master's that he had taken from Saraykeht, a packet of letters from
Liat, the most recent of them years old now. The accumulated memories of
a lifetime in two bags small enough to carry on his hack if needed. It
seemed thin. It seemed not enough.
He finished the tea and almond cakes, then went to the window, slid the
paper-thin stone shutter aside, and looked out into the darkness. Sunset
still breathed indigo into the western skyline. The city glittered with
torches and lanterns, and to the south the glow of the forges of the
smith's quarter looked like a brush fire. The towers rose black against
the stars, windows lit high above him where some business took place in
the dark, thin air. Maati sighed, the night cold in his face and lungs.
All these unknown streets, these towers, and the lacework of tunnels
that ran beneath the city: midwinter roads, he'd heard them called. And
somewhere in the labyrinth, his old friend and teacher lurked, planning
murder.
Maati let his imagination play a scene: Otah-kvo appearing before him in
the darkness, blade in hand. In Maati's imagination, his eyes were hard,
his voice hoarse with anger. And there he faltered. He might call for
help and see Otah captured. He might fight him and end the thing in
blood. He might accept the knife as his due. For a dream with so vivid a
beginning, Maati could not envision the end.
He closed the shutter and went to throw another black stone onto the
fire. His indulgence had turned the room chilly, and he sat on the
cushion near the fire as the air warmed again. His legs didn't fold as
easily as Cehmai's had, but if he shifted now and again, his feet didn't
go numb. He found himself thinking fondly of Cehmai-the boy was easy to
befriend. Otah-kvo had been like that, too.
Maati stretched and wondered again whether, if all this had been a song,
he would have sung the hero's part or the villain's.
No ONE HAD EVER SEEN IDAAN'S REBELLIONS AS HUNGER. THA'1' HAD BEEN their
fault. If her friends or her brothers transgressed against the etiquette
of the court, consequences came upon them, shame or censure. But Idaan
was the favored daughter. She might steal a rival girl's gown or arrive
late to the temple and interrupt the priest. She could evade her
chaperones or steal wine from the kitchens or dance with inappropriate
men. She was Idaan Machi, and she could do as she saw fit, because she
didn't matter. She was a woman. And if she'd never screamed at her
father in the middle of his court that she was as much his child as
Biitrah or Danat or Kaiin, it was because she feared in her bones that
he would only agree, make some airy comment to dismiss the matter, and
leave her more desperate than before.
Perhaps if once someone had taken her to task, had treated her as if her
actions had the same weight as other people's, things would have ended
differently.
Or perhaps folly is folly because you can't see where it moves from
ambition into evil. Arguments that seem solid and powerful prove hollow
once it's too late to turn back. Arguments like Why should it be right
for them but wrong for me?
She haunted the Second Palace now, breathing in the emptiness that her
eldest brother had left. The vaulted arches of stone and wood echoed her
soft footsteps, and the sunlight that filtered though the stone shutters
thickened the air to a golden twilight. Here was the bedchamber, bare
even of the mattress he and his wife had slept upon. There, the workshop
where he had labored on his enthusiasms, keeping engineers by his side
sometimes late into the night or on into morning. The tables were empty
now. Dust lay thick on them, ignored even by the servants until the time
came for some new child of the Khaiem to take residence ... to live in
this opulence and keep his ear pricked for the sound of his brother's
hunting dogs.
She heard Adrah coming long before he stepped into the room. She
recognized his gait by the sound of it, and didn't call. He was clever,
she thought bitterly; if he wanted to find her, he could puzzle it out.
Adrah Vaunyogi, bright-eyed and broad-shouldered, father of her children
if all went well. Whatever well meant anymore.
"There you are," Adrah said. She could see his anger in the way he held
his body.
"What have I done this time?" she demanded, her tone carrying a sarcasm
that dismissed his concerns even before he spoke them. "Did your patrons
want me to wear red on a day I chose yellow?"
The mention of his hackers, even as obliquely as that, made him stiffen
and peer around, looking for slaves or servants who might overhear.
Idaan laughed-a cruel, short sound.
"You look like a kitten with a bell on its tail," she said. "There's no
one here but us. You needn't worry that someone will roll the rock off
our little conspiracy. We're as safe here as anywhere."
Adrah strode over and crouched beside her all the same. He smelled of
crushed violets and sage, and it struck Idaan that it had not been so
long ago that the scent would have warmed her heart and brought a flush
to her cheeks. His face was long and pretty-almost too pretty to be a
man's. She had kissed those lips a thousand times, but now it seemed
like the act of another woman-some entirely different Idaan Machi whose
body and memory she had inherited when the first girl died. She smiled
and raised her hands in a pose of formal query.
"Arc you mad?" Adrah demanded. "Don't speak about them. Not ever. If
we're found out ..."
"Yes. You're right. I'm sorry," Idaan said. "I wasn't thinking."
""There are rumors you spent a day with Cchmai and the andat. You were
seen.
"The rumors are true, and I meant to be seen. I can't see how my having
a close relationship to the poet would hurt the cause, and in fact I
think it will help, don't you? When the time comes that half the houses
of the utkhaiem arc vying for my father's chair, an upstart house like
yours would do well to boast a friendship with Cehmai."
"I think being married to a daughter of the Khai will be quite enough,
thank you," Adrah said, "and your brothers aren't dead yet, in case
you'd forgotten."
"No. I remember."
"I don't want you acting strangely. Things are too delicate just now for
you to start attracting attention. You are my lover, and if you are off
half the time drinking rice wine with the poet, people won't be saying
that I have strong friendship with him. They'll be saying that he's
cuckolding me, and that Vaunyogi is the wrong house to draw a new Khai
from."
"So you don't want me seeing him, or you just want more discretion when
I do?" Idaan asked.
That stopped him. His eyes, deep brown with flecks of red and green,
peered into hers. A sudden memory, powerful as illness, swept over her
of a winter night when they had met in the tunnels. He had gazed at her