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."
The councilman cleared his throat, stood in the odd, awkward style of
Galtic orators-one foot before the other, one hand in the air, the other
clasping his jacket and spoke. All of Otah's worst fears were put at
once to rest. It was as if Issandra had written the words and spoke them
now through her husband's mouth. The joy that was children, the dark
years that the war had brought, the emptiness of a world without the
laughter of babes. And now, the darkness ended.