The Price of Spring (The Long Price Quartet Book 4)

  He made his way through the back halls, set like stagecraft, that allowed him to appear at the appropriate ritual moment. What few servants there were bent themselves almost double in poses of obeisance as he passed. Otah ignored them.

  A side hall, almost too narrow for a man to walk down, took him to a hidden seat. Years before, it had been a place where the Khai Saraykeht could watch entertainments without being seen. Now it was Otah’s own. He looked down upon the hall. It was packed so thickly there was no room to sit. The cushions meant to allow people to take their rest were all being trampled underfoot. Whisperers had to fight to hold their positions. And among the bright robes and jeweled headdresses of the utkhaiem, there were also the tunics and gray, empty eyes of Galts come to hear what was said. He saw them and thought of an old dream he’d had of Heshai, the poet he had once killed, attending a dinner though still very much dead. Corpses walked among the utkhaiem. Balasar was not among them.

  Silence took the hall as if someone had cupped his hands over Otah’s ears, and he turned toward the dais. His son stood there, his robe the pale of mourning.

  “My friends,” Danat said. “There is little I can say which you do not already know. Our brothers and sisters of Galt have been struck. The only plausible cause is this: a new poet has been trained, a new andat has been bound, and, against all wisdom, it has been used first as a weapon.”

  Danat paused as the whisperers repeated his words out through the wide galleries and, no doubt, into the streets.

  “The fleet is in peril,” Danat continued. “Chaburi-Tan placed at risk. We do not know who the poet is that has done this thing. We cannot trust that they will be as quick to blind our enemies as they have our friends. We cannot trust that they will undo the damage they have caused to our new allies. Our new families. And so my father has asked me to find this new poet and kill him.”

  Otah’s fingers pressed against the carved stone until his joints ached. His chest ached with dread. He doesn’t know, Otah wanted to shout. His sister is part of this, and he does not know it. He shook and kept silent. There was only the swelling roar of the people, the whisperers shouting above it, and his son standing proud and still, shoulders set.

  “There are some among us who look upon what has happened today as a moment of hope. They believe that the andat returned to the world marks the end of our hard times. With all respect, it marks their beginning, and neither I nor…”

  Otah turned away, pushing his way down the narrow hall, afraid to let his hands leave the stone for fear he should lose his balance. In the dim hallways, he gathered himself. He had expected shame. Seeing Danat speaking as he himself could not, he thought that he would feel shame. He didn’t. There was only anger.

  The first servant he found, he grabbed by the sleeve and spun halfway around. The woman started to shout at him, then saw who he was, saw his face, and went pale.

  “Whatever you were doing, stop it,” Otah said. “Find me the Master of Tides. Bring her to my rooms. Do it now.”

  She might have taken a pose that accepted the command or one of obeisance or any other of the hundred thousand things the physical grammar of the Khaiem might express. Otah didn’t stop long enough to see, and didn’t care.

  In his rooms, he called for a traveler’s basket. The thin wicker shifted and creaked as he pulled the simplest robes from his wardrobes and stuffed them in, one atop the other like they were canvas trousers. The dressing servants made small pawing movements, and Otah didn’t bother to find out whether they were meant to help or slow him before he sent them all away. He found eight identical pairs of strapped leather boots, put three pairs into his basket, then snarled and took the extra ones back out. He only had two feet, he didn’t need more boots than that. He didn’t notice the Master of Tides until the woman made a small sound, like someone stepping on a mouse.

  “Good,” Otah said. “You have something to write with?”

  She fumbled with her sleeve and pulled out a small ledger and a finger charcoal. Otah reeled off half-a-dozen names, all the heads of high families of the utkhaiem. He paused, then named Balasar Gice as well. The Master of Tides scribbled, the charcoal graying her fingers.

  “That is my High Council,” Otah said. “Here with you as witness, I invest them with the power to administrate the Empire until Danat or I return. Is that clear enough?”

  “Most High,” the Master of Tides said, her face pale and bloodless, “there has never…the authority of the Emperor can’t be…and Gicecha isn’t even…”

  Otah strode across the room toward her, blood rushing in his ears. The Master of Tides fell back a step, anticipating a blow, but Otah only plucked the ledger from her hands. The charcoal had fallen to the floor, and Otah scooped it up, turned to a fresh page, and wrote out the investment he’d just spoken. When he handed it back, the Master of Tides opened and closed her mouth like a fish on sand, then said, “The court. The utkhaiem. A council with explicit imperial authority? This…can’t be done.”

  “It can,” Otah said.

  “Most High, forgive me, but what you’ve suggested here changes everything! It throws aside all tradition!”

  “I do that sometimes,” Otah said. “Get me a horse.”

  Danat’s force was small—a dozen armsmen with swords and bows, two steamcarts with rough shedlike structures on the flats, and Danat in a wool huntsman’s robes. Otah’s own robe was leather dyed the red of roses; his horse was taller at the shoulder than the top of his own head. The wicker traveler’s basket jounced against the animal’s flank as he cantered to Danat’s side.

  “Father,” Danat said. He took no pose, but his body was stiff and defiant.

  “I heard your speech. It was rash,” Otah said. “What was your plan, now that I’ve sent you off to find and kill this new poet?”

  “We’re going north to Utani,” Danat said. “It’s central, and we can move in any direction once we’ve gotten word where he is.”

  “She,” Otah said. “Wherever she is.”

  Danat blinked, his spine relaxing in his surprise.

  “And you can’t announce a plan like this, Danat-kya,” Otah said. “No matter how fast you ride, word will move faster. And you’ll know when the news has reached her, because you’ll be just as crippled as the Galts.”

  “You knew about this?” Danat murmured.

  “I know some things. I’d had reports,” Otah said. His mount whickered uneasily. “I had taken some action. I didn’t know it had gone so far. Utani is the wrong way. We need to ride west. Toward Pathai. And whichever rider is fastest goes ahead and stops any couriers heading back toward Saraykeht. I’m expecting a letter, but we can meet it on the road.”

  “You can’t go,” Danat said. “The cities need you. They need to see that there’s someone in control.”

  “They do see that. They see it’s the poet,” Otah said.

  Danat glanced at the steamcarts with their covered burdens. He looked nervous and lost. Otah felt the impulse to tell him, there on the open street, what he was facing: Maati’s plan, his own reluctance to act, the specter of Eiah’s involvement, Idaan’s mission. He restrained himself. There would be time later, and fewer people who might overhear.

  “Papa-kya,” Danat said. “I think you should stay here. They need…”

  “They need the poets ended,” Otah said, knowing as he said it that he also meant his daughter. For a moment, he saw her. In his imagination, she was always younger than the real woman. He saw her dark eyes and furrowed brow as she studied with the court physicians. He felt the warmth and weight of her, still small enough to rest in his arms. He smelled the sour-milk breath she’d had before the soft place in her skull had grown closed. It might not come to that, he told himself.

  He also knew that it might.

  “We’ll do this together,” Otah said. “The two of us.”

  “Papa…”

  “You can’t stop me from this, Danat-kya,” Otah said gently. “I’m the Emperor.”
br />   Danat tried to speak, first confusion in his eyes, then distress, and then amused resignation. Otah looked out at the armsmen, their eyes averted. The steamcarts chuffed and shuddered, the sheds on them larger than some homes Otah had kept as a child. The anger rose in him again. Not with Danat or Eiah, Maati or Idaan. His anger was with the gods themselves and the fate that had brought him here, and it burned in him.

  “West,” Otah called. “West. All of us. Now.”

  They passed the arch that marked the edge of the city at three hands past midday. Men and women had come out, lining the streets as they passed. Some cheered them, others merely watched. Few, Otah thought, were likely to believe that the old man at the front was truly the Emperor.

  The buildings west of the city proper grew lower and squat. Instead of roof tiles, they had layers of water-grayed wood or cane thatching. The division between the last of Saraykeht and the nearest low town was invisible. Traders pulled aside to let them pass. Feral dogs yipped at them from the high grass and followed along just out of bowshot. The sun slipped down in its arc, blinding Otah and drawing tears.

  A thousand small memories flooded Otah’s mind like raindrops in an evening storm. A night he’d spent years before, sleeping in a hut made from grass and mud. The first horse he’d been given when he took the colors of House Siyanti and joined the gentleman’s trade. He had traveled these very roads, back then. When his hair had still been dark and his back still strong and Kiyan still the loveliest wayhouse keeper in all the cities he had seen.

  They rode until full dark came, stopping at a pond. Otah stood for a moment, looking into the dark water. It wasn’t quite cold enough for ice to have formed on its surface. His spine and legs ached so badly he wondered whether he would be able to sleep. The muscles of his belly protested when he tried to bend. It had been years since he’d taken to the road in anything faster or more demanding than a carried litter. He remembered the pleasant near-exhaustion at the end of a long day’s ride, and his present pain had little in common with it. He thought about sitting on the cool, wet grass. He was more than half afraid that once he sat down, he wouldn’t be able to stand.

  Behind him, the kilns of the steamcarts had been opened, and the armsmen were cooking birds over the coals. The smaller of the two sheds perched atop the steamcarts had been opened to reveal tightly rolled blankets, crates of soft fuel coal, and earthenware jars inscribed with symbols for seeds, raisins, and salted fish. As Otah watched, Danat emerged from the second shed, standing alone in the shadows at the end of the cart. One of the armsmen struck up a song, and the others joined in. It was the kind of thing Otah himself would have done, back when he had been a different man.

  “Danat-kya,” he said when he’d walked close enough to be heard over the good cheer of their companions. His son squatted at the edge of the cart, and then sat. In the light from the kilns, Danat seemed little more than a deeper shadow, his face hidden. “There are some things we should discuss.”

  “There are,” Danat said, and his voice pulled Otah back.

  Otah shifted to sit at his son’s side. Something in his left knee clicked, but there was no particular pain, so he ignored it. Danat laced his fingers.

  “You’re angry that I’ve come?” Otah said.

  “No,” Danat said. “It’s not…not that, quite. But I hadn’t thought that you would be here, or that we’d be going west. I made arrangements with my own plan set, and you’ve changed it.”

  “I can apologize. But this is the right thing. I can’t swear that Pathai is—”

  “That’s not what I’m trying…Gods,” Danat said. He turned to his father, his eyes catching the kiln light and flashing with it. “Come on. You might as well know.”

  Danat shifted, rose, and walked across the wide, wooden back of the steamcart. The shed’s door was shut fast. As Otah pulled himself up, grunting, Danat worked a thick iron latch. The armsmen’s singing faltered. Otah was aware of eyes fixed upon them, though he couldn’t see the men as more than silhouettes.

  Otah made his way to the shed’s open door. Inside was pure darkness. Danat stood, latch in his hand, silent. Otah was about to speak when another voice came from the black.

  “Danat?” Ana Dasin asked. “Is it you?”

  “It is,” Danat said. “And my father.”

  Gray-eyed, the Galtic girl emerged from the darkness. She wore a blouse of simple cotton, a skirt like a peasant worker’s. Her hands moved before her, testing the air until they found the wood frame of the shed’s door. Otah must have made a sound, because she turned as if to look at him, her gaze going past him and into nothing. He almost took a pose of formal greeting but stopped himself.

  “Ana-cha,” he said.

  “Most High,” she replied, her chin high, her brows raised.

  “I didn’t expect to see you here,” he said.

  “I went to her as soon as I heard what had happened,” Danat said. “I swore it was nothing that we’d done. We hadn’t been trying to recapture the andat. She didn’t believe me. When I decided to go, I asked her to come. As a witness. We’ve left word for Farrer-cha. Even if he disapproves, it doesn’t seem he’d be able to do much about it before we returned.”

  “You know this is madness,” Otah said softly.

  Ana Dasin frowned, hard lines marking her face. But then she nodded.

  “It makes very little difference whether I die in the city or on the road,” she said. “If this isn’t treachery on the part of the Khaiem, then I don’t see that I have anything to fear.”

  “We are on an improvised campaign against powers we cannot match. I can name half-a-dozen things to fear without stopping to think,” Otah said. He sighed, and the Galtic girl’s expression hardened. Otah went on, letting a hint of bleak amusement into his voice. “But I suppose if you’ve come, you’ve come. Welcome to our hunt, Ana-cha.”

  He nodded to his son and stepped back. Her voice recalled him.

  “Most High,” she said. “I want to believe Danat. I want to think that he had nothing to do with this.”

  “He didn’t,” Otah said. The girl weighed his words, and then seemed to accept them.

  “And you?” she said. “Was any of this yours?”

  Otah smiled. The girl couldn’t see him, but Danat did.

  “Only my inattention,” Otah said. “It’s a failure I’ve come to correct.”

  “So the andat can blind you as easily as he has us,” Ana said, stepping out of the shed and onto the steamcart. “You aren’t protected any more than I am.”

  “That’s true,” Otah said.

  Ana went silent, then smiled. In the dim light of the fire, he could see her mother in the shape of her cheek.

  “And yet you take our side rather than ally with the poets,” she said. “So which of us is mad?”

  18

  The snow fell and stayed, as deep as Maati’s three fingers together. The winds of autumn whistled through the high, narrow windows that had never known glass. The women—Eiah, Irit, and the two Kaes—were in a small room, clustered around a brazier and talking with hushed fervor about grammar and form, the distinctions between age and wounds and madness. Vanjit, wrapped in thick woolen robes and a cloak of waxed silk, was sitting on a high wall, her gaze to the east. She sang lullabies to Clarity-of-Sight, and her voice would have been beautiful if she’d been cradling a real babe. Maati considered interrupting her or else returning to the work with the others, but both options were worse than remaining alone. He turned away from the great bronze door and retreated into the darkness.

  It would be only weeks until winter was upon them. Not the killing storms of the north, but enough that even the short journey to Pathai would become difficult. He tried to imagine the long nights and cold that waited for him, for all of them, and he wondered how they would manage it.

  A darkness had taken Eiah since her return. He saw it in her eyes and heard the rasp of it in her voice, but there was no lethargy about it. She was awake before him every
morning and took to her bed long after sunset. Her attention was bent to the work of her binding, and her ferocity seemed to pull the others in her wake. Only Vanjit held herself apart, attending only some of Eiah’s discussions. It was as if there were a set amount of attention, and as Eiah bore down, Vanjit floated up like a kite. Maati, caught between the pair, only felt tired and sick and old.

  It had been years since he had lived in one place, and then it had been as the permanent guest of the Khai Machi. He had had a library, servants who brought him wine and food. Eiah had been no more than a girl, then. Bright, engaged, curious. But more than that, she had been joyful. And he remembered himself as being a part of that joy, that comfort.

  He lumbered into one of the wide, bare rooms where rows and columns of cots had once held boys no older than ten summers, wrapped in all the robes they owned to keep off the cold. He leaned against the wall, feeling the rough stone against his back.

  Another winter in this place. There was a time when he’d thought it wise.

  Footsteps came from behind him. Vanjit’s. He knew them from the sound. He didn’t turn to greet her. When she stepped into the room, waxed silk shining like leather, she didn’t at first look at him. She had grown beautiful in an odd way. The andat held against her hip clung to her, and there was a peace in her expression that lent her an air of serenity. He wanted to trust her, to take her success as the first of a thousand ways in which he would be able to set the world right, to unmake his mistakes.

  “Maati-kvo,” Vanjit said. Her voice was low and soft as a woman newly woken.

  “Vanjit,” he said, taking a pose of greeting.

  She and the andat came to sit at his side. The tiny thing balled its hands in the folds of Maati’s robe, tugging as if to draw his attention. Vanjit appeared not to notice.

  “Eiah-cha is doing well, isn’t she?” Vanjit asked.

  “I think so,” Maati said. “She’s taken a wide concept, and that’s always difficult. She’s very serious, though. There are a few flaws. Structures that work against each other instead of in concert.”