bowl and looked out the window. He couldn't see the steam caravan from
here, but he had a good view of the river. It was at the point he liked
it most, the water freed by the thaw, the banks not yet overgrown by
green. No matter how many years passed, he still felt a personal
affinity with earth and stone.
The envoy finished reading, his mouth in a smile that would have seemed
pleasant and perhaps a bit simple on someone else.
"Is any of this true?" the envoy asked.
"Danat-cha did send a dozen men into the foothills north of Machi,"
Cehmai said, "and Maati-kvo and I did spend a winter there. Past that,
nothing. But it should keep Eddensea's attention on sneaking through to
search for it themselves. And we're in the process of forging books that
we can then `recover' in a year or so."
The envoy tucked the letters into a leather pouch at his belt. He didn't
look up as he spoke.
"That brings a question," the man said. "I know we've talked about this
before, but I'm not sure you've fully grasped the advantages that could
come from leaning a little nearer the truth. Nothing that would be
effective. We all understand that. But our enemies all have scholars
working at these problems. If they were able to come close enough that
the bindings cost them, if they paid the andat's price-"
Cehmai took a pose of query. "Wouldn't that be doing your work for you?"
he asked.
"My job is to see they don't succeed," the envoy said. "A few
mysterious, grotesque deaths would help me find the people involved."
"It would give away too much," Cehmai said. "Bringing them near enough
to be hurt by the effort would also bring them near to succeed„ ing.
The envoy looked at him silently. His placid eyes conveyed only a mild
distrust.
"If you have a threat to make, feel free," Cehmai said. "It won't do you
any good."
"Of course there's no threat, Cehmai-cha," the envoy said. "We're all on
the same side here."
"Yes," the poetmaster said, rising from his chair with a pose that
called the meeting to its close. "Try to keep it in mind."
His apartments were across the palaces. He made his way along the
pathways of white and black sand, past the singing slaves and the
fountain in the shape of the Galtic Tree that marked the wing devoted to
the High Council. The men and women he passed nodded to him with
deference, but few took any formal pose. A decade of joint rule had led
to a thousand small changes in etiquette. Cehmai supposed it was
smallminded of him to regret them.
Idaan was sitting on the porch of their entranceway, tugging at a length
of string while a gray tomcat worried the other end. He paused, watching
her. Unlike her brother, she'd grown thicker with time, more solid, more
real. He must have made some small sound, because she looked up and
smiled at him.
"How was the assassin's conference?" she asked.
The tomcat forgot his string and trotted up to Cehmai, already purring