A Shadow In Summer(65)

The agents of the utkhaiem were present when she arrived at the wide courtyard of the house. Servants in fine silks lounged at the edge of the fountain, talking among themselves and looking out past the statue of the Galtic Tree to the street. She hesitated when she saw them, fear pricking at her for no reason she could say. She pushed it aside the way she pushed all her feelings aside these recent days, and strode past them toward Marchat Wilsin's meeting room.

Epani Doru, Wilsincha's rat-faced, obsequious master of house, sat before the wide wooden doors of the meeting room. When she came close, he rose, taking a pose of welcome just respectful enough to pretend he honored her position.

"I've some issues I'd like Wilsincha to see," she said, taking an answering pose.

"He's meeting with men from the court," Epani said, his voice an apology.

Amat glanced at the closed doors and sighed. She took a pose that asked for a duration. Epani answered vaguely, but with a sense that she would be lucky to see her employer's face before sundown.

"It can wait, then," Amat said. "It's about the sad trade? Is that what they're picking at him for?"

"I assume so, Amatcha," Epani said. "I understand from the servants that the Khai wants the whole thing addressed and forgotten as quickly as possible. There have been requests to lower tariffs."

Amat clucked and shook her head.

"Sour trade, this whole issue," she said. "I'm sorry Wilsincha ever got involved in it."

Epani took a pose of agreement and mourning, but Amat thought for a moment there was something in the man's expression. He knew, perhaps. Epani Doru might have been someone who Marchat took into his confidence the way he hadn't taken her. An accomplice to the act. Amat noted her suspicion, tucked it away like a paper into a sleeve, and took a pose of query.

"Liat?"

"In the workrooms, I think," Epani said. "The utkhaiem didn't ask to speak with her."

Amat didn't reply. The workrooms of the compound were a bad place for someone of Liat's rank to be. Preparing packets for the archives, copying documents, checking numbers—all the work done at the low slate tables was better suited for a new clerk, someone who had recently come to the house. Amat walked back to the stifling, still air and the smell of cheap lamp oil.

Liat sat at a table by herself, hunched over. Amat paused, considering the girl. The too-round face had misplaced its youth; Amat could see in that moment what Liat would be when her beauty failed her. A woman, then, and not a lovely one. A dreadful weight of sympathy descended on Amat Kyaan, and she stepped forward.

"Amatcha," Liat said when she looked up. She took a pose of apology. "I didn't know you had need of me. I would have—"

"I didn't know it either," Amat said. "No fault of yours. Now, what are you working on?"

"Shipments from the Westlands. I was just copying the records for the archive."

Amat considered the pages. Liat's handwriting was clean, legible. Amat remembered days in close heat looking over numbers much like these. She felt her smile tighten.

"Wilsincha set you to this?" Amat asked.

"No. No one did. Only I ran out of work, and I wanted to be useful. I'm . . . I don't like being idle these days. It just feels . . ."

"Don't carry it," Amat said, still pretending to look at the written numbers. "It isn't yours."

Liat took a questioning pose. Amat handed her back the pages.

"It's nothing you did wrong," Amat said.

"You're kind."

"No. Not really. There was nothing you could have done to prevent this, Liat. You were tricked. The girl was tricked. The poet and the Khai."

"Wilsincha was tricked," Liat said, adding to the list.

Or trapped, Amat thought, but said nothing. Liat rallied herself to smile and took a pose of gratitude.

"It helps to hear someone say it," the girl said. "Itani does when he's here, but I can't always believe him. But with him going . . ."

"Going?"

"North," Liat said, startling as if she'd said more than she'd meant. "He's going north to see his sister. And . . . and I already miss him."

"Of course you do. He's your heartmate, after all," Amat said, teasing gently, but the weariness and dread in Liat's gaze deepened. Amat took a deep breath and put a hand on Liat's shoulder.

"Come with me," Amat said. "I have some things I need of you. But someplace cooler, eh?"

Amat led her to a meeting room on the north side of the compound where the windows were in shade and laid the tasks before her. She'd meant to give Liat as little as she could, but seeing her now, she added three or four small things that she'd intended to let rest. Liat needed something now. Work was thin comfort, but it was what she had to offer. Liat listened closely, ferociously.