Shadow and Betrayal

do?’ Amiit suggested.
    ‘No, but . . . no. I’ve dealt with something else once. Something happened. The Galts were behind it. What are they doing here? How do they figure in?’
    ‘They’re making contracts with half the houses in Machi. Large contracts at disadvantageous terms. They’ve been running roughshod over the Westlands so long they’re sure to be good for it - they have almost as much money as the Khaiem. It may just be they’ve a new man acting as the overseer for the Machi contracts, and he’s no good. But I doubt it. I think they’re buying influence.’
    ‘Influence to do what?’
    ‘I haven’t the first clue,’ Amiit said. ‘I was hoping you might know.’
    Otah shook his head. He took another piece of chicken, but his mind was elsewhere. The Galts in Machi. He tried to make Biitrah’s death, the attack on Maati, and his own improbable freedom into some pattern, but no two things seemed to fit. He drank his wine, feeling the warmth spread through his throat and belly.
    ‘I need your word on something, Amiit-cha. That if I tell you what I know, you won’t act on it lightly. There are lives at stake.’
    ‘Galtic lives?’
    ‘Innocent ones.’
    Amiit considered silently. His face was closed. Otah poured more water into his cup. Amiit silently took a pose that accepted the offered terms. Otah looked at his hands, searching for the words he needed to say.
    ‘Saraykeht. When Seedless acted against Heshai-kvo there, the Galts were involved. They were allied with the andat. I believe they hoped to find the andat willing allies in their own freedom, only Seedless was . . . unreliable. They hurt Heshai badly, even though their plan failed. They aren’t the ones who murdered him, but Heshai-kvo let himself be killed rather than expose them.’
    ‘Why would he do an idiot thing like that?’
    ‘He knew what would happen. He knew what the Khai Saraykeht would do.’
    Otah felt himself on the edge of confession, but he stopped before admitting that the poet had died at his hands. There was no need, and that, at least, was one secret that he chose to keep to himself. Instead, he looked up and met Amiit’s gaze. When the overseer spoke, his voice was calm, measured, careful.
    ‘He would have slaughtered Galt,’ Amiit said.
    ‘Innocent lives.’
    ‘And some guilty ones.’
    ‘A few.’
    Amiit leaned back in his chair, his fingers steepled before his lips. Otah could almost see the calculations taking place behind those calm, dark eyes.
    ‘So you think this is about the poets?’
    ‘It was last time,’ Otah said. ‘Let me send a letter to Maati. Let me warn him—’
    ‘We can’t. You’re dead, and half the safety we can give you depends on your staying dead until we know more than this. But . . . but I can tell a few well-placed people to be on alert. And give them some idea what to be alert for. Another Saraykeht would be devastating.’ Amiit sighed deeply. ‘And here I thought only the succession, your life, and my house were in play. Poets now, too.’
    Amiit’s smile was thoughtful.
    ‘I’ll give you this. You make the world more interesting, Itani-cha. Or . . .?’
    He took a pose that asked for correction.
    ‘Otah. Much as I’ve fought against it, my name is Otah Machi. We might as well both get used to saying it.’
    ‘Otah-cha, then,’ Amiit said. He seemed pleased, as if he’d won some small victory.
    Voices came up through the window. The commander’s was already familiar even after so short a time. Otah couldn’t make out the words, but he sounded pleased. Another voice answered him that Otah didn’t know, but the woman’s laughter that pealed out after it was familiar as water.
    Otah felt the air go thin. He stood and walked slowly to the open shutters. There in the yard behind the farmhouse Sinja and one of the archers were standing beside a lovely woman in loose cotton robes the blue of the sky at twilight. Her fox-thin face was smiling, one eyebrow arched as she said something to the commander, who chuckled in his turn. Her hair was dark and shot with individual strands of white that she had had since birth.
    He saw the change in Kiyan’s stance when she noticed him - a release and relaxation. She walked away from the two men and toward the open window. Otah’s heart beat fast as if he’d been running. She stopped and put out her hands, palms up and open. It wasn’t a formal pose, and seemed to mean here I am and here you are and who would have