Page 2 (2/2)

"It wasn&039;t quite like that"

"Do you ever wonder if you would have iven the game away?"

Maati blushed The secret he&039;d held for years with the Dai-kvo pried open in a single conversation Heshai-kvo was a subtleelsewhere, an expression passing over hiht have been annoyance or pain

"Heshai-kvo?"

"I&039;ve just re I&039;m to do Walk with er than the village that surrounded the Dai-kvo, each individual structure larger than the whole of the school Together, they walked down the wide ht air was touched by the scents of sandalwood and vanilla

"Tell me, Maati What do you think of slaves?"

The question was an odd one, and his first response - I don&039;t - seelib for the occasion Instead, he took a pose requesting clarification as best he could while still walking more quickly than his usual pace

"Permanent indenture What&039;s your opinion of it?"

"I don&039;t know"

"Then think for a h the hall and onto a wide, flower-strewn path that led down and to the south Gardens rich with exotic flowers and fountains spread out before thees or cloth screens, filled the air ordless melodies The sun blared heat like a trumpet, and the thick airIt see before Maati&039;s inner robe was sticky with sweat He found hi to keep up

As Maati considered the question, servants and utkhaie to take poses of respect His teacher took little notice of them or of the heat; where Maati&039;s robes stuck, his flowed like water over stone and no sweat dampened his temples Maati cleared his throat

"People who have entered into permanent indenture have either chosen to do so, in return for the protection of the holders of their contracts, or lost their freedoms as punishht you?"

"No It&039;s justit&039;s just the way it is I&039;ve always known that"

"And the third case? The andat?"

"I don&039;t understand"

The teacher&039;s dark eyebrows rose on the perfect skin of his forehead His lips took the slightest of all possible smiles

"The andat aren&039;t criht, no will, no form They&039;re only ideas How can an idea enter into a contract?"

"How can one refuse?" Maati countered

"There are names, my boy, for men who take silence as consent"

They passed into the ardens The low halls spread before them, and wider paths alht, wide and high; its sloping lines reht At one of the low halls, carts had gathered Laborers li carried in With a thrill of excite For the first ti to see Heshai-kvo wield the power of the andat

"Ah, well Neverfor some answer "Only Maati? Later on, I&039;d like you to think about this conversation"

Maati took a pose appropriate to a student accepting an assignment As they drew nearer, the laborers and merchants moved aside to make room for them Members of the utkhaiem were also there in fine robes and expensive jewelry Maati caught sight of an older woman in a robe the color of the sky at dawn - the personal attendant of the Khai Saraykeht

"The Khai is here?" Maati asked, his voice smaller than he would have liked

"He attends so attention to them Silly trick, but it see the Khai, half at the indifference in his teacher&039;s voice They passed through the arches and into the shade of the low hall Warehouse-large, the hall was filled with bale upon bale of raw cotton stacked to the high ceiling The only space was a narrow gap at the very top, thinner than a bale, and another of perhaps a hand&039;s width at the bottom where metal frames held the cotton off the floor What little space remained was peopled by the representatives of the merchant houses whose laborers waited outside and, on a dais, the Khai Saraykeht - a ray, his eyes heavy-lidded His attendants stood around hi commands so subtle they approached invisibility Maati felt the weight of the silence as they entered Then a h the hall, voices too low to make out words or even sentiments The Khai raised an eyebrow and took a pose of query with an alrace

At his side stood a thick-bodied ht have been horror or astonishment He also wore the robe of a poet Maati felt his teacher&039;s hand on his shoulder, solid, firm, and cold

"Maati," the lovely, careful voice said so quietly that only the two of the you should know I&039;m not Heshai-kvo"

Maati looked up The dark eyes were on his, so like amusement in their depths

"Wh-who are you, then?"

"A slave, my dear The slave you hope to own"

Then the man as not his teacher turned to the Khai Saraykeht and the spluttering, enraged poet He took a pose of greeting more appropriate to acquaintances chanced upon at a teahouse than to the two , took a -mouthed Heshai-kvo, he had to be - de Maati as if he were a sculpture pointed out at a fair "It see man Fifteen summers? Maybe sixteen? It&039;s so hard to knohat to call it at that age I found it abandoned in the upper halls Apparently it&039;s been wandering around there for days No one else seems to have any use for it May I keep it?"

"Heshai," the Khai said His voice was powerful He seemed to speak in a conversational tone, but his voice carried like an actor&039;s The displeasure in the syllables stung

"Oh," the man at Maati&039;s side said "Have I displeased? Well, master, you&039;ve no one to blame but yourself"

"Silence!" the poet snapped Maati sensed as limpse at the perfect face The features were fixed in pain, and slowly, as if fighting each y and self-surrender, the spine twisted into a pose of abject obeisance

"I co, Khai Saraykeht," the man - no, the andat, Seedless - said, his voice honey and ashes "Co-estured pointedly to his own side Maati scurried to the dais The andat moved more slowly, but followed

"You should have waited," Heshai-kvo hissed "This is a very busy tiht the Dai-kvo would teach you y

"Heshai-kvo, I was ht that hethat itI am shamed by my error"

"As you should be," the poet snapped "Just arriving like this, unintroduced and - "

"Good and glorious Heshai," the Khai Saraykeht said, voice enveno another pet to your collection ret to interrupt, but "

The Khai gestured grandly at the bales of cotton His hands were perfect, and his ant Maati had ever seen, smooth and controlled and eloquent

Heshai-kvo briefly adopted a pose of regret, then turned to the beautiful man - Seedless, Sterile, andat For a moment the two considered each other, so between the half sneer, half sorroeat da as if with a great effort Then the andat turned and raised his arms theatrically to the cotton

A le raindrop And then more and more, until an invisible downpour filled the hall From his position behind the Khai and the poet, he lowered hi under the raised platform on which the bales lay The parquet floor was covered with s as they struck one another Cotton seed

"It is done," Heshai-kvo said, and Maati stood hurriedly

The Khai clapped his hands and rose, his h the air like soot himself and reat doors, and began a loail, calling the merchants and their laborers to come and take as theirs The utkhaiem took stations by the doors, prepared to collect the fees and taxes for each bale that left The Khai stood on his dais, grave and beautiful, seeod than Seedless, who more nearly was

"You should have waited," Heshai-kvo said again over the voices of the laborers and the din of the merchants at their business "This is a very bad start for your training A very bad start"

Once again, Maati took a pose of regret, but the poet - his teacher, his newthe pose unanswered Maati stood slowly, his face hot with a blush equally ee of the dais, the andat sat, his bone-pale hands in his lap He ed, and took a pose of profound apology that enuine or deeply insincere; Maati had no way to tell

Before he could choose how to respond, Seedless smiled, lowered his hands and looked away

AMAT KYAAN sat at the second-floorof her apart sun behind her reddened the walls of the soft quarter So out strea cloth co her bell and sang her wares in a gentlesalve into her knee and ankle, as she did every evening, to keep the pain at bay It had been a long day,with Marchat Wilsin And even now, it wasn&039;t finished There was one more unpleasant task still to be done

This would be her fifty-eighth summer in the world, and every one had been spent in Saraykeht Her earliestcured cotton into fine, tough thread, hu to himself as he worked He was many years dead now, as was her mother Her sister, Sikhet, had vanished into the comfort houses of the soft quarter when she was only sixteen Alimpses of her still - older, wiser, safe More likely it was her own desire that her sister be well Her better mind kneas only wishes There had been too many years for the two of thehts that she had lived her life as an apology for letting her sister vanish into the soft world And perhaps it had started that way: her decision to work for a trading house, her rise through the invisible levels of power and wealth, had been meant to balance her sister&039;s assuht have apologized to was gone or dead She had the status and the respect she needed to do as she pleased She was no one&039;s sister, no one&039;s daughter, no one&039;s wife orstill, she had come almost loose frorass tic shuffled across her arht it, cracked it between her thumbnails, and flicked the corpse out into the street There were more lanterns lit now, and the callers of different establishers and flute players to tempt men - and occasionally even woered down the streets, their robes the colors of the great comfort houses It was too early for there to be ri in see that they were there

There was no place safer than the Saraykeht soft quarter at night, and no place erous Here alone, she suspected, of all the cities of the Khaiem, no one would be attacked, no one raped, no one killed except perhaps the whores and showfighters orked there For their clients, every opportunity to twist a e herbs, to empty a pocket with dice and khit tiles, or to cheapen sex as barter would be made available in perfect safety It was a beautiful, toxic dream, and she feared it as she loved it It was a part of her city

The soft, tentative knock at her door didn&039;t startle her She had been dreading it asup her cane, and walked down the long, curved stair to the street level The door was barred, not fro hers for a co the door aside

Liat Chokavi stood in the street, jaw tight, eyes cast down She was a lovely little thing - brown eyes the color of irl&039;s face was a little too round to be classically beautiful, her youth forgave her

Areeted her student Liat adopted an answering pose of gratitude at being received, but the stance was undercut by the defensiveness of her body Airl inside

"I expected you earlier," she said as she closed the door

Liat walked to the foot of the stair, but there paused and turned in a foran, but Aht the candles I will be up in a moment"

Liat hesitated, but then turned and went up Airl&039;s footsteps by the creaking of the timbers She poured herself a cup of limed water, then went slowly up the stairs The salve helped Most days she woke able to convince herself that today there would be no trouble, and by nightfall her joints ached Age was a coward and a thief, and she wasn&039;t about to let it get the better of her Still, as she took the steps to her workrooht to the cane as she could

Liat sat on the raised cushion beside As were tucked up under her, her gaze on the floor The le away the worst of the flies Aed her robe as if she were preparing herself for work

"Old Sanya must have had more objections than usual He&039;s nores here, let&039;s survey the dae, shall we?"

She held one hand out to the apprentice A moment later, she lowered it

"I ht whisper "I apologize It is entirely my fault"

Amat sipped her water The lime made it taste cooler than it was

"YouThe girl didn&039;t look up A tear tracked down the round cheek

"That isn&039;t good," Amat said

"Please don&039;t send irl said "My mother was so proud when I was accepted here andstopped, Liat&039;s gaze fixed on the floor With a sigh, Amat pulled a bundle of papers from her sleeve and tossed theirl hadn&039;t lied about it

"One of the laborers found this between the bales froave hies in her hands, and Amat watched the tension flow out of her, Liat&039;s body collapsing on itself

"Thank you," the girl said Aod and not herself

"I don&039;t suppose I need to tell you ould have happened if these had come out? It would have destroyed every concession House Wilsin has had from Sanya&039;s weavers in the last year"

"I know I&039;m sorry I really aht have fallen out of your sleeve? The warehouse seems an odd place to have lost them"

Liat blushed furiously and looked away Auessed correctly It should have ic sympathy Liat was in the middle of her seventeenth sue

"Did you at least do so hiaze flickered up at Airl sed Even the tips of her ears were criot some teas from Chisen Wat," she said at last, and softly

"Gods! Her? She&039;s as likely to poison you by mistake Go to Urrat on the Street of Beads She&039;s the one I always saw You can tell her I sent you"

When Liat looked at her this tiirl neither spoke nor looked away She&039;d shocked her And, as Amat felt the first rush of blood in her own cheeks, maybe she&039;d shocked herself a little, too Amat took a pose of query

"What? You think I was born before they invented sex? Go see Urrat Maybe we can keep you fro contracts in your love nest Which one was it, anyway? Still Itani Noyga?"

"Itani&039;s my heartood-looking boy, Itani Amat had seen hi her apprentice away fro face and broad shoulders, and wasas a laborer He knew his letters and nuht have been other work for a boy like that

A a subtle tension even before the thought was fully in her s Certainly there was other work he could be put to Driving away feral dogs, for exas to hunt for easier prey than Marchat Wilsin Marchat wouldn&039;t be keeping track of who each of his laborers was sharing pilloith

And pilloere soht?"

"Itani Where is he now?"

"I don&039;t know Likely back at his quarters Or maybe a teahouse"

"Do you think you could find hiestured for a block of ink, and Liat rose, took one froth of paper and took aThe pen sounded as dry as a bird claw on pavement

"There&039;s an errand I want Itani for Marchat Wilsin needs a bodyguard tonight He&039;s going to ain one of the lons at the half-candle, and he wants so will last, but I can&039;t assume it will be brief I&039;ll tell his overseer to release him from duty tomorrow"

She took another sheet of paper, scraped the pen across the ink and began a second letter Liat, at her shoulder, read the words as she wrote them

"This one, I want you to deliver to Rinat Lyanita after you find Itani," Amat said as she wrote "If Itani doesn&039;t know that he&039;s to go, Rinat will do I don&039;t want Marchat waiting for someone who never arrives"

"Yes, Amat-cha, but "

Amat blew on the ink to cure it Liat&039;s words failed, and she took no pose, but a single vertical line appeared between her brows Ah for the task at hand She folded both orders and sealed them with hard wax There wasn&039;t ti You&039;ll give yourself a headache"

"The mistake was mine, Amat-cha It isn&039;t Itani&039;s fault that I lost the contracts Punishing him for my error is "

"It isn&039;t a punish the familiar -kya to reassure her "I just need him to do me this favor And, when he comes back tomorroant him to tell you all about the journey What town he went to, as there, how long thehe can remember Not to anyone else; just to you And then you to me"

Liat took the papers and tucked them into her sleeve The line was still between her brows Amat wanted to reach over and smooth it out with her thu too much Perhaps this was a poor idea after all Perhaps she should take the orders back

But then she wouldn&039;t discover what business Marchat Wilsin was doing without her

"Can you do this foron, Amat-cha?"

"Yes, but don&039;t concern yourself with it Just do as I ask, and I&039;ll take care of the rest"

Liat took a pose of acceptance and leave-taking Amat responded with thanks and dismissal appropriate for a supervisor to an apprentice Liat went down the stairs, and Amat heard her close the door behind her as she went Outside, the fireflies shone and vanished, brighter now as twilight dimmed the city She watched the streets: the firekeeper at the corner with his banked kiln, the youngwest into the soft quarter, ready to trade lengths of silver and copper for pleasures that would be gone bybriskly to the east, toward the warehouses and laborers&039; quarters, the dyeworks and the weavers

A beyond recall, then she went down and barred her door