Two days later, after his work was complete and his friends had gone to their night's entertainments, Otah stepped out from his quarters and considered. The city streets were gaudy with sunset. Orange light warmed the walls and roofs, even as the first stars began to glimmer in the deep cobalt of the eastern sky. Otah stood in the street and watched the change come. Fireflies danced like candles. The songs of beggars changed as the traffic of night came out. The soft quarter lay to his right, lit like a carnival as it was every night. The seafront was before him, though hidden by the barracks of other labor cohorts like his own, employed by other houses. And somewhere far to his left, off past the edge of the city, the great river flowed, bearing water from the north. He rubbed his hands together slowly as the light reddened, then grayed. The sun vanished again, and the stars came out, shining over the city. Liat was in her cell, he supposed, to the north and uphill. And beyond her, the palaces of the Khai.
The streets changed as he walked north. The laborers' quarter was actually quite small, and Otah left it behind him quickly, barracks giving way to the shops of small merchants and free traders. Then came the weavers' compounds, windows candle-lit, and the clack of looms filling the streets as they would even later into the night. He passed groups of men and of women, passed through the street of beads and the blood quarter where physicians and pretenders vied to care for the sick and injured, selling services, as everything in Saraykeht was for trade.
The compounds of the great houses rose up like small villages. Streets grew wider near them, and walls taller. The firekeepers at their kilns wore better robes than their fellows lower in the city. Otah paused at the corner that would have taken him to House Wilsin, through the familiar spaces to Liat's side. It would be so easy, he thought, to go there. He stood for the space of ten heartbeats, standing at the intersection like the statue of some forgotten man of the Empire, before going north. His hands were balled in fists.
The palaces grew up like a city of their own, above the city inhabited by mere humans. The scents of sewage and bodies and meat cooking at teahouses vanished and those of gardens and incense took their places. The paths changed from stone to marble or sand or fine gravel. The songs of beggars gave way to the songs of slaves, almost it seemed without losing the melody. The great halls stood empty and dark or else lit like lanterns from within. Servants and slaves moved along the paths with the quiet efficiency of ants, and the utkhaiem, in robes as gaudy as the sunset, stood in lit courtyards, posing to each other as the politics of the court played out. Vying, Otah guessed, for which would have the honor of killing a son of the Khai Udun.
Pretending that he bore a message, he took directions from one of the servants, and soon he'd left even the palaces behind. The path was dark, curving through stands of trees. He could still see the palaces behind him if he turned, but the emptiness made the poet's house seem remote from them. He crossed a long wooden bridge over a pond. And there the simple, elegant house stood. Its upper story was lit. Its lower had the front wall pulled open like shutters or a stage set for a play. And sitting on a velvet chair was the boy. Maati Vaupathai.
"Well," a soft voice said. "Here's an oddity. It's a strange day we see toughs reeking of the seafront dropping by for tea. Or perhaps you've got some other errand."
The andat Seedless sat on the grass. Otah fell into a pose that asked forgiveness.
"I ... I've come to see Maati-cha," Otah stumbled. "We were ... that is ..."
"Hai! Who's down there?" another voice called. "Who're you?"
Seedless glanced up at the house, eyes narrowed. A fat man in the brown robe of a poet was trundling down the steps. Maati was following.
"Itani of House Wilsin," Otah called out. "I've come to see Maati-cha."
The poet walked more slowly as they approached. His expression was a strange mix - concern, disapproval, and a curious delight.
"You've come for him?" Heshai-kvo said, gesturing over his shoulder. Otah took a pose of affirmation.
"Itani and I met at the grand audience," Maati said. "He offered to show me the seafront."
"Did he?" Heshai-kvo asked, and the disapproval lost ground, Otah thought, to the pleasure. "Well. You. Itani's your name? You know who you're with, eh? This boy is one of the most important men in Saraykeht. Keep him out of trouble."
"Yes, Heshai-cha," Otah said. "I will."
The poet's face softened, and he rooted in the sleeve of his robe for a moment, then reached out to Otah. Otah, unsure, stepped closer and put his hand out to the poet's.
"I was young once too," Heshai-kvo said with a broad wink. "Don't keep him out of too much trouble."
Otah felt the small lengths of metal against his palm, and took a pose of gratitude.
"Who'd have thought it," Seedless said, his voice low and considering. "Our perfect student's developing a life."
"Please, Itani-cha," Maati said, stepping forward and taking Otah's sleeve. "You've gone out of your way already. We should go. Your friends are waiting."
"Yes," Otah said. "Of course."
He took a pose of farewell that the poet responded to eagerly, the andat more slowly and with a thoughtful attitude. Maati led the way back across the bridge.
"You were expecting me?" Otah asked once they were out of earshot. Poet and andat were still watching them go.
"Hoping," Maati allowed.
"You weren't the only one. The poet seemed delighted to see me."
"He doesn't like my staying at the house. He thinks I should see more of the city. It's really that he hates it there and can't imagine that I like it."
"Ah. I see."
"You see part, at least," Maati said. "It's complex. And what of you, Otah-kvo? It's been days. I was afraid that you wouldn't come."
"I had to," Otah said, surprised by his own candor even as he said it. "I've no one else to talk with. Gods! He gave me three lengths of silver!"
"Is that bad?"
"It means I should stop working the seafront and just take you to tea. The pay's better."
HE HAD changed. That was clear. The voice was much the same, the face older, more adult, but Maati could still see the boy who had worn the black robes in the garden all those years ago. And something else. It wasn't confidence that had gone - he still had that in the way he held himself and his voice when he spoke - but perhaps it was certainty. It was in the way he held his cup and in the way he drank. Something was bothering his old teacher, but Maati could not yet put a name to it.
"A laborer," Maati said. "It isn't what the Dai-kvo would have expected."
"Or anyone else," Otah said, smiling at his cup of wine.
The private patio of the teahouse overlooked the street below it, and the long stretch of the city to the south. Lemon candles filled the air with bright-smelling smoke that kept the worst of the gnats away and made the wine taste odd. In the street, a band of young men sang and danced while three women watched, laughing. Otah took a long drink of wine.
"It isn't what you'd expected either, is it?"
"No," Maati admitted. "When you left I imagined ... we all did ..."
"Imagined what?"
Maati sighed, frowned, tried to find words for daydreams and secret stories he'd never precisely told himself. Otahkvo had been the figure who'd shaped his life almost more than the Dai-kvo, certainly more than his father. He had imagined Otah-kvo forging a new order, a dark, dangerous, possibly libertine group that would be at odds with the Daikvo and the school, or perhaps its rival. Or else adventuring on the seas or in the turmoil of the wars in the Westlands. Maati would never have said it, but the common man his teacher had become was disappointing.
"Something else," he said, taking a pose that kept the phrase vague.
"It was hard. The first few months, I thought I'd starve. Those things they taught us about hunting and foraging? They work, but only barely. When I got a bowl of soup and half a loaf of stale bread for cleaning out a henhouse, I felt like I'd been given the best meal of my life."
Maati laughed. Otah smiled at him and shrugged.
"And you?" Otah asked, changing the subject. "Was the Dai-kvo's village what you thought?"
"I suppose so. It was more work than the school, but it was easier. Because there was a reason for it. It wasn't just hard to be hard. We studied old grammars and the languages of the Empire. And the history of the andat and the poets who bound them, what the bindings were like. How they escaped. I didn't know how much harder it is to bind the same andat a second time. I mean there are all the stories about some being captured three or four times, but I don't ..."
Otah laughed. It was a warm sound, mirthful but not mocking. Maati took a pose of query. Otah responded with one of apology that nearly spilled his wine.
"It's just that you sound like you loved it," Otah said.
"I did," Maati said. "It was fascinating. And I'm good at it, I think. My teachers seemed to feel that way. Heshai-kvo isn't what I'd expected though."
"Him either, eh?"
"No. But, Otah-kvo, why didn't you go? When the Daikvo offered you a place with him, why did you refuse?"
"Because what they did was wrong," Otah said, simply. "And I didn't want any part of it."
Maati frowned into his wine. His reflection looked back at him from the dark, shining surface.
"If you had it again, would you do the same?" Maati asked.
"Yes."
"Even if it meant just being a laborer?"
Otah took two deep breaths, turned, and sat on the railing, considering Maati with dark, troubled eyes. His hands moved toward a pose that might have been accusation or demand or query, but that never took a final form.
"Is this really so bad, what I do?" Otah asked. "You, Liat. Everyone seems to think so. I started out as a child on the road with no family, no friends. I didn't even dare use my real name. And I built something. I have work, and friends, and a lover. I have good food and shelter. And at night I can go and listen to poets or philosophers or singers, or I can go to bathhouses or teahouses, or out on the ocean in sailing boats. Is that so bad? It that so little?"
Maati was surprised by the pain in Otah's voice, and perhaps by the desperation. He had the feeling that the words were only half meant for him. Still, he considered them. And their source.
"Of course not," Maati said. "Something doesn't have to be great to be worthy. If you've followed the calling of your heart, then what does it matter what anyone else thinks?"
"It can matter. It can matter a great deal."
"Not if you're certain," Maati said.
"And someone, somewhere, is actually certain of the choices they made? Are you?"
"No, I'm not," Maati said. It was easier than he'd expected, voicing this deepest of doubts. He'd never said it to anyone at the school or with the Dai-kvo. He'd have died before he said it to Heshai-kvo. But to Otah, it wasn't such a hard thing to say. "But it's done. I've made all my decisions already. Now it's just seeing whether I'm strong enough to follow through."
"You are," Otah said.
"I don't think so."
Silence flowed in. Below them, in the street, a woman shrieked and then laughed. A dog streets away bayed as if in response. Maati put down his cup of wine - empty now except for the dregs - and slapped a gnat from his arm. Otah nodded, more to himself than to Maati.
"Well, there's nothing to be done then," Otah said.
"It's late and we're drunk," Maati said. "It'll look better by morning. It always does."
Otah weighed the words, then took a pose of agreement.
"I'm glad I found you," Maati said. "I think perhaps I was meant to."
"Perhaps," Otah-kvo agreed.
"WILSIN-CHA!" EPANI'S voice was a whisper, but the urgency of it cut through Marchat's dream. He rolled up on one elbow and was pushing away his netting before he was really awake. The house master stood beside the bed holding his robe closed with one hand. Epani's face, lit only by the night candle, was drawn.
"Wha?" Marchat said, still pulling his mind up from the depths he'd been in moments before. "What's the matter? There's a fire?"
"No," Epani said, trying a pose of apology, but hampered by the needs of his robes. "Someone's here to see you. He's in the private hall."
"He? He who?"
Epani hesitated.
"It," he said.
It took Marchat the time to draw in a breath before he understood what Epani meant. He nodded then, and motioned to a robe that hung by his wardrobe. The night candle was well past its middle mark - the night nearer the coming dawn than yesterday's sunset. Apart from the soft rustle of the cloth as Marchat pulled his robes on and tied them, there was no sound. He ran his fingers through his hair and beard and turned toward Epani.
"Good enough?" he asked.
Epani took a pose of approval.
"Fine," Marchat said. "Bring us something to drink. Wine. Or tea."
"Are you sure, Wilsin-cha?"
Marchat paused and considered. Every movement in the night ran the risk of waking someone, someone besides himself or Epani or Oshai. A glimmer of anger at the andat for coming here, now, like this, shone in the dark setting of his unease. He took a pose of dismissal.
"No," he said. "Don't bring us anything. Go to bed. Forget this happened. You were dreaming."
Epani left. Marchat took up his night candle and walked in its near-darkness to the private hall. It was near his own quarters because of meetings like this. Windowless, with a single entrance and its own atrium so that anyone within could hear if someone was coming. When he stepped into the room, the andat was perched on the meeting table like a bird, his arms resting on his knees. The blackness of his cloak spread out behind him like a stain.
"What are you playing at, Wilsin?"
"I was playing at being asleep until a few moments ago," Marchat said, bluster welling up to hide his fear. The dark eyes in the pale face shifted, taking him in. Seedless tilted his head. They were silent except for Marchat's breathing. He was the only one there breathing.
"Is this about something?" Marchat asked. "And get your boots off my table, will you? This isn't some cheap teahouse."
"Why is your boy courting mine?" the andat demanded, ignoring him.
Marchat put the night candle squarely on the table, pulled out a chair, and sat.
"I don't have the first idea what you're talking about," he said, crossing his arms. "Talk sense or go haunt someone else. I've got a busy day tomorrow."
"You didn't send one of your men to take Heshai's student out to the teahouses?"
"No."
"Then why did he come?"
Marchat read the distrust in the andat's expression, or imagined he did. He set his jaw and leaned forward. The thing in human form didn't move.
"I don't know who you mean," Marchat said, deliberately. "And you can drink piss if you don't believe me."
Seedless narrowed his eyes as if he was listening for something, then sat back. The anger that had been in his voice and face faded and was replaced by puzzlement.
"One of your laborers came tonight to see Maati," Seedless said. "He said they'd met during the negotiations and arranged to go out together."
"Well," Marchat said. "Perhaps they met during the negotiations and arranged to go out together."
"A poet and a laborer?" Seedless scoffed. "And maybe the fine ladies of the utkhaiem are out this evening playing tiles in the soft quarter. Heshai was delighted, of course. It smells wrong to me, Wilsin."
Marchat turned it over slowly, chewing on his lip. It did seem odd. And with the ceremony coming so quickly, the stakes were high. He pulled out a chair, its wooden legs scraping against the stone floor, and sat. Seedless swung his legs over the side, still sitting on the tabletop, but without seeming quite as predatory.
"Which man was it?"
"He said his name was Itani. Big man, broad across the shoulders. Face like a northerner."
The one Amat had sent out with him. That wasn't good. Seedless read something in his face and took a pose half query and half command.
"I know the one you mean. You're right. Something's odd. He was my bodyguard when I came out to the low town. And he's Liat Chokavi's lover."
Seedless took a moment to consider that. Marchat watched the dark eyes, the beautiful mouth that turned into the faintest of smiles.
"Has he warned Liat of anything?" the andat asked. "Do you think she suspects?"
"She doesn't. If she had any reservations, you could read them from across the room. I think Liat may be the worst liar I've ever met. It's part of what makes her so good at this."
"If he hasn't told Liat, perhaps he isn't trying to spoil our little game. You've had no word of your vanished overseer?"
"No," Marchat said. "Oshai's thugs have been offering good prices for her, but there's been no sign. And no one at the seafront or on the roads remembers seeing her go. And even if she's gone to ground inside the city, there's no reason to think she's out to stop ... the trade."
"Oshai can't find her, and that's enough to make me nervous. And this boy, this Itani. Either he is her agent or he isn't. And if he is ..."
Marchat sighed. There was no end of it. Every time he thought he'd reached the last crime he'd be called upon to commit, one more appeared behind it. Liat Chokavi - silly, short-sighted, kind, pretty girl that she was - would be humiliated when the thing went wrong. And now it seemed she wouldn't have her man behind her to offer comfort.
"I can have him killed," Marchat said, heavily. "I'll speak with Oshai in the morning."
"No," Seedless said. The andat leaned back, crossing one knee over the other and lacing his hands over it. They were women's hands - thin and graceful. "No. If he's sent to tell the tale, it's too late. Maati will know by now. If he isn't, then killing him will only draw attention."
"I could have the poet boy killed too," Marchat said.
"No," Seedless said again. "No, we can kill the laborer if it seems the right thing, but no one touches Maati."
"Why not?"
"I like him," Seedless said, a subtle surprise in his voice, as if this were something he'd only just realized. "He's ... he's good-hearted. He's the only person I've met in years who didn't see me as a convenient tool or else the very soul of evil."
Marchat blinked. For a moment, something like sadness seemed to possess the andat. Sadness or perhaps longing. In the months Marchat had spent preparing this evil scheme, he'd built an image of the beast he was treating with, and this emotion didn't fit with it. And then it was gone and Seedless grinned at him.
"You, for instance, think I'm chaos made flesh," Seedless said. "Ripping a wanted child from an innocent girl's womb just to make Heshai-kvo suffer."
"It doesn't matter what I think."
"No. It doesn't, but that won't stop you from thinking it. And when you do think, remember it was your men who approached me. It may be my design, but it's your money."
"It's my uncle's," Marchat said, perhaps more sharply than he'd intended. "I didn't choose any of this. No one asked my opinion."
A terrible amusement lit the andat's face, and the beautiful smile had grown wider.
"Puppets. Puppets and the puppets of puppets. You should have more sympathy for me, Wilsin-cha. I'm what I am because of someone else, just the way you are. How could either of us ever be responsible for anything?"
The poisonous thought tickled the back of Marchat's mind - what if I'd refused? He pushed it away.
"We couldn't be less alike," Marchat said. "But it doesn't matter. However we got here, we're married now. What of Itani?"
"Have him followed," he said. "Our boy Itani may be nothing, but the game's too important to risk it. Find out what he is, and then, if we have to, we can kill him."
