A Betrayal in Winter (Long Price Quartet #2)

A Betrayal in Winter (Long Price Quartet #2) Page 8

Back in the garden, they sank the blades and the cloaks in a fountain to lie submerged until Adrah could sneak back in under cover of night and get rid of them. Even with the dark hoods gone, they all reeked of smoke. She hadn't foreseen that either. Neither of the men met her eyes. And yet, Oshai was beyond telling stories to the utkhaiem. So perhaps things hadn't ended so badly.

She gave her farewells to Daaya Vaunyogi. Adrah walked with her hack through the evening-dimmed streets to her rooms. That the city seemed unchanged struck her as odd. She couldn't say what she had expected-what the day's events should have done to the stones, the air-but that it should all be the same seemed wrong. She paused by a beggar, listening to his song, and dropped a length of silver into the lacquered box at his feet.

At the entrance to her rooms, she sent her servants away. She did not wish to be attended. They would assume she smelled of sex, and best that she let them. Adrah peered at her, earnest as a puppy, she thought. She could see the distress in his eyes.

"You had to," he said, and she wondered if he meant to comfort her or convince himself. She took a pose of agreement. He stepped forward, his arms curving to embrace her.

"Don't touch me," she said, and he stepped hack, paused, lowered his arms. Idaan saw something die behind his eyes, and felt something wither in her own breast. So this is what we are, she thought.

"Things were good once," he said, as if willing her to say and they will be again. The most she could give him was a nod. They had been good once. She had wanted and admired and loved him once. And even now, a part of her might love him. She wasn't sure.

The pain in his expression was unbearable. Idaan leaned forward, kissed him briefly on the lips, and went inside to wash the day off her skin. She heard his footsteps as he walked away.

Her body felt wrung out and empty. There were dried apples and sugared almonds waiting for her, but the thought of food was foreign. Gifts had arrived throughout the day-celebrations of her being sold off. She ignored them. It was only after she had bathed, washing her hair three times before it smelled more of flowers than smoke, that she found the note.

It rested on her bed, a square of paper folded in quarters. She sat naked beside it, reached out a hand, hesitated, and then plucked it open. It was brief, written in an unsteady hand.

Daughter, it said. I had hoped that you might be able to spend some part of this happy day with me. Instead, I will leave this. Know that you have my blessings and such love as a weary old man can give. You have always delighted me, and I hope for your happiness in this match.

When her tears and sobbing had exhausted her, Idaan carefully gathered the scraps of the note together and placed them together under her pillow. Then she bowed and prayed to all the gods and with all her heart that her father should die, and die quickly. That he should die without discovering what she was.

MAATI WAS LOST FOR A TIME IN PAIN, THEN DISCOMFORT, AND THEN PAIN again. He didn't suffer dreams so much as a pressing sense of urgency without goal or form, though for a time he had the powerful impression that he was on a boat, rocked by waves. His mind fell apart and reformed itself at the will of his body.

He came to himself in the night, aware that he had been half awake for some time; that there had been conversations in which he had participated, though he couldn't say with whom or on what matters. The room was not his own, but there was no mistaking that it belonged to the Khai's palace. No fire burned in the grate, but the stone walls were warm with stored sunlight. The windows were shuttered with shaped stone, the only light coming from the night candle that had burned almost to its quarter mark. Maati pulled back the thin blankets and considered the puckered gray flesh of his wound and the dark silk that laced it closed. He pressed his belly gently with his fingertips until he thought he knew how delicate he had become. When he stood, tottering to the night pot, he found he had underestimated, but that the pain was not so excruciating that he could not empty his bladder. After, he pulled himself back into bed, exhausted. He intended only to close his eyes for a moment and gather his strength, but when he opened them, it was morning.

He had nearly resolved to walk from his bed to the small writing table near the window when a slave entered and announced that the poet Cehmai and the andat Stone-Made-Soft would see him if he wished. Maati nodded and sat up carefully.

The poet arrived with a wide plate of rice and river fish in a sauce that smelled of plums and pepper. The andat carried a jug of water so cold it made the stone sweat. Maati's stomach came to life with a growl at the sight.

"You're looking better, Maati-kvo." the young poet said, putting the plate on the bed. The andat pulled two chairs close to the bed and sat in one, its face calm and empty.

"I looked worse than this?" Maati asked. "I wouldn't have thought that possible. How long has it been?"

"Four days. The injury brought on a fever. But when they poured onion soup down you, the wound didn't smell of it, so they decided you might live after all."

Maati lifted a spoon of fish and rice to his mouth. It tasted divine.

"I think I have you to thank for that," Maati said. "My recollection isn't all it could be, but ..."

"I was following you," Cehmai said, taking a pose of contrition. "I was curious about your investigations."

"Yes. I suppose I should have been more subtle."

"The assassin was killed yesterday."

Maati took another bite of fish.

"Executed?"

"Disposed of," the andat said and smiled.

Cehmai told the story. The fire in the tunnels, the deaths of the guards. The other prisoners said that there had been three men in black cloaks, that they had rushed in, killed the assassin, and vanished. Two others had choked to death on the smoke before the watchmen put the fire out.

"The story among the utkhaiem is that you discovered Utah Machi. The Master of Tides' assistant said that you'd been angry with him for being indiscreet about your questions concerning a courier from Udun. Then the attack on you, and the fire. They say the Khai Machi sent for you to hunt his missing son, Utah."

"Part true," Maati said. "I was sent to look for Otah. I knew him once, when we were younger. But I haven't found him, and the knife man was ... something else. It wasn't Otah."

"You said that," the andat rumbled. "When we found you, you said it was someone else."

"Otah-kvo wouldn't have done it. Not that way. He might have met me himself, but sending someone else to do it? No. He wasn't behind that," Maati said, and then the consequence of that fell into place. "And so I think he must not have been the one who killed Biitrah."

Cehmai and his andat exchanged a glance and the young poet drew a bowl of water for Maati. The water was as good as the food, but Maati could see the unease in the way Cehmai looked at him. If he had ached less or been farther from exhaustion, he might have been subtle.

"What is it?" Maati asked.

Cehmai drew himself up, then sighed.

"You call him Otah-kvo."

"He was my teacher. At the school, he was in the black robes when I was new arrived. He ... helped me."

"And you saw him again. When you were older."

"Did I?" Maati asked.

Cehmai took a pose that asked forgiveness. "The Dai-kvo would hardly have trusted a memory that old. You were both children at the school. We were all children there. You knew him when you were both men, yes?"

"Yes," Maati said. "He was in Saraykeht when ... when Heshai-kvo died."

"And you call him Otah-kvo," Cehmai said. "He was a friend of yours, Maati-kvo. Someone you admired. He's never stopped being your teacher."

"Perhaps. But he's stopped being my friend. That was my doing, but it's done."

"I'm sorry, Maati-kvo, but are you certain Otah-kvo is innocent because he's innocent, or only because you're certain? It would be hard to accept that an old friend might wish you ill ..."

Maati smiled and sipped the water.

"Otah Machi may well wish me dead. I would understand it if he did. And he's in the city, or was four days ago. But he didn't send the assassin."

"You think he isn't hoping for the Khai's chair?"

"I don't know. But I suppose that's something worth finding out. Along with who it was that killed his brother and started this whole thing rolling."

He took another mouthful of rice and fish, but his mind was elsewhere.

"Will you let me help you?"

Maati looked up, half surprised. The young poet's face was serious, his hands in a pose of formal supplication. It was as if they were back in the school and Cehmai was a boy asking a boon of the teachers. The andat had its hands folded in its lap, but it seemed mildly amused. Before Maati could think of a reply, Cehmai went on.

"You aren't well yet, Maati-kvo. You're the center of all the court gossip now, and anything you do will be examined from eight different views before you've finished doing it. I know the city. I know the court. I can ask questions without arousing suspicion. The Dai-kvo didn't choose to take me into his confidence, but now that I know what's happening-"

"It's too much of a risk," Maati said. "The Dal-kvo sent me because I know Otah-kvo, but he also sent me because my loss would mean nothing. You hold the andat-"

"It's fine with me," Stone-Made-Soft said. "Really, don't let me stop you.

"If I ask questions without you, I run the same risks, and without the benefits of shared information," Cehmai said. "And expecting me not to wonder would be unrealistic."

"The Khai Machi would expel me from his city if he thought I was endangering his poet," Maati said. "And then I wouldn't be of use to anyone.

Cehmai's dark eyes were both deadly serious and also, Maati thought, amused. "This wouldn't be the first thing I've kept from him," the young poet said. "Please, Maati-kvo. I want to help."

Maati closed his eyes. Having someone to talk with, even if it was only a way to explore what he thought himself, wouldn't be so had a thing. The Dai-kvo hadn't expressly forbidden that Cehmai know, and even if he had, the secret investigation had already sent Otah-kvo to flight, so any further subterfuge seemed pointless. And the fact was, he likely couldn't find the answers alone.

"You have saved my life once already."

"I thought it would be unfair to point that out," Cehmai said.

Maati laughed, then stopped when the pain in his belly bloomed. He lay back, blowing air until he could think again. The pillows felt better than they should have. He'd done so little, and he was already tired. He glanced mistrustfully at the andat, then took a pose of acceptance.

"Come back tonight, when I've rested," Maati said. "We'll plan our strategy. I have to get my strength hack, but there isn't much time."

"May I ask one other thing, Maati-kvo?"

Maati nodded, but his belly seemed to have grown more sensitive for the moment and he tried not to move more than that. It seemed laughing wasn't a wise thing for him just now.

"Who are Liat and Nayiit?"

"My lover. Our son," Maati said. "I called out for them, did I? When I had the fever?"

Cehmai nodded.

"I do that often," Maati said. "Only not usually aloud."

There were four great roads that connected the cities of the Khaiem, one named for each of the cardinal directions. The North Road that linked Cetani, Machi, and Amnat-Ian was not the worst, in part because there was no traffic in the winter, when the snows let men make a road wherever desire took them. Also the stones were damaged more by the cycle of thaw and frost that troubled the north only in spring and autumn. In high summer, it rarely froze, and for a third of the year it did not thaw. The West Road-far from the sea and not so far south as to keep the winters warm-required the most repair.

"They'll have crews of indentured slaves and laborers out in shifts," the old man in the cart beside Otah said, raising a finger as if his oratory was on par with the High Emperor's, back when there had been an empire. "They start at one end, reset the stones until they reach the other, and begin again. It never ends."

Otah glanced across the cart at the young woman nursing her babe and rolled his eyes. She smiled and shrugged so slightly that their orator didn't notice the movement. The cart lurched down into and up from another wide hole where the stones had shattered and not yet been replaced.

"I have walked them all," the old man said, "though they've worn me more than I've worn them. Oh yes, much more than I've worn them."

He cackled, as he always seemed to when he made this observation. The little caravan-four carts hauled by old horses-was still six days from Cetani. Otah wondered whether his own legs were rested enough that he could start walking again.

He had bought an old laborer's robe of blue-gray wool from a rag shop, chopped his hair to change its shape, and let his thin beard start to grow in. Once his whiskers had been long enough to braid, but the east islanders he'd lived with had laughed at him and pretended to mistake him for a woman. After Cetani, it would take another twenty days to reach the docks outside Amnat-tan. And then, if he could find a fishing boat that would take him on, he would be among those men again, singing songs in a tongue he hadn't tried out in years, explaining again, either with the truth or outrageous stories, why his marriage mark was only half done.

He would die there-on the islands or on the sea-under whatever new name he chose for himself. Itani Noygu was gone. He had died in Machi. Another life was behind him, and the prospect of beginning again, alone in a foreign land, tired him more than the walking.

"Now, southern wood's too soft to really build with. The winters are too warm to really harden them. Up here there's trees that would blunt a dozen axes before they fell," the old man said.

"You know everything, don't you grandfather?" Otah said. If his annoyance was in his voice, the old man noticed nothing, because he cackled again.

"It's because I've been everywhere and done everything," the old man said. "I even helped hunt down the Khai Amnat-Tan's older brother when they had their last succession. "There were a dozen of us, and it was the dead of winter. Your piss would freeze before it touched ground. Oh, eh ..."

The old man took a pose of apology to the young woman and her babe, and Otah swung himself out of the cart. It wasn't a story he cared to hear. The road wound through a valley, high pine forest on either side, the air sharp and fragrant with the resin. It was beautiful, and he pictured it thick with snow, the image coming so clear that he wondered whether he might once have seen it that way. When the clatter of hooves came from the west, he forced himself again to relax his shoulders and look as curious and excited as the others. Twice before, couriers on fast horses had passed the 'van, laden with news, Otah knew, of the search for him.

It had taken an effort of will not to run as fast as he could after he had been discovered, but the search was for a false courier either plotting murder or fleeing like a rabbit. No one would pay attention to a plodding laborer off to stay with his sister's family in a low town outside Cetani. And yet, as the horses approached, tension grew in his breast. He prepared himself for the shock if one of the riders had a familiar face.

There were three this time-utkhaiem to judge by their robes and the quality of their mounts-and none of them men he knew. They didn't slow for the 'van, but the armsmen of the 'van, the drivers, the dozen hangers-on like himself all shouted at them for news. One of them turned in his saddle and yelled something, but Otah couldn't make it out and the rider didn't repeat it. Ten days on the road. Six more to Cetani. The only challenge was not to be where they were looking for him.

They reached a wayhouse with the sun still three and a half hands above the treetops. The building was of northern design: stone walls thick as the span of a man's arm and stables and goat pen on the ground floor where the heat of the animals would rise and help warm the place in the winter. While the merchants and armsmen argued over whether to stop now or go farther and sleep in the open, Otah ran his eyes over the windows and walked around to the back, looking for all the signs Kiyan had taught him to know whether the keeper was working with robbers or keeping an unsafe kitchen. The house met all of her best marks. It seemed safe.

By the time he'd returned to the carts, his companions had decided to stay. After Otah had helped stable the horses, they shifted the carts into a locked courtyard. The caravan's leader haggled with the keeper about the rooms and came to an agreement that Otah privately thought gave the keep the better half. Otah made his way up two flights of stairs to the room he was to share with five armsmen, two drivers, and the old man. He curled himself up in a corner on the floor. It was too small a room, and one of the drivers snored badly. A little sleep when things were quiet would only make the next day easier.

He woke in darkness to the sound of music-a drum throbbed and a flute sighed. A man's voice and a woman's moved in rough harmony. He wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his robe and went down to the main room. The members of his 'van were all there and half a dozen other men besides. The air smelled of hot wine and roast lamb, pine trees and smoke. Otah sat at a rough, worn table beside one of the drivers and watched.

The singer was the keep himself, a pot-bellied man with a nose that had been broken and badly set. He drew the deep heat from a skin and earthenware drum as he sang. His wife was shapely as a potato with an ugly face and a missing eye tooth, but their voices were well suited and their affection for each other forgave them much. Otah found himself tapping his fingertips against the table to match the drumbeats.

His mind went back to Kiyan, and the nights of music and stories and gossip he had spent in her wayhouse, far away to the south. He wondered what she was doing tonight, what music filled the warm air and competed with the murmur of the river.

When the last note had faded to silence, the crowd applauded, yelped, and howled their appreciation. Otah made his way to the singer-he was shorter than Otah had thought-and took his hand. The keeper beamed and blushed when Otah told him how good the music had been.

"We've had a few years practice, and there's only so much to do when the days are short," the keep said. "The winter choirs in Machi make us sound like street beggars."

Otah smiled, regret pulling at him that he would never hear those songs, and a moment later he heard his name being spoken.

"Itani Noygu's what he was calling himself," one of the merchants said. "Played a courier for House Siyanti."

"I think I met him," a man said whom Otah had never met. "I knew there was something odd about the man."

"And the poet ... the one that had his belly opened for him? He's picking the other Siyanti men apart like they were baked fish. The upstart has to wish that job had been done right the first time."

"Sounds as if I've missed something," Otah said, putting on his most charming smile. "What's this about a poet's belly?"

The merchant frowned at the interruption until Otah motioned to the keep's wife and bought bowls of hot wine for the table. After that, the gossip flowed more freely.

Maati Vaupathai had been attacked, and the common wisdom held that Otah had arranged it. The most likely version was that the upstart had been passing as a courier, but others said that he had made his way into the palaces dressed as a servant or a meat seller. There was no question, though, that the Khai had sent out runners to all the winter cities asking for the couriers and overseers of House Siyanti to attend him at court. Amiit Foss, the man who'd been the upstart's overseer in tldun, was being summoned in particular. It wasn't clear yet whether Siyanti had knowingly backed the Otah Machi, but if they had, it would mean the end of their expansion into the north. Even if they hadn't, the house would suffer.

"And they're sure he was the one who had the poet killed?" Otah asked, using all the skill the gentleman's trade had taught him to hide his deepening despair and disgust.

"It seems they were in Saraykeht together, this poet and the upstart. That was just before Saraykeht fell."

The implications of that hung over the room. Perhaps Otah Machi had somehow been involved with the death of Heshai, the poet of Saraykeht. Who knew what depravity the sixth son of the Khai Machi might sink to? It was a ghost story for them; a tale to pass a night on the road; a sport to follow.

Otah remembered the old, frog-mouthed poet, remembered his kindness and his weakness and his strength. He remembered the regret and the respect and the horrible complicity he'd felt in killing him, all those years ago. It had been so complicated, then. Now, they said it so simply and spoke as if they understood.

"There's rumor of a woman, too. They say he had a lover in Udun."

"If he was a courier, he's likely got a woman in half the cities of the Khaiem. The gods know I would."

"No," the merchant said, shaking his head. He was more than half drunk. "No, they were very clear. All the Siyanti men say he had a lover in Udun and never took another. Loved her like the world, they said. But she left him for another man. I say it's that turned him evil. Love turns on you like ... like milk."

"Gentlemen," the keep's wife said, her voice powerful enough to cut through any conversation. "It's late, and I'm not sleeping until these rooms are cleaned, so get you all to bed. I'll have bread and honey for you at sunrise."

The guests slurped down the last of the wine, ate the last mouthfuls of dried cherries and fresh cheese, and made their various ways toward their various beds. Otah walked down the inner stairs to the stables and the goat yard, then out through a side door and into the darkness. His body felt like he'd just run a race, or else like he was about to.

Kiyan. Kiyan and the wayhouse her father had run. Old Mani. He had set the dogs on them, and that he hadn't intended to would count for nothing if his brothers found her. Whatever happened, whatever they did, it would be his fault.

He found a tall tree and sat with his back against it, looking out at the stars nearest the horizon. The air had the bite of cold in it. Winter never left this place. It made a little room for summer, but it never left. He thought of writing her a letter, of warning her. It would never reach her in time. It was ten days walk back to Machi, six days forward to Cetani, and his brothers' forces would already be on the road south. He could send to Amiit Foss, beg his old overseer to take Kiyan in, to protect her. But there too, word would reach him too late.

Despair settled into his belly, too deep for tears. He was destroying the woman he loved most in the world simply by being who he was, by doing what he'd done. He thought of the boy he had been, marching away from the school across the western snows. He remembered his fear and the warmth of his rage at the poets and his parents and all in the world that treated boys so unfairly. What a pompous little ass he'd been, young and certain and alone. He should have taken the Dal-kvo's offer and become a poet. He might have tried to bind an andat, and maybe failed and paid the price, dying in the attempt. And then Kiyan would never have met him. She would be safe.

There's still a price, he thought, as clear as a voice speaking in his head. You could still pay it.

Machi was ten days' walk, perhaps as little as four and a half days' ride. If he could turn all eyes back to Mach], Kiyan might have at least the chance to escape his idiocy. And what would she matter, if no one need search for him. He could take a horse from the stables now. After all, if he was an upstart and a poisoner and a man turned evil by love, it hardly mattered being a horse thief as well. He closed his eyes, an angry bark of a laugh forcing its way from his throat.

Everything you have won, you've won by leaving, he thought, remembering a woman whom he had known almost well enough to join his life with though he had never loved her, nor she him. Well, Maj, perhaps this time I'll lose.

THE NIGHT CANDLE WAS PAST ITS MIDDLE MARK; TFIK AIR WAS FILLEI) WITH the songs of crickets. Somewhere in the course of things, the pale mist of netting had been pulled from the bed, and the room looked exposed without it. Cehmai could feel Stone-Made-Soft in the back of his mind, but the effort of being truly aware of the andat was too much; his body was thick and heavy and content. Focus and rigor would have their place another time.

Idaan traced her fingertips across his chest, raising gooseflesh. He shivered, took her hand and folded it in his own. She sighed and lay against him. Her hair smelled of roses.

"Why do they call you poets?" she asked.

"It's an old Empire term," Clehmai said. "It's from the binding."

"The andat are poems?" she said. She had the darkest eyes. Like an animal's. He looked at her mouth. The lips were too full to be fashionable. With the paint worn off, he could see how she narrowed them. He raised his head and kissed them again, gently this time. His own mouth felt bruised from their coupling. And then his head grew too heavy, and he let it rest again.

"They're ... like that. Binding one is like describing something perfectly. Understanding it, and expanding it ... I'm not saying this well. Have you ever translated a letter? Taken something in the Khaiate tongues and tried to say the same thing in Westland or an east island tongue?"

"No," she said. "I had to take something from the Empire and rewrite it for a tutor once."

Cchmai closed his eyes. He could feel sleep pulling at him, but he fought against it a hit. He wasn't ready to let the moment pass.

"That's near enough. You had to make choices when you did that. Tiff', could mean take or it could mean give or it could mean exchangeit's yours to choose, depending on how it's used in the original document. And so a letter or a poem doesn't have a set translation. You could have any number of ways that you say the same thing. Binding the andat means describing them-what the thought of them is-so well that you can translate it perfectly into a form that includes will and volition. Like translating a Galtic contract so that all the nuances of the trade are preserved perfectly."

"But there's any number of ways to do that," she said.

"There are very few ways to do it perfectly. And if a binding goes wrong ... Existing isn't normal for them. If you leave an imprecision or an inaccuracy, they escape through it, and the poet pays a price for that. Usually it comes as some particularly gruesome death. And knowing what an andat is can be subtle. Stone-Made-Soft. What do you mean by stone? Iron comes from stone, so is it stone? Sand is made of tiny stones. Is it stone? Bones are like stone. But are they like enough to be called the same name? All those nuances have to be balanced or the binding fails. Happily, the Empire produced some formal grammars that were very precise."

"And you describe this thing...."

"And then you hold that in your mind until you die. Only it's the kind of thought that can think back, so it's wearing sometimes."

"Do you resent it?" Idaan asked, and something in her voice had changed. Cehmai opened his eyes. Idaan was looking past him. Her expression was unfathomable.

"I don't know what you mean," he said.

"You have to carry this thing all your life. Do you ever wish that you hadn't been called to do it?"

"No," he said. "Not really. It's work, but it's work that I like. And I get to meet the most interesting women."

Her gaze cooled, flickered over him, and then away.

"Lucky to be you," she said as she sat up. He watched her as she pulled her robes from the puddle of cloth on the floor. Cehmai sat up. "I have meetings in the morning. I'll need to be in my own rooms to be ready anyway. I might as well go now."

"I might say fewer things that angered you if you talked to me," Cehmai said, gently.

Idaan's head snapped around to him like a hunting cat's, but then her expression softened to chagrin, and she took an apologetic pose.

"I'm overtired," she said. "'T'here are things that I'm carrying, and I don't do it as gracefully as you. I don't mean to take them out on you."

"Why do you do this, Idaan-kya? Why do you come here? I don't think it's that you love me."

"Do you want me to stop?"

"No," Cehmai said. "I don't. But if you choose to, that will be fine as well."

"'That's flattering," she said, sarcasm thick in her voice.

"Are you doing this to be flattered?"

He was awake again now. He could see something in her expression pain, anger, something else. She didn't answer him now, only knelt by the bed and felt beneath it for her hoots. He put his hand on her arm and drew her up. He could sense that she was close to speaking, that the words were already there, just below the surface.

"I don't mind only being your bed mate," he said. "I've known from the start that Adrah is the man you plan to be with, and that I couldn't be that for you even if you wanted it. I assume that's part of why you've chosen me. But I am fond of you, and I would like to be your friend."

"You'd be my friend?" she said. "That's nice to hear. You've bedded me and now you'll condescend to be a friend?"

"I think it's more accurate to say you bedded me," Cehmai said. "And it seems to me that people do what we've done quite often without caring about the other person. Or even while wishing them ill. I'll grant that we haven't followed the usual order-I understand people usually know each other first and then fall into bed afterwards-hut in a way that means you should take me more seriously."

She pulled hack and took a pose of query.

"You know I'm not just saying it to get your robes open," he said. "When I say I want to be someone you can speak with, it's truth. I've nothing to gain by it but the thing itself."

She sighed and sat on the bed. The light of the single candle painted her in shades of orange.

"Do you love me, Cehmai-kya?" she asked.

Cehmai took a deep breath and then slowly let it out. He had reached the gate. Her thoughts, her fears. Everything that had driven this girl into his bed was waiting to be loosed. All he would have to do was tell one, simple, banal lie. A lie thousands of men had told for less reason. He was badly tempted.

"Idaan-kya," he said, "I don't know you."

To his surprise, she smiled. She pulled on her hoots, not bothering to lace the bindings, leaned over and kissed him again. Her hand caressed his cheeks.

"Lucky to be you," she said softly.