flesh and chewed thoughtfully.
'They'll still move their wealth away, you know,' Kiyan said. 'Blocking the bridge won't stop a ferry crossing in the night with its lanterns shuttered or wagons looping up north and crossing the water someplace in the mountains.'
'I know it. But if I can keep the thing down to a few ferries and wagons, that will do. I'll also need to send messages to the Khaiem,' Otah said. 'Cetani and Amnat-Tan to start.'
'Better they hear the had news from you,' she agreed. 'Should I call for a scribe?'
'No. Just paper and a fresh ink brick. I'll do the thing myself.'
'I'm sorry, Most High,' Cehmai said again. 'I don't know… I don't know how it happened. He was there, and then… he just wasn't. 'T'here wasn't even a struggle. He just…'
'It doesn't matter,' Otah said. 'It's gone, and so it's gone. We'll move forward from that.'
'It does matter, though,' the poet said, and his voice was a cry of despair. Otah wondered what it would feel like, dedicating a life to one singular thing and then in an instant, losing it. He himself had led a half-dozen lives- laborer, fisherman, midwife's assistant, courier, father, Khai-but Cehmai had never been anything besides a poet. Exalted above all other men, honored, envied. And now, suddenly, he was only a man in a brown robe. Otah put a hand to the man's shoulder, and saw a moment's passing shame in Cehmai's expression. It was, perhaps, too early still for comfort.
A scratch came at the door and a servant boy entered, took a formal pose, and announced the poet Maati Vaupathai and Liat Chokavi. A moment later, Maati rushed in, his cheeks an alarming red, his breath hard, his belly heaving. Liat was no more than a step behind. He could see the alarm in her expression. Kiyan stepped forward and helped Maati to a seat. The two women met each other's gaze, and there was a moment's tension before Otah stepped forward.
'Liat-cha,' he said. 'Thank you for coming.'
'Of course,' she said. 'I came as soon as Maati asked me. Is something wrong? Have we heard from the Dai- kvo?'
'No,' Maati said between gasps. 'Not that.'
Otah took a questioning pose, and Maati shook his head.
'Didn't say. People around. Would have been heard,' Maati said. 't'hen, 'Gods, I need to eat less. I'm too fat to run anymore.'
Otah took Liat's elbow and guided her to a chair, then sat beside Cehmai. Only Kiyan remained standing.
'Liat-cha, you worked with Amat Kyaan,' Otah said. 'You've taken over the house she founded. She must have spoken with you about how those first years were. After Heshai-kvo died and Seedless escaped.'
'Of course,' Liat said.
'I need you to tell us about that,' Otah said. 'I need to know what she did to keep Saraykeht together. What she tried that worked, what failed. What she wished the Khai Saraykeht had done in response, what she would have preferred he had not. Everything.'
Liat's gaze went to Mlaati and then Cehmai and then hack to Otah. 'There was still a deep confusion in her expression.
'It's happened again,' Otah said.
10
Given a half-decent road, the armies of Galt could travel faster than any in the world. It was the steam wagons, Balasar reflected, that made the difference. As long as there was wood or coal to burn and water for the boilers, the carts could keep their pace at a fast walk. In addition to the supplies they carried-food, armor, weapons that the men were then spared-a tenth of the infantry could climb aboard the rough slats, rest themselves, and eat. Rotated properly, his men could spend a full day at fast march, make camp, and he rested enough by morning to do the whole thing again. Balasar sat astride his horse-a nameless mare Eustin had procured for him-and looked back over the valley; the sun dropping at their back stretched their shadows to the east. Hundreds of plumes of dark smoke and pale steam rose from the green silk banners rippling above and beside them. The plain behind him was a single, ordered mass of the army stretching hack, it seemed, to the horizon. Boots crushed the grasses, steam wagons consumed the trees, horses tramped the ground to mud. 'T'heir passing alone would scar these fields and meadows for a generation.
And the whole of it was his. Balasar's will had gathered it and would direct it, and despite all his late-night sufferings, in this moment he could not imagine failure. Eustin cleared his throat.
'If they had found some andat to do this,' Balasar said, 'do you know what would have happened?'
'Sir?' Eustin said.
'If the andat had done this-Wagon-'T'hat-Pulls-Itself or Horse- l)oesn't-'l'ire, something like that-no one would ever have designed a steam wagon. The merchants would have paid some price to the Khai, the poet would have been set to it, and it would have worked until the poet fell down stairs or failed to pass the andat on.'
'Or until we came around,' Eustin said, but Balasar wasn't ready to leave his chain of thought for self- congratulations yet.
'And if someone had made the thing, had seen a way that any decent smith could do what the Khai charged good silver for, he'd either keep it quiet or find himself facedown in the river,' Balasar said and then spat. 'It's no way to run a culture.'
Eustin's mount whickered and shifted. Balasar sighed and shifted his gaze forward to the rolling hills and grasslands where the first and farthest-flung of Nantani's low towns dotted the landscape. Another day, perhaps two, and he would be there. He was more than half tempted to press on; night marches weren't unheard-of and the anticipation of what lay before them sang to him, the hours pressing at him. But the summer was hardly begun. Better not to suffer surprises too early in the campaign. He moved a practiced gaze over the road ahead, considered the distance between the reddening orb of the sun and the horizon, and made his decision.
'When the first wagon reaches that stand of trees, call the halt,' lie said. 'That will still give the men half a hand to forage before sunset.'
'Yes, sir,' Eustin said. 'And that other matter, sir?'
'After dinner,' Balasar said. 'You can bring Captain Ajutani to my tent after dinner.'
His impulse had been to kill the poet as soon as the signal arrived. The binding had worked, the cities of the Khaiem lay open before him. Riaan had outlived his use.
Eustin had been the one to counsel against it, and Sinja Ajutani had been the issue. Balasar had known there was something less than trust between the two men; that was to be expected. lie hadn't understood how deeply Eustin suspected the Khaiate mercenary. He had tracked the man-his visits to the poet, the organization of his men, how Riaan's unease had seemed to rise after a meeting with Sinja and fall again after he spoke with Balasar. It was nothing like an accusation; even Eustin agreed there wasn't proof of treachery. The mercenary had done nothing to show that he wasn't staying bought. And yet Eustin was more and more certain with each day that Sinja was plotting to steal Riaan back to the Khaiem, to reveal what it was he had done and, just possibly, find a way to undo it.
The problem, Balasar thought, was a simple failure of imagination. Eustin had followed Balasar through more than one campaign, had walked through the haunted desert with him, had stood at his side through the long political struggle that had brought this army to this place on this supreme errand. Loyalty was the way Eustin understood the world. The thought of a man who served first one cause and then another made no more sense to him than stone floating on water. Balasar had agreed to his scheme to prove Captain Ajutani's standing, though he himself had little doubt. He took the exercise seriously for Eustin's sake if nothing else. Balasar would be ready for them when they came.
I lis pavilion was in place before the last light of the sun had vanished in the west: couches made from wood and canvas that could be broken down flat and carried on muleback, flat cushions embroidered with the Galtic 'I gee, a small writing table. A low iron brazier took the edge from the night's chill, and half a hundred lemon candles filled the air with their scent and drove away the midges. He'd had it set on the top of a rise, looking down over the
