At the courtyard of the Galtic house, Liat stopped and Maati drew up beside her. The scene was worse than he had thought. The house was two stories built around the courtyard with a walkway on the second level that looked down on the metalwork statue of the Galtic Tree, the fountain overflowing in the downpour, and between them, sitting with his back to the street, his teacher. Around him were the signs of conflict—torn papers, spilled food. A crowd had gathered, robes in the colors of many houses ghosted in the shadows of doorways and on the upper walk, faces blurred by rain.
Maati put his hand on Liat's hip and gently pushed her aside. The stone of the courtyard was under an inch of water, white foam tracing the pattern of drainage from the house out into the streets. Maati walked through it slowly, his sandals squelching.
Heshai looked confused. The rain plastered his long, thinning hair to his neck. His robe was thin—too thin for the weather—and the unhealthy pink of his skin showed through it. Maati squatted beside him, and saw the thick, wide mouth was moving slightly, as if whispering. Drops of water clung like dew to the moth-eaten beard.
"Heshaikvo," Maati said, taking a pose of entreaty. "Heshaikvo, we should go back."
The bloodshot eyes with whites the color of old ivory turned to him, narrowed, and then recognition slowly lit the poet's face. He put his thick-fingered hands on Maati's knee, and shook his head.
"She isn't here. She's already gone," Heshai said.
"Who isn't here, Heshaikvo?"
"The girl," he snapped. "The island girl. The one. I thought if I could find her, you see, if I could explain my error . . ."
Maati fought the urge to shake him—take a handful of robe in each fist and rattle the old man until he came to his senses. Instead, he put his own hand over Heshai's and kept his voice calm and steady.
"We should go."
"If I could have explained, Maati . . . If I could just have explained that it was the andat that did the thing. That I would never have—"
"What good would it do?" Maati said, his anger and embarrassment slipping out, "Heshaikvo, there aren't any words you know that would apologize for what happened. And sitting here in the rain doesn't help."
Heshai frowned at the words as if confused, then looked down at the flowing water and up to the half-hidden faces. The frog-lips pursed.
"I've made an ass of myself, haven't I?" Heshai asked in a perfectly rational voice.
"Yes," Maati said, unable to bring himself to lie. "You have."
Heshai nodded, and rose to his feet. His robe hung open, exposing his wrinkled breast. He took two unsteady steps before Maati moved close and put his arm around the man. As they passed into the street, Liat went to Heshai's other side, taking his arm over her shoulder, sharing Maati's burden. Maati felt Liat's arm against his own behind Heshai's wide back. Her hand clasped his forearm, and between them, they made a kind of cradle to lead the poet home.
THE ROBE Maati lent her when they arrived back at the poet's house was woven cotton and silk, the fabric thicker than her finger and soft as any she'd touched in years. She changed in his small room while he was busy with the poet. Her wet robes, she hung on a stand. She wrung the water out of her hair and braided it idly as she waited.
It was a simple room—cot, desk, and wardrobe, cloth lantern and candle stand. Only the pile of books and scrolls and the quality of the furnishings marked it as different from a cell like her own. But then, Maati was only an apprentice. His role was much like her own with Amat. They were even very nearly the same age, though she found she often forgot that.
A murmur of voices reached her—the poet's and Maati's and then the soft, charming, chilling voice of Seedless. The poet barked something she couldn't make out, and then Maati, soothing him. She wanted to leave, to go back to her cell, to be away from the terrible tension in the air of the house. But the rain was growing worse. The pounding of water was joined now with an angry tapping. The wind had turned and allowed her to open Maati's shutters without flooding his room, and when she did, the landscape outside looked like it was covered with spiders' eggs: Tiny hailstones melting as quickly as they fell.
"Liat-cha," Maati said.
She turned, trying to pull the shutters closed and take a pose of apology at the same time, and managing neither.
"No, I'm sorry," Maati said. "I should have kept closer watch on him. But he's never tried to get out of his bed, much less leave the house."
"Is he resting now?"
"Something like it. He's gone to bed at least. Seedless . . . you know about Seedless's box?"
"I'd heard rumor," Liat said.