‘And is what follows it better?’
He didn’t answer.
The candle had hardly burned past another mark when the moon-faced assassin appeared, moving like darkness itself in his black cotton robe. He put down his lantern and took a pose of welcome before dusting a crate with his sleeve and sitting. His expression was pleasant as a fruit seller in a summer market. It only made Idaan like him less.
‘So,’ Oshai said. ‘You called, I’ve come. What seems to be the problem? ’
She had intended to begin with Maati Vaupathai, but the pretense of passive stupidity in Oshai’s eyes annoyed her. Idaan raised her chin and her brows, considering him as she would a garden slave. Adrah looked back and forth between the two. The motion reminded her of a child watching his parents fighting. When she spoke, she had to try not to spit.
‘I would know where our plans stand,’ she said. ‘My father’s ill, and I hear more from Adrah and the palace slaves than from you.’
‘My apologies, great lady,’ Oshai said without a hint of irony. ‘It’s only that meetings with you are a risk, and written reports are insupportable. Our mutual friends . . .’
‘The Galtic High Council,’ Idaan said, but Oshai continued as if she had not spoken.
‘. . . have placed agents and letters of intent with six houses. Contracts for iron, silver, steel, copper, and gold. The negotiations are under way, and I expect we will be able to draw them out for most of the summer, should we need to. When all three of your brothers die, you will have been wed to Adrah, and between the powerful position of his house, his connection with you, and the influence of six of the great houses whose contracts will suddenly ride on his promotion to Khai, you should be sleeping in your mother’s bed by Candles Night.’
‘My mother never had a bed of her own. She was only a woman, remember. Traded to the Khai for convenience, like a gift.’
‘It’s only an expression, great lady. And remember, you’ll be sharing Adrah here with other wives in your turn.’
‘I won’t take others,’ Adrah said. ‘It was part of our agreement.’
‘Of course you won’t,’ Oshai said with a nod and an insincere smile. ‘My mistake.’
Idaan felt herself flush, but kept her voice level and calm when she spoke.
‘And my brothers? Danat and Kaiin?’
‘They are being somewhat inconvenient, it’s true. They’ve gone to ground. Frightened, I’m told, by your ghost brother Otah. We may have to wait until your father actually dies before they screw up the courage to stand against each other. But when they do, I will be ready. You know all this, Idaan-cha. It can’t be the only reason you’ve asked me here?’ The round, pale face seemed to harden without moving. ‘There had best be something more pressing than seeing whether I’ll declaim when told.’
‘Maati Vaupathai,’ Idaan said. ‘The Dai-kvo’s sent him to study in the library.’
‘Hardly a secret,’ Oshai said, but Idaan thought she read a moment’s unease in his eyes.
‘And it doesn’t concern your owners that this new poet has come for the same prize they want? What’s in those old scrolls that makes this worth the risk for you, anyway?’
‘I don’t know, great lady,’ the assassin said. ‘I’m trusted with work of this delicate nature because I don’t particularly care about the points that aren’t mine to know.’
‘And the Galts? Are they worried about this Maati Vaupathai poking through the library before them?’
‘It’s . . . of interest,’ Oshai said, grudgingly.
‘It was the one thing you insisted on,’ Idaan said, stepping toward the man. ‘When you came to Adrah and his father, you agreed to help us in return for access to that library. And now your price may be going away.’
Will your support go, too? The unasked question hung in the chill air. If the Galts could not have what they wanted from Adrah and Idaan and the books of Machi, would the support for this mad, murderous scheme remain? Idaan felt her heart tripping over faster, half hoping that the answer might be no.
‘It is the business of a poet to concern himself with ancient texts,’ Oshai said. ‘If a poet were to come to Machi and not avail himself of its library, that would be odd. This coincidence of timing is of interest. But it’s not yet a cause for alarm.’
‘He’s looking into the death of Biitrah. He’s been down to the mines. He’s asking questions.’
‘About what?’ Oshai said. The smile was gone.
She told him all she knew, from the appearance of the poet to his interest in the court and high families, the low towns and the mines. She recounted the parties at which he had asked to be introduced, and to whom. The name he kept mentioning -
Itani Noygu
. The way in which his interest in the ascension of the next Khai Machi seemed to be more than academic. She ended with the tale she’d heard of his visit to the Daikani mines and to the wayhouse where her brother had died at Oshai’s hands. When she was finished, neither man spoke. Adrah looked stricken. Oshai, merely thoughtful. At length, the assassin took a pose of gratitude.
‘You were right to call me, Idaan-cha,’ he said. ‘I doubt the poet knows precisely what he’s looking for, but that he’s looking at all is bad enough.’
‘What do we do?’ Adrah said. The desperation in his voice made Oshai look up like a hunting dog hearing a bird.
‘
You
do nothing, most high,’ Oshai said. ‘Neither you nor the great lady does anything. I will take care of this.’
‘You’ll kill him,’ Idaan said.
‘If it seems the best course, I may . . .’
Idaan took a pose appropriate to correcting a servant. Oshai’s words faded.
‘I was not asking, Oshai-cha. You’ll kill him.’
The assassin’s eyes narrowed for a moment, but then something like amusement flickered at the corners of his mouth and the glimmer of candlelight in his eyes grew warmer. He seemed to weigh something in his mind, and then took a pose of acquiescence. Idaan lowered her hands.
‘Will there be anything else, most high?’ Oshai asked without taking his gaze from her.
‘No,’ Adrah said. ‘That will be all.’
‘Wait half a hand after I’ve gone,’ Oshai said. ‘I can explain myself, and the two of you together borders on the self-evident. All three would be difficult.’
And with that, he vanished. Idaan looked at the sky doors. She was tempted to open them again, just for a moment. To see the land and sky laid out before her.
‘It’s odd, you know,’ she said. ‘If I had been born a man, they would have sent me away to the school. I would have become a poet or taken the brand. But instead, they kept me here, and I became what they’re afraid of. Kaiin and Danat are hiding from the brother who has broken the traditions and come back to kill them for the chair. And here I am. I
am
Otah Machi. Only they can’t see it.’
‘I love you, Idaan-kya.’
She smiled because there was nothing else to do. He had heard the words, but understood nothing. It would have meant as much to talk to a dog. She took his hand in hers, laced her fingers with his.
‘I love you too, Adrah-kya. And I will be happy once we’ve done all this and taken the chair. You’ll be the Khai Machi, and I will be your wife. We’ll rule the city together, just as we always planned, and everything will be right again. It’s been half a hand by now. We should go.’
They parted in one of the night gardens, he to the east and his family compound, and she to the south, to her own apartments, and past them and west to the tree-lined path that led to the poet’s house. If the shutters were closed, if no light shone but the night candle, she told herself she wouldn’t go in. But the lanterns were lit brightly, and the shutters open. She paced quietly through the grounds, peering in through windows, until she caught the sound of voices. Cehmai’s soft and reasonable, and then another. A man’s, loud and full of a rich self-importance. Baarath, the librarian. Idaan found a tree with low branches and deep shadows and sat, waiting with as much patience as she could muster, and silently willing the man away. The full moon was halfway across the sky before the two came to the door, silhouetted. Baarath swayed like a drunkard, but Cehmai, though he laughed as loud and sang as poorly, didn’t waver. She watched as Baarath took a sloppy pose of farewell and stumbled off along the path. Cehmai watched him go, then looked back into the house, shaking his head.
Idaan rose and stepped out of the shadows.
She saw Cehmai catch sight of her, and she waited. He might have another guest - he might wave her away, and she would have to go back through the night to her own apartments, her own bed. The thought filled her with black dread until the poet put one hand out to her, and with the other motioned toward the light within his house.
Stone-Made-Soft brooded over a game of stones, its massive head cupped in a hand twice the size of her own. The white stones, she noticed, had lost badly. The andat looked up slowly and, its curiosity satisfied, it turned back to the ended game. The scent of mulled wine filled the air. Cehmai closed the door behind her, and then set about fastening the shutters.
‘I didn’t expect to see you,’ the poet said.
‘Do you want me to leave?’
There were a hundred things he could have said. Graceful ways to say yes, or graceless ways to deny it. He only turned to her with the slightest smile and went back to his task. Idaan sat on a low couch and steeled herself. She couldn’t say why she was driven to do this, only that the impulse was much like draping her legs out the sky doors, and that it was what she had chosen to do.
‘Daaya Vaunyogi is approaching the Khai tomorrow. He is going to petition that Adrah and I be married.’
Cehmai paused, sighed, turned to her. His expression was melancholy, but not sorrowful. He was like an old man, she thought, amused by the world and his own role in it. There was a strength in him, and an acceptance.
‘I understand,’ he said.
‘Do you?’
‘No.’
‘He is of a good house, their bloodlines—’
‘And he’s well off and likely to oversee his family’s house when his father passes. And he’s a good enough man, for what he is. It isn’t that I can’t imagine why he would choose to marry you, or you him. But, given the context, there are other questions.’
‘I love him,’ Idaan said. ‘We have planned to do this for . . . we have been lovers for almost two years.’
Cehmai sat beside a brazier, and looked at her with the patience of a man studying a puzzle. The coals had burned down to a fine white ash.
‘And you’ve come to be sure I never speak of what happened the other night. To tell me that it can never happen again.’
The sense of vertigo returned, her feet held over the abyss.
‘No,’ she said.
‘You’ve come to stay the night?’
‘If you’ll have me, yes.’
The poet looked down, his hands laced together before him. A cricket sang, and then another. The air seemed thin.
‘Idaan-kya, I think it might be better if—’
‘Then lend me a couch and a blanket. If you . . . let me stay here as a friend might. We are friends, at least? Only don’t make me go back to my rooms. I don’t want to be there. I don’t want to be with people and I can’t stand being alone. And I . . . I like it here.’
She took a pose of supplication. Cehmai rose and for a moment she was sure he would refuse. She almost hoped he would. Scoot forward, no more effort than sitting up, and then the sound of wind. But Cehmai took a pose that accepted her. She swallowed, the tightness in her throat lessening.
‘I’ll be back. The shutters . . . it might be awkward if someone were to happen by and see you here.’
‘Thank you, Cehmai-kya.’
He leaned forward and kissed her mouth, neither passionate nor chaste, then sighed again and went to the back of the house. She heard the rattle of wood as he closed the windows against the night. Idaan looked at her hands, watching them tremble as she might watch a waterfall or a rare bird. An effect of nature, outside herself. The andat shifted and turned to look at her. She felt her brows rise, daring the thing to speak. Its voice was the low rumble of a landslide.
‘I have seen generations pass, girl. I’ve seen young men die of age. I don’t know what you are doing, but I know this. It will end in chaos. For him, and for you.’
Stone-Made-Soft went silent again, stiller than any real man, not even the pulse of breath in it. She glared into the wide, placid face and took a pose of challenge.
‘It that a threat?’ she asked.
The andat shook its head once - left, and then right, and then still as if it had never moved in all the time since the world was young. When it spoke again, Idaan was almost startled at the sound.
‘It’s a blessing,’ it said.
‘What did he look like?’ Maati asked.
Piyun See, chief assistant to the Master of Tides, frowned and glanced out the window. The man sensed that he had done something wrong, even if he could not say what it had been. It made him reluctant. Maati sipped tea from a white stone bowl and let the silence stretch.