A Betrayal in Winter (Long Price Quartet #2)

A Betrayal in Winter (Long Price Quartet #2) Page 20

Idaan moved on down the street. It was like the aftermath of some gentle, bloodless battle. People bound bruised limbs. Slaves brought plasters to suck out the wasps' venom. But already, all down the wide street, the talk had turned back to the business of the council.

Her neck was burning now, but she pushed the pain aside. There would he no decision made today. That was clear. Kaman or Vaunani had disrupted the proceedings to get more time. It had to be that. It couldn't he more, except that of course it could. The fear was different now, deeper and more complex. Almost like nausea.

Adrah was leaning against the wall at the mouth of an alleyway. His father was sitting beside him, a serving girl dabbing white paste on the angry welts that covered his arms and face. Idaan went to her husband. His eyes were hard and shallow as stones.

"May I speak with you, Adrah-kya?" she said softly.

Adrah looked at her as if seeing her for the first time, then at his fa ther. He nodded toward the shadows of the alley behind him, and Idaan followed him until the noises of the street were vague and distant.

"It was Otah," she said. "He did this. Iie knows."

"Are you about to tell me that he's planned it all from the start again? It was a cheap, desperate trick. It won't matter, except that anyone who doesn't like us will say we did it, and anyone who has a grudge against our enemies will put it to them. Nothing changes."

"Who would do it?"

Adrah shook his head, impatient, and turned to walk back out into the street and noise and light. "Anyone might have. There's no point trying to solve every puzzle in the world."

"Don't be stupid, Adrah. Someone's acted against-"

The violence and suddenness of his movement was shocking. He was walking away, his hack to her, and then a heartbeat later, there was no more room between them than the width of a leaf His face was twisted, flushed, possessed by anger.

"Don't be stupid? Is that what you said?"

Idaan took a step hack, her feet unsteady beneath her.

"How do you mean, stupid, Idaan? Stupid like calling out my lover's name in a crowd?"

"What?"

"Cehmai. The poet boy. When you were running, you called his name.

"I did?"

"Everyone heard it," Adrah said. "Everybody knows. At least you could keep it between us and not parade it all over the city!"

"I didn't mean to," she said. "I swear it, Adrah. I didn't know I had."

He stepped hack and spat, the spittle striking the wall beside him and dripping down toward the ground. His gaze locked on her, daring her to push him, to meet his anger with defiance or submission. Either would be devastating. Idaan felt herself go hard. It wasn't unlike the feeling of seeing her father dying breath by breath, his belly rotting out and taking him with it.

"It won't get better, will it?" she asked. "It will go on. It will change. But it will never get better than it is right now."

The dread in Adrah's eyes told her she'd struck home. When he turned and stalked away, she didn't try to stop him.

FELL ME, HE'I) SAID.

I can't, she'd replied.

And now Cehmai sat on a chair, staring at the bare wall and wished that he'd left it there. The hours since morning had been filled with a kind of anguish he'd never known. He'd told her he loved her. He did love her. But ... Gods! She'd murdered her own family. She'd engineered her own father's death and as much as sold the Khai's library to the Galts. And the only thing that had saved her was that she loved him and he'd sworn he'd protect her. He'd sworn it.

"What did you expect?" Stone-Made-Soft asked.

"That it was Adrah. That I'd be protecting her from the Vaunyogi," Cehmai said.

"Well. Perhaps you should have been more specific."

The sun had passed behind the mountains, but the daylight hadn't yet taken on the ruddy hues of sunset. This was not night but shadow. 'The andat stood at the window, looking out. A servant had come from the palaces earlier bearing a meal of roast chicken and rich, dark bread. The smell of it filled the house, though the platter had been set outside to be taken away. He hadn't been able to eat.

Cehmai could barely feel where the struggle in the back of his mind met the confusion at the front. Idaan. It had been Idaan all along.

"You couldn't have known," the andat said, its tone conciliatory. "And it isn't as if she asked you to be part of the thing."

"You think she was using me."

"Yes. But since I'm a creature of your mind, it seems to follow that you'd think the same. She did extract a promise from you. You're sworn to protect her."

"I love her."

"You'd better. If you don't, then she told you all that under a false impression that you led her to believe. If she hadn't truly thought she could trust you, she'd have kept her secrets to herself."

"I do love her."

"And that's good," Stone-Made-Soft said. "Since all that blood she spilled is part yours now."

Cehmai leaned forward. His foot knocked over the thin porcelain bowl at his feet. The last dregs of the wine spilled to the floor, but he didn't bother with it. Stained carpet was beneath his notice now. His head was stuffed with wool, and none of his thoughts seemed to connect. He thought of Idaan's smile and the way she turned toward him, nestling into him as she slept. Her voice had been so soft, so quiet. And then, when she had asked him if he was horrified by her, there had been so much fear in her.

He hadn't been able to say yes. It had been there, waiting in his throat, and he'd swallowed it. He'd told her he loved her, and he hadn't lied. But he hadn't slept either. The andat's wide hand turned the bowl upright and pressed a cloth onto the spill. Cehmai watched the red wick up into the white cloth.

"Thank you," he said.

Stone-Made-Soft took a brief, dismissive pose and lumbered away. Cehmai heard it pouring water into a basin to rinse the cloth, and felt a pang of shame. He was falling apart. The andat itself was taking care of him now. He was pathetic. Cehmai rose and stalked to the window. He felt as much as heard the andat come up behind him.

"So," the andat said. "What are you going to do?"

"I don't know."

"Do you think she's got her legs around him now? Just at the moment, I mean," the andat said, its voice as calm and placid and distantly amused as always. "He is her husband. He must get her knees apart now and again. And she must enjoy him on some level. She did slaughter her family to elevate Adrah. It's not something most girls would do."

"You're not helping," Cehmai said.

"It could he you're just a part of her plan. She did fall into your bed awfully easily. Do you think they talk about it, the two of them? About what she can do to you or for you to win your support? Having the poet's oath protecting you would be a powerful thing. And if you protect her, you protect them. You can't suggest anything evil of the Vaunyogi now without drawing her into it."

"She isn't like that!"

Cehmai gathered his will, but before he could turn it on the andat, before he pushed the rage and the anger and the hurt into a force that would make the beast be quiet, Stone-Made-Soft smiled, leaned forward, and gently kissed Cehmai's forehead. In all the years he'd held it, Cehmai had never seen the andat do anything of the sort.

"No," it said. "She isn't. She's in terrible trouble, and she needs you to save her if you can. If she can be saved. And she trusts you. Standing with her is the only thing you could do and still he a decent man."

Cehmai glared at the wide face, the slow, calm eyes, searching for a shred of sarcasm. 'T'here was none.

"Why are you trying to confuse me?" he asked.

The andat turned to look out the window and stood as still as a statue. Cehmai waited, but it didn't shift, even to look at him. The rooms darkened and Cehmai lit lemon candles to keep the insects away. His mind was divided into a hundred different thoughts, each of them powerful and convincing and no two fitting together.

When at last he went up to his bed, he couldn't sleep. The blankets still smelled of her, of the two of them. Of love and sleep. Cehmai wrapped the sheets around himself and willed his mind to quiet, but the whirl of thoughts didn't allow rest. Idaan loved him. She had had her own father killed. Maati had been right, all this time. It was his duty to tell what he knew, but he couldn't. It was possible-she might have tricked him all along. He felt as cracked as river ice when a stone had been dropped through it, jagged fissures cut through him in all directions. "Where was no center of peace within him.

And yet he must have drifted off, because the storm pulled him awake. Cehmai stumbled out of bed, pulling down half his netting with a soft ripping sound. He crawled to the corridor almost before he understood that the pitching and moaning, the shrieking and the nausea were all in the private space behind his eyes. It had never been so powerful.

He fell as he went to the front of the house, harking his knee against the wall. The thick carpets were sickening to touch, the fibers seeming to writhe tinder his fingers like dry worms. Stone-Made-Soft sat at the gaming table. The white marble, the black basalt. A single white stone was shifted out of its beginning line.

"Not now," Cehmai croaked.

"Now," the andat said, its voice loud and low and undeniable.

The room pitched and spun. Cehmai dragged himself to the table and tried to focus on the pieces. The game was simple enough. He'd played it a thousand times. He shifted a black stone forward. He felt he was still half dreaming. The stone he'd moved was Idaan. Stone-MadeSoft's reply moved a token that was both its fourth column and also Otah Machi. Groggy with sleep and distress and annoyance and the an gry pressure of the andat struggling against him, he didn't understand how far things had gone until twelve moves later when he shifted a black stone one place to the left, and Stone-Made-Soft smiled.

"Maybe she'll still love you afterwards," the andat said. "Do you think she'll care as much about your love when you're just a man in a brown robe?"

Cehmai looked at the stones, the shifting line of them, flowing and sinuous as a river, and he saw his mistake. Stone-Made-Soft pushed a white stone forward and the storm in Cehmai's mind redoubled. He could hear his own breath rattling. He was sticky with the rancid sweat of effort and fear. He was losing. He couldn't make himself think, controlling his own mind was like wrestling a beast-something large and angry and stronger than he was. In his confusion, Idaan and Adrah and the death of the Khai all seemed connected to the tokens glowing on the board. Each was enmeshed with the others, and all of them were lost. He could feel the andat pressing toward freedom and oblivion. All the generations of carrying it, gone because of him.

"It's your move," the andat said.

"I can't," Cehmai said. His own voice sounded distant.

"I can wait as long as you care to," it said. "Just tell me when you think it'll get easier."

"You knew this would happen," Cehmai said. "You knew."

"Chaos has a smell to it," the andat agreed. "Move."

Cchmai tried to study the board, but every line he could see led to failure. He closed his eyes and rubbed them until ghosts bloomed in the darkness, but when he reopened them, it was no better. The sickness grew in his belly. He felt he was falling. The knock on the door behind him was something of a different world, a memory from some other life, until the voice came.

"I know you're in there! You won't believe what's happened. Half the utkhaiem are spotty with welts. Open the door!"

"Baarath!"

Cehmai didn't know how loud he'd called-it might have been a whisper or a scream. But it was enough. The librarian appeared beside him. The stout man's eyes were wide, his lips thin.

"What's wrong?" Baarath asked. "Are you sick? Gods, Cehmai.... Stay here. Don't move. I'll have a physician-"

"Paper. Bring me paper. And ink."

"It's your move!" the andat shouted, and Baarath seemed about to bolt.

"Hurry," Cehmai said.

It was a week, a month, a year of struggle before the paper and ink brick appeared at his side. He could no longer tell whether the andat was shouting to him in the real world or only within their shared mind. The game pulled at him, sucking like a whirlpool. The stones shifted with significance beyond their own, and confusion built on confusion in waves so that Cehmai grasped his one thought until it was a certainty.

There was too much. There was more than he could survive. The only choice was to simplify the panoply of conflicts warring within him; there wasn't room for them all. He had to fix things, and if he couldn't make them right, he could at least make them end.

He didn't let himself feel the sorrow or the horror or the guilt as he scratched out a note-brief and clear as he could manage. The letters were shaky, the grammar poor. Idaan and the Vaunyogi and the Galts. Everything he knew written in short, unadorned phrases. He dropped the pen to the floor and pressed the paper into Baarath's hand.

"Maati," Cehmai said. "'lake it to Maati. Now."

Baarath read the letter, and whatever blood had remained in his face drained from it now.

"This ... this isn't ..."

"Run!" Cehmai screamed, and Baarath was off, faster than Cehmai could have gone if he'd tried, Idaan's doom in his hands. Cehmai closed his eyes. That was over, then. That was decided, and for good or ill, he was committed. The stones now could he only stones.

He pulled himself back to the game board. Stone-Made-Soft had gone silent again. The storm was as fierce as it had ever been, but Cehmai found he also had some greater degree of strength against it. He forced himself along every line he could imagine, shifting the stones in his mind until at last he pushed one black token forward. Stone-Made-Soft didn't pause. It shifted a white stone behind the black that had just moved, trapping it. Cehmai took a long deep breath and shifted a black stone on the far end of the board back one space.

The andat stretched out its wide fingers, then paused. The storm shifted, lessened. Stone-Made-Soft smiled ruefully and pulled back its hand. The wide brow furrowed.

"Good sacrifice," it said.

Cehmai leaned hack. His body was shuddering with exhaustion and effort and perhaps something else more to do with l3aarath running through the night. The andat moved a piece forward. It was the obvious move, but it was doomed. They had to play it out, but the game was as good as finished. Cchmai moved a black token.

"I think she does love you," the andat said. "And you did swear you'd protect her."

"She killed two men and plotted her own father's slaughter," Cehmai said.

"You love her. I know you do."

"I know it too," Cehmai said, and then a long moment later. "It's your move."

Rain came in from the south. By midmorning tall clouds of billowing white and yellow and gray had filled the wide sky of the valley. When the sun, had it been visible, would have reached the top of its arc, the rain poured down on the city like an upended bucket. The black cobbled streets were brooks, every slant roof a little waterfall. Maati sat in the side room of the teahouse and watched. The water seemed lighter than the sky or the stone-alive and hopeful. It chilled the air, making the warmth of the earthenware bowl in his hands more present. Across the smooth wooden table, Otah-kvo's chief armsman scratched at the angry red weals on his wrists.

"If you keep doing that, they'll never heal," Maati said.

"Thank you, grandmother," Sinja said. "I had an arrow through my arm once that hurt less than this."

"It's no worse than what half the people in that hall suffered," Maati said.

"It's a thousand times worse. Those stings are on them. These are on me. I'd have thought the difference obvious."

Maati smiled. It had taken three days to get all the insects out of the great hall, and the argument about whether to simply choose a new venue or wait for the last nervous slave to find and crush the last dying wasp would easily have gone on longer than the problem itself. The time had been precious. Sinja scratched again, winced, and pressed his hands flat against the table, as if he could pin them there and not rely on his own will to control himself.

"I hear you've had another letter from the Dai-kvo," Sinja said.

Maati pursed his lips. The pages were in his sleeve even now. "They'd arrived in the night by a special courier who was waiting in apartments Maati had bullied out of the servants of the dead Khai. The message included an order to respond at once and commit his reply to the courier. He hadn't picked up a pen yet. He wasn't sure what he wanted to say.

"He ordered you back?" Sinja asked.

"Among other things," Maati agreed. "Apparently he's been getting information from someone in the city besides myself."

"The other one? The boy?"

"Cehmai you mean? No. One of the houses that the Galts bought, I'd guess. But I don't know which. It doesn't matter. He'll know the truth soon enough."

"If you say so."

A bolt of lightning flashed and a half breath later, thunder rolled through the thick air. Maati raised the bowl to his lips. The tea was smoky and sweet, and it did nothing to unknot his guts. Sinja leaned toward the window, his eyes suddenly bright. Maati followed his gaze. Three figures leaned into the slanting rain-one a thick man with a slight limp, the others clearly servants holding a canopy over the first in a vain attempt to keep their master from being soaked to the skin. All wore cloaks with deep hoods that hid their faces.

"Is that him?" Sinja asked.

"I think so," Maati said. "Go. Get ready."

Sinja vanished and Maati refilled his bowl of tea. It was only moments before the door to the private room opened again and Porsha Radaani came into the room. His hair was plastered back against his skull, and his rich, ornately embroidered robes were dark and heavy with water. Maati rose and took a pose of welcome. Radaani ignored it, pulled out the chair Sinja had only recently left, and sat in it with a grunt.

"I'm sorry for the foul weather," Maati said. "I'd thought you'd take the tunnels."

Radaani made an impatient sound.

"They're half flooded. The city was designed with snow in mind, not water. The first thaw's always like a little slice of hell in the spring. But tell me you didn't bring me here to talk about rain, Maati-cha. I'm a busy man. The council's just about pulled itself back together, and I'd like to see an end to this nonsense."

"That's what I wanted to speak to you about, Porsha-cha. I'd like you to call for the council to disband. You're well respected. If you were to adopt the position, the lower families would take interest. And the Vaunani and Kamau can both work with you without having to work with each other."

"I'm a powerful enough man to do that," Radaani agreed, his tone matter-of-fact. "But I can't think why I would."

"There's no reason for the council to be called."

"No reason? We're short a Khai, MIaati-cha."

"The last one left a son to take his place," Maati said. "No one in that hall has a legitimate claim to the name Khai Machi."

Radaani laced his thick fingers over his belly and narrowed his eyes. A smile touched his lips that might have meant anything.

"I think you have some things to tell me," he said.

Nlaati began not with his own investigation, but with the story as it had unfolded. Idaan Machi and Adrah Vaunvogi, the backing of the Gaits, the murder of Biitrah Machi. He told it like a tale, and found it was easier than he'd expected. Radaani chuckled when he reached the night of Otah's escape and grew somber when he drew the connection between the murder of Danat Machi and the hunting party that had gone with him. It was all true, but it was not all of the truth. In the long conversations that had followed Baarath's delivery of Cehmai's letter, Otah and Maati, Kiyan and Amiit had all agreed that the Gaits' interest in the library was something that could be safely neglected. It added nothing to their story, and knowing more than they seemed to might yet prove an advantage. Watching Porsha Radaani's eyes, Maati thought it had been the right decision.

He outlined what he wanted of the Radaani-the timing of the proposal to disband, the manner in which it would he best approached, the support they would need on the council. Radaani listened like a cat watching a pigeon until the whole proposal was laid out before him. He coughed and loosened the belt of his robe.

"It's a pretty story," Radaani said. "It'll play well to a crowd. But you'll need more than this to convince the utkhaiem that your friend's hem isn't red. We're all quite pleased to have a Khai who's walked through his brothers' blood, but fathers are a different thing."

"I'm not the only one to tell it," Maati said. "I have one of the hunting party who watched I)anat die to swear there was no sign of an ambush. I have the commander who collected Otah from the tower to say what he was bought to do and by whom. I have Cehmai Tyan and Stone-Made-Soft. And I have them in the next room if you'd like to speak with them."

"Really?" Radaani leaned forward. The chair groaned under his weight.

"And if it's needed, I have a list of all the houses and families who've supported Vaunyogi. If it's a question what their relationships are with Galt, all we have to do is open those contracts and judge the terms. 'T'hough there may be some of them who would rather that didn't happen. So perhaps it won't be necessary."

Radaani chuckled again, a deep, wet sound. He rubbed his fingers against his thumbs, pinching the air.

"You've been busy since last we spoke," he said.

"It isn't hard finding confirmation once you know what the truth is. Would you like to speak to the men? You can ask them whatever you like. "They'll back what I've said."

"Is he here himself?"

"Otah thought it might be better not to attend. Until he knew whether you intended to help him or have him killed."

"He's wise. Just the poet, then," Radaani said. "The others don't matter."

Maati nodded and left the room. The teahouse proper was a wide, low room with fires burning low in two corners. Radaani's servants were drinking something that Maati doubted was only tea and talking with one of the couriers of House Sivanti. There would be more information from that, he guessed, than from the more formal meeting. At the door to the back room, Sinja leaned back in a chair looking bored but corn- manding a view of every approach.

"Well?" Sinja asked.

"He'd like to speak with Cehmai-cha."

"But not the others?"

"Apparently not."

"He doesn't care if it's true, then. Just whether the poets are hacking our man," Sinja let his chair down and stood, stretching. "The forms of power arc fascinating stuff. Reminds me why I started fighting for a living."

Maati opened the door. The back room was quieter, though the rush of rain was everywhere. Cehmai and the andat were sitting by the fire. The huntsman Sinja-cha had tracked down was at a small table, half drunk. It was best, perhaps, that Radaani hadn't wanted him. And three armsmcn in the colors of House Siyanti also lounged about. Cehmai looked up, meeting Maati's gaze. Maati nodded.

Radaadni's expression when Cehmai and Stone-Made-Soft entered the room was profoundly satisfied. It was as if the young poet's presence answered all the questions that were important to ask. Still, Maati watched Cehmai take a pose of greeting and Radaani return it.

"You wished to speak with me," Cehmai asked. His voice was low and tired. Maati could see how much this moment was costing him.

"Your fellow poet here's told me quite a tale," Radaani said. "He says that Otah Machi's not dead, and that Idaan Machi's the one who arranged her family's death."

"That's so," Cehmai agreed.

"I see. And you were the one who brought that to light?"

"That's so."

Radaani paused, his lips pursed, his fingers knotted around each other.

"Does the Dai-kvo back the upstart, then?"

"No," Maati said before Cehmai could speak. "We take no side in this. We support the council's decision, but that doesn't mean we withhold the truth from the utkhaiem."

"As Maati-kvo says," Cehmai agreed. "We are servants here."

"Servants with the world by its balls," Radaani said. "It's easy, Cehmai-cha, to support a position in a side room with no one much around to hear you. It's a harder thing to say the same words in front of the gods and the court and the world in general. If I take this to the council and you decide that perhaps it wasn't all quite what you've said it was, it will go badly for me."

"I'll tell what I know," Cehmai said. "Whoever asks."

"Well," Radaani said, then more than half to himself, "Well well well."

In the pause that followed, another roll of thunder rattled the shutters. But Porsha Radaani's smile had faded into something less amused, more serious. We have him, Maati thought. Radaani clapped his hands on his thighs and stood.