"The smallest brat of the utkhaiem is forgiven their duties," Ashti Beg
said before Maati could frame a reply. "That's why it's court. Because
some people set themselves above others."
The air was suddenly heavy. Maati stood, unsure what he was about to
say. Irit's sudden chirp saved him.
"Oh, it isn't much. No need to fuss about it. I'll be happy to do the
thing. No, Vanjit-cha, don't get up. If you don't feel up to doing it,
you ought not strain yourself."
The last words rose at the end as if they were a question. Maati nodded
as if something had been decided, then walked out of the hall. Vanjit
followed without speaking, and took herself and her small burden down a
side hall and out to the gardens. Maati could hear the voices of the
others as they cleaned away the remnants of the small, fallen birds.
They met as they always did, sitting in a rough circle and discussing
the fine points of binding the andat. There was no sign of the earlier
conflict; Vanjit and Ashti Beg treated each other with their customary
kindness and respect. Eiah explained the difference between accident,
intention, and consequence of design to Irit and Small Kae and, Maati
thought, learned by the experience. By the warm, soft light of the
lanterns, they might have been talking of anything. By the end, there
was even real laughter.
It should have been a good evening, but as he went back toward his bed,
Maati was troubled and couldn't quite say why. It had to do with
Otah-kvo and Eiah, Vanjit and Clarity-of-Sight. The Galts and his own
unsettling if unsurprising insight into the nature of time and decay.
He opened his book, reading his own handwriting by the light of the
night candle. Even the quality of his script had changed since Vanjit
had sharpened his vision. The older entries had been ... not sloppy,
never that. But not so crisp as he was capable of now. It had been an
old man's handwriting. Now it was something different. He picked up his
pen, touched nib to ink, but found nothing coherent to say.
He wiped the pen clean and put the book aside. Somewhere far to the
south, Otah was dining with the men who had destroyed the Khaiem. He was
sleeping on a bed of silk and drinking wine from bowls of beaten gold,
while here in the dry plains his own daughter prepared to risk her life
to make right what he had done.
What they had done together. Otah, Cehmai, and Maati himself. One was
crawling into bed with the enemy, another turning away and hiding his
face. Only Maati had even tried to make things whole again. Vanjit's
success meant it had not been wasted effort. Eiah's fear reminded him
that it was not yet finished.
He made his way down the corridors in the near darkness. Only candles
and a half-moon lit his way. He was unsurprised to see Vanjit sitting
alone in the gardens. Unlike the courtyard where they had spoken before,
the gardens were bleak and bare. They had come too late to plant this
season. Eiah's occasional journeys to Pathai provided food enough, and
they didn't have the surplus of spare hands that had once held up the
school. The wilderness encroached on the high stone walls here, young
trees growing green and bold in plots where Maati had sown peas and
harvested pods.
She heard him approaching and glanced back over her shoulder. She
shifted, adjusting her robes, and Maati saw the small, black eyes of the
andat appear from among the folds of cotton. She had been nursing it. It
shocked him for a moment, though on reflection it shouldn't have. The
andat had no need of milk, of course, but it was a product of Vanjit's
conceptions. Stone-Made-Soft had been involved with the game of stones.
Three-Bound-as-One had been fascinated by knots. The relationship of
poet and andat was modeled on mother and child as it had never been
before in all of history. The nursing was, Maati supposed, the physical
emblem of it.
"Maati-kvo," she said. "I didn't expect anyone to be here."
He took a pose of apology, and she waved it away. In the cold light, she
looked ghostly. The andat's eyes and mouth seemed to eat the light, its
skin to glow. Maati came nearer.
"I was worried, I suppose," he said. "It seemed ... uncomfortable at
dinner this evening."
"I'd been thinking about that," Vanjit said. "It's hard for them. Ashti
Beg and the others. I think it must be very hard for them."
"How do you mean?"
She shrugged. The andat in her lap gurgled to itself, considering its
own short, pale fingers with fascination.
"They have all put in so much time, so much work. Then to see another
woman complete a binding and gain a child, all at once. I imagine it
must gnaw at her. It isn't that she intends to be rude or cruel. Ashti
is in pain, and she lashes out. I knew a dog like that once. A cart had
rolled over it. Snapped its spine. It whined and howled all night. You
would have thought it was begging aid, except that it tried to bite
anyone who came near. Ashti-cha is much the same."
"You think so?"
"I do," she said. "You shouldn't think ill of her, Maati-kvo. I doubt
she even knows what she's doing."
He folded his arms.
"I can't think it's simple for you either," he said. He had the sense of
testing her, though he couldn't have said quite how. Vanjit's face was
as clear and cloudless as the sky.
"It's perfect," she said. "Nowhere near as difficult as I'd thought.
Only he makes me tired. No more than any mother with a new babe, though.
I've been thinking of names. My cousin was named Ciiat, and he was about
this old when the Galts came."
"It has a name already," Maati said. "Clarity-of-Sight."
"I meant a private name," Vanjit said. "One for just between the two of
us. And you, I suppose. You are as near to a father as he has."
Maati opened his mouth, then closed it. Vanjit's hand slipped into his
own, her fingers twined around his. Her smile seemed so genuine, so
innocent, that Maati only shook his head and laughed. They remained
there for the space of ten long breaths together, Vanjit sitting, Maati
standing at her side, and the andat, shifting impatiently in her lap.
"Once Eiah's bound Wounded," Maati said, "we can all go back."
Vanjit made a small sound, neither cough nor gasp nor chuckle, and
released Maati's hand. He glanced down. Vanjit smiled up at him.
"That will be good," she said. "This must all be hard for her as well. I
wish there was something we could do to ease things."
"We'll do what can be done," Maati said. "It will have to be enough."
Vanjit didn't reply, and then raised her arm, pointing to the horizon.
"The brightest star," she said. "The one just coming up over the trees
there? You see it?"
"I do," Maati said. It was one of the traveling stars that made their