The second sang something from the bow, a high trill that ended in words Otah couldn't make sense of. The paddle wheel, in the stern, shifted and creaked, the deck beneath him lurching. Otah stood, unsteadily.
'Sandbar,' Danat called to him. 'It's all right. We're fine.'
'Ah, well then. You see?' Idaan said with a chuckle. 'We're fine.'
They stayed on the river as long into the twilight as they could. Otah could see the unease in the boatman's expression and hear it in his voice. Otah's assumption was that the boats would travel at nearly the same speed. The gap between his party and Maati's would only keep narrowing if he pushed farther past the point of safety than they were willing to do. He thought his chances good. Maati, after all, had all the power, and time was his ally. There was no reason that he should rush.
They put in at a riverfront town half a hand after sundown. A small, rotting peer. A pack of half-feral dogs baying at the boatman's second as he made the boat fast and stretched a wide, arching bridge between the deck and the land. A handful of lights in the darkness that showed where lanterns burned like fireflies in the night.
While the armsmen unloaded their crates and skipped stones at the dogs' feet, Otah led Ashti Beg across to solid land, Idaan and Ana close behind. In the night, the moon and stars obscured by almost-bare branches, Otah felt hardly more sure of himself than did Ashti Beg. But then a local boy appeared with a lantern dancing at the end of a pole to lead them to the wayhouse. They walked slowly despite the cold, as if sitting on the deck all day had been the most wearying work imaginable. Otah found himself walking to one side of the group, hanging back with Danat at his side. It wasn't until his son spoke that Otah noticed that he'd been herded there like an errant sheep.
'I'm sorry, Papa-kya,' Danat said, softly. 'I need to speak with you.'
Otah took a pose that granted his permission.
'You spoke with Ana earlier,' Danat said. 'I saw she took your hand. It looked… it looked like she was crying.'
'Yes,' Otah said.
'Was it about me?' Danat asked. 'Was it something I've done wrong?'
Otah's expression alone must have been enough to answer the question. Danat looked around, shame in his face.
'She's avoiding me,' Danat said.
'She's blind, and we've been sunrise to sunset on a boat smaller than my bedchamber,' Otah said. 'How could she possibly avoid you?'
'It wasn't today. It's been… it's been weeks. I thought at first it was only that Idaan and Ashti Beg joined us. There were women here, and Ana-cha felt more comfortable in their company. But it's more than that, and…'
Danat ran a hand through his hair. In the dim light of the lantern, Otah could see the single crease in his brow, like a paint mark.
'I don't know what to say. She's done nothing in my presence to make me suspect she's anything but fond of you. If anything, she seems stronger for having come with us.'
Danat raised his hands toward some formal pose, but skidded in the mud. When he regained his balance, whatever he'd intended to express was forgotten. Otah put a hand on the boy's shoulder.
The wayhouse was a series of low buildings built of fired brick. The stable squatted across a thin, stone- paved road, a single light burning at its side where, Otah assumed, a guard slept. The wayhouse keeper stood outside, her hands on her hips and a dusting of flour streaking her robe. The captain of the guard stood before her, his arms crossed, while the keeper turned her head from side to side like a cat uncertain which window to flee through. When she saw Otah walking toward them, her face went pale and she took a pose of welcome and obeisance that bent her almost double.
'There's a problem?' Otah asked.
'There aren't rooms,' the captain said. 'All filled up, she says.'
'Ah,' Otah said, but before he could say more the captain turned on him. Even in the dim light, he could see a banked rage in the man's eyes. The captain took a pose that requested an audience more formal than the occasion called for. Otah replied with one, equally formal, that granted it.
'All respect, Most High, I have done my best all this campaign to respect your wishes. You want to dunk your head in river water, I haven't objected. You run off into the wilderness for half an evening with no guard or escort, and I've accepted that. But if you are about to suggest that we put the Emperor of the Khaiem in a sleeping tent in a wayhouse courtyard because someone else got here first, I'm resigning my commission.'
'Actually, I was going to suggest that we offer the present guests our tents and compensation for their rooms,' Otah said. 'It seemed polite.'
'Ah. Yes, Most High,' the captain said. It was hard to tell in the night whether the man was blushing.
'There's room in the stables,' the keeper said. She had an eastern accent.
'Yalakeht?' Otah asked, and the woman blinked.
'I grew up there,' she said, a note of awe in her voice. As if recognizing an accent were a sign of supernatural power.
'It's a good city,' Otah said. 'Would there be room enough for your present guests if we put my guardsmen in the stables as well?'
'We'll find space, Most High,' the keeper said.
'Then I'll go negotiate rooms for us,' Otah said, and to the captain, 'It might be more impressive if I went in with a guard. They'll be less likely to mistake me for a fraud.'
'I… yes, Most High,' the captain said.
The air in the wayhouse was thickened by a chimney with a poor draw. Smoke haze gave the place a feeling of dread and poverty. The tables were dark wood, the floors packed earth. A dozen men and women sat in groups, a few in a smaller room to the side. All eyes were on the guard as they strode in and took formal stances. Otah stepped in.
The movement that stopped him was so slight it might almost not have existed and familiar enough to disorient him. A woman by the fire grate with her back to him shifted her shoulders. In anyone else, it would have been beneath notice. Otah stood, stunned, his heart thudding like it was trying to break free of his ribs. Idaan appeared at his side, her hand on his arm. He motioned her back.
'Eiah?' he said.
The woman by the fire turned to him. Her face was thin and drawn, older than time alone could explain. Her eyes were the same milky gray as Ana's.
'Father,' she said.
26
The years had changed Otah Machi. The last time Maati had seen him, his hair had been black or near enough to pass. His shoulders had been broader, his eyebrows smooth. The man who stood before the smoking fire grate now was thinner, his skin loose against his face. His robes, though travel-stained, were of the finest cloth. They draped him like an altar; they made him more than a man. Or perhaps Otah Machi had always been something more than the usual and his robes only reminded them.
Danat, at his father's side, was unrecognizable. The ill, coughing boy confined to his bed had grown into a hale young man with intelligent eyes and his father's distant, considering demeanor. The others Maati had either seen recently enough that they held no disturbing sense of change or were strangers to him.
They had all come. Large Kae and Small Kae and Eiah, but to his discomfort also Idaan Machi, sitting on a bench with a bowl of wine in her hand and her face as expressionless as the dead. A Galtic girl sat apart, her head held high, sightless and proud to cover the disgust and horror she must feel at all Maati had done. Ashti Beg sat at her side, another victim of Vanjit's malice. After all that had happened, after all his many failures of judgment, seeing her among his arrayed enemies was still wrenching.
Otah's armsmen cleared the wayhouse. The conversation that should have taken place in the finest of meeting rooms in the high palaces instead found its place in a third-rate wayhouse, free of ceremony or ritual or even well-brewed tea. Maati felt himself trembling. He had the powerful physical memory of being a boy at the
