Shadow and Betrayal

ruined robes and letting them sink into the bath like water plants at their ankles. Skin to skin they stood, the bath cool around their hips, and Liat let her heart sing with the thought that one day, her lover might take his father’s seat and power. One day, he might be Khai.

9
    M aati started awake when Heshai-kvo’s hand touched his shoulder. The poet drew back, his wide frog-mouth quirking up at the ends. Maati sat up and pushed the netting aside. His head felt stuffed with cotton.
    ‘I have to leave soon,’ Heshai-kvo said, his voice low and amused. ‘I didn’t want to leave you to sleep through the whole day. Waking at sundown only makes the next day worse.’
    Maati took a pose of query. It didn’t specify a question, but Heshai-kvo took the sense of it.
    ‘It’s just past midday,’ he said.
    ‘Gods,’ Maati said and pulled himself up. ‘I apologize, Heshai-kvo. I will be ready in . . .’
    Heshai-kvo lumbered to the doorway, waving his protests away. He was already wearing the brown formal robes and his sandals were strapped on.
    ‘Don’t. There’s nothing going on you need to know. I just didn’t want you to feel ill longer than you needed to. There’s fruit downstairs, and fresh bread. Sausage if you can stomach it, but I’d start slow if I were you.’
    Maati took a pose of apology.
    ‘I have failed in my duties, Heshai-kvo. I should not have stayed in the city so long nor slept so late.’
    Heshai-kvo clapped his hands in mock anger and pointed an accusing hand at Maati.
    ‘Are you the teacher here?’
    ‘No, Heshai-kvo.’
    ‘Then I’ll decide when you’re failing your duties,’ he said and winked.
    When he was gone, Maati lay back on his cot and pressed his palm to his forehead. With his eyes closed, he felt as if the cot was moving, floating down some silent river. He forced his eyes back open, aware as he did that he’d already fallen halfway back to sleep. With a sigh, he forced himself up, stripped off his robes in trade for clean ones, and went down to the breakfast Heshai-kvo had promised.
    The afternoon stretched out hot and thick and sultry before him. Maati bathed himself and straightened his belongings - something he hadn’t done in days. When the servant came to take away the plates and leavings, Maati asked that a pitcher of limed water be sent up.
    By the time it arrived, he’d found the book he wanted, and went out to sit under the shade of trees by the pond. The world smelled rich and green as fresh-cut grass as he arranged himself. With only the buzzing of insects and the occasional wet plop of koi striking the surface, Maati opened the brown leather book and read. The first page began:
Not since the days of the First Empire have poets worked more than one binding in a lifetime. We may look back at the prodigality of those years with longing now, knowing as they did not that the andat unbound would likely not be recovered. But the price of our frugality is this: we as poets have made our first work our last like a carpenter whose apprentice chair must also be the masterwork for which he is remembered. As such it becomes our duty to examine our work closely so that later generations may gain from our subtle failures. It is in this spirit that I, Heshai Antaburi, record the binding I performed as a child of the andat Removing-The-Part-That-Would-Continue along with my notes on how I would have avoided error had I known my heart better.
    Heshai-kvo’s handwriting was surprisingly beautiful, and the structure of the volume as compelling as an epic. He began with the background of the andat and what he hoped to accomplish by it. Then, in great detail, the work of translating the thought, moving it from abstract to concrete, giving it form and flesh. Then, when the story of the binding was told, Heshai-kvo turned back on it, showing the faults where an ancient grammar allowed an ambiguity, where form clashed with intent. Discords that Maati would never, he thought, have noticed were spread before him with a candor that embarrassed him. Beauty that edged to arrogance, strength that fed willfulness, confidence that was also contempt. And with that, how each error had its root in Heshai’s own soul. And while reading these confessions embarrassed him, they also fed a small but growing respect for his teacher and the courage it took to put such things to paper.
    The sun had fallen behind the treetops and the cicadas begun their chorus when Maati reached the third