THE (tlpq-4) (48 page)

crows took to the air, startled by something on the ground or just one

another.

"If we lose Galt," Otah said, stopped, and began again, more slowly. "If

we lose Galt, I don't believe I can forgive them. I know what you said,

and Danat. I should. I should do whatever it takes to stop all this,

even if it means agreeing that I've lost, but it's beyond me. I'm too

old to forgive anymore, and ..."

"And," Idaan said, making it sound like agreement.

"I don't understand," Ana said.

"That's because you haven't killed anyone," Idaan said. Otah looked up

at her. Idaan's eyes were dark but not unsympathetic. When she went on,

the words were addressed to Ana, but her gaze was fixed on his. "There

are some things about my brother that few people know. His best friend,

Maati, was one who knew his secrets. And because of Maati, Cehmai. And

so I am also one of the few to know what happened all those years ago in

Saraykeht."

To his surprise, Otah found himself weeping silently. Ana leaned

forward, her brow fierce.

"What happened?" she asked.

"I killed a good man. An honorable, unwell man with a wounded soul,"

Otah said softly. "I strangled him to death in a little room off a

mud-paved alley in the soft quarter."

"Why?" Ana asked.

The answers to that seemed so intricate, so complex, he couldn't find words.

Idaan could.

"To save Galt," she said. "If the man had lived, all of Galt would have

at least suffered horribly, and likely been wiped from the map. Otah had

the choice of condemning his city or letting thousands upon thousands

upon thousands of your countrymen die. He chose to betray Saraykeht.

He's carried it ever since. He's ordered men killed in war. He's

sentenced them to death. But he's only ever ended one life himself. Seen

something that had been a man become only a body. If you haven't done

it, it's a hard thing to understand."

"That's truth," Otah said.

"And along with all the other insults and injuries and pain that he's

caused. Along with the deaths," Idaan said, sorrow and amusement mixed

in her voice, "Maati Vaupathai has taken away the thing that made Otah's

slaughter bearable. He took away the reason for it. Galt is dying anyway."

"I also did it for Maati," Otah said. "If I hadn't, he'd be fighting

against Seedless today."

"And I wouldn't have been born," Ana said. She put out a wavering hand

to him, and Otah took it. Her grasp was stronger than he'd expected.

There were tears in her milky eyes. "I won't forgive him either."

Idaan sighed.

"Well," his sister said, "at least we'll be damned for what we are."

The second sang something from the bow, a high trill that ended in words

Otah couldn't make sense of. The paddle wheel, in the stern, shifted and

creaked, the deck beneath him lurching. Otah stood, unsteadily.

"Sandbar," Danat called to him. "It's all right. We're fine."

"Ah, well then. You see?" Idaan said with a chuckle. "We're fine."

They stayed on the river as long into the twilight as they could. Otah

could see the unease in the boatman's expression and hear it in his

voice. Otah's assumption was that the boats would travel at nearly the

same speed. The gap between his party and Maati's would only keep

narrowing if he pushed farther past the point of safety than they were

willing to do. He thought his chances good. Maati, after all, had all

the power, and time was his ally. There was no reason that he should rush.

They put in at a riverfront town half a hand after sundown. A small,

rotting peer. A pack of half-feral dogs baying at the boatman's second

as he made the boat fast and stretched a wide, arching bridge between

the deck and the land. A handful of lights in the darkness that showed

where lanterns burned like fireflies in the night.

While the armsmen unloaded their crates and skipped stones at the dogs'

feet, Otah led Ashti Beg across to solid land, Idaan and Ana close

behind. In the night, the moon and stars obscured by almost-bare

branches, Otah felt hardly more sure of himself than did Ashti Beg. But

then a local boy appeared with a lantern dancing at the end of a pole to

lead them to the wayhouse. They walked slowly despite the cold, as if

sitting on the deck all day had been the most wearying work imaginable.

Otah found himself walking to one side of the group, hanging back with

Danat at his side. It wasn't until his son spoke that Otah noticed that

he'd been herded there like an errant sheep.

"I'm sorry, Papa-kya," Danat said, softly. "I need to speak with you."

Otah took a pose that granted his permission.

"You spoke with Ana earlier," Danat said. "I saw she took your hand. It

looked ... it looked like she was crying."

"Yes," Otah said.

"Was it about me?" Danat asked. "Was it something I've done wrong?"

Otah's expression alone must have been enough to answer the question.

Danat looked around, shame in his face.

"She's avoiding me," Danat said.

"She's blind, and we've been sunrise to sunset on a boat smaller than my

bedchamber," Otah said. "How could she possibly avoid you?"

"It wasn't today. It's been ... it's been weeks. I thought at first it

was only that Idaan and Ashti Beg joined us. There were women here, and

Ana-cha felt more comfortable in their company. But it's more than that,

and..."

Danat ran a hand through his hair. In the dim light of the lantern, Otah

could see the single crease in his brow, like a paint mark.

"I don't know what to say. She's done nothing in my presence to make me

suspect she's anything but fond of you. If anything, she seems stronger

for having come with us."

Danat raised his hands toward some formal pose, but skidded in the mud.

When he regained his balance, whatever he'd intended to express was

forgotten. Otah put a hand on the boy's shoulder.

The wayhouse was a series of low buildings built of fired brick. The

stable squatted across a thin, stone-paved road, a single light burning

at its side where, Otah assumed, a guard slept. The wayhouse keeper

stood outside, her hands on her hips and a dusting of flour streaking

her robe. The captain of the guard stood before her, his arms crossed,

while the keeper turned her head from side to side like a cat uncertain

which window to flee through. When she saw Otah walking toward them, her

face went pale and she took a pose of welcome and obeisance that bent

her almost double.

"There's a problem?" Otah asked.

"There aren't rooms," the captain said. "All filled up, she says."

"Ah," Otah said, but before he could say more the captain turned on him.

Even in the dim light, he could see a banked rage in the man's eyes. The

captain took a pose that requested an audience more formal than the

occasion called for. Otah replied with one, equally formal, that granted it.

"All respect, Most High, I have done my best all this campaign to

respect your wishes. You want to dunk your head in river water, I

haven't objected. You run off into the wilderness for half an evening

with no guard or escort, and I've accepted that. But if you are about to

suggest that we put the Emperor of the Khaiem in a sleeping tent in a

wayhouse courtyard because someone else got here first, I'm resigning my

commission."

"Actually, I was going to suggest that we offer the present guests our

tents and compensation for their rooms," Otah said. "It seemed polite."

"Ah. Yes, Most High," the captain said. It was hard to tell in the night

whether the man was blushing.

"There's room in the stables," the keeper said. She had an eastern accent.

"Yalakeht?" Otah asked, and the woman blinked.

"I grew up there," she said, a note of awe in her voice. As if

recognizing an accent were a sign of supernatural power.

"It's a good city," Otah said. "Would there be room enough for your

present guests if we put my guardsmen in the stables as well?"

"We'll find space, Most High," the keeper said.

"Then I'll go negotiate rooms for us," Otah said, and to the captain,

"It might be more impressive if I went in with a guard. They'll be less

likely to mistake me for a fraud."

"I ... yes, Most High," the captain said.

The air in the wayhouse was thickened by a chimney with a poor draw.

Smoke haze gave the place a feeling of dread and poverty. The tables

were dark wood, the floors packed earth. A dozen men and women sat in

groups, a few in a smaller room to the side. All eyes were on the guard

as they strode in and took formal stances. Otah stepped in.

The movement that stopped him was so slight it might almost not have

existed and familiar enough to disorient him. A woman by the fire grate

with her back to him shifted her shoulders. In anyone else, it would

have been beneath notice. Otah stood, stunned, his heart thudding like

it was trying to break free of his ribs. Idaan appeared at his side, her

hand on his arm. He motioned her back.

"Eiah?" he said.

The woman by the fire turned to him. Her face was thin and drawn, older

than time alone could explain. Her eyes were the same milky gray as Ana's.

"Father," she said.

26

The years had changed Otah Machi. The last time Maati had seen him, his

hair had been black or near enough to pass. His shoulders had been

broader, his eyebrows smooth. The man who stood before the smoking fire

grate now was thinner, his skin loose against his face. His robes,

though travel-stained, were of the finest cloth. They draped him like an

altar; they made him more than a man. Or perhaps Otah Machi had always

been something more than the usual and his robes only reminded them.

Danat, at his father's side, was unrecognizable. The ill, coughing boy

confined to his bed had grown into a hale young man with intelligent

eyes and his father's distant, considering demeanor. The others Maati

had either seen recently enough that they held no disturbing sense of

change or were strangers to him.

They had all come. Large Kae and Small Kae and Eiah, but to his

discomfort also Idaan Machi, sitting on a bench with a bowl of wine in

her hand and her face as expressionless as the dead. A Galtic girl sat

apart, her head held high, sightless and proud to cover the disgust and

horror she must feel at all Maati had done. Ashti Beg sat at her side,

another victim of Vanjit's malice. After all that had happened, after

all his many failures of judgment, seeing her among his arrayed enemies

was still wrenching.

Otah's armsmen cleared the wayhouse. The conversation that should have

taken place in the finest of meeting rooms in the high palaces instead

found its place in a third-rate wayhouse, free of ceremony or ritual or

even well-brewed tea. Maati felt himself trembling. He had the powerful

physical memory of being a boy at the school, holding himself still and

waiting for Tahi-kvo's lacquer rod to split his skin.

"Maati Vaupathai," the Emperor said.

"Most High," Maati replied, crossing his arms.

"I suppose I should start by asking why I shouldn't have you killed

where you stand."

Eiah, beside him, twitched as if wasp-stung. Maati stared at his old

friend, his old enemy, and all the conciliatory words that he had

imagined in the last day vanished like a snuffed candle. There was rage

in Otah's stance, and Maati found himself more than matching it.

"How dare you?" Maati said, his voice little more than a hiss. "How dare

you? I thought, coming here, I would at least be treated with respect. I

thought at the very least, that. And instead you stand me up like a

common thief in a low-town courtroom and have me defend my life? Justify

my right to breathe to the man who killed my son?"

"Nayiit has nothing to do with this," Otah said. "Sinja Ajutani, to

contrast, died because of you. Every Galt who has starved since you

exacted this sick, petty revenge is dead because of you. Every-"

"Nayiit has everything to do with this. Your sick love of all things

Galtic has everything to do with it. Your disloyalty to the women you

claim to rule. Your perfect calm in making me an outcast living in

gutters for something you were just as guilty of. You are a hypocrite

and a liar in everything you've done. I owe you nothing, Otah-kvo. Nothing!"