wonder would be unrealistic."
"The Khai Machi would expel me from his city if he thought I was
endangering his poet," Maati said. "And then I wouldn't be of use to
anyone.
Cehmai's dark eyes were both deadly serious and also, Maati thought,
amused. "This wouldn't be the first thing I've kept from him," the young
poet said. "Please, Maati-kvo. I want to help."
Maati closed his eyes. Having someone to talk with, even if it was only
a way to explore what he thought himself, wouldn't be so had a thing.
The Dai-kvo hadn't expressly forbidden that Cehmai know, and even if he
had, the secret investigation had already sent Otah-kvo to flight, so
any further subterfuge seemed pointless. And the fact was, he likely
couldn't find the answers alone.
"You have saved my life once already."
"I thought it would be unfair to point that out," Cehmai said.
Maati laughed, then stopped when the pain in his belly bloomed. He lay
back, blowing air until he could think again. The pillows felt better
than they should have. He'd done so little, and he was already tired. He
glanced mistrustfully at the andat, then took a pose of acceptance.
"Come back tonight, when I've rested," Maati said. "We'll plan our
strategy. I have to get my strength hack, but there isn't much time."
"May I ask one other thing, Maati-kvo?"
Maati nodded, but his belly seemed to have grown more sensitive for the
moment and he tried not to move more than that. It seemed laughing
wasn't a wise thing for him just now.
"Who are Liat and Nayiit?"
"My lover. Our son," Maati said. "I called out for them, did I? When I
had the fever?"
Cehmai nodded.
"I do that often," Maati said. "Only not usually aloud."
There were four great roads that connected the cities of the Khaiem, one
named for each of the cardinal directions. The North Road that linked
Cetani, Machi, and Amnat-Ian was not the worst, in part because there
was no traffic in the winter, when the snows let men make a road
wherever desire took them. Also the stones were damaged more by the
cycle of thaw and frost that troubled the north only in spring and
autumn. In high summer, it rarely froze, and for a third of the year it
did not thaw. The West Road-far from the sea and not so far south as to
keep the winters warm-required the most repair.
"They'll have crews of indentured slaves and laborers out in shifts,"
the old man in the cart beside Otah said, raising a finger as if his
oratory was on par with the High Emperor's, back when there had been an
empire. "They start at one end, reset the stones until they reach the
other, and begin again. It never ends."
Otah glanced across the cart at the young woman nursing her babe and
rolled his eyes. She smiled and shrugged so slightly that their orator
didn't notice the movement. The cart lurched down into and up from
another wide hole where the stones had shattered and not yet been replaced.
"I have walked them all," the old man said, "though they've worn me more
than I've worn them. Oh yes, much more than I've worn them."
He cackled, as he always seemed to when he made this observation. The
little caravan-four carts hauled by old horses-was still six days from
Cetani. Otah wondered whether his own legs were rested enough that he
could start walking again.
He had bought an old laborer's robe of blue-gray wool from a rag shop,
chopped his hair to change its shape, and let his thin beard start to
grow in. Once his whiskers had been long enough to braid, but the east
islanders he'd lived with had laughed at him and pretended to mistake
him for a woman. After Cetani, it would take another twenty days to
reach the docks outside Amnat-tan. And then, if he could find a fishing
boat that would take him on, he would be among those men again, singing
songs in a tongue he hadn't tried out in years, explaining again, either
with the truth or outrageous stories, why his marriage mark was only
half done.
He would die there-on the islands or on the sea-under whatever new name
he chose for himself. Itani Noygu was gone. He had died in Machi.
Another life was behind him, and the prospect of beginning again, alone
in a foreign land, tired him more than the walking.
"Now, southern wood's too soft to really build with. The winters are too
warm to really harden them. Up here there's trees that would blunt a
dozen axes before they fell," the old man said.
"You know everything, don't you grandfather?" Otah said. If his
annoyance was in his voice, the old man noticed nothing, because he
cackled again.
"It's because I've been everywhere and done everything," the old man
said. "I even helped hunt down the Khai Amnat-Tan's older brother when
they had their last succession. "There were a dozen of us, and it was
the dead of winter. Your piss would freeze before it touched ground. Oh,
eh ..."
The old man took a pose of apology to the young woman and her babe, and
Otah swung himself out of the cart. It wasn't a story he cared to hear.
The road wound through a valley, high pine forest on either side, the
air sharp and fragrant with the resin. It was beautiful, and he pictured
it thick with snow, the image coming so clear that he wondered whether
he might once have seen it that way. When the clatter of hooves came
from the west, he forced himself again to relax his shoulders and look
as curious and excited as the others. Twice before, couriers on fast
horses had passed the 'van, laden with news, Otah knew, of the search
for him.
It had taken an effort of will not to run as fast as he could after he
had been discovered, but the search was for a false courier either
plotting murder or fleeing like a rabbit. No one would pay attention to
a plodding laborer off to stay with his sister's family in a low town
outside Cetani. And yet, as the horses approached, tension grew in his
breast. He prepared himself for the shock if one of the riders had a
familiar face.
There were three this time-utkhaiem to judge by their robes and the
quality of their mounts-and none of them men he knew. They didn't slow
for the 'van, but the armsmen of the 'van, the drivers, the dozen
hangers-on like himself all shouted at them for news. One of them turned
in his saddle and yelled something, but Otah couldn't make it out and
the rider didn't repeat it. Ten days on the road. Six more to Cetani.
The only challenge was not to be where they were looking for him.
They reached a wayhouse with the sun still three and a half hands above
the treetops. The building was of northern design: stone walls thick as
the span of a man's arm and stables and goat pen on the ground floor
where the heat of the animals would rise and help warm the place in the
winter. While the merchants and armsmen argued over whether to stop now