"And then what?" NIaati asked.
"And then we run," Otah said, "as far and fast and quiet as we can, and
we hope he never finds us."
THE SUN HAD PASSED ITS HIGHEST POINT AND STARTED THE LONG, SLOW slide
toward darkness. Idaan had chosen robes the blue-gray of twilight and
bound her hair hack with clasps of silver and moonstone. Around her, the
gallery was nearly full, the air thick with heat and the mingled scents
of bodies and perfumes. She stood at the rail, looking down into the
press of bodies below her. The parquet of the floor was scuffed with the
marks of hoots. There were no empty places at the tables or against the
stone walls, no quiet negotiations going on in hallways or teahouses.
That time had passed, and in its wake, they were all brought here.
Voices washed together like the hushing of wind, and she could feel the
weight of the eyes upon her-the men below her sneaking glances up, the
representatives of the merchant houses at her side considering her, and
the lower orders in the gallery above staring down at her and the men
over whom she loomed. She was a woman, and not welcome to speak or sit
at the tables below. But still, she would make her presence felt.
"How is it that we accept the word of these men that they are the
wisest?" Ghiah Vaunani pounded the speaker's pulpit before him with each
word, a dry, shallow sound. Idaan almost thought she could see flecks of
foam at the corners of his mouth. "How is it that the houses of the
utkhaiem are so much like sheep that they would consent to be led by
this shepherd boy of Vaunyogi?"
It was meant, Idaan knew, to be a speech to sway the others from their
confidence, but all she heard in the words was the confusion and pain of
a boy whose plans have fallen through. He could pound and rail and
screech his questions as long as his voice held out. Idaan, standing
above the proceedings like a protective ghost, knew the answers to every
one, and she would never tell them to him.
Below her, Adrah Vaunyogi looked up, his expression calm and certain. It
had been late in the morning that she'd woken in the poet's house, later
still when she'd returned to the rooms she shared now with her husband.
He had been there, waiting for her. The night's excesses had weighed
heavy on him. They hadn't spoken-she had only called for a bath and
clean robes. When she'd cleaned herself and washed her hair, she sat at
her mirror and painted her face with all her old skill and delicacy. The
woman who looked out at her when she put down her brushes might have
been the loveliest in Machi.
Adrah had left without a word. It had been almost half a hand before she
learned that her new father, Daaya Vaunyogi, had called for the
decision, and that the houses had agreed. No one had told her to come
here, no one had asked her to lend the sight of her silent presence to
the cause. She had done it, perhaps, because Adrah had not demanded it
of her.
"We must not hurry! We must not allow sentiment to push us into a
decision that will change our city forever!"
Idaan allowed herself a smile. It would seem to most people that the
force of the story had won the day. The last daughter of the old line
would be the first mother of the new, and if a quiet structure of money
and obligation supported it, if she were really the lover of the poet a
hundred times more than the Khai, it hardly mattered. It was what the
city would see, and that was enough.
Ghiah's energy was beginning to flag. She heard his words lose their
crispness and the pounding on his table fall out of rhythm. The anger in
his voice became merely petulance, and the objections to Adrah in
particular and the Vaunyogi in general lost their force. It would have
been better, she thought, if he'd ended half a hand earlier. Still
insufficient, but less so.
The Master of "fides stood when Ghiah at last surrendered the floor. He
was an old man with a long, northern face and a deep, sonorous voice.
Idaan saw his eyes flicker up to her and then away.
"Adaut Kamau has also asked to address the council," he said, "before
the houses speak on the decision to accept Adrah Vaunyogi as the Khai
Machi......
A chorus of jeers rose from the galleries and even the council tables.
Idaan held herself still and quiet. Her feet were starting to ache, but
she didn't shift her weight. The effect she desired wouldn't be served
by showing her pleasure. Adaut Kamau rose, his face gray and pinched. He
opened his arms, but before he could speak, a bundle of rough cloth
arced from the highest gallery. A long tail of brown fluttered behind it
like a banner as it fell, and in the instant that it struck the floor,
the screaming began.
Idaan's composure broke, and she leaned forward. The men at the tables
nearest the thing waved their arms and fled, shrieking and pounding at
the air. Voices buzzed and a cloud of pale, moving smoke rose toward the
galleries.
No. The buzzing was not voices, the cloud was not smoke. These were
wasps. The bundle on the council floor had been a nest wrapped in cloth
and wax. The first of the insects buzzed past her, a glimpse of black
and yellow. She turned and ran.
Bodies filled the corridors, panic pressing them together until there
was no air, no space. People screamed and cursed-men, women, children.
"Their shrill voices mixed with the angry buzz. She was pushed from all
sides. An elbow dug into her back. The surge of the crowd pressed the
breath from her. She was suffocating, and insects filled the air above
her. Idaan felt something bite the flesh at the back of her neck like a
hot iron burning her. She screamed and tried to reach back to hat the
thing away, but there was no room to move her arm, no air. She lashed
out at whoever, whatever was near. The crowd was a single, huge, biting
beast and Idaan flailed and shrieked, her mind lost to fear and pain and
confusion.
Stepping into the open air of the street was like waking from a
nightmare. The bodies around her thinned, becoming only themselves
again. The fierce buzz of tiny wings was gone, the cries of pain and
terror replaced by the groans of the stung. People were still streaming
out of the palace, arms flapping, but others were sitting on benches or
else the ground. Servants and slaves were rushing about, tending to the
hurt and the humiliated. Idaan felt the back of her neck-three angry
humps were already forming.
"It's a poor omen," a man in the red robes of the needle wrights said.
"Something more's going on than meets the eye if someone's willing to
attack the council to keep old Kamau from talking."
"What could he have said?" the man's companion asked.
"I don't know, but you can be sure whatever it was, he'll be saying
something else tomorrow. Someone wanted him stopped. Unless this is
about Adrah Vaunyogi. It could be that someone wants him closed down."