"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