school, holding himself still and waiting for Tahi-kvo's lacquer rod to split his skin.
'Maati Vaupathai,' the Emperor said.
'Most High,' Maati replied, crossing his arms.
'I suppose I should start by asking why I shouldn't have you killed where you stand.'
Eiah, beside him, twitched as if wasp-stung. Maati stared at his old friend, his old enemy, and all the conciliatory words that he had imagined in the last day vanished like a snuffed candle. There was rage in Otah's stance, and Maati found himself more than matching it.
'How dare you?' Maati said, his voice little more than a hiss. 'How dare you? I thought, coming here, I would at least be treated with respect. I thought at the very least, that. And instead you stand me up like a common thief in a low-town courtroom and have me defend my life? Justify my right to breathe to the man who killed my son?'
'Nayiit has nothing to do with this,' Otah said. 'Sinja Ajutani, to contrast, died because of you. Every Galt who has starved since you exacted this sick, petty revenge is dead because of you. Every-'
'Nayiit has everything to do with this. Your sick love of all things Galtic has everything to do with it. Your disloyalty to the women you claim to rule. Your perfect calm in making me an outcast living in gutters for something you were just as guilty of. You are a hypocrite and a liar in everything you've done. I owe you nothing, Otah-kvo. Nothing!'
Otah was shouting something, but Maati's ears were rushing with blood and raw anger. He saw the armsmen shift forward, blades at the ready, but Maati was far past caring. Every injustice, every slight, every cupful of pent- up outrage spilled out, all made worse by the fact that Otah-self-righteous, entitled, and arrogant-was so busy shouting back that he wasn't hearing a word of what Maati was saying.
When he noticed through his rage that a third voice had entered the fray, he couldn't say how long it had been going.
'I said stop!' the Galt shouted again. 'Stop it! Both of you!'
Maati turned to the girl, a sneer on his lip, but he was having a hard time catching his breath. Otah also was now silent, his imperial face flushed bright red. Maati felt the urge to offer up an obscene gesture, but he restrained himself. The girl stood in the space between the two, her hands outstretched. Danat stepped to her side. If anything, her anger appeared as high as either of her elders', but she was able to speak coherently.
'Gods,' she said. 'Is this really what we've been doing? Someone please tell me that the world is on its knees over something more than two old men chewing over quarrels from their boyhood.'
'This is much, much more than that,' Otah said. His voice, though severe, had lost some of its certainty.
'I wouldn't know from listening to that display,' Idaan said. 'Ana-cha has more sense than you on this, brother. Listen to her.'
Otah had calmed down enough to look merely peeved. Maati held his fist to his chest, but his heart was slowing to its usual pace. Nothing had happened. He was fine. Otah, across from him, took a pose appropriate to the beginning of a short break in a negotiation. His jaw was tight and his stance only civil. Maati replied with one that accepted the proposal. He wanted to sit at Eiah's side, to talk with her about what to do next and how to go about it. It would have been a provocation, though, so instead, Maati retreated to the door leading out into the cold, black courtyard and the clean night air.
It had been a mistake. Otah was too proud and self-centered to help them. He was too wrapped up in anger that the world hadn't followed his one and only holy and anointed plan. They should have gone on to Utani, found someone in the utkhaiem who would support them. Or they should have gone after Vanjit themselves.
They should have done anything but this.
Voices came from behind him. Danat's, Otah's, Eiah's. They sounded tense, but they weren't shouting. Maati pressed his hands into their opposite sleeves and watched his breath steam like a soup kettle. He wondered where Vanjit was and how she was keeping warm. It seemed the woman had become two different people in his mind- one, the girl who had come to him in despair and been given hope again, the other a halfmad poet he'd loosed on the world. The impulses to kill her and to see to her care shouldn't have been able to exist in him at the same time, and yet there they were. He prayed she was dead, and he hoped she was well.
Between that and seeing Otah again, his head was buzzing like a hive.
'We've reached a conclusion,' Idaan said from behind him. He turned. She was standing in the doorway, blocking the light. His belly itched where her assassin had stabbed him all those years before.
'Should I be grateful?' Maati asked. Idaan ignored the jab.
'If you and Otah can't play gently, and it's clear as the moon that you can't, we're going to go through channels. Eiah's talking with Danat. They sent me to speak with you.'
'Ah, because we're such excellent friends?'
'Say it's because our relationship is simpler,' Idaan said. Her voice took on the texture of cast iron. 'Tell me what happened.'
Maati leaned against the rough wall and shook his head. He'd become too excited, and now that he was calming, it was coming out in an urge to weep. He would not under any circumstances allow that in front of Idaan. Idaan, who'd tried to have Otah killed and had now become his traveling companion. What more did anyone need to know to understand how far Otah had fallen?
'Maati,' Idaan said, her voice still hard. 'Now.'
He began with leaving the school, Eiah's opinion of his health, Vanjit's escalating unreliability. The story took on a rhythm as he told it, the words putting themselves in order as if he had practiced it all before. Idaan didn't speak, but her listening was intense, drawing detail from him almost against his will.
It was as if he were telling himself what had happened, offering a kind of confession to the empty night, Idaan Machi-of all people in the world, Idaan Machi-as his intercessor.
He reached the end-Vanjit's discovery of the poison, her escape, his decision to find help. Somewhere in the course of things, he'd let himself slip to the ground, sitting with his legs stuck out before him and the stone paving leaching the warmth from his body. Idaan squatted beside him. He imagined that the manner of her listening had softened, as if silences could differ like speech.
'I see,' she said. 'Well. Who'd have thought this would become worse?'
'You led him to us,' Maati said.
'I did my best,' Idaan agreed. 'It's been years since I put my hand to this kind of work. I'm out of practice, but I did what I could.'
'All to regain his imperial favor,' Maati said. 'I would never have guessed that you'd become his toady.'
'Actually, I started it to protect Cehmai,' Idaan said as if he had offered her no insult. 'With you stirring up the mud, I was afraid for him. I wanted Otah to know that he wasn't part of it. And then, once I was at the court… well, I had amends to make to Danat.'
'The boy?'
'No. The one he's named for,' Idaan said. She heaved a great sigh. 'But back to the matter at hand, eh? I understand how hard and confusing it is to love someone you hate. I really do. And if you call me his toady again, I swear by all the gods there ever were, I'll disjoint your fingers. Understood?'
'I didn't mean for it to happen like this,' Maati said. 'I wanted to heal the world, not… not this.'
'Plans go awry,' Idaan said. 'It's their nature. I'm going back in. Join us when you're ready. I'll get something warm for you to drink.'
Maati sat alone, growing colder. Behind him, the wayhouse ticked as the day's heat radiated away. An owl gave its low coo to the world, and the darkness around him seemed to lessen. He could make out the paving stones, the outline of the stable, the high branches rising toward the stars like thin fingers. Maati rested his head against the wall and let his eyes close.
The trembling had stopped. The anger was less immediate, chagrin slowly taking its place. He heard Eiah's calm voice, as solid as stone, from within. He should be with her. He should be at her side. She shouldn't have to face them by herself. He rose, grunting, and lumbered inside, his knees aching.
Otah was sitting in a low wooden chair, his fingers pressed to his lips in thought. He glanced up as Maati stepped into the room but made no other acknowledgment. Eiah, speaking, gestured to the space between Otah and Danat. Her voice had neither rancor nor apology, and Maati was reminded again why he admired her.
'Yes,' she said, 'the andat outplayed us. From the beginning with Ashti Beg to the end with me, we wanted to think of it as a baby. We all knew it wasn't. We all understand perfectly well that it was some part of Vanjit's mind
