Shadow and Betrayal

mouth and throat felt like the desert in a rainstorm. When he pulled the bowl back and helped her ease back down, Liat saw an odd expression on the poet’s face - tenderness, she thought. She had always thought of Heshai as an ugly man, but in that light, at that moment, the wide lips and thinning hair seemed to transcend normal ideas of beauty. He looked strong and gentle. His movements were protective as a mother’s and as fierce. Liat wondered why she’d never seen it before.
    ‘I should thank you, in a way,’ he said. ‘You’ve given me a chance to give back part of what Maati’s done for me. Not that we talk of it in those terms, of course.’
    ‘I don’t understand.’
    The frog mouth spread into a rueful smile. ‘I know how much it cost him, caring for me while I was ill. It isn’t the sort of thing you discuss, of course, but I can tell. It isn’t easy watching the man who is supposed to be your master fall apart. And it isn’t a simple thing to stand beside him while he pulls himself back together. Would you like more tea? The physician said you could have as much as you wanted, but that we’d want to go slowly with heavier foods.’
    ‘No. No more. Thank you. But I still don’t see . . .’
    ‘You’ve made Maati happy these last few weeks,’ Heshai said, his voice softer. ‘That he let me take part in caring for you pays back a part of the time he cared for me.’
    ‘I didn’t think you’d noticed how much it took from him,’ Liat said. The poet took a querying pose. ‘You seemed . . . too busy with other things, I suppose. I’m sorry. It isn’t my place to judge what you—’
    ‘No, it’s quite all right. I . . . Maati and I haven’t quite found our right level. I imagine there are some opinions you both hold of me. They’re my fault. I earned them.’
    Liat closed her eyes, marshalling her thoughts, and when she opened them again, it was night, and she was alone.
    She didn’t remember falling asleep, but the night candle, burning steady in a glass lantern at her bedside, was past its halfway point, and heavy blankets covered her. Despite the pain, she pulled herself up, found and used the night pot, and crawled back to bed, exhausted. Sleep, however didn’t return so easily. Her mind was clear, and her body, while aching and bruised at best and pain-bright at worst, at least felt very much her own. She lay in the dim light of the candle and listened to the small sounds of the night - wind sighing at the shutters, the occasional clicking of the walls as they cooled. The room smelled of mint and mulled wine. Someone had been drinking, she thought, or else the physicians had thought that being in air that smelled so pleasant would help her body heal. The first distant pangs of hunger were shifting in her belly.
    As the candle burned lower, the night passing, Liat grew clearer, and more awake. She tested how much she could move without the pain coming on, and even walked around the room. Her arm and shoulder were still bound, and her ribs ached at her touch, but she could breathe deeply with only an ache. She could bring herself to sitting, and then stand. Walking was simple so long as she didn’t bump into anything. She imagined Maati watching over her while she slept, ignoring his own wounds. And Heshai - more like a friend or father - sharing that burden. It was more, she knew, than the two had ever shared before, and she found herself both embarrassed and oddly proud of being the occasion of it.
    A thick winter robe hung on a stand by the door, and Liat put it on, wrapping the cloth around her bandages and tying it one-handed. It took longer than she’d expected, but she managed it and was soon sitting in the chair that Maati and Heshai must have used in their vigil. When a servant girl arrived, Liat instructed her not to tell anyone that she’d risen. She wanted Maati to be surprised when he came. The girl took a pose of acknowledgment that held such respect and formality, Liat wondered whether Heshai had told them who she was, or if they were under the impression that she was some foreign princess.
    When Maati came, he was alone. His robes were wrinkled and his hair unkempt. He came in quietly, stopping dead when he saw her bed empty, his chair inhabited. She rose as gracefully as she could and held out her good hand. He stepped forward and took it in his own, but didn’t pull her close. His eyes were bloodshot and bright, and he released her hand before she let go