The fleet left Saraykeht on the first truly cool morning of autumn. A dozen ships with bright sails, and the marks of the Empire and Galt flying together from their masts. From the shore, Otah could no longer make out the shapes of the individual sailors and soldiers that crowded the distant decks, much less Sinja himself, dressed though the man was in gaudy commander's array. Fatter Dasin's ships still stood at anchor, and the other Galtic ships which had been promised but were not yet prepared to sail.
Sinja had met with him for the last time less than a hand and a half before he'd stepped onto the small boat to make his last inspection. Otah had made himself comfortable in a teahouse near the seafront, waiting for the ceremony that would send off the fleet. The walls of the place were stained with decades of lantern smoke, the floorboards spotted with the memory of spilled wine. Sitting at the back table, Otah had felt like a peacock in a hen coop. Sinja, breezing through the open doors in a robe of bright green and hung with silk scarves and golden pendants, had made him feel less ridiculous only by comparison.
"Well, this is your last chance to call the whole thing quits," Sinja said, dropping into the chair across from Otah as casually as a drinking companion. Otah fumbled in his sleeve for a moment and drew out the letters intended for the utkhaiem of Chaburi-Tan. Sinja took them, considered the bright thread that sewed each of them closed, and sighed.
"I'd feel better if Balasar was leading the first command," Sinja said.
"I thought you'd decided that he'd be better staying to arrange your reinforcements."
"Agreed. I agreed. He decided. And it does make sense. Farrer-cha and the others who've followed his example will be able to swallow all this better if they're answering to a Galtic general."
"And waiting for them to be ready ..." Otah said.
"Madness," Sinja said, slipping the letters into his own sleeve. "We've been too long already. I'm not saying that it's a bad plan. I only wish that there was a brilliant, well-crafted scheme that had Balasar-cha going out and me following behind to see whether the raiders sank everyone. Any word from Chaburi-Tan?"
"Nothing new," Otah said.
"Fair enough. We'll send word once we get there."
A silence followed, the unasked questions as heavy in the air as smoke. Otah leaned forward. Sinja knew about Idaan's list; Otah had told him in a fit of candor and regretted it since. Sinja knew better than to raise the issue where they might be overheard, but disapproval haunted his expression.
"There is some movement on the question of Obar State," Otah said. "Ashua Radaani bribed their ambassador. He has a list of men who have been in negotiation to break the eastern cities from the Empire with backing from Obar State. Two dozen men in four families."
"That's good work," Sinja said.
"He's asking permission to kill them."
"Sounds very tidy, assuming it's true and Radaani isn't involved in the conspiracy himself."
"Very tidy then too," Otah said. "I'm ordering the men brought to Utani. I can speak with them there."
"And if Radaani refuses?"
"Then I'll invite just him," Otah said. Sinja took an approving pose. Otah thought for a moment that they might be done.
"The other matter?"
"Being addressed," Otah said.
Four of the members of Idaan's list had been quietly looked into, the irregularities of their behavior clarified. One had been hiding half-a-dozen mistresses from a wife with a notoriously short temper. Two others had been conspiring to undercut the glass trades in the north, setting up workshops nearer the alum mines of Eddensea. The fourth had also appeared on Ashua Radaani's list, and had no clear connection to Maati.
Sinja had made it perfectly clear that he thought examining Eiah's actions was the wisest course. If she was Maati's backer, better to find it quickly and put a stop to the whole affair. If she wasn't, best to know that and stop losing sleep. There was a cold logic to his argument, and Otah knew what his own reluctance meant. His daughter had turned to her Uncle Maati. Turned against her father. And the pain of that loss was almost more than he could bear.
"Well," Sinja said. "I suppose I'd better go before the sailors all get too drunk to know sunrise from sunset and land us all in Eymond. If I don't come back, make sure they put up statues of me."
"You'll come back," Otah said.
"You only say that because I always have before," Sinja replied, smiling. He sobered. "See that Balasar comes quickly, though. These ships will make a grand spectacle, but it would be a short fight."
"I'll see to it," Otah said.
Sinja rose and took a pose of leave-taking. It might be the last time Otah ever saw the man. It was a fact he'd known, but something in the set of Sinja's body or the studied blankness of his face drove the point home. For the space of a breath, Otah felt the loss as if the worst had already happened.
"I would have been lost without you, these last years," Otah said. "You know that."
"I know you think it," Sinja said, matching Otah's quiet tone. "Take care, Most High. Do what needs doing."
Sitting now on his dais, watching the ships recede and vanish, Otah thought the phrase had been intended as last words. Do what needs doing. Meaning, more specifically, find Eiah. The sun rose from its morning home in the east; the seafront surged with a hundred languages, creoles, pidgins. Where the armsmen of the palace ended, merchants set up their tall, thin stalls and proclaimed their wares. When Otah took his leave, they would do the same in the space he now inhabited. Returning to the palaces would be like taking his finger out of water. It wouldn't leave a hole. He wondered, sometimes, if the whole world wasn't the same.
Back at the palaces, Otah suffered through the ritual change of robes, the closing ceremony that followed seeing off the fleet. He dearly hoped that when Balasar's reinforcements departed, he could avoid repeating the entire pointless exercise. He hoped, but doubted it. Once the last cymbal had chimed, the last priest intoned the final passage, and Otah had done his duty as Emperor, he went back to his rooms. Danat and Issandra were waiting there.
Otah greeted them both with a single pose appropriate to near family. If it was still an optimism, the Galtic woman didn't comment on it. She put down a bowl of tea she'd been drinking from, and Danat rose to his feet.
"Thank you for joining me," Otah said. "I wanted to know the ... the status of your work."
The pair exchanged glances. Issandra spoke.
"In one respect, I think you could say we're doing quite well. Ana's request that her father add himself to your naval adventure has caused something of a strain between her and Hanchat. He seems to think she's being disloyal to Galt in general and therefore him in particular."
"I can understand that," Otah said, lowering himself to a cushion. "The gods all know she surprised me with it."
"The problem is that she feels she's cleared all accounts by the gesture," Issandra said. "Any sense of obligation she might have felt toward Danat-cha from her misbehavior or his clemency toward Hanchat is done."
"I see," Otah said.
"There's something else," Danat said. "I think Shija-cha has . .
"The imitation lover has developed ambitions," Issandra said. "Apparently you've entrusted her uncle with some particularly delicate task?"
Shija Radaani. Ashua's niece.
"I have," Otah said.
"She's taken that fact and the request that she act as Danat's escort, and drawn the most remarkable conclusion," Issandra said. "She thinks that Danat-cha is in love with her, and intends to sabotage his connection to Ana on her behalf."
"It's not only that," Danat said. "This is my fault. I ... I lost my perspective. It was ..
"You bedded her," Otah said.
Danat's blush could have lit houses. It was as Otah had feared. Issandra sighed.
"This Radaani woman," she said. "Can you safely offend her family?"
"At the moment, it would be awkward," Otah said.
"Then I can't see that the girl is that far wrong," Issandra said. "Danat has sabotaged things."
"I'm very sorry," he said. "It wasn't ... gods."
Danat sat again, his head in his hands.
"What is Ana's opinion of the matter of Shija and Danat?" Otah asked.
"I don't know," Issandra said. Her voice went softer, sorrow creeping in at the seams. "I believe she's avoiding me."
Otah pressed his fingers against his eyelids until colors swam in the darkness. No one spoke, and the silence pressed on his shoulder like a hand.
"Well," he said at last, "how do the two of you intend to move forward from here?"
"She wants to put them together," Danat said. His voice was equal parts plea and outrage. "She wants Shija and Ana to be seated beside each other at every dance, every meal ..."
"You can't envy what you don't see," Issandra said. "It's more difficult if this other girl can't be easily removed, but if Ana's run with her present lover is nearing an end, and Shija makes it clear that she considers Ana a threat ..."
Danat yelped and began to spout objections, Issandra pressing on against him. Otah kept his eyes closed, the paired voices draining each other of meaning. Instead he imagined the girl to be before him as she had been the night she came to speak with him. Half-drunk. Too proud to be ruled by pride.
He took a pose that commanded silence. Danat's words ended at once. Issandra's took a moment longer to trail off.
"Between the two of you, you'll have to devise something," he said. "I don't have the time or the resources to fix this for you. But consider that you might be treating Ana with less respect than she deserves. Danat-cha, do you intend to build a life with Shija Radaani?"
Danat sobered. He took no pose, spoke no word. Otah nodded.
"Then it would be disrespectful to behave as if you did," Otah said. "Be honest with her, and if it damages relations with House Radaani, then it does."
"Yes, Father," Danat said, hesitated, and then took a pose that asked forgiveness before walking from the room.
Otah's spine ached. His eyes felt gritty with the efforts of the day. It was all far from over.
"Issandra-cha," he said. "I don't know Ana well, but I lost my own daughter by treating her as the girl I remembered instead of the woman she'd become. Don't repeat my mistake. Ana may not be subject to the manipulations that work on younger girls."
Issandra Dasin's face hardened. For a moment, Otah saw the resemblance between mother and daughter. She took a pose of acknowledgment. It was awkward, but her form was correct.
"There is, perhaps, another approach," she said. "I wouldn't have considered it before, but I've spent a certain number of hours with your son. He might be able to manage it."
Otah nodded her on.
"He could choose to fall in love with her. Cultivate the feeling within himself, and then ..." She shrugged. "Let the world take its course. I haven't known many women who failed to be charmed by an attractive man's genuine admiration."
"You think he could simply decide to feel what we want him to feel?"
"I've done it every day for nearly thirty years," Issandra said.
"That is either the most romantic thing I've heard or the saddest," Otah said. And then, "Ana-cha did me a great favor. I'm sorry that Danat repaid it with an indiscretion."
Issandra waved the apology away.
"I doubt she took offense. I'm sure she assumed Danat and this Radaani creature were sharing whatever flat surfaces came available. I remember what it was like at their age. We were all heat and dramatic gestures. We thought we were the first generation to truly discover love or sex or betrayal." Her voice softened.
Otah recalled a girl named Liat with skin the brown of eggshell and the night his one true friend had confessed his affair with her. The night Maati had confessed. He hadn't seen or spoken to either of them for years afterward. He had killed a man, in part as a blessing upon them, Liat and Maati, and the freedom that together they had given him.
All heat and dramatic gestures, he thought. Amusement mixed with sorrow, the way it always did.
"Still, it is a pity," Issandra said. "The Radaani girl is beautiful, and vanity is a powerful lever, no matter how sophisticated you take my daughter to be."
"We may hope for the best," Otah said. "Perhaps Shija-cha will take Danat's apology in stride and return to only acting the role."
Issandra's gaze told him exactly how likely she thought that was, but she only shook her head.
"It would be pleasant," she said.
He ate alone that night, though there were scores of men, Galtic and utkhaiem both, who would have been pleased to share his table. The pavilion sat atop a high tower, the air smelling of lavender and the sea. Otah sat on a cushion by a low table and watched the sunset; orange and red and gold spread out upon a wide canvas of clouds and sky. There were no singing slaves here, but soft chimes danced in the breeze with a sound like bells made from wood. An iron brazier sat close to keep him warm. The evening was beautiful and rich with sadness.
He had known that his daughter was angry with him. He had encouraged the high families to import wives for their sons. They had come from Bakta, Eymond, Eddensea. Women of middling birth commanded huge dowries. The coffers of the utkhaiem had dropped, but a handful of children had been born. A few dozen, perhaps, in every city. It hadn't been enough. And so he'd conceived the plan to join with Galt, old enemies made one people. Yes, it left behind a generation of Khaiate women. And Galtic men, for that. No doubt they would feel angered, lost, discarded. It was a small price to pay for a future.
The Comfort House Empire, she'd called it the last time they'd spoken. And her father, her father, the Procurer King. She said it, and she spat.
Thinking of it stung.
A flock of gulls wheeled below him and to the south. Lemon rice and river trout rested warm on his fingers and in his mouth. When he was alone, he still ate like a laborer.
He wondered if he had been wrong. Perhaps in the approach he had taken, trying to find women capable of bearing children for the cities. Perhaps in speaking to Eiah about it in the terms he'd used. Perhaps in failing to accept her criticism, in speaking harshly. Eiah had accused him of turning his back on the women whom Sterile had wounded because they were inconvenient. Eiah was one of those women, and the injury she'd suffered was as deep as any of his own. Deeper.
It might, he supposed, have been enough to turn her against him. She had always been close to Maati. She had spent long evenings at the library of Machi, where Maati had made his home. She had known Nayiit, the man that Otah had fathered and Maati had called son. In the many years that he had struggled with being merely the Khai Machi, Eiah had made a friend and an uncle of Maati Vaupathai. There was little reason to believe that she would withhold her loyalty from Maati now.
The wheeling gulls landed, leaving the sky to itself. The fleet had long passed the horizon, and Otah wished he had some magical glass that would let him see it still. It was a short enough voyage to Chaburi-Tan. Shorter if the pirates and raiders came out to confront them. He wished Sinja had stayed behind. In the failing light, the gaudy sunset turning to gray, he wanted his old friend back and was only half-startled to realize he meant Maati as much as Sinja.
A servant emerged from the darkened arches at the pavilion's edge and came forward. Otah knew the news he carried before he spoke. Idaan Machi had answered his summons and awaited at his pleasure. Otah ordered that she be brought to him. Her and more food.
Do what needs doing, Sinja said from his memory.
He heard her soft footsteps and didn't turn around. His belly was knotted, and the fish before him smelled suddenly unpleasant. Idaan walked past him and stood at the edge of the pavilion, looking down the height of the tower. Her outer robe was dark, the hem fluttering as if she were about to fall or take flight. When she turned back to him, her expression was mild.
"Lovely view," she said. "But still nothing beside Machi. Do you miss the towers?"
"No," Otah said. "Not really. They're too cold to use in the winter, too hot in the summer, and the tracks they use to haul things up the side have to be replaced every fifth year. They're the best example I know of doing a thing just to show it's possible."
Idaan lowered herself to a cushion opposite him. The fading glow of western clouds silhouetted her.
"True enough," she said. "Still. I miss them."
She considered the bowls of food before them, then took a scoop of rice and fish on two curled fingers. Otah smiled. His sister chewed appreciatively and took a pose that opened a negotiation.
"Yes," he agreed. "There's something I want from you."
Idaan nodded, but didn't speak. Otah squinted out into the wide air above Saraykeht.
"There's too much," he said. "Even turning everything I can manage over to Sinja and Danat and Ashua Radaani, there's too much."
"Too much to allow for what?" She knew, he thought, what was coming.
"Too much for me to leave," he said. "Being Emperor is like being the most honored slave in the world. I can do anything, except that I can't. I can go anywhere, except that I mustn't."
"It sounds awful."
"Don't laugh. I'm not saying I'd rather be lifting crates at the seafront, but senior overseer of a courier service? Something with a few dozen chests of silver lengths and a favorite teahouse."
"Fewer meetings like this one," Idaan suggested.
"That," Otah said. "Gods yes, that."
Idaan scooped up another mouthful of rice, chewed slowly, and let her dark eyes play across his face. He didn't know what she saw there. After a swallow of water and a small sigh, she spoke.
"You want me to find Eiah," she said.
"You know what Maati looks like," he said. "You have the experience of living among low towns and hiding who you are. You understand poets as well as anyone alive, I'd guess."
"And I know what I'm looking for," she said, her voice light and conversational. "Anyone else, and you'd have to bring them into your confidence. Explain what you wanted to know and why. Well, Sinja-cha perhaps, but you've sent him off the other direction."
This is madness, Otah thought but didn't say. She is a killer. She was born without a conscience. However she may seem now, she slaughtered her brothers and the father she loved. She's got the eyes of a pit hound and the heart of a butcher.
"Will you do it?" he said aloud.
Idaan didn't answer at once. A gust of wind pushed at her sleeve and drew a lock of gray hair out behind her like a banner from the mast of a fighting ship. Otah's hands ached, and he forced his fists to open by an act of will.
"Maati hunted me once," she said, hardly louder than the wind. "It only seems fair to return the favor."
Otah closed his eyes. Perhaps it was an empty task. Eiah might very well have nothing to do with Maati's schemes. She might truly be working with some low-town physician, hoping through her own hard work to atone for her father's misdeeds. For his misdeeds. When he looked up, his sister was considering him with hooded eyes.
"I will have a cart and driver ready for you in the morning," he said. "You'll be able to take whatever fresh horses or food you need along the way. I've written the orders up already."
"All the horses and food we need along the way?" Idaan said. "You're right. Being Emperor must be raw hell."
He didn't answer her. She finished the rice and fish. The clouds behind her had gone dark, and since neither had called for candles or torches, the only light was the cold blue moon and the fiery embers in the brazier. Idaan took a pose that accepted his charge.
"You don't want to negotiate payment?" he said.
"I'm just pleased you've decided to do the thing. I was afraid you'd put it off until it was too late," Idaan said. "One question, though. If I find her, and she is the one, what action should I take?"
Meaning should Idaan kill her, kill Maati and as many of the other fledgling poets as she could to prevent them from accomplishing their aims.
Do what needs doing.
"Nothing," Otah said, nerve failing. "Do nothing. There will be couriers in Pathai. You can send the fastest of them back. I'll give you a cipher."
"You're sure?" Idaan said. "It's a lot of time on the road, sending me out and then someone else back. And then waiting while you make your way to Pathai or wherever the trail leads."
"If you find her, send word," Otah said. "You aren't to act against her."
Idaan's smile was crooked with meanings he couldn't quite follow. Otah felt anger growing in his spine, only it wasn't rage so much as dread. "I'll do as you say, Most High," Idaan said. "I'll go at first light."
"Thank you," he said.
Idaan rose and walked back toward the arches. He heard her pause for a moment and then go on. The stars had come out, glimmering in the darkness like gems thrown on black stone. Otah sat in silence until he was sure he could walk, and then went down to his rooms. The servants had left him a bowl of candied fruit, but he couldn't stand the prospect.
A fire burned in the grate, protecting the air from even the slightest chill and tainting it with tendrils of pine smoke. The summer cities had always been overly vigilant of cold. Thin blood. Everything south of Udun was plagued by thinness of the blood. Otah came from the winter cities, and he threw open the shutters, letting in what cold there was. He didn't notice that Danat was there until the boy spoke.
"Father."
Otah turned. Danat stood in the doorway that led to the inner chambers. He wore the same robe that he had before, but the cloth sagged like an unmade bed. Danat's eyes were rimmed with red.
"Danat-kya," Otah said. "What's happened?"
"I've done as you said. Shija and I went to the rose pavilion. Just the two of us. I ... spoke with her. I broke things off."
"Ah," Otah said. He walked back from the open windows and sat on a couch before the fire. Danat came forward, his eyes glittering with unfallen tears.
"This is my fault, Papa-kya. In a different world, I might have ... I have been careless with her. I've hurt her."
Was I ever as young as this? Otah thought, and immediately pressed it away. Even if the question was fair, it was unkind. He held out his hand, and his son-his tall, thick-shouldered son-sat beside him, curled into Otah's shoulder the way he had as a boy. Danat sobbed once.
"I only ... I know you and Issandra-cha were relying on me and . .
Otah hushed the boy.
"You've taken a willing girl to bed," Otah said. "You aren't who she hoped you might be, and so she's disappointed. Yes?"
Danat nodded.
"There are worse things." Otah saw again the darkness of Idaan's eyes. He was sending the woman behind those eyes after his Eiah, his little girl. The ghost of nausea touched him and he stroked Danat's hair. "People have done worse."