A Betrayal in Winter (lpq-2) (39 page)

"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.