father. The house servants greeted her with smiles and poses of welcome.
The chief overseer led her to a small meeting room in the hack. If it
seemed odd that this room-windowless and dark-was used now in the summer
when most gatherings were in gardens or open pavilions, the overseer
made no note of it. Nothing could have been more different from the mood
in the city than the one here; like a winter night that had crept into
summer.
"Has House Vaunyogi forgotten where it put its candles?" she asked, and
turned to the overseer. "Find a lantern or two. These fine men may be
suffering from their drink, but I've hardly begun to celebrate."
The overseer took a pose that acknowledged the command and scampered
off, returning immediately with his gathered light. Adrah and his father
sat at a long stone table. Dark tapestries hung from the wall, red and
orange and gold. When the doors were safely closed behind them, Idaan
pulled out one of the stools and sat on it. tier gaze moved from the
father's face to the son's. She took a pose of query.
"You seem distressed," she said. "The whole city is loud with my
brother's glory, and you two are skulking in here like criminals."
"We have reason to be distressed," Daaya Vaunyogi said. She wondered
whether Adrah would age into the same loose jowls and watery eyes. "I've
finally reached the Galts. They've cooled. Killing Oshai's made them
nervous, and now with Danat back ... we expected to have the fighting
between your brothers to cover our ... our work. There's no hope of that
now. And that poet hasn't stopped hunting around, even with the holes
Oshai poked in him."
""The more reason you have to be distressed," Idaan said, "the more
important that you should not seem it. Besides, I still have two living
brothers."
"Ah, and you have some way to make Danat die at Otah's hand?" the old
man said. There was mockery in his voice, but there was also hope. And
fear. He had seen what she had done, and perhaps now he thought her
capable of anything. She supposed that would be something worthy of his
hope and fear.
"I don't have the details. But, yes. The longer we wait, the more
suspicious it will look when Danat and the poet die."
"You still want Maati Vaupathai dead?" Daaya asked.
"Otah is locked away, and the poet's digging. Maati Vaupathai isn't
satisfied to blame the upstart for everything, even if the whole city
besides him is. There are three breathing men between Adrah and my
father's chair. Danat, Otah, and the poet. I'll need armsmen, though, to
do what I intend. How many could you put together? They would have to he
men you trust."
Daaya looked at his son, as if expecting to find some answer there, but
Adrah neither spoke nor moved. He might very nearly not have been there
at all. Idaan swallowed her impatience and leaned forward, her palms
spread on the cool stone of the table. One of the candles sputtered and
spat.
"I know a man. A mercenary lord. He's done work for me before and kept
quiet," Daaya said at last. He didn't seem certain.