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"Not on that subject, you won&039;t Not unless it&039;s learning how to strike a bargain with a soft quarter whore"

Maati took a dish an archway His broere furrowed and angry His lips ined listener When he looked up,Maati&039;s pose of welco with House Tiyan," the poet said "Idiots have petitioned the Khai for a private session So about a Westlands contract I don&039;t know"

"I would like to attend, if Iof a stock phrase over the last few days, and Heshai-kvo accepted it with the same distracted acquiescence that seean the walk downhill to the low palaces Maati and Seedless walked behind The city stretched below thee on the seafront, and beyond that the reat expanse of sky dwarfing it all It was like soaudy and perfect to be real And alravel paths and the distant songs of garden slaves, Heshai-kvotoward half-formed poses

"He ith the Khai," Seedless said, his voice very low "It didn&039;t go well"

"What was the matter?"

It was Heshai-kvo who answered the question

"The Khai Saraykeht is a greedy, vain little shit," he said "If you had to choose the essence of the problem, you could do worse than start there"

Maati h, escaped him When the poet turned to him, he tried to adopt a pose - any pose - but his hands couldn&039;t agree on where they should go

"What?" the poet demanded

"The KhaiYou just " Maati said

"He&039;s just a man," the poet said "He eats and shits and talks in his sleep the same as anyone"

"But he&039;s the Khai"

Heshai-kvo took a dismissive pose and turned his back to Maati and the andat Seedless plucked Maati&039;s robe andhis eyes on the path and the poet before them, Maati did

"He asked the Khai to refuse a contract," Seedless whispered "The Khai laughed at him and told hi his petition for days, and he wasn&039;t even allowed to present the whole argument I wish you&039;d been there It was really a lovely moment But I suppose that&039;s why the old cow didn&039;t tell you about it He doesn&039;t see his student present when he&039;s huht"

"What contract?"

"House Wilsin is acting as agent for the sad trade"

"Sad trade?"

"Using us to pluck a child out of a womb," Seedless said "It&039;s safer than teas, and it can be done nearer to the end of the woreat pleasure, it&039;s expensive"

"Gods And we do that?"

Seedless took a pose that implied the appreciation of a joke or irony "We do e are told, my dear You and I are the puppets of puppets"

"If the two of you could be put upon not to talk behind my back quite so loudly," Heshai snapped, "I would very much appreciate it"

Maati fell instantly to a pose of apology, but the poet didn&039;t turn to see it After a few steps, Maati let his hands fall to his sides Seedless said nothing, but raised a hand to hisdark A plum Maati checked his sleeve, and indeed, it was empty He took a pose that was both query and accusation - How? The andat smiled; his perfect, pale face lit withelse

"I&039;m clever," the andat said, and tossed the bitten fruit to hi reeted the roo cool water and eating fresh dates, the stones reotiations with half his attention, his er and pain shallowly buried in his teacher&039;s voice and the echo of tacit pleasure in the andat&039;s It seemed to him that the two emotions were balanced; that Heshai-kvo would never s of discontent in Seedless&039;s heart, that the andat could only shine ecstatic if the poet were in despair He i into that lifelong intile, and unease picked at hiross incompetence of its bookkeepers was the scale of the h the place It was a constant streaold that had shocked her Would still have shocked her now if she hadn&039;t been so damned tired She had never known anyone except for her sister who gave themselves into sexual indenture, and by then they hadn&039;t been speaking to each other The cost of a whore was higher than she&039;d expected, and the compensation for the employee was a pittance And that, she caamblers lost at the tables, and in addition, they paid a fee for the privilege The as cheap, and the drugs added to it only slightly ed for the combination was exorbitant Aiven away for free, the house would still turn a profit It was aainst the desk and pulled herself up Once she was sure of herself, she took the sheet with her estimates, folded it, and tucked it in her sleeve There was no call, she thought, leaving it about until she&039;d spoken with Ovi Niit And, for all that she thought it useless, it would suffice to answer the question she expected from him She walked to the door and out to the cos rolled together on a floor that apparently hadn&039;t been swept in living ossiping and picking tics out of each other&039;s flesh On the east as a long alcove where woe fashioned obscene implements from leather and cloth Kirath couldn&039;t have kno bad this house was Or else he had been uessed Or cared less for her than she&039;d is sat on the stairs that led up to the private quarters where the owner of the house kept himself All eyes shifted to her as she li nearest the iron-bound door to the front house said soled A red-haired woman - Westlands blood, or Galtic - raised her pale eyebrows and looked away A boy of five or six summers - another whore - looked up at her and shed the boy&039;s hair and walked hat dignity she could uard

"Is Niit-cha up there?" she asked

"Gone He&039;s down to the low uard said He had an odd accent; long vowels and the ends of his words clipped off Eastern, she thought

"When he comes in " She had almost said send him to me The habit of years "When he comes in, tell hi, but I am at his disposal should he wish to discuss it"

"Tell hiuard nodded

The bed chale tallow candle lit the bunks that lined the walls, five beds to a stack like the worst sort of ship&039;s cabin Cheap linen was tied over the , and the planks were barely covered by thin, stained mats The darkness, while not so hot as the kiln of an attic she had hidden in, was still and hot and y Amat found one of the lower bunks unoccupied and crawled into it, her hip scraping in its joint as she did She pulled her cane in with her for fear so the linen closed

Three days she&039;d spent in an impossible task, and when she closed her eyes, the crabbed scripts and half-legible papers still danced before her She willed the visions away, but shethe tide back with her hands The bunk above her creaked as the sleeper shifted Aet a cup of the spiked wine, just to take her to sleep She was bone weary, but restless She had put Marchat Wilsin and Oshai and the island girl Maj out of her mind while she bent to Ovi Niit&039;s books Now that she had paused, they returned and mixed with the work she had finished and that which still lay before her She shifted on the thinuncomfortably beside her The smell of bodies and perfume and years of cheap tallow disturbed her

She would have said that she had not slept so much as fallen to an anxious doze except that the boy had such trouble waking her His little hands pressed her shoulder, and she was distantly aware that he had done so before - had been doing so for soain She&039;d been hearing the voice, folding it into her dream "Wake up"

"I am"

"Are you well?"

All the world&039;s ill, why should I be any different, she thought

"I&039;m fine What&039;s happened?"

"He&039;s back He wants to see you"

Amat took a pose of thanks that the boy understood even in the cave-dark roo on her side Amat pulled herself out and up Curiously, the rest seemed to have helped Her head felt clearer and her body less protesting In the h s had shifted She&039;d been asleep for the better part of the afternoon The whores had shifted their positions or left entirely The red-haired woone A guard - not the saht her eye and nodded toward her workroom at the back She took a pose of thanks, squared her shoulders and went in

Ovi Niit sat at her table His hooded eyeshis oines His robes were of expensive silks and well-cut, but he still lanced up as she ca into a pose of welcome so formal as to be a mockery Still, she replied with respect

"I heard as being offered for you," Ovi Niit said "They&039;ve spread the word all through the seafront You&039;re an expensive piece of flesh"

The sound of his voice made her mouth dry with fear and sha fear and loneliness and weakness since before the thug seated at her desk had been born It was one of her first skills

"How ht and disinterested

"Sixty lengths of silver for where you&039;re sleeping Five lengths of gold if soold is a lot ofman s

"As one est that you make your presence in my house worth more than the market rate," he said "I have to wonder what you did to become so valuable"

She only s behind those half-dead eyes How he could trade her, no doubt He eighing where his greatest profit ht come

"You have my report?" Ovi Niit asked She nodded and pulled the papers froh estimate I&039;ll need to confer with you more next time, to be sure I&039;ve understood the h for your purposes, I think"

"And ould a half-dead bitch like you know about my purposes?" he asked His voice held no rancor, but Amat still felt her throat close She forced a confidence into her tone that she didn&039;t feel

"From those numbers? I knohat you h the trouble to havefrom you" Ovi Niit frowned as he looked at her numbers, but he didn&039;t deny her "And it would be worth old, I think, to have me find out who"