A Shadow In Summer(125)

"Someone might still. One of the other Khaiem."

"If you thought that was true, you'd have me killed."

Wilsin's face clouded, something like pain in the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. Something like sorrow.

"I wouldn't enjoy it," he said at last.

Despite the truth of it, Amat laughed. Or perhaps because of it.

"Is Liat Chokavi still with you?" Marchat asked, then took a pose that offered reassurance. "It's just that I have a box of her things. Mostly her things. Some others may have found their way into it. I won't call it apology, but . . ."

"Unfortunately, no," Amat said. "I offered her a place. The gods all know I could use competent help keeping my books. But she's left with the poet boy. It seems they're heartmates."

Marchat chuckled.

"Oh, that'll end well," he said with surprisingly gentle sarcasm.

"Tell Epani to bring us a pot of tea," Amat said. "He can at least do something useful. Then there's business we need to talk through."

Marchat did as she asked, and minutes later, she cupped a small, lovely tea bowl in her hands, blowing across the steaming surface. Marchat poured a bowl for himself, but didn't drink it. Instead, he folded his hands together and rested his great, whiskered chin in them. The silence wasn't a ploy on his part; she could see that. He didn't know what to say. It made the game hers to start.

"There's something I want of you," she said.

"I'll do what I can," he said.

"The warehouses on the Nantan. I want to rent them from House Wilsin."

He leaned back now, his head tilted like a dog hearing an unfamiliar sound. He took an interrogatory pose. Amat sipped her tea, but it was still too hot. She put the bowl on the table.

"With the andat lost, I'm gathering investment in a combers hall. I've found ten men who worked as combers when Petals-Falling-Open was still the andat in Saraykeht. They're willing to act as foremen. The initial outlay and the first contracts are difficult. I have people who might be willing to invest if I can find space. They're worried that my relationship with my last employer ended poorly. Rent me the space, and I can address both issues at once."

"But, Amat . . ."

"I lost," she said. "I know it. You know it. I did what I could do, and it got past me. Now I can either press the suit forward despite it all, raise what suspicions against Galt I can in the quarters who will listen to me at the cost of what credibility I have left, or else I can do this. Recreate myself as a legitimate business, organize the city, bind the wounds that can be bound. Forge connections between people who think they're rivals. But I can't do both. I can't have people saying I'm an old woman frightened of shadows while I'm trying to make weavers and rope-makers who've been undercutting each other for the last three generations shake hands."

Marchat Wilsin's eyebrows rose. She watched him consider her. The guilt and horror, the betrayals and threats fell away for a moment, and they were the players in the game of get and give that they had been at their best. It made Amat's heart feel bruised, but she kept it out of her face as he kept his feelings from his. The lantern flame spat, shuddered, and stood back to true.

"It won't work," he said at last. "They'll hold to all their traditional prejudices and alliances. They'll find ways to bite each other while they're shaking hands. Making them all feel loyal to each other and to the city? In the Westlands or Galt or the islands, you might have a chance. But among the Khaiem? It's doomed."

"I'll accept failure when I've failed," Amat said.

"Just remember I warned you. What's your offer for the warehouses?"

"Sixty lengths of silver a year and five hundredths of the profit."

"That's insultingly low, and you know it."

"You haven't figured in that it will keep me from telling the world what the Galtic Council attempted in allying with Seedless against his poet. That by itself is a fair price, but we should keep up appearances, don't you think?"

He thought about it. The tiny upturn of his lips, the barest of smiles, told her what she wanted to know.

"And you really think you can make a going project of this? Combing raw cotton for its seeds isn't a pleasant job."

"I have a steady stream of women looking to retire from one less pleasant than that," she said. "I think the two concerns will work quite nicely together."

"And if I agree to this," Marchat said, his voice suddenly softer, the game suddenly sliding out from its deep-worn track, "does that mean you'll forgive me?"

"I think we're past things like forgiveness," she said. "We're the servants of what we have to do. That's all."