'Your mother?' Eiah said.
'Yes, miss,' the Galt said.
'Well,' she said, her voice cool. 'At least you weren't a band of those charming liars out selling the promise of women in the low towns. What's in the satchel?'
The Galt looked chagrined and desperate, but he didn't lie.
'Names of men, miss. The ones who wanted wives from Galt.'
'I thought as much,' Eiah said.
'Don't help them,' Vanjit said. She'd climbed to the front of the cart, but hadn't taken up the reins. From the way she held her body, Maati guessed it was a matter of time before she did. He saw the andat's black eyes peering over the cart at him and looked away. Eiah might as well not have heard her.
'We were going to do the right thing with them, miss,' the tall man said. 'There's a man in Acton putting together women who want to come over. We had an arrangement with him. All the money's been taken, but we still have the lists. God's word, we're going to keep our end of the thing, if we can just get back to Saraykeht.'
'You stole from them,' Eiah said, pulling a leather waterskin from her satchel. 'They stole back from you. Seems to me that leaves you even. Here, drink from this. It's not only water, so don't take more than a couple of swallows, any of you.'
'Eiah-kya,' Irit said. Her voice was high and anxious, but she didn't say more than the name. Large Kae's mount whickered and sidestepped, sensing something uneasing in its rider's posture. Eiah might as easily have been alone.
'These… put out your hand. These are lengths of silver. I've put a notch in each of them, so you'll know if someone's trying to switch them. It's enough to pay for a passage to Saraykeht. The road you're following now, it will be about another day's walk to the river. Maybe longer. Call it two.'
'Thank you, miss,' one of the other two said.
'I don't suppose we could ride on the back of your cart?' the tall man said, hope in his smile.
'No,' Maati said. There was a limit to what Vanjit would allow, and he wasn't ready for that confrontation. 'We've spent too long at this. Eiah.'
Without a word, without meeting his gaze, Eiah turned back, climbed into the cart, and went back to the wax writing tablets she'd spent her morning over. Maati climbed back up into the cart and started them back down the road, Vanjit at his side.
'She shouldn't have done that,' Vanjit murmured. Soft as the words were, he knew Eiah would hear them.
'There's no harm in it,' Maati said. 'Let it pass.'
Vanjit frowned, but let the subject go. She spent the rest of the day beside him, as if guarding him from Eiah. For her part, Eiah might have been alone with her tablets. Even when the rest of them sang to pass the time, she kept to her work, steady and focused. When the conversation turned to whether they should keep riding after sunset in hopes of reaching the river, she spoke for stopping on the road. She didn't want Maati to be tired any more than was needed. Large Kae sided with her for the horses' sake.
The women made a small camp, dividing the night into watches since they were so near the road. Vanjit sharpened their sight in the evenings but insisted on returning them to normal when dawn came. She, of course, didn't have a turn at watch. Neither did Maati. Instead, he watched the moon as it hung in the tree branches, listened to the low call of owls, and drank the noxious tea. Vanjit, Irit, and Small Kae lay in the bed of the cart, their robes wrapped tightly around them. The andat sat beside its poet, as still as a stone. Eiah and Large Kae had taken the first watch, and were sitting with their backs to the fire to keep their unnaturally sharp eyes well-adapted to the darkness.
You have to kill her, it had said, and when Maati had reared back, his fragile heart racing, the andat had only looked at him. Its childish eyes had seemed older, like something ancient wearing the mask of a baby. It had nodded to itself and then turned and crawled awkwardly away. The message had been delivered. The rest, it seemed to imply, was Maati's.
He looked at the bowl of dark tea in his hands. The warmth of it was almost gone. Small bits of leaf and root shifted in the depths. An idea occurred to him. Not, perhaps, a brilliant one, but they would reach the river and hire a boat in the morning. It was a risk worth taking.
'Eiah-kya,' he said softly. 'Something's odd with this tea. Could you…?'
Eiah looked over at him. She looked old in the dim light of moon and fire. She came to the tree where he sat. Large Kae's gaze followed her. The sleepers in the cart didn't stir, but the andat's eyes were on him. Maati held out the bowl, and Eiah sipped from it.
'We need to speak,' Maati said under his breath. 'The others can't know.'
'It seems fine. Give me your wrists,' Eiah said in a conversational tone. Then, softly, 'What's happened?'
'It's the andat. Blindness. It spoke to me. It told me to kill Vanjit-cha. This is all its doing.'
Eiah switched to compare pulses in both wrists, her eyes closed as if she were concentrating.
'How do you mean?' she whispered.
'The babe was always clinging to Ashti Beg. It made Ashti-cha feel that it cared for her. Vanjit grew jealous. The conflict between them was the andat's doing. Now that it thinks we're frightened of it, it's trying to use me as well. It's Stone-Made-Soft encouraging Cehmai-cha into distracting conflicts. It's Seedless again.'
Eiah put down his wrists, pressing her fingertips against his palms with the air of a buyer at a market.
'Does it matter?' Eiah murmured. 'Say that the andat has been manipulating us all. What does that change?'
Eiah put down his hands. Her smile was thin and humorless. Something scurried in the bushes, small and fast. A mouse, perhaps.
'Is all well?' Large Kae called from the fire. In the cart, someone moaned and stirred.
'Fine,' Maati said. 'We're fine. Only adjusting something.' Then, quietly, 'I doubt it changes anything. Vanjit's more likely to side with Clarity-of-Sight than with us. If it is scheming against her-and, really, I can't see why it wouldn't be-it's better placed to get what it wants. It is her. It knows what she needs and what she fears.'
'You think she wants to die?' Eiah asked.
'I think she wants to stop hurting. Binding the andat was supposed to stop the pain. Having a babe was supposed to. Revenge on the Galts. Now here she is with everything she wanted, and she still hurts.'
Maati shrugged. Eiah took a pose of agreement and of sorrow.
'If she weren't a poet, I'd pity her,' Eiah said. 'But she is, and so she frightens me.'
'Maati-kya?' Vanjit's voice came from the darkness over Eiah's shoulder. It was high and anxious. 'What's the matter with Maati-kvo?'
'Nothing,' Eiah said, turning back. Vanjit was sitting up, her hair wild, her eyes wide. The andat was clutched to her breast. Eiah took a reassuring pose. 'Everything's fine.'
Poet and andat looked at Maati with expressions of distrust so alike they were eerie.
The river Qiit had its source far north of Utani. Rains from the mountain ranges that divided the cities of the Khaiem from the Westlands flowed east into the wide flats, gathered together, and carved their way south. Utani, the ruins of Udun, and then far to the south, the wide, silted delta just east of Saraykeht.
At its widest, the river was nearly half a mile across, but that was farther south. Here, at the low town squatting on the riverfront, the water was less than half that, its surface smooth and shining as silver. Eight thin streets crossed one another at unpredictable angles. Dogs and chickens negotiated their peace in bark and squawk, tooth and beak as Maati drove past. Two wayhouses offered rest. Another teahouse was painted in characters that made it clear there were no beds for hire there, and grudgingly offered fresh noodles and old wine. The air smelled rich with decay and new growth, the cold water and the dust of the road. There should have been children in the streets, calling, begging, playing games both innocent and cruel.
Maati drew the cart to a halt in the yard of the wayhouse nearest the riverfront itself. Large Kae dismounted and went in to negotiate for a room. After the incident with the andat, the agreement was that someone would always be in a private room with the shutters closed and the door bolted, watching the andat. If all went as he intended it, they would be on the river well before nightfall, but still…
Vanjit's scowl had deepened through the day. Twice more they had passed men and women with pale skin and blind eyes. Two were begging at the side of the road, another was being led on the end of a rope by an old
