carried himself. Even his unease when the ritual slipped from its form
might speak well of him in people's memory. It was a small thing, of
course. In the minds of the witnesses, it had been clear that she would
be the daughter of a Khai only very briefly and merely sister to the
Khai was a lower status. House Vaunyogi was buying something whose value
would soon drop. It must be a love match, they would say, and pretend to
be touched. She wondered if it wouldn't be bettercleaner-to simply burn
the city and everyone in it, herself included. Let a hot iron clean and
seal it like searing a wound. It was a passing fantasy, but it gave her
comfort.
A knock came, and she arranged her robes before unlocking the door.
Adrah stood, his house servants behind him. He had not changed out of
his ritual robes.
"Idaan-kya," he said, "I was hoping you might come have a bowl of tea
with my father."
"I have gifts to present to your honored father," Idaan said, gesturing
to a cube of cloth and bright paper the size of a boar. It was already
lashed to a carrying pole. "It is too much for me. Might I have the aid
of your servants?"
Two servants had already moved forward to lift the burden.
Adrah took a pose of command, and she answered with one of acquiescence,
following him as he turned and left. They walked side by side through
the gardens, not touching. Idaan could feel the gazes of the people they
passed, and kept her expression demure. By the time they reached the
palaces of the Vaunyogi, her cheeks ached with it. Idaan and Adrah
walked with their entourage through a hall of worked rosewood and
mother-of-pearl, and to the summer garden where Daaya Vaunyogi sat
beneath a stunted maple tree and sipped tea from a stone bowl. His face
was weathered but kindly. Seeing him in this place was like stepping
into a woodcut from the Old Empire-the honored sage in contemplation.
The gift package was placed on the table before him as if it were a meal.
Adrah's father put down his bowl and took a pose that dismissed the
servants.
"The garden is closed," he said. "We have much to discuss, my children
and I."
As soon as the doors were shut and the three were alone, his face fell.
He sank back to his seat like a man struck by fever. Adrah began to
pace. Idaan ignored them both and poured herself tea. It was overbrewed
and bitter.
"You haven't heard from them, then, Daaya-cha?"
"The Galts?" the man said. "The messengers I send come back empty
handed. When I went to speak to their ambassador, they turned me away.
Things have gone wrong. The risk is too great. They won't hack us now."
"Did they say that?" Idaan asked.
Daaya took a pose that asked clarification. Idaan leaned forward,
holding back the snarl she felt twisting at her lip.
"Did they say they wouldn't back us, or is it only that you fear they
won't?"
"Oshai," Daaya said. "He knows everything. He's been my intermediary
from the beginning. If he tells what he knows-"
"If he does, he'll be killed," Idaan said. "That he injured a poet is
bad enough, but he murdered a son of the Khaiem without being a brother
to him. He knows what would happen. His best hope is that someone
intercedes for him. If he speaks what he knows, he dies badly."
"We have to free him," Adrah said. "We ha-(- to get him out. We have to
show the Galts that we can protect them."
"We will," Idaan said. She drank down her tea. "The three of us. And I
know how we'll do it."
Adrah and his father looked at her as if she'd just spat out a serpent.
She took a pose of query.
"Shall we wait for the Galts to take action instead? They've already
begun to distance themselves. Shall we take some members of your house
into our confidence? Hire some armsmen to do it for us? Assume that our
secrets will be safer the more people know?"
"But ...... Adrah said.
"If we falter, we fail," Idaan said. "I know the way to the cages. He's
kept underground now; if they move him to the towers, it gets harder. I
asked that we meet in a place with a private exit. This garden. There is
a way out of it?"
Daaya took an acknowledging pose, but his face was pale as bread dough.
"I thought there would be others you wished to consult," he said.
"There's nothing to consult over," Idaan said and pulled open the gifts
she had brought to her new marriage. Three dark cloaks with deep hoods,
three blades in dark leather sheaths, two unstrung hunter's bows with
dark-shafted arrows, two torches, a pot of smoke pitch and a bag to
carry it. And beneath it, a wall stand of silver with the sigils of
order and chaos worked in marble and bloodstone. Idaan passed the blades
and cloaks to the men.
"The servants will only know of the wall stand. "These others we can
give to Oshai to dispose of once we have him," Idaan said. "The smoke
pitch we can use to frighten the armsmen at the cages. The bows and
blades are for those that don't flee."
"Idaan-kya," Adrah said, "this is madness, we can't. .
She slapped him before she knew she meant to. He pressed a palm to his
cheek, and his eyes glistened. But there was anger in him too. That was
good.
"We do the thing now, while there are servants to swear it was not us.
We do it quickly, and we live. We falter and wail like old women, and we
die. Pick one."
Daaya Vaunyogi broke the silence by taking a cloak and pulling it on.
His son looked to him, then to her, then, trembling began to do the same.
"You should have been born a man," her soon-to-be father said. There was
disgust in his voice.
The tunnels beneath the palaces were little traveled in spring. The long
winter months trapped in the warrens that laced the earth below Machi
made even the slaves yearn for daylight. Idaan knew them all. Long
winter months stealing unchaperoned up these corridors to play on the
river ice and snow-shrouded city streets had taught her how to move
through them unseen. They passed the alcove where she and Janat Saya had
kissed once, when they were both too young to think it more than
something that they should wish to do. She led them through the thin
servant's passage she'd learned of when she was stealing fresh
applecakes from the kitchens. Memories made the shadows seem like old
friends from better times, when her mischief had been innocent.
They made their way from tunnel to tunnel, passing through wide chambers
unnoticed and passages so narrow they had to stoop and go singly. The
weight of stone above them made the journey seem like traveling through
a mine.
They knew they were nearing the occupied parts of the tunnels as much by
the smell of shit from the cages and acrid smoke as by the torchlight
that danced at the corridor's mouth. Thick timber beams framed the hall.