There must have been something in his tone—a certain gravity, perhaps—that reassured the overseer, because Epani dropped into a pose of acknowledgment and scurried out with a sense of relief that was almost palpable. Marchat followed him far enough to find a servant who could fetch him some mulled wine, then returned to his desk and prepared himself. The tiny flask in the thin drawer at his knee was made of silver, the stopper sealed with green wax. When he shook it, it clinked like some little piece of metal was hidden in it, and not a liquid at all. It was a distillation of the same drugs comfort houses in the soft quarter used to make exotic wines. But it was, of course, much too potent. This thimbleful in his palm was enough to make a man sleep forever. He closed his fingers over it.
This wasn't how he'd wanted it. But it would do.
He put the flask back in its place as Epani-cha arrived, paper and inkblock and fresh pens in his hands. Marchat thanked him and sent him away, then turned to the blank page.
I am Marchat Wilsin of House Wilsin of Galt, he began, then scraped his pen tip over the ink. I write this to confess my crimes and to explain them. I and I alone . . .
He paused. I and I alone. It was what he could do, of course. He could eat the sin and save those less innocent than himself from punishment. He might save Galt from the wrath of the Khaiem. For the first time since he'd read Epani's scratched, fear-filled words, Marchat felt a pang of sorrow. It was a bad time, this, to be alone.
The servant arrived with his wine, and Marchat drank it slowly, looking at the few words he'd written. He'd invented the whole tale, of course. How he'd hoped to shift the balance of trade away from Saraykeht and so end his exile. How he had fed himself on foolish hopes and dreams and let his own evil nature carry him away. Then he'd apologize to the Khai for his sins, confess his cowardice, and commend his fortune to the island girl Maj who he had wronged and to Amat Kyaan whose loyalty to him had led her to suspect those in Galt who could command him, since she would not believe the sickness of the plan to be his own.
The last part was, he thought, a nice touch. Recasting Amat as a woman so loyal to him, so in love with him, that she didn't see the truth clearly. He felt sure she'd appreciate the irony.
I and I alone.
He took the barely-started confession, blew on it to cure the ink, and set it aside for a time. There was no hurry. Any time in the next six days would suit as well perhaps more if the Khai let him stall Amat and cheat the world out of a few more sunsets. And there were other letters to write. Something to the family back in Galt, for instance. An apology to the High Council for his evil plans that the utkhaiem might intercept. Or something more personal. Something, perhaps, real.
He drew his pen across the ink, and set the metal nib to a fresh sheet.
Amat, my dear old friend. You see what I'm like? Even now, at this last stop on the trail, I'm too much the coward to use the right words. Amat, my love. Amat, who I never did tell my heart to for fear she'd laugh or, worse, be polite. Who ever would have thought we'd come to this?
OTAH WOKE late in the afternoon from a heavy, troubled sleep. The room was empty—the inhabitants of the other bunks having gone their ways. The brazier was cool, but the sun glowed against a window covering of thin-stretched leather. He gathered his things from the narrow space between himself and the wall where someone would have had to reach over his sleeping body to steal them. Even so he checked. What money he'd had before, he had now. He dressed slowly, waiting for half-remembered dreams to dissolve and fade. There had been something about a flood, and feral dogs drowning in it.
The streets of the seafront were busy, even in winter. Ships arrived and departed by the spare handful, heading mostly south for other warm ports. The journey to Yalakeht would have been profoundly unpleasant, even now. At one of the tall, thin tables by the wharves, he bought a small sack of baked apple slices covered in butter and black sugar, tossing it from one hand to the other as the heat slapped his palms. He thought of Orai in Machi and the deep-biting cold of the far north. It would, he thought, make apples taste even better.
The scandal in every teahouse, around every firekeeper's kiln, on the corners and in the streets, was the petition of Amat Kyaan to speak before the Khai. The petition to speak against House Wilsin. Otah listened and smiled his charming smile without ever once meaning it. She was going to disclose how the house had been evading taxes, one version said. Another had it that the sad trade that had gone wrong was more than just the work of the andat—a rival house had arranged it to discredit Wilsin, and Amat was now continuing the vendetta still in the pay of some unknown villain. Another that Amat would show that the island girl's child had truly been Marchat Wilsin's. Or the Khai Saraykeht's. Or the get of some other Khai killed so that the Khaiem wouldn't have to suffer the possibility of a half-Nippu poet.