Shadow and Betrayal

where the water was not yet fouled by the wastes of thirty thousand men and women and children. The red brick buildings rose up three stories high, and a private canal was filled with barges in the red and silver of the house. The stylized emblem of the sun and stars had been worked into the brick archway that led to the central courtyard, and Otah passed beneath it with a feeling like coming home.
    Amiit Foss, the overseer for the house couriers, was in his offices, ordering around three apprentices with sharp words and insults, but no blows. Otah stepped in and took a pose of greeting.
    ‘Ah! The missing Itani. Did you know the word for half-wit in the tongue of the Empire was itani-nah? ’
    ‘All respect, Amiit-cha, but no it wasn’t.’
    The overseer grinned. One of the apprentices - a girl of perhaps thirteen summers - whispered something angrily, and the boy next to her giggled.
    ‘Fine,’ the overseer said. ‘You two. I need the ciphers rechecked on last week’s letters.’
    ‘But I wasn’t the one . . .’ the girl protested. The overseer took a pose that commanded her silence, and the pair, glowering at each other, stalked away.
    ‘I get them when they’re just growing old enough to flirt,’ Amiit said, sighing. ‘Come back to the meeting rooms. The journey took longer than I’d expected.’
    ‘There were some delays,’ Otah said as he followed the older man back. ‘Chaburi-Tan isn’t as tightly run as it was last time I was out there.’
    ‘No?’
    ‘There are refugees from the Westlands.’
    ‘There are always refugees from the Westlands.’
    ‘Not this many,’ Otah said. ‘There are rumors that the Khai Chaburi-Tan is going to restrict the number of Westlanders allowed on the island.’
    Amiit paused, his hands on the carved wood door of the meeting rooms. Otah could almost see the implications of this thought working themselves out behind the overseer’s eyes. A moment later, Amiit looked up, raised his eyebrows in appreciation, and pushed the doors open.
    Half the day was spent in the raw silk chairs of the meeting rooms while Amiit took Otah’s report and accepted the letters - sewn shut and written in cipher - that Otah had carried with him.
    It had taken Otah some time to understand all that being a courier implied. When he had first arrived in Udun six years before, hungry, lost and half-haunted by the memories he carried with him, he had still believed that he would simply be carrying letters and small packages from one place to another, perhaps waiting for a response, and then taking those to where they were expected. It would have been as right to say that a farmer throws some seeds in the earth and returns a few months later to see what’s grown. He had been lucky. His ability to win friends easily had served him, and he had been instructed in what the couriers called the gentleman’s trade: how to gather information that might be of use to the house, how to read the activity of a street corner or market, and how to know from that the mood of a city. How to break ciphers and re-sew letters. How to appear to drink more wine than you actually did, and question travelers on the road without seeming to.
    He understood now that the gentleman’s trade was one that asked a lifetime to truly master, and though he was still a journeyman, he had found a kind of joy in it. Amiit knew what his talents were, and chose assignments for him in which he could do well. And in return for the trust of the house and the esteem of his fellows, Otah did the best work he could, brokering information, speculation, gossip, and intrigue. He had traveled through the summer cities in the south, west to the plains and the cities that traded directly with the Westlands, up the eastern coasts where his knowledge of obscure east island tongues had served him well. By design or happy coincidence, he had never gone farther north than Yalakeht. He had not been called on to see the winter cities.
    Until now.
    ‘There’s trouble in the north,’ Amiit said as he tucked the last of the opened letters into his sleeve.
    ‘I’d heard,’ Otah said. ‘The succession’s started in Machi.’
    ‘Amnat-Tan, Machi, Cetani. All of them have something brewing. You may need to get some heavier robes.’
    ‘I didn’t think House Siyanti had much trade there,’ Otah said, trying to keep the unease out of his voice.
    ‘We don’t. That doesn’t mean we never will. And take your time. There’s something