Abraham Daniel - A Betrayal in Winter

of syllables."

"Thank you," Otah said. "I feel much better now."

"You are going to have to start caring what they think, you know. These

are people you're going to be living with for the rest of your life.

Starting off by proving how disrespectful and independent you can be is

only going to make things harder. And the Galts carry quite a few

contracts," Sinja said. "Are you sure you want me away just now? It's

traditional to have a guard close at hand when you're cultivating new

enemies.

"Yes, I want you to go. If the utkhaiem are talking about the Galts,

they may talk less about Idaan."

"You know they won't forget her. It doesn't matter what other issues you

wave at them, they'll come back to her."

"I know. But it's the best I can do for now. Are you ready?"

"I have everything I need prepared. We can do it now if you'd like."

"I would."

THREE ROOMS HAI) BEEN HER WORLD. A NARROW BED, A CHEAP IRON BRAzier, a

night pot taken away every second day. The armsmen brought her bits of

candle-stubs left over from around the palaces. Once, someone had

slipped a book in with her meal-a cheap translation of Westland court

poems. Still, she'd read them all and even started com posing some of

her own. It galled her to be grateful for such small kindnesses,

especially when she knew they would not have been extended to her had

she been a man.

The only breaks came when she was taken out to walk down empty tunnels,

deep under the palaces. Armsmen paced behind her and before her, as if

she were dangerous. And her mind slowly folded in on itself, the days

passing into weeks, the ankle she'd cracked in her fall mending. Some

days she felt lost in dreams, struggling to wake only to wish herself

back asleep when her mind came clear. She sang to herself. She spoke to

Adrah as if he were still there, still alive. As if he still loved her.

She raged at Cehmai or bedded him or begged his forgiveness. All on her

narrow bed, by the light of candle stubs.

She woke to the sound of the bolt sliding open. She didn't think it was

time to be fed or walked, but time had become a strange thing lately.

When the door opened and the man in the black and silver robes of the

Khai stepped in she told herself she was dreaming, half fearing he had

come to kill her at last, and half hoping for it.

The Khai Machi looked around the cell. His smile seemed forced.

"You might not think it, but I've lived in worse," he said.

"Is that supposed to comfort me?"

"No," he said.

A second man entered the room, a thick bundle under his arm. A soldier,

by his stance and by the mail that he wore under his robes. Idaan sat

up, gathering herself, preparing for whatever came and desperate that

the men not turn and close the door again behind them. The Khai Machi

hitched up his robes and squatted, his hack against the stone wall as if

he was a laborer at rest between tasks. His long face was very much like

Biitrah's, she saw. It was in the corners of his eyes and the shape of

his jaw.

"Sister," he said.

"Most high," she replied.

He shook his head. The soldier shifted. She had the feeling that the two

movements were the continuation of some conversation they had had, a

subtle commentary to which she was not privileged.

"This is Sinja-cha," the Khai said. "You'll do as he says. If you fight

hire, he'll kill you. If you try to leave him before he gives you

permission, he'll kill you."

"Are you whoring me to your pet thug then?" she asked, fighting to keep

the quaver from her voice.

"What? No. Gods," Otah said. "No, I'm sending you into exile. He's to

take you as far as Cetani. He'll leave you there with a good robe and a

few lengths of silver. You can write. You have numbers. You'll be able

to find some work, I expect."

"I am a daughter of the Khaiem," she said bitterly. "I'm not permitted

to work."

"So lie," Otah said. "Pick a new name. Noygu always worked fairly well

for me. You could be Sian Noygu. Your mother and father were merchants

in ... well, call it Udun. You don't want people thinking about Machi if

you can help it. They died in a plague. Or a fire. Or bandits killed

them. It isn't as if you don't know how to lie. Invent something."

Idaan stood, something like hope in her heart. To leave this hole. To

leave this city and this life. To become someone else. She hadn't

understood how weary and exhausted she had become until this moment. She

had thought the cell was her prison.

The soldier looked at her with perfectly empty eyes. She might have been

a cow or a large stone he'd been set to move. Otah levered himself back

to standing.

"You can't mean this," Idaan said, her voice hardly a whisper. "I killed

Danat. I as much as killed our father,"

"I didn't know them," her brother said. "I certainly didn't love them."

"I did."

"All the worse for you, then."

She looked into his eyes for the first time. There was a pain in them

that she couldn't fathom.

"I tried to kill you."

"You won't do it again. I've killed and lived with it. I've been given

mercy I didn't deserve. Sometimes that I didn't want. So you see, we may

not be all that different, sister." He went silent for a moment, then,

"Of course if you come back, or I find you conspiring against me-"

"I wouldn't come back here if they begged me," she said. "°I'his city is

ashes to me."

Her brother smiled and nodded as much to himself as to her.

"Sinja?" he said.

The soldier tossed the bundle to her. It was a leather traveler's cloak

lined with wool and thick silk robes and leggings wrapped around heavy

boots. She was appalled at how heavy they were, at how weak she'd

become. Her brother ducked out of the room, leaving only the two of

them. The soldier nodded to the robes in her arms.

"Best change into those quickly, Idaan-cha," he said. "I've got a sledge

and team waiting, but it's an unpleasant winter out there, and I want to

make the first low town before dark."

"This is madness," she said.

The soldier took a pose of agreement.

"He's making quite a few had decisions," he said. "He's new at this,

though. He'll get better."

Idaan stripped under the soldier's impassive gaze and pulled on the

robes and the leggings, the cloak, the boots. She stepped out of her

cell with the feeling of having shed her skin. She didn't understand how

much those walls had become everything to her until she stepped out the

last door and into the blasting cold and limitless white. For a moment,

it was too much. The world was too huge and too open, and she was too

small to survive even the sight of it. She wasn't conscious of shrinking

back from it until the soldier touched her arm.

"The sledge is this way," he said.

Idaan stumbled, her hoots new and awkward, her legs unaccustomed to the

slick ice on the snow. But she followed.

THE CHAINS WERE FROZEN To THE TOWER, THE LIFTING MECHANISM BRITtle with

cold. The only way was to walk, but Otah found he was much stronger than

he had been when they'd marched him up the tower before, and the effort

of it kept him warm. The air was bitterly cold; there weren't enough

braziers in the city to keep the towers heated in winter. The floors he

passed were filled with crates of food, bins of grains and dried fruits,

smoked fish and meats. Supplies for the months until summer came again,

and the city could forget for a while what the winter had been.