A Shadow In Summer (32 page)

Despite the wealth and luxury of the road, the first sight of the Dai-kvo's village took Otah's breath away. Carved into the stone of the mountain, the village was something half belonging to the world of men, half to the ocean and the sun and the great forces of the world. He stopped in the road and looked up at the glittering windows and streets, stairways and garrets and towers. A thin golden ribbon of a waterfall lay just within the structures, and warm light of the coming sunset made the stone around it glow like bronze. Chimes light as birdsong and deep as bells rang when the breeze stirred them. If the view had been designed to humble those who came to it, the designer could rest well. Maati, he realized, had lived in this place, studied in it. And he, Otah, had refused it. He wondered what it would have been like, coming down this road as a boy coming to his reward; what it would have been like to see this grandeur set out before him as if it were his right.

The path to the grand offices was easily found, and well peopled. Firekeepers—not members of the utkhaiem, but servants only of the Dai-kvo—kept kilns at the crossroads and teahouses and offered the promise of warmth and comfort in the falling night. Otah didn't pause at them.

He reached the grand offices: a high, arched hall open to the west so that the lowering sun set the white stone walls ablaze. Men—only men, Otah noted—paced through the hall on one errand or another, passing from one corridor to another, through doors of worked rosewood and oak. Otah had to stop a servant who was lighting lanterns to find the way to the Dai-kvo's overseer.

He was an old man with a kind face in the brown robes of a poet. When Otah approached his table, the overseer took a pose that was both welcome and query with a flowing grace that he had seen only in the Khai Saraykeht or the andat. Otah replied with a pose of greeting, and for an instant, he was a boy again in the cold, empty hallways of the school.

"I've come with a letter for the Dai-kvo," he said, pushing the memory aside. "From Maati Vaupathi in Saraykeht."

"Ah?" the overseer said, "Excellent. I will see that he gets it immediately."

The beautiful, old hand reached to him, open to accept the packet still in Otah's sleeve. Otah considered the withered fingers like carved wood, a sudden alarm growing in him.

"I had hoped to see the Dai-kvo myself," he said, and the overseer's expression changed to one of sympathy.

"The Dai-kvo is very busy, my friend. He hardly has time to speak to me, and I'm set to schedule his days. Give the letter to me, and I will see that he knows of it."

Otah pulled the letter out and handed it over, a profound disappointment blooming in his breast. It was obvious, of course, that the Dai-kvo wouldn't meet with simple couriers, however sensitive the letters they bore. He shouldn't have expected him to. Otah took a pose of gratitude.

"Will you be staying to carry a reply?"

"Yes," Otah said. "If there is one."

"I will send word tomorrow whether the most high intends to respond. Where will I find you?"

Otah took a pose of apology and explained that he had not taken rooms and didn't know the village. The overseer gave him a recommendation, directions, and the patience Otah imagined a grandfather might have for a well-loved but rather slow grandchild. It was twilight—the distant skyline glorious with the gold and purple of the just-set sun—when Otah returned to the street, his errand complete.

On the way back down, there was time to see the village more closely, though the light around him was fading. It struck him for the first time that he had seen no women since he had left the road. The firekeeper's kilns, the food carts and stalls, the inn to which he'd been directed—all were overseen by men. None of the people passing him in the steep, dim street had a woman's face.

And as he looked more closely, he found other signs, subtler ones, that the life of the Dai-kvo's village was unlike that of the ones he had known. The streets had none of the grime and dust of Saraykeht—no small plants or grasses pushed at the joints of the paving stones, no moss stained the corners of the walls. Even more than its singularity of gender, the unnatural perfection of the place made it seem foreign and unsettling and sterile.

He ate his dinner—venison and wine and fresh black bread—sitting alone at a low table with his back to the fire. A dark mood had descended on him. Visions of Liat and some small house, some simple work, bread cooked in his own kiln, meat roasted in his own kitchens seemed both ludicrous and powerful. He had done what he said he'd set out for. The letter was in the Dai-kvo's hands, or would be shortly.

But he had come for his own reasons too. He was Otah, the sixth son of the Khai Machi, who had walked away from the greatest power in all the nations. He had been offered the chance to control the andat and refused. For the first time, here in this false village, he imagined what that must be to his brothers, his teachers, the boys who had taken the offer gladly when it had been given. To men like Maati.

And so who was this Itani Noyga, this simple laborer with simple dreams? He had come halfway across the lands of the Khaiem, he realized, to answer that question, and instead he had handed an old man a packet of papers. He remembered, setting out from Saraykeht, that it had seemed an important adventure, not only to Heshai and Seedless, the Khai Machi and Saraykeht, but to himself personally. Now, he wasn't sure why he'd thought delivering a letter would mean more than delivering a letter.

He was given a small room, hardly large enough for the stretched-canvas cot and the candle on the table beside it. The blankets were warm and thick and soft. The mattress was clean and free of lice or fleas. The room smelled of cut cedar, and not rat piss or unbathed humanity. Small as it was, it was also perfect.

The candle was snuffed, and Otah more than half asleep when his door opened. A small man, bald as an egg, stepped in, a lantern held high. His round face was marked by two bushy eyebrows—black shot with white. Otah met his gaze, at first bleary, and then an instant later awake and alert. He took the pose of greeting he'd learned as a boy, he smiled sweetly and without sincerity.

"I am honored by your presence, most high Dai-kvo."

Tahi-kvo scowled and moved closer. He held the lantern close to Otah's face until the brightness of the flame made his old teacher shadowy. Otah didn't look away.

"It
is
you."

"Yes."

"Show me your hands," his old teacher said. Otah complied, and the lantern shifted, Tahi-kvo leaning close, examining the callused palms. He bent so close, Otah could feel the breath on his fingertips. The old man's eyes were going.

"It's true then," Tahi-kvo said. "You're a laborer."

Otah closed his hands. The words were no surprise, but the sting of them was. He would have thought he was beyond caring what opinion Tahi-kvo held. He smiled his charming smile like a mask and kept his voice mild and amused.

"I've picked my own path," he said.

"It was a poor choice."

"It was mine to make."

The old man—Tahi-kvo, the Dai-kvo, the most powerful man in the world—stood, shaking his head in disgust. His robes whispered as he moved—silk upon silk. He tilted his head like a malefic bird.

"I have consultations to make concerning the message you brought. It may take some days before I draft my reply."

Otah waited for the stab of words or the remembered whir of the lacquer rod, but Tahi only stood waiting. At length Otah took a pose of acceptance.

"I will wait for it," he said.

For a moment, something glittered in Tahi-kvo's eyes that might have been sorrow or impatience, and then without farewell, he was gone, the door closed behind him, and Otah lay back in his bed. The darkness was silent, except for the slowly retreating footsteps. They were long vanished before Otah's heart and breath slowed, before the heat in his blood cooled.

T
HE DAYS
that followed were among the most difficult of Amat Kyaan's life. The comfort house was in disarray, and her coup only added to the chaos. Each individual person—whores, guards, the men at the tables, the men who sold wine, all of them—were testing her. Three times, fights had broken out. It seemed once a day that she was called on to stop some small liberty, and always with the plaintive explanation that Ovi Niit had allowed it. To hear it told now, he had been the most selfless and open-handed of men. Death had improved him. It was to be expected.

If that had been all, it might not have kept her awake in the nights. But also there was the transfer of Maj into the house. No one else spoke Nippu, and Maj hadn't picked up enough of the Khaiate tongue to make herself understood easily. Since she'd come, Amat had been interrupted for her needs, whatever they were, whenever they came.

Torish Wite, thankfully, had proved capable in more ways than she'd hoped. When she asked him, he had agreed to spread the word at the seafront that Amat Kyaan in the soft quarter was looking for information about shipments of pearls from Galt. Building the case against House Wilsin would be like leading a second life. The comfort house would fund it, once she had the place in order, but the time was more a burden than the money. She was not so young as she had been.

These early stages, at least, she could leave to the mercenary, though some nights, she would remember conversations she'd had with traders from the Westlands and the implications for trading with a freehold or ward that relied on paid soldiery. As long as she was in a position to offer these men girls and money, they would likely stay. If they ever became indispensable, she was doomed.

Her room, once Ovi Niit's, was spacious and wide and covered—desk, bed, and floor—with records and papers and plans. The morning sun sloped through windows whose thick, tight-fit shutters were meant to let her sleep until evening. She sipped from a bowl of tea while Mitat, her closest advisor in the things specifically of the house, paced the length of the room. The papers in her hands hissed as she shifted from one to another and back.

"It's too much," Mitat said. "I honestly never thought I'd say it, but you're giving them too much freedom. To choose which men they take? Amatcha, with all respect, you're a whoremonger. When a man comes in with the silver, it's your place to give him a girl. Or a boy. Or three girls and a chicken, if that's what he's paid for. If the girls can refuse a client . . ."

"They take back less money," Amat said, her voice reasonable and calm, though she already knew that Mitat was right. "Those who work most, get most. And with that kind of liberty and the chance to earn more, we'll attract women who want to work in a good house."

Mitat stopped walking. She didn't speak, but her guarded expression was enough. Amat closed her eyes and leaned back in her seat.

"Don't beat them without cause," Mitat said. "Don't let anyone cut them where it would scar. Give them what they're owed. That's all you can do now, grandmother. In a year—two, perhaps—you could try something like this, but to do it now would be a sign of weakness."

"Yes. I suppose it would. Thank you, Mitat-cha."

When she opened her eyes again, the woman had taken a pose of concern. Amat answered with one of reassurance.

"You seem tired, grandmother."

"It's nothing."

Mitat hesitated visibly, then handed back the papers. Before Amat could ask what was troubling her, steps came up the stairs and a polite knock interrupted them. Torish Wite stepped in, his expression guarded.

"There's someone here to see you," he said to Amat.

"Who?"

"Marchat Wilsin."

Her belly went tight, but she only took in a deep breath.

"Is anyone with him?"

"No. He stinks a little of wine, but he's unarmed and he's come alone."

"Where's Maj?" she asked.

"Asleep. We've made your old cell a sleeping chamber for her."

"Set a guard on her room. No one's to go in, and she's not to come out. I don't want him knowing that we have her here."

"You're going to see him?" Mitat asked, her voice incredulous.

"He was my employer for decades," Amat said, as if it were an answer to the question. "Torish-cha. I'll want a man outside the door. If I call out, I want him in here immediately. If I don't, I want privacy. We'll finish our conversation later, Mitat."

The pair retreated, closing the door behind them. Amat rose, taking up her cane and walking to the doors that opened onto the private deck. It had rained in the night, and the air was still thick with it. It was that, Amat told herself, that made it hard to breathe. The door opened behind her, then closed again. She didn't turn at once. Across the deck, the soft quarter flowed street upon street, alley upon alley. Banners flew and beggars sang. It was a lovely city, even this part. This was why she was doing what she'd done. For this and for the girl Maj and the babe she'd lost. She steeled herself.

Marchat Wilsin stood at the doorway in a robe of green so deep and rich it seemed shot with black. His face was grayish, his eyes bloodshot. He looked frightened and lost, like a mouse surrounded by cats. He broke her heart.

"Hello, old friend," she said. "Who'd have thought we'd end here, eh?"

"Why are you doing this, Amat?"

The pain in his voice almost cracked it. She felt the urge to go to him, comfort him. She wanted badly to touch his hand and tell him that everything would end well, in part because she knew that it wouldn't. It occurred to her distantly that if she had let him profess love for her, she might not have been able to leave House Wilsin.

"What happened to the poet. To the girl. It was an attack," she said. "You know it, and I do. You attacked Saraykeht."

He walked forward, his hands out, palms up before him.

"
I
didn't," he said. "Amat, you have to see that this wasn't my doing."

"Can I offer you tea?" she asked.

Bewildered, he sank onto a divan and ran his hands through his hair in wordless distress. She remembered the man she'd first met—his dark hair, his foreign manners. He'd had an easy laugh back then, and power in his gaze. She poured a bowl of tea for him. When he didn't take it from her hand, she left it on the low table at his knee and went back to her own desk.