Seasons of War

by Abraham Daniel

  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 born of long practice. This man had done much the same before Otah’s father, and perhaps his grandfather. The presentation of this bowl 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.

  Otah 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. Otah walked down the path, white gravel fine as salt crunching like snow under his feet. He found Maati 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 bas-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. Otah sat beside his old friend and considered.

  ‘The dragon’s not defeated,’ Maati 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? He’s lost his balance.’

  ‘I hadn’t noticed,’ Otah 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.’

  Otah 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.’

  Maati 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. Prepare.’

  ‘And if the Dai-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 Dai-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.’

  Otah’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. He 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 Daikvo 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 Dai-kvo 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.’

  Maati 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 Maati’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 be 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 back. The Master of Tides 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 f
rom the lower palace toward his personal apartments. When he arrived, Kiyan wasn’t there. He 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 books, 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 back in the wayhouse she’d taken over from her father, years ago in Udun. 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 features 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,’ Otah said. Then, to Kiyan, ‘What’s she been doing? Carrying stones up 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 bones. Dorin-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?’ Otah 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. ‘The matrons keep trying to send her away, and she keeps coming back. They tell her it’s unseemly for her to be 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,’ Otah said. ‘I’ll see to it.’

  ‘Thank you, Papa-kya,’ Eiah murmured.

  ‘Off to your bed,’ Kiyan 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 Otah, genuine exhaustion competing with the theatrics of being tired, and threw her arms around his neck. Her 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. He 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 be 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. There 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.

  ‘The mines. If I don’t come back, 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 be 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 back.’

  ‘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 Machi, 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. There was a man once who told me that if it were a choice between holding a live coal in my bare 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.’

  ‘Maati could be wrong,’ Otah said. ‘The Galts may be busy rolling over the Westlands and none of it anything to do with Stone-Made-Soft. I may arrive at the Dai-kvo’s village and be laughed at all the way back north.’