The day of the grand audience came gray and wet. After the ceremonies at the temple, Liat and Marchat Wilsin had to wait their turn to leave, the families of the utkhaiem all taking precedence. Even the firekeepers, lowest of the utkhaiem, outranked a merchant here and at the grand audience. Epani-cha brought them fresh bread and fruit while they waited and directed Liat toward a private room where several women were taking advantage of the delay to relieve themselves.
The morning rain had not stopped, but it had slackened. The sun had not appeared, but the clouds above them had lost their brooding gray for a white that promised blue skies by nightfall. And heat. The canopy bearers met them in their turn and House Wilsin took its place in the parade to the palace of the grand audience.
There were no walls, precisely. The canopies fell behind as they reached the first arches, and walked, it seemed to Liat, into a wide forest of marble columns. The ceiling was so far above them and so light, it seemed hard to believe that they were sheltered - that the pillars held up stone instead of the white bowl of the cloudy sky. The hall of the grand audience was built to seem like a clearing in the stone forest. The Khai sat alone on a great divan of carved blackwood, calm and austere - his counselors and servants would not join him until after the audience proper had begun. Now, he alone commanded the open space before him. The utkhaiem surrounding the presentation floor like the audience at a performance spoke to each other in the lowest voices. Wilsin-cha seemed to know just where they should be, and steered her gently to a bench among other traders.
"Liat," he said as they sat. "Trade is hard sometimes. I mean, the things you're called on to do. They aren't always what you'd wish."
"I understand that, Wilsin-cha," she said, adopting an air of confidence she only partly felt. "But this is a thing I can do."
For a moment, he seemed on the verge of speaking again. Then a flute trilled, and a trumpet sounded, and the procession of gifts began. Each family of the utkhaiem in attendance had brought some token, as custom required. And following them, each trading house or foreign guest. Servants in the colors of their family or house stepped as carefully as dancers, carrying chests and tapestries, gilded fruits and bolts of fine silk, curiosities and wonders. The Khai Saraykeht considered each offering in turn, accepting them with a formal pose of recognition. She could feel Marchat Wilsin shift beside her as the bearers of his house stepped into the clearing. Four men bore a tapestry worked with a map of the cities of the Khaiem done in silver thread. Each man held one corner, pulling the cloth tight, and they stepped slowly and in perfect unison, grave as mourners.
Three of them grave as mourners. The fourth, while he kept pace with his fellows, kept casting furtive glances at the crowd. His head shifted subtly back and forth, as if he were searching for someone or something. Liat heard an amused murmur, the men and women of the audience enjoying the spectacle, and her heart sank.
The fourth man was Itani.
Marchat Wilsin must have noticed some reaction in her, because he glanced over, his expression puzzled and alarmed. Liat held her countenance empty, vacant. She felt a blush growing and willed it to be faint. The four men reached the Khai, the two in front kneeling to provide a better view of the work. Itani, at the rear, seemed to realize where he was and straightened. The Khai betrayed no sense of amusement or disapproval, only recognized the gift and sent it on its way. Itani and the other three moved off as the bearers of House Kiitan came forward. Liat shifted toward her employer.
"Wilsin-cha. If there's a private room. For women ..."
"Being anxious does the same to me," he said. "Epani will show you. Just be back before the Khai brings in his wise men. At the rate this is going, you've probably got half a hand, but don't test that."
Liat took a pose of gratitude, rose, and wove her way to the rear of the assembly. She didn't look for Epani. Itani was waiting there for her. She gestured with her eyes to a column, and he followed her behind it.
"What do you think you're doing?" she demanded when they were out of sight. "You avoid me for days, and then you ... you do this?"
"I know the man who was supposed to be the fourth bearer," Itani said, taking a pose of apology. "He let me take his place. I didn't intend to avoid you. I only ... I was angry, sweet. And I didn't want that to get in your way. Not with this before you."
"And this is how you don't come in my way?"
He smiled. His mouth had a way of being disarming.
"This is how I say I'm at your back," he said. "I know you can do this. It's no more than a negotiation, and if Amat Kyaan and Wilsin-cha chose you - if they believe in you - then my faith may not signify anything much. But you have it. And I didn't want you going to your audience without knowing that. I know you can do this."
Her hand strayed to his without her realizing that it had. She only noticed when he raised it to his lips.
"'Tani, you pick the worst time to say the sweetest things."
The music of the flute changed its rhythm and Liat turned, pulling her hand free. The audience proper was about to begin - the counselors and servants about to rejoin the Khai. Itani stepped back, taking a pose of encouragement. His gaze was on her, his mouth tipped in a smile. His fingernails - gods, his fingernails were still dye-stained.
"I'll be waiting," he said, and she turned back, moving through the seated men and women as quickly as she could without appearing to run. She sat at Wilsin-cha's side just as the two poets and the andat knelt before the Khai and took their places, the last of the counselors to arrive.
"You're just in time," Wilsin-cha said. "Are you well?"
Well? I'm perfect, she thought. She imagined Amat Kyaan's respectful, assured expression and arranged her features to match it.
MAATI SAT on a cushion of velvet, shifting now and then in an attempt to keep his legs from falling asleep. It wasn't working as well as he'd hoped. The Khai Saraykeht sat off to Maati's left on a blackwood divan. Heshai-kvo and Seedless sat somewhat nearer, and if the Khai couldn't see his discomfort, they certainly could. In the clear space before them, one petitioner after another came before the Khai and made a plea.
The worst had been a man from the Westlands demonstrating with a cart the size of a dog that carried a small fire that boiled water. Steam from the boiling water set the cart's wheels in motion, and it had careened off into the crowd, its master chasing after it. The utkhaiem had laughed as the man warned that the Galts were creating larger models that they used as war machines. Whole wards had been overrun in less than a month's time, he said.
The Khai's phrase had been "an army of teapots." Only Heshai-kvo, Maati noticed, hadn't joined in the laughter. Not because he took the ridiculous man seriously, he thought, but because it pained him to see a man embarrass himself. The fine points of Galtic war strategies were of no consequence to the Khaiem. So long as the andat protected them, the wars of other nations were a curiosity, like the bones of ancient monsters.
The most interesting was the second son the Khai Udun. He held the court enraptured with his description of how his younger brother had attempted to poison him and their elder brother. The grisly detail of his elder brother's death had Maati almost in tears, and the Khai Saraykeht had responded with a moving speech - easily four times as long as any other pronouncement he had made in the day - that poisons were not the weapons of the Khaiem, and that the powers of Saraykeht would come to the aid of justice in tracking down the killer.
"Well," Seedless said as the crowd rose to its feet, cheering. "That settles which of Old Udun's sons will be warming his chair once he's gone. You'd almost think no one in our Most High Saraykeht's ancestry had offered his brother a cup of bad wine."
Maati looked over at Heshai-kvo, expecting the poet to defend the Khai Saraykeht. But the poet only watched the son of the Khai Udun prostrate himself before the black-wood divan.
"It's all theater," Seedless went on, speaking softly enough that no one could hear him but Maati and Heshai. "Don't forget that. This is no more than a long, drawn out epic that no one composed, no one oversees, and no one plans. It's why they keep falling back on fratricide. There's precedent - everyone knows more or less what to expect. And they like to pretend that one of the old Khai's sons is better than another."
"Be quiet," Heshai-kvo said, and the andat took a pose of apology but smirked at Maati as soon as Heshai-kvo turned away. The poet had had little to say. His demeanor had been grim from when they had first left the poet's house that morning in the downpour. As the ceremonies moved on, his face seemed to grow more severe.
Two firekeepers stood before the Khai to argue a fine point of city law, and the Khai commanded an ancient woman named Niania Tosogu, his court historian, to pass judgment. The old woman yammered for a time in a broken voice, retelling old stories of the summer cities that dated back to the first days of the Khaiate when the Empire had hardly fallen. Then without seeming to tie her stories in with the situation before her, she made an order that appeared to please no one. As the firekeepers sat, an old Galt in robes of green and bronze came forward. A girl Maati's own age or perhaps a year more stood at his side. Her robes matched the old Galt's, but where his demeanor seemed deeply respectful, the girl's face and manner verged on haughty. Even as she took a pose of obeisance, her chin was lifted high, an eyebrow arched.
"Ah, now she's a lousy actress," Seedless murmured.
Beside him, Heshai-kvo ignored the comment and sat forward, his eyes on the pair. Seedless leaned back, his attention as much on Heshai-kvo as the pair who stood before the Khai.
"Marchat Wilsin," the Khai Saraykeht said, his voice carrying through the space as if he were an actor on a stage. "I have read your petition. House Wilsin has never entered the sad trade before."
"There are hard times in Galt, most high," the Galt said. He took a pose that, though formal, had the nuance of a beggar at the end of a street performance. "We have so many teapots to construct."
A ripple of laughter passed over the crowd, and the Khai took a pose acknowledging the jest. Heshai-kvo's frown deepened.
"Who will represent your house in the negotiation?" the Khai asked.
"I will, most high," the girl said, stepping forward. "I am Liat Chokavi, assistant to Amat Kyaan. While she is away, she has asked that I oversee this trade."
"And is the woman you represent here as well?"
The old Galt looked uncomfortable at the question, but did not hesitate to answer.
"She is, most high. Her grasp of the Khaiate tongue is very thin, but we have a translator for her if you wish to speak with her."
"I do," the Khai said. Maati's gaze shifted back to the crowd where a young woman in silk robes walked forward on the arm of a pleasant, round-faced man in the simple, dark robes of a servant. The woman's eyes were incredibly pale, her skin terribly white. Her robes were cut to hide her bulging belly. Beside him, Heshai tensed, sitting forward with a complex expression.
The woman reached the Galt and his girl overseer, smiling and nodding to them at her translator's prompting.
"You come before my court to ask my assistance," the Khai intoned.
The woman's face turned toward him like a child seeing fire. She seemed to Maati to be entranced. Her translator murmured to her. She glanced at him, no more than a flicker and then her eyes returned to the Khai. She answered the man at her side.
"Most high," the translator said. "My lady presents herself as Maj of Toniabi of Nippu and thanks you for the gift of this audience and your assistance in this hour of her distress."
"And you accept House Wilsin as your representative before me?" the Khai said, as if the woman had spoken herself.
Again the whispered conference, again the tiny shift of gaze to the translator and back to the Khai. She spoke softly, Maati could hardly make out the sounds, but her voice was somehow musical and fluid.
"She does, most high," the translator said.
"This is acceptable," the Khai said. "I accept the offered price, and I grant Liat Chokavi an audience with the poet Heshai to arrange the details."
Man and girl took a pose of gratitude and the four of them faded back into the crowd. Heshai let out a long, low, hissing sigh. Seedless steepled his fingers and pressed them to his lips. There was a smile behind them.
"Well," Heshai-kvo said. "There's no avoiding it now. I'd hoped ..."
The poet took a dismissive pose, as if waving away dreams or lost possibilities. Maati shifted again on his cushion, his left leg numb from sitting. The audiences went on for another hand and a half, one small matter after another, until the Khai rose, took a pose that formally ended all audience, and with the flute and drum playing the traditional song, the leader and voice of the city strode out. The counselors followed him, Maati following Heshai's lead, though the poet seemed only half interested in the proceedings. Together, the three walked past the forest of pillars to a great oaken door, and through it to a lesser hall formed, it seemed, as the hub of a hundred corridors and stairways. A quartet of slaves sang gentle harmony in an upper gallery, their voices sorrowful and lovely. Heshai sat on a low bench, studying the air before him. Seedless stood several paces away, his arms crossed, and still as a statue. The sense of despair was palpable.
Maati walked slowly to his teacher. The poet's gaze flickered up to him and then away. Maati took a pose that asked forgiveness even before he spoke.
"I don't understand, Heshai-kvo. There must be a way to refuse the trade. If the Dai-kvo ..."
"If the Dai-kvo starts overseeing the small work of the Khaiem, let's call him Emperor and be done with it," Heshai-kvo said. "And then in a generation or so we'll see how well he's done training new poets. We're degenerate enough without asking for incompetence as well. No, the Dai-kvo won't step in over something like this."
Maati knelt. Members of the utkhaiem began to come through the hall, some conferring over scrolls and stacks of paper.
"You could refuse."
"And what would they say of me then?" Heshai managed a wan smile. "No, it's nothing, Maati-kya. It's an old man being stupidly nostalgic. This is an unpleasant thing, I'll admit that. But it is what I do."
"Killing superfluous children out of rich women," Seedless said, his voice as impudent, but with an edge to it Maati hadn't heard before. "Just part of the day's work, isn't it?"
Heshai looked up, anger in his expression. His hands balled into thick fists and fierce concentration furrowed his brow. Maati heard Seedless fall even before he turned to look. The andat was prone, his hands splayed before him in a pose of abject apology so profound that Maati knew the andat would never take it of his own will. Heshai's lips quivered.
"It's something that ... I've done before," he said, his voice tight. "It isn't something anyone wishes for. Not the woman, not anyone. The sad trade earns its name every time it's made."
"Heshai-cha?" a woman's voice said.
She stood beside the prostrate andat, her haughty demeanor shaken by the odd scene. Maati stood, falling into a pose of welcome. Heshai released his hold on Seedless, allowing the andat to rise. Seedless shook imagined dust off his robes, fixing the poet with a look of arch reproach, before turning to the woman.
"Liat Chokavi," the andat said, his perfect hands touching her wrist, intimate as old friends. "We're so pleased to see you. Aren't we, Heshai?"
"Delighted," the poet snapped. "Nothing quite like being handed to a half-tutored apprentice to keep me in my place."
The shock in the girl's face was subtle, there only for an instant. Her self-assured mask slipped, her eyes widening a fraction, her mouth hardening. And then she was as she had been before. But Maati knew, or thought he knew, how hard Heshai's blow had struck, and against someone who had done nothing but be an opportune target.
Heshai rose and took a pose appropriate to opening a negotiation, but with a stony formality that continued the insult. Maati found himself suddenly ashamed of his teacher.
"The meeting room's this way," Heshai said, then turned and trundled off. Seedless strode behind him, leaving Liat Chokavi and Maati to follow as they could.
"I'm sorry," Maati said quietly. "The sad trade bothers him. You didn't do anything wrong."
Liat shot a glance at him that began with distrust, then as she saw distress on his face, softened. She took a pose of gratitude, small and informal.
The meeting room was spare and uncomfortably warm. A single small window stood shuttered until Heshai pushed it open. He sat at the low stone table and motioned Liat to sit across from him. She moved awkwardly, but took her place, plucking a packet of papers from her sleeve. Seedless stood at the window, looking down at the poet with a predatory smirk as Heshai drew the papers to him and looked them over.
"May I be of service, Heshai-kvo?" Maati asked.
"Get us some tea," the poet said, looking at the papers. Maati looked first to the girl, and then back to Heshai. Seedless, seeing his reluctance, frowned. Then comprehension bloomed in the andat's black eyes. The perfect hands took a pose that asked permission for something - though Maati didn't know what, and Seedless dropped the pose before leave could be given.
"Heshai, my dear, you have a better student than you deserve. I think he doesn't want to leave you alone," Seedless smirked. "He thinks you'll go on bullying this fine young lady. If it were me, you understand, I'd be quite pleased to watch you make an ass of yourself, but ..."
Heshai shifted, and the andat shuddered in pain or something like it. Seedless' hands shifted again into a pose of apology. Maati saw, however, the scowl on the poet's face. Seedless had shamed his master into behaving kindly to the girl. At least for a time.
"Some tea, Maati. And for our guest as well," Heshai said, gesturing to Liat.
Maati took a pose of acceptance. He caught Seedless's dark eyes as he left and nodded thanks. The andat answered with the smallest of all possible smiles.
The corridors of the hall were full of men and women: traders, utkhaiem, servants, slaves, and guards. Maati strode out, looking for a palace servant. He followed the path he knew to the main hall, impatient to return to the negotiation. The main hall was as full as the corridors, or worse. Conversations filled the space as thick as smoke. He caught a glimpse of the pale yellow robe of a palace servant moving toward the main door and made for it as quickly as he could.
Halfway to the main door, he brushed against a young man. He wore the same green and bronze colors that Liat Chokavi and Marchat Wilsin had, but his hands were stained and callused, his shoulders those of a laborer. Thinking that he could pass his errand off to this man, Maati stopped and grabbed the man's arm. The long face looked familiar, but it wasn't until he spoke that the blood rushed from Maati's face.
"Forgive me," the laborer said, taking a pose of apology. "I know I'm supposed to wait outside, but I was hoping Liat Chokavi ..."
His voice trailed off, made uneasy by what he saw in Maati's eyes.
"Otah-kvo?" Maati breathed.
A moment of shocked silence, and then the laborer clapped a hand over Maati's mouth and drew him quickly into a side corridor.
"Say nothing," Otah said. "Nothing."