friends with Otah's children-"
"I lis otherchildren," Liat said, but Nlaati had known her too long and
too well to let the barb turn him aside.
"And they're very easy to make friends with. Danat and Eiah are charming
in their ways. And Nayiit doesn't want to talk about plans he can't
really make. About his own child who might already he dead. About a wife
he doesn't love and a city that's fallen to the Galts. Why would he want
to talk about that? What is there in any of that to cause him anything
but pain?"
You think I'm an idiot," Hat said.
"I think he hasn't told you that he's staying. That's something you've
decided, and you don't reach conclusions that wild unless there's
something more going on," he said. "What it is, sweet?"
Hat's face squeezed tight, her brows and mouth and eyes seeming to hull
in together like those of a fighter bracing to take a blow.
"I'm frightened. Is that what you want to hear? All right, then. I'm
frightened."
"For him."
"For all of us!" I fiat stood and began to pace. "For the people I knew
in Saraykeht. For the people I've met here. And the ones I haven't met.
Do you know how many people the Galts have killed?"
"No, love."
"No one does. No one knows how bloody this has been. No one knows how
much more they'll want before it's over. I knew what the world was when
I came here."
"Thu came here to change the world by slaughtering all of Galt," \laati
said.
" 1'es, Nlaati. Yes, so that this wouldn't happen. So that u'e wouldn't
change!" She was weeping now, though he couldn't hear it in her voice.
The tears only ran unnoticed down her cheeks as she moved, restless as a
trapped bird. "I don't know the Galts. I don't love them. I don't care
if they all die. What's going to happen to us? What's going to happen to
him? What's already happened?"
"It hard, isn't it' When there's nothing to distract you from it,"
NIaati said. "I larder, I mean. It's not ever easy. You had the
organization of the city to keep your mind busy, but that's done, and
now there's nothing but the waiting. I've felt it too. If I didn't have
the binding to work on, I'd have sunk into it."
Liat stopped. 11cr hands worried at each other.
"I can't stop thinking about it," she said. "I keep half-expecting that
it will all go hack to what it was. That we'll go back to Saraykeht and
carry on with the business and talk about that terrible year when the
Galts came the way we talk about a bad cotton crop."
"It won't, though."
"Then what's going to happen to him?"
"Him? Just Nayiit? He's the only one you wonder that of?"
The tears didn't stop, but a smile as much sorrow as otherwise touched her.
"He's my son. Who else matters?"
"He's going to be fine," Maati said, and even he heard the conviction in
his voice. "'l'he Galts will be turned hack, because I will turn them
back. Our children won't die. Theirs will. We won't go hungry. They
will. Nayiit won't be harmed, and when this is all finished with, he
won't stay here with Otah-kvo. He'll go, because he has a child of his
own in Saraykeht, and he isn't the kind of man who can walk away from that."
"Isn't he?" Hat asked. Her tone was a plea.
"Either he's Otah's son, and Otah sacrificed his freedom and his dignity
to keep I)anat and Eiah safe. Or he's mine, and you had to force me away.
"Or he's mine," Liat said. "Then what becomes of him?"
""Then he'll be beautiful and lovely beyond all mortals, and age
gracefully into wisdom. And he'll love his child the way you love him,"
Maati said. "Silly question."
Liat couldn't help but laugh. Maati rose and took her in his arms. She
smelled of tears-wet and salt and flesh. Like blood without the iron. He
kissed the crown of her bowed head.
"We'll he fine," he said. "I know what to do. Cehmai's here to help me,
and Otah's bought us the time we need. Nothing bad will happen."
"It will," Liat said into his shoulder, and then with something that
sounded like hope and surrender, "Only make it happen to someone else."
"They stood in silence for a while. Maati felt the warmth of Liat's body
against him. They had held each other so many times over the years. In
lust and shame, in love and pleasure. In sorrow. Even in anger. He knew
the feel of her, the sound of her breath, the way her hand curled round
his shoulder. "There was no one in the world who he would ever be able
to speak with the way he spoke to her. They knew things between them
that even Otah could never share-moments in Saraykeht, and after. It
wasn't only the great moments-the birth of Nayiit, the death of Heshai,
their own last parting; there were also the small ones. The time she'd
gotten ill on crab soup and he'd nursed her and cared for the still
squalling Nayiit. The flute player with the dancing dog they'd given a
length of silver at a firekeeper's kiln in Yalakeht. The way the autumn
came to Saravkeht when they were still young.
When she left again, there would he no one to talk to about those
things. When she went to the South again and he became the new I)aikvo,
there would he no one to remind him of those moments. It made them more
precious. It made her more precious.
"I'll protect you," he said. "Don't worry, love. I'll protect us all."
lie heard approaching footsteps, and he could feel it in Liat's body
when she did as well. She stepped hack, and he let her, but he kept hold
of one hand. Even if only for a moment. An urgent knock came at the
door, and Cehmai's voice.
"N1aati-kvo!"
"Come in. Come in. What's the matter?"
The poet's face was flushed, his eyes wide. It took a moment for him to
catch his breath before he could speak.
"'I'he Khai says you should come. Now," Cehmai gasped. "Sinja's hack."
22
When Sinja finished his report and was silent, Otah forced his breath to
be deep and regular, waiting until he could speak. His voice was tight
and controlled.
"You have spent the season fighting beside the Galts?"
"'T'hey were winning."
"Is that supposed to be funny?"
Ile was thinner than ()tali remembered him. The months on the road had
left Sinja's face drawn, his cheekbones sharp. Ills skin was leathery
from the sun and wind. He hadn't changed his robes, and he smelled of
horses. Ills casual air seemed false, a parody of the certain, amused,
detached man whom Otah had sent away, and Otah couldn't say if it was
the captain who'd changed more or himself.
Kivan, the only other person in the chamber, sat apart from the pair of