Shadow and Betrayal (12 page)

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Authors: Daniel Abraham

BOOK: Shadow and Betrayal
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The private apartments where Wilsin-cha lived were at the end of the courtyard farthest from the street. Double doors of copper-bound ash stood open, though the view of the antechamber was still blocked by house banners shifting uneasily in the breeze. They glowed from the light behind them. Epani drew one banner aside and gestured Liat within as if she were a guest and not an apprentice overseer.
The antechamber was stone-floored, but the walls and high ceiling glowed with worked wood. The air smelled rich with lemon candle and mint wine and lamp oil. Lanterns lit the space. From somewhere nearby, she heard voices - two men, she thought. She made out few words - Wilsin-cha’s voice saying ‘won’t affect’ and ‘unlike the last girl,’ the other man saying ‘won’t allow’ and ‘street by street if needed.’ Epani, sweeping in behind her, took a pose that indicated she should wait. She took a pose of acknowledgment, but the house master had already moved on, vanishing behind thick banners. The conversation stopped suddenly as Epani’s rain-soft voice interrupted. Then Marchat Wilsin himself, wearing robes of green and black, strode into the room.
‘Liat Chokavi!’
Liat took a pose of obeisance which the head of her house replied to with a curt formal pose, dropped as soon as taken. He put a thick hand on her shoulder and drew her back to an inner chamber.
‘I need to know, Liat. Do you speak any island tongues? Arrask or Nippu?’
‘No, Wilsin-cha. I know Galtic and some Coyani . . .’
‘But nothing from the eastern islands?’
As they stepped into a meeting room, Liat adopted an apologetic pose.
‘That’s too bad,’ Wilsin-cha said, though his tone was mild and his expression curiously relieved.
‘I think Amat-cha may know some Nippu. It isn’t a language that’s much used in trade, but she’s very well-studied.’
Wilsin lowered himself to a bench beside a low table, gesturing to the cushion across from him. Liat knelt as he poured out a bowl of tea for her.
‘You’ve been with my house, what? Three years now?’
‘Amat-cha accepted me as her apprentice four years ago. I was with my father in Chaburi-Tan before that, working with my brothers . . .’
‘Four years ago? Weren’t you young to be working four years ago? You’d have seen twelve summers?’
Liat felt herself blush. She hadn’t meant to have her family brought into the conversation.
‘Thirteen, Wilsin-cha. And there were ways I could help, so I did what I could. My brothers and I all helped where we could.’
She silently willed the old Galt’s attention away from the subject. Anything she could say about her old life would make her seem less likely to be worth cultivating. The small apartments by the smoke-house that had housed her and three brothers; her father’s little stand in the market selling cured meats and dried fruits. It wasn’t the place Liat imagined an overseer of a merchant house would start from. Her wish seemed to be granted. Wilsin-cha cleared his throat and sat forward.
‘Amat’s been sent away on private business. She may be gone for some weeks. I have an audience before the Khai that I’ll need you to take over.’
He said it in a low, conversational voice, but Liat felt herself flush like she’d drunk strong wine. She sipped the tea to steady herself, then put the bowl down and took a pose appropriate to a confession.
‘Wilsin-cha, Amat has never taken me to the courts. I wouldn’t know what to do, and . . .’
‘You’ll be fine,’ Wilsin-cha said. ‘It’s the sad trade. Not complex, but I need it done with decorum, if you see. Someone to see to it that the client has the appropriate robes and understands the process. And with Amat unavailable, I thought her apprentice might be the best person for the role.’
Liat looked down, hoping that the sense of vertigo would fade. An audience with the Khai - even only a very brief one - was something she had expected to take only years later, if ever. She took a pose of query, fighting to keep her fingers from trembling. Wilsin waved a hand, giving her permission to speak her question.
‘There are other overseers. Some of them have been with the house much longer than I have. They have experience in the courts . . .’
‘They’re busy. This is something I was going to have Amat do herself, before she was called away. I don’t want to pull anyone else away from negotiations that are only half-done. And Amat said it was within your abilities, so . . .’
‘She did?’
‘Of course. Here’s what I’ll need of you . . .’
 
The rain had ended and the night candle burned to just past the halfway mark when Heshai-kvo returned. Maati, having fallen asleep on a reading couch, woke when the door slammed open. Blinking away half-formed dreams, he stood and took a pose of welcome. Heshai snorted, but made no other reply. Instead, he took a candle and touched it to the night candle’s flame, then walked heavily around the rooms lighting every lantern and candle. When the house was bright as morning and thick with the scent of hot wax, the teacher returned the dripping candle to its place and dragged a chair across the floor. Maati sat on the couch as Heshai, groaning under his breath, lowered himself into the chair.
Maati was silent as his teacher considered him. Heshai-kvo’s eyes were narrow, his mouth skewed in something like a stillborn smile. At last the teacher heaved a loud sigh and took a pose of apology.
‘I’ve been an ass. And I’m sorry,’ the teacher said. ‘I meant to say so before, but . . . well, I didn’t, did I? What happened with the Khai was my fault, not yours. Don’t carry it.’
‘Heshai-kvo, I was wrong to . . .’
‘Ah, you’re a decent boy. Your heart’s good. But there’s no call to sweeten turds. I was thoughtless. Careless. I let that bastard Seedless get the better of me. Again. And you. Gods, you must think I’m the silliest joke ever to wear a poet’s robe.’
‘Not at all,’ Maati said seriously. ‘He is . . . a credit to you, Heshai-kvo. I have never seen anything to match him.’
Heshai-kvo coughed out a sharp, mirthless laugh.
‘And have you seen another andat?’ he asked. ‘Any of them at all?’
‘I was present when Choti Dausadar of Amnat-Tan bound Moss-Hidden-from-Sunlight. But I never saw him use her powers.’
‘Yes, well, I’m sure he will as soon as anyone can think of a decent use for forcing mosses out in the light where we can see them. The Dai-kvo should have insisted that Choti wait until he had a binding poem for something useful. Even Petals-Falling was a better tool than that. Hidden moss. Gods.’
Maati took a pose of polite agreement, appropriate to receiving teachings, but as he did so, it struck him. Heshai-kvo was drunk.
‘It’s a fallen age, boy. The great poets of the Empire ruined it for us. All that’s left is picking at the obscure thoughts and images that are still in the corners. We’re like dogs sniffing for scraps. We aren’t poets; we’re
scholars.
’
Maati began to take a pose of agreement but paused, unsure. Heshai-kvo raised an eyebrow and completed the pose himself, his gaze fixed on Maati as if asking
was this what you meant?
Then the teacher waved the pose away.
‘Seedless was . . . was the answer to a problem,’ the poet said, his voice growing soft. ‘I didn’t think it through. Not far enough. Have you heard of Miyani-kvo and Three-Bound-As-One? I studied that when I was your age. Poured my heart into it. And when the time came - when the Dai-kvo sent for me and said that I wasn’t simply going to take over another man’s work, that I was to attempt a binding of my own - I drew on that knowledge. She was in love with him, you know. Three-Bound-As-One. An andat in love with her poet. There was an epic written about it.’
‘I’ve seen it performed.’
‘Have you? Well forget it. Unlearn it. It’ll only lead you astray. I was too young and too foolish, and now I’m afraid I’ll never have the chance to be wise.’ The poet’s gaze was fixed on something that Maati couldn’t see, something in another place or time. A smile touched the wide lips for a moment, and then, with a sigh, the poet blinked. He seemed to see Maati again, and took a pose of command.
‘Put these damned candles out,’ he said. ‘I’m going to sleep.’
And without looking back, Heshai-kvo rose and tramped up the stairs. Maati moved through the house, dousing the flames Heshai-kvo had lit, dimming the room as he did so. His mind churned with half-formed questions. Above him, he heard Heshai-kvo’s footsteps, and then the clatter of shutters closing, and then silence. The master had gone to bed - likely already asleep. Maati had snuffed the last flame but the night candle when the new voice spoke.
‘You didn’t accept my apology.’
Seedless stood in the doorway, his pale skin glowing in the light of the single candle. His robes were dark - blue or black or red so deep Maati couldn’t make it out. The thin hands took a pose of query.
‘Is there a reason I should?’
‘Charity?’
Maati coughed out a mirthless laugh and turned as if to go, but the andat stepped into the house. His movements were as graceful as an animal’s - as beautiful as the Khai, but unstudied, as much a part of his nature as the shape of a leaf was natural to a tree.
‘I
am
sorry,’ the andat said. ‘And you should forgive our mutual master as well. He had a bad day.’
‘Did he?’
‘Yes. He met with the Khai and discovered that he’s going to have to do something he doesn’t enjoy. But now that it’s just the two of us . . .’
The andat sat on the stairs, black eyes amused, pale hands cradling a knee.
‘Ask,’ Seedless said.
‘Ask what?’
‘Whatever the question is that’s making your face pull in like that. Really, you look like you’ve been sucking lemons.’
Maati hesitated. If he could have walked away, he would have. But the path to his cot was effectively blocked. He considered calling out to Heshai-kvo, waking him so that he could walk up the stairway without brushing against the beautiful creature in his way.
‘Please, Maati. I said I was sorry for my little misdirection. I won’t do it again.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘No? Well, then you’re wise beyond your years. I probably will at some point. But here, tonight, ask me what you’d like, and I’ll tell you the truth. For a price.’
‘What price?’
‘That you accept my apology.’
Maati shook his head.
‘Fine,’ Seedless said, rising and moving to the shelves. ‘Don’t ask. Tie yourself in knots if it suits you.’
The pale hand ran along the spines of books, plucking one in a brown leather binding free. Maati turned, walked up two steps, and then faltered. When he looked back, Seedless had curled up on a couch beside the night candle, his legs pulled up beneath him. He seemed engaged in the open book on his knee.
‘He told you the story about Miyani-kvo, didn’t he?’ Seedless asked, not looking up from the page.
Maati was silent.
‘It’s like him to do that. He doesn’t often say things clearly when an oblique reference will do. It was about how Three-Bound-As-One loved her poet, wasn’t it? Here. Look at this.’
Seedless turned the book over and held it out. Maati walked back down the steps. The book was written in Heshai-kvo’s script. The page Seedless held out was a table marking parallels between the classic binding of Three-Bound-As-One and Removing-The-Part-That-Continues. Seedless.
‘It’s his analysis of his error,’ the andat said. ‘You should take it. He means for you to have it, I think.’
Maati took the soft leather in his hands. The pages scraped softly.
‘He did bind you,’ Maati said. ‘He didn’t pay your price, so there wasn’t an error. It worked.’
‘Some prices are subtle. Some are longer than others. Let me tell you a little more about our master. He was never lovely to look at. Even fresh from the womb, he made an ugly babe. He was cast out by his father, much the same way you were. But when he found himself an apprentice in the courts of the Khai Pathai, he fell in love. Hard to imagine, isn’t it? Our fat, waddling pig of a man in love. But he was, and the girl was willing enough. The allure of power. A poet controls the andat, and that’s as near to holding a god in your hands as anyone is ever likely to get.
‘But when he got her with child, she turned away from him,’ Seedless continued. ‘Drank some nasty teas and killed out the baby. It broke his heart. Partly because he might have liked being a father. Partly because it proved that his lady love had never meant to build her life with his.’
‘I didn’t know.’
‘He doesn’t tell many people. But . . . Maati, please, sit down. This is important for you to understand, and if I have to keep looking up at you, I’ll get a sore neck.’
He knew that the wise thing was to turn, to walk up the stairs to his room. He sat.
‘Good,’ Seedless said. ‘Now. You know, don’t you, that andat are only ideas. Concepts translated into a form that includes volition. The work of the poet is to include all those features which the idea itself doesn’t carry. So for example Water-Moving-Down had perfectly white hair. Why? There isn’t anything about that thought that requires white hair. Or a deep voice. Or, with Three-Bound-As-One, love. So where do those attributes come from?’

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