some low-town physician, hoping through her own hard work to atone for
her father's misdeeds. For his misdeeds. When he looked up, his sister
was considering him with hooded eyes.
"I will have a cart and driver ready for you in the morning," he said.
"You'll be able to take whatever fresh horses or food you need along the
way. I've written the orders up already."
"All the horses and food we need along the way?" Idaan said. "You're
right. Being Emperor must be raw hell."
He didn't answer her. She finished the rice and fish. The clouds behind
her had gone dark, and since neither had called for candles or torches,
the only light was the cold blue moon and the fiery embers in the
brazier. Idaan took a pose that accepted his charge.
"You don't want to negotiate payment?" he said.
"I'm just pleased you've decided to do the thing. I was afraid you'd put
it off until it was too late," Idaan said. "One question, though. If I
find her, and she is the one, what action should I take?"
Meaning should Idaan kill her, kill Maati and as many of the other
fledgling poets as she could to prevent them from accomplishing their aims.
Do what needs doing.
"Nothing," Otah said, nerve failing. "Do nothing. There will be couriers
in Pathai. You can send the fastest of them back. I'll give you a cipher."
"You're sure?" Idaan said. "It's a lot of time on the road, sending me
out and then someone else back. And then waiting while you make your way
to Pathai or wherever the trail leads."
"If you find her, send word," Otah said. "You aren't to act against her."
Idaan's smile was crooked with meanings he couldn't quite follow. Otah
felt anger growing in his spine, only it wasn't rage so much as dread.
"I'll do as you say, Most High," Idaan said. "I'll go at first light."
"Thank you," he said.
Idaan rose and walked back toward the arches. He heard her pause for a
moment and then go on. The stars had come out, glimmering in the
darkness like gems thrown on black stone. Otah sat in silence until he
was sure he could walk, and then went down to his rooms. The servants
had left him a bowl of candied fruit, but he couldn't stand the prospect.
A fire burned in the grate, protecting the air from even the slightest
chill and tainting it with tendrils of pine smoke. The summer cities had
always been overly vigilant of cold. Thin blood. Everything south of
Udun was plagued by thinness of the blood. Otah came from the winter
cities, and he threw open the shutters, letting in what cold there was.
He didn't notice that Danat was there until the boy spoke.
"Father."
Otah turned. Danat stood in the doorway that led to the inner chambers.
He wore the same robe that he had before, but the cloth sagged like an
unmade bed. Danat's eyes were rimmed with red.
"Danat-kya," Otah said. "What's happened?"
"I've done as you said. Shija and I went to the rose pavilion. Just the
two of us. I ... spoke with her. I broke things off."
"Ah," Otah said. He walked back from the open windows and sat on a couch
before the fire. Danat came forward, his eyes glittering with unfallen
tears.
"This is my fault, Papa-kya. In a different world, I might have ... I
have been careless with her. I've hurt her."
Was I ever as young as this? Otah thought, and immediately pressed it
away. Even if the question was fair, it was unkind. He held out his
hand, and his son-his tall, thick-shouldered son-sat beside him, curled
into Otah's shoulder the way he had as a boy. Danat sobbed once.
"I only ... I know you and Issandra-cha were relying on me and . .
Otah hushed the boy.
"You've taken a willing girl to bed," Otah said. "You aren't who she
hoped you might be, and so she's disappointed. Yes?"
Danat nodded.
"There are worse things." Otah saw again the darkness of Idaan's eyes.
He was sending the woman behind those eyes after his Eiah, his little
girl. The ghost of nausea touched him and he stroked Danat's hair.
"People have done worse."
14
Maati frowned at the papers before him. A small fire crackled in the
brazier on his desk, and he was more than half-tempted to drop the pages
onto the flames. Eiah, sitting across from him, looked no more pleased.
"You're right," he said. "We're moving backward."
"What's happened?" Eiah asked, though she knew as well as he did.
The few weeks that had passed since Vanjit's successful binding had only
grown more difficult. To start, the other students excepting Eiah were
more distracted. The mewling and cries of the andat disrupted any
conversation. Its awkward crawling seemed capable of entrancing them for
a full morning. Perhaps he had known too much of the andat, but he held
the growing impression that it was perfectly aware of the effect its
toothless smile could have. And that it was especially cultivating the
admiration of Ashti Beg.
Added to that, Vanjit herself had come almost disconnected from the
rest. She would sit for whole days, the andat in her lap or at her
breast, staring at water or empty air. Maati had some sympathy for that.
She had shown him the most compelling of the wonders her new powers had
uncovered, and he had been as delighted as she was. But her little
raptures meant that she wasn't engaged in the work at hand: Eiah, and
the binding of Wounded.
"There is something we can do," Eiah said. "If we set the classes in the
mornings, just after the first meal, we won't have had a full day behind
us. We could come at it fresh each time."
Maati nodded more to show he'd heard her than from any real agreement.
His fingertips traced the lines of the binding again, tapping the page
each time some little infelicity struck him. He had seen bindings falter
this way before. In those first years when Maati had been a new poet,
the Dai-kvo had spoken of the dangers of muddying thoughts by too much
work. One sure way to fail was to build something sufficient and then
not stop. With every small improvement, the larger structure became less
tenable, until eventually the thing collapsed under the weight of too
much history.
He wondered if they had gone too far, corrected one too many things
which were not truly problems so much as differences of taste.
Eiah took a pose that challenged him. He looked at her directly for
perhaps the first time since she'd come to his study.
"You think I'm wrong," she said. "You can say it. I've heard worse."
It took Maati the space of several heartbeats to recall what her
proposal had been.
"I think it can't hurt. But I also think it isn't our essential problem.
We were all quite capable of designing Clarity-of-Sight with meetings in