A Shadow In Summer(2)

"It's too hot in this pisshole of a city," Wilsincha growled as she entered the room. He lay half-submerged in the pool, the water lapping at his white, wooly chest. He had been a thinner man when she had first met him. His hair and beard had been dark. "It's like someone holding a hot towel over your face."

"Only in the summer," Amat said and she laid her cane beside the water and carefully slipped in. The ripples rocked the floating lacquer tray with its bowls of tea, but didn't spill it. "If it was any further north, you'd spend all winter complaining about how cold it was."

"It'd be a change of pace, at least."

He lifted a pink and wrinkled hand from the water and pushed the tray over toward her. The tea was fresh and seasoned with mint. The water was cool. Amat lay back against the tiled lip of the pool.

"So what's the news?" Marchat asked, bringing their morning ritual to a close.

Amat made her report. Things were going fairly well. The shipment of raw cotton from Eddensea was in and being unloaded. The contracts with the weavers were nearly complete, though there were some ambiguities of translation from Galtic into the Khaiate that still troubled her. And worse, the harvest of the northern fields was late.

"Will they be here in time to go in front of the andat?"

Amat took another sip of tea before answering.

"No."

Marchat cursed under his breath. "Eddensea can ship us a season's bales, but we can't get our own plants picked?"

"Apparently not."

"How short does it leave us?"

"Our space will be nine-tenths full."

Marchat scowled and stared at the air, seeing imagined numbers, reading the emptiness like a book. After a moment, he sighed.

"Is there any chance of speaking with the Khai on it? Renegotiating our terms?"

"None," Amat said.

Marchat made an impatient noise in the back of his throat.

"This is why I hate dealing with you people. In Eymond or Bakta, there'd be room to talk at least."

"Because you'd have soldiers sitting outside the wall," Amat said, dryly.

"Exactly. And then they'd find room to talk. See if one of the other houses is overstocked," he said.

"Chadhami is. But Tiyan and Yaanani are in competition for a contract with a Western lord. If one could move more swiftly than the other, it might seal the issue. We could charge them for the earlier session with the andat, and then take part of their space later when our crop comes in."

Marchat considered this. They negotiated the house's strategy for some time. Which little alliance to make, and how it could most profitably be broken later, should the need arise.

Amat knew more than she said, of course. That was her job—to hold everything about the company clear in her mind, present her employer with what he needed to know, and deal herself with the things beneath his notice. The center of it all, of course, was the cotton trade. The complex web of relationships—weavers and dyers and sailmakers; shipping companies, farming houses, alum miners—that made Saraykeht one of the richest cities in the world. And, as with all the cities of the Khaiem, free from threat of war, unlike Galt and Eddensea and Bakta; the Westlands and the Eastern Islands. They were protected by their poets and the powers they wielded, and that protection allowed conferences like this one, allowed them to play the deadly serious game of trade and barter.

Once their decisions had been made and the details agreed upon, Amat arranged a time to bring the proposals by the compound. Doing business from a bathhouse was an affectation Wilsincha could only take so far, and dripping water on freshly-inked contracts was where she drew the line. She knew he understood that. As she rose, prepared to face the remainder of her day, he held up a hand to stop her.

"There's one other thing," he said. She lowered herself back into the water. "I need a bodyguard this evening just before the half candle. Nothing serious, just someone to help keep the dogs off."

Amat tilted her head. His voice was calm, its tone normal, but he wasn't meeting her eyes. She held up her hands in a pose of query.

"I have a meeting," he said, "in one of the low towns."

"Company business?" Amat asked, keeping her voice neutral.

He nodded.

"I see," she said. Then, after a moment, "I'll be at the compound at the half candle, then."

"No. Amat, I need some house thug to swat off animals and make bandits think twice. What's a woman with a cane going to do for me?"

"I'll bring a bodyguard with me."

"Just send him to me," Wilsin said with a final air. "I'll take care of it from there."

"As you see fit. And when did the company begin conducting trade without me?"