The Price Of Spring (41 page)

A wide plank made a bridge between boat and shore. The boatman wrestled it into place with a stream of perfunctory vulgarity. The second, his robes soaked and muddied, trotted back onto the deck.

"We're doing well, eh?" Maati said to the boatman. "The distance we went today must have been four days' ride."

"We'll do well enough," the boatman agreed. "Have you in Utani before the last leaf drops, that's certain."

Large Kae went across to the shore, two tents on her wide back. Eiah was just behind her with a crate of food to make the evening meal. The twilight sky was gray streaked with gold, and the calls of birds gave some hint to where the boatman's songs had found their start. On another night, it would have been beautiful.

"How many days do you think that would be?" Maati asked, trying to keep his tone light and friendly. From the boatman's perfunctory smile, it wasn't an unfamiliar question.

"Six days," the boatman said. "Seven. If it's been raining to the north and the river starts running faster, it could go past that, but this time of year, that's rare."

Vanjit shifted past them, brushing against Maati as she stepped onto the plank. The andat was curled against her, its head resting on her shoulder like a tired child might.

"Thank you," Maati said.

They made camp a dozen yards inland, where the ground was dry. It was habit now. Routine. Eiah dug the fire pit, Small Kae gathered wood. Large Kae put the sleeping tents in place. Irit would have started cooking, but Maati knew well enough how to take her part. A few bowlfuls of river water, crushed lentils that had been soaking since morning, slivers of salted pork, an onion they'd hauled almost from the school. It made for a better soup than Maati had first expected, though the gods all knew he was tired of it now. It would keep them alive until morning.

Vanjit stepped out of the shadows just as Maati filled a bowl for the boatman, the andat on one hip, a satchel on the other. Everyone was aware that she hadn't helped to make camp. No one complained. In the firelight, she looked younger even than she was. Her eyes flashed, and she smiled.

Vanjit sat at Maati's side, accepting the next full bowl. The andat rested at her feet, shifting its weight as if to crawl away but then shifting back. The boatman and his second went back to their boat, bowls steaming in their hands. It was, Maati supposed, all well for passengers to sleep on the shore, but someone needed to stay with the boat. Better for them as well. It would have been awkward, explaining why the baby's breath didn't fog.

When they had gone, Eiah rose to her feet. The darkness under her eyes was dispelled by her smile. The others looked up at her.

"I would like to announce a small celebration," she said. "I've been reworking the binding for Wounded, and as of today, the latest version is complete."

Small Kae smiled and applauded. Large Kae grinned. Eiah made a show of pulling a wineskin from her bags. They all applauded now. Even Vanjit. But Eiah's gaze faltered when her eyes met Maati's, and his belly soured.

Something in her wine to deepen her sleep. She mustn't see the blow coming.

"Yes," Maati said, trying to hide his fear. "Yes, I think celebration is in order."

"You've seen the new draft?" Vanjit asked as Eiah poured the wine into bowls. "Is it ready?"

"I haven't been through it all as yet," he said. "There are some changes that make me optimistic. By Udun, I'll have a better-informed opinion."

The two Kaes were toasting each other, the fire. Eiah came to Maati and Vanjit. She pressed bowls into their hands, and went back to pour one for herself. Maati drank quickly, grateful for something to do that would occupy his hands and his mind. If only for a moment.

Vanjit swirled her wine bowl, looking down at it with what might have been serenity.

"Maati-kvo," Vanjit said. "Do you remember when I first came to you? Gods, it seems like it was a different life, doesn't it? You were outside Shosheyn-Tan."

"Lachi," Eiah said from across the fire.

"Of course," Vanjit said. "I remember now. I met Umnit at a bathhouse, and we'd started talking. She brought me to Eiahcha, and Eiah brought me to you. It was that abandoned house, the one with all the mice.

"I remember," Maati said. The two Kaes exchanged a glance that Maati didn't understand. Vanjit laughed, throwing back her head.

"I can't think what you saw in me back then," she said. "I must have looked like something the dogs wouldn't eat."

"They were lean times for all of us," Maati said, forcing a jovial tone.

"Not for you," she said. "Not with Eiah to look after you. No, don't you pretend that she hasn't supported us all from the start. Without her, we would never have come this far."

Eiah took a pose that accepted the compliment and raised her wine bowl, but Vanjit still didn't drink from her own. Maati willed her to drink the poison, to end this.

"I think of who I was then," Vanjit said, her voice soft and contemplative. She sounded like a child. Or worse, like a grown woman trying to sound childish. "Lost. Empty. And then the gods touched my shoulder and turned me toward you. All of you, really. You've been the only family I've ever had. I mean, since the Galts came."

At her feet, Clarityof-Sight wailed as if heartbroken. Vanjit turned to it, her brow furrowed in concentration. The andat squirmed, shuddered, and became still. The tension in Maati's shoulders was spreading to his throat. He could see Eiah's hands clutching her bowl.

"The only family I've had," Vanjit said, as if finding her place in a practiced speech. And then softly, "Did you think I wouldn't know?"

Large Kae put down her bowl, her gaze shifting from Eiah to Vanjit and back. Maati shifted to the side, his throat almost too tight for words.

"Know what?" he asked. The words came out stilted and rough. Even he wasn't convinced by them. Vanjit stared at him, disappointment in her expression. No one moved, but Maati felt something shifting in his eyes. The andat's attention was on him, the tiny face growing more and more detailed with each heartbeat.

Vanjit held out the poisoned wine bowl. The color was wrong. No human would ever have seen the difference, but with the andat driving his vision and hers, there was no mistaking it. The deep red had a greenish taint that no other bowl suffered.

"What ... what's that?" Maati squeaked.

"I don't know," Vanjit said in a voice that meant she did. "Perhaps you should drink it for me, and we could see. But no. You're too valuable. Eiah, perhaps?"

"I'm sorry. Did I not clean the bowl well enough?" Eiah asked.

Vanjit threw her bowl into the fire, flames hissing and smoke rushing up in a cloud. There was rage in her expression.

"Vanjit," Eiah said. "I don't think ..."

Vanjit ignored them, untying her satchel with a fast scrabbling motion. When she lifted it, blocks of wax spilled out, gray and white, like rotten ice. Maati saw bits of Eiah's writing cut into them.

"You were going to kill me," Vanjit said.

Eiah took a pose that denied the charge. The firelight flickered over Vanjit's face, and for a moment, Maati thought the poet might believe the lie. He cleared his throat.

"We wouldn't do that," he said.

Vanjit turned to him, her expression empty and mad. At his feet, the andat made a sound that might have been a warning or a laugh.

"Do you think he only speaks to you?" Vanjit spat.

Maati sputtered, falling back a step when Vanjit lunged forward. She only scooped up the andat, turned, and ran into the darkness.

Maati scrambled after her, calling her name with a deepening sense of despair. The trees were shadows within the night's larger darkness. His voice seemed too weak to carry more than a few paces before him. It couldn't have been more than half a hand-less than that, certainlywhen he stopped to catch his breath. Leaning against an ancient ash, he realized that Vanjit was gone and he was lost, only the soft rushing of the river away to his left still there to guide him. He picked his way back, trying to follow the route he had taken and failing. A carpet of dry leaves made his steps loud. Something shifted in the branches overhead. The cold numbed his fingers and toes. The halfmoon glimmering among the branches assured him that he had not been blinded. It was the only comfort he had.

In the end, he made his way east until he found the river, and then south to the wide mud where the boat still rested. It was simple enough to find the little camp after that. He tried to nurture some hope that he would step into the circle of firelight to find Vanjit returned and, through some unimagined turn of events, peace restored. The laughter and soft company of the first days of the school returned; time unwound, and his life ready to be lived again without the errors. He wanted it to be true so badly that when he stumbled into the clearing and found Eiah and the two Kaes seated by the fire, he almost thought they were well.

Eiah turned gray, fogged eyes toward him.

"Who's there?" she demanded at the sound of his approaching steps.

"It's me," Maati said, wheezing. "I'm fine. But Vanjit's gone."

Large Kae began to weep. Small Kae put an arm over the woman's shaking shoulders and murmured something, her eyes closed and tearstreaked. Maati sat at the fire. His bowl of soup had overturned.

"She's done for the three of us," Eiah said. "None of us can see at all."

"I'm sorry," Maati said. It was profoundly inadequate.

"Can you help me?" Eiah said, gesturing toward something Maati couldn't fathom. Then he saw the pile of wax fragments. "I think I have them all, but it's hard to be sure."

"Leave them," Maati said. "Let them go."

"I can't," Eiah said. "I have to try the thing. I can do it now. Tonight."

Maati looked at her. The fire popped, and she shifted her head toward the sound. Her jaw was set, her gray eyes angry. The cold wind made her robes flutter at her ankles like a flag.

"No," he said. "You can't."

"I have been studying this for weeks," Eiah said, her voice sharpening. "Only help me put these back together, and I can ..."

"You can die," Maati said. "I know you've changed the binding. You won't do this. Not until we can study it. Too much rides on Wounded to rush into the binding in a panic. We'll wait. Vanjit may come back."

"Maati-kvo-" Eiah began.

"She is alone in the forest with nothing to sustain her. She's cold and frightened and betrayed," Maati said. "Put yourself in her place. She's discovered that the only friends she had in the world were planning to kill her. The andat must certainly be pushing for its freedom with all its power. She didn't even have the soup before she went. She's cold and hungry and confused, and we are the only place she can go for help or comfort."

"All respect, Maati-kvo," Small Kae said, "but that first part was along the lines that you were going to kill her. She won't come back."

"We don't know that," Maati said. "We can't yet be sure."

But morning came without Vanjit. The sky became a lighter black, and then gray. Morning birds broke into their chorus of chatters and shrieks; finches and day larks and other species Maati couldn't name. The trees deepened, rank after ragged rank becoming first gray and then brown and then real. Poet and andat were gone into the wild, and as the dawn crept up rosy and wild in the east, it became clear they were not going to return.

Maati built a small fire from last night's embers and brewed tea for the four of them still remaining. Large Kae wouldn't stop crying despite Small Kae's constant attentions. Eiah sat wrapped in her robes from the previous night. She looked drawn. Maati pressed a bowl of warm tea into her hand. Neither spoke.

At the end, Maati took the belts from their spare robes and used them to make a line. He led Eiah, Eiah led Small Kae, and Small Kae led Large Kae. It was the obscene parody of a game he'd played as a child, and he walked the path back to the boat, calling out the obstacles he passed-log, step down, be careful of the mud. They left the sleeping tents and cooking things behind.

To Maati's surprise, the boat was already floating. The boatman and his second were moving over the craft with the ease and silence of long practice. When he called out, the boatman stopped and stared. The man's mouth gaped in surprise; the first strong reaction Maati had seen from him.

"No," the boatman said. "This wasn't the agreement. Where's the other one? The one with the babe?"

"I don't know," Maati called out. "She left in the night."

The second, guessing the boatman's mind, started to pull in the plank that bridged boat and sticky, dark mud. Maati yelped, dropped Eiah's lead, and lumbered out into the icy flow, grabbing at the retreating wood.

"We didn't contract for this," the boatman said. "Missing girls, blinded ones? No, there wasn't anything about this."

"We'll die if you leave us," Eiah said.

"That one can see after you," the boatman called, gesturing pointlessly at Maati, hip deep in river mud. It would have been comic if it had been less terrible.

"He's old and he's dying," Eiah said, and lifted her physician's satchel as if to prove the gravity of her opinion. "If he has an attack, you'll be leaving all the women out here to die."

The boatman scowled, looking from Maati to Eiah and back. He spat into the river.

"To the first low town," he said. "I'll take you that far, and no farther."

"That's all we can ask," Eiah said.

Maati thought he heard Small Kae mutter, I could ask more than that, but he was too busy pulling the plank into position to respond. It was a tricky business, guiding all three women into the boat, but Maati and the second managed it, soaking only Small Kae's hem. Maati, when at last he pulled himself onto the boat, was cold water and black mud from waist to boots. He made his miserable way to the stern, sitting as near the kiln as the boatman would allow. Eiah called out for him, following the sound of his voice until she sat at his side. The boatman and his second wouldn't speak to either of them or meet Maati's eyes. The second walked to the bow, manipulated something Maati couldn't make out, and called out. The boatman replied, and the boat shifted, its wheel clattering and pounding. They lurched out into the stream.