that."
Ana sat straight, her hands on her knees, her face expressionless. Otah
coughed, cleared his throat, and went on.
"There is a second section," he said. "He says ... well."
Otah smoothed the page with his fingers, tracing the words as he spoke.
"Still, I was your age once too. If good judgment were part of being
young, there would be no reason to grow old. In God's name write back to
tell us you're well. Your mother's sick that you'll fall off the trail
and get eaten by dogs, and I'm half-sick that you'll come back wed and
pregnant," Otah said. "He goes on to offer a brief analysis of my own
intelligence. I'll skip that."
Ana chuckled and wiped away a tear. Otah grinned and kept the smile in
his voice when he went on.
"He ends by saying that he loves you. And that he trusts you to do
what's right."
"You're lying," Ana said.
Otah took a pose that denied an unjust accusation, then flapped his
hands in annoyance. The physical language of the Khaiem was a difficult
habit to put aside.
"Why would I lie?" he asked.
"To be polite? I don't know But my father? Fatter Dasin putting on paper
that he trusts his little girl's judgment? The stars would dance on
treetops first. The wed-and-pregnant part sounded like him, though."
"Well," Otah said, placing the folded page into her fingers. "He might
surprise you. Keep this, and you can read it for yourself once we've
fixed all this mess."
Ana took a pose that offered thanks. It wasn't particularly well done.
"You are always welcome," Otah said.
They sat in silence until Danat and the other water bearers returned.
Then Otah left his seat to Danat and crawled into the sleeping tent,
where, true to expectations, he shifted from discomfort to discomfort
until the sun rose again.
They reached Pathai at midday. Silk banners streamed from the towers and
the throng that met them at the western arch cheered and sang and played
flutes and drums. Men and women hung from lattices of wood and rope to
get a better view of Otah and Danat, their armsmen, the steamcarts. The
air was thick with the scents of honeyed almonds and mulled wine and
bodies. The armsmen of Pathai met them, made an elaborate ritual
obeisance, and then cleared a path for them until they reached the palaces.
A feast had been prepared, and baths. Servants descended on the group
like moths, and Otah submitted to being only emperor once again.
The celebration of his arrival was as annoying as it was pointless. Dish
after dish of savory meat and sweet bread, hot curry and chilled fish,
all accompanied by the best acrobats and musicians that could be scraped
together with little notice. And Ana Dasin sitting at his table, her
empty eyes a constant, unintentional reproach. Finding Maati and this
new poet was going to be like hunting quail with a circus. He would have
to do something to let them move discreetly. He didn't yet know what
that would be.
The rooms he'd been given were blond stone, the ceiling vaulted and set
with tiles of indigo and silver. A thousand candles set the air glowing
and filled his senses with the scent of hot wax and perfume. It was, he
thought, the sort of space that was almost impossible to keep warm.
Danat, Ana, and the armsmen were all being seen to elsewhere. He sat on
a long, low couch and hoped that Danat, at least, would be able to get
out into the city and make a few inquiries.
When a servant came and announced Sian Noygu, Otah almost refused the
audience before he recognized it as the name Idaan traveled under. His
heart racing, he let himself be led to a smaller chamber of carved
granite and worked gold. His sister sat between a small fountain and a
shadowed alcove. She wore a gray robe under a colorless cloak, and her
boots were soft with wear. A long scratch across the back of her hand
was the dark red of scabs and old blood.
The servant made his obeisance and retreated. Otah took a pose of
greeting appropriate to close family, and Idaan tilted her head like a
dog hearing an unfamiliar sound.
"I had intended to meet you when you came into the city. I didn't know
you were planning a festival."
"I wasn't," Otah said, sitting beside her. The fountain clucked and
burbled. "Traveling quietly seems beyond me these days."
"It was all as subtle as a rockslide," Idaan agreed. "But there's some
good in it. The louder you are, the less people are looking at me."
"You've found something then?" Otah asked.
"I have," Idaan said.
"What have you learned?"
A different voice answered from the darkness of the alcove at Idaan's
side. A woman's voice.
"Everything," it said.
Otah rose to his feet. The woman who emerged was young: not more than
forty summers and the white in her hair still barely more than an
accent. She wore robes as simple as Idaan's but held herself with a
mixture of angry pride and uncertainty that Otah had become familiar
with. Her pupils were gray and sightless, but her eyes were the almond
shape that marked her as a citizen of the Empire. This was a victim of
the new poet, but she was no Galt.
"Idaan-cha knows everything," the blind woman said again, "because I
told it to her."
Idaan took the woman's hand and stood. When she spoke, it was to her
companion.
"This is my brother, the Emperor," Idaan said, then turned to him.
"Otah-cha, this is Ashti Beg."
20
When before Maati had considered death, it had been in terms of what
needed to be done. Before he died, he had to master the grammars of the
Dai-kvo, or find his son again, or most recently see his errors with
Sterile made right. It was never the end itself that drew his attention.
He had reduced his mortality to the finish line of a race. This and this
and this done, and afterward, dying would be like rest at the end of a
long day.
With Eiah's pronouncement, his view shifted. No list of accomplishments
could forgive the prospect of his own extinction. Maati found himself
looking at the backs of his hands, the cracked skin, the dark blotches
of age. He was becoming aware of time in a way he never had. There was
some number of days he would see, some number of nights, and then
nothing. It had always been true. He was no more or less a mortal being
because his blood was slowing. Everything born, dies. He had known that.
He only hadn't quite understood. It changed everything.
It also changed nothing. They traveled slowly, keeping to lesserknown
roads and away from the larger low towns. Often Eiah would call the
day's halt with the sun still five hands above the horizon because they
had found a convenient wayhouse or a farm willing to board them for the
night. The prospect of letting Maati sleep in cold air was apparently
too much for her to consider.
On the third day, Eiah had parted with the company, rejoining them on
the fifth with a cloth sack of genuinely unpleasant herbs. Maati
suffered a cup of the bitter tea twice daily. He let his pulses be
measured against one another, his breath smelled, his fingertips
squeezed, the color of his eyes considered and noted. It embarrassed him.
The curious thing was that, despite all his fears and Eiah's attentions,
he felt fine. If his breath was short, it was no shorter than it had
been for years. He tired just when he'd always tired, but now six sets
of eyes shifted to him every time he grunted. He dismissed the anxiety
when he saw it in the others, however closely he felt it himself.
He would have expected the two feelings to balance each other: the
dismissive self-consciousness at any concern over him and the
presentiment of his death. He did not understand how he could be
possessed by both of them at the same time, and yet he was. It was like
there were two minds within him, two Maati Vaupathais, each with his own
thoughts and concerns, and no compromise between them was required.
For the most part, Maati could ignore this small failure to be at one
with himself. Each morning, he rose with the others, ate whatever
rubbery eggs or day-old meat the waykeeper had to offer, choked down
Eiah's tea, and went on as usual. The autumn through which they passed
was crisp and fragrant of new earth and rotting leaves. The snow that
had plagued the school had also visited the foothills and shallow passes
that divided the western plains of Pathai from the river valleys of the
east, but it was rarely more than three fingers deep. In many places,
the sun was still strong enough to banish the pale mourning colors to
the shadows.
With rumors that Otah himself had taken up the hunt, they kept a balance
between the smaller, less-traveled roads and those that were wider and
better maintained. So far from the great cities, the ports and trading
posts, there were no foreign faces to be seen. None of the handful of
adventurous Westlands women had made their way here to try for a Khaiate
husband and a better life. There was no better life to be had here. The
lack of children, of babies, gave the towns a sense of tolerating a slow
plague. It was only the world. It no longer troubled Maati. This was
another journey in a life that seemed to be woven of distance. Apart
from the overattentiveness of his traveling companions, there was no
reason to reflect on his mortality; he had no cause to consider that
these small chores and pleasantries of the road might be among his last.
It was only days later, at the halfway point between the school and the
river Qiit, that without intending it, Eiah called the question.
They had stopped at a wayhouse at the side of a broad lake. A wide
wooden deck stood out over the water, the wind pulling small waves to
lap at its pilings. A flock of cranes floated and called to one another
at the far shore. Maati sat on a three-legged stool, his traveling cloak
still wrapping his shoulders. He looked out on the shifting water, the
gray-green trees, the hazy white sky. He heard Eiah behind him, her
voice coming from the main building as if it were coming from a
different world. When she came out, he heard her footsteps and the
leather physician's satchel bumping against her hip. She stopped just
behind him.
"They're beautiful," he said, nodding at the cranes.
"I suppose," Eiah said.
"Vanjit? The others?"
"In their rooms," Eiah said, a trace of satisfaction in her voice.
"Three rooms, and all of them private. Meals this evening and before we
go. One length of silver and two copper."
"You could have paid them the normal price," NIaati said.
"My pride won't allow it," Eiah said. She stepped forward and knelt.
"There was something. If you're not tired."
"I'm an old man. I'm always tired."
Her eyes held some objection, but she didn't give it voice. Instead she
unbuckled her satchel, rooted in it for a moment, and drew out a paper.
Maati took it, frowning. The characters were familiar, a part of Eiah's
proposed binding, but the structure of them was different. Awkward.
"It isn't perfect," Eiah said. "But I thought we could consider it. I've
mentioned the idea to Large Kae, and she has some ideas about how to
make it consonant with the grammar."
Maati lifted his hand, palm out, and stopped the flow of words. The
cranes called, their harsh voices crossing the water swifter than
arrows. He sounded out each phrase, thinking through the logic as he did.
"I don't understand," he said. "This is the strongest part of the
binding. Why would you change..."
And then he saw her intentions. Each change she had made broadened the
concept of wounds. Of harm. Of damage. And there, in the corner of the
page, was a play on the definitions of blood. He folded the page,
slipping it into his sleeve.
"No," he said.
"I think it can-"
"No," Maati said again. "What we're doing is hard enough. Making it fit
the things that Sterile has done is enough. If you try to make
everything fit into it, you'll end with more than you can hold."
Eiah sighed and looked out across the water. The wind plucked a lock of
hair, the black threads dancing on her cheek. He could see in her
expression that she'd anticipated all he would say. And more, that she
agreed. He put a hand on her shoulder. For a moment, neither spoke.
"Once we reach the river, things will move faster," Eiah said. "With the