against water jerked them away from the bank and into the river. It
seemed as if a breeze had come up, though it was likely only the speed
of the boat. Eiah sat beside Maati, taking his wrists.
"We told them the child was the get of one of the utkhaiem on a
Westlands girl. Vanjit is the nurse."
Maati nodded. It was as good a lie as any. At the bow, Vanjit looked
back at the sound of her name. Her eyes were clear, but something in the
set of her face made him think she'd been crying. Eiah frowned, pinching
his fingertips until they went white, then waiting for the blood to pour
back into them.
"She asked about your tablets," he said. "You have been busy with them.
The binding?"
"I'm trying to cut deep enough that I can read it with my fingers," Eiah
said quietly. "It's a better exercise than I'd expected. I think I've
seen some ways to improve the grammar itself. It will mean another
draft, but ... How are you feeling?"
"What? Ah, fine. I feel fine."
"Tired?"
"Of course I'm tired. I'm old and I've been on the road too long and ..."
And I have loosed a mad poet on the world, he thought. All the cruelties
and tricks of the Dai-kvo, all the pain and loss that I suffered to be a
poet was justified. If it kept people like Vanjit from the power of the
andat, it was all justified. And I have ignored it.
As if reading the words in his eyes, Eiah glanced over her shoulder at
Vanjit. The sun was shining off the water, surrounding the dark, huddled
girl with a brilliant halo of gold and white. When Maati looked away,
the image had scarred his eyes. It lay over everything else he saw,
black where it had been light, and a pale shape the color of mourning
robes where Vanjit had been.
"I'm making your tea," Eiah said, her voice grim. "Stay here and rest."
"Eiah-kya? We ... we have to kill her," Maati said.
Eiah turned to him, her expression empty. He gestured to Vanjit's back.
His hand trembled.
"Before your binding," he said, "we should be sure that it's safe for
you. Or, that is, as safe as we can make it. You ... you understand."
Eiah sighed. When she spoke again, her voice was distant and reflective.
"I knew a physician in Lachi. She told me about being in a low town when
one of the men caught blood fever. He was a good person. Wellliked. This
was a long time ago, so he had children. He'd gone out hunting and come
back ill. She had them smother him and burn the body. His children
stayed in their house and screamed the whole time they did it. She
didn't sleep well for years afterward."
Her eyes were focused on nothing, her jaw forward as if she was facing
someone down. Man or god or fate.
"You're saying it's not her fault," Maati said softly, careful not to
speak Vanjit's name. "She was a little girl who had her family
slaughtered before her. She was a lost woman who wanted a child and
could never have one. What's wrong with her mind was done to her."
Eiah took a pose that disagreed.
"I'm saying no matter how little my physician friend slept, she saved
those children's lives," Eiah said. "There are some herbs. When we stop
for the night, I can gather them. I'll see it's done."
"No. No, I'll do the thing. If it's anyone, it should-"
"It will have to be quick," Eiah said. "She mustn't know it's coming.
You can't do that."
Maati took a pose that challenged her, and Eiah folded his hands gently
closed.
"Because you still want to save her," she said. Something about
weariness and determination made her look like her father.
Otah, who had killed a poet once too.
23
Otah rose in the mornings with stiff, aching joints and a pain in his
side that would not fade. The steamcarts allowed each of them the chance
to sleep for a hand or two in the late mornings or just after the midday
meal. Without the rest, Otah knew he wouldn't have been able to keep
pace with the others.
The courier found them on the road. His outer robe was the colors of
House Siyanti and mud-spattered to the waist. His mount cantered
alongside the carts now, cooling down from the morning's travel as its
rider waited for replies. The man's satchel held a dozen letters at
least, but only one had occasioned his speed. It was written on paper
the color of cream, sewn with black thread, and the imprint in the wax
belonged to Balasar Gice. Otah sat in his saddle, afraid to open it and
afraid not to.
The thread ripped easily and the pages unfolded. Otah skimmed the letter
from beginning to end, then began again, reading more slowly, letting
the full import of the words wash over him. He folded the letter and
slipped it into his sleeve, his heart heavy.
Danat drew closer, his hands in a pose that both called for inclusion
and offered sympathy. The boy might not know what had happened, but he'd
drawn the fact that it wasn't good.
"Chaburi-Tan," Otah said, beginning with the least of the day's losses.
"It's gone. Sacked. Burned. We don't know whether the mercenaries turned
sides or simply wouldn't protect it, but it comes to the same thing. The
pirates attacked the city, took what they could, and set the rest alight."
"And the fleet?"
Otah looked at the roadside. Sun had melted the snow as far as its light
could reach, but the shadows were still pale. Otah had known Sinja
Ajutani for more years than not. The dry humor, the casual disrespect of
all things pompous or self-certain, the knife-sharp and unsentimental
analysis of any issue. When Kiyan died, they had been the only two men
in the world who truly understood what had been lost.
Now, only Otah knew.
"What ships remain have been set to guard the seafront at Saraykeht," he
said when he could speak again. "The thought is that winter will protect
Yalakeht and Amnat-Tan. When the thaw comes in spring, we may have to
revisit the plan."
"Are you all right, Papa-kya?"
"I'll be fine," Otah said, then he raised his hand and called the
courier close. "Tell them I read it. Tell them I understood."
The courier made his obeisance, turned his mount, and rode away. Otah
let himself sit with his grief. The other letters for him could wait.
They had come from his Master of Tides, and from others he'd named to
watch the Empire crumble in his absence. Two had been for Ana Dasin, and
he assumed they were from her parents. The letters had made their way up
from Saraykeht and then along the low roads, tracking Otah and his party
for days. And each day had marked the ending of lives, in Galt
especially, but everywhere.
He had known that Sinja might die. He'd sent the fleet out knowing it