longer than the others, that her eyes followed Eiah more hungrily.
When the horse and cart had gone far enough that even the dust from the
hooves and wheels was invisible, they turned back to the business at
hand. Until midday, they scraped soot and a decade's fallen leaves out
from the shell of one of the gutted buildings. Irit found the bones of
some forgotten boy who had been caught in that long-cooled fire, and
they held a brief ceremony in remembrance of the slaughtered poets and
student boys in whose path they all traveled. Vanjit especially was
sober and pale as Maati finished his words and committed the bones to a
fresh-made, hotter blaze that would, he hoped, return the old bones to
their proper ash.
As they made their way back from the pyre, he made a point to walk at
her side. Her olive skin and well-deep eyes reminded him of his first
lover, Liat. The mother of the child who should have been his own. Even
before she spoke, his breast ached like a once-broken arm presaging a
shift of weather.
"I was thinking of my brother," Vanjit said. "He was near that boy's
age. Not highborn, of course. They didn't take normal people here then,
did they?"
"No," Maati said. "Nor women, for that."
"It's a strange thought. It already seems like home to me. Like I've
always been here," the girl said, then shifted her weight, her shoulders
turning a degree toward Maati even as they walked side by side. "You've
always known Eiah-cha, haven't you?"
"As long as she's known anything," Maati said with a chuckle. "Possibly
a bit longer. I was living in Machi for years and years before the war."
"She must be very important to you."
"She's been my salvation, in her way. Without her, none of us would be
here."
"You would have found a way," Vanjit said. Her voice was odd, a degree
harder than Maati had expected. Or perhaps he had imagined it, because
when she went on, there was no particular bite to the words. "You're
clever and wise enough, and I'm sure there are more people in places of
influence that would have given you aid, if you'd asked."
"Perhaps," Maati said. "But I knew from the first I could trust Eiah.
That carries quite a bit of weight. Without trust, I don't know if I
would have hit on the idea of coming here. Before, I always kept to
places I could leave easily."
"She said that you wouldn't let her bind the first andat," Vanjit said.
"One of us has to succeed before you'll let her make the attempt."
"That's so," Maati agreed, a moment's discomfort passing through him. He
didn't want to explain the thinking behind that decision. When Vanjit
went on, it was happily not in that direction.
"She's shown me some of the work she's done. She's working from the same
books that I am, you know."
"Yes," Maati said. "That was a good thought, using sources from the
Westlands. The more things we can use that weren't part of how the old
poets thought, the better off we are."
Maati described Cehmai's suggestion of making an andat and withdrawing
its influence as a strategy of Eiah, pleased to have steered the
conversation to safe waters. Vanjit listened, her full attention upon
him. Ashti Beg and Irit, walking before them, paused. If Vanjit hadn't
hesitated, Maati thought he might not have noticed until he bumped into
them.
"Small Kae is making soup for dinner," Irit said. "If you have time to
help her ..."
"Maati-kvo's much too busy for that," Vanjit said.
When Ashti Beg spoke, her voice was dry as sand.
"Irit-cha might not have been speaking to him."
Vanjit's spine stiffened, and then, with a laugh, relaxed. She smiled at
all of them as she took a contrite pose, accepting the correction. Irit
reached out and placed her hand on Vanjit's shoulder as a sister might.
"I'm so proud of you," Irit said, grinning. "I'm just so happy and proud."
"So are we all," Ashti Beg said. Maati smiled, but the sense that
something had happened sat at the back of his mind. As the four of them
walked to the kitchens-the air growing rich with the salt-and-fat scent
of pork and the dark, earthy scent of boiled lentils-Maati reviewed what
each of them had said, the tones of voice, the angles at which they had
held themselves. Small Kae assigned tasks to all of them except Maati,
and he waited for a time, listening to the simple banter and the crack
of knives against wood. When he took his leave, he was troubled.
He was not so far removed from his boyhood that he had forgotten what
jealousy felt like. He'd suffered it himself in these same halls and
rooms. One boy or another was always in favor, and the others wishing
that they were. Walking through the bare gardens, Maati wondered whether
he had allowed the same thing to happen. Vanjit was certainly the center
of all their work and activity. Had Ashti Beg and Irit interrupted their
conversation from an urge to take his attention, or at least deny it to her?
And then there was some question of Vanjit's heart.
The truth was that Eiah had been right. For all the hope and attention
placed upon her, the project of the school was not truly Vanjit and
Clarity-of-Sight. It would be Eiah and Wounded. Vanjit had seen it. It
couldn't be pleasant, knowing she was taking the lead not for her own
sake but to blaze the trail for another. He would speak to her. He would
have to speak with her. Reassure her.
After the last of the lentil soup had been sopped up by the final crust
of bread, Maati took Vanjit aside. It didn't go as he had expected.
"It isn't that Eiah-cha's work is more important," Maati said, his hands
in a pose meant to convey a gentle authority. "You are taking the
greater risk, and the role of the first of the poets of a new age. It's
only that there are certain benefits that Eiah-cha brings because of her
position at court. Once those aren't needed any longer, you see-"
Vanjit kissed him. Maati sat back. The girl's smile was broad, genuine,
and oddly pitying. Her hands took a pose that offered correction.
"Ah, Maati-kvo. You think it matters that Eiah is more important than I am?"
"I didn't ... I wouldn't put it that way."
"Let me. Eiah is more important than I am. I'm first because I'm the
scout. That's all. But if I do well, if I can make this binding work,
then she will have your permission. And then we can do anything. That's
all I want."
Maati ran a hand through his hair. He found that none of the words he
had practiced fit the moment. Vanjit seemed to understand his silence.
When she went on, her voice was low and gentle.
"There's a difference between why you came to this place and why we
have," she said. "Your father sent you here in hopes of glory. He hoped