A Shadow In Summer(77)

"You're just saying that because I didn't get sick the way you did," Otah said, trying to lighten the mood.

"Being able to eat your first day on ship is a gift. Don't underestimate it. But all this time, it's occurred to me that you have the makings of a good courier. And I hold enough influence in the house now, that if you wanted a letter of introduction, I think I might be able to help you with it. You wouldn't be trusted with important work at the start, but that doesn't make seeing the cities any less fascinating. It's not an easy life, but it's an interesting one. And it might suit you."

Otah cocked his head and felt a flush rising in him equally gratification and embarrassment. The courier sipped his tea, letting the moment stretch until Otah took a pose that encompassed both gratitude and refusal.

"I belong in Saraykeht," he said. "There are things there I need to see through."

"Your indenture. I understand. But that's going to end before much longer."

"There's more than that, though. I have friends there."

"And the girl," Orai said.

"Yes. Liat. I . . . I don't think she'd enjoy having a lover who was always elsewhere."

Orai took a pose of understanding that seemed to include a reservation, a question on the verge of being formed. When he did speak, it was in fact a question, though perhaps not the one he'd wanted to ask.

"How old are you?"

"Twenty summers."

"And she's . . .?"

"Seventeen."

"And you love her," Orai said. Otah could hear the almost-covered disappointment in the words. "She's your heartmate."

"I don't know that. But I have to find out, don't I?"

Orai grinned and took a pose that conceded the point, then, hesitating, he plucked something from his sleeve. It was a letter sewn closed and sealed with hard green wax stamped with an ornate seal.

"I took the chance that you'd accept my suggestion," the courier said, passing the letter across the table. "If it turns out this amazing young woman doesn't own your heart after all, consider the offer open."

Otah dropped it into his own sleeve and took a pose of thanks. He felt an unreasonable trust for this man, and an ease that three weeks' acquaintance—even in the close quarters of a ship—couldn't explain. Perhaps, he thought, it was only the change of his first sea voyage.

"Orai," he said, "have you ever been in love?"

"Yes. Several times, and with some very good women."

"Can you love someone you don't trust?"

"Absolutely," he said. "I have a sister I wouldn't lend two copper lengths if I wanted them back. The problem with loving someone you don't trust is finding the right distance."

"The right distance."

"With my sister, we love each other best from different cities. If we had to share a house, it wouldn't go so gracefully."

"But a lover. A heartmate."

Orai shook his head.

"In my experience, you can bed a woman and mistrust her or you can love a woman and mistrust her, but not all three at once."

Otah sipped his tea. It had gone tepid. Orai waited, his boyish face with its graying beard serious. Two men left from another table, and the cold draft from the briefly opened door made Otah shiver. He put down the green bowl and set his hands together on the table. His head felt thick, his mind stuffed with wool.

"Before I left Saraykeht," he said slowly, "I told Liat some things. About my family."

"But not because you trust her?"

"Because I love her and I thought I ought to trust her."

He looked up, his gaze meeting Orai's. The courier took a pose of understanding and sympathy. Otah replied with one that surrendered to greater forces—gods or fate or weight of circumstances. There seemed little more to say. Orai rose.

"Keep hold of that letter," he said. "And whatever happens, good luck to you. You've been a good man to travel with, and that's a rare thing."

"Thank you," Otah said.

The courier pulled his robes closed about him and left. Otah finished his bowl of tea before he also quit the teahouse. The bay of Yalakeht was wide and calm and still before him; the port that ended his first journey over the sea. His mind unquiet, he turned to the north and west, walking through the wet, narrow streets to the river gate, and some days beyond that, the Dai-kvo.



"THIS IS shit!" the one-eyed man shouted and threw the papers on the floor. His face was flushed, and the scarring that webbed his cheeks shone white. Amat could feel the others in the room agreeing, though she never took her gaze from his—Ovi Niit's unappointed spokesman. "He would never have done this."

The front room of the comfort house was crowded, though none of the people there were patrons. It was far too early for one thing. The soft quarter wasn't awake in the day. And the watch had closed the house at her request. They were with her still. Big scowling men wearing the colors of the great comfort houses as a symbol of their loyalty to no one house, but the soft quarter itself. The protecting soldiery of vice.