return for access to that library. And now your price may be going away.
Will your support go, too? The unasked question hung in the chill air.
If the Galts could not have what they wanted from Adrah and Idaan and
the books of Machi, would the support for this mad, murderous scheme
remain? Idaan felt her heart tripping over faster, half hoping that the
answer might be no.
"It is the business of a poet to concern himself with ancient texts,"
Oshai said. "If a poet were to come to Machi and not avail himself of
its library, that would be odd. 't'his coincidence of timing is of
interest. But it's not yet a cause for alarm."
"He's looking into the death of Biitrah. He's been down to the mines.
He's asking questions."
"About what?" Oshai said. The smile was gone.
She told him all she knew, from the appearance of the poet to his
interest in the court and high families, the low towns and the mines.
She recounted the parties at which he had asked to he introduced, and to
whom. The name he kept mentioning-Itani Noygu. 'T'he way in which his
interest in the ascension of the next Khai Machi seemed to be more than
academic. She ended with the tale she'd heard of his visit to the
Daikani mines and to the wayhouse where her brother had died at Oshai's
hands. When she was finished, neither man spoke. Adrah looked stricken.
Oshai, merely thoughtful. At length, the assassin took a pose of gratitude.
"You were right to call me, Idaan-cha," he said. "I doubt the poet knows
precisely what he's looking for, but that he's looking at all is had
enough."
"What do we do?" Adrah said. The desperation in his voice made Oshai
look up like a hunting dog hearing a bird.
"You do nothing, most high," Oshai said. "Neither you nor the great lady
does anything. I will take care of this."
"You'll kill him," Idaan said.
"If it seems the best course, I may...."
Idaan took a pose appropriate to correcting a servant. Oshai's words faded.
"I was not asking, Oshai-cha. You'll kill him."
The assassin's eyes narrowed for a moment, but then something like
amusement flickered at the corners of his mouth and the glimmer of
candlelight in his eyes grew warmer. He seemed to weigh something in his
mind, and then took a pose of acquiescence. Idaan lowered her hands.
"Will there be anything else, most high?" Oshai asked without taking his
gaze from her.
"No," Adrah said. "'T'hat will be all."
"Wait half a hand after I've gone," Oshai said. "I can explain myself,
and the two of you together borders on the self-evident. All three would
be difficult."
And with that, he vanished. Idaan looked at the sky doors. She was
tempted to open them again, just for a moment. To see the land and sky
laid out before her.
"It's odd, you know," she said. "If I had been born a man, they would
have sent me away to the school. I would have become a poet or taken the
brand. But instead, they kept me here, and I became what they're afraid