A Betrayal in Winter (lpq-2) (20 page)

islanders he'd lived with had laughed at him and pretended to mistake

him for a woman. After Cetani, it would take another twenty days to

reach the docks outside Amnat-tan. And then, if he could find a fishing

boat that would take him on, he would be among those men again, singing

songs in a tongue he hadn't tried out in years, explaining again, either

with the truth or outrageous stories, why his marriage mark was only

half done.

He would die there-on the islands or on the sea-under whatever new name

he chose for himself. Itani Noygu was gone. He had died in Machi.

Another life was behind him, and the prospect of beginning again, alone

in a foreign land, tired him more than the walking.

"Now, southern wood's too soft to really build with. The winters are too

warm to really harden them. Up here there's trees that would blunt a

dozen axes before they fell," the old man said.

"You know everything, don't you grandfather?" Otah said. If his

annoyance was in his voice, the old man noticed nothing, because he

cackled again.

"It's because I've been everywhere and done everything," the old man

said. "I even helped hunt down the Khai Amnat-Tan's older brother when

they had their last succession. "There were a dozen of us, and it was

the dead of winter. Your piss would freeze before it touched ground. Oh,

eh ..."

The old man took a pose of apology to the young woman and her babe, and

Otah swung himself out of the cart. It wasn't a story he cared to hear.

The road wound through a valley, high pine forest on either side, the

air sharp and fragrant with the resin. It was beautiful, and he pictured

it thick with snow, the image coming so clear that he wondered whether

he might once have seen it that way. When the clatter of hooves came

from the west, he forced himself again to relax his shoulders and look

as curious and excited as the others. Twice before, couriers on fast

horses had passed the 'van, laden with news, Otah knew, of the search

for him.

It had taken an effort of will not to run as fast as he could after he

had been discovered, but the search was for a false courier either

plotting murder or fleeing like a rabbit. No one would pay attention to

a plodding laborer off to stay with his sister's family in a low town

outside Cetani. And yet, as the horses approached, tension grew in his

breast. He prepared himself for the shock if one of the riders had a

familiar face.

There were three this time-utkhaiem to judge by their robes and the

quality of their mounts-and none of them men he knew. They didn't slow

for the 'van, but the armsmen of the 'van, the drivers, the dozen

hangers-on like himself all shouted at them for news. One of them turned

in his saddle and yelled something, but Otah couldn't make it out and

the rider didn't repeat it. Ten days on the road. Six more to Cetani.

The only challenge was not to be where they were looking for him.

They reached a wayhouse with the sun still three and a half hands above

the treetops. The building was of northern design: stone walls thick as

the span of a man's arm and stables and goat pen on the ground floor

where the heat of the animals would rise and help warm the place in the

winter. While the merchants and armsmen argued over whether to stop now

or go farther and sleep in the open, Otah ran his eyes over the windows

and walked around to the back, looking for all the signs Kiyan had

taught him to know whether the keeper was working with robbers or

keeping an unsafe kitchen. The house met all of her best marks. It

seemed safe.

By the time he'd returned to the carts, his companions had decided to

stay. After Otah had helped stable the horses, they shifted the carts

into a locked courtyard. The caravan's leader haggled with the keeper

about the rooms and came to an agreement that Otah privately thought

gave the keep the better half. Otah made his way up two flights of

stairs to the room he was to share with five armsmen, two drivers, and

the old man. He curled himself up in a corner on the floor. It was too

small a room, and one of the drivers snored badly. A little sleep when

things were quiet would only make the next day easier.

He woke in darkness to the sound of music-a drum throbbed and a flute

sighed. A man's voice and a woman's moved in rough harmony. He wiped his

eyes with the sleeve of his robe and went down to the main room. The

members of his 'van were all there and half a dozen other men besides.

The air smelled of hot wine and roast lamb, pine trees and smoke. Otah

sat at a rough, worn table beside one of the drivers and watched.

The singer was the keep himself, a pot-bellied man with a nose that had

been broken and badly set. He drew the deep heat from a skin and

earthenware drum as he sang. His wife was shapely as a potato with an

ugly face and a missing eye tooth, but their voices were well suited and

their affection for each other forgave them much. Otah found himself

tapping his fingertips against the table to match the drumbeats.

His mind went back to Kiyan, and the nights of music and stories and

gossip he had spent in her wayhouse, far away to the south. He wondered

what she was doing tonight, what music filled the warm air and competed

with the murmur of the river.

When the last note had faded to silence, the crowd applauded, yelped,

and howled their appreciation. Otah made his way to the singer-he was

shorter than Otah had thought-and took his hand. The keeper beamed and

blushed when Otah told him how good the music had been.

"We've had a few years practice, and there's only so much to do when the

days are short," the keep said. "The winter choirs in Machi make us

sound like street beggars."

Otah smiled, regret pulling at him that he would never hear those songs,

and a moment later he heard his name being spoken.

"Itani Noygu's what he was calling himself," one of the merchants said.

"Played a courier for House Siyanti."

"I think I met him," a man said whom Otah had never met. "I knew there

was something odd about the man."

"And the poet ... the one that had his belly opened for him? He's

picking the other Siyanti men apart like they were baked fish. The

upstart has to wish that job had been done right the first time."

"Sounds as if I've missed something," Otah said, putting on his most

charming smile. "What's this about a poet's belly?"

The merchant frowned at the interruption until Otah motioned to the

keep's wife and bought bowls of hot wine for the table. After that, the

gossip flowed more freely.

Maati Vaupathai had been attacked, and the common wisdom held that Otah

had arranged it. The most likely version was that the upstart had been

passing as a courier, but others said that he had made his way into the

palaces dressed as a servant or a meat seller. There was no question,

though, that the Khai had sent out runners to all the winter cities

asking for the couriers and overseers of House Siyanti to attend him at

court. Amiit Foss, the man who'd been the upstart's overseer in tldun,

was being summoned in particular. It wasn't clear yet whether Siyanti

had knowingly backed the Otah Machi, but if they had, it would mean the

end of their expansion into the north. Even if they hadn't, the house

would suffer.

"And they're sure he was the one who had the poet killed?" Otah asked,

using all the skill the gentleman's trade had taught him to hide his

deepening despair and disgust.

"It seems they were in Saraykeht together, this poet and the upstart.

That was just before Saraykeht fell."

The implications of that hung over the room. Perhaps Otah Machi had

somehow been involved with the death of Heshai, the poet of Saraykeht.

Who knew what depravity the sixth son of the Khai Machi might sink to?

It was a ghost story for them; a tale to pass a night on the road; a

sport to follow.

Otah remembered the old, frog-mouthed poet, remembered his kindness and

his weakness and his strength. He remembered the regret and the respect

and the horrible complicity he'd felt in killing him, all those years

ago. It had been so complicated, then. Now, they said it so simply and

spoke as if they understood.

"There's rumor of a woman, too. They say he had a lover in Udun."

"If he was a courier, he's likely got a woman in half the cities of the

Khaiem. The gods know I would."

"No," the merchant said, shaking his head. He was more than half drunk.

"No, they were very clear. All the Siyanti men say he had a lover in

Udun and never took another. Loved her like the world, they said. But

she left him for another man. I say it's that turned him evil. Love

turns on you like ... like milk."

"Gentlemen," the keep's wife said, her voice powerful enough to cut

through any conversation. "It's late, and I'm not sleeping until these

rooms are cleaned, so get you all to bed. I'll have bread and honey for

you at sunrise."

The guests slurped down the last of the wine, ate the last mouthfuls of

dried cherries and fresh cheese, and made their various ways toward

their various beds. Otah walked down the inner stairs to the stables and

the goat yard, then out through a side door and into the darkness. His

body felt like he'd just run a race, or else like he was about to.

Kiyan. Kiyan and the wayhouse her father had run. Old Mani. He had set

the dogs on them, and that he hadn't intended to would count for nothing

if his brothers found her. Whatever happened, whatever they did, it

would be his fault.

He found a tall tree and sat with his back against it, looking out at

the stars nearest the horizon. The air had the bite of cold in it.

Winter never left this place. It made a little room for summer, but it

never left. He thought of writing her a letter, of warning her. It would

never reach her in time. It was ten days walk back to Machi, six days

forward to Cetani, and his brothers' forces would already be on the road

south. He could send to Amiit Foss, beg his old overseer to take Kiyan

in, to protect her. But there too, word would reach him too late.

Despair settled into his belly, too deep for tears. He was destroying

the woman he loved most in the world simply by being who he was, by

doing what he'd done. He thought of the boy he had been, marching away

from the school across the western snows. He remembered his fear and the

warmth of his rage at the poets and his parents and all in the world

that treated boys so unfairly. What a pompous little ass he'd been,

young and certain and alone. He should have taken the Dal-kvo's offer

and become a poet. He might have tried to bind an andat, and maybe

failed and paid the price, dying in the attempt. And then Kiyan would

never have met him. She would be safe.

There's still a price, he thought, as clear as a voice speaking in his

head. You could still pay it.

Machi was ten days' walk, perhaps as little as four and a half days'

ride. If he could turn all eyes back to Mach], Kiyan might have at least

the chance to escape his idiocy. And what would she matter, if no one

need search for him. He could take a horse from the stables now. After

all, if he was an upstart and a poisoner and a man turned evil by love,

it hardly mattered being a horse thief as well. He closed his eyes, an

angry bark of a laugh forcing its way from his throat.

Everything you have won, you've won by leaving, he thought, remembering

a woman whom he had known almost well enough to join his life with

though he had never loved her, nor she him. Well, Maj, perhaps this time

I'll lose.

THE NIGHT CANDLE WAS PAST ITS MIDDLE MARK; TFIK AIR WAS FILLEI) WITH the

songs of crickets. Somewhere in the course of things, the pale mist of

netting had been pulled from the bed, and the room looked exposed

without it. Cehmai could feel Stone-Made-Soft in the back of his mind,

but the effort of being truly aware of the andat was too much; his body

was thick and heavy and content. Focus and rigor would have their place

another time.

Idaan traced her fingertips across his chest, raising gooseflesh. He

shivered, took her hand and folded it in his own. She sighed and lay

against him. Her hair smelled of roses.

"Why do they call you poets?" she asked.

"It's an old Empire term," Clehmai said. "It's from the binding."

"The andat are poems?" she said. She had the darkest eyes. Like an

animal's. He looked at her mouth. The lips were too full to be

fashionable. With the paint worn off, he could see how she narrowed