Shadow and Betrayal

threat?’ she asked.
    The andat shook its head once - left, and then right, and then still as if it had never moved in all the time since the world was young. When it spoke again, Idaan was almost startled at the sound.
    ‘It’s a blessing,’ it said.
     
    ‘What did he look like?’ Maati asked.
    Piyun See, chief assistant to the Master of Tides, frowned and glanced out the window. The man sensed that he had done something wrong, even if he could not say what it had been. It made him reluctant. Maati sipped tea from a white stone bowl and let the silence stretch.
    ‘A courier. He wore decent robes. He stood half a head taller than you, and had a good face. Long as a northman’s.’
    ‘Well, that will help me,’ Maati said. He couldn’t keep his impatience entirely to himself.
    Piyun took a pose of apology formal enough to be utterly insincere.
    ‘He had two eyes and two feet and one nose, Maati-cha. I thought he was your acquaintance. Shouldn’t you know better than I what he looks like?’
    ‘If it is the man.’
    ‘He didn’t seem pleased to hear you’d been asking after him. He made an excuse and lit out almost as soon as he heard of you. It isn’t as if I knew that he wasn’t to be told of you. I didn’t have orders to hold back your name.’
    ‘Did you have orders to volunteer me to him?’ Maati asked.
    ‘No, but . . .’
    Maati waved the objection away.
    ‘House Siyanti. You’re sure of that?’
    ‘Of course I am.’
    ‘How do I reach their compound?’
    ‘They don’t have one. House Siyanti doesn’t trade in the winter cities. He would be staying at a wayhouse. Or sometimes the houses here will let couriers take rooms.’
    ‘So other than the fact that he came, you can tell me nothing,’ Maati said.
    This time the pose of apology was more sincere. Frustration clamped Maati’s jaw until his teeth hurt, but he forced himself into a pose that thanked the assistant and ended the interview. Piyun See left the small meeting room silently, closing the door behind him.
    Otah was here, then. He had come back to Machi, using the same name he had had in Saraykeht. And that meant . . . Maati pressed his fingertips to his eyes. That meant nothing certain. That he was here suggested that Biitrah’s death was his work, but as yet it was only a suggestion. He doubted that the Dai-kvo or the Khai Machi would see it that way. His presence was as much as proof to them, and there was no way to keep it secret. Piyun See was no doubt spreading the gossip across the palaces even now - the visiting poet and his mysterious courier. He had to find Otah himself, and he had to do it now.
    He straightened his robes and stalked out to the gardens, and then the path that would lead him to the heart of the city. He would begin with the teahouses nearest the forges. It was the sort of place couriers might go to drink and gossip. There might be someone there who would know of House Siyanti and its partners. He could discover whether Itani Noygu had truly been working for Siyanti. That would bring him one step nearer, at least. And there was nothing more he could think of to do now.
    The streets were busy with children playing street games with rope and sticks, with beggars and slaves and water carts and firekeepers’ kilns, with farmers’ carts loaded high with spring produce or lambs and pigs on their way to the fresh butcher. Voices jabbered and shouted and sang, the smells of forge smoke and grilling meat and livestock pressed like a fever. The city seemed busy as an anthill, and Maati’s mind churned as he navigated his way through it all. Otah had come to the winter cities. Was he killing his brothers? Had he chosen to become the Khai Machi?
    And if he had, would Maati have the strength to stop him?
    He told himself that he could. He was so focused and among so many distractions that he almost didn’t notice his follower. Only when he found what looked like a promising alley - hardly more than a shoulder-wide crack between two long, tall buildings - did he escape the crowds long enough to notice. The sound of the street faded in the dim twilight that the band of sky above him allowed. A rat, surprised by him, scuttled through an iron grating and away. The thin alley branched, and Maati paused, looked down the two new paths, and then glanced back. The path behind him was blocked. A dark cloak, a raised hood, and shoulders so broad they touched both walls. Maati hesitated, and the man behind him