A Shadow In Summer(58)

"No. The real truth. Who sent those pearls? And don't tell me the spirit conjured them out of the sea."

"Who knows?" Marchat said. "Oshai told us they were from Nippu, from the girl's family. We had no reason to think otherwise."

Amat slapped the water. She felt the rage pulling her brow together. Marchat met her anger with his. His pale face flushed red, his chin slid forward belligerently like a boy in a play yard.

"I am saving you," he said. "And I am saving the house. I am doing everything I can to kill this thing and bury it, and by all the gods, Amat, I know as well as you that it was rotten, but what do you want me to do about it? Trot up to the Khai and apologize? Where did the pearls come from? Galt, Amat. They came from Acton and Lanniston and Cole. Who arranged the thing? Galts. And who will pay for this if that story is proved instead of mine? I'll be killed. You'll be exiled if you're lucky. The house will be destroyed. And do you think it'll stop there, Amat? Do you? Because I don't."

"It was evil, Marchat."

"Yes. Yes, it was evil. Yes, it was wrong," he said, motioning so violently that his tea splashed, the red tint of if diffusing quickly in the bath. "But it was decided before anyone consulted us. By the time you or I or any of us were told, it was already too late. It needed doing, and so we've done it.

"Tell me, Amat, what happens if you're the Khai Saraykeht and you find out your pet god's been conspiring with your trade rivals? Do you stop with the tools, because that's all we are. Tools. Or do you teach a lesson to the Galts that they won't soon forget? We haven't got any andat of our own, so there's nothing to restrain you. We can't hit back. Do our crops fail? Do all the women with child in Galt lose their children over this? They're as innocent as that island girl, Amat. They've done as little to deserve that as she has."

"Lower your voice," Amat said. "Someone will hear you."

Marchat leaned back, glancing nervously at the windows, the door. Amat shook her head.

"That was a pretty speech," she said. "Did you practice it?"

"Some, yes."

"And who were you hoping to convince with it? Me, or yourself?"

"Us," he said. "Both of us. It's true, you know. The price would be worse than the crime, and innocent people would suffer."

Amat considered him. He wanted so badly for it to be true, for her to agree. He was like a child, a boy. It made her feel weighted down.

"I suppose it is," she said. "So. Where do we go from here?"

"We clean up. We try to limit the damage. Ah, and one thing. The boy Itani? Do you know why the young poet would call him Otah?"

Amat let herself be distracted. She turned the name over in her mind, searching for some recollection. Nothing came. She put her bowl of tea on the side of the bath and took a pose pleading ignorance.

"It sounds like a northern name," she said. "When did he use it?"

"I had a man follow them. He overheard them speaking."

"It doesn't match anything Liat's told me of him."

"Well. Well, we'll keep a finger on it and see if it moves. Damned strange, but nothing's come from it yet."

"What about Maj?"

"Who? Oh, the girl. Yes. We'll need to keep her close for another week or two. Then I'll have her taken home. There's a trading company making a run to the east at about the right time. If the Khai's men are done with her, I'll pay her passage with them. Otherwise, it may be longer."

"But you'll see her back home safely."

"It's what I can do," Marchat said.

They sat in silence for a long minute. Amat's heart felt like lead in her breast. Marchat was as still as if he'd drunk poison. Poor Wilsincha, she thought. He's trying so hard to make this conscionable, but he's too wise to believe his own arguments.

"So, then," she said, softly. "The contracts with the dyers. Where do we stand with them?"

Marchat's gaze met hers, a faint smile on his bushy lips. For almost two hands, he brought her up to date on the small doings of House Wilsin. The agreements they'd negotiated with Old Sanya and the dyers, the problems with the shipments from Obar State, the tax statements under review by the utkhaiem. Amat listened, and without meaning to she moved back into the rhythm of her work. The parts of her mind that held the doings of the house slid back into use, and she pictured all the issues Wilsincha brought up and how they would affect each other. She asked questions to confirm that she'd understood and to challenge Marchat to think things through with her. And for a while, she could almost pretend that nothing had happened, that she still felt what she had, that the house she had served so long was still what it had been to her. Almost, but not entirely.