A Shadow In Summer(9)

Amat frowned, her body taking a subtle tension even before the thought was fully in her mind. Itani Noyga, with his broad shoulders and strong legs. Certainly there was other work he could be put to. Driving away feral dogs, for example, and convincing roadside thugs to hunt for easier prey than Marchat Wilsin. Marchat wouldn't be keeping track of who each of his laborers was sharing pillows with.

And pillows were sometimes the best places to talk.

"Amatcha? Are you all right?"

"Itani. Where is he now?"

"I don't know. Likely back at his quarters. Or maybe a teahouse."

"Do you think you could find him?"

Liat nodded. Amat gestured for a block of ink, and Liat rose, took one from the shelf and brought it to her desk. Amat took a length of paper and took a moment to calm herself before she began writing. The pen sounded as dry as a bird claw on pavement.

"There's an errand I want Itani for. Marchat Wilsin needs a bodyguard tonight. He's going to a meeting in one of the low towns at the half-candle, and he wants someone to walk with him. I don't know how long the meeting will last, but I can't assume it will be brief. I'll tell his overseer to release him from duty tomorrow."

She took another sheet of paper, scraped the pen across the ink and began a second letter. Liat, at her shoulder, read the words as she wrote them.

"This one, I want you to deliver to Rinat Lyanita after you find Itani," Amat said as she wrote. "If Itani doesn't know that he's to go, Rinat will do. I don't want Marchat waiting for someone who never arrives."

"Yes, Amatcha, but . . ."

Amat blew on the ink to cure it. Liat's words failed, and she took no pose, but a single vertical line appeared between her brows. Amat tested the ink. It smudged only a little. Good enough for the task at hand. She folded both orders and sealed them with hard wax. There wasn't time to sew the seams.

"Ask it," Amat said. "And stop scowling. You'll give yourself a headache."

"The mistake was mine, Amatcha. It isn't Itani's fault that I lost the contracts. Punishing him for my error is . . ."

"It isn't a punishment, Liat-kya," Amat said, using the familiar -kya to reassure her. "I just need him to do me this favor. And, when he comes back tomorrow, I want him to tell you all about the journey. What town he went to, who was there, how long the meeting went. Everything he can remember. Not to anyone else; just to you. And then you to me."

Liat took the papers and tucked them into her sleeve. The line was still between her brows. Amat wanted to reach over and smooth it out with her thumb, like it was a stray mark on paper. The girl was thinking too much. Perhaps this was a poor idea after all. Perhaps she should take the orders back.

But then she wouldn't discover what business Marchat Wilsin was doing without her.

"Can you do this for me, Liat-kya?"

"Of course, but . . . is something going on, Amatcha?"

"Yes, but don't concern yourself with it. Just do as I ask, and I'll take care of the rest."

Liat took a pose of acceptance and leave-taking. Amat responded with thanks and dismissal appropriate for a supervisor to an apprentice. Liat went down the stairs, and Amat heard her close the door behind her as she went. Outside, the fireflies shone and vanished, brighter now as twilight dimmed the city. She watched the streets: the firekeeper at the corner with his banked kiln, the young men in groups heading west into the soft quarter, ready to trade lengths of silver and copper for pleasures that would be gone by morning. And there, among them, Liat Chokavi walking briskly to the east, toward the warehouses and laborers' quarters, the dyeworks and the weavers.

Amat watched until the girl vanished around a corner, passing beyond recall, then she went down and barred her door.





Chapter 2

The boundary arch on the low road east of Saraykeht was a short walk from the Wilsin compound. They reached it in about the time it took the crescent moon to shift the width of two of Marchat's thick fingers. Buildings and roads continued, splaying out into the high grasses and thick trees, but once they passed through the pale stone arch wide enough for three carts to pass through together and high as a tree, they had left the city.

"In Galt, there'd have been a wall," Marchat said.

The young man, Itani, took a pose of query.

"Around the city," Marchat said. "To protect it in time of war. We didn't have andat to aim at each other like your ancestors did. In Kirinton, where I was born, anytime you were bad, the Lord Watchman set you to repairing the wall."

"Can't have been pleasant," Itani agreed.

"What do they do in Saraykeht when a boy's caught stealing a pie?"

"I don't know."