A small herd of goats bleated at him from their pen, the disturbing,
clever eyes considering him with as little joy as he had for them. The
low sound of whistling came to him from a tall, narrow building set
apart from both house and pen. A slaughterhouse.
He stepped into the doorway, blocking the light. The air was thick with
smoke to drive the flies away. The body of the sacrificed goat hung from
a hook, buckets of blood and entrails at the butcher's feet. The butcher
turned. Her hands were crimson, her leather apron sodden with blood. A
hooked knife flashed in her hand.
She was not the only reason that Maati and Cehmai had parted company,
but she would have been sufficient. Idaan Machi, outcast sister to the
Emperor. As a girl no older than Vanjit was now, Idaan had plotted the
slaughter of her own family in a bloody-minded attempt to win Machi for
herself and her husband. Otah had come near to being executed for her
crimes, Cehmai had been seduced and used by her, and Maati still had a
thick scar on his belly where her assassin had tried to gut him. Otah,
for reasons that passed beyond Maati's understanding, had spared the
murderess. Even less comprehensible, Cehmai had found her, and in their
shared exile, they had once again become lovers. Only Maati still saw
her for what she was.
Age had thickened her. Her hair, tied back in a ferocious knot, was more
gray than black. Her long, northern face showed curiosity, then
surprise, then for less than a heartbeat something like contempt.
"You'll want to see him, then," said Otah's exiled sister: the woman who
had once set an assassin to kill Maati. Who had blamed Otah for the
murders she and her ambitious lover had committed.
She sank the gory knife into the dead animal's side, setting the corpse
swinging, and walked forward.
"Follow me," she said.
"Tell me where to find him," Maati said. "I can just as well. . ."
"The dogs don't know you," Idaan said. "Follow me."
Once Maati saw the dogs-five wide-jawed beasts as big as ponies, lazing
in the rich dirt at the back of the house-he was glad she was there to
guide him. She walked with a strong gait, leading him past the house,
past a low barn where chickens scattered and complained, to a wide, low
field of grass, its black soil under half an inch of water. At the far
side of the field, a thin figure stood. He wore the canvas trousers of a
workman and a rag the color of old blood around his head. By the time
the man's face had ceased to be a leather-colored blur, they were almost
upon him. There were the bright, boyish eyes, the serious mouth. The sun
had coarsened his skin and complicated the corners of his eyes. He
smiled and took a pose of greeting appropriate for one master of their
arcane trade to another. Idaan snorted, turned, and walked back toward
the slaughterhouse, leaving them alone.
"It's a dry year," Cehmai said. "You wouldn't know it, but it's a dry
year. The last two crops, I was afraid that they'd mold in the field.
This one, I'm out here every other week, opening the ditch gates."
"I need your help, Cehmai-cha," Maati said.
The man nodded, squinted out over the field as if judging something