the evening. This"-he rattled the papers in his hand-"is something
different. Half-measures won't suffice."
"What then?" she said.
He put the papers down.
"We stop," he said. "For a few days, we don't touch it at all. Instead
we can send someone to a low town for meat and candles, or clear the
gardens. Anything."
"Do we have time for that?" Eiah asked. "Anything could have happened.
My brother may be married. His wife may be carrying a child. All of Galt
may be loading their daughters in ships, and the men of the cities may
be scuttling off to Kirinton and Acton and Marsh. We are out here where
there's no one to talk to, no couriers on the roads, and I know it feels
that time has stopped. It hasn't. We've been weeks at this. Months. We
can't spend time we don't have."
"You'd recommend what, then? Move faster than we can move? Think more
clearly than we can think? It isn't as if we can sit down with a serious
expression and demand that the work be better than it is. Have you never
seen a man ill with something that needed quiet and time? This is no
different."
"I've also watched ill men die," Eiah said. "Time passes, and once
you've waited too long for something, there's no getting it back."
Her mouth bent in a deep frown. There were dark circles under her eyes.
She bit her lower lip and shook her head as if conducting some
conversation within her mind and disagreeing with herself. The coal
burning in the brazier settled and gave off a dozen small sparks as
bright as fireflies. One landed on the paper, already cold and gray. Ash.
"You're reconsidering," Maati said.
"No. I'm not. We can't tell my father," she said. "Not yet."
"We could send to others, then," Maati said. "There are high families in
every city that would rise up against Otah's every plan if they knew the
andat were back in the world. You've lived your whole life in the
courts. Two or three people whose discretion you trust would be all it
took. A rumor spoken in the right ears. We needn't even say where we are
or what's been bound."
Eiah combed her fingers through her hair. Every breath that she didn't
answer, Maati felt his hopes rise. She would, if he only gave her a
little more time and silence to convince herself. She would announce
their success, and everyone in the cities of the Khaiem would know that
Maati Vaupathai had remained true to them. He had never given up, never
turned away.
"It would mean going to a city," Eiah said. "I can't send half-a-dozen
ciphered letters under my own seal out from a low town without every
courier in the south finding out where we are."
"Then Pathai," Maati said, his hands opening. "We need to step back from
the binding. The letters will win us time to make things right."
Eiah turned, looking out the window. In the courtyard, the maple trees
were losing their leaves. A storm, a strong wind, and the branches would
be bare. A sparrow, brown and gray, hopped from one twig to another.
Maati could see the fine markings on its wings, the blackness of its
eyes. It had been years since sparrows had been more than dull smears.
He glanced at Eiah, surprised to see the tears on her cheek.
His hand touched her shoulder. She didn't look back, but he felt her
lean into him a degree.
"I don't know," she said as if to the sparrow, the trees, the thousand
fallen leaves. "I don't know why it should matter. It's no secret what
he's done or what I think of it. I don't have any doubts that what we're
doing is the right choice."
"And yet," Maati said.
"And yet," she agreed. "My father will be disappointed in me. I would
have thought I was old enough that his opinion wouldn't matter."
He searched for a response-something gentle and kind and that would
strengthen her resolve. Before he found the words, he felt her tense. He
took back his hand, adopting a querying pose.
"I thought I heard something," she said. "Someone was yelling."
A long, high shriek rang in the air. It was a woman's voice, but he
couldn't guess whose. Eiah leaped from her stool and vanished into the
dark hallways before Maati recovered himself. He followed, his heart
pounding, his breath short. The shrieking didn't stop, and as he came
nearer the kitchen, he heard other sounds-clattering, banging, high
voices urging calm or making demands that he couldn't decipher, the
andat's infantile wail. And then Eiah's commanding voice, with the
single word stop.
He rounded the last corner, his fist pressed to his chest, his heart
hammering. The cooking areas were raw chaos come to earth. An
earthenware jar of wheat flour had been overturned and cracked. The thin
stone block Irit used for chopping plants lay in shards on the floor.
Ashti Beg stood in the middle of the room, a knife in her hand, her chin
held high like a statue of abstract vengeance. In the corner, Vanjit
held the stillmewling andat close to her breast. Large Kae, Small Kae,
and Irit were all cowering against the walls, their eyes wide and mouths
hanging open. Eiah's expression was calm and commanding at the same
time, like a mother calling back her children from a cliff edge.
"It's done, Ashti-cha," Eiah said, walking slowly toward the woman.
"I'll have the knife."
"Not until I find that bitch and put it in her heart," Ashti Beg spat,
turning toward Eiah's voice. Maati saw for the first time that the
woman's eyes were as gray as storm clouds.
"I'll have the knife," Eiah said again. "Or I will beat you down and
take it. You know you're more likely to hurt the others than Vanjit."
The andat whimpered and Ashti Beg whirled toward it. Eiah stepped
forward smoothly, took Ashti Beg's elbow and wrist in her hands, and
twisted. Ashti Beg yelped, the blade clattering to the floor.
"What. . ." Maati gasped. "What is happening?"
Four voices answered at once, words tripping over each other. Only Eiah
and Vanjit remained silent, the two poets considering each other
silently in the center of the storm. Maati raised his hands in a pose
that commanded silence, and all of them stopped except Ashti Beg.
". . . power over us. It isn't right, it isn't fair, and I will not
simper and smile and lick her ass because she happened to be the one to
go first!"
"Enough!" Maati said. "Enough, all of you. Gods. Gods. Vanjit. Come with
me."
The girl looked over as if noticing him for the first time. The rage in
her expression faltered. Her hands were shaking. Eiah stepped forward,
keeping herself between Ashti Beg and her prey as Vanjit walked across
the room.
"Eiah, see to Ashti-cha," Maati said, taking Vanjit's wrist. "The rest
of you, clean this mess. I'd rather not eat food prepared in a child's