A Betrayal in Winter (lpq-2) (49 page)

done this, or ordered it done. It had been necessary, or so Maati told

himself. He couldn't think of another path, and still the ruins

disturbed him.

He entered the offices of the Master of Tides through the snow door,

tramping up the slick painted wood of the ramp and into rooms he'd known

in summer. When he had taken off his outer cloaks and let himself be led

to the chamber where the servants of the Khai set schedules, Piyun See,

the assistant to the Master of Tides, fell at once into a pose of welcome.

"It's a pleasure to have you back," he said. "The Khai mentioned that we

should expect you. But he had thought you might be here earlier."

Though the air in the offices felt warm, the man's breath was still

visible. Maati's ideas of cold had changed during his journey.

"The way was slower than I'd hoped," Maati said.

"The most high is in meetings and cannot be disturbed, but he has left

us with instructions for your accommodation...."

Maati felt a pang of disappointment. It was naive of him to expect

Otah-kvo to be there to greet him, and yet he had to admit that he had

harbored hopes.

"Whatever is most convenient will, I'm sure, suffice," Maati said.

"Don't bother yourself Piyun-cha," a woman's voice said from behind

them. "I can see to this."

The changes of the previous months had left Kiyan untransformed. Her

hair-black with its lacing of white-was tied hack in a simple knot that

seemed out of place above the ornate robes of a Khai's wife. Her smile

didn't have the chill formal distance or false pleasure of a player at

court intrigue. When she embraced him, her hair smelled of lavender oil.

For all her position and the incarcerating power of being her husband's

wife she would, Maati thought, still look at home at a wayhouse watching

over guests or haggling with the farmers, bakers and butchers at the at

the market.

But perhaps that was only his own wish that things could change and

still be the same.

"You look tired," she said, leading him down a long flight of smnooth-

worn granite stairs. "How long have you been traveling?"

"I left the Dai-kvo before Candles Night," he said.

"You still dress like a poet," she said, gently. So she knew.

"The Dai-kvo agreed to Otah-kvo's proposal. I'm not formally removed so

long as I don't appear in public ceremony in my poet's robes. I'm not

permitted to live in a poet's house or present myself in any way as

carrying the authority of the Dal-kvo."

"And Cehmai?"

"Cehmai's had some admonishing letters, I think. But I took the worst of

it. It was easier that way, and I don't mind so much as I might have

when I was younger."

The doors at the stairway's end stood open. They had descended below the

level of the street, even under its burden of snow, and the candlelit

tunnel before them seemed almost hot. His breath had stopped ghosting.

"I'm sorry for that," Kiyan said, leading the way. "It seems wrong that

you should suffer for doing the right thing."

"I'm not suffering," Maati said. "Not as badly as I did when I was in

the Dai-kvo's good graces, at least. The more I see of the honors I was

offered, the better I feel about having lost them."

She chuckled.

The passageway glowed gold. A high, vaulted arch above them was covered

with tiles that reflected the light hack into the air where it hung like

pollen. An echo of song came from a great distance, the words blurred by

the tunnels. And then the melody was joined and the whispering voices of

the gods seemed to touch the air. Maati's steps faltered, and Kiyan

turned to look at him and then followed his gaze into the air.

"The winter choir," she said. Her voice was suddenly smaller, sharing

his awe. "There are a lot of idle hands in the colder seasons. Music

becomes more important, I think, when things are cold and dark."

"It's beautiful," Maati said. "I knew there were tunnels, but ..."

"It's another city," Kiyan said. "Think how I feel. I didn't know half

the depth of it until I was supposed to help rule it."

They began walking again, their words rising above the song.

"How is he?"

"Not idle," she said with both amusement and melancholy in her tone.

"He's been working until he's half exhausted every day and then getting

up early. There's a thousand critical things that he's called on to do,

and a thousand more that are nothing more than ceremony that only

swallow his time. It makes him cranky. He'll be angry that he wasn't

free to meet you, but it will help that I could. "That's the best I can

do these days. Make sure that the things most important to him are seen

to while he's off making sure the city doesn't fall into chaos."

"I'd think it would be able to grind on without him for a time just from

habit," Maati said.

"Politics takes all the time you can give it," Kiyan said with distaste.

They walked through a wide gate and into a great subterranean hall. A

thousand lanterns glowed, their white light filling the air. Men and

women and children passed on their various errands, the gabble of voices

like a brook over stones. A beggar sang, his lacquered begging box on

the stone floor before him. Maati saw a waterseller's cart, and another

vendor selling waxpaper cones of rice and fish. It was almost like a

street, almost like a wide pavilion with a canopy of stone.

"Your rooms?" Kiyan asked. "Or would you rather have something to eat

first? There's not much fresh this deep into winter, but I've found a

woman who makes a hot barley soup that's simply lovely."

"Actually ... could I meet the child?"

Kiyan's smile seemed to have a light of its own.

"Can you imagine a world where I said no?" she asked.

She nodded to a branching in the wide hall, and led him west, deeper

into the underground. The change was subtle, moving from the public

space of the street to the private tunnels beneath the palaces. There

were gates, it was true, but they were open. There were armsmen here and

there, but only a few of them. And yet soon all the people they passed

wore the robes of servants or slaves of the Khai, and they had entered

the Khai's private domain. Kiyan stopped at a thin oak door, pulled it

open and gestured him to follow her up the staircase it revealed.

The nursery was high above the tunnel-world. The air was kept warm by a

roaring fire in a stone grate, but the light was from the sun. The

nurse, a young girl, no more than sixteen summers, sat dozing in her

chair while the baby cooed and gurgled to itself. Maati stepped to the

edge of the crib, and the child quieted, staring up at him with

distrustful eyes, and then breaking into a wide toothless grin.

"She's only just started sleeping through the night," Kiyan said,

speaking softly to keep from waking her servant. "And there were two

weeks of colic that were close to hell. I don't know what we'd have done

with her if it hadn't been for the nurses. She's been doing better now.

We've named her Eiah."

She reached down, scooped up her daughter, and settled her in her arms.

It was a movement so natural as to seem inevitable. Maati remembered

having done it himself, many years ago, in a very different place. Kiyan

seemed almost to know his mind.

" "Iani-kya said that if things went as you'd expected with the Daikvo

you were thinking of seeking out your son. Nayiit?"

"Nayiit," Maati agreed. "I sent letters to the places I knew to send

them, but I haven't heard hack yet. I may not. But I'll be here, in one

place. If he and his mother want to find me, it won't be difficult."

"I'm sorry," Kiyan said. "Not that it will be easy for them, only that ..."

Maati only shook his head. In Kiyan's arms, the tiny girl with deep

brown eyes grasped at air and gurgled, unaware, he knew, of all the

blood and pain and betrayal that had gone into bringing her here.

"She's beautiful," he said.

"BE REASONABLE!"

Cehmai lay back in his bath. Beside him, Stone-Made-Soft had put its

feet into the warm water and was gazing placidly out into the thick

salt-scented steam that rose from the water and filled the bathhouse.

Against the far wall, a group of young women was rising from the pool

and walking back toward the dressing rooms, leaving a servant to fish

the floating trays with their teapots and bowls from the small, bobbing

waves. Baarath slapped the water impatiently.

"You can look at naked girls later," he said. "This is important. If

Maati-cha's come back to help me catalog the library ..."

"He might quibble on `help you,'" Cehmai said, and might as well have

kept silent.

"... then it's clearly of critical importance to the Dai-kvo. I've heard

the rumors. I know the Vaunyogi were looking to sell the library to some

Westlands warden. That's why Maati was sent here in the first place."

Cehmai closed his eyes. Rumors and speculation had run wild, and perhaps

it would have been a kindness to correct Baarath. But Otah had asked him

to keep silent, and the letters from the Dai-kvo had encouraged this

strategy. If it were known what the Galts had done, what they had

intended to do, it would mean the destruction of their nation: cities

drowned, innocent men and women and children starved when a quiet word

heavy with threat might suffice instead. There was always recourse to

destruction. So long as one poet held one andat, they could find a path

to ruin. So instead of slaughtering countless innocents, Cehmai put up

with the excited, inaccurate speculation of his old friend and waited

for the days to grow longer and warmer.

"If the collection is split," Baraath went on, his voice dropping to a

rough whisper, "we might overlook the very thing that made the library

so important. You have to move your collection over to the library, or

terrible things might happen."

"Terrible things like what?"

"I don't know," Baraath said, his whisper turning peevish. "That's what

Maati-cha and I are trying to find out."

"Well, once you've gone through your collection and found nothing, the

two of you can come to the poet's house and look through mine."

"That would take years!"

"I'll make sure they're well kept until then," Cehmai said. "Have you

spoken with the Khai about his private collection?"

"Who'd want that? It's all copies of contracts and agreements from five

generations ago. Unless it's the most obscure etiquette ever to see

sunlight. Anyone who wants that, let them have it. You've got all the

good books. The philosophy, the grammars, the studies of the andat."

"It's a hard life you lead," Cehmai said. "So close and still, no."

"You are an arrogant prig," Baraath said. "Everyone knows it, but I'm

the only man in the city with the courage to say it to your face.

Arrogant and selfish and small-souled."

"Well, perhaps it's not too much to go over to the library. It isn't as

if it was that long a walk."

Baraath's face brightened for a moment, then, as the insincerity of the

comment came clear, squeezed as if he'd taken a bite of fresh lemon.

With a sound like an angry duck, he rose up and stalked from the baths

and into the fog.

"He's a terrible person," the andat said.

"I know. But he's a friend of mine."

"And terrible people need friends as much as good ones do," the andat

said, its tone an agreement. "More, perhaps."

"Which of us are you thinking of?"

Stone-Made-Soft didn't speak. Cehmai let the warmth of the water slip

into his flesh for a moment longer. Then he too rose, the water sluicing

from him, and walked to the dressing rooms. He dried himself with a

fresh cloth and found his robes, newly cleaned and dry. The other men in

the room spoke among themselves, joked, laughed. Cehmai was more aware

than usual of the formal poses with which they greeted him. In this

quiet season, there was little work for him, and the days were filled

with music and singing, gatherings organized by the young men and women

of the utkhaiem. But all the cakes tasted slightly of ashes, and the

brightest songs seemed tinny and false. Somewhere in the city, under her

brother's watchful eye, the woman he'd sworn to protect was locked away.

He adjusted his robes in the mirror, smiled as if trying the expression

like a party mask, and for the thousandth time noticed the weight of his