"So when you say you're sorry for it, you mean that you think it might help me do my task?"
"Makes you wonder if the task's worth doing, doesn't it?" Seedless said, a smile in his voice more than his expression. "I doubt the Dai-kvo would share our concerns, though, eh?"
"No," Maati sighed. "No, he at least is certain of what's the right thing."
"Still, we're clever," Seedless said. "Well, you're not. You're busy being lovesick, but I'm clever. Perhaps I'll think of something."
Maati turned to look at the andat, but the smooth, pale face revealed nothing more than a distant amusement.
"Something in particular?" Maati asked, but Seedless didn't answer.
OTAH WOKE from a deep sleep to light slanting through half-opened shutters. For a moment, he forgot he had landed, his body still shifting from memory of the sea beneath him. Then the blond wood and incense, the scrolls and books, the scent and sound of winter rain recalled him to himself, and he stood. The wall-long shutters were closed, a fire burned low in its grate. Heshai and Maati were gone, but a plate of dried fruit and fresh bread sat on a table beside the letter from the Dai-kvo, its pages unsewn and spread. He sat alone and ate.
The journey back had been easy. The river bore him to Yalakeht and then a tradeship with a load of furs meant for Eddensea. He'd taken a position on the ship—passage in return for his work, and he'd done well enough by the captain and crew. Otah imagined they were now in the soft quarter spending what money they had. Indulging themselves before they began the weeks-long journey across the sea.
Heshai had seemed better, alert and attentive. It even seemed that Maati and his teacher had grown closer since Otah had left—brought together, perhaps, by the difficulties they had weathered. It might have been the bad news of Liat's injury or Otah's own weariness and sense of displacement, but there had seemed something more as well. A weariness in Maati's eyes that Otah recognized, but couldn't explain.
The first thing he needed, of course, was a bath. And then to see Liat. And then . . . and then he wasn't sure. He had gone on his journey to the Dai-kvo, he had come back bearing news that seemed out of date when it arrived. According to Maati, Heshaikvo had bested his illness without the aid of the Dai-kvo. The tragedy of the dead child was fading from the city's memory, replaced by other scandals—diseased cotton in the northern fields; a dyer who killed himself after losing a year's wages gambling; Liat's old overseer Amat Kyaan breaking with her house in favor of a business of her own in the soft quarter. The petty life-and-death battles of the sons of the Khaiem.
And so what had seemed of critical importance at the time, proved empty now that it was done. And his own personal journey had achieved little more. He could go, if he chose, to speak to Muhatia-cha this afternoon. Perhaps House Wilsin would take him back on to complete his indenture. Or there were other places in the city, work he could do that would pay for his food and shelter. The world was open before him. He could even have taken the letter from Orai Vaukheter and taken work as a courier if it weren't for Liat, and for Maati, and the life he'd built as Itani Noyga.
He ate strips of dried apple and plum, chewing the sweet flesh slowly as he thought and noticing the subtlety of the flavors as they changed. It wasn't so bad a life, Itani Noyga's. His work was simple, straightforward. He was good at it. With only a little more effort, he could find a position with a trading house, or the seafront authority, or any of a hundred places that would take a man with numbers and letters and an easy smile. And half a year ago, he would have thought it enough. Otah or Itani. It was still the question.
"You're up," a soft voice said. "And the men of the house are still out. That's good. We have things to talk about, you and I."
Seedless leaned against a bookshelf, his arms crossed and his dark eyes considering. Otah popped the last sliver of plum into his mouth and took a pose of greeting appropriate for someone of low station to a member of the utkhaiem. There was, so far as he knew, no etiquette appropriate for a common laborer to an andat. Seedless waved the pose away and flowed forward, his robes—blue and black—hissing cloth against cloth.
"Otah Machi," the andat said. "Otah Unbranded. The man too wise to be a poet and too stupid to take the brand. And here you are."
Otah met the glittering black gaze and felt the flush in his face. His words were ready, his hands already halfway to a pose of denial. Something in the perfect pale mask of a face stopped him. He lowered his arms.
"Good," Seedless said, "I was hoping we might dispense with that part. We're a little short of time just now."