myself. Other men want it, and they can have it. None of them will cross
me, and I will support whoever takes the name."
"So you have no preference," Maati said.
"Now I didn't go so far as to say that, did I? Why does the Dai-kvo care
which of its becomes the Khai?"
"He doesn't. But that doesn't mean he's uninterested."
""Then let him wait two weeks, and he can have the name. It doesn't
figure. Dither he has a favorite or ... or is this about your belly
getting opened for you?" Radaani pursed his lips, his eyes darting back
and forth over Maati's face. "I'he upstart's dead, so it isn't that. You
think someone was working with Otah Machi? That one of the houses was
backing him?"
"I didn't go so far as to say that, did I? And even if they were, it's
no concern of the Dai-kvo's," Maati said.
""lrue, but no one tried to fish-gut the Dai-kvo. Could it be, Maaticha,
that you're here on your own interest?"
"You give me too much credit," Maati said. "I'm only a simple man trying
to make sense of complex times."
"Yes, aren't we all," Radaani said with an expression of distaste.
Mlaati kept the rest of the interview to empty niceties and social
forms, and left with the distinct feeling that he'd given out more
information than he'd gathered. Chewing absently at his inner lip, he
turned west, away from the palaces and out into the streets of the city.
The pale mourning cloth was coming down already, and the festival colors
were going back up for the marriage of Adrah Vaunyogi and Idaan Machi.
Maati watched as a young boy, skin brown as a nut, sat atop a lantern
pole with pale mourning rags in one hand and a garland of flowers in the
other. Maati wondered if a city had ever gone from celebration to sorrow
and back again so quickly.
Tomorrow ended the mourning week, marked the wedding of the dead Khai's
last daughter, and began the open struggle to find the city's new
master. The quiet struggle had, of course, been going on for the week.
Adaut Kamau had denied any interest in the Khai's chair, but had spent
enough time intimating that support from the Dai-kvo might sway his
opinion that Nlaati felt sure the Kamau hadn't abandoned their
ambitions. Ghiah Vaunani had been perfectly pleasant, friendly, open,
and had managed in the course of their conversation to say nothing at
all. Even now, Maati saw messengers moving through the streets and
alleyways. The grand conversation of power might put on the clothes of
sorrow, but the chatter only changed form.
Maati walked more often these days. The wound in his belly was still
pink, but the twinges of pain were few and widely spaced. While he
walked the streets, his robes marked him as a man of importance, and not
someone to interrupt. Ile was less likely to be disturbed here than in
the library or his own rooms. And moving seemed to help him think.
He had to speak to l)aaya Vaunyogi, the soon-to-be father of Idaan
Machi. He'd been putting off that moment, dreading the awkwardness of
condolence and congratulations mixed. Ile wasn't sure whether to be
long-faced and formal or jolly and pleasant, and he felt a deep
certainty that whatever he chose would be the wrong thing. But it had to
be done, and it wasn't the worst of the errands he'd set himself for the
day.
There wasn't a soft quarter set aside for the comfort houses in Machi as
there had been in Saraykeht. Here the whores and gambling, druglaced
wine and private rooms were distributed throughout the city. Maati was
sorry for that. For all its subterranean entertainments, the soft
quarter of Saraykeht had been safe-protected by an armed watch paid by
all the houses. Ile'd never heard of another place like it. In most
cities of the Khaiem, a particular house might guard the street outside
its own door, but little more than that. In low towns, it was often wise
to travel in groups or with a guard after dark.
Maati paused at a watcrseller's cart and paid a length of copper for a
cup of cool water with a hint of peach to it. As he drank, he looked up
at the sun. He'd spent almost a full hand's time reminiscing about
Saraykeht and avoiding any real consideration of the Vaunyogi. He should
have been thinking his way through the puzzles of who had killed the
Khai and his son, who had spirited Otah-kvo away, and then falsified his
death, and why.
The sad truth was, he didn't know and wasn't sure that anything he'd
done since he'd cone had brought him much closer. He understood more of
the court politics, he knew the names of the great houses and trivia
about them: Kaman was supported by the breeders who raised mine dogs and
the copper workers, the Vaunani by the goldsmiths, tanners and
leatherworkers, Vaunvogi had business tics to Eddensea, Galt and the
Westlands and little money to show for it when compared to the Radaani.
But none of that brought him close to understanding the simple facts as
he knew them. Someone had killed these men and meant the world to put
the blame on Otah-kvo. And Otah-kvo had not done the thing.
Still, there had to be someone backing Otah-kvo. Someone who had freed
him and staged his false death. He ran through his conversation with
Radaani again, seeing if perhaps the man's lack of ambition masked
support for Otah-kvo, but there was nothing.
He gave back the waterseller's cup and let his steps wander through the
streets, his hands tucked inside his sleeves, until his hip and knee
started to complain. The sun was shifting down toward the western
mountains. Winter days here would be brief and hitter, the swift winter
sun ducking behind stone before it even reached the horizon. It hardly
seemed fair.
By the time he regained the palaces, the prospect of walking all the way
to the Vaunyogi failed to appeal. They would be busy with preparations
for the wedding anyway. There was no point intruding now. Better to
speak to Daaya Vaunyogi afterwards, when things had calmed. Though, of
course, by then the utkhaiem would be in council, and the gods only knew
whether he'd be able to get through then, or if he'd be in time.
He might only find who'd done the thing by seeing who became the next Khai.
There was still the one other thing to do. He wasn't sure how he would
accomplish it either, but it had to be tried. And at least the poet's
house was nearer than the Vaunyogi. He angled down the path through the
oaks, the gravel of the pathway scraping under his weight. The mourning
cloth had already been taken from the tree branches and the lamp posts
and benches, but no bright banners or flowers had taken their places.
When he stepped out from the trees, he saw Stone-Made-Soft sitting on
the steps before the open doorway, its wide face considering him with a
calm half-smile. Maati had the impression that had he been a sparrow or
an assassin with a flaming sword, the andat's reaction would have been