Shadow and Betrayal

rag-covered chair. Adrah pulled a stool near to him, nearer than custom required. It was as if Adrah wanted to make him feel they were in a smaller room together. Cehmai kept his face as placid as the andat’s.
    ‘The city is in terrible trouble, Cehmai-cha. You know how bad these things can get. When it’s only the three sons of the Khai, it’s bad enough. But with all the utkhaiem scheming and fighting and betraying one another, the damage to the city . . .’
    ‘I’d thought about that,’ Cehmai said, though in truth he cared more about Idaan than the political struggles that the coming weeks would bring. ‘And there’s still the problem of Otah. He has a claim . . .’
    ‘He’s murdered his own father.’
    ‘Have we proven that?’
    ‘You doubt that he did the thing?’
    ‘No,’ Cehmai said after a moment’s pause. ‘No, I don’t.’ But Maati-kvo still does .
    ‘It would be best to end this quickly. To name the new Khai before things can get out of control. You are a man of tremendous power. I know the Dai-kvo takes no sides in matters of succession. But if you were to let it be known that you favored some particular house, without taking any formal position, it would make things easier.’
    ‘Only if I backed a house that was prepared to win,’ Cehmai said. ‘If I chose poorly, I’d throw some poor unprepared family in with the pit hounds.’
    ‘My family is ready. We are well respected, we have partners in all the great trading houses, and the silversmiths and ironworkers are closer to us than to any other family. Idaan is the only blood of the old Khai remaining in the city. Her brothers will never be Khai Machi, but someday, her son might.’
    Cehmai considered. Here was a man asking his help, asking for political backing, unaware that Cehmai knew the shape and taste of his lover’s body as well as he did. It likely was in his power to elevate Adrah Vaunyogi to the ranks of the Khaiem. He wondered if it was what Idaan would want.
    ‘That may be wise,’ Cehmai said. ‘I would need to think about it, of course, before I could act.’
    Adrah put his hand on Cehmai’s knee, familiar as if they were brothers. The andat moved first, ambling toward the door, and then Cehmai stood and adopted a pose appropriate to parting. The amusement coming from Stone-Made-Soft was like constant laughter that only Cehmai could hear.
    When they had made their farewells, Cehmai started east again, toward the burning bodies and the priests. His mind was a jumble - concern for Idaan, frustration at not finding her, unease with Adrah’s proposal, and at the back, stirring like something half asleep, a dread that seemed wrapped up with Maati Vaupathai staring drunk into the fire.
    One of them , Maati had said, meaning the high families of the utkhaiem. One of them would benefit. Unless Cehmai took a hand and put his own lover’s husband in the chair. That wasn’t the sort of thing that could have been planned for. No scheme for power could include the supposition that Cehmai would fall in love with Idaan, or that her husband would ask his aid, or that his guilt and affection would drive him to give it. It was the kind of thing that could come from nowhere and upset the perfect plan.
    If it wasn’t Otah Machi who had engineered all this bloodletting, then some other viper was in the city, and the prospect of Adrah Vaunyogi taking the prize away by marrying Idaan and wooing the poets would drive the killer mad. And even if it was Otah Machi, he might still hope to take his father’s place. Adrah’s rise would threaten that claim as well.
    ‘You’re thinking too hard,’ the andat said.
    ‘Thinking never hurt anyone.’
    ‘So you’ve all said,’ the andat sighed.
    She wasn’t at the ceremony. She wasn’t at her quarters. Cehmai and Stone-Made-Soft walked together through the gardens and pavilions, the courtyards and halls and passages. Mourning didn’t fill the streets and towers the way celebration had. The dry music of the funeral drums wasn’t taken up in the teahouses or gardens. Only the pillar of smoke blotting out the stars stood testament to the ceremony. Twice, Cehmai took them past his own quarters, hoping that Idaan might be there waiting for him, but without effect. She had vanished from the city like a bird flying up into darkness.
     
    His old notes were gone, left in a packet in his rooms. Kaiin and Danat were forgotten, and instead, Maati had fresh papers spread over the library