Shadow and Betrayal

well.
    ‘I learned, for example, that the Dai-kvo - the last one - sent you here when Iana-kvo failed to hold Petals-Falling-Away after the old poet, Miat-kvo, died.’
    ‘And tell me, why do you think he did that?’
    ‘Because Petals-Falling-Away had been used to speed cotton harvests for the previous fifty years,’ Maati said, pleased to know the answer. ‘It could make the plant . . . open, I guess. It made it easier to get the fibers. With the loss, the city needed another way to make the process - bringing in the raw cotton and turning it to cloth - better and faster than they could in Galt or the Westlands, or else the traders might go elsewhere, and the whole city would have to change. You had captured Removing-The-Part-That-Continues. Called Sterile in the north, or Seedless in the summer cities. With it, the merchant houses can contract with the Khai, and they won’t have to comb the seeds out of the cotton. Even if it took twice as long to harvest, the cotton can still get to the spinners more quickly here than anywhere else. Now the other nations and cities actually send their raw cotton here. Then the weavers come here, because the raw cotton is here. And the dyers and the tailors because of the weavers. All the needle trades.’
    ‘Yes. And so Saraykeht holds its place, with only a few more pricked fingers and some blood on the cotton,’ the man said, taking a pose of confirmation with a softness to the wrists that confused Maati. ‘But then, blood’s only blood, ne?’
    The silence went on until Maati, uncomfortable, grasped for something to break it.
    ‘You also rid the summer cities of rats and snakes.’
    The man came out of his reverie with something like a smile. When he spoke, his voice was amused and self-deprecating.
    ‘Yes. At the price of drawing Galts and Westermen.’
    Maati took a pose of agreement less formal than before, and his teacher seemed not to mind. In fact, he seemed almost pleased.
    ‘I also learned a lot about the particular needle trades,’ Maati said. ‘I wasn’t sure how much you needed to know about what happens with the cotton once you’re done with it. And sailing. I read a book about sailing.’
    ‘But you didn’t actually go to the seafront, did you?’
    ‘No.’
    The teacher took a pose of acceptance that wasn’t approval or disapproval, but something of both.
    ‘All this from one little test,’ he said. ‘But then, you came through the school very young, so you must have a talent for seeing tests. Tell me. How did you see through the Dai-kvo’s little guessing games?’
    ‘You . . . I’m sorry, Heshai-kvo. It’s . . . you really want to know that?’
    ‘It can be telling. Especially since you don’t want to say. Do you?’
    Maati took a pose of apology. He kept his eyes down while he spoke, but he didn’t lie.
    ‘When I got to the school - I was still among the younger cohorts - there was an older boy who said something to me. We’d been set to turn the soil in the gardens, and my hands were too soft. I couldn’t do the work. And the black robe who was tending us - Otah-kvo, his name was - was very upset with me. But then, when I told him why I hadn’t been able to do as he asked, he tried to comfort me. And he told me that if I had worked harder, it wouldn’t have helped. That was just before he left the school.’
    ‘So? You mean someone told you? That hardly seems fair.’
    ‘He didn’t though. He didn’t tell me, exactly. He only said some things about the school. That it wasn’t what it looked like. And the things he said made me start thinking. And then . . .’
    ‘And once you knew to look, it wasn’t hard to see. I understand.’
    ‘It wasn’t quite like that.’
    ‘Do you ever wonder if you would have made it on your own? I mean if your Otah-kvo hadn’t given the game away?’
    Maati blushed. The secret he’d held for years with the Dai-kvo pried open in a single conversation. Heshai-kvo was a subtle man. He took a pose of acknowledgment. The teacher, however, was looking elsewhere, an expression passing over him that might have been annoyance or pain.
    ‘Heshai-kvo?’
    ‘I’ve just remembered something I’m to do. Walk with me.’
    Maati rose and followed. The palaces spread out, larger than the village that surrounded the Dai-kvo, each individual structure larger than the whole of the school. Together, they walked down the wide marble staircase, into a vaulted hall. The wide, bright air was touched by the