perhaps, or one of the sailor’s bunks down by the seafront where he’d be sharing a brazier with nine men who’d drunk themselves asleep the night before.
In the buttery light of the common room, the conversation was still going on, but to his surprise, the focus had shifted. Maj, an observer before like himself, was seated across from Amat Kyaan, stabbing at the tabletop with a finger and letting loose a long string of syllables with no clear break between them. Her face was flushed, and he could hear the anger in her voice without knowing the words. Anger and wine. Amat looked up at he descended the stairs. She looked older than usual.
Maj followed the old woman’s gaze, glanced up at the closed door behind him, and said something else. Amat replied in the same language, her voice calm but not placating. Maj stood, rattling the bench, and strode to Otah.
‘Your woman sleeps?’ Maj said.
‘She’s asleep. Yes.’
‘I have questions. Wake her,’ Maj said, taking a pose that made the words a command. Her breath was a drunk’s. Over her shoulder, he saw Amat shake her head no. Otah took a pose of apology. The refusal seemed to break something in Maj, and tears brimmed in her eyes, streaked her cheeks.
‘Weeks,’ she said, her tone pleading. ‘I am waiting for weeks, and for nothing. There is no justice here. You people have
no
justice.’
Mitat approached them and put her hand on the island girl’s arm. Maj pulled away and went to a different door, wiping her eyes on the back of her hand. As the door closed behind her, Otah took a pose of query.
‘She didn’t understand that the Khai Saraykeht might make his own investigation,’ Mitat said. ‘She thought he’d act immediately. When she heard that there’d be another delay . . .’
‘It isn’t entirely her fault,’ Amat said. ‘This can’t have been easy for her, any of it.’ The master of guard - a huge bear of a man - coughed. The way he and Amat considered each other was enough to tell Otah this wasn’t the first time the girl had been the subject of conversation. Amat continued, ‘It will all be finished soon enough. Or our part, at least. As long as she’s here to make the case before the Khai, we’ll have started the thing. If she goes home after that, she goes home.’