warm tea in his hand. Large Kae and Small Kae were in the middle of a
conversation about the difference between cutting and crushing, which in
other circumstances would have been disturbing to hear. Vanjit sat with
a beatific smile, Clarity-of-Sight perched on her lap. Maati motioned at
Eiah that she should carry on, and with a reluctance he didn't
understand, she did.
The tea was warm and smelled like spring. Coals glowed in the brazier.
The voices around him seemed hopeful and bright. But then he saw the
andat's black eyes and was reminded of his unease.
The session came to its end and the women scattered, each to her own
task, leaving only Vanjit sitting by the fire, nursing the andat from a
breast swollen with milk. Maati made his way back to his rooms. He was
tired past all reason and unsteady on his feet. As he had hoped, Eiah
was waiting outside his door.
"That seemed to go well," Maati said. "I think Irit's solution was
fairly elegant."
"It has promise," Eiah agreed as she followed him into the room. He sat
in a leather chair, sighing. Eiah blew life into the coals in the fire
grate, added a handful of small tinder and a twisted length of oak to
the fire, then took a stool and pulled it up before him.
"How do you feel about the binding's progress?" he asked.
"Well enough," she said, taking both his forearms in her hands. Her gaze
was locked somewhere over his left shoulder, her fingers pressing hard
into the flesh between the bones of his wrists. A moment later, she
dropped his right hand and began squeezing his fingertips.
"Eiah-kya?"
"Don't mind me," she said. "It's habit. The binding's coming closer.
There are one or two more things I'd like to try, but I think we've come
as near as we're going to."
She went on for half a hand, recounting the fine issues of definition,
duration, and intent that haunted the form of her present binding. Maati
listened, submitting himself to her professional examination as she went
on. Outside the window, the snow was falling again, small flakes gray
against the pure white sky. Before Vanjit, he wouldn't have been able to
make them out.
"I agree," Maati said as she ended, then plucked his sleeves back into
their proper place. "Do you think ..."
"Before Candles Night, certainly," Eiah said. "But there is going to be
a complication. We have to leave the school. Utani would be best, but
Pathai would do if that's impossible. You and I can leave in the
morning, and the others can join us."
Maati chuckled.
"Eiah-kya," he said. "You've apologized for letting Ashti Beg go. I
understand why you did it, but there's nothing to be concerned about.
Even if she did tell someone that we're out here, Vanjit could turn
Clarityof-Sight against them, and we could all walk quietly away. The
power of the andat-"
"Your heart is failing," Eiah said. "I don't have the herbs or the baths
to care for you here."
She said it simply, her voice flat with exhaustion. Maati felt the smile
fading from his lips. He saw tears beginning to glimmer in her eyes, the
drops unfallen but threatening. He took a pose that denied her.
"Your color is bad," she said. "Your pulses aren't symmetric. Your blood
is thick and dark. This is what I do, Uncle. I find people who are sick,
and I look at the signs, and I think about them and their bodies. I look
at you, here, now, and I see a man whose blood is slow and growing slower."
"You're imagining things," Maati said. "I'm fine. I only haven't slept
well. I would never have guessed that you of all people would mistake a
little lost rest for a weak heart."
"I'm not-"
"I am fine!" Maati shouted, pounding the arm of the chair. "And we
cannot afford to run off into the teeth of winter. You aren't a
physician any longer. That's behind you. You are a poet. You are the
poet who's going to save the cities."
She took his hand in both of hers. For a moment, there was no sound but
the low murmur of the fire and the nearly inaudible sound of her palm
stroking the back of his hand. One of the threatened tears fell,
streaking her cheek black. He hadn't realized she wore kohl.
"You," he said softly, "are the most important poet there is. The most
important one there ever was."
"I'm just one woman," Eiah said. "I'm doing the best I can, but I'm
tired. And the world keeps getting darker around me. If I can't take
care of everything, at least let me take care of you."
"I will be fine," Maati said. "I'm not young anymore, but I'm a long way
from death. We'll finish your binding, and then if you want to haul me
to half the baths in the Empire, I'll submit."
Another tear marked her face. Maati took his sleeve and wiped her cheek dry.
"I'll be fine," he said. "I'll rest more if you like. I'll pretend my
bones are made of mud brick and glass. But you can't stop now to concern
yourself with me. Those people out there. They're the ones who need your
care. Not me."
"Let me go to Pathai," she said. "I can get teas there."
"No," Maati said. "I won't do that."
"Let me send Large Kae, then. I can't stand by and do nothing."
"All right," Maati said, holding up a placating hand. "All right. Let's
wait until morning, and we can talk to Large Kae. And perhaps you'll see
that I'm only tired and we can move past this."
She left in the end without being convinced. As darkness fell, Maati
found himself slipping into a soft despair. The world was quiet and
still and utterly unaware of him.
His son was dead. The people he had counted as his friends had become
his enemies, and he was among the most despised men in the world. Eiah
was wrong, of course. His health was fine. But someday, it would fail.
All men died, and most were forgotten. The few that the world remembered
were not always celebrated.
He lit the night candle by holding it to the fire, the wax hissing where
it dripped on the coals. He found his book and settled close to the fire
grate before opening the cover and considering the words.
I, Maati Vaupathai, am one of the two men remaining in the world who has
wielded the power of the andat.
Already, it was not true. There were three living poets now, and one of
them a woman. Between the time he had touched a pen to this page and
this moment, reading it in the early night, the world had moved on. He
wondered how much of the rest was already old, already the property of a
past that could never be regained. He read slowly, tracing the path his
own mind had taken. The candle lent the pages an orange glow, the ink
seeming to retreat into the pages, as if they were much larger and much
farther away. The fire warmed his ankles and turned strong, solid wood
into ashes softer than snow.