An Autumn War

Chapter Eleven

Nantani had been one of the first cities built when the Second Empire reached out past its borders to put its mark on the distant lands they now inhabited. The palace of the Khai was topped by a dome the color of jade-a single stone shaped by the will of some longdead poet. When the sunlight warmed it in just the right way, it would chime, a low voice rolling out wordlessly over the whitewashed walls and blue tile roofs of the city.
Sinja had wintered in Nantani for a few seasons, retreating from the snowbound fields of the Westlands to wait in comfort for the thaw and spend the money he'd earned. He knew the scent of the sea here, the feel of the soft, chalky soil beneath his feet. He knew of an old man who sold garlic sausages from a stall near the temple that were the best he'd had in the world. He knew the sound of the great sun chime. He had not known that the deep, throbbing tone would also come when the palace below it burned.
There were other fires as well: pillars of black, rolling smoke that rose into the air like filthy clouds. The doors he passed as he walked down to the seafront were broken and splintered. The shutters at the windows clacked open and closed in the breeze. Often they passed wide swaths of half-dry blood on the ground or smeared on the rough white walls.
The city had been home to over a hundred thousand people. It had fallen in a morning.
l3alasar had sent three forces in through the wide streets to the Khai's palace, the poet's house, the libraries. When those three things were destroyed, the signal went out-brass horns blaring the sack. When the signal reached the remaining forces, it was a storm of chaos. Some men ran for the inner parts of the city, hoping to find richer pickings. Others grabbed the first mercantile house they saw and took whatever was there to find-goods, gold, women. For the time it took the sun to travel the width of a man's hand, Nantani was a scene from the old stories of hell as the soldiery took what they could for themselves.
And then the second call came, and the looting stopped. Those few who were so maddened by greed or lust that they ignored the call were taken to their captains, relieved of what wealth they had grabbed, and then a fifth of them killed as an example to others. This was an army of discipline, and the free-for-all was over. Now the studied, considered dismantling of the city began.
Quarter by quarter, street by street, the armies of Galt stripped the houses and basements, outbuildings and kitchens and coal stores. Sinja's own men led each force, calling out in breaking voices that Nantani had fallen, that her people were permanently indentured to Galt, their belongings forfeit. And all the wealth of the city was stripped down, put on carts and wagons, and pulled to a great pile at the seafront. Some men fought and were killed. Some fled and were hunted down or ignored, at the whim of the soldiers who found them. And the great blackening dome of jade sang out its grief and mourning.
Sinja caught sight of the pavilion erected by the growing pile of treasure. The banners of Galt and Gice hung from the bar that topped the fluttering canvas. Sinja and the soldiers Balasar Gice had sent to collect him strode to it. At the seafront, ships stood ready to receive what had once been Nantani, and was now the fortune of Galt. Balasar stood at a writing desk, consulting with a clerk over a ledger. The general still wore his armor-embroidered silk as thick as three fingers together. Sinja had seen its like before. Armor that would stop a spear or a sword cut, but weighed likely half as much as the man who wore it. And still when Balasar caught sight of them and walked forward, hand outstretched to Sinja, there was no weariness in him.
"Captain Ajutani," Balasar said, his hand clasping Sinja's, "come sit with me."
Sinja took a pose appropriate for a guard to his commander. It wasn't quite the appropriate thing, but it came near enough for the general to take its sense. Sinja walked behind the man to a low table where a bottle of wine stood open, two perfect porcelain wine bowls glowing white at its side. Balasar waved the attendant away and poured the wine himself. Sinja accepted a bowl and sat across from him.
"It was nicely done," Sinja said, gesturing with his free hand toward the city. "Well-managed and quick."
Balasar looked up, almost as if noticing the streets and warehouses for the first time. Sinja thought a hint of a smile touched the general's lips, but it was gone as soon as it came. The wine was rich and left Sinja's mouth feeling almost clean.
"It was competent," Balasar agreed. "But it can't have been easy. For you and your men."
"I didn't lose one of them," Sinja said. "I don't know that I've ever seen a campaign start where we took a city and didn't lose anyone."
"This is a different sort of war than the usual," Balasar said. And there, in the pale eyes, Sinja saw the ghosts. The general wasn't at ease, however casual he chose to he with his wine. It was an interesting fact, and Sinja put it at the back of his mind. "I wanted to ask after your men."
"Have there been complaints?"
"Not at all. Every report suggests that they did their work admirably. But this wasn't the adventure they expected."
"They expected the women they raped to look less like their sisters, that's truth," Sinja said. "And honestly, I expect we'll lose some. I don't know how it is in Galt, sir, but when I've taken a green company into battle the first time, we always lose some."
"Inexperience," Balasar said, agreeing.
"No, sir. I don't mean the enemy spits a few, though that's usually true as well. I mean there are always a few who came into the work with epics in their heads. Great battles, honor, glory. All that pig shit. Once they see what a battlefield or a sacked town really looks like, they wake up. Half these boys are still licking off the caul. Some of them will think better and sneak off."
"And how do you plan to address the problem?"
"Let them go," Sinja said and shrugged. "We haven't seen a fight yet, but before this is finished, we will. When it happens I'd rather have twenty soldiers than thirty men looking for a reason to retreat."
The general frowned, but he also nodded. At the edge of the pier, half a hundred seagulls took to the air at once, their cries louder than the waves. They wheeled once over the ships and then settled again, just where they had been.
"Unless you have a different opinion, sir," Sinja said.
"Do this," Balasar said, looking up from under his brow. "Go to them. Explain to them that I will never turn against my men. But if they leave me . . . if they leave my service, they aren't my men any longer. And if I find them again, I won't he lenient."
Sinja scratched his chin, the stubble just growing in, and felt a smile growing in his mind.
"I can see that they understand, sir," he said. "And it might stop some of the ones who'd choose to hang up their swords. But if there's someone you feel isn't loyal, one of my men that you think isn't yours, I'd recommend you kill him now. "There's no room on a campaign like this for someone who'll take up arms against the man that pays his wage.
Balasar nodded, leaning back in his chair.
"I think we understand each other," he said.
"Let's he certain," Sinja said, and put his hands open and palms-down on the table between them. "I'm a mercenary, and to judge by that pile of silk and cedar chests you're about to ship hack to Galt, you're the man who's got the money to pay my contract. If I've given you reason to think there's more happening than that, I'd rather we cleared it up now.
Balasar chuckled. It was a warm sound. That was good.
"Are you ever subtle?" Balasar asked.
"If I'm paid to be," Sinja said. "I've had a had experience working for someone who thought I might look better with a knife-shaped hole in my belly, sir, and I'd rather not repeat it. Have I done something to make you question my intentions?"
Balasar considered him. Sinja met his gaze.
"Yes," Balasar said. "You have. But it's nothing I would be comfortable hanging you for. Not yet at least. The poet, when you killed him. He addressed you in the familiar. Sinja-kya."
"Men begging for their lives sometimes develop an inaccurate opinion of how close they are to the men holding the blades," Sinja said, and the general had the good manners to blush. "I understand your position, sir. I've been living under the Khaiem for a long time now. You don't know my history, and if you did, it wouldn't help you. I've broken contracts before, and I won't lie about it. But I would appreciate it if we could treat each other professionally on this."
Balasar sighed.
"You've managed to shame me, Captain Ajutani."
"I won't brag about that if you'll agree to he certain you've a decent cause to kill me before taking action," Sinja said.
"Agreed," Balasar said. "But your men? I meant what I said about them."
"I'll be sure they understand," Sinja said, then swigged down the last of his wine, took a pose appropriate to taking leave of a superior, and walked hack into the streets of the fallen city, hoping that it wouldn't be clear from his stride that his knees felt loose. Not that a sane measure of fear could be held against him, but there was pride to consider. And someone was watching him. He could be damned sure of that. So he walked straight and calm through the streets and the smoke and the wailing of the survivors until he reached the camp outside the last trailing building of Nantani. The tents were far from empty-the thugs and free armsmen of Nlachi didn't all have a stomach for looting Nantani- but he didn't speak to his men until just after nightfall.
They had a fire burning, though the summer night wasn't cold. The light of it made the tents glow gold and red. The men were quiet. The boasting and swaggering that the Galts were doing didn't have a place here. It would have if the burning city had been made from gray Westlands stone. Sinja stood at the front on a plank set up on chairs in a makeshift dais. He wanted them to see him. The scouts he'd sent out to assure that the conversation was private returned and took a confirming pose. If General (;ice had set a watch over him, they'd gone to their own camps or else come from within his own company. He'd done what he could about the first, and the second there was no protection for. He raised his hands.
"So most of what we've done since the spring opened has been walk," he said. "Well, we're in summer now, and you've seen what war looks like. It's not the war I expected, that's truth. But it's the one we've got, and you can all thank the gods that we're on the side most likely to win. But don't think that because this went well, this is over with. It's a long walk still ahead of us."
He sighed and shifted his weight, the plank wobbling a little under his feet. A log in the fire popped, firing sparks up into the darkness like an omen.
"There arc a few of you right now who are thinking of leaving. Don't ... Quiet now! All of you! Don't lie to yourselves about it and don't lie to me. This is the first taste of war most of you've seen. And some of you might have had family or friends in Nantani. I did. But here's what I have to say to you: Don't do it. Right now it looks like our friends the Galts can't be stopped. All the gods know there's not a fighting force anywhere in the cities that could face them, that's truth. But there's worse things for an army to face than another army. Look at the size of this force, the simple number of men. It can't carry the food it needs with it. It can't haul that much water. We have to rely on the land we're covering. The low towns, the cities. The game we can hunt, the trees and coal we can feed into those traveling kilns of theirs. The water we can get from the rivers.
"If the cities North of here can organize-if they can burn the food and the trees so we have to spend more of our time finding supplies, if they foul the wells so that we can't move far from the rivers, if they get small, fast bands together to harass our hunting parties and scouts-we could still be in for hell's own fight. We took Nantani by surprise. "I'hat won't happen twice. And that's why I need every man among you here, keeping that from happening. And besides that, any of you that leave, the general's going to hunt down like low-town dogs and slit your bellies for you."
Sinja paused, looking out at the earnest, despairing faces of the boys he'd led from Machi. He felt old. He rarely felt old, but now he did.
"Don't be stupid," he said, and got down from the plank.
The men raised a late and halfhearted cheer. Sinja waved it away and headed back to his tent. Overhead, the stars shone where the smoke didn't obscure them. The cooks had made chicken and pepper rice. Stinging flies were out, and, to Sinja's mild disgust, Nantani seemed to be a haven for grass ticks. He spent a quiet, reflective time plucking the insects out of his skin and cracking them with his thumbnails. It was near midnight when he heard the roaring crash, thunder rolling suddenly from the ruined city, and then silence. The dome had fallen, then.
How many of his men would know what the sound had meant, he wondered. And how many would understand that he'd given them all the strategy for slowing the Galts, point by point by point. And how many would have snuck away to the North by morning, thinking they were being clever. But he could tell the general he'd done as he was told, and no man present would be able to say otherwise. So maybe he could lull the general back into trusting him for a while longer at least. And maybe Kiyan's husband would find a good way to make use of the time Sinja won for him.
"Ah, Kiyan-kya," he said to the night and the northern stars, "look what you've done. You've made me into a politician."
"MOST HIGH," ASHUA RADAANI SAID, TAKING A POSE. THAT WAS AN APOLOGY and a refusal, "this is ... this is folly. I understand that the poets are concerned, but you have to see that we have nothing that supports their suspicion. We're in summer. It's only a few weeks before we have to harvest the spring crops and plant for autumn. The men you're asking for ... we can't just send away our laborers."
Otah frowned. It was not a response his father would have gotten. The other Khaiem would have raised a hand, made a speech, perhaps only shifted hands into a pose asking for the speaker to repeat himself. The men and horses and wagons of grain and cheese and salt-packed meats would simply have appeared. But not for Otah Mach], the upstart who had not won his chair, who had married a wayhouse keeper and produced only one son and that one sickly. fie felt the urgency like a hand pressing at his hack, but he forced himself to remain calm. He wouldn't have what he wanted by blustering now. He smiled sweetly at the round, soft man with his glittering rings and calculating eyes.
"Your huntsmen, then," Otah said. "Bring your huntsmen. And come yourself. Ride with me, Ashua-cha, and we'll go see whether there's any truth to this thing. If not, you can bear witness yourself, and reassure the court."
The young man's lips twisted into a half-smile.
"Your offer is kind, Most High," he said. "My huntsmen are yours. I will consult with my overseer. If my house can spare me, I would he honored to ride at your side."
"It would please me, Ashua-cha," Otah said. "I leave in two days, and I look forward to your company."
"I will do all I can."
They finished the audience with the common pleasantries, and a servant girl showed the man out. Otah called for a howl of tea and used the time to consider where he stood. If Radaani sent him a dozen huntsmen, that took the total to almost three hundred men. House Siyanti had offered up its couriers to act as scouts. None of the families of the utkhaiem had refused him; 1)aikani and old Kamau had even given him what he asked. The others dragged their feet, begged his forgiveness, compromised. If Radaani had hacked him, the others would have fallen in line.
And if he had thought Radaani was likely to, he'd have met with him first instead of last.
It was the price, he supposed, of having played the game so poorly up to now. Had he been the man they expected him to be all these years-had he embraced the role he'd accepted and fathered a dozen sons on as many wives and assured the ritual bloodbath that marked the change of generations-they would have been more responsive now. But his own actions had called the forms of court into question, and now that he needed the traditions, he half-regretted having spent years defying them.
The tea came in a bowl of worked silver carried on a pillow. The servant, a man perhaps twenty years older than Otah himself with a long, well-kept beard and one clouded eye, presented it to him with a grace horn of long practice. This man had done much the same before Otah's father, and perhaps his grandfather. The presentation of this howl of tea might be the study and center of this man's life. The thought made the tea taste worse, but Otah took as warm a pose of thanks as would be permitted between the Khai Machi and a servant, however faithful.
Utah rose, gesturing to the doorway. One of his half-hundred attendants rushed forward, robes flowing like water over stones.
"I'll see him now," Otah said. "In the gardens. And see we aren't disturbed."
The sky was gray and ivory, the breeze from the south warm as breath and nearly as gentle. The cherry trees stood green-the pink of the blossoms gone, the crimson of the fruit not yet arrived. The thicker blossoms of high summer had begun to unfurl, rose and iris and sun poppy. The air was thick with the scent. Utah walked down the path, white gravel fine as salt crunching like snow under his feet. Ile found Nlaati sitting on the lip of a stone pool, gazing up at the great fountain. Twice as high as a man, the gods of order stood arrayed in has-relief shaped from a single sheet of bronze. The dragons of chaos lay cowed beneath their greened feet. Water sluiced down the wall, clear until it touched the brows and exultant, upraised faces of the gods, and there it splattered white. Utah sat beside his old friend and considered.
"The dragon's not defeated," Nlaati said. "Look. You see the third head from the left? It's about to bite that woman's calf. And the man on the end? The one who's looking down? I le's lost his balance."
"I hadn't noticed," Utah said.
"You should have another one made with the dragons on top. Just to remind people that it's never over. Even when you think it's done, there's something waiting to surprise you."
Utah nodded, dipping his fingers into the dancing ripples of the pool. Gold and white koi darted toward his fingertips and then as quickly away.
"I understand if you're angry with me," Otah said. "But I didn't ask him. Nayiit came to me. He volunteered."
"Yes. Liat told me."
"He's spent half a season in the Dai-kvo's village. He knows it better than anyone but you or Cehmai."
Nlaati looked up. There was a darkness in his expression.
"You're right," Maati said. "If this is the Galts and they've freed the andat, then protecting the Dai-kvo is critical. But it would be faster to send for him to come to us. We can build defenses here, train men. Pre„ pare.
"And if the Uai-kvo didn't come?" Otah asked. "How long has he been mulling over Liat's report that the Galts have a poet of their own? I've sent word. I've sent messages. The world can't afford to wait and see if the I)ai-kvo suddenly becomes decisive."
"And you speak for the world now, do you?" There was acid in Maati's tone, but Otah could hear the fear behind it and the despair. "If you insist on charging out into whatever kind of war you find out there, take one of us with you. We've lived there. We know the village. Cehmai's still young. Or strap me on the back of a horse and pull me there. Leave Nayiit out of this."
"He's a grown man," Otah said. "He's not a child any longer. He has his own mind and his own will. I thought about refusing him, for your sake and for Liat's. But what would that be to him? He's not still wrapped in crib cloths. How would I say that I wanted him safe because his mother would worry for him?"
"And what about his father," Maati said, but it had none of the inflection of a question. "You have an opinion, Most High, on what his father would think."
Utah's belly sank. He dried his hand on his sleeve, only thinking afterward that it was the motion of a commoner-a dockfront laborer or a midwife's assistant or a courier. The Khai Machi should have raised an arm, summoned a servant to dry his fingers for him on a cloth woven for the purpose and burned after one use. His face felt mask-like and hard as plaster. Ile took a pose that asked clarification.
"Is that the conversation we're having, then?" he asked. "We're talking about fathers?"
"We're talking about sons," Maati said. "We're talking about you scraping up all the disposable men that the utkhaiem can drag out of comfort houses and slap sober enough to ride just so they can appease the irrational whims of the Khai. Taking those men out into the field because you think the armies of Galt are going to slaughter the Dal-kvo is what we're talking about, and about taking Nayiit with you."
"You think I'm wrong?"
"I know you're right!" Maati was breathing hard now. His face was flushed. "I know they're out there, with an army of veterans who are perfectly accustomed to hollowing out their enemies' skulls for wine bowls. And I know you sent Sinja-cha away with all the men we had who were even half trained. If you come across the Galts, you will lose. And if you take Nayiit, he'll die too. He's still a child. He's still figuring out who he is and what he intends and what he means to do in the world. And-"
"Maati. I know it would be safer for me to stay here. For Nayiit to stay here. But it would only be safe for the moment. If we lose the Daikvo and all he knows and the libraries he keeps, having one more safe winter in Machi won't mean anything. And we might not even manage the winter."
hlaati looked away. Otah bowed his head and pretended not to have seen the tears on his old friend's cheeks.
"I've only just found him again," Maati said, barely audible over the splashing water. "I've only just found him again, and I don't want him taken away."
"I'll keep him safe," Otah said.
Maati reached out his hand, and Otah let him lace his fingers with his own. It wasn't an intimacy that they had often shared, and against his will, Otah found something near to sorrow tightening his chest. He put his free hand to Maati's shoulder. When Maati spoke, his voice was thick and Otah no longer ignored his tears.
"We're his fathers, you and I," Maati said. "So we'll take care of him. Won't we?"
"Of course we will," Otah said.
"You'll see him home safe."
"Of course."
Maati nodded. It was an empty promise, and they both knew it. Otah smoothed a palm over llaati's thinning hair, squeezed his palm one last time, and stood. He was moved to speak, but he couldn't find any words that would say what he meant. Instead he turned and softly walked away. His servants and attendants waited just outside the garden, attentive as puppies whose mother has left them. Otah waved them away, as he always had. And as he might not do again. The Master of Tides brought the ledger that outlined the rest of his day, and the day after, and was suddenly perfectly blank after that. In two days, he would he traveling with what militia he could, and there was no point planning past that. As the man spoke, Otah gently took the book from him, closed it, and handed it hack. The Master of rides went silent, and no one followed Otah when he walked away.
He strode through the palaces, ignoring the poses of obeisance and respect that bloomed wherever he went. He didn't have time for the forms and rituals. He didn't have time to respect the traditions he was about to put his life in danger to protect. He wasn't entirely sure what that said about him. He took the wide, marble stairs two at a time, rising up from the lower palace toward his personal apartments. When he arrived, Kivan wasn't there. Ile paced the rooms, plucking at the papers on the wide table he'd had brought for him. Maps and histories and lists of names. Numbers of men and of wagons and routes. It looked like a nest for rats: the piled hooks, the scattered notes. It was vaguely ridiculous, he thought as he read over the names of the houses and families who had sworn him support. He was no more a general than he was a tinsmith, and still, here he was, the man stuck with the job.
He didn't recall picking up the map. And yet there it was, in his hands. His eyes traced the paths he and his men might take. He and the men Maati had called disposable. It wasn't the first time he'd wished Sinja-cha were still in the city, if only to have the dispassionate eye of a man who had actually fought in the field. Otah was an amateur at war. He had the impression that it was a poor field for amateurs. He traded the map for the lists of men and studied it again as if there were a cipher hidden in it. He didn't notice when Kiyan and Eiah arrived. When he looked up from his papers, they were simply there.
His wife was calm and collected, though he could see the strain in the thinness of her lips and the tightness of her jaw. Her hair was grayer now than the image of her in his mind. Her face seemed older. For a moment, he was hack in the wayhouse she'd taken over from her father, years ago in ildun. He was in her common room, listening to a flute player fumble through old tunes that everyone knew, and wondering if the lovely fox-faced woman serving the wine had meant to touch his hand when she poured. From such small things are lives constructed. Something of his thought must have shown in his face, because her fea tures softened and something near a blush touched her cheeks as Eiah lowered herself to a couch and collapsed. He noticed that her usual array of rings and jewels were gone; but for the quality of her robe, she could have been a merchant's daughter.
"You look spent, Eiah-kya," Utah said. "Then, to Kiyan, "What's she been doing? Carrying stones tip the towers? And what's happened to jewelry?"
"Physicians don't wear metalwork," she said, as if he'd asked something profoundly stupid. "Blood gets caught in the settings."
"She's been with them all day," Kiyan said.
" We had a boy come in with a crushed arm," Eiah said, her eyes closed. "It was all bloody and the skin scraped off. It looked like something from a butcher's stall. I could see his knuckle hones. l)orin-cha cleaned it up and wrapped it. We'll know in a couple days whether he'll have to have it off."
"We'll know?" Utah asked. "They're having you decide the fate of men's elbows?"
He saw a dark glitter where his daughter's eyes cracked just slightly open. "Dorin-cha will tell me, and then we'll both know."
"She's been quite the asset, they say," Kiyan said. ""I'he matrons keep trying to send her away, and she keeps coming back. They tell her it's unseemly for her to he there, but the physicians seem flattered that she's interested."
"I like it," Eiah said, her voice slurring. "I don't want to stop. I want to help."
"You don't have to stop," Utah said. "I'II see to it."
""I'hank you, Papa-kya," Eiah murmured.
"Off to your bed," Kivan said, gently shaking Eiah's knee. "You're already half-dreaming."
Eiah frowned and grunted, but then came to her feet. She stumbled over to Utah, genuine exhaustion competing with the theatrics of being tired, and threw her arms around his neck. I ier hair smelled of the vinegar the physicians used to wash down their slate tables. He put his arms around her. He could feel tears welling up in his eyes. His baby girl, his daughter. Ile would see her tomorrow, and then he would march out into the gods only knew what.
"tomorrow, he told himself, I will see her again tomorrow. This won't he the last time. Not yet. He kissed her forehead and let her go.
Eiah tottered to her mother for another kiss, another hug, and then they were alone. Kiyan gently plucked the papers from his hands and put them back on the desk.
"I'm not certain that worked as a punishment," Otah said. "We're halfway to raising a physician."
"It lets her feel she's useful," Kiyan said as she pulled him to the couch. He sat at her side. "It's normal for her to want to feel she's in control of something. And she isn't squeamish. I'll hand her that much."
"I hope feeling useful is enough," Otah said. "She's got her own will, and I don't think she'd be past following it over a cliff if it led her there."
He saw Kiyan read his deeper meaning. I hope we are all still here to worry about it.
"We do as well by them as we can, love," she said.
"I think about Idaan," Otah said.
Kiyan took his hand.
"Eiah isn't your sister. She isn't going to do the things she did," she said. "And more to the point, you aren't your father."
For a moment, he was consumed by memories: the father he had met only once, the sister who had engineered the old man's murder. Hatred and violence and ambition had destroyed his family once. He supposed it was inevitable that he should fear it happening again. Otah raised Kiyan's hand to his lips, and then sighed.
"I have to go to Danat. I haven't seen him yet. Go with me?"
"He's asleep already, love. We stopped in on our way here. He won't wake before morning. And you'll have to find different stories to read to him next time. Everything you left there, he's read to himself. Our boy's going to grow up a scholar at this rate."
Otah nodded, pushing aside a moment's guilt over the relief he felt. Seeing Danat was one less thing, even if it was more important than most of the others he'd already done. And there would be tomorrow. 't'here would at least be tomorrow.
"How is he?"
"His color is better, but he has less energy. The fever is gone for now, but he still coughs. I don't know. No one does."
"Can he travel?"
Kiyan turned. Her gaze darted across his face as if he were a book that she was trying to read. Her hands took a querying pose.
"I've been thinking," Otah said. "Planning."
"For if you're killed," Kiyan said. Her voice made it plain she'd been thinking of it as well.
""I'he mines. If I don't come hack, I want you to take to the mines in the North. Cehmai will go with you, and he knows them better than anyone. If you can, take the children and as much gold as you can carry and head west. Sinja and the others will he there somewhere, working whatever contract they've taken. "They'll protect you."
"You're sending me to him?" Kiyan asked softly.
"Only if I don't come hack."
"You will."
"Still," Otah said. "If. . ."
"If," Kiyan agreed and took his hand. "Then, a long moment later, "We were never lovers, he and I. Not the way ..."
Otah put a finger to her lips, and she went quiet. There were tears in her eyes, and in his.
"Let's not open that again," he said.
"You could come away too. We could all leave quietly. The four of us and a fast cart."
"And spend our lives on a beach in Bakta," Otah said. "I can't. I have this thing to do. My city."
"I know. But I had to say it, just so I know it was said."
Otah looked down. His hands looked old-the knuckles knobbier than he thought of them, the skin looser. They weren't an old man's hands, but they weren't a young man's any longer. When he spoke, his voice was low and thoughtful.
"It's strange, you know. I've spent years chafing under the weight of being Khai Mach], and now that it's harder than it ever was, now that there's something real to lose, I can't let go of it. 'T'here was a man once who told me that if it were a choice between holding a live coal in my hare fist or letting a city of innocent people die, of course I would do my best to stand the pain. That it was what any decent man would do."
"Don't apologize," Kiyan said.
"Was I apologizing?"
"Yes," she said. "You were. You shouldn't. I'm not angry with you, and there's nothing to blame you for. They all think you've changed, you know, but this is who you've always been. You were a poor Khai Machi because it didn't matter until now. I understand; I'm just frightened to death, love. It's nothing you can spare me."
"Nlaati could be wrong," Otah said. "The Galts may be busy rolling over the Westlands and none of it anything to do with Stone-MadeSoft. I may arrive at the 1Jai-kvo's village and be laughed all the way back North."
"He's not wrong."
The great stones of the palaces creaked as they cooled, the summer sun fallen behind the mountains. The scent of incense long since burned and the smoke of snuffed lanterns filled the air like a voice gone silent. Shadows touched the corners of the apartments, deepening the reds of the tapestries and giving the light a feeling of physical presence. Kiyan's hand felt warm and lost in his own.
"I know he's not," Otah said.
lie left orders with the servants at his door that unless there was immediate threat to him or his family-fire or sudden illness or an army crossing the river-he was to he left alone for the night. He would speak with no one, he would read no letter or contract, he wished no entertainments. Only a simple meal for him and his wife, and the silence for the two of them to fill as they saw fit.
They told stories-reminiscences of Old Mani and the wayhouse in I1dun, the sound of the birds by the river. The time a daughter of one of the high families had snuck into the rooms her lover had taken and had to be smuggled back out. Otah told stories from his time as a courier, traveling the cities on the business of House Siyanti under his false name. They were all stories she'd heard before, of course. She knew all his stories.
They made love seriously and gently and with a profound attention. He savored every touch, every scent and motion. He fought to remember them and her, and he felt Kiyan's will to store the moment away, like food packed away for the long empty months after the last leaf of autumn has fallen. It was, Otah supposed, the kind of sex lovers had on the nights before wars, pleasure and fear and a sorrow that anticipated the losses ahead. And afterward, he lay against her familiar, beloved body and pretended to sleep until, all unaware, the pretense became truth and he dreamed of looking for a white raven that everyone else but him had seen, and of a race through the tunnels beneath Machi that began and ended at his father's ashes. He woke to the cool light of morning and Kiyan's voice.
"Sweet," she said again. Otah blinked and stretched, remembering his body. "Sweet, there's someone come to see you. I think you should speak with him."
Otah sat up and adopted a pose that asked the question, but Kiyan, half smiling, nodded toward the bedchamber's door. Before the servants could come and dress him, Otah pulled on rose-red outer robes over his bare skin and, still tying the stays, walked out to the main rooms. Ashua Radaani sat at the edge of a chair, his hands clasped between his knees. His face was as pale as fresh dough, and the jewels set in his rings and sewn in his robes seemed awkward and lost.
"Ashua-cha," Utah said, and the man was already on his feet, already in a pose of formal greeting. "What's happened?"
"Most High, my brother in Cetani ... I received a letter from him last night. The Khai Cetani is keeping it quiet, but no one has seen poet or andat in the court in some time."
"Not since the day Stone-blade-Soft escaped," Utah said.
"As nearly as we can reckon it," he agreed.
Utah nodded, but took no formal pose. Kiyan stood in the doorway, her expression half pleasure and half dread.
"May I have the men I asked of you, Ashua-cha?"
"You may have every man in my employ, Most High. And myself as well."
"I will take whoever is ready at dawn tomorrow," Utah said. "I won't wait past that."
Ashua Radaani bowed his way out, and Utah stood watching him leave. That would help, he thought. EIe'd want the word spread that Radaani was firmly behind him. The other houses and families might then change their opinions of what help could he spared. If he could double the men he'd expected to have ...
Kivan's low chuckle startled him. She still stood in the doorway, her arms crossed under her breasts. Her smile was gentle and amazed. Otah raised in hands in query.
"I have just watched the Khai Machi gravely accept the apology and sworn aid of his servant Radaani. A day ago you were an annoyance to that man. "Today, you're a hero from an Old Empire epic. I've never seen things change around a man so quickly as they change around vou."
"It's only because he's frightened. He'll recover," Otah said. "I'll he an incompetent again when he's safe and the world's hack where it was."
"It won't be, love," Kiyan said. "The world's changed, and it's not changing hack, whatever we do."
"I know it. But it's easier if I don't think too much about it just yet. When the Dai-kvo's safe, when the Galts are defeated, I'll think about it all then. Before that, it doesn't help," Otah said as he turned hack toward the bed they had shared for years now, and would for one more night at least. Her hand brushed his cheek as he stepped past, and he turned to kiss her fingers. There were no tears in her eyes now, nor in his.