Page 16 (2/2)
"And not for any gain of your own? How selfless Beco Khai Machi must be such a chore for you"
"You wouldn&039;t have had me if my ambition didn&039;t match yours," Adrah said "What I&039;ve become, I&039;ve become for you"
"That isn&039;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&039;s yours, and VOL] won&039;t blaot to live with it!"
He was breathing fast now, as if he&039;d been running, but she could see in his shoulders and the corners of hisHe 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 Cehged The battle was over They were both too thin now for any e to matter "He has been for a feeeks"
"Why?"
"I don&039;t know Because he wasn&039;t part of all this Because he was clean"
"Because he is power, and you&039;re drawn to that ?"
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 ar on his knees
"There is a list of houses and their women," he said ""There was before you and Cehainst it, but my father said it was just as an exercise Just in case it was needed later Only tell metoday, when he cameyou didn&039;tthe two of you didn&039;t "
Idaan laughed again, but this was a lower sound, gentler
"No, I haven&039;t lain down for another man in your house, Adrah-kya I can&039;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&039;t make her love him, but she remembered when she had
"The first tihtened," she said "Do you reone skating "There must have been twenty of us We all raced, and you won"
"And you kissedhis 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 eeks before you cah atabout you, and woke up everyafraid that soh at you?"
"Now? No"
"Do you re out front?"
"The one that danced when the keep played flute? Yes"
Idaan sray hair and soft, dark eyes It had see, s 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 herleapt and looked at her It had been so happy and so innocent She pushed her own heart out toward thatwith the cold world that the pup was so and loved as it had been that day She didn&039;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 ar silently for too s for one mind to hold He didn&039;t speak until the worst of the tears had passed
"Do they bother you?" he asked at last, his voice low and hoarse
"Who?"
"&039;I&039;heain, and shivered
"Yes," she said
"Do you knohat&039;s funny? It isn&039;t your father who haunts me It should be, I know He was helpless, and I went there knohat I was going to do But he isn&039;t the one"
Idaan frowned, trying to think who else there had been Adrah saw her confusion and s for himself Perhaps only that she hadn&039;t known so different from her own
"When ent 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 soave way and didn&039;t I remember how it sounded And afterward, you wouldn&039;t touchthat ht to pardon him
"Men do this," Adrah said "All over the world, in every land, hter each other over money or sex or power The Khaiem do it to their own faine it I can&039;t is I&039;ve done, even after I&039;ve done them Can you?"
"There&039;s a price they pay," Idaan said "The soldiers and the ars and drunkards who carve each other up outside co it too That&039;s all"
She felt hiht," he said
"So what do we do froed, as if the ansere obvious
"If Maati Vaupathai&039;s set himself to be Otah&039;s champion, Otah will eventually come to him And Cehmai&039;s already shown that there&039;s one person in the world he&039;ll break his silence for"
"I want Cehmai kept out of this"
"It&039;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&039;s the only one who can lead us to Otah Machi And you&039;re the only one he&039;ll tell"
PORSHA RADAANI GESTURED TOWARD MAA&039;I&039;I&039;S BOWL, AND A SERVANT BOY raceful 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, unsers over his wide belly and senerous fat, glittered like wet stones in a brook
"I confess, Maati-cha, that I hadn&039;t expected a visit from the Daikvo&039;s envoy I&039;ve had men from every major house in the city here to talk with h Dai-kvo usually keeps clear of these h it was still too hot He had to be careful how he answered this It was a fine line between letting it be assu as much, but that difference was critical He had so far kept away froe, but Radaani was an older man than Ghiah Vaunani or Ad attitude of wealth than the subtleties of court Maati put down his bowl
"The Dai-kvo isn&039;t taking a hand in it," Nlaati said, "but that hardly norance The better he knows the world, the better he can direct the poets to everyone&039;s benefit, nc?"
"Spoken like a man of the court," Radaani said, and despite the smile in his voice, Maati didn&039;t think it had been a cons on the Khai&039;s chair," Maati said, dropping the oblique path he had intended It would have done no good here "Is that the case?"
Radaani so The boy dropped into a for the door closed behind hi the silence It was a small roolow and ornaold and carved stone The ere 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 ge valued by aour business interests I have a grandson who has recently learned how to sing and jump sticks at the same time I can&039;t see that either of them would be well suited to the Khai&039;s chair I would have to either abandon my family&039;s business or put a child in power over the city"
"Certainly therethe Khai Machi," Maati said "I can&039;t think it would hurt your fae your work in Yalakcht to join the Khaiem"
"Then you haven&039;t spoken to old 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 cohters I&039;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&039;re not so old"
"And I&039; as to be that stupid Here, Vaupathai, let outy as often as not, and rich I have what I want fro the Khai Maehi wouldeach other&039;s throats I don&039;t want that for the 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&039;t go so far as to say that, did I? Why does the Dai-kvo care which of its becomes the Khai?"
"He doesn&039;t But that doesn&039;t mean he&039;s uninterested"
""Then let him wait teeks, and he can have the naure Dither he has a favorite oror is this about your belly getting opened for you?" Radaani pursed his lips, his eyes darting back and forth over Maati&039;s face "I&039;he upstart&039;s dead, so it isn&039;t that You think so with Otah Machi? That one of the houses was backing hio so far as to say that, did I? And even if they were, it&039;s no concern of the Dai-kvo&039;s," Maati said
""lrue, but no one tried to fish-gut the Dai-kvo Could it be, Maaticha, that you&039;re here on your own interest?"
"You give me tooto make sense of complex times"
"Yes, aren&039;t we all," Radaani said with an expression of distaste
Mlaati kept the rest of the interview to empty niceties and social foriven outabsently at his inner lip, he turned west, away from the palaces and out into the streets of the city The paledown already, and the festival colors were going back up for the i and Idaan Machi Maati watched as a young boy, skin brown as a nut, sat atop a lantern pole with pale arland of flowers in the other Maati wondered if a city had ever gone froain so quickly
To of the dead Khai&039;s last daughter, and began the open struggle to find the city&039;s newon for the week Adaut Kamau had denied any interest in the Khai&039;s chair, but had spent enough tiht sway his opinion that Nlaati felt sure the Kamau hadn&039;t abandoned their ambitions Ghiah Vaunani had been perfectly pleasant, friendly, open, and hadat all Even now, Maati saw rand conversation of power ed form
Maati walked more often these days The wound in his belly was still pink, but the twinges of pain were few and widely spaced While he walked the streets, his robes marked him as a man of importance, and not someone to interrupt Ile was less likely to be disturbed here than in the library or his own roo seei, the soon-to-be father of Idaan Machi He&039;d been putting off that ratulations -faced and formal or jolly and pleasant, and he felt a deep certainty that whatever he chose would be the wrong thing But it had to be done, and it wasn&039;t the worst of the errands he&039;d set himself for the day