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"You can roll your contracts up and fuck them," the one-eyed man shouted There was a fleck of white at the corner of hisout Aether, a dry sound Part of her mind rapped in panic, in visceral, animal fear The other parts of her reat house
"Gentle this man from his indenture Would you see him to the street"
It had the effect she&039;d hoped for The one-eyed ht only have been rage A blade appeared in his hand, plucked from his sleeve, and he leaped for her She forced herself not to flinch as the watchmen cut him down
The silence that fell was absolute She surveyed the denizens of her house - her house - judging as best she could what they thought, what they felt Many of thesetheir lives shatter before them In the women, the boys, disbelief, confusion, perhaps a sliver of hope Two of Torish-cha&039;sman and hauled hiers pulling thoughtfully at his beard, turned to the survivors
"Let nizes this contract as valid The house is the lawful property of Areements that threaten the peace of the quarter, we&039;ll be dealing with"
The tilestoward some half-formed pose
"Let&039;s not be stupid about this," the captain said, his eyes, Amat saw, locked on the tiles man There was a moment of tension, and then it was over It was rotten as last month&039;s meat, and everyone knew it And it didn&039;t matter With the watch behind her, she&039;d stolen it fairly
"The house will be closed tonight," Auards Any of you eapons will turn them over now Anyone besides the a weapon will be blinded and turned out on the street Remember, you&039;re my property now, until your indentures are co to ask the watch to stay until a search of the house is complete Torish-cha?"
From behind her, the men moved forward The captain stepped over to her His leathers stank
"You&039;ve got yourself a handful of vipers," he said as her thugs and cutthroats disars and cutthroats "Are you certain you want this?"
"It&039;s mine now Good or ill"
"The watch will back you, but they won&039;t like it Whatever you did, you did outside the quarter, but so is poor form Your troubles aren&039;t over"
"Transitions are always hard," she said, taking a pose of agreement so casual it became a dismissal The captain shook his head andfrom room to room with an efficiency that spoke of experience A the worn e chambers in casual disarray The house was kept no better than its books That would change Everything would change Nothing would be spared
Sorrow, as powerful as it was unexpected, stung her eyes She brushed the tears away This wasn&039;t the time for it There would never be a time for it Not in her lifetiathered her people - her vipers - in the common room at the back The speech she&039;d prepared, rehearsed a thousand times in herwere petty and weak Standing at the head of one long table, she drew breath and slowly let it out
"Well " she said
In the pause, the voice came from the crowd
"Grandmother? Is it really you?"
It was a boy of five or six su, she remembered, when she&039;d coruel and pork He&039;d snored
"Yes," she said "I&039;ve come back"
IN THE days that followed, Heshai didn&039;t iroorse His patchy beard grew fuller, his weight fell for a time and then slowly returned He would rouse hih he didn&039;t leave it, except to luht and stare into the black depths Maati knew - because who else would take the tis, that he changed to clean robes if they were given hiht not
Thankfully the cotton harvest was co official the poet had been called on to perform Physicians came from the Khai, but Heshai refused to see them Servants who tried to approach the poet soon learned to ask their questions of Maati Soo between, sometimes, he just made the decisions hi Unless he was engaged in the daily maintenance of his invalid master, there was no direction for him that he didn&039;t choose, and so he found that his days had grown to follow his ehtened or overwhelhts that ht serve hiuilty, he sat by Heshai and tried to coax him into conversation If he felt lonesoht out Liat Chokavi Sometimes he dreas for her were complex, it was only because she was beautiful and his friend and Otah-kvo&039;s lover There was no har could come from it And so, she was his friend, his only friend in the city
It was because he had become so familiar with her habits and the places where she spent her days that, when the news caest of the seafront and faced a thin stretch of beach she&039;d shown hiht Half-leaved trees and the curve of the shore hid the city Liat sat on a natural bench of stone, leaning against a slab of granite half her height, and looking at the waves without seeing the in the fallen leaves Liat turned once, and seeing it was hi He smoothed a clear spot beside her on the bench and sat
"It&039;s true then?" he asked "Amat Kyaan quit the house?"
Liat nodded
"Wilsin-cha ed Maati sat forward, his elbows on his knees The waves gathered and washed the sand, each receding into the rush of the next Gulls wheeled and screae Galtic ship floated at anchor on the horizon They were the only signs of the city He stirred the pile of dry leaves below the the dark soil beneath them
"Did you know?"
"She didn&039;t tell me," Liat said, and her voice was calm and blasted and empty "She just went Her apartments were empty except for a box of house papers and a letter to Wilsin-cha"
"So it wasn&039;t only you, at least She hadn&039;t told anyone Do you knohy she left?"
"No," Liat said "I blame myself for it If I had done better, if I hadn&039;t embarrassed the house "
"You did what Wilsin-cha asked you to do If the trade had been what it see your praises for it"
"Perhaps," Liat said "It hardly one Wilsin-cha doesn&039;t have any faith in me I&039;m an apprentice without a hed out a single laugh
"I suppose we are," she said, and scooped up his hand, holding it in her own Maati&039;s heart raced, and so like panic, only glorious He didn&039;t ht ers fro up the spirit of their friend - his master, her heartmate - to show that he understood that thisinappropriate It was only friendship
"He&039;ll have reached Yalakeht He ht even be there by now," Liat said "Or at least close, if he&039;s not"
"He&039;ll be back soon, then"
"Not for weeks," Liat said
"It&039;s a long time"
"Heshai-kvo He&039;s not better?"
"He&039;s not better He&039;s not worse He sleeps too much He eats too little His beard "
"It&039;s not iht to shave it off"
Liat shrugged, and Maati felt as if the motion shifted her nearer So this was friendship with a woman, he told himself It was pleasant, he told himself, this simple intimacy
"He seemed better when I came to see him," Liat said
"He makes an effort I think, when you&039;re there I don&039;t knohy"
"Because I&039;irl"
"Perhaps that, yes," Maati said
Liat, releasing his hand, stretched and stood Maati sighed, feeling that a moment had passed - some invisible, exquisiteof moments in a man&039;s youth that never truly left the heart - that stayed fresh and sweet and present through all the years and waited on the deathbed to carry hiht that those moments must be like this one The scent of the sea, the perfect sky, the leaves, the roar of waves, and his hand, cooling where she had touched him
"I should come by more often, then," Liat said "If it helps"
"I wouldn&039;t want to i to stand beside her "But if you have the tiiven any new projects of note Besides, I like the poet&039;s house It&039;s a beautiful place"
"It&039;s better when you&039;re there," Maati said
Liat grinned Maati took a pose of self-congratulation to which Liat replied with one of query
"I&039;veout to the horizon with her eyes narrowed She nodded, as if he&039;d pointed out a street she&039;d never seen, or a pattern in the ways a tree branched Her sain, was softer
"I suppose you have," she said "I &039;s still a terriblethe world later After dinner Do you want to go back?"
"I suppose I&039;d best There&039;s no call to earn a reputation of being unreliable, incompetent, and sulky"
They walked back to the city It had seeer path when he&039;d been on it alone, worried for Liat Now, though they were hardlyfaster than a stroll, the walls of the city seemed to surround them almost immediately They walked up the street of beads, paused at a stand where a boy of no , with a ferocious seriousness, cakes sar singing in a rough,sorrow and moved Maati almost to tears And still, they reached the crossroads that would lead her to the compound of House Wilsin and him to the oppressive, slow desperation of the poet&039;s house before the sun had reached the top of its arc
"So," Liat said, taking a pose that asked perranted, "shall I come to the poet&039;s house once I&039;m done here?"
Maatiinvitation She accepted, but didn&039;t turn away Maati felt himself frown, and she took a pose of query that he wasn&039;t entirely sure how to answer
"Liat-cha," he began
"Cha?"
He raised his hands, palo on
"Liat-cha, I know it&039;s only because things went so wrong that Otah-kvo had to leave And I wouldn&039;t ever have chosen what happened with Seedless But co to know you better has been very important tomy friend"
Liat considered him, her expression unreadable but not at all upset
"Did you rehearse that?" she asked
"No I didn&039;t really knohat I was going to say until I&039;d already said it"
She saze clouded, as if he&039;d touched some private pain He felt his heart sink LiatI think you should see, Maati-kya Come with me"
He followed her to her cell in silence With each step, Maati felt his anxiety grow The people they passed in the courtyard and ay nodded to them both, but seemed unsurprised, undisturbed Maati tried to seem to be there on business When Liat closed the door of her cell, he took a pose of apology
"Liat-cha," he said "If I&039;ve done anything that would "
She batted his hands, and he released the pose To his surprise, he found she had ently pressed his He found that the air had all gone from the room She pulled back froentle Her fingers touched his hair
"Go I&039;ll coht"
"Yes," was all he could think to say
He stopped in the gardens of the low palaces, sat on the grass, and pressed his fingertips to hissure his lips were still there; that they were real The world seemed suddenly uprooted, dreamlike She kissed him - truly kissed him She had touched his hair It was i a fa off a cliff
And it was also like flying