Shadow and Betrayal

explained were forbidden to her. Until the case against House Wilsin was made, she wasn’t to leave the comfort house, and she wasn’t to be seen by the clients. The stakes were too high, and Wilsin-cha had resorted to violence once already.
    Since then, Liat had slept, eaten, washed herself, sat at Amat-cha’s desk listening to musicians on the street below, but no word had come from Itani or from Maati. On her second night, Liat had sent out a message to the barracks where Itani’s cohort slept. It had come back in the morning with a response from Muhatia-cha. Itani Noyga had left, breaking his indenture in violation of contract; he was not with the men of the house, nor was he welcome. Liat read the words with a sense of dread that approached illness. When she took it to Amat Kyaan, her old master had frowned and tucked the letter into her sleeve.
    ‘What if Wilsin-cha’s killed him?’ Liat said, trying to keep the panic she felt from her voice.
    Amat Kyaan, sitting at her desk, took a reassuring pose.
    ‘He wouldn’t. I have you and Maj to say what he would have said. Killing him would make our suit stronger, not weaker. And even then, I have the impression that your boy is able to take care of himself,’ Amat said, but seeing how little the assurances comforted her, she went on, ‘Still I can have Torish-cha’s men ask after him.’
    ‘He’d have come back if things were well.’
    ‘Things aren’t well,’ Amat said, her eyes hard and bright and tired. ‘But that doesn’t mean he’s in danger. Still, perhaps I should have had him stay as well. Have you sent to the poet’s boy? Perhaps Maati’s heard of him. He might even be staying there.’
    Amat took her cane and rose, gesturing at the desk, fresh paper and ink.
    ‘I have some things to attend to,’ she said. ‘Use what you need and we’ll send him a runner.’
    Liat took a pose of gratitude and sat, but when she took up the pen, her hand trembled. The nib hovered just over the page, waiting, it seemed, to see which name she would write. In the end, it was Maati’s name on the outside leaf. She wanted to be sure that someone would read it.
    With the runner gone, Liat found there was little to do but pace. At first, she walked the length of Amat’s rooms, then, as the day moved past its midpoint, her anxiety drove her downstairs. The common room smelled of roast pork and wine, and platters of bones still sat on the tables waiting to be cleared away. The whores were asleep, the men who worked the front rooms either sleeping in bunks as well or gone off to apartments away from the house. The soft quarter ran on a different day than the world Liat knew; daylight here meant rest and sleep. That Amat was awake and out of the house with Mitat and an armed escort meant that her old teacher was missing sleep. There were only five days until the case was to be made before the Khai Saraykeht.
    Liat walked through the empty common room, stopping to scratch an old black dog behind the ears. It would be easy to step out the back as if going to the kitchens, and then out to the street. She imagined herself finding Itani, bringing him back to the safety of the comfort house. It was a bad idea, of course, and she wouldn’t go, but the dream of it was powerful. The dream that she could somehow make everything come out right.
    It was a small sound - hardly more than a sigh - that caught her attention. It had come from the long alcove in the back, from among the sewing benches and piles of cloth and leather where, according to Amat Kyaan, the costumes and stage props of the house were created. Liat moved toward it, walking softly. Behind the unruly heaps of cloth and thread, she found Maj sitting cross-legged, her hair pulled back. Her hands worked with something in her lap, and her expression was of such focus that Liat was almost afraid to interrupt. When Maj’s hands shifted, she caught a glimpse of a tiny loom and black cloth.
    ‘What is it?’ Liat asked, pushed to speak by curiosity and her own buzzing, unfocused energy.
    ‘Mourning cloth,’ Maj said without looking up. Her accent was so thick, Liat wasn’t entirely sure she’d understood her until Maj continued. ‘For the dead child.’
    Liat came closer. The cloth was thin and sheer, black worked with tiny beads of clear glass in a pattern of surprising subtlety. Folds of it rested beside Maj’s leg.
    ‘It’s beautiful,’ Liat said.
    Maj shrugged. ‘It fills time. I am working on it