Shadow and Betrayal

order. Every meeting it’s like a storm’s come through.’
    The guard took an amused pose of agreement. The sound of drums came suddenly from the street. Another night in the endless carnival of the soft quarter.
    ‘I’ll have her bring something for that wound,’ the guard said.
    ‘Thank you,’ Amat said, her voice polite, dispassionate: the voice of the woman she wanted them all to believe her to be. ‘That would be very kind of you.’
    Mitat appeared in her doorway half a hand later. The wide, pale face littered with freckles looked hard. Amat smiled gently at her and took a pose of welcome.
    ‘I heard that he’d been to see you, grandmother.’
    ‘Yes, and so he has. Open those shutters for me, would you, dear? I was tall enough to get them myself when I came here, but I seem to have grown shorter.’
    Mitat did so, and the pale moonlight added to the lantern on Amat’s desk. The papers weren’t in such bad order. Amat motioned the woman closer.
    ‘You have to go, grandmother,’ Mitat said. ‘Niit-cha is getting worse.’
    ‘Of course he is,’ Amat said. ‘He’s frightened. And he drinks too much. I need you. Now, tonight.’
    Mitat took a pose of agreement. Amat smiled and took her hand. Behind Mitat, the little scar blemished the wall where he’d kicked it. Amat wondered in passing if the whoremaster would ever understand how much that mark had cost him. And Amat intended it to cost dear.
    ‘Who is the most valuable man here?’ Amat asked. ‘Niit-cha must have men who he trusts more than others, ne?’
    ‘The guards,’ Mitat began, but Amat waved the comment away.
    ‘Who does he trust like a brother?’
    Mitat’s eyes narrowed. She’s caught scent of it, Amat thought, and smiled.
    ‘Black Rathvi,’ Mitat said. ‘He’s in charge of the house when Niitcha’s away.’
    ‘You know what his handwriting looks like?’
    ‘No,’ Mitat said. ‘But I know he took in two gold and seventy silver lengths from the high tables two nights ago. I heard him talking about it.’
    Amat paged through the most recent ledger until she found the precise sum. It was a wide hand with poorly formed letters and a propensity for dropping the ends of words. She knew it well. Black Rathvi was a poor keeper of notes, and she’d been struggling with his entries since she’d started the project. She found herself ghoulishly pleased that he’d be suffering for his poor job keeping books.
    ‘I’ll need a cloak - a hooded one - perhaps two hands before daybreak, ’ Amat said.
    ‘You should leave now,’ Mitat said. ‘Niit-cha’s occupied for the moment, but he may—’
    ‘I’m not finished yet. Two hands before daybreak, I will be. You and your man should slow down for a time after Ovi Niit deals with Black Rathvi. At least several weeks. If he sees things get better, he’ll know he was right. You understand?’
    Mitat took a pose of affirmation, but it wasn’t solid. Amat didn’t bother replying formally, only raised a single eyebrow and waited. Mitat looked away, and then back. There was something like hope and also like distrust in her eyes. The face of someone who wants to believe, but is afraid to.
    ‘Can you do it?’ Mitat asked.
    ‘Make the numbers point to Black Rathvi? Of course I can. This is what I do. Can you get me a cloak and safe passage at least as far as the street?’
    ‘If you can put those two at each other’s throats, I can do anything,’ Mitat said.
    It took less time than she’d expected. The numbers were simple enough to manipulate once she knew what she wanted to do with them. She even changed a few of the entries on their original sheets, blacking out the scrawling hand and forging new figures. When she was finished, a good accountant would have been able to see the deception. But if Ovi Niit had had one of those, Amat would never have been there.
    She spent the remaining time composing her letter of leave-taking. She kept the tone formal, using all the titles and honorary flourishes she would have for a very respected merchant or one of the lower of the utkhaiem. She expressed her thanks for the shelter and discretion Ovi Niit and his house had extended and expressed regret that she felt it in her best interest - now that her work was done - to leave inconspicuously. She had too much respect, she wrote, sneering as she did so, for Niit-cha’s sense of advantage to expect him not to sell a commodity for which he no longer had use. She then outlined her