pose that accepted her. She swallowed, the tightness in her throat
lessening.
"I'll be hack. The shutters ... it might be awkward if someone were to
happen by and see you here."
"Thank you, Cehmai-kya."
He leaned forward and kissed her mouth, neither passionate nor chaste,
then sighed again and went to the back of the house. She heard the
rattle of wood as he closed the windows against the night. Idaan looked
at her hands, watching them tremble as she might watch a waterfall or a
rare bird. An effect of nature, outside herself. The andat shifted and
turned to look at her. She felt her brows rise, daring the thing to
speak. Its voice was the low rumble of a landslide.
"I have seen generations pass, girl. I've seen young men die of age. I
don't know what you are doing, but I know this. It will end in chaos.
For him, and for you."
Stone-Made-Soft went silent again, stiller than any real man, not even
the pulse of breath in it. She glared into the wide, placid face and
took a pose of challenge.
"It that a threat?" she asked.
The andat shook its head once-left, and then right, and then still as if
it had never moved in all the time since the world was young. When it
spoke again, Idaan was almost startled at the sound.
"It's a blessing," it said.
"WHAT DID HE LOOK LIKE?" MAA'I'I ASKED.
Piyun See, chief assistant to the Master of 'rides, frowned and glanced
out the window. The man sensed that he had done something wrong, even if
he could not say what it had been. It made him reluctant. Maati sipped
tea from a white stone bowl and let the silence stretch.
"A courier. He wore decent robes. He stood half a head taller than you,
and had a good face. Long as a north man's."
"Well, that will help me," Maati said. He couldn't keep his impatience
entirely to himself.
Piyun took a pose of apology formal enough to be utterly insincere.
"He had two eyes and two feet and one nose, Maati-cha. I thought he was
your acquaintance. Shouldn't you know better than I what he looks like?"
"If it is the man."
"He didn't seem pleased to hear you'd been asking after him. He made an
excuse and lit out almost as soon as he heard of you. It isn't as if 1
knew that he wasn't to be told of you. I didn't have orders to hold back
your name."
"Did you have orders to volunteer me to him?" Maati asked.
"No, but ..."
Maati waved the objection away.
"House Siyanti. You're sure of that?"
"Of course I am."
"How do I reach their compound?"
"They don't have one. House Siyanti doesn't trade in the winter cities.
He would be staying at a wayhouse. Or sometimes the houses here will let
couriers take rooms."
"So other than the fact that he came, you can tell me nothing," Maati said.
This time the pose of apology was more sincere. Frustration clamped
Maati's jaw until his teeth hurt, but he forced himself into a pose that
thanked the assistant and ended the interview. Piyun See left the small
meeting room silently, closing the door behind him.
Otah was here, then. He had come back to Machi, using the same name he
had had in Saraykeht. And that meant ... Maati pressed his fingertips to
his eyes. That meant nothing certain. That he was here suggested that
Biitrah's death was his work, but as yet it was only a sug gestion. He
doubted that the Dai-kvo or the Khai Machi would see it that way. His
presence was as much as proof to them, and there was no way to keep it
secret. Piyun See was no doubt spreading the gossip across the palaces
even now-the visiting poet and his mysterious courier. He had to find
Otah himself, and he had to do it now.
He straightened his robes and stalked out to the gardens, and then the
path that would lead him to the heart of the city. He would begin with
the teahouses nearest the forges. It was the sort of place couriers
might go to drink and gossip. There might be someone there who would
know of House Siyanti and its partners. He could discover whether Irani
Noygu had truly been working for Siyanti. That would bring him one step
nearer, at least. And there was nothing more he could think of to do now.
The streets were busy with children playing street games with rope and
sticks, with beggars and slaves and water carts and firekeepers' kilns,
with farmers' carts loaded high with spring produce or lambs and pigs on
their way to the fresh butcher. Voices jabbered and shouted and sang,
the smells of forge smoke and grilling meat and livestock pressed like a
fever. The city seemed busy as an anthill, and Maati's mind churned as
he navigated his way through it all. Otah had come to the winter cities.
Was he killing his brothers? Had he chosen to become the Khai Machi?
And if he had, would Maati have the strength to stop him?
He told himself that he could. He was so focused and among so many
distractions that he almost didn't notice his follower. Only when he
found what looked like a promising alley-hardly more than a shoulderwide
crack between two long, tall buildings-did he escape the crowds long
enough to notice. The sound of the street faded in the dim twilight that
the band of sky above him allowed. A rat, surprised by him, scuttled
through an iron grating and away. The thin alley branched, and Maati
paused, looked down the two new paths, and then glanced back. The path
behind him was blocked. A dark cloak, a raised hood, and shoulders so
broad they touched both walls. Maati hesitated, and the man behind him
didn't move. Maati felt the skin at the back of his neck tighten. He
picked one turning of the alleyway and walked down it briskly until the
dark figure reached the intersection as well and turned after him. Then
Maati ran. The alley spilled out into another street, this less
populous. The smoke of the forges made the air acrid and hazy. Maati
raced toward them. There would be men there-smiths and tradesmen, but
also firekeepers and armsmen.
When he reached the mouth where the street spilled out onto a major
throughway, he looked back. The street behind him was empty. His steps
slowed, and he stopped, scanning the doorways, the rooftops. There was
nothing. His pursuer-if that was what he had been-had vanished. Maati
waited there until he'd caught his breath, then let himself laugh. No
one was coming. No one had followed. It was easy to see how a man could
be eaten by his fears. He turned to the metalworkers' quarter.
The streets widened here, with shops and stalls facing out, filled with
the tools of the metal trades as much as their products. The forges and
smith's houses were marked by the greened copper roofs, the pillars of
smoke, the sounds of yelling voices and hammers striking anvils. The