"You seem much better," she said.
"Tired of moping around, I suppose," he said. "I thought I might go out. I haven't been to a good teahouse in some time."
The lighter footsteps she knew came down the stairs behind them and stopped. Maati had forgotten the book in his hand. His mouth was open.
"Come down," Heshai said. "It isn't a private conversation. We were only sharing a bite. There's enough for you too, I imagine."
"Heshaikvo . . ."
"I was just telling Liat-kya here that I've decided to stretch my legs this evening. I've been too much within myself. And tomorrow, there are things we should do. It's past time we began your education in earnest, eh?"
Maati took a pose of agreement made clumsy by the volume in his hand, but Liat could see that he was hardly aware of it. She caught his gaze, encouraging him silently to be pleased, or if he wasn't, to act as if he were.
"I will be ready, Heshaikvo," he said. If there was an edge to his voice, Heshai seemed not to hear it. He only took a pose of farewell to Liat more formal than her rank called for, and a subtler pose of congratulation to Maati that she was fairly certain she had not been meant to see, and then he was off. They sat on the steps up to the house and watched him striding over the bridge and along the path until it turned. Maati, beside her, was trembling with rage.
"I thought this was what we wanted," Liat said, gently.
He snapped his head, her words pulling him back to the world.
"Not like this," he said.
"He's out of his bed. He's going into the city."
"It's like nothing happened," Maati said. "He's acting like nothing happened. All these weeks, just vanished . . ."
Liat smoothed his neck with her palm. For a moment, Maati went tight, then, slowly, she felt him relax. He turned to her.
"You wanted an apology," she said. "Or some recognition for what you did for him all this time."
Maati put down the book on the step beside him and pulled his robe closer around him. For a long time, they didn't speak. The trees were turning, the first fallen leaves covering the grounds. It wasn't winter, but autumn had reached its center.
"It's wrong of me," Maati said, his voice thick with shame and anger. "I should accept that he's improving and be pleased. But . . ."
"This may be the best he can do," Liat said. "Give him time."
Maati nodded and took her hand in his, their fingers laced. With her other hand, she reached across him and took up the book. It was old, and heavy for its size, bound in copper and leather.
"Read me that poem you were talking about," she said.
Much later, the darkness fallen, Liat lay with Maati on his cot and listened to his breath. The breeze that stirred the netting raised gooseflesh on her arms, but he was soft and warm as a cat against her. She stroked his hair. She felt safe and content and sick with guilt. She had never been unfaithful to a lover before this. She had always imagined it would be difficult, that people would stare at her in the streets and talk of her in scandalized whispers. In the event, it seemed no one cared. The isolation that had come after Seedless and the baby—from Amat, from Wilsincha, from the people of the house, and worst from Itani—was easier to bear with Maati. And he could listen when she spoke about her part, her failings, the way she'd let the child die.
The night candle fluttered, and three slow moths beat at the walls of its glass lantern. Liat shifted and Maati murmured in his sleep and turned away from her. She parted the netting and stood naked, letting the cool of night wash over her. Their coupling had left her feeling sticky. She thought of going to a bathhouse, but the long walk through the city after dark and the prospect of leaving Maati behind failed to appeal. It would be better, she thought, to stay near, even if it meant being cold. She deserved, she supposed, a little discomfort for her sins. She pulled on her robe, but didn't tie the fastenings.
In the darkness, stars spilled across the sky. The distant lights of the palaces, of the city, might almost not have been. Liat considered the crescent moon, its shining curve of light cupping a darkness of blotted stars. Frogs and crickets sang and the manicured grass at the side of the koi pond tickled the bottoms of her feet. She looked around carefully before shrugging out of her robe. The water of the pond was no worse than she might find in the cold pool of a bathhouse. The fish darted away from her and then slowly returned. Reeds at the water's edge rubbed against each other with a sound like hands on skin, disturbed by the waves of her movements.
Floating on her back, her legs kicking slowly, she thought of Itani. She didn't feel as if she were betraying him, though she knew that she was. Maati and Itani—Otah—seemed to inhabit entirely different places in her heart. The one seemed so little related to the other. Itani was her heartmate, the man she'd shared her bed with for months. Maati was her friend, her confidant, her only support in a world empty even of the other man. For hours at a time and especially in his company, she could forget the guilt and the dread. She didn't know how it could be like this: so easy and so difficult both.