islanders he'd lived with had laughed at him and pretended to mistake
him for a woman. After Cetani, it would take another twenty days to
reach the docks outside Amnat-tan. And then, if he could find a fishing
boat that would take him on, he would be among those men again, singing
songs in a tongue he hadn't tried out in years, explaining again, either
with the truth or outrageous stories, why his marriage mark was only
half done.
He would die there-on the islands or on the sea-under whatever new name
he chose for himself. Itani Noygu was gone. He had died in Machi.
Another life was behind him, and the prospect of beginning again, alone
in a foreign land, tired him more than the walking.
"Now, southern wood's too soft to really build with. The winters are too
warm to really harden them. Up here there's trees that would blunt a
dozen axes before they fell," the old man said.
"You know everything, don't you grandfather?" Otah said. If his
annoyance was in his voice, the old man noticed nothing, because he
cackled again.
"It's because I've been everywhere and done everything," the old man
said. "I even helped hunt down the Khai Amnat-Tan's older brother when
they had their last succession. "There were a dozen of us, and it was
the dead of winter. Your piss would freeze before it touched ground. Oh,
eh ..."
The old man took a pose of apology to the young woman and her babe, and
Otah swung himself out of the cart. It wasn't a story he cared to hear.
The road wound through a valley, high pine forest on either side, the
air sharp and fragrant with the resin. It was beautiful, and he pictured
it thick with snow, the image coming so clear that he wondered whether
he might once have seen it that way. When the clatter of hooves came
from the west, he forced himself again to relax his shoulders and look
as curious and excited as the others. Twice before, couriers on fast
horses had passed the 'van, laden with news, Otah knew, of the search
for him.
It had taken an effort of will not to run as fast as he could after he
had been discovered, but the search was for a false courier either
plotting murder or fleeing like a rabbit. No one would pay attention to
a plodding laborer off to stay with his sister's family in a low town
outside Cetani. And yet, as the horses approached, tension grew in his
breast. He prepared himself for the shock if one of the riders had a
familiar face.
There were three this time-utkhaiem to judge by their robes and the
quality of their mounts-and none of them men he knew. They didn't slow
for the 'van, but the armsmen of the 'van, the drivers, the dozen
hangers-on like himself all shouted at them for news. One of them turned
in his saddle and yelled something, but Otah couldn't make it out and
the rider didn't repeat it. Ten days on the road. Six more to Cetani.
The only challenge was not to be where they were looking for him.
They reached a wayhouse with the sun still three and a half hands above
the treetops. The building was of northern design: stone walls thick as
the span of a man's arm and stables and goat pen on the ground floor
where the heat of the animals would rise and help warm the place in the
winter. While the merchants and armsmen argued over whether to stop now
or go farther and sleep in the open, Otah ran his eyes over the windows
and walked around to the back, looking for all the signs Kiyan had
taught him to know whether the keeper was working with robbers or
keeping an unsafe kitchen. The house met all of her best marks. It
seemed safe.
By the time he'd returned to the carts, his companions had decided to
stay. After Otah had helped stable the horses, they shifted the carts
into a locked courtyard. The caravan's leader haggled with the keeper
about the rooms and came to an agreement that Otah privately thought
gave the keep the better half. Otah made his way up two flights of
stairs to the room he was to share with five armsmen, two drivers, and
the old man. He curled himself up in a corner on the floor. It was too
small a room, and one of the drivers snored badly. A little sleep when
things were quiet would only make the next day easier.
He woke in darkness to the sound of music-a drum throbbed and a flute
sighed. A man's voice and a woman's moved in rough harmony. He wiped his
eyes with the sleeve of his robe and went down to the main room. The
members of his 'van were all there and half a dozen other men besides.
The air smelled of hot wine and roast lamb, pine trees and smoke. Otah
sat at a rough, worn table beside one of the drivers and watched.
The singer was the keep himself, a pot-bellied man with a nose that had
been broken and badly set. He drew the deep heat from a skin and
earthenware drum as he sang. His wife was shapely as a potato with an
ugly face and a missing eye tooth, but their voices were well suited and
their affection for each other forgave them much. Otah found himself
tapping his fingertips against the table to match the drumbeats.
His mind went back to Kiyan, and the nights of music and stories and
gossip he had spent in her wayhouse, far away to the south. He wondered
what she was doing tonight, what music filled the warm air and competed
with the murmur of the river.
When the last note had faded to silence, the crowd applauded, yelped,
and howled their appreciation. Otah made his way to the singer-he was
shorter than Otah had thought-and took his hand. The keeper beamed and
blushed when Otah told him how good the music had been.
"We've had a few years practice, and there's only so much to do when the
days are short," the keep said. "The winter choirs in Machi make us
sound like street beggars."
Otah smiled, regret pulling at him that he would never hear those songs,
and a moment later he heard his name being spoken.
"Itani Noygu's what he was calling himself," one of the merchants said.
"Played a courier for House Siyanti."
"I think I met him," a man said whom Otah had never met. "I knew there
was something odd about the man."
"And the poet ... the one that had his belly opened for him? He's
picking the other Siyanti men apart like they were baked fish. The
upstart has to wish that job had been done right the first time."
"Sounds as if I've missed something," Otah said, putting on his most
charming smile. "What's this about a poet's belly?"
The merchant frowned at the interruption until Otah motioned to the
keep's wife and bought bowls of hot wine for the table. After that, the
gossip flowed more freely.
Maati Vaupathai had been attacked, and the common wisdom held that Otah
had arranged it. The most likely version was that the upstart had been
passing as a courier, but others said that he had made his way into the
palaces dressed as a servant or a meat seller. There was no question,
though, that the Khai had sent out runners to all the winter cities
asking for the couriers and overseers of House Siyanti to attend him at
court. Amiit Foss, the man who'd been the upstart's overseer in tldun,
was being summoned in particular. It wasn't clear yet whether Siyanti
had knowingly backed the Otah Machi, but if they had, it would mean the
end of their expansion into the north. Even if they hadn't, the house
would suffer.
"And they're sure he was the one who had the poet killed?" Otah asked,
using all the skill the gentleman's trade had taught him to hide his
deepening despair and disgust.
"It seems they were in Saraykeht together, this poet and the upstart.
That was just before Saraykeht fell."
The implications of that hung over the room. Perhaps Otah Machi had
somehow been involved with the death of Heshai, the poet of Saraykeht.
Who knew what depravity the sixth son of the Khai Machi might sink to?
It was a ghost story for them; a tale to pass a night on the road; a
sport to follow.
Otah remembered the old, frog-mouthed poet, remembered his kindness and
his weakness and his strength. He remembered the regret and the respect
and the horrible complicity he'd felt in killing him, all those years
ago. It had been so complicated, then. Now, they said it so simply and
spoke as if they understood.
"There's rumor of a woman, too. They say he had a lover in Udun."
"If he was a courier, he's likely got a woman in half the cities of the
Khaiem. The gods know I would."
"No," the merchant said, shaking his head. He was more than half drunk.
"No, they were very clear. All the Siyanti men say he had a lover in
Udun and never took another. Loved her like the world, they said. But
she left him for another man. I say it's that turned him evil. Love
turns on you like ... like milk."
"Gentlemen," the keep's wife said, her voice powerful enough to cut
through any conversation. "It's late, and I'm not sleeping until these
rooms are cleaned, so get you all to bed. I'll have bread and honey for
you at sunrise."
The guests slurped down the last of the wine, ate the last mouthfuls of
dried cherries and fresh cheese, and made their various ways toward
their various beds. Otah walked down the inner stairs to the stables and
the goat yard, then out through a side door and into the darkness. His
body felt like he'd just run a race, or else like he was about to.
Kiyan. Kiyan and the wayhouse her father had run. Old Mani. He had set
the dogs on them, and that he hadn't intended to would count for nothing
if his brothers found her. Whatever happened, whatever they did, it
would be his fault.
He found a tall tree and sat with his back against it, looking out at
the stars nearest the horizon. The air had the bite of cold in it.
Winter never left this place. It made a little room for summer, but it
never left. He thought of writing her a letter, of warning her. It would
never reach her in time. It was ten days walk back to Machi, six days
forward to Cetani, and his brothers' forces would already be on the road
south. He could send to Amiit Foss, beg his old overseer to take Kiyan
in, to protect her. But there too, word would reach him too late.
Despair settled into his belly, too deep for tears. He was destroying
the woman he loved most in the world simply by being who he was, by
doing what he'd done. He thought of the boy he had been, marching away
from the school across the western snows. He remembered his fear and the
warmth of his rage at the poets and his parents and all in the world
that treated boys so unfairly. What a pompous little ass he'd been,
young and certain and alone. He should have taken the Dal-kvo's offer
and become a poet. He might have tried to bind an andat, and maybe
failed and paid the price, dying in the attempt. And then Kiyan would
never have met him. She would be safe.
There's still a price, he thought, as clear as a voice speaking in his
head. You could still pay it.
Machi was ten days' walk, perhaps as little as four and a half days'
ride. If he could turn all eyes back to Mach], Kiyan might have at least
the chance to escape his idiocy. And what would she matter, if no one
need search for him. He could take a horse from the stables now. After
all, if he was an upstart and a poisoner and a man turned evil by love,
it hardly mattered being a horse thief as well. He closed his eyes, an
angry bark of a laugh forcing its way from his throat.
Everything you have won, you've won by leaving, he thought, remembering
a woman whom he had known almost well enough to join his life with
though he had never loved her, nor she him. Well, Maj, perhaps this time
I'll lose.
THE NIGHT CANDLE WAS PAST ITS MIDDLE MARK; TFIK AIR WAS FILLEI) WITH the
songs of crickets. Somewhere in the course of things, the pale mist of
netting had been pulled from the bed, and the room looked exposed
without it. Cehmai could feel Stone-Made-Soft in the back of his mind,
but the effort of being truly aware of the andat was too much; his body
was thick and heavy and content. Focus and rigor would have their place
another time.
Idaan traced her fingertips across his chest, raising gooseflesh. He
shivered, took her hand and folded it in his own. She sighed and lay
against him. Her hair smelled of roses.
"Why do they call you poets?" she asked.
"It's an old Empire term," Clehmai said. "It's from the binding."
"The andat are poems?" she said. She had the darkest eyes. Like an
animal's. He looked at her mouth. The lips were too full to be
fashionable. With the paint worn off, he could see how she narrowed