A Betrayal in Winter (lpq-2) (23 page)

in the men, a chance to dodge them and sprint out to the streets. He

might as well have looked for a stone cloud. The armsmen seemed to have

doubled in number, and two already had hare blades at the ready. The

young poet-the one Maati said wasn't his student-was there among them,

his expression serious and concerned. Maati spoke as if the bulky men

and their weapons weren't there.

"Cehmai-cha," he said. "Good that you're here. I would like to introduce

you to my old friend, Otah, the sixth son of the Khai Machi. Otahkvo,

this is Cchmai Tyan and that small mountain in the back is the andat

Stone-Made-Soft which he controls. Cehmai assumed you were an assassin

come to finish me off."

"I'm not," Otah said with a levity that seemed at odds with his

situation, but which felt perfectly natural. "But I understand the

misconception. It's the heard. I'm usually better shaved."

Cehmai opened his mouth, closed it, and then took a formal pose of

welcome. Maati turned to the armsmen.

"Chain him," he said.

EVEN AT THE HEIGHT OF MORNING, THE WIVES' QUARTERS OF THE HIGH palace

were filled with the small somber activity of a street market starting

to close at twilight. In the course of his life, the Khai Machi had

taken eleven women as wives. Some had become friends, lovers,

companions. Others had been little more than permanent guests in his

house, sent as a means of assuring favor as one might send a good

hunting dog or a talented slave. Idaan had heard that there were several

of them with whom he had never shared a bed. It had been Biitrah's wife,

Hiami, who'd told her that, trying to explain to a young girl that the

Khaiem had a different relationship to their women than other men had,

that it was traditional. It hadn't worked. Even the words the older

woman had used-your father chooser not to-had proven her point that this

was a comfort house with high ceilings, grand halls, and only a single

client.

But now that was changing, not in character, but in the particulars. The

succession would have the same effect on the eight wives who remained,

whoever took the seat. It would be time for them to leavemake the

journey back to whatever city or family had sent them forth in the first

place. The oldest of them, a sharp-tongued woman named Carai, would be

returning to a high family in Yalakeht where the man who would choose

her disposition had been a delighted toddler grinning and filling his

pants the last time she'd seen him. Another woman-one of the recent ones

hardly older than Idaan herself-had taken a lover in the court. She was

being sent hack to Chaburi-"[an, likely to be turned around and shipped

off to another of the Khaicm or traded between the houses of the

utkhaiem as a token of political alliance. Many of the wives had known

each other for decades and would now scatter and lose the friends and

companions they had known best. And on and on, every one of them a life

shaped by a man's will, constrained by tradition.

Idaan walked through the wide, bright corridors, listened to these women

preparing to depart when the inevitable news came, anticipating the

grief in a way that was as hard as the grief itself. Perhaps harder. She

accepted their congratulations on her marriage. She would be able to

remain in the city, and should her man die before her, her family would

be there to support her. She, at least, would never he uprooted. Hiami

had never understood why Idaan had objected to this way of living. Idaan

had never understood why these women hadn't set the palaces on fire.

Her own rooms were set in the back; small apartments with rich

tapestries of white and gold on the walls. They might almost have been

mistaken for the home of some merchant leader-the overseer of a great

trading house, or a trade master who spoke with the voice of a city's

craftsmen. If only she had been born one of those. As she entered, one

of her servants met her with an expression that suggested news. Idaan

took a pose of query.

"Adrah Vaunyogi is waiting to see you, Idaan-cha," the servant girl

said. "It was approaching midday, so I've put him in the dining hall.

There is food waiting. I hope I haven't ..."

"No," Idaan said, "you did well. Please see that we're left alone."

He sat at the long, wooden table, and he did not look up when she came

in. Idaan was willing to ignore him as well as to be ignored, so she

gathered a bowl of food from the platters-early grapes from the south,

sticky with their own blood; hard, crumbling cheese with a ripe scent

that was both appetizing and not; twice-baked flatbread that cracked

sharply when she broke off a piece-and retired to a couch. She forced

herself to forget that he was here, to look forward at the bare fire

grate. Anger buoyed her up, and she clung to it.

She heard it when he stood, heard his footsteps approaching. It was a

little victory, but it pleased her. As he sat cross-legged on the floor

before her, she raised an eyebrow and sketched a pose of welcome before

choosing another grape.

"I came last night," he said. "I was looking for you."

"I wasn't here," she said.

The pause was meant to injure her. Look how sad youu've made me, Idaan.

It was a child's tactic, and that it partially worked infuriated her.

"I've had trouble sleeping," she said. "I walk. Otherwise, I'd spend the

whole night staring at netting and watching the candle burn down. No

call for that."

Adrah sighed and nodded his head.

"I've been troubled too," he said. "My father can't reach the Galts.

With Oshai ... with what happened to him, he's afraid they may withdraw

their support."

"Your father is an old woman frightened there's a snake in the night

bucket," Idaan said, breaking a corner of her bread. "They may lie low

now, but once it's clear that you're in position to become Khai, they'll

do what they promised. They've nothing to gain by not."

"Once I'm Khai, they'll still own me," Adrah said. "They'll know how I

came there. They'll be able to hold it over me. If they tell what they

know, the gods only know what would happen."

Idaan took a bite of grape and cheese both-the sweet and the salt

mingling pleasantly. When she spoke, she spoke around it.

"They won't. They won't dare, Adrah. Give the worst: we're exposed by

the Galts. We're deposed and killed horribly in the streets. Fine. Lift

your gaze up from your own corpse for a moment and tell me what happens

next?"

"There's a struggle. Some other family takes the chair."

"Yes. And what will the new Khai do?"

"He'll slaughter my family," Adrah said, his voice hollow and ghostly.

Idaan leaned forward and slapped him.

"He'll have Stone-Made-Soft level a few Galtic mountain ranges and sink

some islands. Do you think there's a Khai in any city that would sit

still at the word of the Galtic Council arranging the death of one of

their own? The Galts won't own you because your exposure would mean the

destruction of their nation and the wholesale slaughter of their people.

So worry a little less. You're supposed to he overwhelmed with the

delight of marrying me."

"Shouldn't you be delighted too, then?"

"I'm busy mourning my father," she said dryly. "Do we have any wine?"

"How is he? Your father?"

"I don't know," Idaan said. "I try not to see him these days. He makes

me ... feel weak. I can't afford that just now."

"I heard he's failing."

"Men can fail for a long time," she said, and stood. She left the bowl

on the floor and walked back to her bedroom, holding her hands out

before her, sticky with juice. Adrah followed along behind her and lay

on her bed. She poured water into her stone basin and watched him as she

washed her hands. He was a boy, lost in the world. Perhaps now was as

good a time as any. She took a deep breath.

"I've been thinking, Adrah-kya," she said. "About when you become Khai."

He turned his head to look at her, but did not rise or speak.

"It's going to he important, especially at the first, to gather allies.

Founding a line is a delicate thing. I know we agreed that it would

always be only the two of us, but perhaps we were wrong in that. If you

take other wives, you'll have more the appearance of tradition and the

support of the families who hind themselves to us."

"My father said the same," he said.

Oh did he? Idaan thought, but she held her face still and calm. She

dried her hands on the basin cloth and came to sit on the bed beside

him. To her surprise, he was weeping; small tears corning from the outer

corners of his eyes, thin tracks shining on his skin. Without willing

it, her hand went to his cheek, caressing him. He shifted to look at her.

"I love you, Idaan. I love you more than anything in the world. You are

the only person I've ever felt this way about."

His lips trembled and she pressed a finger against them to quiet him.

These weren't things she wanted to hear, but he would not be stopped.

"Let's end this," he said. "Let's just be together, here. I'll find

another way to move ahead in the court, and your brother ... you'll

still be his blood, and we'll still be well kept. Can't we ... can't we,

please?"

"All this because you don't want to take another woman?" she said

softly, teasing him. "I find that hard to believe."

He took her hand in his. He had soft hands. She remembered thinking that

the first time they'd fallen into her bed together. Strong, soft, wide

hands. She felt tears forming in her own eyes.

"My father said that I should take other wives," he said. "My mother

said that, knowing you, you'd only agree to it if you could take lovers

of your own too. And then you weren't here last night, and I waited

until it was almost dawn. And you ... you want to ..."

"You think I've taken another man?" she asked.

His lips pressed thin and bloodless, and he nodded. His hand squeezed

hers as if she might save his life, if only he held onto her. A hundred

things came to her mind all at once. Yes, of course I have. How dare you

accuse me? Cehmai is the only clean thing left in my world, and you

cannot have him. She smiled as if Adrah were a boy being silly, as if he

were wrong.

"That would be the stupidest thing I could possibly do just now," she

said, neither lying nor speaking the truth of it. She leaned forward to

kiss him, but before their mouths touched, a voice wild with excitement

called out from the atrium.

"Idaan-cha! Idaan-cha! Come quickly!"

Idaan leapt up as if she'd been caught doing something she ought not,

then gathered herself, straightened her robes. The mirror showed that

the paint on her mouth and eyes was smudged from eating and weeping, but

there wasn't time to reapply it. She pushed hack a stray lock of hair

and stormed out.

The servant girl took a pose of apology as Idaan approached her. She

wore the colors of her father's personal retinue, and Idaan's heart sank

to her belly. He had died. It had happened. But the girl was smiling,

her eyes bright.

"What's happened?" Idaan demanded.

"Everything," the girl said. "You're summoned to the court. The Khai is

calling everyone."

"Why? What's happened?"

"I'm not to say, Idaan-cha," the girl said.

Idaan felt the rage-blood in her face as if she were standing near a

fire. She didn't think, didn't plan. Her body seemed to move of its own

accord as she slid forward and clapped her hand on the servant girl's

throat and pressed her to the wall. There was shock in the girl's

expression, and Idaan sneered at it. Adrah fluttered like a bird in the

corner of her vision.

"Say," Idaan said. "Because I asked you twice, tell me what's happened.

And do it now."

"The upstart," the girl said. ""They've caught him."

Idaan stepped back, dropping her hand. The girl's eyes were wide. The

air of excitement and pleasure were gone. Adrah put a hand on Idaan's

shoulder, and she pushed it away.

"He was here," the girl said. "In the palaces. The visiting poet caught

him, and they're bringing him before the Khai."

Idaan licked her lips. Otah Machi was here. He had been here for the

gods only knew how long. She looked at Adrah, but his expression spoke

of an uncertainty and surprise as deep as her own. And a fear that

wasn't entirely about their conspiracy.