Slowly, the table grew quiet around him.
"The morning has been difficult," he said. "We should retire and reflect
on what has been said."
Whatever it was, he didn't add.
There was a rumble of assent, if not precisely agreement. Otah took a
pose of gratitude to each man and woman as they left, even to Fatter
Dasin, for whom he felt very little warmth. Otah dismissed the servants
as well, and soon only he and Danat remained. Without the pandemonium of
voices, the meeting room seemed larger and oddly forlorn.
"Well," his son said, leaning against the table. He was wearing the same
robe as he had at the botched ceremony the day before. The cloth itself
looked weary. "What do you make of it?"
Otah scratched idly at his arm and tried to focus his mind. His back
ached, and there was an uneasy, bright feeling in his gut that presaged
a sleepless and uncomfortable night. He sighed.
"Primarily, I think I'm an idiot," Otah said. "I should have written to
the daughters. I forget how different their world is. Your world, too."
Danat took a pose that asked elaboration. Otah rose, stretching. His
back didn't improve.
"Political marriage isn't a new thing," Otah said. "We've always
suffered it. They've always suffered it. But, once the rules changed, it
stopped meaning so much, didn't it? As long as Ana-cha has been alive,
she hasn't seen political marriages take place. If Radaani married his
son to Saya's daughter, they wouldn't be joining bloodlines. No
children, no lasting connection between the houses. Likewise in Galt. I
doubt it's stopped the practice entirely, but it's changed things. I
should have thought of it."
"And she could take lovers," Danat said.
"People took lovers before," Otah said.
"Not without fear," Danat said. "There's no chance of a child. It
changes how willing a girl would be."
"And how exactly do you know that?" Otah asked.
Danat blushed. Otah walked to the window. Below, the gardens were in
motion. Wind shifted the boughs of the trees and set the flowers
nodding. The scent of impending rain cooled the air. There would be a
storm by nightfall.
"Papa-kya?" Danat said.
Otah looked over his shoulder. Danat was sitting on the table, his feet
on the seat of a cushioned chair. It was the pose of a casual boy in a
cheap teahouse. Danat's face, however, was troubled.
"Don't bother it," Otah said. "It might be a new world for sex, but
there was an old world for it too. And I'm sure there are any number of
other men who've made the same discoveries you have."
"That wasn't the matter. It's the wedding. I don't think I can ... I
don't think I can do it. When it was just thinking of it, I hadn't seen
what it would be to be married to someone who hated me. I have now."
His voice was thick with distress. A gust of stronger wind came,
rattling the shutters in their frames. Otah slid the wood closed, and
the meeting room dimmed, gold tiles turning bronze, blue tiles black.
"It will be fine," Otah said. "At worst, there are other councillors
with other daughters. It won't be a pleasant transition, but-"
"A different girl won't fix this. At best we'd find a girl less willing
to struggle. At worst, we'd find someone who hated me just as much, but
better versed in deceit."
Otah took his seat again. He could feel his brow furrow. If he hadn't
been so tired to begin with, it wouldn't have taken him as long to think
through Danat's words.
"Are you . . ." Otah said, then stopped and began again. "You're saying
you won't have Ana?"
"I thought I could. I would have, if she hadn't done what she did. But
I've spent all night looking at it, and I don't see a way."
"I do. I see it perfectly clearly. High families have been arranging
marriages for as long as there have been high families. It binds them
together. It shows trust."
"You didn't. You were Khai Machi. You could have had dozens of wives,
but you didn't. Even after the fever took Mother, you didn't. You could
have," Danat said. And then, "You could now. You could make one of these
girls your wife. Marry Ana-cha."
"You know quite well that I couldn't. A man of my years bedding a girl?
They wouldn't see a marriage so much as a debauch."
"Yes," Danat said. "And putting me in your place would only change how
it looked, not what it was. I'll do whatever I can to help. You know
that. I could marry a stranger and make the best of it. But I won't
father a child on an unwilling girl."
"Don't be an idiot," Otah said, and knew immediately that it was the
wrong thing. His son's smile was a mask now, cold and bright and hard as
stone. Otah raised his hands in a pose that took the words back, but
Danat ignored it.
"I won't do something I know in my bones is wrong," Danat said. "If it's
the only way to save us, then we aren't worth saving."
Otah watched the boy leave. There were a thousand arguments to make, a
thousand ways to rephrase the issue, to make something different of
these same circumstances. None of them would matter. He let his head
sink to his hands.
There had been a time when Otah had been young and the world had been,
if not simple, at least certain. Decades and experience had made him
sure that his sense of right and wrong were not the only ones. Before
he'd had that beaten out of him by the gods, he might well have taken
the same stand Danat had just now. Do what he believed to be right and
endure the consequences, no matter how terrible.
If only his children were less like him.
There had to be a way. The whole half-dead mess of it had to be
salvageable. He had only to see how.
Voices and argument filled the halls as he made his way through the
palaces. Columns wrapped in celebratory cloth mocked him. Uncertain,
falsely bright gazes met his own and were ignored. The thick air of the
summer cities left sweat running down Otah's spine and the sense of a
damp cloth pressed against his face. There was a way to salvage this. He
had only to find it.
Letters and requests for audiences waited for him, stacks of paper as
long as his forearm. He ignored them for now and sent his servants
scurrying for fresh paper and chilled tea. He sat at his desk, the pen's
bright bronze nib in the air just above the brick of ink, and gave
himself a moment before he began.
Kiyan-kya-
Well, love, it's all gone as well as a wicker fish boat. Ana
won't have Danat. Danat won't have Ana. I find myself host
to the worst gathering in history not actually struck by
plague. I think the only thing I've done well was that I
didn't wrestle our son to the ground when he walked away
from me. I feel like everyone is wrapped up in what happened