Shadow and Betrayal

feet. His robe hung open, exposing his wrinkled breast. He took two unsteady steps before Maati moved close and put his arm around the man. As they passed into the street, Liat went to Heshai’s other side, taking his arm over her shoulder, sharing Maati’s burden. Maati felt Liat’s arm against his own behind Heshai’s wide back. Her hand clasped his forearm, and between them, they made a kind of cradle to lead the poet home.
     
    The robe Maati lent her when they arrived back at the poet’s house was woven cotton and silk, the fabric thicker than her finger and soft as any she’d touched in years. She changed in his small room while he was busy with the poet. Her wet robes, she hung on a stand. She wrung the water out of her hair and braided it idly as she waited.
    It was a simple room - cot, desk, and wardrobe, cloth lantern and candle stand. Only the pile of books and scrolls and the quality of the furnishings marked it as different from a cell like her own. But then, Maati was only an apprentice. His role was much like her own with Amat. They were even very nearly the same age, though she found she often forgot that.
    A murmur of voices reached her - the poet’s and Maati’s and then the soft, charming, chilling voice of Seedless. The poet barked something she couldn’t make out, and then Maati, soothing him. She wanted to leave, to go back to her cell, to be away from the terrible tension in the air of the house. But the rain was growing worse. The pounding of water was joined now with an angry tapping. The wind had turned and allowed her to open Maati’s shutters without flooding his room, and when she did, the landscape outside looked like it was covered with spiders’ eggs: Tiny hailstones melting as quickly as they fell.
    ‘Liat-cha,’ Maati said.
    She turned, trying to pull the shutters closed and take a pose of apology at the same time, and managing neither.
    ‘No, I’m sorry,’ Maati said. ‘I should have kept closer watch on him. But he’s never tried to get out of his bed, much less leave the house.’
    ‘Is he resting now?’
    ‘Something like it. He’s gone to bed at least. Seedless . . . you know about Seedless’ box?’
    ‘I’d heard rumor,’ Liat said.
    Maati took a pose of confirmation and looked back over his shoulder, his expression troubled and weary. His brown poet’s robes were still dripping at the sleeves.
    ‘I’ll go downstairs,’ she said.
    ‘Why?’
    ‘I thought you’d want some privacy to change,’ she said slowly, and was rewarded by a fierce blush as Maati took a pose of understanding.
    ‘I’d forgotten . . . I didn’t even notice they were wet. Yes, of course, Liat-cha. I’ll only be a moment.’
    She smiled and slapped his shoulder as she’d seen Itani’s cohort do. The gesture felt surprisingly natural to her.
    ‘I think we’re past calling each other cha ,’ she said.
    He joined her quickly, changed into a robe of identical brown. They sat in the main room, candles lit to dispel the gloom of the weather. He sat across from her on a low wooden divan. His face was calm, but worn and tight about the mouth, even when he smiled. The strain of his master’s collapse was written on his brow.
    ‘Have you . . . have you heard from him?’ Maati asked.
    ‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s too early. He won’t have reached Yalakeht by now. Soon, but not yet. And then it would take as many weeks as he’s been gone to get a message back to us.’
    Maati took a pose of understanding, but impatience showed in it. She responded with a pose that asked after Maati’s well-being. In another context, it would have been a formal nicety. Here, it seemed sincere.
    ‘I’ll be fine,’ he said. ‘It’s only difficult not knowing what to do. When Otah-kvo comes back, everything will be all right . ’
    ‘Will it?’ Liat said, looking into the candle flame. ‘I hope you’re right.’
    ‘Of course it will. The Dai-kvo knows more than any of us how to proceed. He’ll pass it to Otah-kvo, and we’ll . . .’
    The voice with its forced optimism faded. Liat looked back. Maati was sitting forward, rubbing his eyes with his fingers like an old, weary man.
    ‘We’ll do whatever the Dai-kvo tells us,’ Liat finished.
    Maati took a rueful pose of agreement. A gust of wind rattled the great shuttered walls, and Liat pulled her robe tight around her, as if to protect herself from cold, though the room was perfectly warm.
    ‘And you?’ Maati asked. ‘Are things