didn't want to interrupt."
The woman nodded, sat back a degree, and folded her hands in her lap. A
wasp hummed through the air to hover between them before it darted away
into the foliage. He watched her weigh strategies and decide at last on
the blunt and straightforward.
"You have a son, I understand?" Issandra Dasin said.
"I do," Otah said.
"Only one."
It was, of course, what he had expected. He had made no provision for
Danat's role in the text of the treaty itself, but alliances among the
Khaiem had always taken the form of marriages. His son's future had
always been a tile in this game, and now that tile was in play.
"Only one," he agreed.
"As it happens, I have a daughter. Ana was three years old when the doom
came. She's eighteen now, and ..."
She frowned. It was the most surprising thing she'd done since her
arrival. The stone face shifted; the eyes he could not imagine weeping
glistened with unspilled tears. Otah was shocked to have misjudged her
so badly.
"She's never held a baby, you know," the woman said. "Hardly ever seen
one. At her age, you couldn't pull me out of the nursery with a rope.
The way they chuckle when they're small. Ana's never heard that. The way
their hair smells ..."
She took a deep breath, steadying herself. Otah leaned forward, his hand
on the woman's wrist.
"I remember," he said softly, and she smiled.
"It's beside the matter," she said.
"It's at the center of the matter," Otah said, falling reflexively into
a pose of disagreement. "And it's the part upon which we agree. Forgive
me if I am being forward, but you are offering your support for my
treaty in exchange for a marriage between our families? Your daughter
and my son."
"Yes," she said. "I am."
"There may be others who ask the same price. There is a tradition among
my people of the Khai taking several wives...."
"You didn't."
"No," Otah agreed. "I didn't."
The wasp returned, buzzing at Otah's ear. He didn't raise a hand, and
the insect landed on the brightly embroidered silk of his sleeve.
Issandra Dasin, mother of his son's future wife, leaned forward
gracefully and crushed it between her fingers.
"No other wives," she said.
"I would need assurances that the vote would be decisive," Otah said.
"You'll have them. I am a more influential woman than I seem."
Otah looked up. Above them, the sun burned behind a thin scrim of cloud.
The same light fell in Utani, spilling through the windows of Danat's
palace. If only there were some way to whisper to the sun and have it
relay the message to Danat: Are you certain you'll take this risk? A
life spent with a woman whom you've never met, whom you may never love?
His son had seen twenty summers and was by all rights a man. Before the
great diplomatic horde had left for Galt, they had discussed the
likelihood of a bargain of this sort. Danat hadn't hesitated. If it was
a price, he'd pay it. His face had been solemn when he'd said it. Solemn
and certain, and as ignorant as Otah himself had been at that age. There
was nothing else either of them could have said. And nothing different
that Otah could do now, except put off the moment for another few
breaths by staring up at the blinding sun.
"Very well," Otah said. Then again, "Very well."
"You also have a daughter," the woman said. "The elder child?"
"Yes," Otah said.
"Does she have a claim as heir?"
The image appeared in his mind unbidden: Eiah draped in golden robes and
gems woven into her hair as she dressed a patient's wounds. Otah
chuckled, then saw the beginnings of offense in his guest's expression.
He thought it might not be wise to appear amused at the idea of a woman
in power.
"She wouldn't take the job if you begged her," Otah said. "She's a
smart, strong-willed woman, but court politics give her a rash."
"But if she changed her mind. Twenty years from now, who can say that
her opinions won't have shifted?"
"It wouldn't matter," Otah said. "There is no tradition of empresses.
Nor, I think, of women on your own High Council."
She snorted derisively, but Otah saw he had scored his point. She
considered for a moment, then with a deep breath allowed herself to relax.
"Well then. It seems we have an agreement."
"Yes," Otah said.
She stood and adopted a pose that she had clearly practiced with a
specialist in etiquette. It was in essence a greeting, with nuances of a
contract being formed and the informality that came with close relations.
"Welcome to my family, Most High," she said in his language. Otah
replied with a pose that accepted the welcome, and if its precise
meaning was lost on her, the gist was clear enough.
After she had left, Otah strolled through the gardens, insulated by his
rank from everyone he met. The trees seemed straighter than he
remembered, the birdsong more delicate. A weariness he only half-knew
had been upon him had lifted, and he felt warm and energetic in a way he
hadn't in months. He made his way at length to his suite, his rooms, his
desk.
Kiyan-kya, it seems something may have gone right after all...
2
Ten years almost to the day before word of Otah's pact with the Galts
reached him, Maati Vaupathai had learned of his son's death at the hands
of Galtic soldiers. A fugitive only just abandoned by his only
companion, he had made his way to the south like a wounded horse finding
its way home. It had not been the city itself he had been looking for,
but a woman.
Liat Chokavi, owner and overseer of House Kyaan, had received him.
Twice, they had been lovers, once as children, and then again just
before the war. She had told him of Nayiit's stand, of how he had been
cut down protecting the Emperor's son, Danat, as the final assault on
Machi began. She spoke with the chalky tones of a woman still in pain.
If Maati had held hopes that his once-lover might take him in, they did
not survive that conversation. He left her house in agony. He had not
spoken to her since.
Two years after that, he took his first student, a woman named Halit.
Since then, his life had become a narrow, focused thing. He had remade
himself as a teacher, as an agent of hope, as the Dai-kvo of a new age.
It was less glamorous than it sounded.
All that morning he had lain in the small room that was presently his
home, squinting at the dirty light that made its way through the
oiledparchment window and thinking of the andat. Thinking of thoughts