Seasons of War (42 page)

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Authors: Daniel Abraham

BOOK: Seasons of War
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‘We’ll stretch thinner,’ Kiyan said.
The rest of the day was a single long emergency, events and needs and decisions coming in waves and overlapping each other like the scales of a snake. Liat found herself at the large and growing camp that was forming as the refugees of Cetani reached the bridge. Thankfully, the bridge was only the width of eight men walking abreast, and it kept the flow of humanity and cattle and carts to a speed that was almost manageable. Liat only had to school herself not to look across the water to the larger, shapeless mass of people still waiting to cross. Liat motioned them to different places, the ones too frail or ill to survive another night in the open, the ones robust enough that they might be put to work. There were old men, children, babes hanging in their mothers’ exhausted arms.
Liat felt as if she were being asked to engineer a new city of tents and cook fires. They came in the hundreds. In the thousands. Night had fallen before the last man crossed, and Liat could see fires on the far side, camps made by those who’d given up hope of crossing today. Liat sat on the smooth stone rail at the bridge’s end and let the aches in her feet and back and legs complain to her. It had been an excruciating day, and the work was far from ended. But at least the refugees were in tents sent out from Machi, safe from the cold. The food carts of Machi had also come out from the city, making their way through the crowds with garlic sausages and honeyed almonds and bowls of noodles and beef. There were even songs. Over the constant frigid rushing of the water, there was the sound of flutes and drums and voices. The temptation to close her eyes was unbearable, and yet. And yet.
I want to be a good man
, he’d said.
And I’m not
.
With a sigh she began the long trek back to the city, to the palaces, to Kiyan and Maati and the bathhouses and her bed. The city, as she passed through its streets, was alive. The refugees of Cetani had not all waited in the camp. Or perhaps Kiyan had meant to start bringing them into the city. Whatever the intention had been, they had come, and Machi had poured itself out to make them welcome, to offer them food and wine and comfort, to pull news and gossip from them. The sun was gone, and the darkness was cold, and yet the city was full as a street fair. And as chaotic.
She found Kiyan in the palaces looking as exhausted as she herself felt. Otah’s wife waved her near to the long, broad table. Wives of the utkhaiem were consulting one another, writing figures on paper, issuing orders to wide-eyed servants. It was like the middle of a trading company at the height of the cotton harvest, and Liat found it strangely comforting.
‘It can be done,’ Kiyan said. ‘It won’t be pleasant, but it can be done. I’ve had word from the Poinyat that we can use their mines, and I’m expecting the Daikani any time now.’
‘The mines?’ Liat said. The exhaustion made her slow to understand.
‘We’ll have to put people in them. They’re deep enough to stay warm. It’s like living in the tunnels under the city, only rougher. The ones in the plain will even have their own water. There’s food and sewage to worry about, but I’ve sent Jaini Radaani to speak with the engineers, and if she can’t convince them to find a solution, I’ll be quite surprised.’
‘That’s good,’ Liat said. ‘Things at the bridge are under control. We’ve set up a tent for the physicians down there, and there’s food enough. There will be more tomorrow, but I think they’ve all been seen to.’
‘Gods, Liat-cha. You look like death and you’re cold. Let me have someone see you to the baths, get you warm. Have you eaten?’
She hadn’t, but she pushed the thought aside.
‘I need something from you, Kiyan-cha.’
‘Ask.’
‘Nayiit. He needs . . . something. He needs something to do. Something that he can be proud of. He came back from the battle . . .’
‘I know,’ Kiyan said. ‘I know what happened there. It was in Otah’s letter.’
‘He needs to help,’ Liat said, surprised at the pleading tone of her own voice. She hadn’t known she felt so desperate for him. ‘He needs to
matter
.’
Kiyan nodded slowly, then leaned close and kissed Liat’s cheek. The woman’s lips felt almost hot against Liat’s chilled skin.
‘I understand, Liat-kya,’ she said. ‘Go and rest. I’ll see to it. I promise you.’
Weeping with fatigue, Liat found her way to her apartments, to her bedchamber, to her bed. Her belly ached with hunger, but she only drank the full carafe of water the servants had left at her bedside. By the time her body learned that it had been tricked, she would already be asleep. She closed her eyes for a moment before pulling off her robes and woke, still dressed, in the morning. The light sifted through the shutters, pressing in at the seams. The night candle was a lump of spent wax, and the air didn’t smell of the dying wick. There was something, though. Pork. Bread. Liat sat up, her head light.
She stripped off yesterday’s robes, sticky with sleep sweat, and pulled on a simple sitting robe of thick gray wool. When she stepped out to the main rooms, Kiyan was still arranging the meal on its table.
Thick slices of pink-white meat, bread so fresh it still steamed, trout baked with lemon and salt, poached pears on a silver plate. And a teapot that smelled of white tea and honey. Liat’s stomach woke with a sharp pang.
‘They told me you hadn’t eaten last night,’ she said. ‘Either of you. I thought I might bring along something to keep you breathing.’
‘Kiyan-cha . . .’ Liat began, then broke off and simply took a pose of gratitude. Kiyan smiled. She was a beautiful woman, and age was treating her gently. The intelligence in her eyes was matched by the humor. Otah was lucky, Liat thought, to have her.
‘It’s a trick, really,’ Kiyan said. ‘I’ve come pretending to be a servant girl, when I actually want to speak with Nayiit. If he’s awake.’
‘I am.’
His voice came from the shadows of his bedchambers. Nayiit stepped out. His hair pointed in a hundred directions. His eyes were red and puffy. A thin sprinkling of stubble cast a shadow on his jaw. Kiyan took a pose of greeting. He returned it.
‘How can I be of service, Kiyan-cha?’ he asked. Liat could tell from the too-precise diction that he’d spent his night drinking. He closed his bedroom doors behind him as he stepped in, and Liat more than half thought it was to protect the privacy of whatever woman was sleeping in his bed. Something passed across Kiyan’s sharp features; it might have been compassion or sorrow, understanding or recognition. Liat couldn’t say, and it was gone almost as soon as it came.
‘That’s the question, Nayiit-cha. I have something to ask of you. It may come to nothing, and if you should have to act upon my request, I’m afraid I won’t be in a position to repay you.’
Nayiit came forward slowly and sat at the table. Kiyan filled a plate for him as she spoke, casual as if she were a wayhouse keeper, and he a simple guest.
‘You’ve heard the gossip from Cetani, I assume,’ she said.
‘They’ve fled before the Galts. The Khai - both of them - are in the rear. To protect the people if the Galts come from behind.’
‘Yes,’ Kiyan said. ‘It’s actually more complex than that. Otah has invented a scheme. If it works, he may win us a few months. Perhaps through the winter. If not, I think we can assume the Galts will be here shortly after the last of our cousins from Cetani have arrived.’
It was a casual way to express the raw fear that every one of them might die violently before the first frost came. Our lives are measured in days now, Liat thought. But Kiyan had not paused to let the thought grow.
‘There is an old mine a day’s ride to the north of Machi. It was dug when the first Khai Machi set up residence here. It’s been tapped out for generations, but the tunnels are still there. I’ve been quietly moving supplies to it. A bit of food. Blankets. Coal. A few boxes of gold and jewels. Enough for a few people to survive a winter and still have enough to slip across the passes and into the Westlands when spring came.’
Nayiit took a pose that accepted all she said. Kiyan smiled and leaned forward to touch Nayiit’s hands with her own. She seemed at ease except for the tears that had gathered in her eyes.
‘If the Galts come,’ she said, ‘will you take Eiah and Danat there? Will you . . .’
Kiyan stopped, her smile crumbling. She visibly gathered herself. A long, slow breath. And even still, when she spoke, it was hardly more than a whisper.
‘If they come, will you protect my children?’
You brilliant, vicious snake, Liat thought. You glorious bitch. You’d ask him to love your son. You’d make caring for Danat the proof that my boy’s a decent man. And you’re doing it because I
asked
you to.
It’s perfect.
‘I would be honored,’ Nayiit said. The sound of his voice and the awestruck expression in his eyes were all that Liat needed to see how well Kiyan had chosen.
‘Thank you, Nayiit-kya,’ Kiyan said. She looked over to Liat, and her eyes were guarded. They both knew what had happened here. Liat carefully took a pose of thanks, unsure as she did what precisely she meant by it.
 
The library of Cetani was much smaller than Machi’s. Perhaps a third as many books and codices, not more than half as many scrolls. They arrived on Maati’s doorway in sacks and baskets, crates and wooden boxes. A letter accompanied them, hardly more than a terse note with Otah’s seal on it, telling him that there was no living poet to ask what texts would be of use, that as a result he’d sent everything, and expressing hope that these might help. There was no mention of the Galts or the Dai-kvo or the dead. Otah seemed to assume that Maati would understand how dire the situation was, how much depended on him and on Cehmai.
He was right. Maati understood.
He’d left Cehmai in the library, looking over their new acquisitions, while he sat in the main room of his apartments, marking out grammars and forms. How Heshai had bound Seedless, what he would have done differently in retrospect, and the variations that Maati could make - different words and structures, images and metaphors that would serve the same purpose without coming too near the original. His knuckles ached, and his mind felt woolly. It was hard to say how far into the work they’d come. Perhaps as much as a third. Perhaps less. The hardest part would come at the end; once the binding was mapped out and drafted, there was the careful process of going through, image by image, and checking to see that there were no ambiguities, no unintended meanings, no contradictions where the power of the andat might loop back upon itself and break his hold and himself.
Outside, the wind was blowing cold as it had since the middle morning. The city of tents that had sprung up at Machi’s feet would be an unpleasant place tonight. Liat had been entirely absent these last four days, helping to find Cetani a place within Machi. It was just as well, he supposed. If she were here, he’d only want to talk with her. Speak with her. He’d want to hold her. Enough time for those little pleasures when Seedless was bound and the world was set right. Whatever that meant anymore.
The scratch at his door was an annoyance and a relief both. He called out his permission, and the door swung open. Nayiit ducked into the room, an apologetic smile on his face. Behind him, a small figure waddled - Danat wrapped in robes and cloaks until he seemed almost as wide as tall. Maati rose, his back and knees protesting from having been too long in one position.
‘I’m sorry, Father,’ Nayiit said. ‘I told Danat-cha that you might be busy . . .’
‘Nothing that can’t wait a hand or two,’ Maati said, waving them in. ‘It might be best, really, if I step away from it all. After a while, it all starts looking the same.’
Nayiit chuckled and took a pose that expressed his sympathy. Danat, red-cheeked, shifted his gaze shyly from one man to the other. Maati nodded a question to Nayiit.
‘Danat wanted to ask you something,’ Nayiit said, and squatted down so that his eyes were on a level with the child’s. His smile was gentle, encouraging. A favorite uncle helping his nephew over some simple childhood fear. Maati felt the sudden powerful regret that he had never met Nayiit’s wife, never seen his child. ‘Go ahead, Danat-kya. We came so that you could ask, and Maati-cha’s here. Do it like we practiced.’
Danat turned to Maati, blushing furiously, and took a pose of respect made awkward by the thickness of cloth around his small arms; then he began pulling books out from beneath his robes and placing them one by one in a neat pile before Maati. When the last of them had appeared, Danat shot a glance at Nayiit who answered with an approving pose.
‘Excuse me, Maati-cha,’ Danat said, his face screwed into a knot of concentration, his words choppy from being rehearsed. ‘Papa-kya’s still not back. And I’ve finished all these. I wondered . . .’
The words fell to a mumble. Maati smiled and shook his head.
‘You’ll have to speak louder,’ Nayiit said. ‘He can’t hear you.’
‘I wondered if you had any others I could read,’ the boy said, staring at his own feet as if he’d asked for the moon on a ribbon and feared to be mocked for it.
Behind him, where the boy couldn’t see, Nayiit grinned. This is who he would be, Maati thought. This is the kind of father my boy would be.

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