Shadow and Betrayal

said. ‘Our boy Itani may be nothing, but the game’s too important to risk it. Find out what he is, and then, if we have to, we can kill him.’

8
    ‘A fter the fire, we agreed . . .’ Amat said, and the back of Ovi Niit’s hand snapped her head to the side. She turned back slowly, tasting her own blood. Her lips tingled in the presentiment of pain, and a trickle of warmth going cool on her chin told the part of her mind that wasn’t cringing in fear that one of his rings had cut her.
    ‘Agreed , ’ Ovi Niit spat. ‘We agree what I say we agree. If I change it, it changes. There’s no agreement to be made.’
    He paced the length of the room. The evening sun pressed at the closed shutters, showing only their outlines. It was enough light to see by, enough to know that Ovi Niit’s eyes were opened too wide - the stained whites showing all the way round. His lips moved as if he were on the verge of speaking.
    ‘You’re stalling!’ he shouted, slamming his hand down on her desk. Amat balled her fists and willed herself to sit quietly. Anything she said would be a provocation. ‘You think that by stretching it out, you’ll be safer. You think that by letting that thief take my money, you’ll be better off. But you won’t!’
    With the last word, he kicked the wall. The plaster cracked where he’d struck it. Amat considered the damage - small lines radiating out from a flattened circle - and felt her mind shift. It was no bigger than an egg, and looking at it, she knew that sometime not long from now Ovi Niit wouldn’t direct his rage at the walls. He would kill her, whether he meant to or not.
    How odd, she thought as she felt the nausea descend on her, that it would be that little architectural wound that would resolve her when all his violence against people hadn’t.
    ‘I will have my answer by dawn,’ he shouted. ‘By dawn. If you don’t do what I say, I’ll cut off your thumbs and sell you for the five lengths of gold. It’s not as if Oshai’s going to care that you’re damaged.’
    Amat took a pose of obeisance so abject that she was disgusted by it. But it came naturally to her hands. Ovi Niit grabbed her by a handful of hair and pulled her from her chair, spilling her papers and pens. He kicked over the desk and stalked out. As the door slammed shut behind him, Amat caught a glimpse of shocked faces.
    She lay in the darkness, too tired and ill to weep. The stone floor was rough against her cheek. The blood from her cut face pulled on her skin as it dried. She’d have a scar. When her mind would obey her again, the room was utterly black. She forced herself to think. The days had blurred - bent over half-legible books from the moment she woke until the figures shifted on the page and her hands bent themselves into claws. And then to dream about it, and come back and begin again. And there had been no point. Ovi Niit was a thug and a whoremaster. His fear and violence grew with the wine and drugs he took to ease them. He would have been pitiful from the right distance.
    But days. The question was days.
    She counted slowly, struggling to recall. Three weeks at least. More than that. It had to be more than that. Perhaps four. Not five. It was too early to be sure of Marchat’s amnesty. She surprised herself by chuckling. If she’d counted wrong, the worst case would be that they found her face down in the river and Ovi Niit lost five lengths of gold. That wouldn’t be so bad.
    She pushed herself upright, then stood, breathing through the pain until she felt as little stooped as she could manage. When she was ready, she took up her cane and put on the expression she used when she wanted no one to see her true feelings. She was Amat Kyaan, after all, overseer of House Wilsin. Streetgirl of Saraykeht made good. Let them see that she was unbroken. If she could make the whores of the comfort house believe it, she would start to believe it again, too.
    The common room was near empty, the whores out in the rooms plying their trade. A guardsman sat eating a roast chicken that smelled of garlic and rosemary. An old black dog lay curled in a corner, a leatherwork rod in the shape of a man’s sex chewed half to pieces between the bitch’s paws.
    ‘He’s gone out,’ the guard said. ‘In the front rooms, playing tiles.’
    Amat nodded.
    ‘I wouldn’t go out to him, grandmother.’
    ‘I wouldn’t want to interrupt. Send Mitat to the office. I need someone to help me put the room back in