The Price of Spring

26

The years had changed Otah Machi. The last time Maati had seen him, his hair had been black or near enough to pass. His shoulders had been broader, his eyebrows smooth. The man who stood before the smoking fire grate now was thinner, his skin loose against his face. His robes, though travel-stained, were of the finest cloth. They draped him like an altar; they made him more than a man. Or perhaps Otah Machi had always been something more than the usual and his robes only reminded them.

Danat, at his father's side, was unrecognizable. The ill, coughing boy confined to his bed had grown into a hale young man with intelligent eyes and his father's distant, considering demeanor. The others Maati had either seen recently enough that they held no disturbing sense of change or were strangers to him.

They had all come. Large Kae and Small Kae and Eiah, but to his discomfort also Idaan Machi, sitting on a bench with a bowl of wine in her hand and her face as expressionless as the dead. A Galtic girl sat apart, her head held high, sightless and proud to cover the disgust and horror she must feel at all Maati had done. Ashti Beg sat at her side, another victim of Vanjit's malice. After all that had happened, after all his many failures of judgment, seeing her among his arrayed enemies was still wrenching.

Otah's armsmen cleared the wayhouse. The conversation that should have taken place in the finest of meeting rooms in the high palaces instead found its place in a third-rate wayhouse, free of ceremony or ritual or even well-brewed tea. Maati felt himself trembling. He had the powerful physical memory of being a boy at the school, holding himself still and waiting for Tahi-kvo's lacquer rod to split his skin.

"Maati Vaupathai," the Emperor said.

"Most High," Maati replied, crossing his arms.

"I suppose I should start by asking why I shouldn't have you killed where you stand."

Eiah, beside him, twitched as if wasp-stung. Maati stared at his old friend, his old enemy, and all the conciliatory words that he had imagined in the last day vanished like a snuffed candle. There was rage in Otah's stance, and Maati found himself more than matching it.

"How dare you?" Maati said, his voice little more than a hiss. "How dare you? I thought, coming here, I would at least be treated with respect. I thought at the very least, that. And instead you stand me up like a common thief in a low-town courtroom and have me defend my life? Justify my right to breathe to the man who killed my son?"

"Nayiit has nothing to do with this," Otah said. "Sinja Ajutani, to contrast, died because of you. Every Galt who has starved since you exacted this sick, petty revenge is dead because of you. Every-"

"Nayiit has everything to do with this. Your sick love of all things Galtic has everything to do with it. Your disloyalty to the women you claim to rule. Your perfect calm in making me an outcast living in gutters for something you were just as guilty of. You are a hypocrite and a liar in everything you've done. I owe you nothing, Otah-kvo. Nothing!"

Otah was shouting something, but Maati's ears were rushing with blood and raw anger. He saw the armsmen shift forward, blades at the ready, but Maati was far past caring. Every injustice, every slight, every cupful of pent-up outrage spilled out, all made worse by the fact that Otah-self-righteous, entitled, and arrogant-was so busy shouting back that he wasn't hearing a word of what Maati was saying.

When he noticed through his rage that a third voice had entered the fray, he couldn't say how long it had been going.

"I said stop!" the Galt shouted again. "Stop it! Both of you!"

Maati turned to the girl, a sneer on his lip, but he was having a hard time catching his breath. Otah also was now silent, his imperial face flushed bright red. Maati felt the urge to offer up an obscene gesture, but he restrained himself. The girl stood in the space between the two, her hands outstretched. Danat stepped to her side. If anything, her anger appeared as high as either of her elders', but she was able to speak coherently.

"Gods," she said. "Is this really what we've been doing? Someone please tell me that the world is on its knees over something more than two old men chewing over quarrels from their boyhood."

"This is much, much more than that," Otah said. His voice, though severe, had lost some of its certainty.

"I wouldn't know from listening to that display," Idaan said. "Ana-cha has more sense than you on this, brother. Listen to her."

Otah had calmed down enough to look merely peeved. Maati held his fist to his chest, but his heart was slowing to its usual pace. Nothing had happened. He was fine. Otah, across from him, took a pose appropriate to the beginning of a short break in a negotiation. His jaw was tight and his stance only civil. Maati replied with one that accepted the proposal. He wanted to sit at Eiah's side, to talk with her about what to do next and how to go about it. It would have been a provocation, though, so instead, Maati retreated to the door leading out into the cold, black courtyard and the clean night air.

It had been a mistake. Otah was too proud and self-centered to help them. He was too wrapped up in anger that the world hadn't followed his one and only holy and anointed plan. They should have gone on to Utani, found someone in the utkhaiem who would support them. Or they should have gone after Vanjit themselves.

They should have done anything but this.

Voices came from behind him. Danat's, Otah's, Eiah's. They sounded tense, but they weren't shouting. Maati pressed his hands into their opposite sleeves and watched his breath steam like a soup kettle. He wondered where Vanjit was and how she was keeping warm. It seemed the woman had become two different people in his mind-one, the girl who had come to him in despair and been given hope again, the other a halfmad poet he'd loosed on the world. The impulses to kill her and to see to her care shouldn't have been able to exist in him at the same time, and yet there they were. He prayed she was dead, and he hoped she was well.

Between that and seeing Otah again, his head was buzzing like a hive.

"We've reached a conclusion," Idaan said from behind him. He turned. She was standing in the doorway, blocking the light. His belly itched where her assassin had stabbed him all those years before.

"Should I be grateful?" Maati asked. Idaan ignored the jab.

"If you and Otah can't play gently, and it's clear as the moon that you can't, we're going to go through channels. Eiah's talking with Danat. They sent me to speak with you."

"Ah, because we're such excellent friends?"

"Say it's because our relationship is simpler," Idaan said. Her voice took on the texture of cast iron. "Tell me what happened."

Maati leaned against the rough wall and shook his head. He'd become too excited, and now that he was calming, it was coming out in an urge to weep. He would not under any circumstances allow that in front of Idaan. Idaan, who'd tried to have Otah killed and had now become his traveling companion. What more did anyone need to know to understand how far Otah had fallen?

"Maati," Idaan said, her voice still hard. "Now."

He began with leaving the school, Eiah's opinion of his health, Vanjit's escalating unreliability. The story took on a rhythm as he told it, the words putting themselves in order as if he had practiced it all before. Idaan didn't speak, but her listening was intense, drawing detail from him almost against his will.

It was as if he were telling himself what had happened, offering a kind of confession to the empty night, Idaan Machi-of all people in the world, Idaan Machi-as his intercessor.

He reached the end-Vanjit's discovery of the poison, her escape, his decision to find help. Somewhere in the course of things, he'd let himself slip to the ground, sitting with his legs stuck out before him and the stone paving leaching the warmth from his body. Idaan squatted beside him. He imagined that the manner of her listening had softened, as if silences could differ like speech.

"I see," she said. "Well. Who'd have thought this would become worse?"

"You led him to us," Maati said.

"I did my best," Idaan agreed. "It's been years since I put my hand to this kind of work. I'm out of practice, but I did what I could."

"All to regain his imperial favor," Maati said. "I would never have guessed that you'd become his toady."

"Actually, I started it to protect Cehmai," Idaan said as if he had offered her no insult. "With you stirring up the mud, I was afraid for him. I wanted Otah to know that he wasn't part of it. And then, once I was at the court… well, I had amends to make to Danat."

"The boy?"

"No. The one he's named for," Idaan said. She heaved a great sigh. "But back to the matter at hand, eh? I understand how hard and confusing it is to love someone you hate. I really do. And if you call me his toady again, I swear by all the gods there ever were, I'll disjoint your fingers. Understood?"

"I didn't mean for it to happen like this," Maati said. "I wanted to heal the world, not… not this."

"Plans go awry," Idaan said. "It's their nature. I'm going back in. Join us when you're ready. I'll get something warm for you to drink."

Maati sat alone, growing colder. Behind him, the wayhouse ticked as the day's heat radiated away. An owl gave its low coo to the world, and the darkness around him seemed to lessen. He could make out the paving stones, the outline of the stable, the high branches rising toward the stars like thin fingers. Maati rested his head against the wall and let his eyes close.

The trembling had stopped. The anger was less immediate, chagrin slowly taking its place. He heard Eiah's calm voice, as solid as stone, from within. He should be with her. He should be at her side. She shouldn't have to face them by herself. He rose, grunting, and lumbered inside, his knees aching.

Otah was sitting in a low wooden chair, his fingers pressed to his lips in thought. He glanced up as Maati stepped into the room but made no other acknowledgment. Eiah, speaking, gestured to the space between Otah and Danat. Her voice had neither rancor nor apology, and Maati was reminded again why he admired her.

"Yes," she said, "the andat outplayed us. From the beginning with Ashti Beg to the end with me, we wanted to think of it as a baby. We all knew it wasn't. We all understand perfectly well that it was some part of Vanjit's mind made flesh, but…"

She raised her hands, palms out. Not a formal pose, but the gesture was eloquent enough.

"So what does it want?" Danat said. "If it truly wants Vanjit killed, why didn't it help you? That would have done all it wanted to do."

"It may want more than freedom," Idaan said, speaking over her shoulder as she pressed a warm bowl into Maati's hand. "There's precedent. Seedless wanted his freedom, but he also wanted his poet to suffer. Clarity-of-Sight may want something for Vanjit besides death."

"Such as?" Large Kae asked. "Punishment," Eiah suggested. "Or isolation. Or…"

"Or a sense of family," Ashti Beg said, her voice oddly contemplative.

"If we think of the babe as having more than one agenda, this could be its way of making a world that was only mother and child. Alienating all the rest of us."

"But it also wants its freedom," Maati said. Small Kae shifted on her bench at the sound of his voice, making room for him. He moved forward and sat. "Whatever else it wants, it must want that."

A puff of smoke escaped from the fire grate. Maati sipped the drink Idaan had given him-rum with honey and apple. It warmed his throat and made his chest glow.

"Is this really what we should care about?" the Galtic girl-Anaasked. "I don't mean that as an attack, but it seems that we've estab lished that the girl's less than sane. Is there something we gain by trying to guess at the shape of her madness?"

"We might have a better idea of where she's gone," Small Kae offered. "What she might do next?"

"Ana's right," Danat said. "We could roll dice about it, but there are some things we know for certain. She set out half a day's boat ride north of here a night ago. If she goes upriver, she'll need to hire a boat. If she goes down, she could hire one or build a raft and rely on the current. Or she can go east over land. What about the low towns? Could she have found shelter in a low town?"

The group was silent, then Danat said, "I'll get the keeper. She may know something of the local geography."

It was, Maati thought, a strangely familiar feeling. A handful of people sitting together, thinking aloud about an insoluble problem. The weeks at the school, sitting in the classrooms with chalk marks on the walls. All of them offering suggestion, interpretation, questions opened for anyone to answer if they could. He took an unexpected comfort from it.

The only one who didn't speak was Otah.

The conversation went on long into the night. The longer they took to find Vanjit, the greater her chance of escape. The greater her chance of dying alone in the wild. The Galtic girl and Small Kae had a long discussion of whether they were going to rescue Vanjit or if the aim was to kill her; Small Kae advocated a fast death, Ana wanted the chance to ask Vanjit to undo the damage to Galt. Danat counted the days to Utani, the days back, guessed at the size of the search party that could be raised.

"There is another option," Eiah said, her pearl-gray eyes focused on nothing. "I had a binding prepared. Wounded. If I can manage it, we would have another way to heal the damage done to Galt."

Ana turned toward Eiah's voice, raw hope on her face. Maati almost felt sorry to dash it.

"No," he said. "It can't be done. Even if you knew it well enough to perform it blind, we hadn't looked over the most recent version. And Vanjit ruined the notes."

"But if Galt could be given its eyes again…" Danat said.

"Vanjit could take them away again," Maati said. "Clarity-of-Sight and Wounded could go back and forth until eventually Eiah tried to heal someone just as Vanjit tried to blind them, and then the gods alone know what would happen. And that matters less than the fact that Eiah would die if she tried the thing."

"You don't know that," Idaan said.

"I'm not willing to take the risk," Maati said.

Otah listened, his brow furrowed, his gaze shifting now and again to the fire. It wasn't until morning that Maati and the others learned what the Emperor was thinking.

The morning light transformed the wayhouse. With the shutters all opened, the benches and tables and soot-stained walls seemed less oppressive. The fire still smoked, but the breeze moving through the rooms kept the air fresh and clear, if cold. The wayhouse keeper had prepared duck eggs and peppered pork for their morning meal, and tea brewed until it was rich with taste and not yet bitter.

They were not all there. Ashti Beg and the two Kaes had stayed up after many of the others had faded into their restless sleep. Maati had slipped into dream with the sound of their voices in his ears, and none of them had yet risen. Danat and Otah were sitting at the same table, looking like a painter's metaphor of youth and age. Eiah and Idaan shared his own table, and he did not know where the Galtic girl had gone.

"She didn't blind Maati. Why?" Otah asked, gesturing at Maati as if he were an exhibit at an audience rather than a person. "Why spare him and not the others?"

"Well, for Eiah it's clear enough," Danat said around a mouthful of pork. "She didn't want another poet binding the andat. As long as Vanjit's the only one, she's… well, the only one."

"And the two Kaes," Eiah said, "so that they couldn't follow her."

"Yes," Idaan said, "but that's not the question. 117hy notMaati?"

"Because…" Maati began, and then fell short. Because she cared for him more? Because she didn't fear him? Nothing he could think of rang true.

"I think she wants to be found," Otah said. "I think she wants to be found, in specific, by Maati."

Idaan grunted appreciatively. Eiah frowned and then nodded slowly.

"Why would she want that?" Maati asked.

"Because your attention is the mark of status," Eiah answered. "You are the teacher. The Dai-kvo. Which of us you choose to give your time to determines who is in favor and who isn't. And she wants to show herself that she can take you from me."

"That's idiotic," Maati said.

"No," Idaan said, her voice oddly soft. "It's only childish."

"It fits together if you've raised a daughter," Otah agreed. "It's just what Eiah would have done when at twelve summers. But if I'm right, it changes things. I didn't want to say it in front of Ana-cha, but if your poet's truly gone to ground, I can't believe we'd find her before spring. She can find new allies if she needs them, or use the andat to threaten people and get what she wants from them. At best, we might have her by Candles Night."

"But if she's waiting to be found," Danat said.

"Then it's a matter of guessing where she'd wait," Otah said. "Where she'd expect Maati to go looking for her."

"I don't know the answer to that," Maati said. "The school, maybe. She might make her way back there."

"Or at the camp where we lost her," Eiah suggested.

Silence fell over the room for a moment. A decision had just been made, and Maati could tell that each of them knew it. Utani would wait. They were hunting Vanjit.

"The camp's nearest," Danat said.

"You can send one of the armsmen north with a letter," Eiah said. "Even if we fail, it doesn't mean a larger search can't be organized while we try."

"I'll round up the others," Idaan said, rising from the table. "No point wasting daylight. Danat-cha, if you could tell our well-armed escorts that we're leaving?"

Danat swilled down the last of his tea, took a pose that accepted his aunt's instructions, and rose. In moments, only Otah, Eiah, and Maati himself were left in the room. Otah took a bite of egg and stared out into nothing.

"Otah-kvo," Maati said.

The Emperor looked over, his eyebrow raised in something equally query and challenge. Maati felt his chest tighten as if it were bound by wire. He sat silent for the rest of the meal.

To Maati's dismay, Ashti Beg, Large Kae, and Small Kae all preferred to stay behind. There was a logic to it, and the keeper was more than happy to take Otah's silver in return for a promise to look after them. Still, Maati found himself wishing that they had come.

The Emperor's boat was, if anything, smaller than the one Maati had hired. One of the armsmen had been sent north with letters that Otah had hastily drafted, another to the south. Half of the rest were set to finding a second boat and following with the supplies, and yet the little craft felt crowded as they nosed out into the river.

Otah stood at the bow, Danat at his side. Idaan had appointed herself shepherd of Eiah and Ana, the blinded women. Maati sat alone near the stern. The sky was pale with haze, the river air rich with the scent of decaying leaves and autumn. The kiln roared to itself, and the wheel slapped the water. Far above, two vees of geese headed south, their brash unlovely voices made beautiful by distance.

His rage was gone, and he missed it. All his fantasies of Otah Machi apologizing, of Otah Machi debased before him, melted like sugar in water when faced with the man himself. Maati felt small and alone, and perhaps that was merely accurate. He had lost everything now except perhaps Eiah. Irit was gone, and the wisest of them all for fleeing. He couldn't imagine Large Kae and Small Kae would return to him. Ashti Beg had left once already. And then Vanjit. All of his little family was gone now.

His family. Ashti Beg's voice returned to him. Vanjit and Clarity-ofSight and the need for family.

"Oh," he said, almost before he knew what he meant. And then, "Oh."

Maati made his unsteady way to the bow, touching crates with his fingertips to keep from stumbling. Otah and Danat turned at the sound of his approach, but said nothing. Maati reached them short of breath and oddly elated. His smile seemed to surprise them.

"I know where she's gone," he said.