were quiet. Otah sensed the tension in Issandra's crouched body. Ana was
refusing the token. And then the girl spoke, and her mother relaxed.
"Read it," Ana said. "Read it to me."
Otah closed his eyes and prayed to all the gods there were that neither
he nor Issandra nor either of the guards would sneeze or cough. He had
never lived through a more excruciatingly awkward scene. Below, Danat
cleared his throat and began to declaim.
It wasn't good. Danat's command of Galtic didn't extend to the subtlety
of rhyme. The images were simple and puerile, the sexuality just under
the surface of the words ham-fisted and uncertain, and worst of all of
it, Danat's tone as he spoke was as sincere as a priest at temple. His
voice shook at the end of the last stanza. Silence fell in the garden.
One of the guards shook once with suppressed laughter and went still.
Danat folded the paper slowly, then offered it up to Ana. It hesitated
there for a moment before the girl took it.
"I see," she said. Against all reason, her voice had softened. Otah
could hardly believe it, but Ana appeared genuinely moved. Danat rose to
stand a hand's breadth nearer to her than before. The lanterns
flickered. The two children gazed at each other with perfect
seriousness. Ana looked away.
"I have a lover," she said.
"You've made that quite clear," Danat replied, amusement in his voice.
Ana shook her head. The shadows hid her expression.
"I can't," she said. "You are a fine man, Danat. More an emperor than
your father. But I've sworn. I've sworn before everyone ..."
"I don't believe that," Danat said. "I've hardly known you, Ana-kya, and
I don't believe the gods themselves could stop you from something if it
was truly what you wanted. Say you won't have me, but don't tell me
you're refusing me out of fear."
Ana began to speak, stumbled on the words, and went silent. Danat rose,
and the girl took a step toward him.
And a moment later, "Does Hanchat know you're here?"
Ana was still, and then almost imperceptibly she shook her head. Danat
put a hand on her shoulder and gently turned her to face him. Otah might
have been imagining it, but he thought the girl's head inclined a degree
toward that hand. Danat kissed Ana's forehead and then her mouth. Her
hand, palm against Danat's chest, seemed too weak to push him away. It
was Danat who stepped back.
He murmured something too low to hear, then bowed in the Galtic style,
took his lantern, and left her. Ana slowly lowered herself to the
ground. They waited, one girl alone in the night and four hidden spies
with legs and backs slowly beginning to cramp. Without word or warning,
Ana sobbed twice, rose, scooped up her own lantern, and vanished through
the door she'd first come from. Otah let out a pained sigh and made his
uncomfortable way out from beneath the willow. There were green streaks
on his robe where his knees had ground into the ivy. The armsmen had the
grace to move away a few paces, expressionless.
"We're doing well," Issandra said.
"I didn't hear a declaration of marriage," Otah said. He felt
disagreeable despite the evidence of Ana's changing heart. He felt
dishonest, and it made him sour.
"So long as nothing comes to throw her off, it will come. In time. I
know my daughter. I've seen this all before."
"Really? How odd," Otah said. "I know my son, and I never have."
"Then perhaps Ana is a lucky woman," Issandra said. He was surprised to
hear something wistful in the woman's voice. The moon passed behind a
high cloud, deepening the darkness around them, and then was gone.
Issandra stood before him, her head high and proud, her mouth in a
half-smile. She was, he thought, an interesting woman. Not beautiful in
the traditional sense, and all the more attractive for that.
"A marriage is what you make of it," she said.
Otah considered the words, then took a pose that both agreed and
expressed a gentle sorrow. He did not know how much of his meaning she
understood. She nodded and strode off, leaving him with his armsmen.
Otah suffered through the rest of the banquet and returned to his
apartments, sure he would not sleep. The night air had cooled. The fire
in the grate warmed his feet. The fear that had dogged him all these
last months didn't vanish, but its hold upon him faded. Somewhere under
the stars just then, Danat and Ana were playing out their drama in
touches and whispers; Issandra and Fatter Dasin in silences and the
knowledge of long association. Idaan was hunting, Ashua Radaani was
hunting, Sinja was hunting. And he was alone and sleepless with nothing
to do.
He closed his eyes and tried to feel Kiyan's presence, tried to bring
some sense of her out of the scent of smoke and the sound of distant
singing. He tricked himself into thinking that she was here, but not so
well that he could forget it was a trick.
Tomorrow, there would be another wide array of men and women requesting
his time. Another schedule of ritual and audience and meeting. Perhaps
it would all go as well as today had, and he would end the day in his
rooms, feeling old and maudlin despite his success. There were so many
men and women in the court-in the world-who wanted nothing more than
power. Otah, who had it, had always known how little it changed.
He slept deeply and without dreams. When he woke, every man and woman of
Galt had gone blind.
16
It had been raining for two full days. Occasionally the water changed to
sleet or hail, and small accumulations of rotten ice had begun to form
in the sheltered corners of the courtyard. Maati closed his shutters
against the low clouds and sat close to the fire, the weather tapping on
wood like fingers on a table. It might almost have been pleasant if it
hadn't made his spine stiffen and ache.
The cold coupled with Eiah's absence had turned life quiet and slow,
like a bear preparing to sleep through the winter. Maati went down to
the kitchen in the morning and ate with the others. Large Kae and Irit
had started rehearsing old songs together to pass the time. They sang
while they cooked, and the harmonies were prettier than Maati would have
imagined. When Vanjit and Clarity-of-Sight were there, the andat would
grow restive, its eyes shifting from one singer to the next and back
again until Vanjit started to fidget and took her charge away. Small Kae
had no ear for music, so instead spent her time reading the old texts
that Clarity-of-Sight had been built from and asking questions about the
finer points of their newly re-created grammar.
Most of the day, Maati spent alone in his rooms, or dressed in several
thick robes, walking through the halls. He would not say it, but the
space had begun to feel close and restricting. Likely it was only the