"Is he here himself?"
"Otah thought it might be better not to attend. Until he knew whether
you intended to help him or have him killed."
"He's wise. Just the poet, then," Radaani said. "The others don't matter."
Maati nodded and left the room. The teahouse proper was a wide, low room
with fires burning low in two corners. Radaani's servants were drinking
something that Maati doubted was only tea and talking with one of the
couriers of House Sivanti. There would be more information from that, he
guessed, than from the more formal meeting. At the door to the back
room, Sinja leaned back in a chair looking bored but corn- manding a
view of every approach.
"Well?" Sinja asked.
"He'd like to speak with Cehmai-cha."
"But not the others?"
"Apparently not."
"He doesn't care if it's true, then. Just whether the poets are hacking
our man," Sinja let his chair down and stood, stretching. "The forms of
power arc fascinating stuff. Reminds me why I started fighting for a
living."
Maati opened the door. The back room was quieter, though the rush of
rain was everywhere. Cehmai and the andat were sitting by the fire. The
huntsman Sinja-cha had tracked down was at a small table, half drunk. It
was best, perhaps, that Radaani hadn't wanted him. And three armsmcn in
the colors of House Siyanti also lounged about. Cehmai looked up,
meeting Maati's gaze. Maati nodded.
Radaadni's expression when Cehmai and Stone-Made-Soft entered the room
was profoundly satisfied. It was as if the young poet's presence
answered all the questions that were important to ask. Still, Maati
watched Cehmai take a pose of greeting and Radaani return it.
"You wished to speak with me," Cehmai asked. His voice was low and
tired. Maati could see how much this moment was costing him.
"Your fellow poet here's told me quite a tale," Radaani said. "He says
that Otah Machi's not dead, and that Idaan Machi's the one who arranged
her family's death."
"That's so," Cehmai agreed.
"I see. And you were the one who brought that to light?"
"That's so."
Radaani paused, his lips pursed, his fingers knotted around each other.
"Does the Dai-kvo back the upstart, then?"
"No," Maati said before Cehmai could speak. "We take no side in this. We
support the council's decision, but that doesn't mean we withhold the
truth from the utkhaiem."
"As Maati-kvo says," Cehmai agreed. "We are servants here."
"Servants with the world by its balls," Radaani said. "It's easy,
Cehmai-cha, to support a position in a side room with no one much around
to hear you. It's a harder thing to say the same words in front of the
gods and the court and the world in general. If I take this to the
council and you decide that perhaps it wasn't all quite what you've said
it was, it will go badly for me."