Farrer's nod made it clear that he would have preferred not to. The
singers above them reached the end of one song, paused, and launched
into another. Issandra stepped forward smiling and rested her hand on
Otah's arm.
"Forgive my husband," she said. "He was never fond of shipboard life.
And he spent seven years as a sailor."
"I hadn't known that," Otah said.
"Fighting Eymond," the councilman said. "Sank twelve of their ships.
Burned their harbor at Cathir."
Otah smiled and nodded. He wondered how his own history as a fisherman
would be received if he shared it now. He chose to leave the subject behind.
"The weather is treating us gently," Otah said. "We will be in Saraykeht
before summer's end."
He could see in all their faces that it had been the wrong thing. The
father's jaw tightened, his nostrils flared. The mother's smile lost its
sharp corners and her eyes grew sad. Ana looked away.
"Come see what they've done with the kitchens, Most High," Issandra
said. "It's really quite remarkable."
After a short tour of the ship, Issandra released him, and Otah made his
way to the dais that was intended for him. Other guests arrived from
Galtic ships and the utkhaiem, each new person greeting the councilman
and his family, and then coming to Otah. He had expected to see a
division among them: the Galts resentful and full of barely controlled
rage much like Fatter Dasin, and Otah's own people pleased at the
prospects that his treaty opened for them. Instead, he saw as the guests
came and went, as the banquet was served, as priests of Galt intoned
their celebratory rites, that opinions were more varied and more complex.
At the opening ceremony, the divisions were clear. Here, the robes of
the Khaiem, there the tunics and gowns of the Galts. But very quickly,
the people on the deck began to shift. Small groups fell into
discussion, often no more than two or three people. Otah's practiced eye
could pick out the testing smile and almost flirtatious laughter of men
on the verge of negotiation. And as the evening progressed-candles
burning down and being replaced, slow courses of wine and fish and meat
and pastry making their way from the very cleverly built kitchens to the
gently shifting deck-as many Galts as utkhaiem had the glint in their
eyes that spoke of sensed opportunity. Larger groups formed and broke
apart, the proportions of their two nations seeming almost even. Otah
felt as if he'd stirred a muddy pool and was now seeing the first
outlines of the new forms that it might take.
And yet, some groups were unmoved. Two clusters of Galts never budged or
admitted in anyone wearing robes, but also a fair-sized clot of people
of the cities of the Khaiem sat near the far rail, their backs to the
celebration, their conversation almost pointedly relying on court poses
too subtle for foreigners to follow.
Women, Otah noted. The people of his nation whose anger was clearest in
their bodies and speech tended to be women. He thought of Eiah, and cool
melancholy touched his heart. Trafficking in wombs, she would have
called it. To her, this agreement would be the clearest and most nearly
final statement that what mattered about the women of the cities-about
his own daughter-was whether they could bear. He could hear her voice
saying it, could see the pain in the way she held her chin. He murmured
his counterarguments, as if she were there, as if she could hear him.
It wasn't a turning away, only an acknowledgment of what they all knew.
The woman of the Khaiem were just as clever, just as strong, just as
important as they had ever been. The brokering of marriage-and yes,
specifically marriage bent on producing children-was no more an attack
on Eiah and her generation than building city militias or hiring
mercenary companies or any of the other things he had done to hold the
cities safe had been.
It sounded patronizing, even to him.
There had to be some way, he thought, to honor and respect the pain and
the loss that they had suffered without forfeiting the future. He
remembered Kiyan warning him that some women-not all, but somewho could
not bear children went mad from longing. She told stories of babies
being stolen, and of pregnant women killed and the babes taken from
their dying wombs.
Wanting could be a sickness, his wife had said. He remembered the night
she'd said it, where the lantern had been, how the air had smelled of
burning oil and pine boughs. He remembered his daughter's expression at
hearing the phrase, like she'd found expression for something she'd
always known, and his own sense of dread. Kiyan had tried to warn him of
something, and it had to do with the backs of the people now at the
rails, turned away from the Galts and the negotiated future forming
behind them. Eiah had known. Otah felt he had still only half-grasped
it. Fatter Dasin, he thought, might see it more clearly.
"It appears to be going quite well, wouldn't you say, Most High?"
Balasar Gice stood beside the dais, his hands in a pose of greeting. The
cool night air or else the wine had touched his cheeks with red.
"Does it? I hope so," Otah said, smoothing away his darker thoughts. "I
think there are more trade agreements than wars brewing tonight. It's
hard to know"
"There's hope," Balasar said. And then, his voice growing reflective,
"There's hope, and that's actually quite new. I hadn't realized it had
become quite such a rare thing, these last few years."
"How nice," Otah said more sharply than he'd intended. Balasar looked at
him more closely, and Otah waved the concern away. "I'm old and tired.
And I've eaten more Galtic food than I could have wanted in a lifetime.
It's astounding you people ever got up from your tables."
"You aren't expected to finish every dish," Balasar said. "Ah, I think
the entertainment has begun."
Otah looked up. Servants and sailors were silently moving across the
deck like a wind over the water. The glow of candles lessened and the
scent of spent wicks filled the air as a stage appeared as if conjured
across the deck from Otah's dais. The singers that had hung from the
rigging had apparently made their way down, because they rose now,
taking their places. Servants placed three more chairs on the dais at
Otah's side, and Councilman Dasin and his family took their seats.
Fatter smelled prodigiously of distilled wine and sat the farthest from
him, his wife close at his side, leaving Ana nearest to Otah.
The singers bowed their heads for a moment, then the low sounds of their