A Shadow In Summer (10 page)

He laughed with a sound like choking—mirthless and painful. His thick fingers grasped his knees, fingertips digging into pink flesh. Amat laid her cane aside and pressed her palm to his bent shoulder. Through the carved cedar blinds she heard someone on the street shriek and go silent.

"The round-faced one—Oshai. He came, didn't he? He told you I went there."

"Of course he did. He wanted to know if I'd sent you."

"What did you tell him?"

"That I hadn't."

"I see."

The silence stretched. She waited, willing him to speak, willing some words that would put it in some perspective less awful than it seemed. But Wilsin said nothing.

"I'll go back to my apartments," Amat said. "We can talk about this later."

She reached for her cane, but Wilsin's hand trapped hers. There was something in his eyes now, an emotion. Fear. It was as if they'd been soaking in it instead of water. She could feel her own heart trip faster as his eyes searched hers.

"Don't. Don't go home. He'll be waiting for you."

For the space of four breaths together, they were silent. Amat had to swallow to loosen her throat.

"Hide, Amat. Don't tell me where you've gone. Keep your head low for . . . four weeks. Five. It'll be over by then. And once it's finished with, you'll be safe. I can protect you then. You're only in danger if they think you might stop it from happening. Once it's done . . ."

"I could go to the utkhaiem. I could tell them that something's wrong. We could have Oshai in chains by nightfall, if . . ."

Marchat shook his woolly, white head slowly, his gaze never leaving hers. Amat felt the strength go out of his fingers.

"If this comes out to anyone, I'll be killed. At least me. Probably others. Some of them innocents."

"I thought there was only one innocent in this city," Amat said, biting her words.

"I'll be killed."

Amat hesitated, then withdrew her arm and took a pose of acceptance. He let her stand. Her hip screamed. And her stinging ointment was all at her apartments. The unfairness of losing that small comfort struck her ridiculously hard; one insignificant detail in a world that had turned from solid to nightmare in a day.

At the door, she stopped, her hand on the water-thick wood. She looked back at her employer. At her old friend. His face was stone.

"You told me," she said, "because you wanted me to find a way to stop it. Didn't you?"

"I made a mistake because I was confused and upset and felt very much alone," he said. His voice was stronger now, more sure of himself. "I hadn't thought it through. But it was a mistake, and I see the situation more clearly now. Do what I tell you, Amat, and we'll both see the other side of this."

"It's wrong. Whatever this is, it's evil and it's wrong."

"Yes," he agreed.

Amat nodded and closed the door behind her when she went.

Chapter 3

Through the day, the skies had been clear, hot and muggy. The rain only came with sunset; huge thunderheads towering into the sky, their flowing ropy trains tinted pink and gold and indigo by the failing light. The gray veil of water higher than mountains moved slowly toward the city, losing its festival colors in the twilight, pushing gusts of unpredictable wind before it, and finally reaching the stone streets and thick tile roofs in darkness. And in the darkness, it roared.

Liat lay her head on Itani's bare chest and listened to it: the angry hiss of falling rain, the lower rumble—like a river or a flood—of water washing through the streets. Here, in her cell at the compound of House Wilsin, it wasn't so bad. The streets outside were safe to walk through. Lower in the city—the soft quarter, the seafront, the warehouses—people would be trapped by it, staying in whatever shelter they had found until the rain slackened and the waters fell. She listened to the sound of water and her lover's heartbeat, smelled the cool scent of rain mixed with the musk of sex. In the summer cities, even a night rain didn't cool the air so much that she felt the need to cover her bare skin.

"We need to find a stronger frame for your netting," Itani said, prodding the knot of fallen cloth with his toe. Liat remembered that it had come down sometime during the evening. She smiled. The sex had left her spent—her limbs warm and loose, as if her bones had gone soft, as if she were an ocean creature.

"I love you, 'Tani," she said. His hand caressed the nape of her neck. He had rough hands—strong from his work and callused—but he used them gently when he chose. She looked up at him, his long face and unkempt hair. His smile. In the light of the night candle, his skin seemed to glow. "Don't go home tonight. Stay here, with me."

When he sighed, his breath lifted her head and settled it gently back down. "I can't. I'll stay until the rain fades a little. But Muhatia-cha's been watching me ever since you sent me out with Wilsincha. He's just waiting for an excuse to break me down."

"He's just jealous," Liat said.

"No, he's jealous
and
he's in control of my wages," Itani said, a wry amusement in his voice. "That makes him more than just jealous."

"It isn't fair. You're smarter than he is. You know numbers and letters. All the others like you better than him. You should be the overseer."

"If I was the overseer, the others wouldn't like me as much. If Little Kiri or Kaimati or Tanani thought I'd be docking their pay for being slow or arriving late, they'd say all the same things about me that they do about Muhatia. It's just the way it is. Besides, I like what I do."

"But you'd be a better overseer than he is."

"Probably so," Itani agreed. "The price is too high, though."

The pause was a different kind of silence than it had been before. Liat could feel the change in Itani's breathing. He was waiting for her to ask, waiting for her to push the issue. She could feel him flowing away, distant even before she spoke. Because he knew she would. And he was right.

"Did you ask Wilsincha about other opportunities?"

"Yes," he said.

"And?"

"He didn't know of any at the time, but he said he'd see what he could find."

"That's good, then. He liked you. That's very good," and again the pause, the distance. "If he offered you a position, you'd take it, wouldn't you?"

"It would depend on the offer," Itani said. "I don't want to do what I don't want to do."

"Itani! Look past your nose, would you? You'd
have
to. If the head of House Wilsin makes you an offer and you turn away, why would he ever make another one? You can't build a life out of refusing things. You have to accept them too—even things you don't want sometimes. If they lead to things you do want later on."

Itani shifted out from under her and stood. She rolled up to a sitting position. Itani stretched, his back to her, and he made the cell seem small. Her desk, her ledgers, a pile of ink blocks, waxed paper sticking out from between them like pale tongues. A wardrobe where her robes hung, and Itani, the muscles of his back shifting in the candlelight.

"Some nights, I feel like I'm talking to a statue. You're in your twentieth summer. This is my seventeenth," she said severely. "So how is it I'm older than you?"

"Maybe you sleep less," Itani said mildly. When he turned back to her, he smiled gently. He moved with animal grace and so little padding between his muscles and his skin that she felt she could see the mechanism of each motion. He crouched by the cot, resting his head on his hands and looking up at her. "We have this conversation over and over, sweet, and it's never changed yet. I know you want more from me than—"

"I want you to want more for yourself, 'Tani. That isn't the same thing."

He took a gentle pose asking permission.

"I know you want more from me than a laborer's life. And I don't imagine I'll do this forever. But I'm not ashamed of it, and I won't do something I like less so that someone someday might give me something that they think I'm supposed to want. When
I
want something, that will be different."

"And isn't there anything you want that you don't already have?"

He rose, cupping her breast in his hand and gently, carefully pressing his lips to hers. His weight bore her back slowly to the labyrinth of cloth that had been her sheets and netting. She pulled back a fraction of an inch, keeping so close that when she spoke, she could feel her lips brushing his.

"What kind of answer is this?" she asked.

"You asked me about things I want," he murmured.

"And you're distracting me instead of answering the question."

"Am I?"

His hand brushed down her side. She felt the gooseflesh rise as it passed.

"Are you what?"

"Am I distracting you?"

"Yes," she said.

The knock at the door startled them both. Itani leapt up, chagrin showing on his face as he pawed the shadows, looking for the rough cloth of his pants. Liat drew her sheet around her. To the silent question in Itani's eyes she shook her head in bewilderment. The knock came again.

"A moment!" she said, loud enough to carry over the rain. "Who's there?"

"Epani Doru," the voice shouted from the other side of the thin door. "Wilsincha sent me to ask whether he might have a word with you."

"Of course. Yes. Just give me a moment."

Itani, trousers located, tossed her robes to her. She pulled on the inner robes, then grabbed a fresh outer robe from the wardrobe. Itani helped her fasten it. She felt her hands trembling. The voice of House Wilsin wanted to speak with her, and outside the normal hours of labor. It had never happened before.

"I should go back to my quarters," Itani said as she pulled her hair back to a formal bun.

"No. Please, 'Tani. Wait for me."

"You could be a quarter candle, love," he said. "Listen. The rain's coming softer now anyway. It's time."

It was true. The hiss of the rain was less vicious. And for all her complaints, she understood what it meant to have the unkind interest of an overseer. She took a pose of acceptance, but broke it to kiss him again.

"I'll find you tomorrow," she said.

"I'll be waiting."

Itani moved back into the shadows behind the wardrobe and Liat tugged at her robes one last time, stepped into her slippers and answered the door. Epani, Marchat Wilsin's house master, stood under the awning, his arms crossed, and his expression neutral. Liat took a pose indicating preparedness, and without apparent irony, he replied with one expressing thanks for prompt action. His gaze passed her for a moment, taking in the wreckage of her cot, the discarded robes on the stone floor, but he made no comment. When he turned and strode away, she followed.

They went down an open walkway of gray stones raised far enough that the streams of rainwater hadn't darkened them. In the courtyard, the fountain had filled to overflowing, the wide pool dancing with drops. The tall bronze statue of the Galtic Tree—symbol of the house—loomed in the darkness, the false bark glittering in the light of lanterns strung beneath the awnings and safe from the rain.

The private apartments where Wilsincha lived were at the end of the courtyard farthest from the street. Double doors of copper-bound ash stood open, though the view of the antechamber was still blocked by house banners shifting uneasily in the breeze. They glowed from the light behind them. Epani drew one banner aside and gestured Liat within as if she were a guest and not an apprentice overseer.

The antechamber was stone-floored, but the walls and high ceiling glowed with worked wood. The air smelled rich with lemon candle and mint wine and lamp oil. Lanterns lit the space. From somewhere nearby, she heard voices—two men, she thought. She made out few words—Wilsincha's voice saying "won't affect" and "unlike the last girl," the other man saying "won't allow" and "street by street if needed." Epani, sweeping in behind her, took a pose that indicated she should wait. She took a pose of acknowledgment, but the house master had already moved on, vanishing behind thick banners. The conversation stopped suddenly as Epani's rain-soft voice interrupted. Then Marchat Wilsin himself, wearing robes of green and black, strode into the room.

"Liat Chokavi!"

Liat took a pose of obeisance which the head of her house replied to with a curt formal pose, dropped as soon as taken. He put a thick hand on her shoulder and drew her back to an inner chamber.

"I need to know, Liat. Do you speak any island tongues? Arrask or Nippu?"

"No, Wilsincha. I know Galtic and some Coyani . . ."

"But nothing from the Eastern Islands?"

As they stepped into a meeting room, Liat adopted an apologetic pose.

"That's too bad," Wilsincha said, though his tone was mild and his expression curiously relieved.

"I think Amatcha may know some Nippu. It isn't a language that's much used in trade, but she's very well-studied."

Wilsin lowered himself to a bench beside a low table, gesturing to the cushion across from him. Liat knelt as he poured out a bowl of tea for her.

"You've been with my house, what? Three years now?"

"Amatcha accepted me as her apprentice four years ago. I was with my father in Chaburi-Tan before that, working with my brothers . . ."

"Four years ago? Weren't you young to be working four years ago? You'd have seen twelve summers?"

Liat felt herself blush. She hadn't meant to have her family brought into the conversation.

"Thirteen, Wilsincha. And there were ways I could help, so I did what I could. My brothers and I all helped where we could."

She silently willed the old Galt's attention away from the subject. Anything she could say about her old life would make her seem less likely to be worth cultivating. The small apartments by the smokehouse that had housed her and three brothers; her father's little stand in the market selling cured meats and dried fruits. It wasn't the place Liat imagined an overseer of a merchant house would start from. Her wish seemed to be granted. Wilsincha cleared his throat and sat forward.

"Amat's been sent away on private business. She may be gone for some weeks. I have an audience before the Khai that I'll need you to take over."