Adrah panicked as the second pair came close. With a shriek, he drew his blade, hewing at the armsmen like a child playing at war. Idaan cursed, but Daaya was moving faster, drawing his bow and sinking a dark shaft into the man’s belly as Idaan shot at his chest and missed. But Adrah was lucky - a wild stroke caught the armsman’s chin and seemed to cleave his jaw apart. Idaan raced to the cages, to Oshai. The moon-faced assassin registered a moment’s surprise when he saw her face within the hood, and then Oshai closed his eyes and spat.
Adrah and Daaya rushed to her side.
‘Do not speak,’ Oshai said. ‘Nothing. Every man here would sell you for his freedom, and there are people who would buy. Do you understand?’
Idaan nodded and pointed toward the thick lock that barred the door. Oshai shook his head.
‘The Khai’s Master of Blades keeps the keys,’ Oshai said. ‘The cages can’t be opened without him. If you meant me to leave with you, you didn’t think this through very well.’
Adrah whispered a curse, but Oshai’s eyes were on Idaan. He smiled thinly, his eyes dead as a fish’s. He saw it when she understood, and he nodded, stepped back from the bars, and opened his arms like a man overwhelmed by the beauty of a sunrise. Idaan’s first arrow took him in the throat. There were two others after that, but she thought they likely didn’t matter. The first shouts of the watch echoed. The smoke was thickening. Idaan walked away, down the route she had meant to take when the prisoners were free. She’d meant to free them all, adding to the chaos. She’d been a fool.
‘What have you done?’ Daaya Vaunyogi demanded once they were safely away in the labyrinth. ‘What have you done?’
Idaan didn’t bother answering.
Back in the garden, they sank the blades and the cloaks in a fountain to lie submerged until Adrah could sneak back in under cover of night and get rid of them. Even with the dark hoods gone, they all reeked of smoke. She hadn’t foreseen that either. Neither of the men met her eyes. And yet, Oshai was beyond telling stories to the utkhaiem. So perhaps things hadn’t ended so badly.
She gave her farewells to Daaya Vaunyogi. Adrah walked with her back through the evening-dimmed streets to her rooms. That the city seemed unchanged struck her as odd. She couldn’t say what she had expected - what the day’s events should have done to the stones, the air - but that it should all be the same seemed wrong. She paused by a beggar, listening to his song, and dropped a length of silver into the lacquered box at his feet.
At the entrance to her rooms, she sent her servants away. She did not wish to be attended. They would assume she smelled of sex, and best that she let them. Adrah peered at her, earnest as a puppy, she thought. She could see the distress in his eyes.
‘You had to,’ he said, and she wondered if he meant to comfort her or convince himself. She took a pose of agreement. He stepped forward, his arms curving to embrace her.
‘Don’t touch me,’ she said, and he stepped back, paused, lowered his arms. Idaan saw something die behind his eyes, and felt something wither in her own breast. So this is what we are, she thought.
‘Things were good once,’ he said, as if willing her to say
and they will be again
. The most she could give him was a nod. They had been good once. She had wanted and admired and loved him once. And even now, a part of her might love him. She wasn’t sure.
The pain in his expression was unbearable. Idaan leaned forward, kissed him briefly on the lips, and went inside to wash the day off her skin. She heard his footsteps as he walked away.
Her body felt wrung out and empty. There were dried apples and sugared almonds waiting for her, but the thought of food was foreign. Gifts had arrived throughout the day - celebrations of her being sold off. She ignored them. It was only after she had bathed, washing her hair three times before it smelled more of flowers than smoke, that she found the note.
It rested on her bed, a square of paper folded in quarters. She sat naked beside it, reached out a hand, hesitated, and then plucked it open. It was brief, written in an unsteady hand.
Daughter
, it said.
I had hoped that you might be able to spend some part of this happy day with me. Instead, I will leave this. Know that you have my blessings and such love as a weary old man can give. You have always delighted me, and I hope for your happiness in this match.
When her tears and sobbing had exhausted her, Idaan carefully gathered the scraps of the note together and placed them together under her pillow. Then she bowed and prayed to all the gods and with all her heart that her father should die, and die quickly. That he should die without discovering what she was.
Maati was lost for a time in pain, then discomfort, and then pain again. He didn’t suffer dreams so much as a pressing sense of urgency without goal or form, though for a time he had the powerful impression that he was on a boat, rocked by waves. His mind fell apart and reformed itself at the will of his body.
He came to himself in the night, aware that he had been half awake for some time; that there had been conversations in which he had participated, though he couldn’t say with whom or on what matters. The room was not his own, but there was no mistaking that it belonged to the Khai’s palace. No fire burned in the grate, but the stone walls were warm with stored sunlight. The windows were shuttered with shaped stone, the only light coming from the night candle that had burned almost to its quarter mark. Maati pulled back the thin blankets and considered the puckered gray flesh of his wound and the dark silk that laced it closed. He pressed his belly gently with his fingertips until he thought he knew how delicate he had become. When he stood, tottering to the night pot, he found he had underestimated, but that the pain was not so excruciating that he could not empty his bladder. After, he pulled himself back into bed, exhausted. He intended only to close his eyes for a moment and gather his strength, but when he opened them, it was morning.
He had nearly resolved to walk from his bed to the small writing table near the window when a slave entered and announced that the poet Cehmai and the andat Stone-Made-Soft would see him if he wished. Maati nodded and sat up carefully.
The poet arrived with a wide plate of rice and river fish in a sauce that smelled of plums and pepper. The andat carried a jug of water so cold it made the stone sweat. Maati’s stomach came to life with a growl at the sight.
‘You’re looking better, Maati-kvo.’ the young poet said, putting the plate on the bed. The andat pulled two chairs close to the bed and sat in one, its face calm and empty.
‘I looked worse than this?’ Maati asked. ‘I wouldn’t have thought that possible. How long has it been?’
‘Four days. The injury brought on a fever. But when they poured onion soup down you, the wound didn’t smell of it, so they decided you might live after all.’
Maati lifted a spoon of fish and rice to his mouth. It tasted divine.
‘I think I have you to thank for that,’ Maati said. ‘My recollection isn’t all it could be, but . . .’
‘I was following you,’ Cehmai said, taking a pose of contrition. ‘I was curious about your investigations.’
‘Yes. I suppose I should have been more subtle.’
‘The assassin was killed yesterday.’
Maati took another bite of fish.
‘Executed?’
‘Disposed of,’ the andat said and smiled.
Cehmai told the story. The fire in the tunnels, the deaths of the guards. The other prisoners said that there had been three men in black cloaks, that they had rushed in, killed the assassin, and vanished. Two others had choked to death on the smoke before the watchmen put the fire out.
‘The story among the utkhaiem is that you discovered Otah Machi. The Master of Tides’ assistant said that you’d been angry with him for being indiscreet about your questions concerning a courier from Udun. Then the attack on you, and the fire. They say the Khai Machi sent for you to hunt his missing son, Otah.’
‘Part true,’ Maati said. ‘I was sent to look for Otah. I knew him once, when we were younger. But I haven’t found him, and the knife man was . . . something else. It wasn’t Otah.’
‘You said that,’ the andat rumbled. ‘When we found you, you said it was someone else.’
‘Otah-kvo wouldn’t have done it. Not that way. He might have met me himself, but sending someone else to do it? No. He wasn’t behind that,’ Maati said, and then the consequence of that fell into place. ‘And so I think he must not have been the one who killed Biitrah.’
Cehmai and his andat exchanged a glance and the young poet drew a bowl of water for Maati. The water was as good as the food, but Maati could see the unease in the way Cehmai looked at him. If he had ached less or been farther from exhaustion, he might have been subtle.
‘What is it?’ Maati asked.
Cehmai drew himself up, then sighed.
‘You call him Otah-kvo.’
‘He was my teacher. At the school, he was in the black robes when I was new arrived. He . . . helped me.’
‘And you saw him again. When you were older.’
‘Did I?’ Maati asked.
Cehmai took a pose that asked forgiveness. ‘The Dai-kvo would hardly have trusted a memory that old. You were both children at the school. We were all children there. You knew him when you were both men, yes?’
‘Yes,’ Maati said. ‘He was in Saraykeht when . . . when Heshai-kvo died.’
‘And you call him Otah-kvo,’ Cehmai said. ‘He was a friend of yours, Maati-kvo. Someone you admired. He’s never stopped being your teacher.’
‘Perhaps. But he’s stopped being my friend. That was my doing, but it’s done.’
‘I’m sorry, Maati-kvo, but are you certain Otah-kvo is innocent because he’s innocent, or only because you’re certain? It would be hard to accept that an old friend might wish you ill . . .’
Maati smiled and sipped the water.
‘Otah Machi may well wish me dead. I would understand it if he did. And he’s in the city, or was four days ago. But he didn’t send the assassin.’
‘You think he isn’t hoping for the Khai’s chair?’
‘I don’t know. But I suppose that’s something worth finding out. Along with who it was that killed his brother and started this whole thing rolling.’
He took another mouthful of rice and fish, but his mind was elsewhere.
‘Will you let me help you?’
Maati looked up, half surprised. The young poet’s face was serious, his hands in a pose of formal supplication. It was as if they were back in the school and Cehmai was a boy asking a boon of the teachers. The andat had its hands folded in its lap, but it seemed mildly amused. Before Maati could think of a reply, Cehmai went on.
‘You aren’t well yet, Maati-kvo. You’re the center of all the court gossip now, and anything you do will be examined from eight different views before you’ve finished doing it. I know the city. I know the court. I can ask questions without arousing suspicion. The Dai-kvo didn’t choose to take me into his confidence, but now that I know what’s happening—’
‘It’s too much of a risk,’ Maati said. ‘The Dai-kvo sent me because I know Otah-kvo, but he also sent me because my loss would mean nothing. You hold the andat—’
‘It’s fine with me,’ Stone-Made-Soft said. ‘Really, don’t let me stop you.’
‘If I ask questions
without
you, I run the same risks, and without the benefits of shared information,’ Cehmai said. ‘And expecting me not to wonder would be unrealistic.’
‘The Khai Machi would expel me from his city if he thought I was endangering his poet,’ Maati said. ‘And then I wouldn’t be of use to anyone.’
Cehmai’s dark eyes were both deadly serious and also, Maati thought, amused. ‘This wouldn’t be the first thing I’ve kept from him,’ the young poet said. ‘Please, Maati-kvo. I want to help.’
Maati closed his eyes. Having someone to talk with, even if it was only a way to explore what he thought himself, wouldn’t be so bad a thing. The Dai-kvo hadn’t expressly forbidden that Cehmai know, and even if he had, the secret investigation had already sent Otah-kvo to flight, so any further subterfuge seemed pointless. And the fact was, he likely couldn’t find the answers alone.
‘You have saved my life once already.’
‘I thought it would be unfair to point that out,’ Cehmai said.
Maati laughed, then stopped when the pain in his belly bloomed. He lay back, blowing air until he could think again. The pillows felt better than they should have. He’d done so little, and he was already tired. He glanced mistrustfully at the andat, then took a pose of acceptance.
‘Come back tonight, when I’ve rested,’ Maati said. ‘We’ll plan our strategy. I have to get my strength back, but there isn’t much time.’
‘May I ask one other thing, Maati-kvo?’
Maati nodded, but his belly seemed to have grown more sensitive for the moment and he tried not to move more than that. It seemed laughing wasn’t a wise thing for him just now.
‘Who are Liat and Nayiit?’
‘My lover. Our son,’ Maati said. ‘I called out for them, did I? When I had the fever?’