Maati knew it wouldn't take. There were weeks of heat and sun to come before the seasons changed. And yet, there was a part of Maati's mind that couldn't help seeing the shift as an omen. And a positive one, he told himself. Change, the movement of the seasons, the proper order of the world: those were what he tried to see in the low, gray roof of the sky. Not the presentiment of barren winter.
'The news is strange,' Eiah said as they unloaded her cart. Boxes of salt pork and raw flour, canisters of spice and hard cheese. 'The Galts have fallen on Saraykeht like they owned it, but something didn't go well. I can't tell if my brother thought the girl was too ugly or she fell into a fit when she was presented, but something went badly. What I heard was early and muddled. I'll know better next time I go.'
'Anything that hurts him helps us,' Maati said. 'So whatever it was, it's good.'
'That was my thought,' Eiah said, but her voice was somber. When he took a pose of query, she didn't answer it.
'How have things progressed here?' she asked instead.
'Well. Very well. I think Vanjit is ready.'
Eiah stopped, wiping her sleeve across her forehead. She looked old. How many summers had she seen? Thirty? Thirty-one? Her eyes were deeper than thirty summers.
'When?' she asked.
'We were only waiting for you to come back,' he said. Then, trying for levity, 'You've brought the wine and food for a celebration. So tomorrow, we'll do something worth celebrating.'
Or else something to mourn, he thought but did not say.
9
'By everything holy, don't tell Balasar,' Sinja said. 'He can't know about this.'
'Why?' Idaan asked, sitting on the edge of the soldier's bed. 'What would he do?'
'I don't know,' Sinja said. 'Something bloody and extreme. And effective.'
'Stop,' Otah said. 'Just stop. I have to think.'
But sitting there, head resting in his hands, clarity of mind wasn't coming to him easily. Idaan's story-her travels in the north after her exile, Cehmai's appearance on her doorstep, their rekindled love, and Maati's break with his fellow poet and then his return-had the feel of an old poem, if not the careful structure. If he hadn't had the pirates or Ana or her father or his own son or the conspiracy between Yalakeht and Obar State, or the incursions from the Westlands, he might have enjoyed the tale for its own sake.
But she hadn't brought it to him as a story. It was a threat.
'What role has Cehmai taken in this?' he asked.
'None. He wanted nothing to do with it. Or with my coming here, for that. I've left him to look after things until I've paid my debt to you. Then I'll be going home.'
'Is it working?' Otah said at length. 'Idaan-cha, did Maati say anything to suggest it was working?'
His sister took a pose of negation that held a sense of uncertainty.
'He came to Cehmai for help,' Sinja said. 'That means at least that he thinks he needs help.'
'And Cehmai didn't agree to it,' Idaan said. 'He isn't helping. But he also doesn't want to see Maati hung. He cut Maati off before he told me who was backing him.'
'What makes you think he has backing?'
'He said as much. Strong backing and an ear in the palaces whenever he wanted one,' Idaan said. 'Even if that overstates the truth, he isn't out hunting rabbits or wading through a rice field. Someone's feeding him. And how many people are there who might want the andat back in the world?'
'No end of them,' Otah said. 'But how many would think the thing was possible?'
Sinja opened a small wooden cabinet and took out a fluted bottle of carved bone. When he lifted out the stopper, the scent of wine filled the room. He asked with a gesture. Otah and Idaan accepted simultaneously, and with the same pose.
'The books are all burned,' Otah said. 'The histories are gone, the grammars are gone. I didn't think he could do this when he wrote to me before, I don't see that he could manage it now.'
Sinja, stunned, overfilled one of the wine bowls, the red pooling on his table like spilled blood. Idaan hoisted a single eyebrow.
'He wrote to you before?' she said.
'It was years ago,' Otah said. 'I had a letter. A single letter. Maati said he was looking for a way to recapture the andat. He wanted my help. I sent a message back refusing.'
'All apologies, Most High,' Sinja said. He hadn't bothered to wipe up the spilled wine. 'Why is this the first I'm hearing of it?'
'It came at a bad time,' Otah said. 'Kiyan was dying. It was hopeless. The andat are gone, and there's no force in the world that can bring them safely back.'
'You're sure of that?' Idaan asked. 'Because Maati-cha didn't think it was hopeless. The man is many things, but he isn't dim.'
'It hardly matters,' Sinja said. 'Just the word that this is happening, and that-may all the gods keep it from happening you knew he was thinking of it. That you've known for years…'
'It's a dream!' Otah shouted. 'Maati was dreaming, that's all. He wants something back that's gone beyond his reach. Well, so do I. Anyone who has lived as long as we have knows that longing, and we know how useless it is. What's gone is gone, and we can't have it back. So what would you have had me do? Send the message back with an assassin? Announce to the world that Maati Vaupathai was out, trying to bind the andat, so they should all send invading armies at their first convenience?'
'Why didn't you?' Idaan asked. 'Send the assassin, I mean. The invading armies, I understand. For that, why did you let them go at the end of the war?'
'I am not in the mood, Idaan-cha, to be questioned by a woman who killed my father, schemed to place the blame on me, and is only breathing air now because I chose to let her. I understand that you would have happily opened their throats.'
'Not Cehmai's,' she said softly. 'But then I know why I wouldn't have done it. It doesn't follow that I should know why you didn't. The two aren't the same.'
Otah rocked back in his chair. His face was hot. Their gazes locked, and he saw her nod. Idaan took a pose that expressed both understanding and contrition while unmasking the question.
'That isn't true,' she said. 'Thinking for a moment, I suppose they are.
Otah took the bowl Sinja held out to him. The wine was unwatered, rich and astringent. He drank it dry. Sinja looked nervous.
'There's nothing I can do about any of this tonight,' Otah said. 'I'm tired. I'm going to bed. If I decide it needs talking of further, it'll be another time.'
He rose, taking a pose that ended an audience, then feeling a moment's shame, shifted to one that was merely a farewell.
'Otah-cha,' Sinja said. 'One last thing. I'm sorry, but you left standing orders. If she came back, I was supposed to kill her.'
'For plotting to take my chair and conspiring with the Galts,' Otah said. 'Well. Idaan-cha? Are you hoping to become Emperor?'
'I wouldn't take your place as a favor,' she said.
Otah nodded.
'Find apartments for her,' he said. 'Lift the death order. The girl we sent out in the snow might as well have died. And the man who sent her, for that. We are, all of us, different people now.'
Otah walked back to his rooms alone. The palace wasn't quiet or still. Perhaps it never wholly was. But the buzzing fury of the day had given way to a slower pace. Fewer servants made their way down the halls. The members of the high families who had business here had largely gone back to their own palaces, walking stone paths chipped by the spurs and boot nails of Galtic soldiers, passing through arches whose gold and silver adornments had been hacked off by Galtic axes. They went to palaces where the highest men and women of Galt
