THE (tlpq-4) (16 page)

"You won't have a different girl for fear she'll hate you and lie about

it," Otah said in the tone of a man explaining the solution of a simple

mechanical problem. "Ana, we are all quite aware, isn't going to hide

her feelings on the matter. So if she chooses you, you can believe her.

Yes?"

"We have a small advantage in that her present lover is something of a

cow," Issandra said. "I suspect that, had the circumstances been

otherwise, she would already have grown tired of him. But he's a point

of pride now" She fixed Danat with her eyes. "You have a hard road

before you, son.

"You want me to seduce your daughter?" Danat asked, his voice breaking

slightly at seduce.

"Yes," Issandra said.

Danat sank to a cushion. His face flushed almost the color of sunset.

"I thought he might deliver an apology," Otah said. "It would give him a

reason to speak with Ana-cha in private, separate him from the political

aspect of the arrangement, and place him in her camp."

"Apologize for what?" Danat said.

"Well, for me," Otah said. "Express your shame that I would treat her so

poorly."

"She'll smell that in a heartbeat," Issandra said. "And if you begin by

giving her the upper hand, you'll never have it back. Ask an apology

from her. Respect her objections, but tell her she was wrong in humiliat

ing you. You are as much a pawn in this as she is. And do you have a lover?"

"I ... I was..."

"Well, find one," Issandra said. "Preferably someone prettier than my

daughter. You needn't look shocked, my boy. I've lived my life in court.

While you poor dears are out swinging knives at each other, there are

wars just as bloody at every grand ball."

A scratching came at the door, followed by a servant woman. She took a

pose of abject apology.

"Most High, there's a courier for you."

"It can wait," Otah said. "Or if it can't, send for Sinja-cha."

"The courier's come from Chaburi-Tan," the servant said. "The letter is

sealed and signed for you alone. He says the issue is urgent."

Otah cursed under his breath, but he rose. As he stepped out to the

antechamber, he heard Danat and Issandra resume the conversation without

him. The antechamber felt as close as a grave, heavy tapestries killing

any sound from within the greater meeting room. The courier was a young

man, hardly more than Danat's age. Otah saw the calm, professional eyes

sum him up. If the boy had been longer in the gentleman's trade, Otah

would never have noticed it. He accepted the letter and ripped it open

there, not waiting for a blade to cut the silk-sewn edging.

The cipher was familiar to him, but it made for slower reading than

plain text. It was from the Kajiit Miyan, servant to the Emperor Otah

Machi who had founded the Third Empire. Otah skipped down past the

honorifics and empty form, decoding words and phrases in his mind until

he reached something of actual importance. Then he read more slowly. And

then he went back and read it again.

The mercenaries hired to protect Chaburi-Tan were ending their contract

and leaving. Within a month, the city would be reduced to its citizen

militia. The pirates who had been harrying the city would find them only

token resistance. Their options, his agent said, were to surrender and

pray for mercy or else flee the city. There would be no defense.

Otah took the servant girl by the elbow.

"Find Balasar. And Sinja. Bring them . . ." Otah looked over his

shoulder. "Bring them to the winter garden of the second palace. Do it

now. You. Courier. You'll wait until I have word to take back."

The twilight world lost its color like a face going pale. Otah paced the

lush green and blossomless garden, wrenching his mind from one crisis to

the next. A different servant led Balasar into the space between the

willows.

"Find us some light," Otah said. "And Sinja-cha. Get Sinja-cha."

The servant, caught between two needs, hesitated, then hurried off. Otah

led Balasar to a low stone bench. The general wore a lighter jacket,

silk over cotton. His breath smelled of wine, but he gave no sign of

being drunk. Otah looked out at the gray sky, the dark, looming palaces

with windows glimmering like stars and cursed Sinja for his absence.

"Balasar-cha, I need you. The Galtic fleet has to travel to ChaburiTan,"

Otah said.

He outlined the letter he'd had, the history of increasing raids and

attacks, and his half-imagined scheme to show the unity of Galt and the

Khaiem. With every word, Balasar seemed to become stiller, until at the

end, it was like speaking to stone.

"We can only show unity where it exists," Balasar said. His voice was

low, and in the rising darkness it seemed to come from no direction at

all. "After what happened yesterday, the fleet's as likely to turn on

the city as the raiders."

"I don't have the ships and men to protect Chaburi-Tan," Otah said. "Not

without you. The city will fall, and thousands will be killed. If the

Galtic fleet came in, the pirates would turn back without so much as an

arrow flown. And it would halfway unmake yesterday's mess."

"It can't happen," Balasar said.

"Then tell me what can," Otah said.

The general was silent. A moth took wing, fluttering between them like a

clot of shadows and dust before it vanished.

"There is ... something. It will make things here more difficult,"

Balasar said. "There are families who have committed to your scheme.

That have already been brokering contracts and arranging alliances. I

can gather them. It won't be anything like the full force of war, but if

they sent their private ships and soldiers along with whatever you can

muster up, it might serve."

"At the cost of sending away what allies I have," Otah said.

"That would be the price of it," Balasar said. "Send away your friends,

and you're left eating with your enemies. It could poison the court

against us."

Us. At least the man had said us.

"Get them," Otah said. "Get whoever you can quickly, and then send for

me. I can't let another city die."

It only occurred to him as he stalked back through the wide stone halls

and softly glowing lanterns of the first palace that he had been

speaking to the man that had killed Udun and the village of the Daikvo,

the man who had maimed Nantani and Yalakeht.

The meeting chamber was empty when he reached it; Danat and Issandra had

gone. The cheese and apples and wine had been cleared away. The lanterns

had blown out. Otah called for a servant to fetch him food and light. He

sat, his annoyance and unease rising in his breast like the tide

climbing a sea cliff.

Ana Dasin and her petulant, self-important father were well on their way

to seeing both empires chewed away one bit at a time by pirates and

foreign conspiracies. And failing crops. And time. Childless years

growing one upon another like a winter with no promise of spring. There

were so many things to fix, so uncountably many things that had gone

wrong. He was the Emperor, the most powerful man in the cities of the

Khaiem, and he was tired to his heart.

When the food arrived-pork in black sauce, spiced rice, sugared apple,

wine and herbs-Otah was hardly hungry any longer. Moments after that,

Sinja finally arrived.

"Where have you been?" Sinja demanded. "I've been wandering around the

winter garden for half a hand looking for you."

"I should ask the same. I must have had half the servants in the palace

looking for you."

"I know. Six of them found me. It got inconvenient telling them all I

was busy. You need to come with me."

"You were busy?"

"Otah-cha, you need to come with me."

He breathed deeply and took a pose that commanded obedience. Sinja's

eyebrows rose and he adopted an answering pose that held nuances of both

query and affront.

"I have no intention of going anywhere until I have finished eating,"

Otah said. It embarrassed him to hear the peevishness in his voice, but

not so much as to unsay it. Sinja tilted his head, stepped forward, and

lifted one end of the table. The plates and bowl spun to the floor. One

shattered. Otah was on his feet with no memory of standing. His face

felt as warm as if he were looking into a fire. His ears filled with a

buzzing of rage.

Sinja took a step back.

"I can have you killed," Otah said. "You know I can have you killed."

"You're right," Sinja said. "That passed the mark. I apologize, Most

High. But you have to come with me. Now."

Servants came in, their eyes wide as little moons, their hands

fluttering over the carnage of his dinner.

"What is it?" Otah said.

"Not here. Not where someone might hear us."

Sinja turned and walked from the room. Otah hesitated, mumbled an

obscenity that made the servants turn their faces away, and followed. As

his own anger faded, he saw the tension in Sinja's shoulders and through

his neck. They were the sorts of signs he should have picked up on at

once. He was tired. He was slipping.

Sinja was quartered in apartments of the third palace, where the Khai

Saraykeht's second son would have lived, had there been a Khai Saraykeht

or any sons. The walls were black marble polished until the darkness

itself shone in the torchlight. Doors of worked silver still showed

where gems had been wrenched from them by Galtic hands. They were

beautiful all the same. Perhaps more beautiful than when they had been

intact; scars created character.

Without speaking, Sinja went to each window in turn, poking his head out

into the night, then closing outer shutters and inner. Otah stood, arms

in his sleeves, unease growing in his heart.

"What is this?" Otah said, but the man only took a pose that asked

patience and continued in his errand. At the last, he looked out into

the corridor, sent the servant there away, then closed and bolted the

main door.

"We have a problem, Otah-cha," Sinja said. He was breathing hard, like a

man who'd run up stairs.

"We have a hundred of them," Otah said.

"The others may not matter," a woman's voice said from the shadows of

the bedchamber. Otah turned.

Idaan was shorter than he remembered her, wider through the shoulders

and the hips. Her hair was gray, her robe a cheaply dyed green and

travel-stained. Otah took a step back without meaning to. His sister's

appearance chilled his heart like an omen of death, but he wouldn't let

it show.

"Why are you here?" he said.

His exiled sister pursed her lips and shrugged.

"Gratitude," she said. "You did away with my lover and his family. You

took everything I had, including my true name, and sent me out into the

world to survive as best I could."

"I'm not sorry," Otah said.

"And I am? It's the kindest thing anyone's ever done for me," Idaan

said. "I mean that. And I'm here to repay the debt. You're in trouble,

brother mine, and I'm the only one who can warn you. The andat are

coming back to the world. And this time, the poets won't be answering to

you."

8

Autumn came early on the high plains. Even though the leaves were as

green, the grasses as thick, Maati felt the change. It wasn't a chill,

but the presentiment of one: a sharpness to air that had been soft and

torpid with summer heat. Another few weeks and the trees would turn to

red and gold, the mornings would come late, the sunsets early. The

endless change would change again. For the first time in years, Maati

found himself pleased by the thought.

The days following his return had fallen into a rhythm. In the mornings,

he and his students worked on the simple tasks of maintenance that the

school demanded: mending the coops for the chickens they'd brought from

Utani, weeding the paths, washing the webs and dust from the corners of

the rooms. At midday, they stopped, made food, and rested in the shade

of the gardens or on the long, sloping hills where he had taken lessons

as a boy. Afterward, he would retire for the afternoon, preparing his

lectures and writing in his book until his eyes ached and then taking a

short nap to revive before the evening lecture. And always, whatever the

day brought, the subject drew itself back to Vanjit and Clarity-ofSight.