Maati had chuckled and tried to take her hand, but she couldn't stand the touch. She'd seen the surprise in his expression, and the hurt. That was when she'd told him. She'd said it lightly, acidly, fueled by her anger and her despair. She had been too wrapped up in herself to pay attention to Nlaati's shock and horror. It was only later, when he'd excused himself and she was walking alone in the dim paths at the edge of the dance, that she understood she'd as much as accused him of sending Nayiit to his death.
She had gone by Maati's apartments that night and again the next day, but he had gone and no one seemed to know where. By the time she found him, he had spoken with Otah and Nayiit. He accepted her apology, he cradled her while they both confessed their fears, but the damage had been done. He was as haunted as she was, and there was nothing to be done about it.
Liat realized she'd almost reached the ground, startled to have come so far so quickly. Her mind, she supposed, had been elsewhere.
Mach) in the height of summer might almost have been a Southern city. The sun made its slow, stately way across the sky. The nights had grown so short, she could fall asleep with a glow still bright over the mountains to the west and wake in daylight, unrested. The streets were full of vendors at their carts selling fresh honey bread almost too hot to eat or sausages with blackened skins or bits of lamb over rice with a red sauce spicy enough to burn her tongue. Merchants passed over the black-cobbled streets, wagon wheels clattering. Beggars sang before their lacquered boxes. Firekeepers tended their kilns and saw to the small business of the tradesmen-accepting taxes, witnessing contracts, and a hundred other small duties. Liat pulled her hands into her sleeves and walked without knowing her destination.
It might only have been her imagination that there were fewer men in the streets. Surely there were still laborers and warehouse guards and smiths at their forges. The force marching to the west could account for no more than one man in fifteen. The sense that Machi had become a city of women and old men and boys could only be her mind playing tricks. And still, there was something hollow about the city. A sense of loss and of uncertainty. The city itself seemed to know that the world had changed, and held its breath in dread anticipation, waiting to see whether this transformed reality had a place for Machi in it.
She found herself back at her apartments-feet sore, back achingbefore the sun had touched the peaks to the west. As she approached her door, a young man rose from the step. For a moment, her mind tricked her into thinking Nayiit had returned. But no, this boy was too thin through the shoulders, his hair too long, his robes the black of a palace servant. He took a pose of greeting as she approached, and Liat made a brief response.
'Liat Chokavi?'
'Yes.'
'Kiyan Machi, first wife of the Khai Machi, extends her invitation. If you would he so kind, I will take you to her.'
'Now?' Liat asked, but of course it was now. She waved away the question even before the servant boy could recover from the surprise of being asked in so sharp a tone. When he turned, spine straight and stiff with indignation, she followed him.
They found Otah's wife standing on a balcony overlooking a great hall. Her robes were delicate pink and yellow, and they suited her skin. Her head was turned down, looking at the wide fountain that took up the hall below, the sprays of water reaching up almost to the high domed ceiling above. The servant boy took a pose of obeisance before her, and she replied with one that both thanked and dismissed him. Her greeting of Liat was only a nod and a smile, and then Kiyan's attention turned back to the fountain.
There were children playing in the pool-splashing one another or running, handy-legged, through water that reached above their knees and would only have dampened half of Liat's own calves. Some wore robes of cotton that clung to their tiny bodies. Some wore loose canvas trousers like a common laborer's. They were, Liat thought, too young to be utkhaiem yet. They were still children, and free from the bindings that would hold them when there was less fat in their cheeks, less joy in their movement. But that was only sentiment. The children of privilege knew when they were faced with a child of the lower orders. 'T'hese dancing and shouting in the clean, clear water could dress as they saw fit because they were all of the same ranks. 'T'hese were the children of the great houses, brought to play with the one boy, there, in the robe. The one deep in disagreement with the petulant-looking girl. The one who had eyes and mouth the same shape as Utah's.
Liat looked up and found Kiyan considering her. The woman's expression was unreadable.
'['hank you for coming,' Kiyan said over the sounds of falling water and shrieking children.
'Of course,' Liat said. She nodded down at the boy. 'That's I)anat- cha?'
'Yes. lie's having a good day,' she said. 'Then, 'Please, come this way.'
Liat followed her through a doorway at the balcony's rear and into a small resting room where Kiyan sat on a low couch and motioned Liat to do the same. The sounds of play were muffled enough to speak over, but they weren't absent. Liat found them oddly comforting.
'I heard that Nayiit-cha chose to go with the men,' Kiyan said.
'Yes,' Liat said, and then stopped, because she didn't know what more there was to say.
'I can't imagine that,' Kiyan said. 'It's hard enough imagining Utah going, but he's my husband. Tie's not my son.'
'I understand why he went. Nayiit, I mean. But his father asked the Khai to take care of him.'
Kiyan looked tip, confused for a moment, then nodded.
'Maati, you mean?'
'Of course,' Liat said.
'Do we have to keep tip that pretense?'
'I think we do, Kiyan-cha.'
'I suppose,' she said. And then a moment later, 'No. You're right. You're quite right. I don't know what I was thinking.'
Liat considered Otah's wife-thin face, black hair shot with threads of white, so little paint on her cheeks that Liat could see where the lines that came with age had been etched by pain and laughter. There was an intelligence in her face and, Liat thought, a sorrow. Kiyan took a deep breath and seemed to pull herself back from whatever place her mind had gone. She smiled.
'Otah has left the city with a problem,' she said. 'With so many men gone, the business of things is hound to suffer. 'There are crops that need bringing in and others that need planting. Roofs need the tiles repaired before autumn comes. There are still parts of the winter quarters that haven't been cleaned out since we've all resurfaced. And the men who coordinate those things or else who oversee the men who do are all off with ()tali playing at war.'
''T'hat is a problem,' Liat agreed, unsure why Kiyan had brought her here to tell her this.
'I'm calling a Council of wives,' Kiyan said. 'I think we're referring to it as an afternoon banquet, but I mean it to be more than light gossip and sweet breads. I'm going to take care of Machi until Otah comes hack. I'll see to it that we have food and coal to see us through the winter.'
If, Kiyan didn't need to say, we all live that long. Liat looked at her hands and pressed the dark thoughts away.
'That seems wise,' she said.
'I want you to come to the Council, Liat-cha. I want your help.'
Liat looked up. Kiyan's whole attention was on her. It made her feel awkward, but also oddly flattered.
'I don't know what I could do-'
'You're a woman of business. You understand schedules and how to coordinate different teams in different tasks so that the whole of a thing comes together the way it should. I understand that too, but frankly most of these women would be totally lost. They've bent their minds to face paints and robes and trading gossip and bedroom tricks,' Kiyan said, and then immediately took a pose that asked forgiveness. 'I don't mean to make them sound dim. They aren't. But they're the product of a Khai's court, and the things that matter there aren't things that matter, if you see what I mean?'
'Quite well,' Liat said with a chuckle.
Kiyan leaned forward and scooped up Liat's hand as if it were the most natural thing to do.
'You helped Otah when he asked it of you. Will you help me now?'
The assent came as far as Liat's lips and then died there. She saw the distress in Kiyan's eyes, but she couldn't say it.
