The critical issue now is that you withdraw, from Mllachi. Me have
performed our service to the Khai, and your continued presence would
only serve to draw attention to the fact that he and whichever of his
sons eventually takes his place were unable to discover the plot without
aid. It is dangerous for the poets to involve themselves with the
politics of the courts.
For this reason, I now recall you to my side. You are to announce that
you have found the citations in the library that I had desired, and must
now return them to me. I will expect you within five weeks....
It continued, though Maati did not. Baarath smiled and leaned forward in
obvious interest as Nlaati tucked the letter into his own sleeve. After
a moment's silence, Baarath frowned.
"Fine," he said. "If it's the sort of thing you have to keep to
yourself, I can certainly respect that."
"I knew you could, Baarath-cha. You're a man of great discretion."
"You needn't flatter me. I know my proper place. I only thought you
might want someone to speak with. In case there were questions that
someone with my knowledge of the court could answer for you."
"No," Maati said, taking a pose that offered thanks. "It's on another
matter entirely."
Maati sat with a pleasant, empty expression until Baarath huffed, stood,
took a pose of leave-taking, and walked deeper into the galleries of the
library. Maati turned hack to his notes, but his mind would not stay
focused on them. After half a hand of frustration and distress, he
packed them quietly into his sleeve and took himself away.
The sun shone bright and clear, but to the west, huge clouds rose white
and proud into the highest reaches of the sky. There would be storms
later-if not today, in the summer weeks to come. Maati imagined he could
smell the rain in the air. He walked toward his rooms, and then past
them and into a walled garden. The cherry trees had lost their flowers,
the fruits forming and swelling toward ripeness. Netting covered the
wide branches like a bed, keeping the birds from stealing the harvest.
Maati walked in the dappled shade. The pangs from his belly were fewer
now and farther between. The wounds were nearly healed.
It would be easiest, of course, to do as he was told. The Dai-kvo had
taken him back into his good graces, and the fact that things had gone
awry since his last report could in no way be considered his
responsibility. He had discovered Otah, and if it was through no skill
of his own, that didn't change the result. He had given Otah over to the
Khai. Everything past that was court politics; even the murder of the
Khai was nothing the [)ai-kvo would want to become involved with.
Maati could leave now with honor and let the utkhaiem follow his
investigations or ignore them. The worst that would happen was that Otah
would be found and slaughtered for something he had not done and an evil
man would become the Khai Machi. It wouldn't be the first time in the
world that an innocent had suffered or that murder had been rewarded.
The sun would still rise, winter would still become spring. And Maati
would be restored to something like his right place among the poets. He
might even be set over the school, set to teach boys like himself the