close to marrying an island woman, and still bore the first half of the
marriage tattoo on his breast. The ink had faded and spread over the
years as if he were a parchment dropped in water. With the slap of waves
against wood, the salt-laden air, the morning light dancing gold and
rose on the water, he remembered those days.
This late in the morning, he would already have cast his nets. His
fingers would have been numbed by the cold. He would have been eating
the traditional breakfast of fish paste and nuts from an earthenware
jar. The men he had known would be doing the same today, those who were
still alive. In another life, another world, he might be doing it still.
He had lived so many lives: half-starved street child; petty thief;
seafront laborer; fisherman; assistant midwife; courier; Khai; husband;
father; war leader; emperor. Put in a line that way, he could see how
another person might imagine his life to be an unending upward spiral,
but it didn't feel that way to him. He had done what he'd had to at the
time. One thing had led to another. A man without particular ambition
had been placed atop the world, and likewise the world had been placed
atop him. And against all probability, he found himself here, wearing
the richest robes in the cities, with a private cabin larger than some
boats he'd worked, and thinking fondly of fish paste and nuts.
Lost in thought, he heard the little ship's boat hail-a booming voice
speaking Galtic words-before he knew it was approaching. The watchman of
his own vessel replied, and then the landsman's chair descended. Otah
watched idly as a man in the colors of House Dasin was winched up, swung
over, and lowered to the deck. A knot of Otah's own clerks and servants
formed around the newcomer. Otah pulled his hands up into his sleeves
and made his way back.
The boy was a servant of some sort-the Galts had a system of gradation
that Otah hadn't bothered to memorize-with hair the color of beach sand
and a greenish tint to his face. Seeing Otah, the servant took a pose of
abject obeisance poorly.
"Most High," he said, his words heavily inflected, "Councilman Dasin
sends his regards. He and his wife extend the invitation to a dinner and
concert aboard the Avenger tomorrow evening."
The boy gulped and looked down. There had, no doubt, been a more formal
and flowery speech planned. Nausea led to brevity. Otah glanced at his
Master of Tides, a youngish woman with a face like a hatchet and a mind
for detail that would have served her in any trade. She took a pose that
deferred to Otah's judgment, gave permission, and offered to make excuse
all with a single gesture. Dasin's servant wouldn't have seen a third of
her meanings. Otah glanced over at the shining water. The sun's angle
had already shifted, the light already changed its colors and the colors
of the ocean that bore them. He allowed himself a small sigh.
Even here there would be no escape from it. Etiquette and court
politics, parties and private audiences, favors asked and given. There
was no end of it because of course there wasn't. No more than a farmer
could stop planting fields, a fisherman stop casting nets, a tradesman
close up warehouses and stalls and spend long days singing in teahouses
or soaking in baths.
"I should be pleased," he said. "Please convey my gratitude to Farrercha
and his family."
The boy bowed his thanks rather than make a formal pose, then, blushing,
adopted a pose of gratitude and retreated back to the landsman's chair.
With a great shouting and the creak of wood and leather, the chair rose,
swung out over the water, and descended. Otah watched the boy vanish
over the rail, but didn't see him safely to the boat. The invitation was
a reminder of all that waited for him in his cabin below decks. Otah
took a long, deep breath, feeling the salt and the sunlight in his
lungs, and descended to the endless business of Empire.
Letters had arrived from Yalakeht outlining a conspiracy by three of the
high families of the utkhaiem still bitter from the war to claim
independence and name a Khai Yalakeht rather than acknowledge a Galtic
empress. Chaburi-Tan had suffered another attack by pirates. Though the
invaders had been driven off, it was becoming clear that the Westlands
mercenary company hired to protect the city was also in negotiation with
the raiders; the city's economy was on the edge of collapse.
There was some positive news from the palaces at Utani. Danat wrote that
the low farms around Pathai, Utani, and Lachi were all showing a good
crop, and the cattle plague they'd feared had come to nothing, so those
three cities, at least, wouldn't be starving for at least the next year.
Otah read until the servants brought his midday meal, then again for two
and a half hands. He slept after that in a suspended cot whose oiled
chains shifted with the rocking ship but never let out so much as a
whisper. He woke with the low sunlight of evening sloping in the cabin
window and the dull thunder of feet above him announcing the change of
watch as clearly as the drum and flute. He lay there for a moment, his
mind pleasantly emptied by his rest, then swung his legs over, dropped
to the deck, and composed two of the seven letters he would send ahead
of the massive, celebratory fleet.
WHEN, THE NEXT EVENING, HIS MASTER OF TIDES SENT TO REMIND HIM OF the
engagement he'd agreed to, Otah had indeed forgotten it. He allowed
servants to dress him in robes of emerald silk and cloth of gold, his
long, white hair to be bound back. His temples were anointed with oils
smelling of lavender and sandalwood. Decades now he had been Emperor or
else Khai Machi, and the exercise still struck him as ridiculous. He had
been slow to understand the value of ceremony and tradition. He still
wasn't entirely convinced.
The boat that bore him and his retinue across to the Dasins' ship, the
Avenger, was festooned with flowers and torches. Blossoms fell into the
water, floating there with the reflections of flame. Otah stood,
watching as the oarsmen pulled him toward the great warship. His footing
was as sure as a seaman's, and he was secretly proud of the fact. The
high members of the utkhaiem who had joined him-Auna Tiyan, Piyat Saya,
and old Adaut Kamau-all kept to their benches. The Avenger itself glowed
with candlelight, the effect lessened by the last remnant of the
glorious sunset behind it. When full darkness came, the ship would look
like something from a children's story. Otah tried to appreciate it for
what it would become.
The landsman's chair took each of them up in turn, Otah last out of
respect for his rank. The deck of the Avenger was as perfect and
controlled as any palace ballroom, any Khaiate garden, any high chamber
of the Galts. Chairs that seemed made of silver filigree and breath were
scattered over the fresh-scrubbed boards in patterns that looked both
careless and perfect. Musicians played reed organ and harp, and a small