"I don't know," she said. "Whoever."
"Anyone would do?"
"Not just anyone. I don't want to be tied to some low town firekeeper. I
want someone good. And I should be able to. Father doesn't have any
other daughters, and I know people have talked with him. But nothing
ever happens. How long am I supposed to wait?"
hlaati rubbed a palm across his cheeks. This was hardly a conversation
he'd imagined himself having. He turned through half a hundred things he
might say, approaches he might take, and felt a blush rising in his cheeks.
"You're voting, Eiah-kya. I mean ... I suppose it's natural enough for a
young woman to ... he interested in men. Your body is changing, and if I
recall the age, there are certain feelings that it's ..."
Eiah looked at him as if he'd coughed up a rat.
"Or perhaps I've misunderstood the issue," he said.
"It's not that," she said. "I've kissed lots of boys."
The blush wasn't growing less, but Nlaati resolved to ignore it.
"Ah," he said. "Well, then. If it's that you want apartments of your
own, something outside the women's quarters, you could always-"
""Ialit Radaani's being married to the third son of the Khai Pathai,"
Eiah said, and then a heartbeat later, "She's half a year younger than I
am."
It was like feeling a puzzle box click open in his fingers. He
understood precisely what was happening, what it meant and didn't mean.
He rubbed his palms against his knees and sighed.
"And she gloats about that, I'd bet," he said. Eiah swiped at her
betraying eyes with the back of a hand. "After all, she's younger and
lower in the courts. She must think that she's got proof that she's
terribly special."
Eiah shrugged.
"Or that you aren't," Maati continued, keeping his voice gentle to
lessen the sting of the words. "That's what she thinks, isn't it?"
"I don't know what she thinks."
"Well, then tell me what you think."
"I don't know why he can't find me a husband. It isn't as if I'd have to
leave. There's marriages that go on for years before anyone does
anything. But it's understood. It's arranged. I don't see why he can't
do that much for me."
"I lave you asked him?"
"He should know this," Eiah snapped, pacing between the open door and
the fire grate. "He's the Khai Machi. He isn't stupid."
"lie also isn't . . ." hlaati said and then bit down on the words a
child. The woman Eiah thought she was would never stand for the name.
"He isn't fourteen summers old. It's not so hard for men like me and
your father to forget what it was like to be young. And I'm sure he
doesn't want to see you married yet, or even promised. You're his
daughter, and ... it's hard, Eiah-kya. It's hard losing your child."
She stopped, her brow furrowed. In the trees just outside his door, a
bird sang shrill and high and took flight. Maati could hear the
fluttering of its wings.
"It's not losing me," she said, but her voice was less certain than it
had been. "I don't die."
"No. You don't, but you'll likely leave to be in your husband's city.
There's couriers to carry messages back and forth, but once you've left,
it's not likely you'll return in Otah's life, or Kiyan's. Or mine. It's
not death, but it is still loss, dear. And we've all lost so much
already, it's hard to look forward to another."
"You could come with me," Eiah said. "My husband would take you in. He
wouldn't be worth marrying if he wouldn't, so you could come with me."
Maati allowed himself to chuckle as he rose from his seat.
"It's too big a world to plan for all that just yet," he said, mussing
Eiah's hair as he had when she'd been younger. "When we come nearer,
we'll see where things stand. I may not be staying here at all,
depending on what the Dai-kvo thinks. I might be able to go hack to his
village and use his libraries."
"Could I go there with you?"
"No, Eiah-kya. Women aren't allowed in the village. I know, I know. It
isn't fair. But it isn't happening today, so why don't we walk to the
kitchens and see if we can't talk them out of some sugar bread."
They left his door open, leaving the spring air and sunlight to freshen
the apartments. The path to the kitchens led them through great, arching
halls and across pavilions being prepared for a night's dancing; great
silken banners celebrated the warmth and light. In the gardens, men and
woman lay back, eyes closed, faces to the sky like flowers. Outside the
palaces, Maati knew, the city was still alive with commerce-the forges
and metalworkers toiling through the night, as they always did,
preparing to ship the works of Machi. There was bronze, iron, silver and
gold, and steel. And the hand-shaped stonework that could be created
only here, under the inhuman power of Stone-Made-Soft. None of that work
was apparent in the palaces. The utkhaiem seemed carefree as cats. Maati
wondered again how much of that was the studied casualness of court life
and how much was simple sloth.
At the kitchens, it was simple enough for the Khai's daughter and his
permanent guest to get thick slices of sugar bread wrapped in stiff
cotton cloth and a stone flask of cold tea. He told Eiah all of what had
happened with Athai since she'd last come to the library, and about the
Dal-kvo, and the andat, and the world as Maati had known it in the years
before he'd come to Machi. It was a pleasure to spend the time with the
girl, flattering that she enjoyed his own company enough to seek him
out, and perhaps just the slightest hit gratifying that she would speak
to him of things that Otah-kvo never heard from her.
They parted company as the quick spring sun came within a hand's width
of the western mountains. Maati stopped at a fountain, washing his
fingers in the cool waters, and considered the evening that lay ahead.
He'd heard that one of the winter choirs was performing at a teahouse
not far from the palaces-the long, dark season's work brought out at
last to the light. The thought tempted, but perhaps not more than a
book, a flask of wine, and a bed with thick wool blankets.
He was so wrapped up by the petty choice of pleasures that he didn't
notice that the lanterns had been lit in his apartments or that a woman
was sitting on his couch until she spoke.
4
"Nlaati," Liat said, and the man startled like a rabbit. For a long
moment, his face was a blank confusion as he struggled to make sense of
what he saw. Slowly, she watched him recognize her.
In all fairness, she might not have known him either, had she not sought
him out. Time had changed him: thickened his body and thinned his hair.
Even his face had changed shape, the smooth chin and jaw giving way to
jowls, the eyes going narrower and darker. The lines around his mouth