your life and I'm sorry, love.
Otah felt a warmth in his chest, felt the panic and distress relax like
a stiff muscle rubbed in hot oils. Lamara and Amiit were talking over
each other, each making points and suggestions it was clear they'd made
before. Otah coughed, but they paid him no attention. He looked from
one, flushed, grim face to the other, sighed, and slapped his palm on
the table hard enough to make the wine bowls rattle. The room went
silent, surprised eyes turning to him.
"I believe, gentlemen, that I understand the issues at hand," Utah said.
"I appreciate Amiit-cha's concern for my safety, but the time for
caution has passed."
"It's a vice," Sinja agreed, grinning.
"Next time, you can give me your advice without cracking my ribs," Utah
said. "Lamara-cha, I thank you for the offer of the tunnels to work
from, and I accept it. We'll leave tonight."
"Otah-cha, I don't think you've...," Amiit began, his hands held out in
an appeal, but Otah only shook his head. Amiit frowned deeply, and then,
to Otah's surprise, smiled and took a pose of acceptance.
"Shojen-cha," Utah said. "I need to know what Maati is thinking. What
he's found, what he intends, whether he's hoping to save me or destroy
me. Both arc possible, and everything we do will he different depending
on his stance."
"I appreciate that," Shojen said, "but I don't know how I'd discover it.
It isn't as though he confides in me. Or in anyone else that I can tell."
Utah rubbed his fingertips across the rough wood of the table,
considering that. He felt their eyes on him, pressing him for a
decision. This one, at least, was simple enough. He knew what had to be
done.
"Bring him to me," he said. "Once we've set ourselves up and we're sure
of the place, bring him there. I'll speak with him."
"That's a mistake," Sinja said.
"Then it's the mistake I'm making," Otah said. "How long before we can
be ready to leave?"
"We can have all the things we need on a cart by sundown," Amiit said.
"That would put us in Machi just after the half-candle. We could be in
the tunnels and tucked as safely away as we're likely to manage by dawn.
But there are going to be some people in the streets, even then."
"Get flowers. Decorate the cart as if we're preparing for the wedding,"
Otah said. "Then even if they think it odd to see us, they'll have a
story to tell themselves."
"I'll collect the poet whenever you like," Shojen said, his confident
voice undermined by the nervous way he fingered his rings.
"Also tomorrow. And Lamara-cha, I'll want reports from your man at the
council as soon as there's word to be had."
"As you say," Lamara said.
Otah moved his hands into a pose of thanks, then stood.
"Unless there's more to be said, I'm going to sleep now. I'm not sure
when I'll have the chance again. Any of you who aren't involved in
preparations for the move might consider doing the same."
They murmured their agreement, and the meeting ended, but when later
Otah lay in the cot, one arm thrown over his eyes to blot out the light,
he was certain he could no more sleep than fly. He was wrong. Sleep came
easily, and he didn't hear the old leather hinges creak when Kiyan
entered the room. It was her voice that pulled him into awareness.
"It's a mistake I'm making?'That's quite the way to lead men."
He stretched. His ribs still hurt, and worse, they'd stiffened.
"Was it too harsh, do you think?"
Kiyan pushed the netting aside and sat next to him, her hand seeking his.
"If Sinja-eha's that delicate, he's in the wrong line of work," she
said. "He may think you're wrong, but if you'd turned back because he
told you to, you'd have lost part of his respect. You did fine, love.
Better than fine. I think you've made Amiit a very happy man."
"How so?"
"You've become the Khai Machi. Oh, I know, it's not done yet, but out
there just then? You weren't speaking like a junior courier or an east
islands fisherman."
Otah sighed. Her face was calm and smooth. He brought her hand to his
lips and kissed her wrist.
"I suppose not," he said. "I didn't want this, you know. The wayhouse
would have been enough."
"I'm sure the gods will take that into consideration," she said.
"They're usually so good about giving us the lives we expect."
Otah chuckled. Kiyan let herself be pulled down slowly, until she lay
beside him, her body against his own. Otah's hand strayed to her belly,
caressing the tiny life growing inside her. Kiyan raised her eyebrows
and tilted her head.
"You look sad," she said. "Are you sad, "Tani?"
"No, love," Otah said. "Not sad. Only frightened."
"About going back to the city?"
"About being discovered," he said. And a moment later, "About what I'm
going to have to say to Maati."
Cehmai sat hack on a cushion, his hack aching and his mind askew.
Stone-Made-Soft sat beside him, its stillness unbroken even by breath.
At the front of the temple, on a dais where the witnesses could see her,
sat Idaan. Her eyes were cast down, her robe the vibrant rose and blue
of a new bride. The distance between them seemed longer than the space
within the walls, as if a year's journey had been fit into the empty air.
The crowd was not as great as the occasion deserved: women and the
second sons of the utkhaiem. Elsewhere, the council was meeting, and
those who had a place in it were there. Given the choice of spectacle,
many others would choose the men, their speeches and arguments, the
debates and politics and subtle drama, to the simple marrying off of an
orphan girl of the best lineage and the least influence to the son of a
good, solid family.
Cehmai stared at her, willing the kohl-dark eyes to look up, the painted
lips to smile at him. Cymbals chimed, and the priests dressed in gold
and silver robes with the symbols of order and chaos embroidered in
black began their chanting procession. "Their voices blended and rose
until the temple walls themselves seemed to ring with the melody. Cehmai
plucked at the cushion. He couldn't watch, and he couldn't look away.
One priest-an old man with a bare head and a thin white beard-stopped
behind Idaan in the place that her father or brother should have taken.
The high priest stood at the hack of the dais, lifted his hands slowly,
palms out to the temple, and, with an embracing gesture, seemed to
encompass them all. When he spoke, it was in the language of the Old
Empire, syllables known to no one on the cushions besides himself.
Eyan to nyot baa, don salaa khai dan rnnsalaa.
The will of the gods has always been that woman shall act as servant to man.