"I don't know. That is, I know they want me to go to Machi in two weeks
time. Amiit Foss is sending half the couriers he has up there, it seems.
"Of course he is. It's where everything's happening."
"But I haven't decided to go."
The silence bore down on him now, and he turned. Kiyan stood in the
doorway-in her doorway. Her crossed arms, her narrowed eyes, and the
single frown-line drawn vertically between her brows, made Otah smile.
He leaned on his brush.
"We need to talk, sweet," he said. "There are some things ... we have
some business, I think, to attend to."
Kiyan answered by taking the brush from him, leaning it against the
wall, and marching to a meeting room at the back of the house. It was
small but formal, with a thick wooden door and a window that looked out
on the corner of the interior courtyard. The sort of place she might
give to a diplomat or a courier for an extra length of copper. The sort
of place it would be difficult to be overheard. That was as it should be.
Kiyan sat carefully, her face as blank as that of a man playing tiles.
Otah sat across from her, careful not to touch her hand. She was holding
herself back, he knew. She was restraining herself from hoping until she
knew, so that if what he said did not match what she longed to hear, the
disappointment would not he so heavy. For a moment, his mind flickered
back to a bathhouse in Saraykeht and another woman's eyes. He had had
this conversation once before, and he doubted he would ever have it again.
"I don't want to go to the north," Otah said. "For more reasons than one.
"Why not?" Kiyan asked.
"Sweet, there are some things I haven't told you. Things about my
family. About myself...."
And so he began, slowly, carefully, to tell the story. He was the son of
the Khai Machi, but his sixth son. One of those cast out by his family
and sent to the school where the sons of the Khaiem and utkhaiem
struggled in hope of one day being selected to be poets and wield the
power of the andat. He had been chosen once, and had walked away. Itani
Noygu was the name he had chosen for himself, the man he had made of
himself. But he was also Otah Machi.
He was careful to tell the story well. He more than half expected her to
laugh at him. Or to accuse him of a self-aggrandizing madness. Or to
sweep him into her arms and say that she'd known, she'd always known he
was something more than a courier. Kiyan defeated all the stories he had
spun in his dreams of this moment. She merely listened, arms crossed,
eyes turned toward the window. The vertical line between her brows
deepened slightly, and that was all. She did not move or ask questions
until he had nearly reached the end. All that was left was to tell her
he'd chosen to take her offer to work with her here at the wayhouse, but
she knew that already and lifted her hands before he could say the words.
"Irani ... lover, if this isn't true ... if this is a joke, please tell
me. Now."
"It isn't a joke," he said.
She took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. When she spoke, she
seemed calm in a way that he knew meant rage beyond expression. At the
first tone of it, his heart went tight.
"You have to leave. Now. Tonight. You have to leave and never come hack."
"Kiyan-kya..."
"No. No kya. No sweet. No my lone. None of that. You have to leave my
house and you can't ever come back or tell anyone who you are or who I
am or that we knew each other once. Igo you understand that?"
"I understand that you're angry with me," Otah said, leaning toward her.
"You have a right to be. But you don't know how carefully I have had to
guard this."
Kiyan tilted her head, like a fox that's heard a strange noise, then
laughed once.
"You think I'm upset you didn't tell me? You think I'm upset because you
had a secret and you didn't spill it the first time we shared a bed?
Irani, this may surprise you, but I have secrets a thousand times less
important than that, and I've kept them a hundred times better."
`But you want me to leave?
"Of course I want you to leave. Are you dim? Do you know what happened
to the men who guarded your eldest brother? They're dead. Do you recall
what happened when the Khai Yalakeht's sons turned on each other six
years back? 't'here were a dozen corpses before that was through, and
only two of them were related to the Khai. Now look around you. How do
you expect me to protect my house? How can I protect Old Mani? And think
before you speak, because if you tell me that you'll be strong and manly
and protect me, I swear by all the gods I'll turn you in myself."
"No one will find out," Otah said.
She closed her eyes. A tear broke free, tracing a bright line down her
cheek. When he leaned close, reaching out to wipe it away, she slapped
his hand before it touched her.
"I would almost be willing to take that chance, if it were only me. Not
quite, but nearly. It isn't, though. It's everyone and everything I've
worked for."
"Kiyan-kya, together we could ..."
"Do nothing. Together we could do nothing, because you are leaving now.
And odd as it sounds, I do understand. Why you concealed what you did,
why you told inc now. And I hope ghosts haunt you and chew out your eyes
at night. I hope all the gods there are damn you for making me love you
and then doing this to me. Now get out. If you're here in half a hand's
time, I will call for the guard."
Outside the window, a flutter of wings and then the fluting melody of a
songbird. The constant distant sound of the river. The scent of pine.
"Do you believe me?" she asked. "That I'll call the guard on you if you
stay?"
"I do," he said.
"Then go."
"I love you."
"I know you do, 'Tani-kya. Go."
House Siyanti had quarters in the city for its people-small rooms hardly
large enough for a cot and a brazier, but the blankets were thick and
soft, and the kitchens sold meals at half the price a cart on the street
would. When the rain came that night, Otah lay in the glow of the coals
and listened to patter of water against leaves mix with the voices from
the covered courtyard. Someone was playing a nomad's harp, and the music
was lively and sorrowful at the same time. Sometimes voices would rise
up together in song or laughter. He turned Kiyan's words over in his
mind and noticed how empty they made him feel.
He'd been a fool to tell her, a fool to say anything. If he had only