The Price of Spring

31

The formal joining of Ana Dasin and Danat Machi took place on Candles Night in the high temple of Utani. The assembled nobility of Galt along with the utkhaiem from the highest of families to the lowest firekeeper filled every cushion on the floor, every level of balcony. The air itself was hot as a barn, and the smell of perfume and incense and bodies was overwhelming. Otah sat on his chair, looking out over the vast sea of faces. Many of the Galts wore mourning veils, and, to his surprise, the fashion had not been lost on the utkhaiem. He worried that the mourning was not entirely for fallen Galt, but also a subterranean protest of the marriage itself. It was only a small concern, though. He had thousands more like it.

The Galtic ceremony-a thing of dirgelike song and carefully measured wine spilled over rice, all to a symbolic end that escaped him-was over. The traditional joining of his own culture was already under way. Otah shifted, trying to be unobtrusive in his discomfort despite every eye in Utani being fixed on the dais.

Fatter Dasin wore a robe of black and a red ocher that suited his complexion better than Otah would have expected. Issandra sat at his side in a Galtic gown of yellow lace over a profoundly celebratory red. Danat knelt before them both.

"Farrer Dasin of House Dasin, I place myself before you as a man before my elder," Danat said. "I place myself before you and ask your permission. I would take Ana, your blood issue, to be my wife. If it does not please you, please only say so, and accept my apology."

The whisperers carried his words out through the hall like wind over wheat. Ana Dasin herself knelt on a cushion off to her parents' right and Danat had been sitting to Otah's left. The girl's gown had been an issue of long and impassioned debate, for the swell of her belly was unmistakable. With only a few minor modifications, the tailors could have done much to hide it. Instead, she had chosen Galtic dress with its tight fittings and waist-slung ribbons, which would make it clear to the farthest spectator in the temple that summer would come well after the child. Etiquette masters from both courts had gone at the issue like pit dogs for the better part of a week. Otah thought she looked beautiful with her garland of ribbons. Her father apparently thought so as well. Instead of the traditional reply, I am not displeased, Fatter looked Danat square in the eyes, then turned to Ana.

"Bit late for asking, isn't it?" Fatter said.

Otah laughed, giving his implicit permission for all the court to laugh with him. Danat grinned as well and took a pose of gratitude somewhat more profound than strictly required. Danat rose, came to Otah, and knelt again.

"Most High?" he said, his mouth quirked in an odd smile. Otah pretended to consider the question. The court laughed again, and he rose to his feet. It felt good to stand up, though before it was all finished, he'd be longing to sit down again.

"Let it be known that I have authorized this match. Let the blood of the House Dasin enter for the first time into the imperial lineage. And let all who honor the Khaiem respect this transfer and join in our celebration. The ceremony shall be held at once."

The whisperers carried it all, and moments later a priest came out, intoning old words whose meanings were more than half forgotten. The man was older than Otah, and his expression was as serene and joyous as that of a man too drunk to stagger. Otah took a welcoming pose, accepted one in return, and stepped back to let the ceremony proper begin.

Danat accepted a long, looped cord and hung it over his arm. The priest intoned the ritual questions, and Danat made his answers. Otah's back began to spasm, but he kept still. The end of the cord, cut and knotted, passed from Danat to the priest and then to Ana's hand. The roar that rose up drowned out the whisperers, the priest, the world. The courts of two nations stood cheering, all decorum forgotten. Ana and Danat stood together with a length of woven cotton between them, grinning and waving. Otah imagined their child stirring in its dark sleep, aware of the sound if not its meaning.

Balasar Gice, wearing the robe of a high councilman, was at the front of the crowd, clapping his small hands together with tears running down his cheeks. Otah felt a momentary pang of sorrow. Sinja hadn't seen it. Kiyan hadn't. He took a deep breath and reminded himself that the moment wasn't his. The celebration was not of his life or his love or the binding of his house to a wayhouse keeper from Udun. It was Danat's and Ana's, and they at least were transcendent.

The rest of the ceremony took twice as long as it should have, and by the time the procession was ready to carry them out and through the streets of Utani, the sunset was no more than a memory.

Otah allowed himself to be ushered to a high balcony that looked down upon the city. The air was bitterly cold, but a cast-iron brazier was hauled out, coals already bright red so that Otah could feel the searing heat to his left while his right side froze. He huddled in a thick wool blanket, following the wedding procession with his eyes. Each street they turned down lit itself, banners and streamers of cloth arcing through the air.

Here is where it begins, he thought. And then, Thank all the gods it isn't me down there.

A servant girl stepped onto the balcony and took a pose that announced a guest. Otah wasn't about to stick his hands out of the blanket.

"Who?"

"Farrer Dasin-cha," the girl said.

"Bring him here," Otah said. "And some wine. Hot wine."

The girl took a pose that accepted the charge and turned to go.

"Wait," Otah said. "What's your name?"

"Toyani Vauatan, Most High," she said.

"How old are you?"

"Twenty summers."

Otah nodded. In truth, she looked almost too young to be out of the nursery. And yet at her age, he had been on a ship halfway to the eastern islands, two different lives already behind him. He pointed out at the city.

"It's a different world now, Toyani-cha. Nothing's going to stay as it was.

The girl smiled and took a pose that offered congratulations. Of course she didn't understand. It was unfair to expect her to. Otah smiled and turned back to the city, the celebration. He didn't see when she left. The wedding procession had just turned down the long, wide road that led to the riverfront when Farrer stepped out, the girl Toyani behind them bearing two bowls of wine that plumed with steam and a chair for the newcomer without seeming awkward or out of place. It was, Otah supposed, an art.

"We've done it," Fatter said when the girl had gone.

"We have," Otah agreed. "Not that I've stopped waiting for the next catastrophe."

"I think the last one will do."

Otah sipped his wine. The spirit hadn't quite been cooked out of it, and the spices tasted rich and strange. He had been dreading this conversation, but now that it had come, it wasn't as awful as he'd feared.

"The report's come," Otah said.

"The first one, yes. Everyone on the High Council had a copy this morning. Just in time for the festivities. I thought it was rude at the time, but I suppose it gives us all more reason to get sloppy drunk and weep into our cups."

Otah took a pose of query simple enough for the Galt to follow.

"Every city is in ruins except for Kirinton. They did something clever there with street callers and string. I don't fully understand it. The outlying areas suffered, though not quite as badly. The first guesses are that it will take two generations just to put us back where we were."

"Assuming nothing else happens," Otah said. Below, a fanfare was blaring.

"You mean Eymond," Farrer said. "They're a problem, it's true."

"Eymond. Eddensea, the Westlands. Anyone, really."

"If we had the andat..

"We don't," Otah said.

"No, I suppose not," Farrer said, sourly. "But to the point, how many of us are aware of that fact?"

In the dim light of the brazier's coals, Farrer's face was the same dusky red as the moon in eclipse. The Galt smiled, pleased that he had taken Otah by surprise.

"You and I know. The High Council. That half-bastard council you put together when you headed out into the wilderness. Ana. Danat. A few armsmen. All in all, I'd guess not more than three dozen people actually know what happened. And none of them is at present working for Eymond."

"You're saying we should pretend to have an andat?"

"Not precisely," Fatter said. "As many people as already know, the story will come out eventually. But there might be a way to present it that still gave other nations pause. Send out letters of embassage that say the andat, though recovered, have been set aside and deny the rumors that certain deaths and odd occurrences are at all related to a new poet under the direction of the Empire."

"What deaths?"

"Don't be too specific about that," Farrer said. "I expect they'll supply the details."

"Let them think… that we have the andat and are hiding the fact?" Otah laughed.

"It won't last forever, but the longer we can stall them, the better prepared we'll be when they come."

"And they do always come," Otah said. "Clever thought. It costs us nothing. It could gain us a great deal. Issandra?"

Farrer leaned back in his chair, setting his heels on the parapet and looking up at the stars, the full, heavy moon. For the space of a heartbeat, he looked forlorn. He drank his wine and looked over at Otah.

"My wife is an amazing woman," he said. "I'm fortunate to have her. And if Ana's half like her, she'll be running both our nations whether your son likes it or not."

It was the opening to a hundred other issues. Galt and the cities of the Khaiem were in a state of profound disarray. Ana Dasin might be the new Empress, but that meant little enough in practical terms. In Galt the High Council and the full council were each in flux, their elections and appointments in question now that their cities were little more than abandoned. Otah would be hated for that destruction or else beloved for the mending of it.

"It is the point, isn't it? If we are two nations, we're doomed," Farrer said, reading his concerns. "We have too many enemies and not enough strengths between us."

"If we're one… how do we do that? Will the High Council be ruled by my edict? Am I supposed to cede my power to them?"

"Compromise, Most High," Farrer said. "It will be a long process of compromise and argument, idiotic yammering debate and high melodrama. But in its defense, it won't be war."

"It won't be war," Otah repeated. Only when the words had come out into the night air, hanging as if physical, did he realize he had meant it as an agreement. One nation. His empire had just doubled in size, tripled in complexity and need, and his own power had been cut at least by half. Farrer seemed surprised when he laughed.

"Tomorrow," Otah said. "Call the High Council tomorrow. I'll bring my council. We'll start with the report and try to build something like a plan from there. And tell Issandra that I'll have the letters of embassage sent. Best get that done before there's a debate about it, ne?"

They sat for a time without speaking, two men whose children had just joined their families. Two enemies planning a house in common. Two great powers whose golden ages had ended. They could play at it, but each knew that it was only in their children, in their grandchildren, that the game of friendship could become truth.

Farrer finished his wine, leaving the bowl by his chair. As he walked out, he put a hand on Otah's shoulder.

"Your son seems a fine man," he said.

"Your daughter is a treasure."

"She is," Farrer Dasin said, his voice serious. And then Otah was alone again, the night numbing his feet and biting his ears and nose. He pulled the blanket around himself more tightly and left the balcony and the city and the celebrations behind him.

The palaces were as quiet and busy as the backstage at a performance. Servants ran or walked or conducted low, angry conversations that died at Otah's approach. He let the night make its own path. He knew the bridal procession had returned to the palaces by the number of robes with bits of tinsel and bright paper clinging to the hems. And also by the flushed faces and spontaneous laughter. There would have been celebration on into the night, even if they hadn't scheduled the wedding on Candles Night. As it was, Utani as a whole, from the highest nobility to the lowest beggar, would sleep late and speak softly when they woke. Otah doubted there would be any wine left by spring.

But there would be babies. He could already name a dozen women casually who would be giving birth when the summer came. And everywhere, in all the cities, the conditions were the same. They would miss a generation, but only one. The Empire would stumble, but it need not fall.

Even more than the joining of the Empire and Galt, the night was the first formal celebration of a world made new. Otah wished he felt more part of it. Perhaps he understood too well what price had brought them here.

He found Eiah where he knew he would. The physicians' house with its wide, slate tables and the scent of vinegar and burning herbs. Cloth lanterns bobbled in the breeze outside the open doors. A litter of stretched canvas and light wood lay on the steps, blood staining the cloth. Within, half a dozen men and two women sat on low wooden benches or lay on the floor. One of the men tried to take a pose of obeisance, winced in pain, and sat back down. Otah made his way to the rear. Three men in leather aprons were working the tables, servants and assistants swarming around them. Eiah, in her own apron, was at the back table. A Galtic man lay before her, groaning. Blood drenched his side. Eiah glanced up, saw him, and took a pose of welcome with red hands.

"What's happened?" Otah asked.

"He fell out of a window and onto a stick," Eiah said. "I'm fairly sure we've gotten all the splinters out of him."

"He'll live, then?"

"If he doesn't go septic," Eiah said. "He's a man with a hole in his side. You can't ask better odds than that."

The wounded man stuttered out his gratitude in his own language while Eiah, letting him hold one of her hands, gestured with the other for an assistant.

"Bind the wound, give him three measures of poppy milk, and put him somewhere safe until morning. I'll want to see his wound again before we send him back to his people."

The assistant took a pose that accepted instruction, and Eiah walked to the wide stone basins on the back wall to wash the blood from her hands. A woman screamed and retched, but he couldn't see where she was. Eiah was unfazed.

"We'll have forty more like him by morning," she said. "Too drunk and happy to think of the risks. There was a woman here earlier who wrenched her knee climbing a rope they'd strung over the street. Almost fell on Danat's head, to hear her say it. She may walk with a cane the rest of her life, but she's all smiles tonight."

"Well, she won't be dancing," Otah said.

"If she can hop, she will."

"Is there a place we can speak?" Otah asked.

Eiah dried her hands on a length of cloth, leaving it dark with water and pink with blood. Her expression was closed, but she led the way through a wide door and down a hall. Someone was moaning nearby. She turned off into a small garden, the bushes as bare as sticks, a widebranched tree empty. If there had been snow, it would have been lovely.

"I'm calling a meeting with the Galtic High Council tomorrow," he said. "And my own as well. It's the beginning of unification. I wanted you to hear it from me."

"That seems wise," Eiah said.

"The poets. The andat. They can't be kept out of that conversation."

"I know," she said. "I've been thinking about it."

"I don't suppose there are any conclusions you'd want to share," he asked, trying to keep his tone light. Eiah pulled at her fingers, one hand and then the other.

"We can't be sure there won't be others," she said. "The hardest thing about binding them is the understanding that they can be bound. They burned all the books, they killed every poet they could find, and we remade the grammar. We bound two andat. Other people are going to try to do what we did. Work from the basic structures and find a way."

"You think they'll do it?"

"History doesn't move backward," she said. "There's power in them. And there are people who want power badly enough to kill and die. Eventually, someone will find a way."

"Without Maati? Without Cehmai?"

"Or Irit, or Ashti Beg, or the two Kaes?" Eiah said. "Without me? It will be harder. It will take longer. The cost in lives and failed bindings may be huge."

"You're talking about generations from now," Otah said.

"Yes," Eiah said. "Likely, I am."

Otah nodded. It wasn't what he'd hoped to hear, but it would do. He took a pose that thanked Eiah. She bowed her head.

"Are you well?" he asked. "It isn't an easy thing, killing."

"Vanjit wasn't the first person I've killed, Father. Knowing when to help someone leave is part of what I do," Eiah said. She looked up, staring at the moon through the bare branches that couldn't shelter them, even from light. "I'm more troubled by what I could have done and didn't."

Otah took a pose that asked her to elaborate. Eiah shook her head, and then a moment later spoke softly, as if the words themselves were delicate.

"I could have held all our enemies at bay just by the threat of Wounded," she said. "What army would take the field, knowing I could blow out their lives like so many candles? Who would conspire against us knowing that if their agents were discovered, I could slaughter their kings and princes without hope of defense?"

"It would have been convenient," Otah agreed carefully.

"I could have slaughtered the men who killed Sinja-kya," Eiah said. "I could have ended every man who had ever taken a woman against her will or hurt a child. Between one breath and the next, I could have wiped them from the world."

Eiah turned her gaze to him. In the cool moonlight, her eyes seemed lost in shadow.

"I look at those things-all the things I might have done-and I wonder whether I would have. And if I had, would they have been wrong?"

"And what do you believe?"

"I believe I saved myself when I set that perversion free," she said. "I only hope the price the rest of the world pays isn't too high."

Otah stepped forward and took her in his arms. Eiah held back for a moment, and then relaxed into the embrace. She smelled of herbs and vinegar and blood. And mint. Her hair smelled of mint, just as her mother's had done.

"You should go see him," she said. He knew who she meant.

"Is he well?"

"For now," she said. "He's weathered the attacks so far. But his blood's still slowing. I expect he'll be fine until he isn't, and then he'll die."

"How long?"

"Not another year," she said.

Otah closed his eyes.

"He misses you," she said. "You know he does."

He stepped back and kissed her forehead. In the distance, someone screamed. Eiah glanced over his shoulder with disgust.

"That will be Yaniit," she said. "I'd best go tend to him. Tall as a tree, wide as a bear, and wails if you pinch him."

"Take care," Otah said.

His daughter walked away with the steady stride of a woman about her own business, leaving the bare garden for him. He looked up at the moon, but it had lost its poetry and charm. His sigh was opaque in the cold.

Maati's cell was the most beautifully appointed prison in the cities, possibly in the world. The armsmen led Otah into a chamber with vaulted ceilings and carved cedar along the walls. Maati sat up, waving the servant at his side to silence. The servant closed the book she'd been reading but kept the place with her thumb.

"You're learning Galtic tales now?" Otah asked.

"You burned my library," Maati said. "Back in Machi, or don't you recall that? The only histories your grandchild will read are written by them."

"Or by us," Otah said. "We can still write, you know."

Maati took a pose that accepted correction, but with a dismissive air that verged on insult. So this was how it was, Otah thought. He motioned to the armsmen to take the prisoner and follow him, then spun on his heel. The feeble sounds of protest behind him didn't slow his pace.

The highest towers of Utani were nothing in comparison to those in Machi; they could be scaled by stairways and corridors and didn't re quire a rest halfway along. Under half the height, and Otah liked them better. They were built with humanity in mind, and not the raw boasting power of the andat.

At the pinnacle, a small platform stood high above the world. The tallest place in the city. Wind whipped it, as cold as a bath of ice water. Otah motioned for Maati to be led forward. The poet's eyes were wild, his breath short. He raised his thick chin.

"What?" Maati spat. "Decided to throw me off, have you?"

"It's almost the half-candle," Otah said and went to stand at the edge. Maati hesitated and then stepped to his side. The city spread out below them, the streets marked by lanterns and torches. A fire blazed in a courtyard down near the riverfront, taller than ten men with whole trees for logs. Otah could cover it with his thumbnail.

The chime came, a deep ringing that seemed to shake the world. And then a thousand thousand bells rang out in answer to mark the deepest part of the longest night of the year.

"Here," Otah said. "Watch."

Below, light spread through the city. Every window, every balcony, ever parapet glowed with newly lit candles. Within ten breaths, the center of the Empire went from any large city in darkness to something woven from light, the perfect city-the idea of a city-made for a moment real. Maati shifted. When his voice came, it was little more than a whisper.

"It's beautiful."

"Isn't it?"

A moment later, Maati said, "Thank you."

"Of course," Otah replied.

They stood there for a long time, neither speaking nor arguing, concerned with neither future nor past. Below them, Utani glowed and rang, marking the moment of greatest darkness and celebrating the yearly return of the light.