"He mustn't be my son. Whatever happens, he has to be yours."
"If you fail, you don't take your father's title-"
"If I don't take his title, and someone besides you decides he's mine,
they'll kill him to remove all doubt of the succession. And if I
succeed, Kiyan may have a son," Otah said. "And then they would someday
have to kill each other. Nayiit is your son. He has to be."
"I see," Maati said.
"I've written a letter. It looks like something I'd have sent Kiyan
before, when I was in Chaburi-Tan. It talks about the night I left
Saraykeht. It says that on the night I came back to the city, I found
the two of you together. That I walked into her cell, and you and she
were in her cot. It makes it clear that I didn't touch her, that I
couldn't have fathered a child on her. Kiyan's put it in her things. If
we have to flee, we'll take it with us and find a way for it to come to
light-we can hide it at her wayhouse, perhaps. If we're found and killed
here, it will be found with us. You have to back that story."
Maati steepled his fingers and leaned back in the chair.
"You've put it with Kiyan-cha's things to be found in case she's
slaughtered?" he asked.
"Yes," Otah said. "I don't think about it when I can help it, but I know
she could die here. There's no reason that your son should die with us."
Maati nodded slowly. He was struggling with something, Otah could see
that much, but whether it was sorrow or anger or joy, he had no way to
know. When the question came, though, it was the one he had been
dreading for years.
"What did happen?" Maati asked at last, his voice low and hushed. "The
night Heshai-kvo died. What happened? Did you just leave? Did you take
Mai with you? Did . . . did you kill him?"
Otah remembered the cord cutting into his hands, remembered the way Mai
had balked and he had taken the task himself. For years, those few
minutes had haunted him.
"He knew what was coming," Otah said. "He knew it was necessary. The
consequences if he had lived would have been worse. Heshai was right
when he warned you to let the thing drop. The Khai Saraykeht would have
turned the andat against Galt. There would have been thousands of
innocent lives ruined. And when it was over, you would still have been
yoked to Seedless. Trapped in the torture box just the way Heshai had
been all those years. Heshai knew that, and he waited for me to do the
thing."
"And you did it."
"I did."
Maati was silent. Otah sat. His knees seemed less solid than he would
have liked, but he didn't let the weakness stop him.
"It was the worst thing I have ever done," Otah said. "I never stopped
dreaming about it. Even now, I see it sometimes. Heshai was a good man,
but what he'd created in Seedless...."
"Seedless was only part of him. They all are. They couldn't be anything
else. Heshai-kvo hated himself, and Seedless was that."
"Everyone hates themselves sometimes. There isn't often a price in
blood," Otah said. "You know what would happen if that were proven.
Killing a Khai would pale beside murdering a poet."
Maati nodded slowly, and still nodding, spoke.
"I didn't ask on the Dai-kvo's behalf. I asked for myself. When
Heshai-kvo died, Seedless ... vanished. I was with him. I was there. He
was asking me whether I would have forgiven you. If you'd committed some
terrible crime, like what he had done to Maj, if I would forgive you.
And I told him I would. I would forgive you, and not him. Because ..."
They were silent. Maati's eyes were dark as coal.
"Because?" Otah asked.
"Because I loved you, and I didn't love him. He said it was a pity to
think that love and justice weren't the same. The last thing he said was
that you had forgiven me."
"Forgiven you?"
"For Liat. For taking your lover."
"I suppose it's true," Otah said. "I was angry with you. But there was a
part of me that was ... relieved, I suppose."
"Why?"
"Because I didn't love her. I thought I did. I wanted to, and I enjoyed
her company and her bed. I liked her and respected her. Sometimes, I
wanted her as badly as I've ever wanted anyone. And that was enough to
let me mistake it for love. But I don't remember it hurting that deeply
or for that long. Sometimes I was even glad. You had each other to take
care of, and so it wasn't mine to do."
"You said, that last time we spoke before you left ... before Heshaikvo
died, that you didn't trust me."
"That's true," Otah said. "I do remember that."
"But you've come to me now, and you've told me this. You've told me all
of it. Even after I gave you over to the Khai. You've brought me in
here, shown me where you've hidden. You know there are half a hundred
people I could say a word to, and you and all these other people would
be dead before the sun set. So it seems you trust me now."
"I do," Otah said without hesitating.
"Why?"
Otah sat with the question. His mind had been consumed for days with a
thousand different things that all nipped and shrieked and robbed him of
his rest. To reach out to Maati had seemed natural and obvious, and even
though when he looked at it coldly it was true that each had in some way
betrayed the other, his heart had never been in doubt. He could feel the
heaviness in the air, and he knew that I don't know wouldn't be answer
enough. He looked for words to give his feelings shape.
"Because," he said at last, "in all the time I knew you, you never once
did the wrong thing. Even when what you did hurt inc, it was never wrong."
To his surprise, there were tears on Maati's cheeks.
"Thank you, Otah-kvo," he said.
A shout went up in the tunnels outside the storehouse and the sound of
running feet. Maati wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his robes, and
Otah stood, his heart beating fast. The murmur of voices grew, but there
were no sounds of blade against blade. It sounded like a busy corner
more than a battle. Otah walked to the door and, Maati close behind him,
stepped out into the main space. A knot of men were talking and
gesturing one to the other by the mouth of the stairs. Otah caught a
glimpse of Kiyan in their midst, frowning deeply and speaking fast.
Amiit detached himself from the throng and strode to Otah.
"What's happened?"
"Bad news, Otah-cha. Daaya Vaunyogi has called for a decision, and
enough of the families have hacked the call to push it through."
Otah felt his heart sink.
"They're hound to decide by morning," Amilt went on, "and if all the
houses that hacked him for the call side with him in the decision, Adrah
Vaunyogi will be the Khai Machi by the time the sun comes up."