‘I suppose this is to do with me,’ Otah said.
‘We only wanted to see that you were safe, Most High,’ the captain said. The words were strangled. Otah hesitated, then took a pose of apology.
‘I needed solitude,’ he said. ‘I should have told you before I left. But if I’d been clear-minded, I likely wouldn’t have needed to leave. Please accept my apology.’
There was little enough the man could do. Moments later, the armsmen were scattering back to the wayhouse or the stables. The smell of doused torches filled the air like a forest on fire. Danat and Idaan stood side by side.
‘Should I apologize to you as well?’ Otah asked with a half-smile.
‘Isn’t called for,’ Idaan said. ‘I was only keeping your boy near to hand in case you reconsidered my death order.’
‘Next time, maybe,’ Otah said, and Idaan grinned. ‘Is there anything warm to drink in this place?’
The young keeper brought them the best food the wayhouse had to offer - river fish baked with red pepper and lemon, sweet rice, almond milk with mint, hot plum wine, and cold water. They arrayed themselves through the main room, all other guests being turned away by the paired guards at every door. Ana and Ashti Beg were in a deep conversation about the strategies they’d developed in their new sightlessness. Danat sat nearer the fire, watching them with a naked longing in his expression that would have made Ana blush, Otah thought, had she been able to see it. Otah and Idaan sat together at a low table, passing the chipped lacquer bowls back and forth. The armsmen who weren’t on duty had taken a back room, and their voices came in occasional outbursts of hilarity and song.
It could have been the image of peace, of something approaching a family passing a road-wearied night in warmth and companionship. And perhaps it was. But it was other things as well.
‘You look better,’ Idaan said, freshening the wine in his bowl. Fragrant steam rose from it, astringent and rich with the scent of the fruit.
‘I am for now,’ Otah said. ‘I’ll be worse again later.’
‘Have you made up your mind, then?’ she asked. He sighed. Ashti Beg illustrated some point with a wide, vague gesture. Danat placed a new length of pine on the fire.
‘There isn’t an answer,’ Otah said. ‘They have all the power. All I can do is ask them to reconsider. So I suppose I’ll do that and see what happens next. I know that you think I should go in and kill them all—’
‘I didn’t say that,’ Idaan said. ‘I said it was what I would do. My judgment on those matters is . . . occasionally suspect.’
Otah sipped his wine, then put the bowl down carefully.
‘I think that’s the nearest you’ve ever come to apologizing,’ he said.
‘To you, perhaps,’ Idaan said. ‘I spent years talking to the dead about it. They didn’t have much to say back.’
‘Do you miss them?’
‘Yes,’ Idaan said without hesitation. ‘I do.’
They lapsed into silence again. Danat and Ashti Beg were in the middle of a lively debate over the ethics of showfighting, Ana listening to them both with a frown. Her hand pressed her belly as if the fish was troubling her.
‘If Maati were here tonight,’ Otah said, ‘and demanded that he be named emperor, I think I’d give it to him.’
‘He’d hand it back in a week,’ Idaan said with a smile.
‘Who’s to say I’d take it?’
They left in the morning, the horses rested or changed for fresh, the carts restocked with wood and coal and water. Ana looked worse, but kept a brave face. Idaan stayed with her like a personal guard, to Danat’s visible annoyance. A cold wind haunted them, striking leaves from the trees.
News of the Emperor’s party came close to overwhelming stories of the mysterious baby at the wayhouse. No couriers came to trouble Otah with word of fire or death. Twice, Otah dreamed that Sinja was riding at his side, robes soaked with seawater and black as a bat’s wing, and he woke each time with an obscure feeling of peace. And with every stop, they found the poets had passed before them more and more recently.
Three days ago. Then two.
When they reached the river Qiit, tea-dark with newly fallen leaves, just the day before.
24
The cold caught up with them in the middle of the day, a wind from the west that rattled the trees and sent tiny whitecaps across the river’s back. They had covered a great stretch of river in their day’s travel, but night meant landing. The boatman was adamant. The river, he said, was a living thing; it changed from one journey to the next. Sandbars shifted, rocks lurked where none had been before. The boat was shallow enough to pass over many dangers, but a log invisible in the darkness could break a hole in the deck. Better to run in the daylight than swim in the dark. The way the boatman said it left no room for disagreement.
They camped at the riverside, and awakened with tents and robes soaked heavy by dew. Morning light saw them on the water again, the boiler at the stern muttering angrily to itself, the paddle wheel punishing the water.
Maati sat away from the noise, huddled in two wool robes, and watched the trees march from the north to the south like an army bent on sacking Saraykeht. Large Kae and Small Kae sat in the stern, making conversation with the boatman and his second when the men would deign to speak. Vanjit and Eiah turned around each other, one in the bow, the other in the center of the craft, both maintaining a space between them, the andat watching with rage and hunger in its black eyes. It was like watching an alley-mouth knife fight drawn out over hours and days.
It was hard now to remember the days before they had been splintered. The years he had spent in hiding had seemed like a punishment at the time. Living in warehouses, giving the lectures he half-recalled from his own youth and half-invented anew, trying to understand the ways in which a woman’s mind was not a man’s and how that power could be channeled into grammar. He had resented it. He recalled crawling onto a cot, exhausted from the day’s work. He could still picture the expressions of hunger and determination on their faces. He had not seen it then, but it had all of it been driven by hope. Even the sorrow and mourning that came after a binding failed and they lost someone to the andat’s grim price had held a sense of community.
Now they had won, and the world seemed all cold wind and dark water. Even the two Kaes seemed to have set themselves apart from Vanjit, from Eiah, from himself. The nights of conversation and food and laughter were gone like a pleasant dream. They had created a women’s grammar and the price was higher than he could have imagined.
Murder. He was planning to murder one of his own.
As he had expected, the boat was too small for any more private conversations. He had managed no more than a few moments with Eiah when none of the others were paying them attention. Something in Vanjit’s wine, perhaps, to slow her mind and deepen her sleep. She mustn’t know that the blow was coming.
He could see that it weighed on Eiah as much as it did upon him. She sat carving soft wood with a knife wherever Vanjit was not, her mouth in a vicious scowl. The wax tablets that had been her whole work before he’d come to her lay stacked in a crate. The latest version of Wounded, waiting for his analysis and approval. He imagined the two of them would sit nearer each other if it weren’t for the fear that Vanjit would suspect them of plotting. And he would not fear that except that it was truth.
For their own part, Vanjit and Clarity-of-Sight held to themselves. Poet and andat in apparent harmony, watching the night sky or penetrating the secrets of wood and water that only she could see. Vanjit hadn’t offered to share the wonders the andat revealed since before they had left the school, and Maati couldn’t bring himself to ask the favor. Not knowing what he knew. Not intending what he intended.
When evening came, the boatman sang out, his second joining the high whooping call. There was no reason for it that Maati could see, only the habit of years. The boat angled its way to a low, muddy bank. When the water was still enough, the second dropped over the side
and slogged to the line of trees, a rope thick as his arm trailing behind him. Once the rope had been made fast to the trees, he called out again, and the boatman shifted the mechanism of the boiler from paddle wheel to winch, and the great rope went taut. It creaked with the straining, and river water flowed from the strands as if giant hands were wringing it. By the time the boatman stopped, the craft was almost jumping distance from the shore and felt as solid as a building.
It made Maati uncomfortable, afraid that they had grounded it so well that they wouldn’t be able to free it in the morning. The boatman and his second showed no unease.
A wide plank made a bridge between boat and shore. The boatman wrestled it into place with a stream of perfunctory vulgarity. The second, his robes soaked and muddied, trotted back onto the deck.
‘We’re doing well, eh?’ Maati said to the boatman. ‘The distance we went today must have been four days’ ride.’
‘We’ll do well enough,’ the boatman agreed. ‘Have you in Utani before the last leaf drops, that’s certain.’
Large Kae went across to the shore, two tents on her wide back. Eiah was just behind her with a crate of food to make the evening meal. The twilight sky was gray streaked with gold, and the calls of birds gave some hint to where the boatman’s songs had found their start. On another night, it would have been beautiful.
‘How many days do you think that would be?’ Maati asked, trying to keep his tone light and friendly. From the boatman’s perfunctory smile, it wasn’t an unfamiliar question.
‘Six days,’ the boatman said. ‘Seven. If it’s been raining to the north and the river starts running faster, it could go past that, but this time of year, that’s rare.’
Vanjit shifted past them, brushing against Maati as she stepped onto the plank. The andat was curled against her, its head resting on her shoulder like a tired child might.
‘Thank you,’ Maati said.
They made camp a dozen yards inland, where the ground was dry. It was habit now. Routine. Eiah dug the fire pit, Small Kae gathered wood. Large Kae put the sleeping tents in place. Irit would have started cooking, but Maati knew well enough how to take her part. A few bowlfuls of river water, crushed lentils that had been soaking since morning, slivers of salted pork, an onion they’d hauled almost from the school. It made for a better soup than Maati had first expected, though the gods all knew he was tired of it now. It would keep them alive until morning.
Vanjit stepped out of the shadows just as Maati filled a bowl for the boatman, the andat on one hip, a satchel on the other. Everyone was aware that she hadn’t helped to make camp. No one complained. In the firelight, she looked younger even than she was. Her eyes flashed, and she smiled.
Vanjit sat at Maati’s side, accepting the next full bowl. The andat rested at her feet, shifting its weight as if to crawl away but then shifting back. The boatman and his second went back to their boat, bowls steaming in their hands. It was, Maati supposed, all well for passengers to sleep on the shore, but someone needed to stay with the boat. Better for them as well. It would have been awkward, explaining why the baby’s breath didn’t fog.
When they had gone, Eiah rose to her feet. The darkness under her eyes was dispelled by her smile. The others looked up at her.
‘I would like to announce a small celebration,’ she said. ‘I’ve been reworking the binding for Wounded, and as of today, the latest version is complete.’
Small Kae smiled and applauded. Large Kae grinned. Eiah made a show of pulling a wineskin from her bags. They all applauded now. Even Vanjit. But Eiah’s gaze faltered when her eyes met Maati’s, and his belly soured.
Something in her wine to deepen her sleep. She mustn’t see the blow coming.
‘Yes,’ Maati said, trying to hide his fear. ‘Yes, I think celebration is in order.’
‘You’ve seen the new draft?’ Vanjit asked as Eiah poured the wine into bowls. ‘Is it ready?’
‘I haven’t been through it all as yet,’ he said. ‘There are some changes that make me optimistic. By Udun, I’ll have a better-informed opinion.’
The two Kaes were toasting each other, the fire. Eiah came to Maati and Vanjit. She pressed bowls into their hands, and went back to pour one for herself. Maati drank quickly, grateful for something to do that would occupy his hands and his mind. If only for a moment.
Vanjit swirled her wine bowl, looking down at it with what might have been serenity.
‘Maati-kvo,’ Vanjit said. ‘Do you remember when I first came to you? Gods, it seems like it was a different life, doesn’t it? You were outside Shosheyn-Tan.’
‘Lachi,’ Eiah said from across the fire.
‘Of course,’ Vanjit said. ‘I remember now. I met Umnit at a bathhouse, and we’d started talking. She brought me to Eiah-cha, and Eiah brought me to you. It was that abandoned house, the one with all the mice.’
‘I remember,’ Maati said. The two Kaes exchanged a glance that Maati didn’t understand. Vanjit laughed, throwing back her head.
‘I can’t think what you saw in me back then,’ she said. ‘I must have looked like something the dogs wouldn’t eat.’
‘They were lean times for all of us,’ Maati said, forcing a jovial tone.
‘Not for you,’ she said. ‘Not with Eiah to look after you. No, don’t you pretend that she hasn’t supported us all from the start. Without her, we would never have come this far.’
Eiah took a pose that accepted the compliment and raised her wine bowl, but Vanjit still didn’t drink from her own. Maati willed her to drink the poison, to end this.
‘I think of who I was then,’ Vanjit said, her voice soft and contemplative. She sounded like a child. Or worse, like a grown woman trying to sound childish. ‘Lost. Empty. And then the gods touched my shoulder and turned me toward you. All of you, really. You’ve been the only family I’ve ever had. I mean, since the Galts came.’
At her feet, Clarity-of-Sight wailed as if heartbroken. Vanjit turned to it, her brow furrowed in concentration. The andat squirmed, shuddered, and became still. The tension in Maati’s shoulders was spreading to his throat. He could see Eiah’s hands clutching her bowl.
‘The only family I’ve had,’ Vanjit said, as if finding her place in a practiced speech. And then softly, ‘Did you think I wouldn’t know?’
Large Kae put down her bowl, her gaze shifting from Eiah to Vanjit and back. Maati shifted to the side, his throat almost too tight for words.
‘Know what?’ he asked. The words came out stilted and rough. Even he wasn’t convinced by them. Vanjit stared at him, disappointment in her expression. No one moved, but Maati felt something shifting in his eyes. The andat’s attention was on him, the tiny face growing more and more detailed with each heartbeat.
Vanjit held out the poisoned wine bowl. The color was wrong. No human would ever have seen the difference, but with the andat driving his vision and hers, there was no mistaking it. The deep red had a greenish taint that no other bowl suffered.
‘What . . . what’s that?’ Maati squeaked.
‘I don’t know,’ Vanjit said in a voice that meant she did. ‘Perhaps you should drink it for me, and we could see. But no. You’re too valuable. Eiah, perhaps?’
‘I’m sorry. Did I not clean the bowl well enough?’ Eiah asked. Vanjit threw her bowl into the fire, flames hissing and smoke rushing up in a cloud. There was rage in her expression.
‘Vanjit,’ Eiah said. ‘I don’t think . . .’
Vanjit ignored them, untying her satchel with a fast scrabbling motion. When she lifted it, blocks of wax spilled out, gray and white, like rotten ice. Maati saw bits of Eiah’s writing cut into them.
‘You were going to kill me,’ Vanjit said.
Eiah took a pose that denied the charge. The firelight flickered over Vanjit’s face, and for a moment, Maati thought the poet might believe the lie. He cleared his throat.
‘We wouldn’t do that,’ he said.
Vanjit turned to him, her expression empty and mad. At
his feet, the andat made a sound that might have been a warning or a laugh.
‘Do you think he only speaks to you?’ Vanjit spat.
Maati sputtered, falling back a step when Vanjit lunged forward. She only scooped up the andat, turned, and ran into the darkness.
Maati scrambled after her, calling her name with a deepening sense of despair. The trees were shadows within the night’s larger darkness. His voice seemed too weak to carry more than a few paces before him. It couldn’t have been more than half a hand - less than that, certainly - when he stopped to catch his breath. Leaning against an ancient ash, he realized that Vanjit was gone and he was lost, only the soft rushing of the river away to his left still there to guide him. He picked his way back, trying to follow the route he had taken and failing. A carpet of dry leaves made his steps loud. Something shifted in the branches overhead. The cold numbed his fingers and toes. The half-moon glimmering among the branches assured him that he had not been blinded. It was the only comfort he had.
Seasons of War Page 80