'Half a day east of here,' a young man in a leather apron was saying, but he was pointing north. 'Must have been five or six days ago. Raised ten kinds of trouble, then left in the middle of the night. So far as I can see, no one's talked about anything else since.'
'Did you see them?' Danat asked. His voice had an edge, but Otah couldn't see his face to know if it was excitement or anger.
'Not myself, no,' the young man said. 'But it's the ones you asked after. An old man with a physician, and nothing but women traveling with him. There was even some talk he was trying to start a comfort house or something of that kind, but that was before the baby.'
'Baby?' The voice was Ana's.
'Yes. Little one, not more than eight months old from the size. So I'm told. I didn't see him either, but they all saw him over at Chayiit's place. Walked right out in the middle of the main room.'
Otah slipped down at a bench by the fire grate. The fire was small but warm. He hadn't realized how cold he'd gotten.
'Those are the people,' Danat said.
'Five, six days then,' the young man said with a pleased nod. He glanced over at Otah, their eyes meeting briefly. The other man paled as Otah took a pose of casual greeting and then turned his attention back to the flames. The conversation behind him grew softer and ended. Danat came to sit at his side. Through the open door, the yard fell into evening as the armsmen finished unloading and leading away their horses.
'We've gotten closer,' Danat said. 'If they keep traveling as slowly as they have up to now, we'll overtake them well before Utani.'
Otah grunted. There was a deep thump from overhead and voices lifted in annoyance. Danat's fingers laced his knee.
'I told Balasar that I would beg,' Otah said. 'I told him that I would bend myself before this new poet and beg if it meant restoring him and Galt.'
'And now?'
'I don't believe I can. And more than that, having heard Ashti Beg talk about this Vanjit, it's hard work thinking it would help.'
'Maati, perhaps. He holds some sway with her.'
'But what can I say that would move him?' Otah asked, his voice thick. 'We were friends once, and then enemies, and friends again, but I'm not sure we know each other now. The more I look at it, the more I'm tempted to set some sort of trap, capture the new poet, and give her over to blind torturers until she makes the world what it should be.'
'And what about Eiah?' Danat asked. 'If she manages her bind„ ing-
'What if she does?' Otah said. 'She's been against me from the start. She's gone with Maati, and between them they've sunk the fleet, burned Chaburi-Tan, blinded Galt, and killed Sinja. What would you have me say to her?'
'You'll have to say something,' Danat said, his voice harder than Otah had expected. 'And we'll be upon them soon enough. It's a thing you should consider.'
Otah looked over. Danat's head was bowed, his mouth tight.
'You'd like to suggest something?' Otah asked, his voice low and careful. The anger in his breast shifted like a dog in sleep. Danat either didn't hear the warning or chose to ignore it.
'We're trading revenge,' Danat said. 'The Galts came from anger at our arrogance and fear of the andat. Maati and Vanjit have struck back now for the deaths during their invasion. This can't go on.'
'It isn't in my power to stop it,' Otah said.
'It isn't in your power to stop them,' Danat said, taking a pose of correction. 'Only promise me this. If you have the chance, you'll forgive them.'
'Forgive them?' Otah said, rising to his feet. 'You want them forgiven for this? You think it can all be put aside? It can't. If you ask Anacha, I will wager anything you like that she can't look on the deaths in Galt with calm in her heart. Would you have me forgive them for what they've done to her as well? Gods, Danat. If what they've done isn't going too far, nothing is!'
'He isn't worried for them,' Idaan said from the shadows. Otah turned. She was sitting alone at the back of the room, a lit pipe in her hand and pale smoke rising from her lips as she spoke. 'He's saying there are crimes that can't be made right. Trying to make justice out of this will only make it last longer.'
'So we should let it go?' Otah demanded. 'We should meekly accept what they've done?'
'It was what you told Eiah to do,' Danat said. 'She wanted to find a way to heal the damage from Sterile; you told her to let it go and accept what had happened. Didn't you?'
Otah's clenched fists loosened. His mind clouded with rage and chagrin. Idaan's low chuckle filled the room like a growl.
'Which of us is innocent now, eh?' she said, waving her pipe. 'It's easy to counsel forgiveness when you aren't the one swallowing poison. It's harder to forgive them for having won.'
'What would you have me do, then?' Otah snapped.
'In your place, I'd kill them all before they could do more damage,' Idaan said. 'Maati, Vanjit, Eiah. All of them. Even Ashti Beg.'
'That isn't an option,' Otah said. 'I won't kill Eiah.'
'So you won't end them and you won't forgive them,' Idaan said. 'You want the world saved, but you don't know what that means any longer. There isn't much time to clear your mind, brother. And you can't put your thoughts in line when you're half-sunk in rage.'
Danat took a pose of agreement.
'It's what I was trying to say,' he said.
'Lift yourself above this,' Idaan said. 'See it as if you were someone else. Someone less hurt by it.'
Otah lifted his hands, palms out, refusing it all. His jaw ached, but the heat in his chest and throat, the blood in his ears, washed him out of the room. He heard Danat cry out behind him, and Idaan's softer voice. He stalked out to the road. No one followed. His mind was a cacophony of voices, all of them his own.
Alone on the dimming road, he excoriated Maati and Eiah, Danat and Idaan, Balasar and Sinja and Issandra Dasin. He muttered all the venom that rose to his lips, and, in time, he sat at the base of an ancient tree, throwing stones at nothing. The rage faded and left him as empty as an old skin. The sun was gone and the sky darkening blue to indigo and indigo to starlit black.
Alone as he had not been in years, he wept. At first it was only the loss of Sinja, but then of the fleet and Chaburi-Tan. Eiah and his warring senses of guilt and betrayal. Galt, blind and dying. It ended where he had known it would. All rivers led to the sea, and all his sorrows to the death of Kiyan.
'Oh, love,' he said to the empty air. 'Oh, my love. Can this never go well?'
Nothing answered back.
The tears faded. The sorrow and rage, spent, left his heart and mind clearer. The tree at his back scratched, its bark as rough as broken stone. It offered no comfort, but he let himself rest against it. He noticed the scent of fresh earth for the first time, and the hushing of a breeze that stirred the treetops without descending to the path they covered. A falling star lit the sky and was gone.
He must, Otah thought, have looked like he was on the edge of murder the whole day for his son and his sister to face him down that way. He must have seemed like a man gone mad. It was near enough to the truth.
The night air was cold and his robes insufficient. He went back to the wayhouse more for warmth than the desire to continue any conversation. There was an odd silence in his mind now that felt fragile and comforting. He knew as he stepped into the yard that he wouldn't be able to maintain it.
Voices raised in anger filled the yard. Danat and the captain of the armsmen stood so close to each other their chests nearly touched, each of them shouting at the other. Idaan stood at Danat's right, her arms crossed, her expression deceptively calm. The captain had his armsmen arrayed behind him, lit torches in their hands. Otah made out words like protection and answerable from the captain and disrespect and mutiny from Danat. Otah rubbed his hands together to fight off the numbness and made his way toward the confrontation. The captain saw him first and stopped talking, his face flushed red by blood and torchlight. Danat took a moment longer, then glanced over his shoulder.
