A sharp rapping brought him back to himself, and the door of his private office swung open. Amiit and Sinja walked in, already half into a conversation. Sinja’s expression was mildly annoyed. Amiit, Otah thought, seemed worried.
‘It would only make things worse,’ Amiit said.
‘We’d earn more time. And it isn’t as if they’d accuse Otah-cha here of it. They think he’s dead.’
‘Then they’ll accuse him of it once they find he’s alive,’ Amiit said and turned to Otah. ‘Sinja wants to assassinate the head of a high family in order to slow the work of the council.’
‘We won’t do that,’ Otah said. ‘My hands aren’t particularly bloodied yet, and I’d like to keep it that way—’
‘It isn’t as though people are going to believe it,’ Sinja said. ‘If you’re going to carry the blame you may as well get the advantages from doing the thing.’
‘It’ll be easier to convince them of my innocence later if I’m actually innocent of something,’ Otah said, ‘but there may be other roads that come to the same place. Is there something else that would slow the council and doesn’t involve putting holes in someone?’
Sinja frowned, his eyes shifting as if he were reading text written in the air. He half-smiled.
‘Perhaps. Let me look into that.’
With a pose that ended his conversation, Sinja left. Amiit sighed and lowered himself into one of the chairs.
‘What news?’ Amiit asked.
‘Kamau and Vaunani are talking about merging their forces,’ Otah said. ‘Most of the talks seem to involve someone hitting someone or throwing a knife. The Loiya, Bentani, and Coirah have all been quietly, and so far as I can tell, independently, backing the Vaunyogi.’
‘And they all have contracts with Galt,’ Amiit said. ‘What about the others?’
‘Of the families we know? None have come out against them. And none for, or at least not openly.’
‘There should be more fighting,’ Amiit said. ‘There should be struggles and coalitions. Alliances should be forming and breaking by the moment. It’s too steady.’
‘Only if there was a real struggle going on. If the decision was already made, it would look exactly like this.’
‘Yes. There are times I hate being right. Any word from the poet?’
Otah shook his head and sat, then stood again. Maati had gone from their first meeting, and he’d seemed convinced. Otah had been sure at the time that he wouldn’t betray them. He was sure in his bones. He only wished he’d had his thoughts more in order at the time. He’d been swept up in the moment, more concerned with his lies about Liat’s son than anything else. He’d had time since to reflect, and the other worries had swarmed out. Otah had sat up until the night candle was at its halfway mark, listing the things he needed to consider. It hadn’t lent him peace.
‘It’s hard, waiting,’ Amiit said. ‘You must feel like you’re back up in that tower.’
‘That was easier. Then at least I knew what was going to happen. I wish I could go
out
. If I could be up there listening to the people themselves . . . If I spent half an evening in the right teahouse, I’d know more than I’ll learn skulking down here for days. Yes, I know. You’ve the best minds of the house out watching for us. But listening to reports isn’t the same as putting my hands to something.’
‘I know it. More than half my work has been trying to guess the truth out of a dozen different reports of a thing. There’s a knack to it. You’ll have your practice with it.’
‘If this ends well,’ Otah said.
‘Yes,’ Amiit agreed. ‘If that.’
Otah filled a tin cup with water from a stone jar and sat back down. It was warm, and a thin grit swam at the cup’s bottom. He wished it were wine and pushed the thought away. If there was any time in his life to be sober as stone, this was it, but his unease shifted and tightened. He looked up from his water to see Amiit’s gaze on him, his expression quizzical.
‘We have to make a plan for if we lose,’ Otah said. ‘If the Vaunyogi are to blame and the council gives them power, they’ll be able to wash away any number of crimes. And all those families that supported them will be invested in keeping things quiet. If it comes out that Daaya Vaunyogi killed the Khai in order to raise up his son and half the families of the utkhaiem took money to support it, they’ll all share in the guilt. Being in the right won’t mean much then.’
‘There’s time yet,’ Amiit said, but he was looking away when he said it.
‘And what happens if we fail?’
‘That all depends on how we fail. If we’re discovered before we’re ready to move, we’ll all be killed. If Adrah is named Khai, we’ll at least have a chance to slip away quietly.’
‘You’ll take care of Kiyan?’
Amiit smiled. ‘I hope to see to it that you can perform that duty.’
‘But if not?’
‘Then of course,’ Amiit said. ‘Provided I live.’
The rapping came again, and the door opened on a young man. Otah recognized him from the meetings in House Siyanti, but he couldn’t recall his name.
‘The poet’s come,’ the young man said.
Amiit rose, took a pose appropriate to the parting of friends, and left. The young man went with him, and for a moment the door swung free, half closing. Otah drank the last of his water, the grit rough in his throat. Maati came in slowly, a diffidence in his body and his face, like a man called in to hear news that might bring him good or ill or some unimagined change that folded both inextricably together. Otah gestured to the door, and Maati closed it.
‘You sent for me?’ Maati asked. ‘That’s a dangerous habit, Otah-kvo. ’
‘I know it, but . . . Please. Sit. I’ve been thinking. About what we do if things go poorly.’
‘If we fail?’
‘I want to be ready for it, and when Kiyan and I were talking last night, something occurred to me. Nayiit? That’s his name, isn’t it? The child that you and Liat had?’
Maati’s expression was cool and distant and misleading. Otah could see the pain in it, however still the eyes.
‘What of him?’
‘He mustn’t be my son. Whatever happens, he has to be yours.’
‘If you fail, you don’t take your father’s title—’
‘If I don’t take his title, and someone besides you decides he’s mine, they’ll kill him to remove all doubt of the succession. And if I succeed, Kiyan may have a son,’ Otah said. ‘And then they would someday have to kill each other. Nayiit is
your
son. He has to be.’
‘I see,’ Maati said.
‘I’ve written a letter. It looks like something I’d have sent Kiyan before, when I was in Chaburi-Tan. It talks about the night I left Saraykeht. It says that on the night I came back to the city, I found the two of you together. That I walked into her cell, and you and she were in her cot. It makes it clear that I didn’t touch her, that I couldn’t have fathered a child on her. Kiyan’s put it in her things. If we have to flee, we’ll take it with us and find a way for it to come to light - we can hide it at her wayhouse, perhaps. If we’re found and killed here, it will be found with us. You have to back that story.’
Maati steepled his fingers and leaned back in the chair.
‘You’ve put it with Kiyan-cha’s things to be found in case she’s slaughtered?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ Otah said. ‘I don’t think about it when I can help it, but I know she could die here. There’s no reason that your son should die with us.’
Maati nodded slowly. He was struggling with something, Otah could see that much, but whether it was sorrow or anger or joy, he had no way to know. When the question came, though, it was the one he had been dreading for years.
‘What did happen?’ Maati asked at last, his voice low and hushed. ‘The night Heshai-kvo died. What happened? Did you just leave? Did you take Maj with you? Did . . . did you kill him?’
Otah remembered the cord cutting into his hands, remembered the way Maj had balked and he had taken the task himself. For years, those few minutes had haunted him.
‘He knew what was coming,’ Otah said. ‘He knew it was necessary. The consequences if he had lived would have been worse. Heshai was right when he warned you to let the thing drop. The Khai Saraykeht would have turned the andat against Galt. There would have been thousands of innocent lives ruined. And when it was over, you would still have been yoked to Seedless. Trapped in the torture box just the way Heshai had been all those years. Heshai knew that, and he waited for me to do the thing.’
‘And you did it.’
‘I did.’
Maati was silent. Otah sat. His knees seemed less solid than he would have liked, but he didn’t let the weakness stop him.
‘It was the worst thing I have ever done,’ Otah said. ‘I never stopped dreaming about it. Even now, I see it sometimes. Heshai was a good man, but what he’d created in Seedless . . .’
‘Seedless was only part of him. They all are. They couldn’t be anything else. Heshai-kvo hated himself, and Seedless was that.’
‘Everyone hates themselves sometimes. There isn’t often a price in blood,’ Otah said. ‘You know what would happen if that were proven. Killing a Khai would pale beside murdering a poet.’
Maati nodded slowly, and still nodding, spoke.
‘I didn’t ask on the Dai-kvo’s behalf. I asked for myself. When Heshai-kvo died, Seedless . . . vanished. I was with him. I was there. He was asking me whether I would have forgiven you. If you’d committed some terrible crime, like what he had done to Maj, if I would forgive you. And I told him I would. I would forgive you, and not him. Because . . .’
They were silent. Maati’s eyes were dark as coal.
‘Because?’ Otah asked.
‘Because I loved you, and I didn’t love him. He said it was a pity to think that love and justice weren’t the same. The last thing he said was that you had forgiven me.’
‘Forgiven you?’
‘For Liat. For taking your lover.’
‘I suppose it’s true,’ Otah said. ‘I was angry with you. But there was a part of me that was . . . relieved, I suppose.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I didn’t love her. I thought I did. I wanted to, and I enjoyed her company and her bed. I liked her and respected her. Sometimes, I wanted her as badly as I’ve ever wanted anyone. And that was enough to let me mistake it for love. But I don’t remember it hurting that deeply or for that long. Sometimes I was even glad. You had each other to take care of, and so it wasn’t mine to do.’
‘You said, that last time we spoke before you left . . . before Heshai-kvo died, that you didn’t trust me.’
‘That’s true,’ Otah said. ‘I do remember that.’
‘But you’ve come to me now, and you’ve told me this. You’ve told me all of it. Even after I gave you over to the Khai. You’ve brought me in here, shown me where you’ve hidden. You know there are half a hundred people I could say a word to, and you and all these other people would be dead before the sun set. So it seems you trust me now.’
‘I do,’ Otah said without hesitating.
‘Why?’
Otah sat with the question. His mind had been consumed for days with a thousand different things that all nipped and shrieked and robbed him of his rest. To reach out to Maati had seemed natural and obvious, and even though when he looked at it coldly it was true that each had in some way betrayed the other, his heart had never been in doubt. He could feel the heaviness in the air, and he knew that
I don’t know
wouldn’t be answer enough. He looked for words to give his feelings shape.
‘Because,’ he said at last, ‘in all the time I knew you, you never once did the wrong thing. Even when what you did hurt me, it was never wrong.’
To his surprise, there were tears on Maati’s cheeks.
‘Thank you, Otah-kvo,’ he said.
A shout went up in the tunnels outside the storehouse and the sound of running feet. Maati wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his robes, and Otah stood, his heart beating fast. The murmur of voices grew, but there were no sounds of blade against blade. It sounded like a busy corner more than a battle. Otah walked to the door and, Maati close behind him, stepped out into the main space. A knot of men were talking and gesturing one to the other by the mouth of the stairs. Otah caught a glimpse of Kiyan in their midst, frowning deeply and speaking fast. Amiit detached himself from the throng and strode to Otah.
‘What’s happened?’
‘Bad news, Otah-cha. Daaya Vaunyogi has called for a decision, and enough of the families have backed the call to push it through.’
Otah felt his heart sink.
‘They’re bound to decide by morning,’ Amiit went on, ‘and if all the houses that backed him for the call side with him in the decision, Adrah Vaunyogi will be the Khai Machi by the time the sun comes up.’
‘And then what?’ Maati asked.
‘And then we run,’ Otah said, ‘as far and fast and quiet as we can, and we hope he never finds us.’
The sun had passed its highest point and started the long, slow slide toward darkness. Idaan had chosen robes the blue-gray of twilight and bound her hair back with clasps of silver and moonstone. Around her, the gallery was nearly full, the air thick with heat and the mingled scents of bodies and perfumes. She stood at the rail, looking down into the press of bodies below her. The parquet of the floor was scuffed with the marks of boots. There were no empty places at the tables or against the stone walls, no quiet negotiations going on in hallways or teahouses. That time had passed, and in its wake, they were all brought here. Voices washed together like the hushing of wind, and she could feel the weight of the eyes upon her - the men below her sneaking glances up, the representatives of the merchant houses at her side considering her, and the lower orders in the gallery above staring down at her and the men over whom she loomed. She was a woman, and not welcome to speak or sit at the tables below. But still, she would make her presence felt.