Shadow and Betrayal

for weeks now.’
    Liat knelt. The pale eyes looked up at her, questioning - maybe challenging - then returned to the small loom. Liat watched Maj’s hands shifting thread and beads in near silence. It was very fine thread, the sort that might not make more than two or three hand-spans of cloth in a whole day’s work. Liat reached out and ran her fingers along the folds of finished cloth. It was as wide as her two hands together and as long, she guessed, as Maj was tall.
    ‘How long do you make it?’
    ‘Until you finish,’ Maj said. ‘Usually is something to make while the pain is fresh. When done with day’s work, make cloth. When wake up in the middle night, make cloth. When time comes you want to go sing with friends or swim in quarry pond and not make cloth, is time to stop weaving.’
    ‘You’ve made these before. Mourning cloths.’
    ‘For mother, for brother. I am much younger then,’ Maj said, her voice heavy and tired. ‘Their cloth smaller.’
    Liat sat, watching as Maj threaded beads and worked them into the black patterns, the loom quiet as breathing. Neither spoke for a long time.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ Liat said at last. ‘For what happened.’
    ‘Was your plan?’
    ‘No, I didn’t know anything about what was really happening.’
    ‘So, why sorry?’
    ‘I should have,’ Liat said. ‘I should have known and I didn’t.’
    Maj looked up and put the loom aside.
    ‘And why did you not know?’ she said, her gaze steady and accusing.
    ‘I trusted Wilsin-cha,’ Liat said. ‘I thought he was doing what you wanted. I thought I was helping.’
    ‘And is this Wilsin who does this to you?’ Maj asked, gesturing at the bandages and straps on Liat’s shoulder.
    ‘His men. Or that’s what Amat-cha says.’
    ‘And you trust her?’
    ‘Of course. Don’t you?’
    ‘I am here for a season, more than a season. At home, when a man does something evil, the kiopia pass judgment and like this . . .’ Maj clapped her hands ‘. . . he is punished. Here, it is weeks living in a little room and waiting. Listening to nothing happen and waiting. And now, they say that the Khai, he may take his weeks to punish who killed my baby. Why wait except he doesn’t trust Amat Kyaan? And if he doesn’t why do I stay? Why am I waiting, if not for justice done?’
    ‘It’s complicated,’ Liat said. ‘It’s all complicated.’
    Maj snorted with anger and impatience.
    ‘Is simple,’ she said. ‘I thought before perhaps you know back then, perhaps you come now to keep the thing from happening, but instead I think you are just stupid, selfish, weak girl. Go away. I am weaving.’
    Liat stood, stung. She opened her mouth as if to speak, but there was nothing she could think to say. Maj spat casually on the floor at her feet.
    Liat spent the next hours upstairs, out on the deck that overlooked the street, letting her rage cool. The winter sun was strong enough to warm her as long as the air was still. The slightest breeze was enough to chill her. High clouds traced scratch marks on the sky. Her heart was troubled, but she couldn’t tell any longer if it was Maj’s accusation, Itani and Maati, or the case about to go before the Khai that bothered her. Twice, she turned, prepared to go back down to Maj and demand an apology or else offer another of her own. Both times, she stopped before she had passed Amat Kyaan’s desk, swamped by her own uncertainties. She was still troubled, probing her thoughts in search of some little clarity, when a figure in the street caught her eye. The brown robe fluttered as Maati ran toward the house. His face was flushed. She felt her heart flutter in sudden dread. Something had happened.
    She took the wide, wooden stairs three at a time, rushing down into the common room. She heard Maati’s voice outside the rear door, raised and arguing. Unbolting the door and pulling it open, she found one of the guards barring Maati’s way. Maati was in a pose of command, demanding that he be let in. When he saw her, he went silent, and his face paled. Liat touched the guard’s arm.
    ‘Please,’ she said. ‘He’s here for me.’
    ‘The old woman didn’t say anything about him,’ the guard said.
    ‘She didn’t know. Please. She’d want him to come through.’
    The guard scowled, but stood aside. Maati came in. He looked ill - eyes glassy and bloodshot, skin gray. His robes were creased and wrinkled, as if they’d been slept in. Liat took his hand in her own without