on the matter. So if she chooses you, you can believe her. Yes?'
'We have a small advantage in that her present lover is something of a cow,' Issandra said. 'I suspect that, had the circumstances been otherwise, she would already have grown tired of him. But he's a point of pride now' She fixed Danat with her eyes. 'You have a hard road before you, son.
'You want me to seduce your daughter?' Danat asked, his voice breaking slightly at seduce.
'Yes,' Issandra said.
Danat sank to a cushion. His face flushed almost the color of sunset.
'I thought he might deliver an apology,' Otah said. 'It would give him a reason to speak with Ana-cha in private, separate him from the political aspect of the arrangement, and place him in her camp.'
'Apologize for what?' Danat said.
'Well, for me,' Otah said. 'Express your shame that I would treat her so poorly.'
'She'll smell that in a heartbeat,' Issandra said. 'And if you begin by giving her the upper hand, you'll never have it back. Ask an apology from her. Respect her objections, but tell her she was wrong in humiliat ing you. You are as much a pawn in this as she is. And do you have a lover?'
'I… I was…'
'Well, find one,' Issandra said. 'Preferably someone prettier than my daughter. You needn't look shocked, my boy. I've lived my life in court. While you poor dears are out swinging knives at each other, there are wars just as bloody at every grand ball.'
A scratching came at the door, followed by a servant woman. She took a pose of abject apology.
'Most High, there's a courier for you.'
'It can wait,' Otah said. 'Or if it can't, send for Sinja-cha.'
'The courier's come from Chaburi-Tan,' the servant said. 'The letter is sealed and signed for you alone. He says the issue is urgent.'
Otah cursed under his breath, but he rose. As he stepped out to the antechamber, he heard Danat and Issandra resume the conversation without him. The antechamber felt as close as a grave, heavy tapestries killing any sound from within the greater meeting room. The courier was a young man, hardly more than Danat's age. Otah saw the calm, professional eyes sum him up. If the boy had been longer in the gentleman's trade, Otah would never have noticed it. He accepted the letter and ripped it open there, not waiting for a blade to cut the silk-sewn edging.
The cipher was familiar to him, but it made for slower reading than plain text. It was from the Kajiit Miyan, servant to the Emperor Otah Machi who had founded the Third Empire. Otah skipped down past the honorifics and empty form, decoding words and phrases in his mind until he reached something of actual importance. Then he read more slowly. And then he went back and read it again.
The mercenaries hired to protect Chaburi-Tan were ending their contract and leaving. Within a month, the city would be reduced to its citizen militia. The pirates who had been harrying the city would find them only token resistance. Their options, his agent said, were to surrender and pray for mercy or else flee the city. There would be no defense.
Otah took the servant girl by the elbow.
'Find Balasar. And Sinja. Bring them…' Otah looked over his shoulder. 'Bring them to the winter garden of the second palace. Do it now. You. Courier. You'll wait until I have word to take back.'
The twilight world lost its color like a face going pale. Otah paced the lush green and blossomless garden, wrenching his mind from one crisis to the next. A different servant led Balasar into the space between the willows.
'Find us some light,' Otah said. 'And Sinja-cha. Get Sinja-cha.'
The servant, caught between two needs, hesitated, then hurried off. Otah led Balasar to a low stone bench. The general wore a lighter jacket, silk over cotton. His breath smelled of wine, but he gave no sign of being drunk. Otah looked out at the gray sky, the dark, looming palaces with windows glimmering like stars and cursed Sinja for his absence.
'Balasar-cha, I need you. The Galtic fleet has to travel to ChaburiTan,' Otah said.
He outlined the letter he'd had, the history of increasing raids and attacks, and his half-imagined scheme to show the unity of Galt and the Khaiem. With every word, Balasar seemed to become stiller, until at the end, it was like speaking to stone.
'We can only show unity where it exists,' Balasar said. His voice was low, and in the rising darkness it seemed to come from no direction at all. 'After what happened yesterday, the fleet's as likely to turn on the city as the raiders.'
'I don't have the ships and men to protect Chaburi-Tan,' Otah said. 'Not without you. The city will fall, and thousands will be killed. If the Galtic fleet came in, the pirates would turn back without so much as an arrow flown. And it would halfway unmake yesterday's mess.'
'It can't happen,' Balasar said.
'Then tell me what can,' Otah said.
The general was silent. A moth took wing, fluttering between them like a clot of shadows and dust before it vanished.
'There is… something. It will make things here more difficult,' Balasar said. 'There are families who have committed to your scheme. That have already been brokering contracts and arranging alliances. I can gather them. It won't be anything like the full force of war, but if they sent their private ships and soldiers along with whatever you can muster up, it might serve.'
'At the cost of sending away what allies I have,' Otah said.
'That would be the price of it,' Balasar said. 'Send away your friends, and you're left eating with your enemies. It could poison the court against us.'
Us. At least the man had said us.
'Get them,' Otah said. 'Get whoever you can quickly, and then send for me. I can't let another city die.'
It only occurred to him as he stalked back through the wide stone halls and softly glowing lanterns of the first palace that he had been speaking to the man that had killed Udun and the village of the Daikvo, the man who had maimed Nantani and Yalakeht.
The meeting chamber was empty when he reached it; Danat and Issandra had gone. The cheese and apples and wine had been cleared away. The lanterns had blown out. Otah called for a servant to fetch him food and light. He sat, his annoyance and unease rising in his breast like the tide climbing a sea cliff.
Ana Dasin and her petulant, self-important father were well on their way to seeing both empires chewed away one bit at a time by pirates and foreign conspiracies. And failing crops. And time. Childless years growing one upon another like a winter with no promise of spring. There were so many things to fix, so uncountably many things that had gone wrong. He was the Emperor, the most powerful man in the cities of the Khaiem, and he was tired to his heart.
When the food arrived-pork in black sauce, spiced rice, sugared apple, wine and herbs-Otah was hardly hungry any longer. Moments after that, Sinja finally arrived.
'Where have you been?' Sinja demanded. 'I've been wandering around the winter garden for half a hand looking for you.'
'I should ask the same. I must have had half the servants in the palace looking for you.'
'I know. Six of them found me. It got inconvenient telling them all I was busy. You need to come with me.'
'You were busy?'
'Otah-cha, you need to come with me.'
He breathed deeply and took a pose that commanded obedience. Sinja's eyebrows rose and he adopted an answering pose that held nuances of both query and affront.
'I have no intention of going anywhere until I have finished eating,' Otah said. It embarrassed him to hear the peevishness in his voice, but not so much as to unsay it. Sinja tilted his head, stepped forward, and lifted one end of the table. The plates and bowl spun to the floor. One shattered. Otah was on his feet with no memory of standing. His face felt as warm as if he were looking into a fire. His ears filled with a buzzing of rage.
Sinja took a step back.
'I can have you killed,' Otah said. 'You know I can have you killed.'
