A Shadow In Summer(35)

Maati blushed and looked away. In the corridor, someone laughed. It was unnerving. He'd spent so little time with this boy whom he hardly knew, and he'd almost forgotten where they were, and that there were people all around them.

"I asked Naani-kvo about you," Maati said. "He took it poorly. I had to wash the floors in the main hall for a week. But then I asked him again. It was the same. In the end . . . in the end, there was a night when I cleaned the floors without being told. Milahkvo asked me what I was doing, and I explained that I was going to ask again in the morning, so I wanted to have some of the work done beforehand. He asked me if I was so in love with washing stones. Then he offered me the robes."

"And you took them."

"Of course," Maati said.

They were silent for a long moment, and Otah saw the life he'd turned away. And thought, perhaps, he saw regret in the boy's face. Or if not that, at least doubt.

"You can't tell anyone about me," Otah said.

"I won't. I swear I won't."

Otah took a pose that witnessed an oath, and Maati responded in kind. They both started when someone rattled the door.

"Who's in there?" a man's voice demanded. "We're scheduled for this room."

"I should go," Maati said. "I'm missing my negotiation with . . . Liat. You said you were waiting for Liat Chokavi, didn't you?"

"Unlatch the door!" the voice outside the door insisted. "This is our room."

"She's my lover," Otah said, standing. "Come on. We should leave before they go for the Khai."

The men outside the door wore the flowing robes and expensive sandals of the utkhaiem, and the disgust and anger on their faces when Otah—a mere laborer, and for a Galtic house at that—opened the door faded to impatience when they saw Maati in his poet's robes. Otah and Maati walked out to the main hall together.

"Otahkvo," Maati said as they reached the still-bustling space.

"Itani."

Maati took a pose of apology that seemed genuinely mortified. "Itani. I . . . there are things I would like to discuss with you, and we . . ."

"I'll find you," Otah promised. "But say nothing of this. Not to anyone. Especially not to the poet."

"No one."

"I'll find you. Now go."

Maati took a pose of farewell more formal than any poet had ever offered a laborer, and, reluctance showing in every movement, walked away. Otah saw an older woman in the robes of the utkhaiem considering him, her expression curious. He took a pose of obeisance toward her, turned, and walked out. The rain was breaking now, sunlight pressing down like a hand on his shoulder. The other servants who had borne gifts or poles for the canopy waited now in a garden set aside for them. Epani-cha, house master for Marchat Wilsin, sat with them, laughing and smiling. The formal hurdles of the day were cleared, and the men were light hearted. Tuui Anagath, an older man who had known Otah since almost before he had become Itani, for almost his whole false life, took a pose of welcome.

"Did you hear?" he asked as Otah drew close.

"Hear what? No."

"The Khai is inviting a crew to hunt down Udun's son, the poisoner. Half the utkhaiem are vying to join it. They'll be on the little bastard like lice on a low town whore."

Otah took a pose of delight because he knew it was expected of him, then sat under a tree laden with tiny sweet-scented ornamental pears and listened. They were chattering with the prospect, all of them. These were men he knew, men he worked with. Men he trusted, some of them, though none so far as to tell them the truth. No one that far. They spoke of the death of the Khai Udun's son like a pit fight. They didn't care that the boy had been born into it. Otah knew that they couldn't see the injustice. For men born low, eking out lengths of copper to buy tea and soup and sour-bread, the Khaiem were to be envied, not pitied and not loved. They would each of them go back to quarters shared with other men or else tiny apartments bearing with them the memory of the sprawling palaces, the sweet garden, the songs of slaves. There was no room in their minds for sympathy for the families of wealth and power. For men, Otah thought sourly, like himself.

"Eh?" Epani-cha said, prodding Otah with the toe of his shoe. "What did you swallow, Itani? You look sorry."

Otah forced a smile and laughed. He was good at that smiling and laughing. Being charming. He took a loose pose of apology.

"Am I lowering the tone?" he asked. "I just got thrown out of the palace. That's all."

"Thrown out?" Tuui Anagath asked, and the others turned, suddenly interested.

"I was just there, minding myself and—"

"And sniffing after Liat," one of the others laughed.