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The days passed with an exquisite discoe of the Dai-kvo The clear air, the cold stone of the streets, the perfection, the maleness and austerity and beauty were like a dreah the alleyways and loitered with other ossip and the choir of windchi here and there Speakers from every city, dressed in suain The water tasted strange from influence, the air s bales of cotton all day and pulling ticks out of his ars, Maati had lived in these spaces Otah went to his roo who he would have been, had he taken the old Dai-kvo&039;s offer And then, he would remember the school - the cruelty, the hter of the strong at the weak - and he wondered instead how Maati had brought himself to accept

In the afternoon of his fifth day, a h servant found him on the ooden deck of a teahouse

"You are the courier for Maati Vaupathai?" the servant asked, taking a pose both respectful and querying Otah responded with an affirh wishes to speak with you Please come with me"

The library orked in marble; tall shelves filled with scrolls and bound voluh banks of clerestory ith glass clear as air Tahi-kvo - the Dai-kvo - sat at a long table of carved blackwood An iron brazier war of white smoke and hot metal and incense He looked up as the servant took a pose of completion and readiness so abjectly humble as to approach the ludicrous Otah took no pose

"Go," the Dai-kvo said, and the white-robed servant left, pulling the wide doors closed behind hi brows then pushed a sewn letter across the table Otah stepped forward and took it, tucking it into his sleeve They stood for a moment in silence

"You were stupid to come," Tahi-kvo said, his tone matter-of-fact "If your brothers find you&039;re alive they&039;ll stop eyeing each other and work in concert to kill you"

"I suppose they ht Will you tell the over his shoulder as he went "My master died, you know The season after you left"

"I&039;m sorry," Otah said

"Why did you come? Why you?"

"Maati is a friend And there was no one else who could be trusted" The other reasons weren&039;t ones he would share with Tahi-kvo They were his own

Tahi-kvo ran his fingers across the spines of the books Even turned almost away, Otah could see the bitterness in his smile

"And he trusts you? He trusts Otah Machi? Well, he&039;s young Perhaps he doesn&039;t know you so well as I do Do you want to knohat&039;s in this letter I&039; with you?"

"If he cares to tell me," Otah said

The volume Tahi-kvo pulled doas ancient - bound in ith clasps of metal and thick as a hand spread wide He hefted it back and laid it on the table before he answered

"It says he mustn&039;t let Heshai lose control of his andat It says there isn&039;t a replacement for it, and that there isn&039;t the prospect of one If Seedless escapes, I have nothing to send, and Saraykeht becomes an oversized lon That&039;s what it says"

Tahi-kvo&039;s eyebrows rose, challenging Otah took a pose that accepted the lesson from a teacher - a pose he&039;d taken before, when he&039;d been a boy

"Every generation, it&039;s becory, it see the words "There are fewer men who take up the mantle The andat that escape are more and more difficult to recapture Even the fourth-water ones like Seedless and Unstung The time will come - not for me, I think, but for my successor or his - when the andat may fail us entirely The Khaiem will be overrun by Galts and Wester you?"

"Yes," Otah said "But not why"

"Because you had promise," Tahi-kvo said bitterly "And because I don&039;t like you But I have to ask this Otah Machi, have you coretted your refusal? Was it an excuse to speak tothe robes of a poet?"

Otah didn&039;t laugh, though the questions seemed absurd Absurd and - as they e - more than half sad And beneath all that, perhaps he had Perhaps he had needed to come here and see the path he had not chosen to know as a man whether he still believed in the choices he had made as a boy

"No," he said

Tahi-kvo nodded, undid the clasps on the great book and opened it It was in no script Otah had ever seen The poet looked up at hiht not," he said "Go then And don&039;t coh to take on the work I don&039;t have ti, then hesitated

"I&039;m sorry, Tahi-kvo," he said "That your master died That you had to live this way All of it I&039;m sorry the world&039;s the way it is"

"Bla at hinificence of the palaces was a, rich even past the Khai Saraykeht The wide avenues outside it were crowded in the late afternoon with hest importance, dressed in silks and woven linen and leather supple as skin Otah took in the majesty of it and understood for the first time since he&039;d come the hollowness that lay beneath it It was the saht, as the emptiness in Heshai-kvo&039;s eyes The one was truly a child of the other

He was surprised, as he walked down to the edge of the village, to find hiht have been shed for Maati or Heshai, Tahi-kvo or the boys of his cohort scattered now into the world, the vanity of power or himself The question that had carried hia; son of the Khaiem or seafront laborer - was unresolved, but it was also answered

Either one, but never this

"WHEN?" MAJ demanded, her arms crossed Her cheeks were red and flushed, her breath s hores and you, their pimp You told ht to justice Now tellup a vase froainst the far wall The pottery shattered, flowers falling broken to the floor The wet uard was in the rooth of his forearm at the ready A the door behind hi worse these last weeks, and it added to everything else that made her irritable Still, she held herself tall as she turned back to her so fast now, her chin jutting out, her ar someone to strike him Amat smiled sweetly, took two slow strides, and slapped her s froht for you," A this filthy house so that I have the money we need to prosecute your case I have ruined my life for you And I haven&039;t asked thanks, have I? Only cooperation"

There were tears bri down her ruddy cheek The anger that filled A ainst the far wall and, slowly, painfully, knelt

"What I&039;athered the shards and broken flowers "Wilsin-cha didn&039;t keep records that would tie him directly to the trade, and the ones that do exist are plausible whether he knew of the treachery or not I have to show that he did Otherwise, you o home"

The floor creaked with Maj&039;s steps, but Amat didn&039;t look up Amat made a sack from the hem of her robe, dropped in the shattered vase and laid in the soft petals afterwards The flowers, though destroyed, smelled lovely She found herself reluctant to crush them Maj crouched down beside her and helped clean

"We&039;ve ress," Amat said, her voice softer now She could hear the exhaustion in her oords "I have records of all the transactions The pearls that paid the Khai came on a Galtic ship, but I have to find which one"

"That will be enough?"

"That will be a start," Amat said "But there will bepay&039;s cos take ti a handful of debris into A She meant well, Amat knew, but she buried the flowers all the saaze Maj tried to so and sleep Things will look better in the ht comes," Maj said and shook her head, then lurched forward and kissed Amat&039;s es passing between her and the guard at the door - Amat dropped the ruined vase into the small crate she kept beside her desk Her flesh felt heavy, but there were books to be gone over, orders to place for the house and audits to bethe work, she knew, of three woht have been possible Instead, each day see to a list of things that had to be completed - for the coainst House Wilsin - and fell asleep every night with three or four ite so important

And the house, while it provided her the incoations and bribes and rewards, was just the pit of vipers that she&039;d been warned it would be Mitat was her savior there - she knew the politics of the staff and had somehoon the trust of Torish Wite Still, it seeht to Amat eventually Whose indenture to end, whose to hold What discipline to ainst the woainst thetables and provided the wine and drugs How to balance rule from respect and rule from fear And Mitat, after all, had stolen froer now and hts of summer - was near its halfway mark when Amat put down her pen Three times she added a column of nued out of her robes and pulled the netting closed around the bed, asleep instantly, but troubled by drea critical a hand&039;s breadth too late

She woke to a polite scratch at her door When she called out her per a tray Two thick slices of black bread and a bowl of bitter tea Aratitude as the red-haired wo nicely put together this ," Amat said

It was true Mitat wore a formal robe of pale yellow that went nicely with her eyes She looked well-rested, which Amat supposed also helped

"We have the payht let me join you"

Amat closed her eyes The watch et that, but she nearly had The darkness behind her eyelids was co that she ht crawl back to sleep

"Grandain and reaching for the bowl of tea "I could do with the company But you&039;ll understand if I handle theto let ood robe, will you There&039;s a blue with gray trim, I think, that should do for the occasion"

The streets of the soft quarter were quiet Aths of silver, leaned on her cane The night&039;s rain had washed the air, and sunlight, pale as fresh butter, shone on the pavereat comfort houses shimmer The baker&039;s kilns filled the air with the scent of bread and s as if the slow pace were the one she&039;d have chosen if she had been alone, avoiding the puddles of standing water where the street dipped, or where alleyways still disgorged a brown trickle of foul runoff In the height of summer, the mixture of heat and da coolnearly pleasant

Mitat filled in Aht be pregnant Torish-cha&039;s men resented that they were expected to pay for the use of the girls - other houses in the quarter included such services as part of the co at tiles, but no one had caught the theotiate compensation with me, we&039;ll call the watch, but I&039;d rather have it stay private"

"Yes, grandmother"

"And send for Urrat from the street of beads She&039;ll know if Chiyan&039;s carrying by looking at her, and she has some teas that&039;ll cure it if she is"

Mitat took a pose of agree in her expression - a softness, an amusement - made Amat respond with a query

"Ovi Niit would have taken her out back and kicked her until she bled," Mitat said "He would have said it was cheaper I don&039;t think you kno randmother The men, except Torish-cha and his, would still as soon see you hanged as not But the girls all thank the gods that you came back"

"I haven&039;t made the place any better"

"Yes," Mitat said, her voice accepting no denial "You have You don&039;t see how the - "

The man lurched from the mouth of the alley and into Amat before she had tiainst her, and she stumbled Pain shrieked from her knee to her hip, but her first impulse was to clutch the payment in her sleeve The man, however, wasn&039;t a thief The silver for the watch was still where it had been and the drunk was in a pose of profound apology

"What do you think you&039;re doing?" Mitat de out; her eyes burned "It&039;s hardly mid-day What kind of man is already drunk?"

The thick man in the stained brown robe shook his head and bowed, his pose elegant and abasing

"It is my fault," he said, his words slurred "Entirely my fault I&039;ve made an ass ofher, and stepped forward despite the raging ache in her leg The drunkard bowed lower, shaking his head A certain that this wasn&039;t a drea for her bread and tea