grotesque as any Eiah had heard in the tales of poets who had tried to
bind the andat and fallen short.
Tears filled her eyes. Something like love or pity or gratitude filled
her heart to bursting. She looked at the woman's face for the first
time. The woman hadn't been pretty. A thick jaw, a heavy brow, acne
pocks. Eiah held back from kissing her cheek. Parit was confused enough
as it stood. Instead, Eiah wiped her eyes on her sleeve and took the
dead woman's hand.
"What happened?" she asked.
"The watch saw a cart going west out of the soft quarter," Parit said.
"The captain said there were three people, and they were acting nervous.
When he hailed them, they tried to run."
"Did he catch them?"
Parit was staring at Eiah's hand clasping the dead woman's fingers.
"Parit," she said. "Did he catch them?"
"What? No. No, all three slipped away. But they had to abandon the cart.
She was in it," Parit said, nodding at the corpse. "I'd asked anything
unusual to be brought to me. I offered a length of silver."
"They earned it," Eiah said. "Thank you, Parit-kya. I can't tell you how
much this means."
"What should we do?" Parit asked, sitting on his stool like a fresh
apprentice before his master. He'd always done that when he felt himself
at sea. Eiah found there was warmth in her heart for him even now
"Burn her," Eiah said. "Burn her with honors and treat her ashes with
respect."
"Shouldn't we ... shouldn't we tell someone? The utkhaiem? The Emperor?"
"You already have," Eiah said. "You've told me."
There was a moment's pause. Parit took a pose that asked clarification.
It wasn't quite the appropriate one, but he was flustered.
"This is it, then," he said. "This is what you were looking for."
"Yes," Eiah said.
"You know what happened to her."
"Yes."
"Would you..." Parit coughed, looked down. His brow was knotted. Eiah
was half-tempted to go to him, to smooth his forehead with her palm.
"Could you explain this to me?"
"No," she said.
AFTER THAT, IT WAS SIMPLE. THEY WOULDN'T REMAIN IN SARAYKEHT, NOT WHEN
they'd so nearly been discovered. The Emperor's daughter asked favors of
the port master, of the customs men on the roads, of the armsmen paid by
the city to patrol and keep the violence in the low towns to an
acceptable level. Her quarry weren't smugglers or thieves. They weren't
expert in covering their tracks. In two days, she knew where they were.
Eiah quietly packed what things she needed from her apartments in the
palace, took a horse from the stables, and rode out of the city as if
she were only going to visit an herb woman in one of the low towns.
As if she were coming back.
She found them at a wayhouse on the road to Shosheyn-Tan. The winter sun
had set, but the gates to the wayhouse courtyard were still open. The