had come as guests, eating beef soup and white bread and fruit tarts. Sipping tea and wine and water and working, some of them at least, to build a common future.
And Idaan had come to warn him against Maati.
He slept poorly and woke tired. The Master of Tides attended him as he was bathed and dressed. The day was full from dawn to nightfall. Sixteen audiences had been requested, falling almost equally between members of the utkhaiem and the Galts. Three of the Galtic houses had left letters strongly implying that they had daughters who might be pressed to serve should Ana Dasin refuse. One of the priests at the temple had left a request to preach against the recalcitrance of women who failed to offer up sex. Two of the trading houses had made it clear that they wished to be released from shipping contracts to Chaburi-Tan. The Master of Tides droned and listed and laid out the form of another painful, endless, wasted day. When the stars came out again, Otah knew he would feel like a wrung towel and all the great problems he faced would still be unsolved.
He instructed that the priest be forbidden, the trading houses be referred to Sinja-cha and the Master of Chains, who could renegotiate terms but not break the contract, and then dictated a common response to the three letters offering up new wives for Danat that neither encouraged nor refused them. All this before the breakfast of fresh-brewed tea, spiced apples, and seared pork had appeared.
He had hardly begun to eat when the Master of Tides returned with a sour expression and took a pose that asked forgiveness, but pointedly did not suggest that the offending party was the Master of Tides herself.
'Most High, Balasar Gice is requesting to join you. I have suggested that he apply for an audience just as anyone else, but he seems to forget that his conquest of Saraykeht was temporary.'
'You'll treat Balasar-cha with respect,' Otah said, though he couldn't quite keep from smiling. And then a breath later, his chest tightened. Something bloody and extreme. And effective. What if the general had heard Idaan's news? 'See him in. And bring another bowl for tea.'
The Master of Tides took a pose that accepted the command.
'A clean bowl,' Otah added to the woman's back.
Balasar followed all the appropriate forms when the servants escorted him back. Otah matched him, and then gestured for all the others to leave. When they were alone, Balasar lowered himself to the cushion on the floor, took the bowl of tea and the bit of pork that Otah offered him, and stretched out. Otah watched the man's face and body, but there was no sign there that he'd heard of Idaan's arrival or of her news.
'I've had a couple of discreet conversations,' Balasar said.
'Yes?'
'About taking a fleet to Chaburi-Tan?'
Otah nodded. Of course. Of course that was what they were meeting about.
'And what have you found?' Otah asked.
'It can be done, but there are two ways to go about it. We have enough men to make a small, effective fighting force. Eight ships, perhaps, fully armed and provisioned. I wouldn't go to war on it, but it would outman most raiding parties.'
Otah sipped his tea. The water wasn't quite hot enough to scald.
'The other way?'
'We can use the same number to man twenty ships. A mixed force, ours and your own. Throw on as many men as we can find who are well enough to stand upright. It would actually be easier to defeat in a battle. The men who knew what they were about would be spread thin, and amateurs are worse than nothing in a sea fight. But weigh it against the sight of twenty ships. The pirates would be mad to come against us in force.'
'Unless they know we're all lights and empty show,' Otah said. 'There are suggestions that the mercenaries we have at Chaburi-Tan are working both sides.'
Balasar sucked his teeth.
'That makes it harder,' he agreed.
'How long would you need?' Otah asked.
'A week for the smaller force. Twice that for the larger.'
'How many of our allies would we lose in the court here?'
'Hard to say. Knowing who your friends are is a tricky business right now. You'll have fewer than if they stayed.'
Otah took a slice of apple, chewing the soft flesh slowly to give himself time. Balasar was silent, his expression unreadable. It occurred to Otah that the man would have made a decent courier.
'Give me the day,' he said. 'I'll have an answer for you tonight. Tomorrow at the latest.'
'Thank you, Most High,' Balasar said.
'I know how much I've asked of you,' Otah said.
'It's something I owe you. Or that we owe each other. Whatever I can do, I will.'
Otah smiled and took a pose of gratitude, but he was wondering what limits that debt would find if Idaan spoke to the old general. He was dancing around too many blades. He couldn't keep them all clear in his mind, and if he stumbled, there would be blood.
Otah finished his meal, allowed the servants to change his outer robe to a formal black with threads of gold throughout, and led his ritual procession to the audience chamber. The members of his court flowed into their places in the appropriate order, with the custom-driven signs of loyalty and obeisance. Otah restrained himself from shouting at them all to hurry. The time he spent in empty form was time stolen. He didn't have it to spare.
The audiences began, each a balancing between the justice of the issue, the politics behind those involved, and the massive complex webwork that made up the relationships of the court, of the cities, of the world. When he'd been young, the Khai Saraykeht had held audiences for things as simple as land disputes and broken contracts. Those days were gone, and nothing reached so high as the Emperor of the Khaiem unless no one lower dared rule on the matter. Nothing was trivial, everything fraught with implication.
Midday came and went, and the sun began its slow fall to the west. Storm clouds rose, white and soft and taller than mountains, but the rain stayed out over the sea. The daylight moon hung in the blue sky to the north. Otah didn't think of Balasar or Idaan, Chaburi-Tan or the andat. When at last he paused to eat, he felt worn thin enough to see through. He tried to consider Balasar's analysis, but ended by staring at the plate of lemon fish and rice as if it were enthralling.
Because he had been hoping for a moment's peace, he'd chosen to eat his little meal in one of the low halls at the back of the palace. The stone floor and simple, unadorned plaster walls made it seem more like the common room of a small wayhouse than the center of empire. That was part of its appeal. The shutters were open on the garden behind it: crawling lavender, starfall rose, mint, and, without warning, Danat, in a formally cut robe of deep blue hot with yellow, blood running from his nose to cover his mouth and chin. Otah put down the bowl.
Danat stalked into the hall and halfway across it before he noticed that a table was occupied. He hesitated, then took a pose of greeting. The fingers of his right hand were scarlet where he had tried to stanch the flow and failed. Otah didn't recall having stood. His expression must have been alarmed, because Danat smiled and shook his head.
'It's not bad,' he said. 'Just messy. I didn't want to come through the larger halls.'
'What happened?'
'I have met my rival,' Danat said. 'Hanchat Dor.'
'There's blood? There's blood between you?'
'No,' Danat said. 'Well, technically yes, I suppose. But no.'
He lowered himself to sit at the table where Otah's food lay abandoned. There was a carafe of water and a porcelain bowl. As Otah sat, his boy wet one of his sleeves and set about wiping the blood from around his grin. Otah's first violent impulses to protect his son and punish his assailant were disarmed by that smile. Not conquered, but disarmed.
'He and Ana-cha were haunting the path between the palaces and the poet's house, just before the pond,' Danat said. 'We had words. He took some exception to our demand that Ana-cha apologize. He suggested that I should feel honored to have breathed the same air as his darling chipmunk. Seriously, Papa. `Darling chipmunk.''
'It might be a Galtic endearment,' he said, trying to match his son's light tone.
Danat waved the thought away. It would be no more dignified, Otah admitted to himself, because a whole culture said it. Danat went on.
