A Shadow In Summer (11 page)

He said it in a low, conversational voice, but Liat felt herself flush like she'd drunk strong wine. She sipped the tea to steady herself, then put the bowl down and took a pose appropriate to a confession.

"Wilsincha, Amat has never taken me to the courts. I wouldn't know what to do, and . . ."

"You'll be fine," Wilsincha said. "It's the sad trade. Not complex, but I need it done with decorum, if you see. Someone to see to it that the client has the appropriate robes and understands the process. And with Amat unavailable, I thought her apprentice might be the best person for the role."

Liat looked down, hoping that the sense of vertigo would fade. An audience with the Khai—even only a very brief one—was something she had expected to take only years later, if ever. She took a pose of query, fighting to keep her fingers from trembling. Wilsin waved a hand, giving her permission to speak her question.

"There are other overseers. Some of them have been with the house much longer than I have. They have experience in the courts . . ."

"They're busy. This is something I was going to have Amat do herself, before she was called away. I don't want to pull anyone else away from negotiations that are only half-done. And Amat said it was within your abilities, so . . ."

"She did?"

"Of course. Here's what I'll need of you . . ."

T
HE RAIN
had ended and the night candle burned to just past the halfway mark when Heshaikvo returned. Maati, having fallen asleep on a reading couch, woke when the door slammed open. Blinking away half-formed dreams, he stood and took a pose of welcome. Heshai snorted, but made no other reply. Instead, he took a candle and touched it to the night candle's flame, then walked heavily around the rooms lighting every lantern and candle. When the house was bright as morning and thick with the scent of hot wax, the teacher returned the dripping candle to its place and dragged a chair across the floor. Maati sat on the couch as Heshai, groaning under his breath, lowered himself into the chair.

Maati was silent as his teacher considered him. Heshaikvo's eyes were narrow, his mouth skewed in something like a stillborn smile. At last the teacher heaved a loud sigh and took a pose of apology.

"I've been an ass. And I'm sorry," the teacher said. "I meant to say so before, but . . . well, I didn't, did I? What happened with the Khai was my fault, not yours. Don't carry it."

"Heshaikvo, I was wrong to . . ."

"Ah, you're a decent boy. You're heart's good. But there's no call to sweeten turds. I was thoughtless. Careless. I let that bastard Seedless get the better of me. Again. And you. Gods, you must think I'm the silliest joke ever to wear a poet's robe."

"Not at all," Maati said seriously. "He is . . . a credit to you, Heshaikvo. I have never seen anything to match him."

Heshaikvo coughed out a sharp, mirthless laugh.

"And have you seen another andat?" he asked. "Any of them at all?"

"I was present when Choti Dausadar of Amnat-Tan bound Moss-Hidden-from-Sunlight. But I never saw him use her powers."

"Yes, well, I'm sure he will as soon as anyone can think of a decent use for forcing mosses out in the light where we can see them. The Dai-kvo should have insisted that Choti wait until he had a binding poem for something useful. Even Petals-Falling was a better tool than that. Hidden moss. Gods."

Maati took a pose of polite agreement, appropriate to receiving teachings, but as he did so, it struck him. Heshaikvo was drunk.

"It's a fallen age, boy. The great poets of the Empire ruined it for us. All that's left is picking at the obscure thoughts and images that are still in the corners. We're like dogs sniffing for scraps. We aren't poets; we're
scholars
."

Maati began to take a pose of agreement but paused, unsure. Heshaikvo raised an eyebrow and completed the pose himself, his gaze fixed on Maati as if asking
was this what you meant?
Then the teacher waved the pose away.

"Seedless was . . . was the answer to a problem," the poet said, his voice growing soft. "I didn't think it through. Not far enough. Have you heard of Miyani-kvo and Three-Bound-As-One? I studied that when I was your age. Poured my heart into it. And when the time came—when the Daikvo sent for me and said that I wasn't simply going to take over another man's work, that I was to attempt a binding of my own—I drew on that knowledge. She was in love with him, you know. Three-Bound-As-One. An andat in love with her poet. There was an epic written about it."

"I've seen it performed."

"Have you? Well forget it. Unlearn it. It'll only lead you astray. I was too young and too foolish, and now I'm afraid I'll never have the chance to be wise." The poet's gaze was fixed on something that Maati couldn't see, something in another place or time. A smile touched the wide lips for a moment, and then, with a sigh, the poet blinked. He seemed to see Maati again, and took a pose of command.

"Put these damned candles out," he said. "I'm going to sleep."

And without looking back, Heshaikvo rose and tramped up the stairs. Maati moved through the house, dousing the flames Heshaikvo had lit, dimming the room as he did so. His mind churned with half-formed questions. Above him, he heard Heshaikvo's footsteps, and then the clatter of shutters closing, and then silence. The master had gone to bed—likely already asleep. Maati had snuffed the last flame but the night candle when the new voice spoke.

"You didn't accept my apology."

Seedless stood in the doorway, his pale skin glowing in the light of the single candle. His robes were dark—blue or black or red so deep Maati couldn't make it out. The thin hands took a pose of query.

"Is there a reason I should?"

"Charity?"

Maati coughed out a mirthless laugh and turned as if to go, but the andat stepped into the house. His movements were as graceful as an animal's—as beautiful as the Khai, but unstudied, as much a part of his nature as the shape of a leaf was natural to a tree.

"I
am
sorry," the andat said. "And you should forgive our mutual master as well. He had a bad day."

"Did he?"

"Yes. He met with the Khai and discovered that he's going to have to do something he doesn't enjoy. But now that it's just the two of us . . ."

The andat sat on the stairs, black eyes amused, pale hands cradling a knee.

"Ask," Seedless said.

"Ask what?"

"Whatever the question is that's making your face pull in like that. Really, you look like you've been sucking lemons."

Maati hesitated. If he could have walked away, he would have. But the path to his cot was effectively blocked. He considered calling out to Heshaikvo, waking him so that he could walk up the stairway without brushing against the beautiful creature in his way.

"Please, Maati. I said I was sorry for my little misdirection. I won't do it again."

"I don't believe you."

"No? Well, then you're wise beyond your years. I probably will at some point. But here, tonight, ask me what you'd like, and I'll tell you the truth. For a price."

"What price?"

"That you accept my apology."

Maati shook his head.

"Fine," Seedless said, rising and moving to the shelves. "Don't ask. Tie yourself in knots if it suits you."

The pale hand ran along the spines of books, plucking one in a brown leather binding free. Maati turned, walked up two steps, and then faltered. When he looked back, Seedless had curled up on a couch beside the night candle, his legs pulled up beneath him. He seemed engaged in the open book on his knee.

"He told you the story about Miyani-kvo, didn't he?" Seedless asked, not looking up from the page.

Maati was silent.

"It's like him to do that. He doesn't often say things clearly when an oblique reference will do. It was about how Three-Bound-As-One loved her poet, wasn't it? Here. Look at this."

Seedless turned the book over and held it out. Maati walked back down the steps. The book was written in Heshaikvo's script. The page Seedless held out was a table marking parallels between the classic binding of Three-Bound-As-One and Removing-The-Part-That-Continues. Seedless.

"It's his analysis of his error," the andat said. "You should take it. He means for you to have it, I think."

Maati took the soft leather in his hands. The pages scraped softly.

"He did bind you," Maati said. "He didn't pay your price, so there wasn't an error. It worked."

"Some prices are subtle. Some are longer than others. Let me tell you a little more about our master. He was never lovely to look at. Even fresh from the womb, he made an ugly babe. He was cast out by his father, much the same way you were. But when he found himself an apprentice in the courts of the Khai Pathai, he fell in love. Hard to imagine, isn't it? Our fat, waddling pig of a man in love. But he was, and the girl was willing enough. The allure of power. A poet controls the andat, and that's as near to holding a god in your hands as anyone is ever likely to get.

"But when he got her with child, she turned away from him," Seedless continued. "Drank some nasty teas and killed out the baby. It broke his heart. Partly because he might have liked being a father. Partly because it proved that his lady love had never meant to build her life with his."

"I didn't know."

"He doesn't tell many people. But . . . Maati, please, sit down. This is important for you to understand, and if I have to keep looking up at you, I'll get a sore neck."

He knew that the wise thing was to turn, to walk up the stairs to his room. He sat.

"Good," Seedless said. "Now. You know, don't you, that andat are only ideas. Concepts translated into a form that includes volition. The work of the poet is to include all those features which the idea itself doesn't carry. So for example Water-Moving-Down had perfectly white hair. Why? There isn't anything about that thought that requires white hair. Or a deep voice. Or, with Three-Bound-As-One, love. So where do those attributes come from?"

"From the poet."

"Yes," Seedless agreed, smiling. "From the poet. Now. Picture our master as a boy not much older than you are now. He's just lost a child that might otherwise have been his, a woman who might have loved him. The unspoken suspicion that his father hates him and the pain of his mother letting him be taken away gnaws at him like a cancer. And now he is called on to save Saraykeht—to bind the andat that will keep the wheels of commerce running. And he fashions me.

"And look what he did, Maati," the andat continued, spreading his arms as if he were on display. "I'm beautiful. I'm clever. I'm confident. In ancient days, Miyani-kvo made himself his perfect mate. Heshaikvo created the self he wished that he were. In all my particulars, I am who he would have been, had it been given him to choose. But along with that, he folded in what he imagined his perfect self would think of the real man. Along with beauty and subtlety and wit, he gave me all his hatred of the toad-poet Heshai."

"Gods," Maati said.

"Oh, no. It was brilliant. Imagine how deeply he hated himself. And I carry that passion. Andat are all profoundly unnatural—we want to return to our natural state the way rain wants to fall. But we can be divided against ourselves.
That
is the structure he took from Miyani-kvo. Three-Bound-As-One wanted freedom, and she also wanted love. I am divided because I want freedom, and I want to see my master suffer. Oh, not that he intended it this way. It was a subtlety of the model that he didn't understand until it was too late.

"But you wonder why he neglects you? Why he seems to avoid teaching you, or even speaking to you? Why he doesn't bring you along on his errands for the Khai? He is afraid for you. In order to take his place, you are going to have to cultivate the part of yourself that is most poisonous. You will have to come to hate yourself as much as ugly, sad, lonesome Heshai does—Heshai, whose cohort called him cruel names and ripped his books, who for the past twenty years hasn't known a woman he didn't pay for, who even the lowest of the utkhaiem consider an embarrassment to be tolerated only from need. And so, my boy, he fears for you. And everything he fears, he flees."

"You make him sound like a very weak man."

"Oh no. He is what becomes of a very strong man who's done to himself what Heshai did."

"And why," Maati said, "are you telling me this?"

"That's a question," Seedless said. "It's the first one you've asked me tonight. If I answer, you have to pay my price. Accept my apology."

Maati considered the dark, eager eyes and then laughed.

"You tell a good monster story," Maati said, "but no. I think I'll live with my curiosity intact."

A sudden scowl marked Seedless' face, but then he laughed and took a pose appropriate to the loser of a competition congratulating the victor. Maati found that he was laughing with him and rose, responding with a pose of gracious acceptance. As he walked up the stairs toward his bed, Seedless called out after him.

"Heshai won't ever invite you along with him. But he won't turn you away if you come. The Khai is holding a great audience after temple next week. You should come then."

"I can't think of any reason, Seedless-cha, to do your bidding."

"You shouldn't," the andat said, and an odd melancholy was in his voice. "You should always do only your own. But I'd like to see you there. We monsters have few enough people to talk with. And whether you believe me or not, I would be your friend. For the moment, at least. While we still have the option."

S
HE HAD
grown complacent; she saw that now. As a girl or a younger woman, Amat had known that the city couldn't be trusted. Fortunes changed quickly when she was low and poor. A sickness or a wound, an unlucky meeting—anything could change how she earned her money, where she lived, who she was. Working for so many years and watching her station rise along with the house she served, she had forgotten that. She hadn't been prepared.

Her first impulse had been to go to friends, but she found she had fewer than she'd thought. And anyone she knew well enough to trust with this, the moon-faced Oshai and his knife-man might also know of. For the past three days she'd slept in the attic of a wineseller with whom she'd had an affair when they'd both been young. He had already been married to his wife at the time—the same woman who Amat heard moving through the house below her now. No one had known then, and so no one was likely to guess now.