A Betrayal in Winter (lpq-2) (18 page)

into his litter and others who bore him away. "I 'hen Idaan herself

retreated. The others would escape according to the status of their

families and their standing within them. It would be a hand and a half

before the chamber was completely empty. Idaan strode along white marble

corridors to a retiring room, sent away her servants, locked the door

and sobbed until her heart was empty again. Then she washed her face in

cool water from her basin, arrayed her kohl and blush, whitener and lip

rouge before a mirror and carefully made a mask of her skin.

There would be talk, of course. Even without her father's unseemly

display of humanity-and she hated them all for the laughter and

amusement that would occasion-there would be enough to pick apart. The

strength of Adrah's voice would be commented on. The way in which he

carried himself. Even his unease when the ritual slipped from its form

might speak well of him in people's memory. It was a small thing, of

course. In the minds of the witnesses, it had been clear that she would

be the daughter of a Khai only very briefly and merely sister to the

Khai was a lower status. House Vaunyogi was buying something whose value

would soon drop. It must be a love match, they would say, and pretend to

be touched. She wondered if it wouldn't be bettercleaner-to simply burn

the city and everyone in it, herself included. Let a hot iron clean and

seal it like searing a wound. It was a passing fantasy, but it gave her

comfort.

A knock came, and she arranged her robes before unlocking the door.

Adrah stood, his house servants behind him. He had not changed out of

his ritual robes.

"Idaan-kya," he said, "I was hoping you might come have a bowl of tea

with my father."

"I have gifts to present to your honored father," Idaan said, gesturing

to a cube of cloth and bright paper the size of a boar. It was already

lashed to a carrying pole. "It is too much for me. Might I have the aid

of your servants?"

Two servants had already moved forward to lift the burden.

Adrah took a pose of command, and she answered with one of acquiescence,

following him as he turned and left. They walked side by side through

the gardens, not touching. Idaan could feel the gazes of the people they

passed, and kept her expression demure. By the time they reached the

palaces of the Vaunyogi, her cheeks ached with it. Idaan and Adrah

walked with their entourage through a hall of worked rosewood and

mother-of-pearl, and to the summer garden where Daaya Vaunyogi sat

beneath a stunted maple tree and sipped tea from a stone bowl. His face

was weathered but kindly. Seeing him in this place was like stepping

into a woodcut from the Old Empire-the honored sage in contemplation.

The gift package was placed on the table before him as if it were a meal.

Adrah's father put down his bowl and took a pose that dismissed the

servants.

"The garden is closed," he said. "We have much to discuss, my children

and I."

As soon as the doors were shut and the three were alone, his face fell.

He sank back to his seat like a man struck by fever. Adrah began to

pace. Idaan ignored them both and poured herself tea. It was overbrewed

and bitter.

"You haven't heard from them, then, Daaya-cha?"

"The Galts?" the man said. "The messengers I send come back empty

handed. When I went to speak to their ambassador, they turned me away.

Things have gone wrong. The risk is too great. They won't hack us now."

"Did they say that?" Idaan asked.

Daaya took a pose that asked clarification. Idaan leaned forward,

holding back the snarl she felt twisting at her lip.

"Did they say they wouldn't back us, or is it only that you fear they

won't?"

"Oshai," Daaya said. "He knows everything. He's been my intermediary

from the beginning. If he tells what he knows-"

"If he does, he'll be killed," Idaan said. "That he injured a poet is

bad enough, but he murdered a son of the Khaiem without being a brother

to him. He knows what would happen. His best hope is that someone

intercedes for him. If he speaks what he knows, he dies badly."

"We have to free him," Adrah said. "We ha-(- to get him out. We have to

show the Galts that we can protect them."

"We will," Idaan said. She drank down her tea. "The three of us. And I

know how we'll do it."

Adrah and his father looked at her as if she'd just spat out a serpent.

She took a pose of query.

"Shall we wait for the Galts to take action instead? They've already

begun to distance themselves. Shall we take some members of your house

into our confidence? Hire some armsmen to do it for us? Assume that our

secrets will be safer the more people know?"

"But ...... Adrah said.

"If we falter, we fail," Idaan said. "I know the way to the cages. He's

kept underground now; if they move him to the towers, it gets harder. I

asked that we meet in a place with a private exit. This garden. There is

a way out of it?"

Daaya took an acknowledging pose, but his face was pale as bread dough.

"I thought there would be others you wished to consult," he said.

"There's nothing to consult over," Idaan said and pulled open the gifts

she had brought to her new marriage. Three dark cloaks with deep hoods,

three blades in dark leather sheaths, two unstrung hunter's bows with

dark-shafted arrows, two torches, a pot of smoke pitch and a bag to

carry it. And beneath it, a wall stand of silver with the sigils of

order and chaos worked in marble and bloodstone. Idaan passed the blades

and cloaks to the men.

"The servants will only know of the wall stand. "These others we can

give to Oshai to dispose of once we have him," Idaan said. "The smoke

pitch we can use to frighten the armsmen at the cages. The bows and

blades are for those that don't flee."

"Idaan-kya," Adrah said, "this is madness, we can't. .

She slapped him before she knew she meant to. He pressed a palm to his

cheek, and his eyes glistened. But there was anger in him too. That was

good.

"We do the thing now, while there are servants to swear it was not us.

We do it quickly, and we live. We falter and wail like old women, and we

die. Pick one."

Daaya Vaunyogi broke the silence by taking a cloak and pulling it on.

His son looked to him, then to her, then, trembling began to do the same.

"You should have been born a man," her soon-to-be father said. There was

disgust in his voice.

The tunnels beneath the palaces were little traveled in spring. The long

winter months trapped in the warrens that laced the earth below Machi

made even the slaves yearn for daylight. Idaan knew them all. Long

winter months stealing unchaperoned up these corridors to play on the

river ice and snow-shrouded city streets had taught her how to move

through them unseen. They passed the alcove where she and Janat Saya had

kissed once, when they were both too young to think it more than

something that they should wish to do. She led them through the thin

servant's passage she'd learned of when she was stealing fresh

applecakes from the kitchens. Memories made the shadows seem like old

friends from better times, when her mischief had been innocent.

They made their way from tunnel to tunnel, passing through wide chambers

unnoticed and passages so narrow they had to stoop and go singly. The

weight of stone above them made the journey seem like traveling through

a mine.

They knew they were nearing the occupied parts of the tunnels as much by

the smell of shit from the cages and acrid smoke as by the torchlight

that danced at the corridor's mouth. Thick timber beams framed the hall.

Idaan paused. This was only a side gallery-little used, rarely

trafficked. But it would do, she thought.

"What now?" Adrah asked. "We light the pitch? Simulate a fire?"

Idaan took the pot from its hag and weighed it in her hands.

"We simulate nothing, Adrah-kya," she said. She tossed the pot at the

base of a thick timber support and tossed her lit torch onto the

blackness. It sputtered for a moment, then caught. Idaan unslung the bow

from her shoulder and draped a fold of the cloak over it. "Be ready."

She waited as the flames caught. If she waited too long, they might not

be able to pass the fire. If she was too quick, the armsmen might be

able to put out the blaze. A deep calm seemed to descend upon her, and

she felt herself smile. Now would be a fine moment, she thought, and

screamed, raising the alarm. Adrah and Daaya followed her as she

stumbled through the darkness and into the cages. In the time it took

for her to take two breaths of the thickening air, they found themselves

in the place she'd hoped: a wide gallery in torchlight, the air already

becoming dense with smoke, and iron cages set into the stone where

prisoners waited on the justice of the Khai. Two armsmen in leather and

bronze armor scuttled to the three of them, their eyes round with fear.

"There's a fire in the gallery!" Daaya shrilled. "Get water! Get the watch!"

The prisoners were coming to the front of the cages now. Their cries of

fear added to the confusion. Idaan pretended to cough as she considered

the problem. There were two more armsmen at the far end of the cages,

but they were coming closer. Of the first two who had approached, one

had raced off toward the fire, the other down a well-lit tunnel, she

presumed towards aid. And then midway down the row of cages on the left,

she caught a glimpse of the Galts' creature. There was real fear in his

eyes.

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 hack

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