And as if the word had broken a dam, chaos flowed through the wayhouse.
Vanjit dashed forward, her hands low to scoop up the andat, and the
crowd surged with her. The chorus of questions and shouts rose, filling
the air. Maati started forward, then stopped. The older of the drummers
appeared from amid the throng and embraced him, tears of joy in the
man's eyes.
Through the press of the crowd, Maati saw Eiah standing alone. Her
expression was cold. Maati pulled back from his grinning companion and
struggled toward her. He heard Vanjit talking high and fast behind him,
but couldn't make out the words. There were too many voices layered over it.
"Apparently we've decided not to travel quietly," Eiah said in tone of
cold acid.
"Get the others," he said. "I'll prepare the cart. We can leave in the
night."
"You think anyone here is going to sleep tonight?" Eiah said. "There's a
baby. A full-blooded child of the cities, and Vanjit the mother. If the
gods themselves walked in the door right now, they'd have to wait for a
room. They'll think it's to do with me. The physician who has found a
way to make women bear. They'll hound me like I've stolen their teeth."
"I'm sorry," Maati said.
"Word of this is going to spread. Father's going to hear of it, and when
he does, he'll be on our heels."
"Why would he think it was you?"
"Galt went blind, and he headed west. For Pathai. For me," Eiah said.
"He can't know you're part of this," Maati said.
"Of course he can," Eiah said. "I am, and he isn't dim. I didn't think
it was a problem when no one knew who or where we were."
A round of cheering broke out, and the wayhouse keeper appeared as if
from nowhere, two bottles of wine in each hand. Vanjit had been ushered
to a seat by the fire grate. Clarity-of-Sight was in her arms, beaming
at everyone who came close. Vanjit's cheeks were flushed, but she seemed
pleased. Proud. Happy.
"This was my mistake," Maati said. "My failure as much as anything. I
distracted her from the thing. It has more freedom when her mind is
elsewhere."
Eiah turned her head to look at him. There was nothing soft in her eyes.
Maati drew himself up, frowning. Anger bloomed in his breast, but he
couldn't say why or with whom.
"Why is it so important to you," Eiah asked, "that nothing she does be
wrong?"
And with a sensation that was almost physical, Maati knew what he had
been trying for months to ignore. A wave of vertigo shook him, but he
forced himself to speak.
"Because she should never have become a poet," he said. "She's too young
and too angry and more than half mad. And that beast on her lap? We gave
it to her."
Eiah's startled expression lasted only a moment before something both
resignation and weariness took its place. She kissed Maati's cheek. They
stood together, a silence within the storm. He had said what she had
already known, and she too had wished it was not truth.
Large Kae and Small Kae quietly prepared the cart and horses. While the
wayhouse and every man and woman within running distance came to pay
homage to child, mother, and physician, Irit and Maati packed their
things. Eiah saw to it that the wine flowed freely, that-near the
end-the celebratory drinks were all laced with certain herbs.
It was still four hands before dawn when they made their escape. Maati
and Eiah drove the cart. Large Kae rode ahead, leading the spare horses.
The others slept in the cart, exhausted bodies fitted in among the
crates and sacks. The moon had already set, and the road before them was
black and featureless apart from Large Kae's guiding torch. The fog had
cleared, but a deep cold kept Maati's cloak wrapped tight. His eyes
wanted nothing more than to close.
"We can make the river in seven days if we go through the night. Large
Kae will fight against it for the horses' sake," Maati said.
"I'll fight against it for yours," Eiah said. "There was a reason I was
trying to make this journey restful."
"I'm fine. I'll last to Utani and years past it, you watch." He sighed.
His flesh seemed about to drip off his bones from simple exhaustion.
"You watch."
"Crawl back," Eiah said. "Rest. I can do this alone."
"You'd fall asleep," Maati said.
"And use you for a pillow, Uncle. I'm fine. Go."
He looked back. There was a place for him. Irit had made it up with two
thick wool blankets. He couldn't see it in the night, but he knew it was
there. He wanted nothing more than to turn to it and let the whole
broken world fade for a while. He couldn't. Not yet.
"Eiah-kya," he said softly. "About your binding. About Wounded. .
She turned to him, a shadow within a shadow. He bent close to her, his
voice as low as he could make it and still be heard over the clatter of
hooves on stone.
"You know the grammar well? You have it all in mind?"
"Of course," she said.
"Could you do it without it being written? It's usual to write it all
out, the way Vanjit-cha did. And it helps to have that there to follow,
but you could do the thing without. Couldn't you?"
"I don't know," Eiah said. "Perhaps. It isn't something I'd thought
about particularly. But why ... ?"
"We should postpone your binding," Maati said. "Until you are certain
you could do it without the reference text."
Eiah was silent. Something fluttered by, the sound of wings against air.
"What are you saying?" Eiah said, her words low, clipped, and precise.
Maati squeezed his hands together. The joints had started aching
sometime earlier in the night. The ancient dagger scar in his belly
itched the way it did when he'd grown too tired.
"If you were performing the binding, and something happened so that you
couldn't see," Maati said. "If you were to go blind when you'd already
started ... you should know the words and the thoughts well enough to
keep to it. Not to slip."
"Not pay its price," Eiah said. Meaning, they both knew, die. A moment
later, "She'd do that?"
"I don't know," Maati said. "I don't know anything anymore. But be ready
if she does."
Eiah shifted the reins, the pattern of the horses' stride altered, and
the cart rocked gently. She didn't speak again, and Maati imagined the
silence to be thoughtful. He shifted his weight carefully, turned, and
let himself slip down to the bed of the cart. The wool blankets were
where he'd remembered them. Feeling his way through the darkness
reminded him of his brush with blindness. He told himself that the
shudder was only the cold of the morning.
The shifting of the cart became like the rocking of a ship or a cradle.