THE (tlpq-4) (42 page)

tension he hadn't known he felt lessened and he smiled into the glowing

coals of the kiln. "It is fair to ask in what manner you judged me poorly?"

"I thought you were cold. Hard. You have to understand, I grew up with

monster stories about the Khaiem and the andat."

"I do," Otah said, sighing. "I look back, and I suspect that more than

half of the problems between Galt and the Khaiem came from ignorance.

Ignorance and power are a poor combination."

"Tell me ..." Ana said, and then stopped. Her brow furrowed, and in the

dim light he thought she was blushing. Otah put his hand over hers. She

shook her head, and then turned her milky eyes to him. "You've forgiven

me in advance if this is too much to ask. Tell me about Danat's mother."

"Kiyan?" Otah said. "Well. What do you want to know about her?"

"Anything. Just tell me," the girl said.

Otah collected himself, and then began to pluck stories. The night

they'd met. The night he'd told her that he was more than a simple

courier and she'd thrown him out of her wayhouse. The ways she had

helped to smooth things as he learned how to become first Khai Machi and

then Emperor. He didn't tell the hard stories. The conflict over Sinja's

feelings for her, and Otah's poor response to them. The long fears they

suffered together when Danat was young and weak in the lungs. Her death.

Still, he didn't think he kept all the sorrow from his voice.

Idaan returned halfway through one story, four bowls in her hands like a

teahouse servant juggling food for a full table. Otah took one without

pausing, and Idaan squatted on the boards at Ana's feet and pressed

another into the girl's hands. Otah went on with other little stories-

Kiyan's balancing the combined populations of Machi and Cetani with

Balasar Gice's crippled army in the wake of the war. Her refusal to

allow servants to bathe her. The story of when the representative of

Eddensea had mistaken something she'd said and thought she'd invited him

to bed with her.

Danat arrived out of the darkness, drawn by their voices. Idaan gave him

the last bowl, and he sat at Otah's side, then shifted, then shifted

again until his back rested against Ana's shin. He added stories of his

own. His mother's sharp tongue and wayhouse keeper's vocabulary, the

songs she'd sung, all the scraps and moments that built up a boy's

memory of his mother. It was beautiful to listen to. It wasn't something

Otah himself had ever had.

In the end, Ana let Danat lead her back to her shelter, leaving Otah and

his sister alone by the black and cooling kiln. The armsmen had prepared

sleeping tents for them, but Idaan seemed content to sit up drinking

watered wine in the cold night air, and Otah found himself pleased

enough to join her.

"I don't suppose you'd care to explain to your poor idiot brother what

happened today?" he said at length.

"You haven't put it together?" Idaan said. "This Vanjit creature has

destroyed the only home Ana-cha had to go to. She's had to look long and

hard at what her life could be in the place she's found herself,

crippled in a foreign land, and it shook her."

"She's in love with Danat?"

"Of course she is," Idaan said. "It would have happened in half the time

if you and her mother hadn't insisted on it. I think that's more

frightening for her than the poet killing her nation."

"I don't know what you mean," he said.

"She's spent her life watching her mother linked with her father," Idaan

said. "There are only so many years you can soak in the regrets of

others before you start to think that all the world's that way."

"I had the impression that Farrer-cha loved his wife deeply," Otah said.

"And I had it that there's more than a husband to make a marriage,"

Idaan said. "It isn't her mother she fears being, it's Farrer-cha. She's

afraid of having her love merely tolerated. I spent most of the day

talking about Cehmai. I told her that if she really wanted to know what

spending a life with Danat would be like, she should see what sort of

man you were. If she wanted to know how Danat would see her, to find how

you saw your wife."

Otah laughed, and he thought he saw the darkness around Idaan shift as

if she had smiled.

"I'm sorry I didn't have the chance to know her," Idaan said. "She

sounds like a good woman."

"She was," Otah said. "I miss her."

"I know you do," Idaan said. "And now Ana-cha knows it too."

"Does it matter?" Otah said. "All the hopes I had for building Galt and

the Khaiem together are in rags around my knees. We're on a hunt for a

girl who can ruin the world. What she's done to Galt, she could do to

us. Or to all the world, if she wanted it. How do we plan for a marriage

between Danat and Ana when it's just as likely that we'll all be

starving and blind by Candles Night?"

"We're all born to die, Most High," Idaan said, the title sounding like

an endearment in her voice. "Every love ends in parting or death. Every

nation ends and every empire. Every baby born was going to die, given

enough time. If being fated for destruction were enough to take the joy

out of things, we'd slaughter children fresh from the womb. But we

don't. We wrap them in warm cloth and we sing to them and feed them milk

as if it might all go on forever."

"You make it sound like something you've done," Otah said.

Idaan made a sound he couldn't interpret, part grunt, part whimper.

"What is it?" he asked the darkness.

The silence lasted for the length of five long breaths together. When

she spoke, her voice was low and rich with embarrassment.

"Lambs," she said.

"Lambs?"

"I used to wrap up the newborn lambs and keep them in the house. I even

had Cehmai build them a crib that I could rock them in. After a few

years, we had to switch to goats. I couldn't slaughter the lambs after

all that, could I? By the end, I think we had sixty."

Otah didn't know whether to laugh or put his arms around the woman. The

thought of the hard-hearted killer of his own father, his own brothers,

cuddling a baby lamb was as absurd as it was sorrowful.

"Is it like this for everyone?" he asked softly. "Does every woman

suffer this? Is the need to care for something that strong?"

"Strong? When it strikes, yes. But everyone? No," Idaan said. "Of course

not. As it happened, it struck me. I assume Maati's students all feel

strongly enough about it to risk their lives. But not every woman needs

a child, and, thank the gods, the madness sometimes passes. It did for me."

"You wouldn't be a mother now? If it were possible, you wouldn't choose to?"

"Gods, no. I'd have been terrible at it. But I miss them," Idaan said.

"I miss my little lambs. And that brings us back to Ana-cha, doesn't it?"

Otah took a pose that asked clarification.

"Who am I," Idaan asked, "to say that falling in love is ridiculous just

because it's doomed?"

22

The weeks spent at the school had let Maati forget the ways in which the

world broadened when he was traveling, and also the ways in which it

narrowed when he was traveling with company. Living in the same walls,

the same gardens, and surrounded as he had been by only a few deeply

familiar faces had begun to grate on him before they left, but there had

still been a way to find a moment to steal away. On the road, all of

them together, the chances for private conversation were few and precious.

Since the andat had spoken, he hadn't found himself alone with Eiah, or

at least not so clearly so that he would risk speaking. He didn't want

either of the Kaes or Irit to know what had happened. He was afraid that

they would say something where Vanjit could hear them. He was afraid

that Vanjit would find out what the andat had said and take some

terrible action in her fear and in her own defense.

He was afraid because he was afraid, and he was half-certain that Vanjit

knew he was.

They reached the lands surrounding the river sooner than he would have

wanted; if the long days and nights on the road had kept him in close

quarters with the others, the days ahead sharing a boat would be worse.

He had to find a way to talk with Eiah before that, and the prospect of

his lessening time made him anxious.

Cold and snow hadn't reached the river valley yet. It was as if their

journey were moving backward in time. The leaves here clung to the

trees, some of them with the gold and red and yellow still struggling to

push out the last hints of green. As they approached the water, farms

and low towns clustered closer and closer. The roads and paths began to

cling to irrigation channels, and other travelers-most merely local, but

some from the great cities-appeared more and more often. Maati sat at

the front of the cart, his robes wrapped close around him, staring ahead

and trying not to put himself anywhere that the andat could catch his eye.

He was, in fact, so preoccupied with the politics and dangers within his

small party that he didn't see the Galts until his horses were almost

upon them.

Three men, none of them older than thirty summers, sat at the side of

the road. They wore filthy robes that had once been red or orange. The

tallest had a leather satchel over his shoulder. They had stepped a few

feet off the path at the sound of hooves, and the tall grass made them

seem like apparitions from a children's epic. Their eyes were blue, the

pupils gray. None of them had shaved in recent memory. Their gaunt faces

turned to the road from habit. There was no expression in them, not even

hunger. Maati didn't realize he had slowed the horses until he heard

Eiah call out from the cart's bed behind him. At her word, he stopped.

Large Kae and Irit, taking their turns on horseback, reined in. Vanjit

and Small Kae moved to the side of the cart. Maati risked a glance at

Clarity-of-Sight, but it was still and silent.

"Who are you?" Eiah demanded in their language. "What are your names?"

The Galtic apparitions shifted, blinking their empty eyes in confusion.

The tall one with the satchel recovered first.

"I'm Jase Hanin," he said, speaking too loudly. "These are my brothers.

It isn't plague. Whatever took our eyes, miss, it wasn't plague. We

aren't a danger."

Eiah muttered something that Maati couldn't make out, then shifted a

crate in the back. When he turned to look, she had her physician's

satchel on her hip and was preparing to drop down to the road. Vanjit,

seeing this as well, grabbed Eiah's sleeve.

"Don't," Vanjit said. The word was as much command as plea.

"I'll be fine," Eiah said. Vanjit's grip tightened on the cloth, and

Maati saw their eyes lock.

"Vanjit-cha," Maati said. "It's all right. Let her go."

The poet looked back at him, anger in her gaze, but she did as he'd

said. Eiah slipped down to the ground and walked toward the surprised Galts.

"You're a long way from anyplace," Eiah said.

"We were out in the low towns," the tall one said. "Something happened.

We've been trying to get back to Saraykeht. Our mother's there, you see.

Only it seems like we're put on the wrong path or stolen from as often

as we're helped."

He tried what had once been a winning smile. Maati tied the reins to the

cart and lowered himself to the road as well.

"Your mother?" Eiah said.

"Yes, miss," the Galt said.

"Well," she said, her voice cool. "At least you weren't a band of those

charming liars out selling the promise of women in the low towns. What's

in the satchel?"

The Galt looked chagrined and desperate, but he didn't lie.

"Names of men, miss. The ones who wanted wives from Galt."

"I thought as much," Eiah said.

"Don't help them," Vanjit said. She'd climbed to the front of the cart,

but hadn't taken up the reins. From the way she held her body, Maati

guessed it was a matter of time before she did. He saw the andat's black

eyes peering over the cart at him and looked away. Eiah might as well

not have heard her.

"We were going to do the right thing with them, miss," the tall man

said. "There's a man in Acton putting together women who want to come

over. We had an arrangement with him. All the money's been taken, but we

still have the lists. God's word, we're going to keep our end of the

thing, if we can just get back to Saraykeht."

"You stole from them," Eiah said, pulling a leather waterskin from her

satchel. "They stole back from you. Seems to me that leaves you even.

Here, drink from this. It's not only water, so don't take more than a

couple of swallows, any of you."

"Eiah-kya," Irit said. Her voice was high and anxious, but she didn't

say more than the name. Large Kae's mount whickered and sidestepped,

sensing something uneasing in its rider's posture. Eiah might as easily

have been alone.

"These ... put out your hand. These are lengths of silver. I've put a

notch in each of them, so you'll know if someone's trying to switch

them. It's enough to pay for a passage to Saraykeht. The road you're

following now, it will be about another day's walk to the river. Maybe

longer. Call it two."

"Thank you, miss," one of the other two said.

"I don't suppose we could ride on the back of your cart?" the tall man

said, hope in his smile.

"No," Maati said. There was a limit to what Vanjit would allow, and he

wasn't ready for that confrontation. "We've spent too long at this. Eiah."

Without a word, without meeting his gaze, Eiah turned back, climbed into

the cart, and went back to the wax writing tablets she'd spent her

morning over. Maati climbed back up into the cart and started them back

down the road, Vanjit at his side.

"She shouldn't have done that," Vanjit murmured. Soft as the words were,

he knew Eiah would hear them.

"There's no harm in it," Maati said. "Let it pass."

Vanjit frowned, but let the subject go. She spent the rest of the day

beside him, as if guarding him from Eiah. For her part, Eiah might have

been alone with her tablets. Even when the rest of them sang to pass the

time, she kept to her work, steady and focused. When the conversation

turned to whether they should keep riding after sunset in hopes of

reaching the river, she spoke for stopping on the road. She didn't want

Maati to be tired any more than was needed. Large Kae sided with her for

the horses' sake.

The women made a small camp, dividing the night into watches since they

were so near the road. Vanjit sharpened their sight in the evenings but

insisted on returning them to normal when dawn came. She, of course,

didn't have a turn at watch. Neither did Maati. Instead, he watched the

moon as it hung in the tree branches, listened to the low call of owls,