Shadow and Betrayal

overseer.’ The moon-faced man smiled pleasantly and took a pose of greeting to her even as he spoke to the other man.
    ‘That would be because she is. Welcome, Kyaan-cha. Please come in.’
    Amat strode into the low house, the two men stepping back to let her pass. The round-faced man closed the door, deepening the gloom. As Amat’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, details began to swim out of it. The wide, low main room, too bare to mark the house as a place where people actually lived. The moss growing at the edge where wall met ceiling.
    ‘I’ve come to see the client,’ Amat said. ‘Wilsin-cha wants to be sure she’s well. If she miscarries during the negotiations, we’ll all look fools.’
    ‘The client ? Yes. Yes, of course,’ the round-faced man said, and something in his voice told Amat she’d stepped wrong. Still, he took a pose of obeisance and motioned her to the rear of the place. Down a short hallway, a door opened to a wooden porch. The light was thick and green, filtered through a canopy of trees. Insects droned and birds called, chattering to one another. And leaning against a half-rotten railing was a young woman. She was hardly older than Liat, her skin the milky pale of an islander. Golden hair trailed down her back, and her belly bulged over a pair of rough canvas laborer’s pants. Half, perhaps three-quarters of the way through her term. Hearing them, she turned and smiled. Her eyes were blue as the sky, her lips thick. Eastern islands , Amat thought. Uman, or possibly Nippu.
    ‘Forgive me, Kyaan-cha,’ the moon-faced man said. ‘My duties require me elsewhere. Miyama will be here to help you, should you require it.’
    Amat took a pose of thanks appropriate for a superior releasing an underling. The man replied with the correct form, but with a strange half-mocking cant to his wrists. He had thick hands, Amat noted, and strong shoulders. She turned away, waiting until the man’s footsteps faded behind her. He would go, she guessed, to Saraykeht, to Wilsin. She hadn’t managed to avoid suspicion, but by the time Marchat knew she’d discovered this place, it would be too late to shut her out of it. It would have to do.
    ‘My name is Amat Kyaan,’ she said. ‘I’m here to inquire after your health. Marchat is a good man, but perhaps not so wise in women’s matters.’
    The girl cocked her head, like listening to an unfamiliar song. Amat felt her smile fade a degree.
    ‘You do know the Khaiate tongues?’
    The girl giggled and said something. She spoke too quickly to follow precisely, but the words had the liquid feel of an east island language. Amat cleared her throat, and tried again, slowly in Nippu.
    ‘My name is Amat Kyaan,’ she said.
    ‘I’m Maj,’ the girl said, matching Amat’s slow diction and exaggerating as if she were speaking to a child.
    ‘You’ve come a long way to be here. I trust the travel went well?’
    ‘It was hard at first,’ the girl said. ‘But the last three days, I’ve been able to keep food down.’
    The girl’s hand strayed to her belly. Tiny, dark stretchmarks already marbled her skin. She was thin. If she went to term, she’d look like an egg on sticks. But, of course, she wouldn’t go to term. Amat watched the pale fingers as they unconsciously caressed the rise and swell where the baby grew in darkness, and a sense of profound dislocation stole into her. This wasn’t a noblewoman whose virginity wanted plausibility. This wasn’t a child of wealth too fragile for blood teas. This didn’t fit any of the hundred scenarios that had plagued Amat through the night.
    She leaned against the wooden railing, taking some of the weight off her aching hip, put her cane aside, and crossed her hands.
    ‘Marchat has told me so little of you,’ she said, struggling to find the vocabulary she needed. ‘How did you come to Saraykeht?’
    The girl grinned and spun her tale. She spoke too quickly sometimes, and Amat had to make her repeat herself.
    It seemed the father of her get had been a member of the utkhaiem - one of the great families of Saraykeht, near to the Khai himself. He’d been travelling in Nippu in disguise. He’d never revealed his true identity to her when he knew her, but though the affair had been brief, he had lost his heart to her. When he heard she was with child, he’d sent Oshai - the moon-faced man - to bring her here, to him. As soon as the politics of court allowed, he would return to her, marry her.
    As