where he had labored on his enthusiasms, keeping engineers by his side
sometimes late into the night or on into morning. The tables were empty
now. Dust lay thick on them, ignored even by the servants until the time
came for some new child of the Khaiem to take residence ... to live in
this opulence and keep his ear pricked for the sound of his brother's
hunting dogs.
She heard Adrah coming long before he stepped into the room. She
recognized his gait by the sound of it, and didn't call. He was clever,
she thought bitterly; if he wanted to find her, he could puzzle it out.
Adrah Vaunyogi, bright-eyed and broad-shouldered, father of her children
if all went well. Whatever well meant anymore.
"There you are," Adrah said. She could see his anger in the way he held
his body.
"What have I done this time?" she demanded, her tone carrying a sarcasm
that dismissed his concerns even before he spoke them. "Did your patrons
want me to wear red on a day I chose yellow?"
The mention of his hackers, even as obliquely as that, made him stiffen
and peer around, looking for slaves or servants who might overhear.
Idaan laughed-a cruel, short sound.
"You look like a kitten with a bell on its tail," she said. "There's no
one here but us. You needn't worry that someone will roll the rock off
our little conspiracy. We're as safe here as anywhere."
Adrah strode over and crouched beside her all the same. He smelled of
crushed violets and sage, and it struck Idaan that it had not been so
long ago that the scent would have warmed her heart and brought a flush
to her cheeks. His face was long and pretty-almost too pretty to be a
man's. She had kissed those lips a thousand times, but now it seemed
like the act of another woman-some entirely different Idaan Machi whose
body and memory she had inherited when the first girl died. She smiled
and raised her hands in a pose of formal query.
"Arc you mad?" Adrah demanded. "Don't speak about them. Not ever. If
we're found out ..."
"Yes. You're right. I'm sorry," Idaan said. "I wasn't thinking."
""There are rumors you spent a day with Cchmai and the andat. You were
seen.
"The rumors are true, and I meant to be seen. I can't see how my having
a close relationship to the poet would hurt the cause, and in fact I
think it will help, don't you? When the time comes that half the houses
of the utkhaiem arc vying for my father's chair, an upstart house like
yours would do well to boast a friendship with Cehmai."
"I think being married to a daughter of the Khai will be quite enough,
thank you," Adrah said, "and your brothers aren't dead yet, in case
you'd forgotten."
"No. I remember."
"I don't want you acting strangely. Things are too delicate just now for
you to start attracting attention. You are my lover, and if you are off
half the time drinking rice wine with the poet, people won't be saying
that I have strong friendship with him. They'll be saying that he's
cuckolding me, and that Vaunyogi is the wrong house to draw a new Khai