A Shadow In Summer(8)

Liat Chokavi stood in the street, jaw tight, eyes cast down. She was a lovely little thing—brown eyes the color of milky tea and golden skin, smooth as an eggshell. If the girl's face was a little too round to be classically beautiful, her youth forgave her.

Amat Kyaan raised her left hand in a gesture that greeted her student. Liat adopted an answering pose of gratitude at being received, but the stance was undercut by the defensiveness of her body. Amat Kyaan suppressed a sigh and stood back, motioning the girl inside.

"I expected you earlier," she said as she closed the door.

Liat walked to the foot of the stair, but there paused and turned in a formal pose of apology.

"Honored teacher," she began, but Amat cut her off.

"Light the candles. I will be up in a moment."

Liat hesitated, but then turned and went up. Amat Kyaan could trace the girl's footsteps by the creaking of the timbers. She poured herself a cup of limed water, then went slowly up the stairs. The salve helped. Most days she woke able to convince herself that today there would be no trouble, and by nightfall her joints ached. Age was a coward and a thief, and she wasn't about to let it get the better of her. Still, as she took the steps to her workroom, she trusted as much of her weight to the cane as she could.

Liat sat on the raised cushion beside Amat Kyaan's oaken writing desk. Her legs were tucked up under her, her gaze on the floor. The lemon candles danced in a barely-felt breeze, the smoke driving away the worst of the flies. Amat sat at the window and arranged her robe as if she were preparing herself for work.

"Old Sanya must have had more objections than usual. He's normally quite prompt. Give the changes here, let's survey the damage, shall we?"

She held one hand out to the apprentice. A moment later, she lowered it.

"I misplaced the contracts," Liat said, her voice a tight whisper. "I apologize. It is entirely my fault."

Amat sipped her water. The lime made it taste cooler than it was.

"You misplaced the contracts?"

"Yes."

Amat let the silence hang. The girl didn't look up. A tear tracked down the round cheek.

"That isn't good," Amat said.

"Please don't send me back to Chaburitan," the girl said. "My mother was so proud when I was accepted here and my father would—"

Amat raised a hand and the pleading stopped, Liat's gaze fixed on the floor. With a sigh, Amat pulled a bundle of papers from her sleeve and tossed them at Liat's knees.

At least the girl hadn't lied about it.

"One of the laborers found this between the bales from the Innis harvest," Amat said. "I gave him your week's wages as a reward."

Liat had the pages in her hands, and Amat watched the tension flow out of her, Liat's body collapsing on itself.

"Thank you," the girl said. Amat assumed she meant some god and not herself.

"I don't suppose I need to tell you what would have happened if these had come out? It would have destroyed every concession House Wilsin has had from Sanya's weavers in the last year."

"I know. I'm sorry. I really am."

"And do you have any idea how the contract might have fallen out of your sleeve? The warehouse seems an odd place to have lost them."

Liat blushed furiously and looked away. Amat knew that she had guessed correctly. It should have made her angry, but all she really felt was a kind of nostalgic sympathy. Liat was in the middle of her seventeenth summer, and some mistakes were easier to make at that age.

"Did you at least do something to make sure you aren't giving him a child?"

Liat's gaze flickered up at Amat and then away, fast as a mouse. The girl swallowed. Even the tips of her ears were crimson. She pretended to brush a fly off her leg.

"I got some teas from Chisen Wat," she said at last, and softly.

"Gods! Her? She's as likely to poison you by mistake. Go to Urrat on the Street of Beads. She's the one I always saw. You can tell her I sent you."

When Liat looked at her this time, the girl neither spoke nor looked away. She'd shocked her. And, as Amat felt the first rush of blood in her own cheeks, maybe she'd shocked herself a little, too. Amat took a pose of query.

"What? You think I was born before they invented sex? Go see Urrat. Maybe we can keep you from the worst parts of being young and stupid. Leaving contracts in your love nest. Which one was it, anyway? Still Itani Noyga?"

"Itani's my heartmate," Liat protested.

"Yes, yes. Of course."

He was a good-looking boy, Itani. Amat had seen him several times, mostly on occasions that involved prying her apprentice away from him and his cohort. He had a long face and broad shoulders, and was maybe a little too clever to be working as a laborer. He knew his letters and numbers. If he'd had more ambition, there might have been other work for a boy like that . . .