THE (tlpq-4) (26 page)

rolled over it. Snapped its spine. It whined and howled all night. You

would have thought it was begging aid, except that it tried to bite

anyone who came near. Ashti-cha is much the same."

"You think so?"

"I do," she said. "You shouldn't think ill of her, Maati-kvo. I doubt

she even knows what she's doing."

He folded his arms.

"I can't think it's simple for you either," he said. He had the sense of

testing her, though he couldn't have said quite how. Vanjit's face was

as clear and cloudless as the sky.

"It's perfect," she said. "Nowhere near as difficult as I'd thought.

Only he makes me tired. No more than any mother with a new babe, though.

I've been thinking of names. My cousin was named Ciiat, and he was about

this old when the Galts came."

"It has a name already," Maati said. "Clarity-of-Sight."

"I meant a private name," Vanjit said. "One for just between the two of

us. And you, I suppose. You are as near to a father as he has."

Maati opened his mouth, then closed it. Vanjit's hand slipped into his

own, her fingers twined around his. Her smile seemed so genuine, so

innocent, that Maati only shook his head and laughed. They remained

there for the space of ten long breaths together, Vanjit sitting, Maati

standing at her side, and the andat, shifting impatiently in her lap.

"Once Eiah's bound Wounded," Maati said, "we can all go back."

Vanjit made a small sound, neither cough nor gasp nor chuckle, and

released Maati's hand. He glanced down. Vanjit smiled up at him.

"That will be good," she said. "This must all be hard for her as well. I

wish there was something we could do to ease things."

"We'll do what can be done," Maati said. "It will have to be enough."

Vanjit didn't reply, and then raised her arm, pointing to the horizon.

"The brightest star," she said. "The one just coming up over the trees

there? You see it?"

"I do," Maati said. It was one of the traveling stars that made their

slow way through the night skies.

"It has moons around it. Three of them."

He laughed and shook his head, but Vanjit didn't join him. Her face was

still and cool. Maati's laughter died.

"A star with ... moons?"

Vanjit nodded. Maati looked up again at the bright golden glimmer above

the trees. He frowned first and then smiled.

"Show me," he said.

13

The fleet left Saraykeht on the first truly cool morning of autumn. A

dozen ships with bright sails, and the marks of the Empire and Galt

flying together from their masts. From the shore, Otah could no longer

make out the shapes of the individual sailors and soldiers that crowded

the distant decks, much less Sinja himself, dressed though the man was

in gaudy commander's array. Fatter Dasin's ships still stood at anchor,

and the other Galtic ships which had been promised but were not yet

prepared to sail.

Sinja had met with him for the last time less than a hand and a half

before he'd stepped onto the small boat to make his last inspection.

Otah had made himself comfortable in a teahouse near the seafront,

waiting for the ceremony that would send off the fleet. The walls of the

place were stained with decades of lantern smoke, the floorboards

spotted with the memory of spilled wine. Sitting at the back table, Otah

had felt like a peacock in a hen coop. Sinja, breezing through the open

doors in a robe of bright green and hung with silk scarves and golden

pendants, had made him feel less ridiculous only by comparison.

"Well, this is your last chance to call the whole thing quits," Sinja

said, dropping into the chair across from Otah as casually as a drinking

companion. Otah fumbled in his sleeve for a moment and drew out the

letters intended for the utkhaiem of Chaburi-Tan. Sinja took them,

considered the bright thread that sewed each of them closed, and sighed.

"I'd feel better if Balasar was leading the first command," Sinja said.

"I thought you'd decided that he'd be better staying to arrange your

reinforcements."

"Agreed. I agreed. He decided. And it does make sense. Farrer-cha and

the others who've followed his example will be able to swallow all this

better if they're answering to a Galtic general."

"And waiting for them to be ready ..." Otah said.

"Madness," Sinja said, slipping the letters into his own sleeve. "We've

been too long already. I'm not saying that it's a bad plan. I only wish

that there was a brilliant, well-crafted scheme that had Balasar-cha

going out and me following behind to see whether the raiders sank

everyone. Any word from Chaburi-Tan?"

"Nothing new," Otah said.

"Fair enough. We'll send word once we get there."

A silence followed, the unasked questions as heavy in the air as smoke.

Otah leaned forward. Sinja knew about Idaan's list; Otah had told him in

a fit of candor and regretted it since. Sinja knew better than to raise

the issue where they might be overheard, but disapproval haunted his

expression.

"There is some movement on the question of Obar State," Otah said.

"Ashua Radaani bribed their ambassador. He has a list of men who have

been in negotiation to break the eastern cities from the Empire with

backing from Obar State. Two dozen men in four families."

"That's good work," Sinja said.

"He's asking permission to kill them."

"Sounds very tidy, assuming it's true and Radaani isn't involved in the

conspiracy himself."

"Very tidy then too," Otah said. "I'm ordering the men brought to Utani.

I can speak with them there."

"And if Radaani refuses?"

"Then I'll invite just him," Otah said. Sinja took an approving pose.

Otah thought for a moment that they might be done.

"The other matter?"

"Being addressed," Otah said.

Four of the members of Idaan's list had been quietly looked into, the

irregularities of their behavior clarified. One had been hiding

half-a-dozen mistresses from a wife with a notoriously short temper. Two

others had been conspiring to undercut the glass trades in the north,

setting up workshops nearer the alum mines of Eddensea. The fourth had

also appeared on Ashua Radaani's list, and had no clear connection to Maati.

Sinja had made it perfectly clear that he thought examining Eiah's

actions was the wisest course. If she was Maati's backer, better to find

it quickly and put a stop to the whole affair. If she wasn't, best to

know that and stop losing sleep. There was a cold logic to his argument,

and Otah knew what his own reluctance meant. His daughter had turned to

her Uncle Maati. Turned against her father. And the pain of that loss

was almost more than he could bear.

"Well," Sinja said. "I suppose I'd better go before the sailors all get

too drunk to know sunrise from sunset and land us all in Eymond. If I

don't come back, make sure they put up statues of me."

"You'll come back," Otah said.

"You only say that because I always have before," Sinja replied,

smiling. He sobered. "See that Balasar comes quickly, though. These

ships will make a grand spectacle, but it would be a short fight."

"I'll see to it," Otah said.

Sinja rose and took a pose of leave-taking. It might be the last time

Otah ever saw the man. It was a fact he'd known, but something in the

set of Sinja's body or the studied blankness of his face drove the point

home. For the space of a breath, Otah felt the loss as if the worst had

already happened.

"I would have been lost without you, these last years," Otah said. "You

know that."

"I know you think it," Sinja said, matching Otah's quiet tone. "Take

care, Most High. Do what needs doing."

Sitting now on his dais, watching the ships recede and vanish, Otah

thought the phrase had been intended as last words. Do what needs doing.

Meaning, more specifically, find Eiah. The sun rose from its morning

home in the east; the seafront surged with a hundred languages, creoles,

pidgins. Where the armsmen of the palace ended, merchants set up their

tall, thin stalls and proclaimed their wares. When Otah took his leave,

they would do the same in the space he now inhabited. Returning to the

palaces would be like taking his finger out of water. It wouldn't leave

a hole. He wondered, sometimes, if the whole world wasn't the same.

Back at the palaces, Otah suffered through the ritual change of robes,

the closing ceremony that followed seeing off the fleet. He dearly hoped

that when Balasar's reinforcements departed, he could avoid repeating

the entire pointless exercise. He hoped, but doubted it. Once the last

cymbal had chimed, the last priest intoned the final passage, and Otah

had done his duty as Emperor, he went back to his rooms. Danat and

Issandra were waiting there.

Otah greeted them both with a single pose appropriate to near family. If

it was still an optimism, the Galtic woman didn't comment on it. She put

down a bowl of tea she'd been drinking from, and Danat rose to his feet.

"Thank you for joining me," Otah said. "I wanted to know the ... the

status of your work."

The pair exchanged glances. Issandra spoke.

"In one respect, I think you could say we're doing quite well. Ana's

request that her father add himself to your naval adventure has caused

something of a strain between her and Hanchat. He seems to think she's

being disloyal to Galt in general and therefore him in particular."

"I can understand that," Otah said, lowering himself to a cushion. "The

gods all know she surprised me with it."

"The problem is that she feels she's cleared all accounts by the

gesture," Issandra said. "Any sense of obligation she might have felt

toward Danat-cha from her misbehavior or his clemency toward Hanchat is

done."

"I see," Otah said.

"There's something else," Danat said. "I think Shija-cha has . .

"The imitation lover has developed ambitions," Issandra said.

"Apparently you've entrusted her uncle with some particularly delicate

task?"

Shija Radaani. Ashua's niece.

"I have," Otah said.

"She's taken that fact and the request that she act as Danat's escort,

and drawn the most remarkable conclusion," Issandra said. "She thinks

that Danat-cha is in love with her, and intends to sabotage his

connection to Ana on her behalf."

"It's not only that," Danat said. "This is my fault. I ... I lost my

perspective. It was ..

"You bedded her," Otah said.

Danat's blush could have lit houses. It was as Otah had feared. Issandra

sighed.

"This Radaani woman," she said. "Can you safely offend her family?"

"At the moment, it would be awkward," Otah said.

"Then I can't see that the girl is that far wrong," Issandra said.

"Danat has sabotaged things."

"I'm very sorry," he said. "It wasn't ... gods."

Danat sat again, his head in his hands.

"What is Ana's opinion of the matter of Shija and Danat?" Otah asked.

"I don't know," Issandra said. Her voice went softer, sorrow creeping in

at the seams. "I believe she's avoiding me."

Otah pressed his fingers against his eyelids until colors swam in the

darkness. No one spoke, and the silence pressed on his shoulder like a hand.

"Well," he said at last, "how do the two of you intend to move forward

from here?"

"She wants to put them together," Danat said. His voice was equal parts

plea and outrage. "She wants Shija and Ana to be seated beside each

other at every dance, every meal ..."

"You can't envy what you don't see," Issandra said. "It's more difficult

if this other girl can't be easily removed, but if Ana's run with her

present lover is nearing an end, and Shija makes it clear that she

considers Ana a threat ..."

Danat yelped and began to spout objections, Issandra pressing on against

him. Otah kept his eyes closed, the paired voices draining each other of

meaning. Instead he imagined the girl to be before him as she had been

the night she came to speak with him. Half-drunk. Too proud to be ruled

by pride.

He took a pose that commanded silence. Danat's words ended at once.

Issandra's took a moment longer to trail off.