Seasons of War (62 page)

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Authors: Daniel Abraham

BOOK: Seasons of War
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‘Chaburi-Tan?’
‘What they said,’ the servant replied.
Eiah took two lengths of silver from her sleeve and held them out in her palm. The servant promptly forgot about her horse.
‘When you’re done,’ she said, ‘take the woman and the Westlander to the back of the house. Buy them some wine. Don’t mention me. Leave the old man.’
The servant took a pose of acceptance so total it was just short of an open pledge. Eiah smiled, dropped the silver in his palm, and pulled up a shoeing stool to sit on while she waited. The night was cool, but still not near as cold as her home in the north. An owl hooted deep and low. Eiah pulled her arms up into her sleeves to keep her fingers warm. The scent of roasting pork wafted from the wayhouse, and the sounds of a flute and a voice lifted together.
The servant finished his work and with a deferential nod to Eiah, made his way to the servants’ house. It was less than half a hand before he emerged with a thin woman and a sandy-haired Westlands boy trailing him. Eiah pushed her hands back through her sleeves and made her way to the small, rough shack.
He was sitting beside the fire, frowning into the flames and eating a mush of rice and raisins from a small wooden bowl. The years hadn’t been kind to him. He was thicker than he’d been when she knew him, an unhealthy fatness that had little to do with indulgence. His color was poor; what remained of his hair was white stained yellow by neglect. He looked angry. He looked lonesome.
‘Uncle Maati,’ she said.
He startled. His eyes flashed. Eiah couldn’t tell if it was anger or fear. But whatever it was had a trace of pleasure to it.
‘Don’t know who you mean,’ he said. ‘Name’s Daavit.’
Eiah chuckled and stepped into the small room. It smelled of bodies and smoke and the raisins in Maati’s food. Eiah found a small chair and pulled it to the fire beside the old poet, her chosen uncle, the man who had destroyed the world. They sat silently for a while.
‘It was the way they died,’ Eiah said. ‘All the stories you told me when I was young about the prices that the andat exacted when a poet’s binding failed. The one whose blood turned dry. The one whose belly swelled up like he was pregnant, and when they cut him open it was all ice and seaweed. All of them. I started to hear stories. What was that, four years ago?’
At first she thought he wouldn’t answer. He cupped two thick fingers into the rice and ate what they lifted out. He swallowed. He sucked his teeth.
‘Six,’ he said.
‘Six years,’ she said. ‘Women started appearing here and there, dead in strange ways.’
He didn’t answer. Eiah waited for the space of five slow breaths together before she went on.
‘You told me stories about the andat when I was young,’ she said. ‘I remember most of it, I think. I know that a binding only works once. In order to bind the same andat again, the poet has to invent a whole new way to describe the thought. You used to tell me about how the poets of the Old Empire would bind three or four andat in a lifetime. I thought at the time you envied them, but I saw later that you were only sick at the waste of it.’
Maati sighed and looked down.
‘And I remember when you tried to explain to me why only men could be poets,’ she said. ‘As I recall, the arguments weren’t all that convincing to me.’
‘You were a stubborn girl,’ Maati said.
‘You’ve changed your mind,’ Eiah said. ‘You’ve lost all your books. All the grammars and histories and records of the andat that have come before. They’re gone. All the poets gone but you and perhaps Cehmai. And in the history of the Empire, the Second Empire, the Khaiem, the
one
thing you know is that a woman has never been a poet. So perhaps, if women think differently enough from men, the bindings they create will succeed, even with nothing but your own memory to draw from.’
‘Who told you? Otah?’
‘I know my father had letters from you,’ Eiah said. ‘I don’t know what was in them. He didn’t tell me.’
‘A women’s grammar,’ Maati said. ‘We’re building a women’s grammar.’
Eiah took the bowl from his hands and put it on the floor with a clatter. Outside, a gust of wind shrilled past the shack. Smoke bellied out from the fire, rising into the air, thinning as it went. When he looked at her, the pleasure was gone from his eyes.
‘It’s the best hope,’ Maati said. ‘It’s the only way to . . . undo what’s been done.’
‘You can’t do this, Maati-kya,’ Eiah said, her voice gentle.
Maati started to his feet. The stool he’d sat on clattered to the floor. Eiah pulled back from his accusing finger.
‘Don’t you tell that to me, Eiah,’ Maati said, biting at the words. ‘I know he doesn’t approve. I asked his help. Eight years ago, I risked my life by sending to him, asking the Emperor of this pisspot empire for help. And what did he say? No. Let the world be the world, he said. He doesn’t see what it is out here. He doesn’t see the pain and the ache and the suffering. So don’t you tell
me
what to do. Every girl I’ve lost, it’s
his
fault. Every time we try and fall short, it’s because we’re sneaking around in warehouses and low towns. Meeting in secret like criminals—’
‘Maati-kya—’
‘I
can
do this,’ the old poet continued, a fleck of white foam at the corner of his mouth. ‘I
have
to. I
have
to retrieve my error. I have to fix what I broke. I know I’m hated. I know what the world’s become because of me. But these girls are dedicated and smart and willing to die if that’s what’s called for. Willing to
die
. How can you and your great and glorious father tell me that I’m wrong to try?’
‘I didn’t say you shouldn’t try,’ Eiah said. ‘I said you can’t do it. Not alone.’
Maati’s mouth worked for a moment. His fingertip traced an arc down to the fire grate as the anger left him. Confusion washed through his expression, his shoulders sagging and his chest sinking in. He reminded Eiah of a puppet with its strings fouled. She rose and took his hand as she had the dead woman’s.
‘I haven’t come here on my father’s business,’ Eiah said. ‘I’ve come to help.’
‘Oh,’ Maati said. A tentative smile found its way to his lips. ‘Well. I . . . that is . . .’
He frowned viciously and wiped at his eyes with one hand. Eiah stepped forward and put her arms around him. His clothes smelled rank and unwashed; his flesh was soft, his skin papery. When he returned her embrace, she would not have traded the moment for anything.
1
I
t was the fifth month of the Emperor’s self-imposed exile. The day had been filled, as always, with meetings and conversations and appreciations of artistic tableaux. Otah had retired early, claiming a headache rather than face another banquet of heavy, overspiced Galtic food.
The night birds in the garden below his window sang unfamiliar songs. The perfume of the wide, pale flowers was equal parts sweetness and pepper. The rooms of his suite were hung with heavy Galtic tapestries, knotwork soldiers slaughtering one another in memory of some battle of which Otah had never heard.
It was, coincidentally, the sixty-third anniversary of his birth. He hadn’t chosen to make it known; the High Council might have staged some further celebration, and he had had a bellyful of celebrations. In that day, he had been called upon to admire a gold- and jewel-encrusted clockwork whose religious significance was obscure to him; he had moved in slow procession down the narrow streets and through the grand halls with their awkward, blocky architecture and their strange, smoky incense; he had spoken to two members of the High Council to no observable effect. At this moment, he could be sitting with them again, making the same points, suffering the same deflections. Instead, he watched the thin clouds pass across the crescent moon.
He had become accustomed to feeling alone. It was true that with a word or a gesture he could summon his counselors or singing slaves, scholars or priests. Another night, he might have, if only in hope that this time it would be different; that the company would do something more than remind him how little comfort it provided. Instead, he went to the ornate writing desk and took what solace he could.
Kiyan-kya—
I have done what I said I would do. I have come to our old enemies, I have pled my case and pled and pled and pled, and now I suppose I’ll plead some more. The full council is set to make their vote in a week’s time. I know I should go out and do more, but I swear that I’ve spoken to everyone in this city twice over, and tonight, I’d rather be here with you. I miss you.
They tell me that all widowers suffer this sense of being halved, and they tell me it fades. It hasn’t faded. I suspect age changes the nature of time. Four years may be an epoch for young men, to me it’s hardly the space between one breath and the next. I want you to be here to tell me your thoughts on the matter. I want you here. I want you back.
I’ve had word from Danat and Sinja. They seem to be running the cities effectively enough in my absence, but apart from our essential problem, there are a thousand other threats. Pirates have raided Chaburi-Tan, and there are stories of armed companies from Eddensea and the Westlands exacting tolls on the roads outside the winter cities. The trading houses are bleeding money badly; no one indentures themselves as an apprentice anymore. Artisans are having to pay for workers. Even seafront laborers are commanding wages higher than anything I made as a courier. The high families of the utkhaiem are watching their coffers drain like a holed bladder. It makes them restless. I have had two separate petitions to allow forced indenture for what they call ‘critical labor.’ I haven’t given an answer. When I go home, I suppose I’ll have to.
Otah paused, the tip of his pen touching the brick of ink. Something with wide, pale wings the size of his hands and eyes as black and wet as river stones hovered at the window and then vanished. A soft breeze rattled the open shutters. He pulled back the sleeve of his robe, but before the bronze tip touched the paper, a soft knock came at his door.
‘Most High,’ the servant boy said, his hands in a pose of obeisance. ‘Balasar-cha requests an audience.’
Otah smiled and took a pose that granted the request and implied that the guest should be brought to him here, the nuance only slightly hampered by the pen still in his hand. As the servant scampered out, Otah straightened his sleeves and stuck the pen nib-first into the ink brick.
Once, Balasar Gice had led armies against the Khaiem, and only raw chance had kept him from success. Instead of leading Galt to its greatest hour, he had precipitated its slow ruin. That the Khaiem shared that fate took away little of the sting. The general had spent years rebuilding his broken reputation, and even now was less a force within Galt than once he had been.
And still, he was a man to be reckoned with.
He came into the room, bowing to Otah as he always did, but with a wry smile which was reserved for occasions out of the public eye.
‘I came to inquire after your health, Most High,’ Balasar Gice said in the language of the Khaiem. His accent hadn’t lessened in the years since they had met. ‘Councilman Trathorn was somewhat relieved by your absence, but he had to pretend distress.’
‘Well, you can tell him his distress in every way mirrors my own,’ Otah said. ‘I couldn’t face it. I’ve been too much in the world. There is only so much praise I can stand from people who’d be happy to see my head on a plate. Please, sit. I can have a fire lit if you’re cold . . .’
Balasar sat on a low couch beside the window. He was a small man, more than half a head shorter than Otah, with the force of personality that made it easy to forget. The years had weathered his face, grooves at the corners of his eyes and mouth that spoke as much of laughter as sorrow. They had met a decade and a half ago in the snow-covered square that had been the site of the last battle in the war between Galt and the Khaiem. A war that they had both lost.
The years since had seen his status in his homeland collapse and then slowly be rebuilt. He wasn’t a member of the convocation, much less the High Council, but he was still a man of power within Galt. When he sat forward, elbows resting on his knees, Otah could imagine him beside a campfire, working through the final details of the next morning’s attack.
‘Otah,’ the former general said, falling into his native tongue, ‘what is your plan if the vote fails?’
Otah leaned back in his chair.
‘I don’t see why it should,’ Otah said. ‘All respect, but what Sterile did, she did to both of us. Galt is in just as much trouble as the cities of the Khaiem. Your men can’t father children. Our women can’t bear them. We’ve gone almost fifteen years without children. The farms are starting to feel the loss. The armies. The trades.’
‘I know all that,’ Balasar said, but Otah pressed on.
‘Both of our nations are
going
to fall. They’ve been falling, but we’re coming close to the last chance to repair it. We might be able to weather a single lost generation, but if there isn’t another after that, Galt will become Eymond’s back gardens, and the Khaiem will be eaten by whoever can get to us first. You know that Eymond is only waiting for your army to age into weakness.’

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