better robes."

Otah didn't mean to laugh; it simply came out of him. And then Maati was

laughing as well, and the birds startled around them, lifting up into

the sky. Otah rose and took a pose of respect appropriate to the closing

of a meeting. Maati responded in kind, and they walked together to the

door. Maati slid it open, and Otah looked to see whether there was a gap

in the men, a chance to dodge them and sprint out to the streets. He

might as well have looked for a stone cloud. The armsmen seemed to have

doubled in number, and two already had hare blades at the ready. The

young poet-the one Maati said wasn't his student-was there among them,

his expression serious and concerned. Maati spoke as if the bulky men

and their weapons weren't there.

"Cehmai-cha," he said. "Good that you're here. I would like to introduce

you to my old friend, Otah, the sixth son of the Khai Machi. Otahkvo,

this is Cchmai Tyan and that small mountain in the back is the andat

Stone-Made-Soft which he controls. Cehmai assumed you were an assassin

come to finish me off."

"I'm not," Otah said with a levity that seemed at odds with his

situation, but which felt perfectly natural. "But I understand the

misconception. It's the heard. I'm usually better shaved."

Cehmai opened his mouth, closed it, and then took a formal pose of

welcome. Maati turned to the armsmen.

"Chain him," he said.

EVEN AT THE HEIGHT OF MORNING, THE WIVES' QUARTERS OF THE HIGH palace

were filled with the small somber activity of a street market starting

to close at twilight. In the course of his life, the Khai Machi had

taken eleven women as wives. Some had become friends, lovers,

companions. Others had been little more than permanent guests in his

house, sent as a means of assuring favor as one might send a good

hunting dog or a talented slave. Idaan had heard that there were several

of them with whom he had never shared a bed. It had been Biitrah's wife,

Hiami, who'd told her that, trying to explain to a young girl that the

Khaiem had a different relationship to their women than other men had,

that it was traditional. It hadn't worked. Even the words the older

woman had used-your father chooser not to-had proven her point that this

was a comfort house with high ceilings, grand halls, and only a single

client.

But now that was changing, not in character, but in the particulars. The

succession would have the same effect on the eight wives who remained,

whoever took the seat. It would be time for them to leavemake the

journey back to whatever city or family had sent them forth in the first

place. The oldest of them, a sharp-tongued woman named Carai, would be

returning to a high family in Yalakeht where the man who would choose

her disposition had been a delighted toddler grinning and filling his

pants the last time she'd seen him. Another woman-one of the recent ones

hardly older than Idaan herself-had taken a lover in the court. She was

being sent hack to Chaburi-"[an, likely to be turned around and shipped

off to another of the Khaicm or traded between the houses of the

utkhaiem as a token of political alliance. Many of the wives had known

each other for decades and would now scatter and lose the friends and

companions they had known best. And on and on, every one of them a life

shaped by a man's will, constrained by tradition.

Idaan walked through the wide, bright corridors, listened to these women

preparing to depart when the inevitable news came, anticipating the

grief in a way that was as hard as the grief itself. Perhaps harder. She

accepted their congratulations on her marriage. She would be able to

remain in the city, and should her man die before her, her family would

be there to support her. She, at least, would never he uprooted. Hiami

had never understood why Idaan had objected to this way of living. Idaan

had never understood why these women hadn't set the palaces on fire.

Her own rooms were set in the back; small apartments with rich

tapestries of white and gold on the walls. They might almost have been

mistaken for the home of some merchant leader-the overseer of a great

trading house, or a trade master who spoke with the voice of a city's

craftsmen. If only she had been born one of those. As she entered, one

of her servants met her with an expression that suggested news. Idaan

took a pose of query.

"Adrah Vaunyogi is waiting to see you, Idaan-cha," the servant girl

said. "It was approaching midday, so I've put him in the dining hall.

There is food waiting. I hope I haven't ..."

"No," Idaan said, "you did well. Please see that we're left alone."

He sat at the long, wooden table, and he did not look up when she came

in. Idaan was willing to ignore him as well as to be ignored, so she

gathered a bowl of food from the platters-early grapes from the south,

sticky with their own blood; hard, crumbling cheese with a ripe scent

that was both appetizing and not; twice-baked flatbread that cracked

sharply when she broke off a piece-and retired to a couch. She forced

herself to forget that he was here, to look forward at the bare fire

grate. Anger buoyed her up, and she clung to it.

She heard it when he stood, heard his footsteps approaching. It was a

little victory, but it pleased her. As he sat cross-legged on the floor

before her, she raised an eyebrow and sketched a pose of welcome before

choosing another grape.

"I came last night," he said. "I was looking for you."

"I wasn't here," she said.

The pause was meant to injure her. Look how sad youu've made me, Idaan.

It was a child's tactic, and that it partially worked infuriated her.

"I've had trouble sleeping," she said. "I walk. Otherwise, I'd spend the

whole night staring at netting and watching the candle burn down. No

call for that."

Adrah sighed and nodded his head.

"I've been troubled too," he said. "My father can't reach the Galts.

With Oshai ... with what happened to him, he's afraid they may withdraw

their support."

"Your father is an old woman frightened there's a snake in the night

bucket," Idaan said, breaking a corner of her bread. "They may lie low

now, but once it's clear that you're in position to become Khai, they'll

do what they promised. They've nothing to gain by not."

"Once I'm Khai, they'll still own me," Adrah said. "They'll know how I

came there. They'll be able to hold it over me. If they tell what they

know, the gods only know what would happen."

Idaan took a bite of grape and cheese both-the sweet and the salt

mingling pleasantly. When she spoke, she spoke around it.

"They won't. They won't dare, Adrah. Give the worst: we're exposed by

the Galts. We're deposed and killed horribly in the streets. Fine. Lift