The Price of Spring

  He crawled into his bed. Danat's certainty lightened the weight that bore him down. The poet wasn't Eiah. This blindness wasn't in her, wasn't who she was. The andat might have been bound by Maati or some other girl. Some girl whom he could bring himself to kill. He closed his eyes, considering how he might avoid having the power of the andat turned on him. The fear would return, he was sure of that. But now, for a moment, he could afford himself the luxury of being more frightened of loss than of the price of victory.

  They left before sunrise with the steamcarts' supplies of wood, coal, and water refreshed, the horses replaced with well-rested animals, and the scent of snow heavy in the air. They moved faster than Otah had expected, not pausing to eat or rest. He himself took a turn at the kiln of the larger steamcart, keeping the fire hot and well-fueled. If the armsmen were surprised to see the Emperor working like a commoner, they didn't say anything. Two couriers passed them riding east, but neither bore a message from Idaan. Three came up behind them bearing letters for the Emperor from what seemed like half the court at Saraykeht and Utani.

  Nightfall caught them at the top of the last high, broad pass that opened onto the western plains. On the horizon, Pathai glittered like a congress of stars. The armsmen assembled the sleeping tents, unrolling layers of leather and fur to drape over the canvas. Otah squatted by the kiln, reading through letter after letter. The silk threads that had once sewn the paper closed rested in knots and tangles by his feet. The snow that lay about them was fresh though the sky had cleared, and the cold combined with the day's work to tire him. The joints of his hands ached, and his eyes were tired and difficult to focus. He dreaded the close, airless sleeping tents and the ache-interrupted night that lay before him almost as much as he was annoyed by the petty politics of court.

  Letter after letter praised or castigated him for his decision to leave. The Khaiate Council, as it had been deemed in his absence, was either a terrible mistake or an act of surpassing wisdom, and whichever it was, the author of the letter would be better placed on it than someone Otah had named.

  Balasar Gice, the only Galt on the council, was pressing for relief ships to sail for Galt with as much food as could be spared and men to help guide and oversee the blinded. The rest of the council was divided, and a third of them had written to Otah for his opinion. Otah put those letters directly into the fire. If he'd meant to answer every difficult question from the road, he wouldn't have created the council.

  There was no word from Sinja or Chaburi-Tan. Balasar, writing with a secretary to help him, feared the worst. This letter, Otah tucked into his sleeve. There was no reason to keep it. He could do nothing to affect its news. But he couldn't bring himself to destroy something to do with Sinja when his old friend's fate already seemed so tentative.

  Uncertain footsteps sounded behind him. Ana Dasin was walking the wide boards toward the kiln. Her hair was loose and her robe blue shot with gold. Her grayed eyes seemed to search the darkness.

  "Ana-cha," he said, both a greeting and a warning that he was there. The girl started a little, but then smiled uncertainly.

  "Most High," she said, nodding very nearly toward him. "Is ... I was wondering if Danat-cha was with you?"

  "He's gone to fetch water with the others," Otah said, nodding uselessly toward a path that led to a shepherd's well. "He will be back in half a hand, I'd think."

  "Oh," Ana said, her face falling.

  "Is there something I can do?"

  Watching the struggle in the girl's expression seemed almost more an intrusion than his previous eavesdropping. After a moment, she drew something from her sleeve. Cream-colored paper sewn with yellow thread. She held it out.

  "The courier said it was from my father," she said. "I can't read it."

  Otah cleared his throat against an unexpected tightness. He felt unworthy of the girl's trust, and something like gratitude brought tears to his eyes.

  "I would be honored, Ana-cha, to read it for you," he said.

  Otah rose, took the letter, and drew Ana to a stool near enough the kiln to warm her, but not so close as to put her in danger of touching the still-scorching metal. He ripped out the thread, unfolded the single page, and leaned in toward the light.

  It was written in Galtic though the script betrayed more familiarity with the alphabet of the Khaiem. He knew before he began to read that there would be nothing in it too personal to say to a secretary, and the fact relieved him. He skimmed the words once, then again more slowly.

  "Most High?" Ana said.

  "It is addressed to you," Otah said. "It says this: I understand that you've seen fit to run off without telling we or your mother. You should know better than that. Then there are a few more lines that restate all that."

  Ana sat straight, her hands on her knees, her face expressionless. Otah coughed, cleared his throat, and went on.

  "There is a second section," he said. "He says ... well."

  Otah smoothed the page with his fingers, tracing the words as he spoke.

  "Still, I was your age once too. If good judgment were part of being young, there would be no reason to grow old. In God's name write back to tell us you're well. Your mother's sick that you'll fall off the trail and get eaten by dogs, and I'm half-sick that you'll come back wed and pregnant," Otah said. "He goes on to offer a brief analysis of my own intelligence. I'll skip that."

  Ana chuckled and wiped away a tear. Otah grinned and kept the smile in his voice when he went on.

  "He ends by saying that he loves you. And that he trusts you to do what's right."

  "You're lying," Ana said.

  Otah took a pose that denied an unjust accusation, then flapped his hands in annoyance. The physical language of the Khaiem was a difficult habit to put aside.

  "Why would I lie?" he asked.

  "To be polite? I don't know But my father? Fatter Dasin putting on paper that he trusts his little girl's judgment? The stars would dance on treetops first. The wed-and-pregnant part sounded like him, though."

  "Well," Otah said, placing the folded page into her fingers. "He might surprise you. Keep this, and you can read it for yourself once we've fixed all this mess."

  Ana took a pose that offered thanks. It wasn't particularly well done.

  "You are always welcome," Otah said.

  They sat in silence until Danat and the other water bearers returned. Then Otah left his seat to Danat and crawled into the sleeping tent, where, true to expectations, he shifted from discomfort to discomfort until the sun rose again.

  They reached Pathai at midday. Silk banners streamed from the towers and the throng that met them at the western arch cheered and sang and played flutes and drums. Men and women hung from lattices of wood and rope to get a better view of Otah and Danat, their armsmen, the steamcarts. The air was thick with the scents of honeyed almonds and mulled wine and bodies. The armsmen of Pathai met them, made an elaborate ritual obeisance, and then cleared a path for them until they reached the palaces.

  A feast had been prepared, and baths. Servants descended on the group like moths, and Otah submitted to being only emperor once again.

  The celebration of his arrival was as annoying as it was pointless. Dish after dish of savory meat and sweet bread, hot curry and chilled fish, all accompanied by the best acrobats and musicians that could be scraped together with little notice. And Ana Dasin sitting at his table, her empty eyes a constant, unintentional reproach. Finding Maati and this new poet was going to be like hunting quail with a circus. He would have to do something to let them move discreetly. He didn't yet know what that would be.

  The rooms he'd been given were blond stone, the ceiling vaulted and set with tiles of indigo and silver. A thousand candles set the air glowing and filled his senses with the scent of hot wax and perfume. It was, he thought, the sort of space that was almost impossible to keep warm. Danat, Ana, and the armsmen were all being seen to elsewhere. He sat on a long, low couch and hoped that Danat, at least, would be able to get out into th
e city and make a few inquiries.

  When a servant came and announced Sian Noygu, Otah almost refused the audience before he recognized it as the name Idaan traveled under. His heart racing, he let himself be led to a smaller chamber of carved granite and worked gold. His sister sat between a small fountain and a shadowed alcove. She wore a gray robe under a colorless cloak, and her boots were soft with wear. A long scratch across the back of her hand was the dark red of scabs and old blood.

  The servant made his obeisance and retreated. Otah took a pose of greeting appropriate to close family, and Idaan tilted her head like a dog hearing an unfamiliar sound.

  "I had intended to meet you when you came into the city. I didn't know you were planning a festival."

  "I wasn't," Otah said, sitting beside her. The fountain clucked and burbled. "Traveling quietly seems beyond me these days."

  "It was all as subtle as a rockslide," Idaan agreed. "But there's some good in it. The louder you are, the less people are looking at me."

  "You've found something then?" Otah asked.

  "I have," Idaan said.

  "What have you learned?"

  A different voice answered from the darkness of the alcove at Idaan's side. A woman's voice.

  "Everything," it said.

  Otah rose to his feet. The woman who emerged was young: not more than forty summers and the white in her hair still barely more than an accent. She wore robes as simple as Idaan's but held herself with a mixture of angry pride and uncertainty that Otah had become familiar with. Her pupils were gray and sightless, but her eyes were the almond shape that marked her as a citizen of the Empire. This was a victim of the new poet, but she was no Galt.

  "Idaan-cha knows everything," the blind woman said again, "because I told it to her."

  Idaan took the woman's hand and stood. When she spoke, it was to her companion.

  "This is my brother, the Emperor," Idaan said, then turned to him. "Otah-cha, this is Ashti Beg."

  20

  When before Maati had considered death, it had been in terms of what needed to be done. Before he died, he had to master the grammars of the Dai-kvo, or find his son again, or most recently see his errors with Sterile made right. It was never the end itself that drew his attention. He had reduced his mortality to the finish line of a race. This and this and this done, and afterward, dying would be like rest at the end of a long day.

  With Eiah's pronouncement, his view shifted. No list of accomplishments could forgive the prospect of his own extinction. Maati found himself looking at the backs of his hands, the cracked skin, the dark blotches of age. He was becoming aware of time in a way he never had. There was some number of days he would see, some number of nights, and then nothing. It had always been true. He was no more or less a mortal being because his blood was slowing. Everything born, dies. He had known that. He only hadn't quite understood. It changed everything.

  It also changed nothing. They traveled slowly, keeping to lesserknown roads and away from the larger low towns. Often Eiah would call the day's halt with the sun still five hands above the horizon because they had found a convenient wayhouse or a farm willing to board them for the night. The prospect of letting Maati sleep in cold air was apparently too much for her to consider.

  On the third day, Eiah had parted with the company, rejoining them on the fifth with a cloth sack of genuinely unpleasant herbs. Maati suffered a cup of the bitter tea twice daily. He let his pulses be measured against one another, his breath smelled, his fingertips squeezed, the color of his eyes considered and noted. It embarrassed him.

  The curious thing was that, despite all his fears and Eiah's attentions, he felt fine. If his breath was short, it was no shorter than it had been for years. He tired just when he'd always tired, but now six sets of eyes shifted to him every time he grunted. He dismissed the anxiety when he saw it in the others, however closely he felt it himself.

  He would have expected the two feelings to balance each other: the dismissive self-consciousness at any concern over him and the presentiment of his death. He did not understand how he could be possessed by both of them at the same time, and yet he was. It was like there were two minds within him, two Maati Vaupathais, each with his own thoughts and concerns, and no compromise between them was required.

  For the most part, Maati could ignore this small failure to be at one with himself. Each morning, he rose with the others, ate whatever rubbery eggs or day-old meat the waykeeper had to offer, choked down Eiah's tea, and went on as usual. The autumn through which they passed was crisp and fragrant of new earth and rotting leaves. The snow that had plagued the school had also visited the foothills and shallow passes that divided the western plains of Pathai from the river valleys of the east, but it was rarely more than three fingers deep. In many places, the sun was still strong enough to banish the pale mourning colors to the shadows.

  With rumors that Otah himself had taken up the hunt, they kept a balance between the smaller, less-traveled roads and those that were wider and better maintained. So far from the great cities, the ports and trading posts, there were no foreign faces to be seen. None of the handful of adventurous Westlands women had made their way here to try for a Khaiate husband and a better life. There was no better life to be had here. The lack of children, of babies, gave the towns a sense of tolerating a slow plague. It was only the world. It no longer troubled Maati. This was another journey in a life that seemed to be woven of distance. Apart from the overattentiveness of his traveling companions, there was no reason to reflect on his mortality; he had no cause to consider that these small chores and pleasantries of the road might be among his last.

  It was only days later, at the halfway point between the school and the river Qiit, that without intending it, Eiah called the question.

  They had stopped at a wayhouse at the side of a broad lake. A wide wooden deck stood out over the water, the wind pulling small waves to lap at its pilings. A flock of cranes floated and called to one another at the far shore. Maati sat on a three-legged stool, his traveling cloak still wrapping his shoulders. He looked out on the shifting water, the gray-green trees, the hazy white sky. He heard Eiah behind him, her voice coming from the main building as if it were coming from a different world. When she came out, he heard her footsteps and the leather physician's satchel bumping against her hip. She stopped just behind him.

  "They're beautiful," he said, nodding at the cranes.

  "I suppose," Eiah said.

  "Vanjit? The others?"

  "In their rooms," Eiah said, a trace of satisfaction in her voice. "Three rooms, and all of them private. Meals this evening and before we go. One length of silver and two copper."

  "You could have paid them the normal price," NIaati said.

  "My pride won't allow it," Eiah said. She stepped forward and knelt. "There was something. If you're not tired."

  "I'm an old man. I'm always tired."

  Her eyes held some objection, but she didn't give it voice. Instead she unbuckled her satchel, rooted in it for a moment, and drew out a paper. Maati took it, frowning. The characters were familiar, a part of Eiah's proposed binding, but the structure of them was different. Awkward.

  "It isn't perfect," Eiah said. "But I thought we could consider it. I've mentioned the idea to Large Kae, and she has some ideas about how to make it consonant with the grammar."

  Maati lifted his hand, palm out, and stopped the flow of words. The cranes called, their harsh voices crossing the water swifter than arrows. He sounded out each phrase, thinking through the logic as he did.

  "I don't understand," he said. "This is the strongest part of the binding. Why would you change..."

  And then he saw her intentions. Each change she had made broadened the concept of wounds. Of harm. Of damage. And there, in the corner of the page, was a play on the definitions of blood. He folded the page, slipping it into his sleeve.

  "No," he said.

  "I think it can-"

  "No," Maati said again.
"What we're doing is hard enough. Making it fit the things that Sterile has done is enough. If you try to make everything fit into it, you'll end with more than you can hold."

  Eiah sighed and looked out across the water. The wind plucked a lock of hair, the black threads dancing on her cheek. He could see in her expression that she'd anticipated all he would say. And more, that she agreed. He put a hand on her shoulder. For a moment, neither spoke.

  "Once we reach the river, things will move faster," Eiah said. "With the Galts' paddle boats, we should reach Utani before the worst cold comes." To their left, a fish leaped from the water and splashed back down. "Once I have you someplace with real physicians, I'm going to try the binding."

  Maati drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. A sick dread uncurled in his belly.

  "You're sure?" he said.

  Eiah took a pose that confirmed her resolve and also chided him. When he replied with one that expressed mild affront, she spoke.

  "You sit here like something from a philosopher's daydream, refusing to let me even try to mend your heart," she said, "and then you start quaking like an old woman when I'm the one at risk."

  "'Quaking like an old woman'?" Maati said. "I think we haven't known the same old women. And of course I'm concerned for you, Eiah- kya. How could I not be? You're like a daughter to me. You always have been."

  "I might not fail," she said. And a moment later, rose, kissed his hair, and walked in, leaving him alone with the world. Maati sank deeper into his cloak, determined to watch the birds until his mind calmed. Half a hand later, he went inside the building, muttering to himself.

  The evening meal was a soup of ground lentils, rice, and a sweet, hot spice that made Maati's eyes water. He paid an extra length of copper for a second bowl. The commons with its low ceilings and soot-stained walls also served as a teahouse for the nearby low towns. By the time he'd finished eating, local men and women had begun to appear. They took little notice of the travelers, which suited Maati quite well.