THE (tlpq-4) (37 page)

"You?" Danat said.

"Anyone like me."

"If they won't, then they won't accept anyone. So it hardly matters what

they think, because they won't have any sons or daughters at court. The

world's changed, and the families that can't change with it won't survive."

"I suppose," Ana said. They were silent for a moment. Otah debated

whether he should scratch on her door or back quietly away, and then Ana

spoke again. Her voice had changed. It was lower now, and dark as rain

on stone. "It doesn't really matter, though, does it. There isn't going

to be a Galt."

"That's not true," Danat said.

"Every day that we're like ... like this, more of us are dying. It's

harvest time. How are they going to harvest the grain if they can't see

it? How do you raise sheep and cattle by sound?"

"I knew a blind man who worked leather in Lachi," Danat said. "His work

was just as good as a man's with eyes."

"One man doesn't signify," Ana said. "He wasn't baking his own bread or

catching his own fish. If he needed to know what a thing looked like,

there was someone he could ask. If everyone's sightless, it's different.

It's all falling apart."

"You can't know that," Danat said.

"I know how crippled I am," Ana said. "It gives me room to guess. I know

how little I can do to stop it."

There was a soft sound, and Danat hushing her. Otah took a careful step

back, away from the door. When Ana's voice came again, it was thick with

tears.

"Tell me," she said. "Tell me one of those stories. The ones where a

child with two races could still win out."

"In the sixteenth year of the reign of the Emperor Adani Beh," Danat

said, his voice bright and soft, "there came to court a boy whose blood

was half-Bakta, his skin the color of soot, and his mind as clever as

any man who had ever lived. When the Emperor saw him ..."

Otah backed away, his son's voice becoming a murmur of sound, inflected

like words but too faint to mean anything. Their whole journey, it had

been like this. Each time Otah thought they might have a moment alone,

Ana was near, or one of the armsmen, or Otah had brought himself to the

edge of speech and then failed. Every courier they stopped along the

road was another reminder to Otah that his son had to know, had to be

told. But no word had come from Idaan, and Danat still didn't know that

Eiah was involved in the slow death of Galt and, with it, the future

Otah had fought for.

Before Pathai, Otah had told himself when they were on the road. During

the journey itself, it hardly mattered whether Danat knew, but once they

reached their destination, his son couldn't be set out without knowing

what it was they were searching for and why. Otah had no faith that

another, better chance would come the next day. He made his way back

upstairs, found a servant woman, and had cheese, fresh bread, and a

carafe of rice wine taken to Danat's room. Otah waited there until the

Galtic clock, clicking to itself in a corner, marked the night as almost

half-gone. Otah didn't notice that he was dozing until the opening door

roused him.

Otah broke the news as gently as he could, outlining his own

halfknowledge of Maati's intentions, Idaan's appearance in Saraykeht,

Eiah's appearance on the list of possible backers, and his own decision

to set his sister to hunt down his daughter. Danat listened carefully,

as if picking through the words for clues to some deeper mystery. When,

at length, Otah went silent, Danat looked into the fire in its grate,

wove his fingers together, and thought. The flames made his eyes glitter

like jewels.

"It isn't her," he said at last. "She wouldn't do this."

"I know you love her, Danat-kya. I love her too, and I don't want to

think this of her either, but-"

"I don't mean she didn't back Maati," Danat said. "We don't know that

she did, but at least that part's plausible. I'm only saying that this

blindness isn't her work."

His voice wasn't loud or strident. He seemed less like a man fighting an

unpalatable truth than a builder pointing out a weakness in an archway's

design. Otah took a pose that invited him to elaborate.

"Eiah hates your plan," Danat said. "She even came to me a few times to

argue that I should refuse it."

"I didn't know that."

"I didn't tell you," Danat said, his hands taking a pose that

apologized, though his voice held no regret. "I couldn't see that it

would make things between the two of you any better. But my point is

that her arguments were never against Galts. She couldn't stand to see a

generation of our own women ignored. Their pain was what she lived in.

When you started allowing the import of bed slaves as ... well ..."

"Brood mares," Otah said. "I do remember her saying that."

"Well, that," Danat agreed. "Eiah took that as saying that none of the

women here mattered. That she didn't matter. If the problems of the

Empire could be solved by hauling in wombs that would bear, then all

that was important to you about women was the children they could yield."

"But if there's no children, there can't be-"

Danat shifted forward in his seat, putting his palm over Otah's mouth.

The boy's eyes were dark, his mouth set in the half-smile Kiyan had

often worn.

"You need to listen to me, Papa-kya. I'm not telling you that she's

right. I'm not telling you she's wrong, for that. I'm telling you Eiah

loves people and she hates pain. If she's been backing Uncle Maati, it's

to take away the pain, not to ..."

Danat gestured at the shutters, and by implication at the world on the

other side of them. The logs in the grate popped and the song of a

single cricket, perhaps the last one alive before the coming winter,

sang counterpoint to the ticking clock. Otah rubbed his chin, his mind

turning his son's words over like a jeweler considering a gem.

"She may be part of this," Danat said. "I think you're right to find

her. But the poet we want? It isn't her."

"I wish I could be certain of that," Otah said.

"Well, start with not being certain that she is," Danat said. "The world

will carry you the rest of the way, if I'm right."

Otah smiled and put his hand on his son's head.

"When did you become wise?" Otah asked.

"It's only what you'd have said, if you weren't busy feeling responsible

for all of it," Danat said. "You're a good man, Papa-kya. And we're

doing what we can in unprecedented times."

Otah let his hand fall to his side. Danat smiled. The cricket, wherever

it was, went silent.

"Go," Danat said. "Sleep. We've got a long ride tomorrow, and I'm

exhausted."

Otah rose, his hands taking a pose that accepted the command. Danat

chuckled; then as Otah reached the door, he sobered.

"Thank you, by the way, for what you said about Ana," Danat said. "You

were right. We weren't treating her with the respect she deserved."

"It's a mistake we all make, one time and another," Otah said. "I'm glad

it was an error we could correct."

Perhaps mine also will be, he thought. It terrified him in some

fundamental and joyous way to think that possibly, possibly, this might

still end without a sacrifice that was too great for him to bear. He

hadn't realized how much he had tried to harden himself against the

prospect of killing his own daughter, or how poorly he had managed it.

He crawled into his bed. Danat's certainty lightened the weight that

bore him down. The poet wasn't Eiah. This blindness wasn't in her,

wasn't who she was. The andat might have been bound by Maati or some

other girl. Some girl whom he could bring himself to kill. He closed his

eyes, considering how he might avoid having the power of the andat

turned on him. The fear would return, he was sure of that. But now, for

a moment, he could afford himself the luxury of being more frightened of

loss than of the price of victory.

They left before sunrise with the steamcarts' supplies of wood, coal,

and water refreshed, the horses replaced with well-rested animals, and

the scent of snow heavy in the air. They moved faster than Otah had

expected, not pausing to eat or rest. He himself took a turn at the kiln

of the larger steamcart, keeping the fire hot and well-fueled. If the

armsmen were surprised to see the Emperor working like a commoner, they

didn't say anything. Two couriers passed them riding east, but neither

bore a message from Idaan. Three came up behind them bearing letters for

the Emperor from what seemed like half the court at Saraykeht and Utani.

Nightfall caught them at the top of the last high, broad pass that

opened onto the western plains. On the horizon, Pathai glittered like a

congress of stars. The armsmen assembled the sleeping tents, unrolling

layers of leather and fur to drape over the canvas. Otah squatted by the

kiln, reading through letter after letter. The silk threads that had

once sewn the paper closed rested in knots and tangles by his feet. The

snow that lay about them was fresh though the sky had cleared, and the

cold combined with the day's work to tire him. The joints of his hands

ached, and his eyes were tired and difficult to focus. He dreaded the

close, airless sleeping tents and the ache-interrupted night that lay

before him almost as much as he was annoyed by the petty politics of court.

Letter after letter praised or castigated him for his decision to leave.

The Khaiate Council, as it had been deemed in his absence, was either a

terrible mistake or an act of surpassing wisdom, and whichever it was,

the author of the letter would be better placed on it than someone Otah

had named.

Balasar Gice, the only Galt on the council, was pressing for relief

ships to sail for Galt with as much food as could be spared and men to

help guide and oversee the blinded. The rest of the council was divided,

and a third of them had written to Otah for his opinion. Otah put those

letters directly into the fire. If he'd meant to answer every difficult

question from the road, he wouldn't have created the council.

There was no word from Sinja or Chaburi-Tan. Balasar, writing with a

secretary to help him, feared the worst. This letter, Otah tucked into

his sleeve. There was no reason to keep it. He could do nothing to

affect its news. But he couldn't bring himself to destroy something to

do with Sinja when his old friend's fate already seemed so tentative.

Uncertain footsteps sounded behind him. Ana Dasin was walking the wide

boards toward the kiln. Her hair was loose and her robe blue shot with

gold. Her grayed eyes seemed to search the darkness.

"Ana-cha," he said, both a greeting and a warning that he was there. The

girl started a little, but then smiled uncertainly.

"Most High," she said, nodding very nearly toward him. "Is ... I was

wondering if Danat-cha was with you?"

"He's gone to fetch water with the others," Otah said, nodding uselessly

toward a path that led to a shepherd's well. "He will be back in half a

hand, I'd think."

"Oh," Ana said, her face falling.

"Is there something I can do?"

Watching the struggle in the girl's expression seemed almost more an

intrusion than his previous eavesdropping. After a moment, she drew

something from her sleeve. Cream-colored paper sewn with yellow thread.

She held it out.

"The courier said it was from my father," she said. "I can't read it."

Otah cleared his throat against an unexpected tightness. He felt

unworthy of the girl's trust, and something like gratitude brought tears

to his eyes.

"I would be honored, Ana-cha, to read it for you," he said.

Otah rose, took the letter, and drew Ana to a stool near enough the kiln

to warm her, but not so close as to put her in danger of touching the

still-scorching metal. He ripped out the thread, unfolded the single

page, and leaned in toward the light.

It was written in Galtic though the script betrayed more familiarity

with the alphabet of the Khaiem. He knew before he began to read that

there would be nothing in it too personal to say to a secretary, and the

fact relieved him. He skimmed the words once, then again more slowly.

"Most High?" Ana said.

"It is addressed to you," Otah said. "It says this: I understand that

you've seen fit to run off without telling we or your mother. You should

know better than that. Then there are a few more lines that restate all