Shadow and Betrayal

evening playing tiles in the soft quarter. Heshai was delighted, of course. It smells wrong to me, Wilsin.’
    Marchat turned it over slowly, chewing on his lip. It did seem odd. And with the ceremony coming so quickly, the stakes were high. He pulled out a chair, its wooden legs scraping against the stone floor, and sat. Seedless swung his legs over the side, still sitting on the tabletop, but without seeming quite as predatory.
    ‘Which man was it?’
    ‘He said his name was Itani. Big man, broad across the shoulders. Face like a northerner.’
    The one Amat had sent out with him. That wasn’t good. Seedless read something in his face and took a pose half query and half command.
    ‘I know the one you mean. You’re right. Something’s odd. He was my bodyguard when I came out to the low town. And he’s Liat Chokavi’s lover.’
    Seedless took a moment to consider that. Marchat watched the dark eyes, the beautiful mouth that turned into the faintest of smiles.
    ‘Has he warned Liat of anything?’ the andat asked. ‘Do you think she suspects?’
    ‘She doesn’t. If she had any reservations, you could read them from across the room. I think Liat may be the worst liar I’ve ever met. It’s part of what makes her so good at this.’
    ‘If he hasn’t told Liat, perhaps he isn’t trying to spoil our little game. You’ve had no word of your vanished overseer?’
    ‘No,’ Marchat said. ‘Oshai’s thugs have been offering good prices for her, but there’s been no sign. And no one at the seafront or on the roads remembers seeing her go. And even if she’s gone to ground inside the city, there’s no reason to think she’s out to stop . . . the trade.’
    ‘Oshai can’t find her, and that’s enough to make me nervous. And this boy, this Itani. Either he is her agent or he isn’t. And if he is . . .’
    Marchat sighed. There was no end of it. Every time he thought he’d reached the last crime he’d be called upon to commit, one more appeared behind it. Liat Chokavi - silly, short-sighted, kind, pretty girl that she was - would be humiliated when the thing went wrong. And now it seemed she wouldn’t have her man behind her to offer comfort.
    ‘I can have him killed,’ Marchat said, heavily. ‘I’ll speak with Oshai in the morning.’
    ‘No,’ Seedless said. The andat leaned back, crossing one knee over the other and lacing his hands over it. They were women’s hands - thin and graceful. ‘No. If he’s sent to tell the tale, it’s too late. Maati will know by now. If he isn’t, then killing him will only draw attention.’
    ‘I could have the poet boy killed too,’ Marchat said.
    ‘No,’ Seedless said again. ‘No, we can kill the laborer if it seems the right thing, but no one touches Maati.’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘I like him,’ Seedless said, a subtle surprise in his voice, as if this were something he’d only just realized. ‘He’s . . . he’s good-hearted. He’s the only person I’ve met in years who didn’t see me as a convenient tool or else the very soul of evil.’
    Marchat blinked. For a moment, something like sadness seemed to possess the andat. Sadness or perhaps longing. In the months Marchat had spent preparing this evil scheme, he’d built an image of the beast he was treating with, and this emotion didn’t fit with it. And then it was gone and Seedless grinned at him.
    ‘You, for instance, think I’m chaos made flesh,’ Seedless said. ‘Ripping a wanted child from an innocent girl’s womb just to make Heshai-kvo suffer.’
    ‘It doesn’t matter what I think.’
    ‘No. It doesn’t, but that won’t stop you from thinking it. And when you do think, remember it was your men who approached me. It may be my design, but it’s your money.’
    ‘It’s my uncle’s,’ Marchat said, perhaps more sharply than he’d intended. ‘I didn’t choose any of this. No one asked my opinion.’
    A terrible amusement lit the andat’s face, and the beautiful smile had grown wider.
    ‘Puppets. Puppets and the puppets of puppets. You should have more sympathy for me, Wilsin-cha. I’m what I am because of someone else, just the way you are. How could either of us ever be responsible for anything?’
    The poisonous thought tickled the back of Marchat’s mind - what if I’d refused? He pushed it away.
    ‘We couldn’t be less alike,’ Marchat said. ‘But it doesn’t matter. However we got here, we’re married now. What of Itani?’
    ‘Have him followed,’ he