"No, of course we don't," Sinja said. "It's not my head that's struggling with the thought. It's just… The boy's right, Otah-cha. A mixed fleet, their ships and ours, sinking the pirates would be the best solution. I don't know if we can negotiate the thing, but it's worth considering."
Otah scratched his leg.
"Farrer-cha," he said. "Danat's new father. He has experience with sea fighting. I think he hates all of us together and individually for Anacha's upcoming marriage, but he would still be the man to approach."
Danat took a long drink of water and grinned. It made him look younger.
"After the ceremony's done with," Sinja said. "We'll get the man drunk and happy and see if we can't make him sign something binding before he sobers up."
"If it were only so simple," Otah said. "With the High Council and the Low Council and the Conclave, every step they take is like putting cats in a straight line. Watching it in action, it's amazing they ever put together a war."
"You should talk to Balasar," Sinja said.
"I will," Otah replied.
They moved on to other topics. Some were more difficult: weavers and stonemasons on the coasts had started offering money to apprentices, so the nearby farms were losing hands; the taxes from Amnat-Tan had been lower than expected; the raids in the northern passes were getting worse. Others were innocuous: court fashions had shifted toward robes with a more Galtic drape; the shipping traffic on the rivers was faster now that they'd figured out how to harness boilers to do the rowing; and finally, Eiah had sent word that she was busy assisting a physician in Pathai and would not attend her brother's wedding.
Otah paused over this letter, rereading his daughter's neat, clear hand. The words were all simple, the grammar formal and appropriate. She made no accusations, leveled no arguments against him. It might have been better if she had. Anger was, at least, not distance.
He considered the implications of her absence. On one hand, it could hardly go unnoticed that the imperial family was not all in attendance. On the other, Eiah had broken with him years ago, when his present plan had still been only a rough sketch. If she was there, it might have served only to remind the women of the cities that they had in a sense been discarded. The next generation would have no Khaiate mothers, and the solace that neither would they have Galtic fathers would be cold comfort at best. He folded his daughter's letter and tucked it into his sleeve, his heart heavy with the thought that not having her near was likely for the best.
After, Otah retired to his rooms, sent his servants away, and lay on his bed, watching the pale netting shift in a barely felt breeze. It was strange being home, hearing his own language in the streets, smelling the air he'd breathed as a youth.
Ana and her parents would be settled in by now, sitting, perhaps, on the porch that looked out over the koi pond and its bridge. Perhaps putting back the hinged walls to let in the air. Otah had spent some little time at the poet's house of Saraykeht once, back when he'd been Danat's age and the drinking companion and friend of Maati Vaupathai. Back in some other life. He closed his eyes and tried to picture the rooms as they'd been when Seedless and the poet Heshai had still been in the world. The confusion of scrolls and books, the ashes piled up in the grate, the smell of incense and old wine. He didn't realize that he was falling asleep until Seedless smirked and turned away, and Otah knew he was in dreams.
A human voice woke him. The angle of the sun had shifted, the day almost passed. Otah sat up, struggling to focus his eyes. The servant spoke again.
"Most High, the welcoming ceremonies are due in a hand and a half. Shall I tell the Master of Tides to postpone them?"
"No," Otah said. His voice sounded groggy. He wondered how long the servant had been trying to rouse him. "No, not at all. Send me clean robes. Or… no, send them to the baths. I'll be there."
The servant fell into a pose that accepted the command as law. It seemed a little overstated to Otah, but he'd grown accustomed to other people taking his role more seriously than he did himself. He refreshed himself, met with the representatives of two high families and a trading house with connections in Obar State and Bakta, and allowed himself to be swept along to the grand celebration. They would welcome their onetime invaders with music and gifts and intrigue and, he suspected, the equivalent weight of the palaces in wine and food.
The grandest hall of his palaces stood open on a wide garden of nightblooming plants. A network of whisperers stood on platforms, ready to repeat the ceremonial greetings and ritual out to the farthest ear. Otah didn't doubt that runners were waiting at the edge of the gardens to carry reports of the event even farther. The press of bodies was intense, the sound of voices so riotous that the musicians and singers set to wander the garden in serenade had all been sent home.
Otah sat on the black lacquer chair of the Khai Saraykeht, his spine straight and his hands folded as gracefully as he could manage. Cushions for Danat and Sinja and all of Otah's highest officers were arrayed behind him, perhaps two-thirds filled. The others were, doubtless, in the throng of silk and gems. There was nowhere else to be tonight. Not in Saraykeht. Perhaps not in the world.
Danat brought him a bowl of cold wine, but it was too loud to have any conversation beyond the trading of thanks and welcome. Danat took his place on the cushion at Otah's side. Farrer Dasin, Otah saw, had been given not a chair but a rosewood bench. Issandra and Ana were on cushions at his feet. All three looked overwhelmed about the eyes. Otah caught Issandra's gaze and adopted a pose of welcome, which she returned admirably.
He turned his attention to her husband. Farrer Dasin, stern and gray. Otah found himself wondering how best to approach the man about this new proposal. Though he knew better, he could not help thinking of Galt and his own cities as separate, as two empires in alliance. Farrer Dasin- indeed, most of the High Council-were sure to be thinking in the same ways. They were all wrong, of course, Otah included. They were marrying two families together, but more than that they were binding two cultures, two governments, two histories. His own grandchildren would live and die in a world unrecognizably different from the one Otah had known; he would be as foreign to them as Galt had been to him.
And here, on this clear, crowded night, the cycle of ages was turning. He found himself irrationally certain that Farrer Dasin could be persuaded to lead, or at least to sponsor, a campaign against the pirates at Chaburi-Tan. They had done this. They could do anything.
The signal came: flutes and drums in fanfare as the cloth lanterns rose to the dais. Otah stood up and the crowd before him went silent. Only the sound of a thousand breaths competed with the songbirds and crickets.
Otah gave his address in the tones appropriate to his place, practiced over the course of years. He found himself changing the words he had practiced. Instead of speaking only of the future, he also wanted to honor the past. He wanted every person there to know that in addition to the world they were making, there was a world-in some ways good, in others evil-that they were leaving behind.
They listened to him as if he were a singer, their eyes fastened to him, the silence complete apart from his own words in the hundred throats of the whisperers echoing out into the summer night. When he took the pose that would end his recitation, he saw tears on more than one face, and on the faces of more than one nation. He made his way to Farrer Dasin and formally invited the man to speak. The Galt stood, bowed to Otah as a gesture between equals, and moved forward. Otah returned to his seat with only the lightest twinge of trepidation.
"Are you sure you should let him speak?" Sinja murmured.
"There's no avoiding it," Otah replied, still smiling. "It will be fine."