A Shadow In Summer(28)

"But he's the Khai."

Heshaikvo took a dismissive pose and turned his back to Maati and the andat. Seedless plucked Maati's robe and motioned him to lean nearer. Keeping his eyes on the path and the poet before them, Maati did.

"He asked the Khai to refuse a contract," Seedless whispered. "The Khai laughed at him and told him not to be such a child. Heshai had been planning his petition for days, and he wasn't even allowed to present the whole argument. I wish you'd been there. It was really a lovely moment. But I suppose that's why the old cow didn't tell you about it. He doesn't seem to enjoy having his student present when he's humiliated. I imagine he'll be getting quite drunk tonight."

"What contract?"

"House Wilsin is acting as agent for the sad trade."

"Sad trade?"

"Using us to pluck a child out of a womb," Seedless said. "It's safer than teas, and it can be done nearer to the end of the woman's term. And, to the Khai Saraykeht's great pleasure, it's expensive."

"Gods. And we do that?"

Seedless took a pose that implied the appreciation of a joke or irony. "We do what we are told, my dear. You and I are the puppets of puppets."

"If the two of you could be put upon not to talk behind my back quite so loudly," Heshai snapped, "I would very much appreciate it."

Maati fell instantly to a pose of apology, but the poet didn't turn to see it. After a few steps, Maati let his hands fall to his sides. Seedless said nothing, but raised a hand to his mouth and took a bite of something dark. A plum. Maati checked his sleeve, and indeed, it was empty. He took a pose that was both query and accusation—How? The andat smiled; his perfect, pale face lit with mischief and perhaps something else.

"I'm clever," the andat said, and tossed the bitten fruit to him.

At the low palaces, a young man in the yellow and silver robes of House Tiyan greeted them and allowed himself to be led to a meeting room. They sat at a black-stained wooden table drinking cool water and eating fresh dates, the stones removed for them by the andat. Maati followed the negotiations with half his attention, his mind turning instead upon the dreadful anger and pain shallowly buried in his teacher's voice and the echo of tacit pleasure in the andat's. It seemed to him that the two emotions were balanced; that Heshaikvo would never smile without some pang of discontent in Seedless's heart, that the andat could only shine ecstatic if the poet were in despair. He imagined himself taking control of the andat, entering into that lifelong intimate struggle, and unease picked at him.

THE ONLY reason Ovi Niit's house had survived the gross incompetence of its bookkeepers was the scale of the money that came through the place. It was a constant stream of copper, silver, and gold that had shocked her. Would still have shocked her now if she hadn't been so damned tired. She had never known anyone except for her sister who gave themselves into sexual indenture, and by then they hadn't been speaking to each other. The cost of a whore was higher than she'd expected, and the compensation for the employee was a pittance. And that, she came to see, was only the beginning.

Overall, gamblers lost at the tables, and in addition, they paid a fee for the privilege. The wine was cheap, and the drugs added to it only slightly more expensive. The price the house charged for the combination was exorbitant. Amat suspected that if the sex were given away for free, the house would still turn a profit. It was amazing.

She took her cane from where it leaned against the desk and pulled herself up. Once she was sure of herself, she took the sheet with her estimates, folded it, and tucked it in her sleeve. There was no call, she thought, leaving it about until she'd spoken with Ovi Niit. And, for all that she thought it useless, it would suffice to answer the question she expected from him. She walked to the door and out to the common room.

The place was filthy. Children and dogs rolled together on a floor that apparently hadn't been swept in living memory. Off-shift whores sat at the tables smoking and gossiping and picking tics out of each other's flesh. On the east wall was a long alcove where women disfigured by illness or violence or age fashioned obscene implements from leather and cloth. Kirath couldn't have known how bad this house was. Or else he had been more desperate to be rid of her than she'd guessed. Or cared less for her than she'd imagined.

One of Niitcha's thugs sat on the stairs that led up to the private quarters where the owner of the house kept himself. All eyes shifted to her as she limped over to him. The fat girl sitting nearest the iron-bound door to the front house said something to the man beside her and giggled. A redhaired woman—Westlands blood, or Galtic—raised her pale eyebrows and looked away. A boy of five or six summers—another whore—looked up at her and smiled. The smile was enough. She roughed the boy's hair and walked with what dignity she could muster to the guard.