the port master, of the customs men on the roads, of the armsmen paid by
the city to patrol and keep the violence in the low towns to an
acceptable level. Her quarry weren't smugglers or thieves. They weren't
expert in covering their tracks. In two days, she knew where they were.
Eiah quietly packed what things she needed from her apartments in the
palace, took a horse from the stables, and rode out of the city as if
she were only going to visit an herb woman in one of the low towns.
As if she were coming back.
She found them at a wayhouse on the road to Shosheyn-Tan. The winter sun
had set, but the gates to the wayhouse courtyard were still open. The
carriage Eiah had heard described was at the side of the house, its
horses unhitched. The two women, she knew, were presenting themselves as
travelers. The man-old, fat, unpleasant to speak withwas posing as their
slave. Eiah let the servant take her horse to be cared for, but instead
of going up the steps to the main house, she followed him back to the
stables. A small shack stood away at an angle. Quarters for servants and
slaves. Eiah felt her lips press thin at the thought. Rough straw
ticking, thin blankets, whatever was left to eat after the paying guests
were done.
"How many servants are here now?" Eiah asked of the young maneighteen
summers, so four years old when it had happened-brushing down her horse.
He looked at her as if she'd asked what color ducks laid the eggs they
served at table. She smiled.
"Three," the servant said.
"Tell me about them," she said.
He shrugged.
"There's an old woman came in two days ago. Her master's laid up sick.
Then a boy from the Westlands works for a merchant staying on the ground
floor. And an old bastard just came in with two women from Chaburi-Tan."
"Chaburi-Tan?"
"What they said," the servant replied.
Eiah took two lengths of silver from her sleeve and held them out in her
palm. The servant promptly forgot about her horse.
"When you're done," she said, "take the woman and the Westlander to the
back of the house. Buy them some wine. Don't mention me. Leave the old man."
The servant took a pose of acceptance so total it was just short of an
open pledge. Eiah smiled, dropped the silver in his palm, and pulled up
a shoeing stool to sit on while she waited. The night was cool, but
still not near as cold as her home in the north. An owl hooted deep and
low. Eiah pulled her arms up into her sleeves to keep her fingers warm.
The scent of roasting pork wafted from the wayhouse, and the sounds of a
flute and a voice lifted together.
The servant finished his work and with a deferential nod to Eiah, made
his way to the servants' house. It was less than half a hand before he
emerged with a thin woman and a sandy-haired Westlands boy trailing him.
Eiah pushed her hands back through her sleeves and made her way to the
small, rough shack.
He was sitting beside the fire, frowning into the flames and eating a
mush of rice and raisins from a small wooden bowl. The years hadn't been
kind to him. He was thicker than he'd been when she knew him, an
unhealthy fatness that had little to do with indulgence. His color was
poor; what remained of his hair was white stained yellow by neglect. He
looked angry. He looked lonesome.
"Uncle Maati," she said.
He startled. His eyes flashed. Eiah couldn't tell if it was anger or
fear. But whatever it was had a trace of pleasure to it.
"Don't know who you mean," he said. "Name's Daavit."
Eiah chuckled and stepped into the small room. It smelled of bodies and
smoke and the raisins in Maati's food. Eiah found a small chair and
pulled it to the fire beside the old poet, her chosen uncle, the man who
had destroyed the world. They sat silently for a while.
"It was the way they died," Eiah said. "All the stories you told me when
I was young about the prices that the andat exacted when a poet's
binding failed. The one whose blood turned dry. The one whose belly
swelled up like he was pregnant, and when they cut him open it was all
ice and seaweed. All of them. I started to hear stories. What was that,
four years ago?"
At first she thought he wouldn't answer. He cupped two thick fingers
into the rice and ate what they lifted out. He swallowed. He sucked his
teeth.
"Six," he said.
"Six years," she said. "Women started appearing here and there, dead in
strange ways."
He didn't answer. Eiah waited for the space of five slow breaths
together before she went on.
"You told me stories about the andat when I was young," she said. "I
remember most of it, I think. I know that a binding only works once. In
order to bind the same andat again, the poet has to invent a whole new
way to describe the thought. You used to tell me about how the poets of
the Old Empire would bind three or four andat in a lifetime. I thought
at the time you envied them, but I saw later that you were only sick at
the waste of it."
Maati sighed and looked down.
"And I remember when you tried to explain to me why only men could be
poets," she said. "As I recall, the arguments weren't all that
convincing to me."
"You were a stubborn girl," Maati said.
"You've changed your mind," Eiah said. "You've lost all your books. All
the grammars and histories and records of the andat that have come
before. They're gone. All the poets gone but you and perhaps Cehmai. And
in the history of the Empire, the Second Empire, the Khaiem, the one
thing you know is that a woman has never been a poet. So perhaps, if
women think differently enough from men, the bindings they create will
succeed, even with nothing but your own memory to draw from."
"Who told you? Otah?"
"I know my father had letters from you," Eiah said. "I don't know what
was in them. He didn't tell me."
"A women's grammar," Maati said. "We're building a women's gram„ mar.
Eiah took the bowl from his hands and put it on the floor with a
clatter. Outside, a gust of wind shrilled past the shack. Smoke bellied
out from the fire, rising into the air, thinning as it went. When he
looked at her, the pleasure was gone from his eyes.
"It's the best hope," Maati said. "It's the only way to ... undo what's
been done."
"You can't do this, Maati-kya," Eiah said, her voice gentle.
Maati started to his feet. The stool he'd sat on clattered to the floor.
Eiah pulled back from his accusing finger.
"Don't you tell that to me, Eiah," Maati said, biting at the words. "I
know he doesn't approve. I asked his help. Eight years ago, I risked my
life by sending to him, asking the Emperor of this pisspot empire for