A Betrayal in Winter (lpq-2) (24 page)

"What's your name?" she asked.

"Choya," the girl said.

Idaan took a pose of abject apology. It was more than a member of the

utkhaiem would have normally presented to a servant, but Idaan felt her

guilt welling up like blood from a cut.

"I am very sorry, Choya-cha. I was wrong to-"

"But that isn't all," the servant girl said. "A courier came this

morning from 'Ian-Sadar. He'd been riding for three weeks. Kaiin Machi

is dead. Your brother Danat killed him, and he's coming hack. The

courier guessed he might be a week behind him. I)anat Machi's going to

he the new Khai Machi. And Idaan-cha, he'll be back in the city in time

for your wedding!"

On one end, the chain ended at a cube of polished granite the color of

soot that stood as high as a man's waist. On the other, it linked to a

rough iron collar around Otah's neck. Sitting with his back to the

stone-the chain was not so long that he could stand-Otah remembered

seeing a brown bear tied to a pole in the main square of a low town

outside'lan-Sadar. Dogs had been set upon it three at a time, and with

each new wave, the men had wagered on which animal would survive.

Armsmen stood around him with blades drawn and leather armor, stationed

widely enough apart to allow anyone who wished it a good view of the

captive. Beyond them, the representatives of the utkhaiem in fine robes

and ornate jewelry crowded the floor and two tiers of the balconies that

rose up to the base of the domed ceiling far above him. The dais before

him was empty. Otah wondered what would happen if he should need to

empty his bladder. It seemed unlikely that they would let him piss on

the fine parquet floor, but neither could he imagine being led away

decorously. He tried to picture what they saw, this mob of nobility,

when they looked at him. He didn't try to charm them or play on their

sympathies. He was the upstart, and there wasn't a man or woman in the

hall who wasn't delighted to see him debased and humiliated.

The first of the servants appeared, filing out from a hidden door and

spacing themselves around the chair. Otah picked out the brown poet's

robe, but it was Cchmai with the bulk of his andat moving behind him.

Maati wasn't with him; Cehmai was speaking with a woman in the robes of

the Khaiem-Otah's sister, she would be. He wondered what her name was.

The last of the servants and counselors took their places, and the crowd

fell silent. The Khai Machi walked out, as graceful as a dying man could

be. His robes were lush and full, and served to do little more than show

how wasted his frame had become. Otah could see the rouge on his sunken

cheeks, trying to give the appearance of vigor long since gone.

Whisperers fanned out from the dais and into the crowd. The Khai took a

pose of welcome appropriate to the opening of a ritual judgment. Utah

rose to his knees.

"I am told that you are my son, Utah Machi, whom I gave over to the

poets' school."

The whisperers echoed it through the hall. It was his moment to speak

now, and he found his heart was so full of humiliation and fear and

anger that he had nothing to say. He raised his hands and took a pose of

greeting-a casual one that would have been appropriate for a peasant son

to his father. "There was a murmur among the utkhaiem.

"I am further told that you were once offered the poet's robes, and you

refused that honor."

Otah tried to rise, but the most the chain allowed was a low stoop. He

cleared his throat and spoke, pushing the words out clear enough to be

heard in the farthest gallery.

"That is true. I was a child, most high. And I was angry."

"And I hear that you have come to my city and killed my eldest child.

Biitrah Machi is dead by your hand."

"That is not true, father," Utah said. "I won't say that no man has ever

died by my hand, but I didn't kill I3iitrah. I have no wish or intention

to become the Khai Machi."

"Then why have you come here?" the Khai shouted, rising to his feet. His

face was twisted in rage, his fists trembled. In all his travels, Otah

had never seen the Khai of any city look more like a man. Otah felt

something like pity through his humiliation and rage, and it let him

speak more softly when he spoke again.

"I heard that my father was dying."

It seemed that the murmur of the crowds would never end. It rolled like

waves against the seashore. Otah knelt again; the awkward stooping hurt

his neck and hack, and there was no point trying to maintain dignity

here. They waited, he and his father, staring at each other across the

space. Otah tried to feel some bond, some kinship that would bridge this

gap, but there was nothing. The Khai Machi was his father by an accident

of birth, and nothing more.

He saw the old man's eyes flicker, as if unsure of himself. He couldn't

have always been this way-the Khaiem were inhumanly studied in ritual

and grace. It was the mark of their calling. Otah wondered what his

father had been when he was young and strong. He wondered what he would

have been like as a man among his children.

The Khai raised a hand, and the crowd's susurrus tapered down to

silence. Otah did not move.

"You have stepped outside tradition," he said. "Whether you took a hand

against my son is a question that has already gathered an array of

opinion. It is something I must think on.

"I have had other news this day. Danat Machi has won the right of

succession. He is returning to the city even now. I will consult with

him on your fate. Until then, you shall be confined in the highest room

in the great tower. I do not care to have your accomplices taking your

death in their own hands this time. Danat and I-the Khai Machi and the

Khai yet to come-shall decide together what kind of beast you are.

Otah took a pose of supplication. That he was on his knees only made the

gesture clearer. He was dead, whatever happened. He could see that now.

If there had been a chance of mercy-and likely there hadn't-having

father and son converse would remove it. But in the black dread, there

was this one chance to speak as himself-not as Itani Noygu or some other

mask. And if it offended the court, there was little worse they could do

to him than he faced now. His father hesitated, and Otah spoke.

"I have seen many of the cities of the Khaiem, most high. I have been

horn into the highest of families, and I have been offered the greatest

of honors. And if I am here to meet my death at the hands of those who

should by all rights love me, at least hear me out. Our cities are not

well, father. Our traditions are not well. You stand there on that dais

now because you killed your own. You are celebrating the return of

Danat, who killed his brother, and at the same time preparing to condemn

me on the suspicion that I did the same. A tradition that calls men to

kill their brothers and discard their sons cannot be-"

"Enough!" the Khai roared, and his voice carried. The whisperers were

silent and unneeded. "I have not carried this city on my back for all

these years to be lectured now by a rebel and a traitor and a poisoner.

You are not my son! You lost that right! You squandered it! Tell me that

this ..." The Khai raised his hands in a gesture that seemed to encom

pass every man and woman of the court, the palaces, the city, the

valley, the mountains, the world. ". . . this is evil? Because our

traditions are what hold all this from chaos. We are the Khaiem! We rule

with the power of the andat, and we do not accept instruction from

couriers and laborers who ... who killed ..."

The Khai closed his eyes and seemed to sway for a moment. The woman to

whom C'chmai had been speaking leapt up, her hand on the old man's

elbow. Otah could see them murmuring to each other, but he had no idea

what they were saying. The woman walked with him back to the chair and

helped him to sit. His face seemed sunken in pain. The woman was

crying-streaks of kohl black on her cheeks-but her bearing was more

regal and sure than their father's had been. She stepped forward and spoke.

"The Khai is weary," she said, as if daring anyone present to say

anything else. "He has given his command. The audience is finished!"

The voices rose almost as high and ran almost as loud as they had at

anything that had gone before. A woman-even if she was his

daughter-taking the initiative to speak for the Khai? The court would be

scandalized. Otah already imagined them placing bets as to whether the

man would live the night, and if he died now, whether it would he this

woman's fault for shaming him so deeply when he was already weak. And

Otah could see that she knew this. The contempt in her expression was

eloquent as any oratory. He caught her eye and took a pose of approval.

She looked at him as if he were a stranger who had spoken her name, then

turned away to help their father walk back to his rooms.

The march up to his cage led through a spiral stone stair so small that

his shoulders touched each wall, and his head stayed bent. The chain

stayed on his neck, his hands now bound behind him. He watched the

armsman before him half walking, half climbing the steep blocks of

stone. When Otah slowed, the man behind him struck with the butt of a

spear and laughed. Otah, his hands bound, sprawled against the steps,

ripping the flesh of his knees and chin. After that, he made a point to

slow as little as possible.

His thighs burned with each step and the constant turning to the right

left him nauseated. He thought of stopping, of refusing to move. They

were taking him up to wait for death anyway. There was nothing to he

gained by collaborating with them. But he went on, cursing tinder his

breath.

When the stairs ended, he found himself in a wide hall. The sky doors in

the north wall were open, and a platform hung level with them and

shifting slightly in the breeze, the great chains taut. Another four

armsmen stood waiting.

"Relief?" the man who had pushed him asked.

The tallest of the new armsmen took a pose of affirmation and spoke.

"We'll take the second half. You four head up and we'll all go down

together." The new armsmen led Otah to a fresh stairway, and the ordeal

began again. He had begun almost to dream in his pain by the time they

stopped. Thick, powerful hands pushed him into a room, and the door

closed behind him with a sound like a capstone being shoved over an open

tomb. The armsman said something through a slit in the door, but Otah

couldn't make sense of it and didn't have the will to try. He lay on the

floor until he realized that his arms had been freed and the iron collar

taken from around his neck. The skin where it had rested was chafed raw.

The voices of men seeped through the door, and then the sound of a winch

creaking as it lowered the platform and its cargo of men. Then there

were only two voices speaking in light, conversational tones. He

couldn't make out a word they said.

He forced himself to sit up and take stock. The room was larger than

he'd expected, and bare. It could have been used as a storage room or

set with table and chairs for a small meeting. There was a bowl of water

in one corner, but no food, no candles, nothing but the stone to sleep

on. The light came from a barred window. His hip and knees ached as Otah

pulled himself up and stumbled over to it. He was facing south, and the

view was like he'd become a bird. He leaned out-the bars were not so

narrowly spaced that he couldn't climb out and fall to his death if he

chose. Below him, the carts in the streets were like ants shuffling

along in their lines. A crow launched itself from a crack or beam and

circled below him, the sun shining on its black back. Trembling, he

pulled himself back in. There were no shutters to close off the sky.

He tried the door's latch, but it had been barred from without, and the

hinges were leather and worked iron. Not the sort of thing a man could

take apart with teeth. Otah knelt by the bowl of water and drank from

his cupped hand. He washed out the worst of his wounds, and left a third

in the bowl. There was no knowing how long it might be before they saw

fit to give him more. He wondered if there were birds that came up this

high to rest, and whether he would be able to trap one. Not that he

would have the chance to cook it-there was nothing to burn here, and no

grate to burn it in. Otah ran his hands over his face, and despite

himself, laughed. It seemed unlikely they would allow him anything sharp

enough to shave with. He would die with this sad little beard.