Shadow and Betrayal

when he accepted her suggestion.
    ‘You’ll have to stay here until it’s over,’ he said. ‘I’ll have Oshai’s men bring you food and drink. I still need to make my case to Oshai and the client, but I will make it work. You’ll be fine.’
    Amat took an accepting pose. ‘I’ll be pleased being here,’ she said. Then, ‘Marchat? What is this all about?’
    ‘Money,’ he said. ‘Power. What else is there?’
    And as he walked down the stairs, leaving her alone, it fit together like a peg slipping into its hole. It wasn’t about the child. It wasn’t about the girl. It was about the poet. And if it was about the poet, it was about the andat. If the poet Heshai lost control of his creation, if Seedless escaped, the cotton trade in Saraykeht would lose its advantage over other ports in the islands and the Westlands and Galt. Even when a new andat came, it wasn’t likely that it would be able to fuel the cotton trade as Seedless or Petals-Falling had.
    Amat went to her window. The street below was full - men, women, dogs, carts. The roofs of the city stretched out to the east, and down to the south the seafront was full. Trade. The girl Maj would be sacrificed to shift the balance of trade away from Saraykeht. It was the only thing that made sense.
    ‘Oh, Marchat,’ she breathed. ‘What have you done?’
     
    The teahouse was nearly empty. Two or three young men inside were still speaking in raised voices, their arguments inchoate and disjointed. Out in the front garden, an older man had fallen asleep beside the fountain, his long, slow breathing a counterpoint to the distant conversation. A lemon candle guttered and died, leaving only a long winding plume of smoke, gray against the night, and the scent of an extinguished wick. Otah felt the urge to light a fresh candle, but he didn’t act on it. On the bench beside him, Maati sighed.
    ‘Does it ever get cold here, Otah-kvo?’ Maati asked. ‘If we were with the Dai-kvo, we’d be shivering by now, even if it is midsummer. It’s midnight, and it’s almost hot as day.’
    ‘It’s the sea. It holds the heat in. And we’re too far south. It’s colder as you go north.’
    ‘North. Do you remember Machi?’
    Visions took Otah. Stone walls thicker than a man’s height, stone towers reaching to a white sky, stone statues baked all day in the fires and then put in the children’s room to radiate their heat through the night.
    He remembered being pulled through snow-choked streets on a sleigh, a sister whose name he no longer knew beside him, holding close for warmth. The scent of burning pine and hot stone and mulled wine.
    ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not really.’
    ‘I don’t often look at the stars,’ Maati said. ‘Isn’t that odd?’
    ‘I suppose,’ Otah allowed.
    ‘I wonder whether Heshai does. He stays out half the time, you know. He wasn’t even there yesterday when I came in.’
    ‘You mean this morning?’
    Maati frowned.
    ‘I suppose so. It wasn’t quite dawn when I got there. You should have seen Seedless stalking back and forth like a cat. He tried to get me to say where I’d been, but I wouldn’t talk. Not me. I wonder where Heshai-kvo goes all night.’
    ‘The way Seedless wonders about you,’ Otah said. ‘You should start drinking water. You’ll be worse for it if you don’t.’
    Maati took a pose of acceptance, but didn’t rise or go in for water. The sleeping man snored. Otah closed his eyes for a moment, testing how it felt. It was like falling backwards. He was too tired. He’d never make it though his shift with Muhatia-cha.
    ‘I don’t know how Heshai-kvo does it,’ Maati said, clearly thinking similar thoughts. ‘He’s got a full day coming. I don’t think I’ll be able to do any more today than I did yesterday. I mean today. I don’t know what I mean. It’s easier to keep track when I sleep at night. What about you?’
    ‘They can do without me,’ Otah said. ‘Muhatia-cha knows my indenture’s almost over. He more than half expects me to ignore my duties. It isn’t uncommon for someone who isn’t renewing their contract.’
    ‘And aren’t you?’ Maati asked.
    ‘I don’t know.’
    Otah shifted his weight, turning to look at the young poet in the brown robes of his office. The moonlight made them seem black.
    ‘I envy you,’ Maati said. ‘You know that, don’t you?’
    ‘You want to be directionless and unsure what you’ll be doing to earn food in a half-year’s time?’
    ‘Yes,’