A Betrayal in Winter

"You've asked him to make me a poet?" Otah asked.

"I didn't say it would work," Maati said. "Only that I'd done it."

"Well, thank you for that much."

Otah reached out, took another hit of bread, and leaned back. The effort seemed to exhaust him. Nlaati rose and paced the room. The view from the window was lovely and inhuman. No one had ever been meant to see so far at once. A thought occurred, and he looked in the corners of the room.

"Have they ... there's no night bucket," he said.

Otah raised one arm in a wide gesture toward the world outside.

"I've been using the window," he said. Maati smiled, and Otah smiled with him. 't'hen for a moment they were laughing together.

"Well, that must confuse people in the streets," Maati said.

"Very large pigeons," Otah said. "They blame very large pigeons."

Maati grinned, and then felt the smile fade.

"They're going to kill, you Otah-kvo. The Khai and Danat. 't'hey can't let you live. You're too well known, and they think you'll act against them."

"They won't make do with blinding inc and casting me into the wilderness, eh?"

"I'll make the suggestion, if you like."

Otah's laugh was thinner now. Ile took up the cheese, digging into its pale flesh with his fingers. lie held a sliver out to Maati, offering to share it. Maati hesitated, and then accepted it. It was smooth as cream and salty. It would go well with the nut bread, he guessed.

"I knew this was likely to happen when I chose to come back," Otah said. "I'm not pleased by it, but it will spare Kiyan, won't it? They won't keep pressing her?"

"I can't see why they would," Maati said.

"Dying isn't so had, then," Otah said. "At least it does something for her."

"Do you mean that?"

"I might as well, Nlaati-kya. Unless you plan to sneak me out in your sleeve, I think I'm going to he spared the rigors of a northern winter. I don't see there's anything to be done about that."

Maati sighed and nodded. He rose and took a pose of farewell. Even just the little food and the short time seemed to have made Otah stronger. He didn't rise, but he took a pose that answered the farewell. Maati walked to the door and pounded to be let out. He heard the scrape of the bar being raised. Otah spoke.

"Thank you for all this. It's kind."

"I'm not doing it for you, Otah-kvo."

"All the same. Thank you."

Maati didn't reply. The door opened, and he stepped out. The captain of the armsmen started to speak, but something in Maati's expression stopped him. Maati strode to the sky doors and out to the platform as if he were walking into a hallway and not an abyss of air. He clasped his hands behind him and looked out over the roofs of Machi. What had been vertiginous only recently failed to move him now. His mind and heart were too full. When he reached the ground again, he walked briskly to his apartments. The wound in his belly itched badly, but he kept himself from worrying it. He only gathered his papers, sat on a deck of oiled wood that looked out over gardens of summer trees and ornate flowers a brighter red than blood, and planned out the remainder of his day.

There were still two armsmen from the cages with whom he hadn't spoken. If he knew who had killed the assassin, it would likely lead him nearer the truth. And the slaves and servants of the Third Palace might be persuaded to speak more of Danat Machi, now that he was coming back covered in the glory of his brother's blood. If he had used the story of Otah the Upstart to distract his remaining brother from his schemes ...

A servant boy interrupted, announcing Cehmai. Maati took a pose of acknowledgment and had the young poet brought to him. He looked unwell, Maati thought. His skin was too pale, his eyes troubled. He couldn't think that Otah-kvo was bothering Cehmai badly, but surely something was.

Still, the boy managed a grin and when he sat, he moved with more energy than Maati himself felt.

"You sent for me, Maati-kvo?"

"I have work," he said. "You offered to help me with this project once. And I could do with your aid, if you still wish to lend it."

"You aren't stopping?"

Maati considered. He could say again that the Dai-kvo had told him to discover the murderer of Biitrah Machi and whether Otah-kvo had had a hand in it, and that until he'd done so, he would keep to his task. It had been a strong enough argument for the utkhaiem, even for the Khai. But Cehmai had known the Dai-kvo as well as he had, and more recently. He would see how shallow the excuse was. In the end he only shook his head.

"I am not stopping," he said.

"May I ask why not?"

"They are going to kill Otah-kvo."

"Yes," Cehmai agreed, his voice calm and equable. Maati might as well have said that winter would be cold.

"And I have a few days to find whose crimes he's carrying."

Cehmai frowned and took a pose of query.

"They'll kill him anyway," Cehmai said. "If he killed Biitrah, they'll execute him for that. If he didn't, Danat will do the thing to keep his claim to be the Khai. Either way he's a dead man."

"That's likely true," Maati said. "But I've done everything else I can think to do, and this is still left, so I'll do this. If there is anything at all I can do, I have to do it."

"In order to save your teacher," Cehmai said, as if he understood.

"To sleep better twenty years from now," Maati said, correcting him. "If anyone asks, I want to he able to say that I did what could be done. And I want to be able to mean it. "That's more important to me than saving him."

Cehmai seemed puzzled, but Maati found no better way to express it without mentioning his son's name, and that would open more than it would close. Instead he waited, letting the silence argue for him. Cehmai took a pose of acceptance at last, and then tilted his head.

"Maati-kvo ... I'm sorry, but when was the last time you slept?"

Maati smiled and ignored the question.

"I'm going to meet with one of the armsmen who saw my assassin killed," he said. "I was wondering if I could impose on you to find some servant from Danat's household with whom I might speak later this evening. I have a few questions about him ..

DANAT MACIII ARRIVED LIKE. A HERO. THE STREETS WERE FILLET) WITH people cheering and singing. Festivals filled the squares. Young girls danced through the streets in lines, garlands of summer blossoms in their hair. And from his litter strewn with woven gold and silver, Danat Machi looked out like a protective father indulging a well-loved child. Idaan had been present when the word came that Danat Machi waited at the bridge for his father's permission to enter the city. She had gone down behind the runner to watch the doors fly open and the celebration that had been building spill out into the dark stone streets. They would have sting as loud for Kaiin, if Danat had been dead.

While Danat's caravan slogged its way through the crowds, Idaan retreated to the palaces. The panoply of the utkhaiem was hardly more restrained than the common folk. Members of all the high families appeared as if by chance outside the Third Palace's great hall. Musicians and singers entertained with beautiful ballads of great warriors returning home from the field, of time and life renewed in a new generation. They were songs of the proper function of the world. It was as if no one had known Biitrah or Kaiin, as if the wheel of the world were not greased with her family's blood. Idaan watched with a calm, pleasant expression while her soul twisted with disgust.

When Danat reached the long, broad yard and stepped down from his litter, a cheer went up from all those present; even from her. Danat raised his arms and smiled to them all, beaming like a child on Candles Night. His gaze found her, and he strode through the crowd to her side. Idaan raised her chin and took a pose of greeting. It was what she was expected to do. He ignored it and picked her up in a great hug, swinging her around as if she weighed nothing, and then placed her back on her own feet.

"Sister," he said, smiling into her eyes. "I can't say how glad I am to see you.

"Danat-kya," she said, and then failed.

"How are things with our father?"

The sorrow that was called for here was at least easier than the feigned delight. She saw it echoed in Danat's eyes. So close to him, she could see the angry red in the whites of his eyes, the pallor in his skin. He was wearing paint, she realized. Rouge on his cheeks and lips and some warm-toned powder to lend his skin the glow of health. Beneath it, he was sallow. She wondered if he'd grown sick, and whether there was some slow poison that might be blamed for his death.

"He has been looking forward to seeing you," she said.

"Yes. Yes, of course. And I hear that you're to become a Vaunyogi. I'm pleased for you. Adrah's a good man."

"I love him," she said, surprised to find that in some dim way it was still truth. "But how are you, brother? Are you ... are things well with you?"

For a moment, Danat seemed about to answer. She thought she saw something weaken in him, his mouth losing its smile, his eyes looking into a darkness like the one she carried. In the end, he shook himself and kissed her forehead, then turned again to the crowd and made his way to the Khai's palace, greeting and rejoicing with everyone who crossed his path. And it was only the beginning. Danat and their father would be closeted away for a time, then the ritual welcome from the heads of the families of the utkhaicm. And then festivities and celebrations, feasts and dances and revelry in the streets and palaces and teahouses.

Idaan made her way to the compound of the Vaunyogi, and to Adrah and his father. The house servants greeted her with smiles and poses of welcome. The chief overseer led her to a small meeting room in the hack. If it seemed odd that this room-windowless and dark-was used now in the summer when most gatherings were in gardens or open pavilions, the overseer made no note of it. Nothing could have been more different from the mood in the city than the one here; like a winter night that had crept into summer.

"Has House Vaunyogi forgotten where it put its candles?" she asked, and turned to the overseer. "Find a lantern or two. These fine men may be suffering from their drink, but I've hardly begun to celebrate."

The overseer took a pose that acknowledged the command and scampered off, returning immediately with his gathered light. Adrah and his father sat at a long stone table. Dark tapestries hung from the wall, red and orange and gold. When the doors were safely closed behind them, Idaan pulled out one of the stools and sat on it. tier gaze moved from the father's face to the son's. She took a pose of query.

"You seem distressed," she said. "The whole city is loud with my brother's glory, and you two are skulking in here like criminals."

"We have reason to be distressed," Daaya Vaunyogi said. She wondered whether Adrah would age into the same loose jowls and watery eyes. "I've finally reached the Galts. They've cooled. Killing Oshai's made them nervous, and now with Danat back ... we expected to have the fighting between your brothers to cover our ... our work. There's no hope of that now. And that poet hasn't stopped hunting around, even with the holes Oshai poked in him."

""The more reason you have to be distressed," Idaan said, "the more important that you should not seem it. Besides, I still have two living brothers."

"Ah, and you have some way to make Danat die at Otah's hand?" the old man said. There was mockery in his voice, but there was also hope. And fear. He had seen what she had done, and perhaps now he thought her capable of anything. She supposed that would be something worthy of his hope and fear.

"I don't have the details. But, yes. The longer we wait, the more suspicious it will look when Danat and the poet die."

"You still want Maati Vaupathai dead?" Daaya asked.

"Otah is locked away, and the poet's digging. Maati Vaupathai isn't satisfied to blame the upstart for everything, even if the whole city besides him is. There are three breathing men between Adrah and my father's chair. Danat, Otah, and the poet. I'll need armsmen, though, to do what I intend. How many could you put together? They would have to he men you trust."

Daaya looked at his son, as if expecting to find some answer there, but Adrah neither spoke nor moved. He might very nearly not have been there at all. Idaan swallowed her impatience and leaned forward, her palms spread on the cool stone of the table. One of the candles sputtered and spat.

"I know a man. A mercenary lord. He's done work for me before and kept quiet," Daaya said at last. He didn't seem certain.

"We'll free the upstart and slit the poet's throat," Idaan said. "There won't be any question who's actually done the thing. No sane person would doubt that it was Otah's hand. And when Danat rides out to find him, our men will be ready to ride with him. That will be the dangerous part. You'll have to find a way to get him apart from anyone else who goes.

"And the upstart?" Daaya asked.

"He'll go where we tell him to go. We'll just have saved him, after all. 't'here will be no reason to think we mean him harm. They'll all be dead in time for the wedding, and if we do it well, the joy that is our bonding will put us as the clear favorites to take the chair. That should be enough to push the Galts into action. Adrah will be Khai before the harvest."

Idaan leaned hack, smiling in grim satisfaction. It was Adrah who broke the silence, his voice calm and sure and unlike him.

"It won't work."

Idaan began to take a pose of challenge, but she hesitated when she saw his eyes. Adrah had gone cold as winter. It wasn't fear that drove him, whatever his father's weakness. There was something else in him, and Idaan felt a stirring of unease.

"I can't sec why not," Idaan said, her voice still strong and sure.

"Killing the poet and freeing Otah would be simple enough to manage. But the other. No. It supposes that Danat would lead the hunt himself. He wouldn't. And if he doesn't, the whole thing falls apart. It won't work."

"I say that he would," Idaan said.

"And I say that your history planning these schemes isn't one that inspires confidence," Adrah said and stood. The candlelight caught his face at an angle, casting shadows across his eyes. Idaan rose, feeling the blood rushing into her face.

"I was the one who saved us when Oshai fell," she said. "You two were mewling like kittens, and crying despair-"

"That's enough," Adrah said.

"I don't recall you being in a position to order me when to speak and when to he silent."

Daaya coughed, looking from one to the other of them like a lamb caught between wolf and lion. The smile that touched Adrah's mouth was thin and unamused.

"Idaan-kya," Adrah said, "I am to be your husband and the Khai of this city. Sit with that. Your plan to free Oshai failed. Do you understand that? It failed. It lost us the support of our hackers, it killed the man most effective in carrying out these unfortunate duties we've taken on, and it exposed me and my father to risk. You failed before, and this scheme you've put before us now would also fail if we did as you propose.

Adrah began to pace slowly, one hand brushing the hanging tapestries. Idaan shook her head, remembering some epic she'd seen when she was young. A performer in the role of Black Chaos had moved as Adrah moved now. Idaan felt her heart grow tight.

"It isn't that it's without merit-the shape of it generally is useful, but the specifics are wrong. If Danat is to grab what men he can find and rush out into the night, it can't be because he's off to avenge a poet. He would have to be possessed by some greater passion. And it would help if he were drunk, but I don't know that we can arrange that."

"So if not the Maati Vaupathai ... ," she began, and her throat closed.

Cehmai, she thought. He means to kill Cehmai and free the andat. Her hands balled into fists, her heart thudded as if she'd been sprinting. Adrah turned to face her, his arms folded, his expression calm as a butcher in the slaughterhouse.

"You said there were three breaths blocking us. There's a fourth. Your father."

No one spoke. When Idaan laughed, it sounded shrill and panicked in her own cars. She took a pose that rejected the suggestion.

"You've gone mad, Adrah-kya. You've lost all sense. My father is dying. He's dying, there's no call to ..."

"What else would enrage Danat enough to let his caution slip? The upstart escapes. Your father is murdered. In the confusion, we come to him, a hunting party in hand, ready to ride with him. We can put it out today that we're planning to ride out before the end of the week. Fresh meat for the wedding feast, we'll say."

"It won't work," Idaan said, raising her chin.

"And why not?" Adrah replied.

"Because I won't let you!"

She spun and grabbed for the door. As she hauled it open, Adrah was around her, his arms pressing it shut again. Daaya was there too, his wide hands patting at her in placating gestures that filled her with rage. Her mind left her, and she shrieked and howled and wept. She clawed at them both and kicked and tried to bite her way free, but Adrah's arms locked around her, lifted her, tightened until she lost her breath and the room spun and grew darker.

She found herself sitting again without knowing when she'd been set down. Adrah was raising a cup to her lips. Strong, unwatered wine. She sipped it, then pushed it away.

"Have you calmed yourself yet?" Adrah asked. There was warmth in his voice again, as if she'd been sick and was only just recovering.

"You can't do it, Adrah-kya. He's an old man, and ..."

Adrah let the silence stretch before he leaned toward her and wiped her lips with a soft cloth. She was trembling, and it annoyed her. Her body was supposed to be stronger than that.

"It will cost him a few days," Adrah said. "A few weeks at most. Idaan-kya, his murder is the thing that will draw your brother out if anything will. You said it to me, love. If we falter, we fail."

He smiled and caressed her cheek with back of his hand. Daaya was at the table, drinking wine of his own. Idaan looked into Adrah's dark eyes, and despite the smiles, despite the caresses, she saw the hardness there. I should have said no, she thought. When he asked if I had taken another lover, I shouldn't have danced around it. I should have said no.

She nodded.

"We can make it quick. Painless," Adrah said. "It will be a mercy, really. His life as it is now can hardly be worth living. Sick, weak. That's no way for a proud man to live."

She nodded again. Her father. The simple pleasure in his eyes.

"He wanted so much to see us wed," she murmured. "He wanted so much for me to be happy."

Adrah took a pose that offered sympathy, but she wasn't such a fool as to believe it. She rose shakily to her feet. They did not stop her.

"I should go," she said. "I'll be expected at the palaces. I expect there will be food and song until the sun comes up."

Daaya looked up. His smile was sickly, but Adrah took a pose of reassurance and the old man looked away again.

"I'm trusting you, Idaan-kya," Adrah said. "To let you go. It's because I trust you."

"It's because you can't lock me away without attracting attention. If I vanish, people will wonder why, and my brother not the least. We can't have that, can we? Everything must seem perfectly normal."

"It still might be wise, locking you away," Adrah said. He pretended to be joking, but she could see the debate going on behind his eyes. For a moment, her life spread out before her. The first wife of the Khai Machi, looking into these eyes. She had loved him once. She had to remember that. Idaan smiled, leaned forward, kissed his lips.

"I'm only sad," she said. "It will pass. I'll come and meet you tomorrow. We can plan what needs to be done."

Outside, the revelry had spread. Garlands arched above the streets. Choirs had assembled and their voices made the city chime like a struck bell. Joy and relief were everywhere, except in her. For most of the afternoon, she moved from feast to feast, celebration to celebration-always careful not to be touched or bumped, afraid she might break like a girl made from spun sugar. As the sun hovered three hands' widths above the mountains to the west, she found the face she had been longing for.

Cehmai and Stone-Made-Soft were in a glade, sitting with a dozen children of the utkhaiem. The little boys and girls were sitting on the grass, grinding green into their silk robes with knees and elbows, while three slaves performed with puppets and dolls. The players squealed and whistled and sang, the puppets hopped and tumbled, beat one another, and fled. The children laughed. Cehmai himself was stretched out like a child, and two adventurous girls were sitting in Stone-MadeSoft's wide lap, their arms around each other. The andat seemed mildly amused.

When Cehmai caught sight of her, he came over immediately. She smiled as she had been doing all day, took a greeting pose that her hands had shaped a hundred times since morning. He was the first one, she thought, to see through pose and smile both.

"What's happened?" he asked, stepping close. His eyes were as dark as Adrah's, but they were soft. They were young. There wasn't any hatred there yet, or any pain. Or perhaps she only wished that was true. Her smile faltered.

"Nothing," she said, and he took her hand. Here where they might be seen-where the children at least were sure to see them-he took her hand and she let him.

"What's happened?" he repeated, his voice lower and closer. She shook her head.

"My father is going to die," she said, her voice breaking on the words, her lips growing weak. "My father's going to die, and there's nothing I can do to help it. No way for me to stop it. And the only time crying makes me feel better is when I can do it with you. Isn't that strange?"