Shadow and Betrayal

toward the western mountains. Winter days here would be brief and bitter, the swift winter sun ducking behind stone before it even reached the horizon. It hardly seemed fair.
    By the time he regained the palaces, the prospect of walking all the way to the Vaunyogi failed to appeal. They would be busy with preparations for the wedding anyway. There was no point intruding now. Better to speak to Daaya Vaunyogi afterwards, when things had calmed. Though, of course, by then the utkhaiem would be in council, and the gods only knew whether he’d be able to get through then, or if he’d be in time.
    He might only find who’d done the thing by seeing who became the next Khai.
    There was still the one other thing to do. He wasn’t sure how he would accomplish it either, but it had to be tried. And at least the poet’s house was nearer than the Vaunyogi. He angled down the path through the oaks, the gravel of the pathway scraping under his weight. The mourning cloth had already been taken from the tree branches and the lamp posts and benches, but no bright banners or flowers had taken their places.
    When he stepped out from the trees, he saw Stone-Made-Soft sitting on the steps before the open doorway, its wide face considering him with a calm half-smile. Maati had the impression that had he been a sparrow or an assassin with a flaming sword, the andat’s reaction would have been the same. He saw the large form lean back, turning to face into the house, and heard the deep, rough voice if not the words themselves. Cehmai was at the door in an instant, his eyes wide and bright, and then bleak with disappointment before becoming merely polite.
    With an almost physical sensation, it fit together - Cehmai’s rage at holding back news of Otah’s survival, the lack of wedding decoration, and the disappointment that Maati was only himself and not some other, more desired guest. The poor bastard was in love with Idaan Machi.
    Well, that was one secret discovered. It wasn’t much, but the gods all knew he’d take anything these days. He took a pose of greeting and Cehmai returned it.
    ‘I was wondering if you had a moment,’ Maati said.
    ‘Of course, Maati-kvo. Come in.’
    The house was in a neat sort of disarray. Tables hadn’t been overturned or scrolls set in the brazier, but things were out of place, and the air seemed close and stifling. Memories rose in his mind. He recalled the moments in his own life when a woman had left him. The scent was very much the same. He suppressed the impulse to put his hand on the boy’s shoulder and say something comforting. Better to pretend he hadn’t guessed. At least he could spare Cehmai that indignity. He lowered himself into a chair, groaning with relief as the weight left his legs and feet.
    ‘I’ve gotten old. When I was your age I could walk all day and never feel it.’
    ‘Perhaps if you made it more a habit,’ Cehmai said. ‘I have some tea. It’s a little tepid now, but if you’d like . . .’
    Maati raised a hand, refusing politely. Cehmai, seeming to notice the state of the house now there were someone else’s eyes on it, opened the shutters wide before he came to sit at Maati’s side.
    ‘I’ve come to ask for more time,’ Maati said. ‘I can make excuses first if you like, or tell you that as your elder and an envoy of the Dai-kvo it’s something you owe me. Any of that theater you’d like. But it comes to this: I don’t know yet what’s happening, and it’s important to me that if something does go wrong for Otah-kvo it not have been my doing.’
    Cehmai seemed to weigh this.
    ‘Baarath tells me you had a message from the Dai-kvo,’ Cehmai said.
    ‘Yes. After he heard I’d turned Otah-kvo over to his father, he called me back.’
    ‘And you’re disobeying that call.’
    ‘I’m exercising my own judgment.’
    ‘Will the Dai-kvo make that distinction?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ Maati said. ‘If he agrees with me, I suppose he’ll agree with me. If not, then not. I can only guess what he would have said if he’d known everything I know, and move from there.’
    ‘And you think he’d want Otah’s secret kept?’
    Maati laughed and rubbed his hands together. His legs were twitching pleasantly, relaxing from their work. He stretched and his shoulder cracked.
    ‘Probably not,’ he said. ‘He’d more likely say that it isn’t our place to take an active role in the succession. That he’d sent me here with that story about rooting through