Shadow and Betrayal

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’s house before the sun had reached the top of its arc.
    ‘So,’ Liat said, taking a pose that asked permission, but so casually that it assumed it granted, ‘shall I come to the poet’s house once I’m done here?’
    Maati made a show of consideration then took a pose extending invitation. She accepted, but didn’t turn away. Maati felt himself frown, and she took a pose of query that he wasn’t entirely sure how to answer.
    ‘Liat-cha,’ he began.
    ‘Cha?’
    He raised his hands, palms out. Not a real pose, but expressive nonetheless. Let me go on.
    ‘Liat-cha, I know it’s only because things went so wrong that Otah-kvo had to leave. And I wouldn’t ever have chosen what happened with Seedless. But coming to know you better has been very important to me, and I wanted you to know how much I appreciate your being my friend.’
    Liat considered him, her expression unreadable but not at all upset.
    ‘Did you rehearse that?’ she asked.
    ‘No. I didn’t really know what I was going to say until I’d already said it.’
    She smiled briefly, and then her gaze clouded, as if he’d touched some private pain. He felt his heart sink. Liat met his eyes and she smiled.
    ‘There’s something I 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 walkway 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’ve done anything that would . . .’
    She batted his hands, and he released the pose. To his surprise, he found she had moved forward, moved against him. He found that her lips had gently pressed his. He found that the air had all gone from the room. She pulled back from the kiss. Her expression was soft and sorrowful and gentle. Her fingers touched his hair.
    ‘Go. I’ll come to the poet’s house tonight.’
    ‘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 his mouth, as if making sure his lips were still there; that they were real. The world seemed suddenly uprooted, dreamlike. She had kissed him - truly kissed him. She had touched his hair. It was impossible. It was terrible. It was like walking along a familiar path and suddenly falling off a cliff.
    And it was also like flying.

14
    T he raft was big enough to carry eight people. It was pulled against the current by a team of four oxen, moving slowly but implacably along paths worn in the shore by generations of such passage. Otah slept in the back, wrapped in his cloak and in the rough wool blankets the boatman and his daughter provided. In the mornings, the daughter - a child of no more then nine summers - lit a brazier and cooked sweet rice with almond milk and cinnamon. At night, after they tied up, her father made a meal - most often a chicken and barley soup.
    In the days spent in this routine, Otah had little to do besides watch the slow progress of trees moving past them, listen to the voices of the water and the oxen, and try to win over the daughter by telling jokes and singing with her or the boatman by asking him about life on the river and listening to his answers. By the time they reached the end of the last full day’s journey, both boatman and child were comfortable with him. The boatman shared a bowl of plum wine with him after the other passengers had gone to sleep. They never mentioned the girl’s mother, and Otah never asked.
    The river journey ended at a low town larger than any Otah had seen since Yalakeht. It had wide, paved streets and houses as high as three stories that looked out across the river or into the branches of the pine forest that surrounded it. The wealth of the place was clear in its food, its buildings, the faces of its people. It was as if some nameless quarter of the cities of the Khaiem had been struck off and moved here, into the wilderness.
    That the road to the Dai-kvo’s village was well kept and broad didn’t surprise him, but the discovery that - for a price higher than he wished to pay - he could hire a litter that would carry him the full day’s steep, uphill