Seasons of War

by Abraham Daniel

  ‘Shall we go be the troll-like, unfair, unfeeling, stupid, venal dispensers of unjust punishment?’ she asked.

  The blue chamber was wide and round, a table of white marble dominating it like a sheet of ice floating in a far northern sea. The windows looked out on the gardens through walls so thick that sparrows and grackles perched in the sills and pecked at the carved meshwork of the inner shutters. Eiah had been pacing, but stopped when they came in. She looked from one to the other, trying for an innocence of expression that she couldn’t quite reach.

  ‘Come, sit,’ Kiyan said, gesturing to the table. Eiah came forward as if against her will and sat in one of the carved wooden chairs. Her gaze darted between the two of them, her chin already beginning to slide forward.

  ‘I understand you took something from a jeweler. A brooch,’ Otah said. ‘Is that true?’

  ‘Who told you that?’ Eiah asked.

  ‘Is it true?’ Otah repeated, and his daughter looked down. When she frowned, the same small vertical line appeared between her brows that would sometimes show Kiyan’s distress. Otah felt the passing urge to soothe her fears, but this wasn’t the moment for comfort. He scowled until she looked up, then down again, and nodded. Kiyan sighed.

  ‘Who told you?’ Eiah asked again. ‘It was Shoyen, wasn’t it? She’s jealous because Talit and I were—’

  ‘You told us, just now,’ Otah said. ‘That’s all that matters.’

  Eiah’s lips closed hard. Kiyan took a turn, telling Eiah that she’d done wrong, and they all knew it. Even she had to know that simply taking things wasn’t right. They had paid her debt, but now she would have to make it good herself. They had decided that she would work with the physicians for a week, and if she didn’t go, the physicians had instructions to send for . . .

  ‘I’m not going to,’ Eiah said. ‘It’s not fair. Talit Radaani sneaks things out of her father’s warehouse all the time and no one ever makes her do anything for it.’

  ‘I can see that changes,’ Otah said.

  ‘Don’t!’ Eiah barked. The birds startled away; a flutter of wings that sounded like panic. ‘Don’t you dare! Talit will hate me forever if she thinks I’m making her . . . Papa-kya! Please, don’t do that.’

  ‘It might be wise,’ Kiyan said. ‘All three girls were party to it.’

  ‘You can’t! You can’t do that to me!’ Eiah’s eyes were wild. She pushed back the chair as she stood. ‘I’ll tell them Nayiit’s your son! I’ll tell!’

  Otah felt the air go out of the room. Eiah’s eyes went wide, aware that she had just done something worse than stealing a bauble, but unsure what it was. Only Kiyan seemed composed and calm. She smiled dangerously.

  ‘Sit down, love,’ she said. ‘Please. Sit.’

  Eiah sat. Otah clasped his hands hard enough the knuckles ached, but there weren’t words for the mix of guilt and shame and anger and sorrow. His heart was too many things at once. Kiyan didn’t look at him when she spoke; her gaze was on Eiah.

  ‘You will never repeat what you’ve just said to anyone. Nayiit-cha is Liat’s son by Maati. Because if he isn’t, if he’s the thing you just said, then he will have to kill Danat or Danat will have to kill him. And when that happens, the blood will be on your hands, because you could have prevented it and chose not to. Don’t speak. I’m not finished. If any of the houses of the utkhaiem thought Danat was not the one and only man who could take his father’s place, some of them would start thinking of killing him themselves in expectation of Nayiit-cha favoring them once he became Khai Machi. I can’t protect him from everyone in this city, any more than I can protect him from air or his own body. You have done a wrong thing, stealing. And if you truly mean to hold your brother’s life hostage to keep from being chastised for it, I would like to know that now.’

  Eiah wept silently, shocked by the cold fire in Kiyan’s voice. Otah felt as if he’d been slapped as well. As if he ought somehow to have known, all those years ago, in that distant city, that the consequences of taking to his lover’s bed would come back again to threaten everything he held dear. His daughter took a pose that begged her mother’s forgiveness.

  ‘I won’t, Mama-kya. I won’t say anything. Not ever.’

  ‘You’ll apologize to the man you stole from and you will go in the morning to the physicians’ house and do whatever they ask of you. I will decide what to do about Talit and Shoyen.’

  ‘Yes, Mama-kya.’

  ‘You can leave now,’ Kiyan said and looked away. Eiah rose, silent except for the rough breath of tears, and left the room. The door closed behind her.

  ‘I’m sorry—’

  ‘Don’t,’ Kiyan said. ‘Not now. I can’t . . . I don’t want to hear it just now.’

  Otah rose and walked to the window. The sun was high, but the towers cast shadows across the city all the same, like trees above children. Far to the west, clouds were gathering over the mountains, towering white thunderheads with bases dark as a bruise. There would be a storm later. It would come. One of the sparrows returned, considered Otah once with each eye, and then flew away again.

  ‘What would you ask me to do?’ Otah said. His voice was placid. No one would have known from the words how much pain lay behind them. No one except Kiyan. ‘I can’t unmake him. Should I have him killed?’

  ‘How did Eiah know?’ Kiyan asked.

  ‘She saw. Or she guessed. She knew the way that you did.’

  ‘No one told her? Maati or Liat or Nayiit. None of them told her?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Because if they did, if they’re spreading it through the city that you have—’

  ‘They aren’t. I was there when she realized it. Only me. No one else.’

  Kiyan took a long, low, shuddering breath. If it had been otherwise - if someone had told Eiah as part of a plan to spread word of Nayiit’s parentage - Kiyan would have asked him to have the boy killed. He wondered what he would have done. He wondered how he would have refused her.

  ‘They’ll leave the city as soon as we have word from the Dai-kvo,’ Otah said. ‘Either they’ll go back to Saraykeht or they’ll go to the Dai-kvo’s village. Either way, they’ll be gone from here.’

  ‘And if they come back?’

  ‘They won’t. I’ll see to it. They won’t hurt Danat, love. He’s safe.’

  ‘He’s ill. He’s still coughing,’ Kiyan said. That was it too, of course. Seasons had come and gone, and Danat was still haunted by illness. It was natural for them - Kiyan and himself both - to bend themselves double to protect him from the dangers that they could, especially since there were so many so close over which they were powerless.

  It was part of why Otah had postponed for so long the conversation he was doomed to have with Liat Chokavi. But it was only part. Kiyan’s chair scraped against the floor as she rose. Otah put his hand out to her, and she took it, stepping in close to him, her arms around him. He kissed her temple.

  ‘Promise me this all ends well,’ she said. ‘Just tell me that.’

  ‘It will be fine,’ he said. ‘Nothing’s going to hurt our boy.’

  They stood silently for a time, looking at each other, and then out at the city. The plumes of smoke rising from the forges, the black-cobbled streets and gray slanted roofs. The sun slipped behind the clouds or else the clouds rose to block the light. The knock that interrupted them was sharp and urgent.

  ‘Most High?’ a man’s voice said. ‘Most High, forgive me, but the poets wish to speak with you. Maati-cha says the issue is urgent.’

  Kiyan walked with him, her hand in his, as they went to the Council chamber where Maati waited. His face was flushed, his mouth set in a deep scowl. A packet of paper fluttered in his hand, the edges rough where he’d ripped them rather than take the labor of unsewing the sheets. Cehmai and Stone-Made-Soft were also there, the poet pacing restlessly, the andat smiling its placid, inhuman smile at each of them in turn.

  �
�News from the Dai-kvo?’ Otah asked.

  ‘No, the couriers we sent west,’ Cehmai said.

  Maati tossed the pages to the table as he spoke. ‘The Galts have fielded an army.’

  The third legion arrived on a bright morning, the sun shining on the polished metal and oiled leather of their armor as if they’d been expecting a victory parade instead of the start of a war. Balasar watched from the walls of the city as they arrived and made camp. The sight was so welcome, even the smell of a hundred and a half camp latrines couldn’t undermine his pleasure.

  They were later even than they’d expected, and with stories and excuses to explain the delay. Balasar, leaning against the map table, listened and kept his expression calm as the officers apprised him of the legion’s state - the men, the food, the horses, the steam wagons, the armor, the arms. Mentally, he put the information into the vast map that was the campaign, but even as he did, he felt the wolfish grin coming to his lips. These were the last of his forces to come into place. The hour was almost upon him. The war was about to begin.

  He listened as patiently as he could, gave his orders on the disposition of their men and matériel, and told them not to get comfortable. When they were gone, Eustin came in alone, the same excitement that Balasar felt showing on his face.

  ‘What’s next, sir? The poet?’

  ‘The poet,’ Balasar said, leading the way out the door.

  They found Riaan in the Warden’s private courtyard. He was sitting in the wide shade of a catalpa tree heavy with wide, white blooms and wide leaves the same green as the poet’s robes. He’d had someone bring out a wide divan for him to lounge on. Across a small table, the Khaiate mercenary captain was perched on a stool. Both men were frowning at a handful of stones laid out in a short arc. The captain rose when he caught sight of them. The poet only glanced up, annoyed. Balasar took a pose of greeting, and the poet replied with something ornate that he couldn’t entirely make sense of. The glitter in the captain’s eyes suggested that the complexity was intentional and not entirely complimentary. Balasar put the insult, whatever it was, aside. There was no call to catalog more reasons to kill the man.

  ‘Sinja-cha,’ Balasar said. ‘I need to speak with the great poet in private.’

  ‘Of course,’ the captain said, then turning to Riaan with a formal pose, ‘We can finish the game later if you like.’

  Riaan nodded and waved, the movement half permission for Sinja to go, half shooing him away. The amusement in the captain’s eyes didn’t seem to lessen. Eustin escorted the man away, and when they were alone, Balasar took the vacated stool.

  ‘My men are in place,’ he said. ‘The time’s come.’

  He kept his gaze on the poet, looking for reluctance or unease in his eyes. But Riaan smiled slowly, like a man who had heard that his dearest enemy had died, and laced his fingers together on his belly. Balasar had half-expected the poet to repent, to change his mind when faced with the prospect of the deed itself. There was nothing of that.

  ‘Tomorrow morning,’ Riaan said. ‘I will need a servant to attend me today and through the night. At first light tomorrow, I will prove that the Dai-kvo was a fool to send me away. And then I shall march to my father’s house with your army behind me like a flood.’

  Balasar grinned. He had never seen a man so shortsighted, vain, and petty, and he’d spent three seasons in Acton with his father and the High Council. As far as the poet was concerned, none of this was for anything more important than the greater glory of Riaan Vaudathat.

  ‘How can we serve you in this?’ Balasar asked.

  ‘Everything is already prepared. I must only begin my meditations.’

  It sounded like dismissal to Balasar. He rose, bowing to the poet.

  ‘I will send my most trusted servant,’ he said. ‘Should anything more arise, only send word, and I will see it done.’

  Riaan smiled condescendingly and nodded his head. But as Balasar was just leaving the garden, the poet called his name. A cloud had come over the man, some ghost of uncertainty that had not risen from the prospect of binding.

  ‘Your men,’ the poet said. ‘They have been instructed that my family is not to be touched, yes?’

  ‘Of course,’ Balasar said.

  ‘And the library. The city is, of course, yours to do with as you see fit, but without the libraries of the Khaiem, binding a second andat will be much more difficult. They aren’t to be entered by any man but me.’

  ‘Of course,’ Balasar said again, and the poet took a pose accepting his assurances. The concern didn’t leave Riaan’s brow, though. So perhaps the man wasn’t quite as dim as he seemed. Balasar told himself, as he strode back through the covered pathways to his own rooms, that he would have to be more careful with him in the future. Not that there was much future for him. Win or lose, Riaan was a dead man.

  The day seemed more real than the ones that had come before it: the sunlight clearer, the air more alive with the scents of flowers and sewage and grass. The stones of the walls seemed more interesting, the subtle differences in color and texture clear where previous days had made them only a field of gray. Even Balasar’s body hummed with energy. It was like being a boy again, and diving into the lake from the highest cliff - the one all the other boys feared to jump from. It was dread and joy and the sense of no longer being able to take his decision back. It was what Balasar lived for. He knew already that he would not sleep.

  Eustin was waiting for him in the entrance hall.

  ‘There’s someone wants a word with you, sir.’

  Balasar paused.

  ‘The Khaiate captain. He wanted to speak about fallback plans for his men.’

  Eustin nodded to a side room. There was distrust in his expression, and Balasar waited a long moment for him to speak. Eustin added nothing. Balasar went to the wide, dark oaken door, knocked once, and went in. It was a preparation room for servants - muddy boots cast beside benches and waiting to be scraped clean, cloaks of all weights and colors hung from pegs. It smelled of wet dog, though there was no animal present. The captain sat on a stool tilted back against the wall, cleaning his nails with a knife.

  ‘Captain Ajutani,’ Balasar said.

  The stool came down, and the captain rose, sheathing his blade and bowing in the same motion.

  ‘I appreciate the time, General,’ he said. ‘I know you’ve a great deal on your mind just now.’

  ‘I’m always available,’ Balasar said. ‘Though the surroundings are . . .’

  ‘Yes. Your man Eustin seemed to think it more appropriate for me to wait here. I’m not sure he likes me.’ The captain was more amused than offended, so Balasar also smiled and shrugged.

  ‘Your men are in place?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, yes. Broken into groups of three or four, each assigned to one of your sergeants. Except for myself, of course.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Only I wanted to ask something of you, General. A favor of sorts.’

  Balasar crossed his arms and nodded for the man to continue.

  ‘If it fails - if our friend Riaan doesn’t do his magic trick well enough - don’t kill them. My boys. Don’t have them killed.’

  ‘Why would I do that?’ Balasar asked.

  ‘Because it’s the right thing,’ Sinja said. The amusement was gone from the man’s eyes. He was in earnest now. ‘I’m not an idiot, General. If it happens that the binding fails, you’ll be standing here in Aren with an army the size of a modest city. People have already noticed it, and the curiosity of the Khaiem is the last thing you’d want. They’d still have their andat, and all you’d have is explanations to give. You’ll turn North and make all those stories about conquering the whole of the Westlands to the border with Eddensea true just to make all this—’ The captain gestured to the door at Balasar’s back. ‘—seem plausible. All I ask is, let us go with you. If it happens that you have to keep to this coast and not the cities of the Khaiem, I’ll re-form the group and lead them wherever you l
ike.’

  ‘I wouldn’t kill them,’ Balasar said.

  ‘It would be dangerous, letting them go back home. Stories about how they were set to be interpreters and guides? Not one of them knows the Westlands except the part we walked through to get here. If the Khaiem are wondering whether you had some other plan to start with . . .’

  Sinja raised his hands, palms up as if he were offering Balasar the truth resting there. Balasar stepped close, putting his own hands below the captain’s and curling the other man’s fingers closed.