A Betrayal in Winter

Idaan walked through the halls, her hands clenched in fists. Her body felt as if a storm were running through it, as if flood waters were washing out her veins. She trembled with the need to do something, but there was nothing to be done. She remembered seeing the superstitious dread with which others had treated the name Otah Machi. She had found it amusing, but she no longer knew why.

She had made Cehmai repeat himself until she was certain that she'd understood what he was saying. It had taken all the pain and sorrow of seeing him again and put it aside. Cehmai had meant to save her by it.

Adrah was in the kitchens, talking with his father's house master. She took a pose of apology and extracted him, leading him to a private chamber, pulling closed the shutters, and sliding home the door before she spoke. Adrah sat in a low chair of pale wood and red velvet as she paced. The words spilled out of her, one upon another as she repeated the story Cehmai had told her. Even she could hear the tones of panic in her voice.

"Fell me," she said as the news came to its end. ""Fell me it's not true. Nell me you're sure he's dead."

"He's dead. It's a mistake. It has to be. No one knew when he'd he leaving the city. No one could have rescued him."

"'Tell me that you know!"

Adrah scowled.

"How would I do that? We hired men to free him, take him away, and kill him. They took him away, and his body floated hack down the river. But I wasn't there, I didn't strangle him myself. I can't keep these men from knowing who's paid their fee and also be there to hold their hands, Idaan. You know that."

Idaan put her hands to her mouth. Her fingers were shaking. It was a dream. It was a sick dream, and she would wake from it. She would wake up, and none of it would have been true.

"He's used us," she said. "Otah's used us to do his work."

"What?"

"Look at it! We've done everything for him. We've killed them all. Even ... even my father. We've done everything he would have needed to do. He knew. He knew from the start. He's planned for everything we've done."

Adrah made an impatient sound at the back of his throat.

"You're imagining things," he said. "He can't have known what we were doing, or how we would do it. He isn't a god, and he isn't a ghost."

"You're sure of that, are you? We've fallen into his trap, Adrah! It's a trap!"

"It is a rumor started by Cehmai'Iyan. Or maybe it's Maati Vaupathai who's set you a trap. He could suspect us and say these things to make us panic. Or Cehmai could."

"He wouldn't do that," Idaan said. "(:ehmai wouldn't do that toto us."

"TO you, you mean," Adrah said, pulling the words out slow and bitter.

Idaan stopped her pacing and took a pose of query, her gaze locked on Adrah's. As much challenge as question. Adrah leaned hack in his chair, the wood creaking tinder his weight.

"He's your lover, isn't he?" Adrah said. "This limp story about wanting to offer condolences and being willing to back my claim only if he could see you, could speak with you. And you sending me away like I was a puppy you'd finished playing with. Do you think I'm dim, Idaan?"

Her throat closed, and she coughed to loosen it, only the cough didn't end. It became laughter, and it shook her the way a dog might shake a rat. It was nothing about mirth, everything about violence. Adrah's face went red, and then white.

"This?" Idaan finally managed to stammer. "This is what we're going to argue about?"

"Is there something else you'd prefer?"

"You're about to live a life filled with women who aren't me. You and your father must have a list drawn up of allies we can make by taking their daughters for wives. You have no right to accuse me of anything."

"That was your choice," he said. "We agreed when we started this ... this landslide. It would he the two of us, together, no matter if we won this or lost."

"And how long would that have lasted after you took my father's place?" she asked. "Who would I appeal to when you broke your word?"

Adrah rose to his feet, stepping toward her. His hand open flat, pointed toward her like a knife.

"That isn't fair to me. You never gave me the chance to fail you. You assumed it and went on to punish me as though it had happened."

"I'm not wrong, Adrah. You know I'm not wrong."

"There's a price for doing what you say, do you know that? I loved you more than I loved anything. My father, my mother, my sisters, anything or anyone. I did all of this because it was what you wanted."

"And not for any gain of your own? How selfless. Becoming Khai Machi must be such a chore for you."

"You wouldn't have had me if my ambition didn't match yours," Adrah said. "What I've become, I've become for you."

"That isn't fair," Idaan said.

Adrah whooped and turned in a wide circle, like a child playing before an invisible audience.

"Fair! When did this become about fair? When someone finally asked you to take some responsibility? You made the plans, love. This is yours, Idaan! All of it's yours, and VOL] won't blame me that you've got to live with it!"

He was breathing fast now, as if he'd been running, but she could see in his shoulders and the corners of his mouth that the rage was failing. He dropped his arms and looked at her. His breath slowed. His face relaxed. They stood in silence, considering each other for what felt like half a hand. There was no anger now and no sorrow. He only looked tired and lost, very young and very old at once. He looked the way she felt. It was as if the air they both breathed had changed. He was the one to look away and break the silence.

"You know, love, you never said Cehmai wasn't your lover."

"He is," Idaan said, then shrugged. The battle was over. They were both too thin now for any more damage to matter. "He has been for a few weeks."

"Why?"

"I don't know. Because he wasn't part of all this. Because he was clean."

"Because he is power, and you're drawn to that more than anything?"

Idaan hit back her first response and let the accusation sit. "Then she nodded.

"Perhaps a bit of that, yes," she said.

Adrah sighed and leaned against the wall. Slowly, he slid down until he was sitting on the floor, his arms resting on his knees.

"There is a list of houses and their women," he said. ""There was before you and Cehmai took tip with each other. I argued against it, but my father said it was just as an exercise. Just in case it was needed later. Only tell me ... today, when he came ... you didn't ... the two of you didn't ..."

Idaan laughed again, but this was a lower sound, gentler.

"No, I haven't lain down for another man in your house, Adrah-kya. I can't say why I think that would be worse than what I have done, but I do."

Adrah nodded. She could see another question in the way he shifted his eyes, the way he moved his hands. They had been lovers and conspirators for years. She knew him as if he were her family, or a distant part of herself. It didn't make her love him, but she remembered when she had.

"The first time I kissed you, you looked so frightened," she said. "Do you remember that? It was the middle of winter, and we'd all gone skating. "There must have been twenty of us. We all raced, and you won."

"And you kissed me for the prize," he said. "Noichi Vausadar was chewing his own tongue, he was so jealous of me."

"Poor Noichi. I half did it to annoy him, you know."

"And the other half?"

"Because I wanted to," she said. "And then it was weeks before you came hack for another."

"I was afraid you'd laugh at me. I went to sleep every night thinking about you, and woke up every morning just as possessed. Can you imagine only being afraid that someone would laugh at you?"

"Now? No."

"Do you remember the night we both went to the inn. With the little dog out front?"

"The one that danced when the keep played flute? Yes."

Idaan smiled. It had been a tiny animal with gray hair and soft, dark eyes. It had seemed so delighted, rearing up on its hind legs and capering, small paws waving for balance. It had seemed happy. She wiped away the tear before it could mar her kohl, then remembered that her eyes were only her eyes now. In her mind, the tiny dog leapt and looked at her. It had been so happy and so innocent. She pushed her own heart out toward that memory, pleading with the cold world that the pup was somewhere out there, still safe and well, trusting and loved as it had been that day. She didn't bother wiping the tears away now.

"We were other people then," she said.

They were silent again. After a moment, Idaan went to sit on the floor beside Adrah. I Ic put his arm across her shoulder, and she leaned into him, weeping silently for too many things for one mind to hold. He didn't speak until the worst of the tears had passed.

"Do they bother you?" he asked at last, his voice low and hoarse.

"Who?"

"'I'hem," he said, and she knew. She heard the sound of the arrow again, and shivered.

"Yes," she said.

"Do you know what's funny? It isn't your father who haunts me. It should be, I know. He was helpless, and I went there knowing what I was going to do. But he isn't the one."

Idaan frowned, trying to think who else there had been. Adrah saw her confusion and smiled, as if confirming something for himself. Perhaps only that she hadn't known some part of him, that his life was something different from her own.

"When we went in for the assassin, Oshal. There was a guard. I hit him. With a blade. It split his jaw. I can still see it. Have you ever swung a thin bar of iron into hard snow? It felt just like that. A hard, fast arc and then something that both gave way and didn't. I remember how it sounded. And afterward, you wouldn't touch me."

"Adrah ..."

He raised his hands, stopping anything that might have been sympathy. Idaan swallowed it. She had no right to pardon him.

"Men do this," Adrah said. "All over the world, in every land, men do this. They slaughter each other over money or sex or power. The Khaiem do it to their own families. I never wondered how. Even now, I can't imagine it. I can't imagine doing the things I've done, even after I've done them. Can you?"

"There's a price they pay," Idaan said. "The soldiers and the armsmen. Even the thugs and drunkards who carve each other up outside comfort houses. They pay a price, and we're paying it too. That's all."

She felt him sigh.

"I suppose you're right," he said.

"So what do we do from here? What about Otah?"

Adrah shrugged, as if the answer were obvious.

"If Maati Vaupathai's set himself to be Otah's champion, Otah will eventually come to him. And Cehmai's already shown that there's one person in the world he'll break his silence for."

"I want Cehmai kept out of this."

"It's too late for that," Adrah said. His voice should have been cold or angry or cruel, and perhaps those were in him. Mostly, he sounded exhausted. "He's the only one who can lead us to Otah Machi. And you're the only one he'll tell."

PORSHA RADAANI GESTURED TOWARD MAA'I'I'S BOWL, AND A SERVANT BOY moved forward, graceful as a dancer, to refill it. Maati took a pose of gratitude toward the man. There were times and places that he would have thanked the servant, but this was not one of them. Maati lifted the bowl and blew across the surface. The pale green-yellow tea smelled richly of rice and fresh, unsmoked leaves. Radaani laced thick fingers over his wide belly and smiled. His eyes, sunk deep in their sockets and padded by generous fat, glittered like wet stones in a brook.

"I confess, Maati-cha, that I hadn't expected a visit from the Daikvo's envoy. I've had men from every major house in the city here to talk with me these last few days, but the most high Dai-kvo usually keeps clear of these messy little affairs."

Maati sipped his tea though it was still too hot. He had to be careful how he answered this. It was a fine line between letting it be assumed that he had the Dai-kvo's hacking and actually saying as much, but that difference was critical. He had so far kept away from anything that might reach hack to the Dal-kvo's village, but Radaani was an older man than Ghiah Vaunani or Admit Kamati. And he seemed more at home with the bullying attitude of wealth than the subtleties of court. Maati put down his bowl.

"The Dai-kvo isn't taking a hand in it," Nlaati said, "but that hardly means he should embrace ignorance. The better he knows the world, the better he can direct the poets to everyone's benefit, nc?"

"Spoken like a man of the court," Radaani said, and despite the smile in his voice, Maati didn't think it had been a compliment.

"I have heard that the Radaani might have designs on the Khai's chair," Maati said, dropping the oblique path he had intended. It would have done no good here. "Is that the case?"

Radaani smiled and pointed for the servant boy to go. The boy dropped into a formal pose and retreated, sliding the door closed behind him. Maati sat, smiling pleasantly, but not filling the silence. It was a small room, richly appointed-wood varnished until it seemed to glow and ornaments of worked gold and carved stone. The windows were adorned with shutters of carved cedar so fine that they let the breeze in and kept the birds and insects out even as they scented the air. Radaani tilted his head, distant eyes narrowing. Maati felt like a gem being valued by a merchant.

"I have one son in Yalakeht, overseeing our business interests. I have a grandson who has recently learned how to sing and jump sticks at the same time. I can't see that either of them would be. well suited to the Khai's chair. I would have to either abandon my family's business or put a child in power over the city."

"Certainly there must be some financial advantages to being the Khai Machi," Maati said. "I can't think it would hurt your family to exchange your work in Yalakcht to join the Khaiem."

"Then you haven't spoken to my overseers," Radaani laughed. "We are pulling in more gold from the ships in Yalakeht and Chaburi-Tan than the Khai Machi can pull out of the ground, even with the andat. No. If I want power, I can purchase it and not have to compromise anything. Besides, I have six or eight daughters I'd be happy for the new Khai to marry. He could have one for every day of the week."

"You could take the chair for yourself," Maati said. "You're not so old...."

"And I'm not so young as to be that stupid. Here, Vaupathai, let me lay this out for you. I am old, gouty as often as not, and rich. I have what I want from life, and being the Khai Maehi would mean that if I were lucky, my grandsons would be slitting each other's throats. I don't want that for them, and I don't want the trouble of running a city for 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.