"He's likely just over the bridge by now."
Maati stepped in, Eiah following him without asking or being asked. It was a wide room, not so grand as the palaces or so comfortable as the poet's house. A librarian's room, ink blocks stacked beside a low desk, chairs with wine-stained cloth on the arms and hack, a small bronze brazier dusted with old ash. Maati waved Eiah off as she started to close the door.
"Let the place air out a bit," he said. "It's warm enough for it now. And what's your day been, Eiah-kya?"
"Father," she said. "He was in a mood to have a family, so I had to stay in the palaces all morning. He fell asleep after midday, and Mother said I could leave."
"I'm surprised. I wasn't under the impression Otah slept anymore. He always seems hip-deep in running the city."
Eiah shrugged, neither agreeing nor voicing her denial. She paced the length of the room, squinting out the door at nothing. Maati folded his hands together on his belly, considering her.
"Something's bothering you," he said.
The girl shook her head, but the frown deepened. Maati waited until, with a quick, birdlike motion, Eiah turned to face him. She began to speak, stopped, and gathered herself visibly.
"I want to be married," she said.
Maati blinked, coughed to give himself a moment to think, and leaned forward in his chair. The wood and cloth creaked slightly beneath him. Eiah stood, her arms crossed, her gaze on him in something almost like accusation.
"Who is the boy?" Maati said, regretting the word boy as soon as it left his mouth. If they were speaking of marriage, the least he could do was say man. But Eiah's impatient snort dismissed the question.
"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.