curious.
'They aren't wrong, Most High. These men aren't accustomed to living on the road like this. You can't expect the speed of a practiced army from them. And the walkers have been rising early to drill.'
'Have they?'
'They have the impression their lives may rest on it. And the lives of their families. And, forgive me Most High, but your life too.'
Otah leaned forward, his hands taking a questioning pose.
'They're afraid of failing you,' Nayiit said. 'It's why no one would come to you and complain. I've been keeping company with a man named Saya. He's a blacksmith. Plow blades, for the most part. I Iis knees are swollen to twice their normal size, and he wakes before dawn to tic on leather and wool and swing sticks with the others. And then he walks until he can't. And then he walks farther.'
Nayiit's voice was trembling now, but Otah couldn't say if it was with weariness or fear or anger.
'These aren't soldiers, Most High. And you're pushing them too hard.'
'We've been moving for ten days-'
'And we're coming near to halfway to the Dai-kvo's village,' Nayiit said. 'In ten days. And drilling, and sleeping under thin blankets on hard ground. Not couriers and huntsmen, not men who are accustomed to this. Just men. I've spoken to the provisioners. We left Nlachi three thousand strong. Do you know how many have turned hack? How many have deserted you?'
Otah blinked. It wasn't a question he'd ever thought to ask.
'How many?'
'None.'
Otah felt something loosen in his chest. A warmth like the first drink of wine spread through him, and he felt tears beginning to well up in his eyes. If he had been less exhausted, it would never have pierced his reserve, and still… none.
'With every low town we pass, we take on a few more,' Nayiit was saying. 'They're afraid. The word has gone out that all the andat are gone, that the Galts are going to invade or are invading. It's the thing every man had convinced himself would never happen. I hear the things they say.'
'The things they say?'
'That you were the only one who saw the danger. You were training men even before. You were preparing. They say that you've traveled the world when you were a boy, that you understand it better than any other Khai. Some of them are calling you the new Emperor.'
`T 'hey should stop that,' Otah said.
'Most High, they're desperate and afraid, and they want a hero out of the old epics. They need one.'
'And you? What do you need?'
'I need Saya to stop walking for a day.'
Otah closed his eyes. Perhaps the right thing was to send the experienced men on ahead. They could clear spaces for the camps. Perhaps missing a single day would not be too much. And there was little point in running if it was only to be sure they came to the battle exhausted and ready for slaughter. The I)ai-kvo would have gotten his warning by now. The poets might even now be in flight toward Otah and his ragtag army. IIe took in a deep breath and let it out slowly through his nose. Letting his body collapse with it.
'I'll consider what you've said, Nayiit-eha,' Otah said. 'It wasn't where my mind had led me, but I can see there's some wisdom in it.'
Nayiit took a pose of gratitude as formal as any at court. He looked nearly as spent as Otah felt. Otah raised his hands in a querying pose.
'The utkhaicm didn't feel comfortable bringing these concerns to me,' he said. 'Why did you?'
'I think, Most High, there's a certain… reluctance in the higher ranks to second-guess you again. And the footmen wouldn't think of approaching you. I grew up with stories about you and Maati-cha, so I suppose I can bring myself to think of you as one of my mother's friends. That, and I'm desperately tired. If you had me sent back in disgrace, I could at least get a day's rest.'
Otah smiled, and saw his own expression reflected back at him. He had never known this boy, had never lifted him over his head the way he had Danat. He had had no part in teaching Nayiit wisdom or folly. Even now, seeing himself in his eldest son's movements and expressions, he could hardly think of him with the hone-deep protectiveness that shook him when he thought of Eiah and Danat. And yet he was pleased that he had accepted Nayiit's offer to join him in this halfdoomed campaign. Otah leaned forward, his hand out. It was the ges ture of friendship that one seafront laborer might offer another. Nayiit only looked shocked for a moment, then clasped Otah's hand.
'Whenever they're too nervous to tell me what I'm doing wrong, you come to me, Nayiit-cha. I haven't got many people I can trust to do that, and I've left most of them hack in Mach 1.11
'If you'll promise not to have me whipped for impertinence,' the boy said.
'I won't have you whipped, and I won't have you sent hack.'
'I'hank you,' Nayiit said, and again Otah was moved to see that the gratitude was genuine. After Nayiit had gone, Otah was left with the aches in his body and the unease that came with having a man with a wife and child thank you for leading him toward the real chance of death. The life of the Khai Machi, he thought, afforded very few opportunities to he humbled, but this was one. When the attendant returned, Otah didn't recognize the sound of his scratching until the man's voice came.
'Most High?'
'Yes, come in. And bring that ointment here. No, I can put it on myself. But bring me the captains of the houses. I've decided to take a day to rest and send the scouts ahead.'
'Yes, Most High.'
'And when you've done with that, there's a man named Saya. He's on foot. A blacksmith from Machi, I think.'
'Yes, Most High?'
'Ask him to join me for a howl of wine. I'd like to meet him.'
Maati woke to find Liat already gone. His hand traced the indentation in the mattress at his side where she had slept. The world outside his door was already bright and warm. The birds whose songs had filled the air of spring were busy now teaching their hatchlings to fly. The pale green of new leaves had deepened, the trees as rich with summer as they would ever be. High summer had come. Maati rose from his bed with a grunt and went about his morning ablutions.
The days since the ragged, improvised army of Machi began its march to the east had been busy. The loss of Stone-Made-Soft would have sent the court and the merchant houses scurrying like mice before a flood even if nothing more had happened. Word of the other lost andat and of the massed army of Galt made what in other days would have been a cataclysm seem a side issue. For half a week, it seemed, the city had been paralyzed. Not from fear, but from the simple and profound lack of any ritual or ceremony that answered the situation. Then, first from the merchant houses below and Kiyan-cha's women's ban- (lucts above and then seemingly everywhere at once, the utkhaiem had flushed with action. Often disorganized, often at crossed purpose, but determined and intent. Nlaati's own efforts were no less than any others.
Still, he left it behind him now-the books stacked in distinct piles, scrolls unfurled to particular passages as if waiting for the copyist's attention-and walked instead through the wide, bright paths of the palaces. 'There were fewer singing slaves, more stretches where the gravel of the path had scattered and not yet been raked back into place, and the men and women of the utkhaiem who he passed seemed to carry themselves with less than their full splendor. It was as if a terrible wind had blown through a garden and disarrayed those blossoms it did not destroy.
The path led into the shade of the false forest that separated the poet's house from the palaces. 'There were old trees among these, thick trunks speaking of generations of human struggle and triumph and failure since their first tentative seedling leaves had pushed away this soil. Moss clothed the bark and scented the air with green. Birds fluttered over Nlaati's head, and a squirrel scolded him as he passed. In winter, with these oaks bare, you could see from the porch of the poet's house out almost to the palaces. In summer, the house might have been in a different city. The door of the poet's house was standing open, and Maati didn't bother to scratch or knock.
