An Autumn War Read online

  "You would have known him, if you'd seen him in passing. You'd have known who he was."

  Nayiit took a pose of affirmation. He pursed his lips and chuckled ruefully.

  "I don't know what it is to be a father. I'm only working from-"

  "Nayiit-kya?" came a voice from the shadows behind them. A soft, feminine voice. "Is everything well?"

  She stepped toward the light. A young woman, twenty summers, perhaps as many as twenty-two. She wore bedding tied around her waist, her breasts bare, her hair still wild from the pillows.

  "Jaaya-cha, this is my mother. Mother, Jaaya Biavu."

  The girl blanched, then flushed. She took a pose of welcome, not bothering to cover herself, but her gaze was on Nayiit. It spoke of both humiliation and contempt. Nayiit didn't look at her. The woman turned and stalked away.

  "That wasn't kind," Liat said.

  "Very little of what she and I do involves kindness," he said. "I don't expect I'll see her again. By which I mean, I don't suppose she'll see me."

  "Is she politically connected? If her family is utkhaiem ..."

  "I don't think she is," Nayiit said, his face in his hands. It was hard to be sure in the firelight, but she thought the tips of his ears were blushing. "I suppose I should have asked."

  He struggled for a moment, trying to speak and failing. his brow furrowed and Liat had to resist the urge to reach over and smooth it with her thumb, the way she had when he'd been a babe.

  "I'm sorry," he said. "You know that I'm sorry."

  "t~ or what?" she asked, her voice low and stern. As if there were any number of things for which he might he.

  "For not being a better man," he said.

  The fire popped, as if in comment. Liat took her son's hand, and for a long moment, they were silent. "Then:

  "I don't care what you do with your marriage, Nayiit-kya. If you don't love her, end it. Or if you don't trust her. As you see fit. People come together and they part. It's what we do. But the boy. You can't leave the boy. That isn't fair."

  "It's what Maati-cha did to us."

  "No," Liat said, giving his hand the smallest pressure, and then releasing it. "We left him."

  Nayiit turned to her slowly, his hands folding into a pose that asked confirmation. It was as if the words were too dangerous to speak.

  "I left him," Liat said. "I took you when you were still a babe, and I was the one to leave him."

  She saw a moment's shock in his expression, gone as fast as it had come. His face went grave, his hands as still as stones. As still as a man bending his will to keep them still.

  "Why?" he asked. His voice was low and thready.

  "Oh, love. It was so long ago. I was someone else, then," she said, and knew as she said it that it wasn't enough. "I did because he was only half there. And because I couldn't see to all of his needs and all of yours and have no one there to look after me."

  "It was better without him?"

  "I thought it would be. I thought I was cutting my losses. And then, later, when I wasn't so certain anymore, I convinced myself it had been the right thing, just so I could tell myself I hadn't been wrong."

  lie was shaken, though he tried to cover it. She knew him too well to be fooled.

  "tic wasn't there, Nayiit. But he never left you."

  And part of me never left him, she thought. What would the world have been if I had chosen otherwise? Where would we all be now if that part of him and of me had been enough? Still in that little hut in the low town near the I)ai-kvo? Would they all have lived together in the library these past years as Nlaati had?

  "Those other, ghostlike people made a pretty dream, but then there would have been no one to hear of the Galts and the missing poet, no one to travel to Nantani. And little Tai would not have been horn, and she would never have seen Amat Kyaan again. Someone else would have been with the old woman when she died-someone else or no one. And Liat would never have taken House Kyaan, would never have proven herself competent to the world and to her own satisfaction.

  It was too much. The changes, the differences were too great to think of as good or as bad. The world they had now was too much itself, good and evil too tightly woven to wish for some other path. And still it would be wrong to say she found herself without regrets.

  "Maati loves you," she said, softly. "You should see him. I won't interfere again. But first, VOL] should go tend to your guest. Smooth things over.

  Nayiit nodded, and then a moment later, he smiled. It was the same charming smile she'd known when she was a girl and it had been on different lips. Nayiit would charm the girl, say something sweet and funny, and the pain would be forgotten for a time. He was his father's son. Son of the Khai Machi. Eldest son, and doomed to the fratricidal struggle of succession that stained every city in each generation. She wondered how far Utah would go to avoid that, to keep his boy safe from her schemes. 't'hat conversation had to come, and soon. Perhaps it would he best if she took it to the Khai herself, if she stopped waiting for him to find a right moment.

  Nayiit took a querying pose, and Liat shook herself. She waved his concern away.

  "I'm tired," she said. "I've come all this way back to have my own bed to myself, and I'm still not in it. I'm too old to sleep in a lover's arms. They twitch and snore and keep me awake all night."

  "They do, don't they?" Nayiit said. "Does it get better, do you think? With enough time, would you he so accustomed to it, you'd sleep through?"

  "I don't know," Liat said. "I've never made the attempt."

  "Like mother, like son, I suppose," Nayiit said as he rose. He bent and kissed the crown of her head before he retreated back into the shadows.

  Like mother, like son.

  I,iat pulled her robe tighter and sat near the fire, as if touched by a sudden chill.

  7

  The jeweler was a small man, squat but broad. To his credit, he seemed truly ill at ease. It took courage, Otah thought as he listened, to bring a matter such as this before a Khai. He wondered how many others had seen something of the sort and looked away. Any merchant has to expect some losses from theft. And after all, she was the daughter of the Khai....

  When it was over-and it seemed to take half a day, though it couldn't have lasted more than half a hand-Otah thanked the man, ordered that payment be made to him, and waited calm and emotionless until the servants and court followers had gone. Only the body servants remained, half a dozen men and women of the utkhaiem who dedicated their lives to bringing him a cracker if he felt like one, or a cup of limed water.

  "Find Eiah and take her to the blue chamber. Bring her under guard if you have to."

  "tinder guard?" the eldest of the servants said.

  "No, don't. Just bring her. See that she gets there."

  "Most High," the man said, taking a pose that accepted the command. Otah rose and walked out of the room without replying. He stalked the halls of the palace, ignoring the Master of "fides and his ineffectual flapping papers, ignoring the poses of obeisance and respect turned to him wherever he went, looking only for Kiyan. The rest of these people were unimportant.

  He found her in the great kitchens, standing beside the chief cook with a dead chicken in her hands. The cook, a woman of not less than sixty summers who had served Otah's father and grandfather, met his eyes and went pale. Ile wondered belatedly how many times the previous Khaiem of Machi had visited their kitchens, great or low.

  "What's happened?" Kiyan asked instead of a greeting.

  "Not here," Otah said. His wife nodded, passed the bird's carcass back to the cook, and followed Otah to their rooms. As calmly as he could, Otah related the audience. Eiah and two of her friends-Talit Radaani and Shoyen Pak-had visited a jeweler's shop in the goldsmiths' quarter. Eiah had stolen a brooch of emerald and pearl. The jeweler and his boy had seen it, had come to the court asking for payment.

  "He was quite polite about the whole thing," Otah said. "He cast it as a mistake. Eiah-cha, in her girlish flights of attenti
on, forgot to arrange for payment. He was sorry to bother me with it, but he hadn't been sure who I would prefer such issues be taken to and on and on and on. Gods!"

  "How much was it?" Kiyan asked.

  ""Three lengths of gold," Otah said. "Not that it matters. I've got the whole city to put on for taxes and half a thousand bits of jewelry in boxes that no one's worn in lifetimes. It's ... She's a thief! She's going through the city, taking whatever catches her eye and ..."

  Otah ran out of words and had to make do with a rough, frustrated grunt. He threw himself down on a couch, shaking his head.

  "It's my fault," he said. "I've been too busy with the court. I haven't been a decent father to her. All the time she's spent with the daughters of the utkhaiem, playing idiot court games about who has the prettiest dress or the most servants-"

  "Or the highest marriage," Kiyan said.

  Otah put his hand over his eyes. That was more than he could think about just now. How to correct his daughter, how to show her what she'd done wasn't right, how to try to be a father to her; yes, that he could sit with. '['hat it was too late, that she was already old enough to be another man's wife; that was too much to bear.

  "It's a problem, love, yes," Kiyan said. "But sweet. She's fourteen summers old. She stole a pretty thing to see if she could. It's not actually unusual. I was a year older than her when my father caught me sneaking apples off the back of a farmer's cart."

  "And did he marry you off to the farmer in punishment?"

  "I'm sorry I brought up the marriage. I only meant that Eiah's world's no simpler than ours. It only seems that way from here. 'l'o her, it's just as confused and difficult as anything you deal with. She's only half a girl, and not quite half a woman."

  Kiyan frowned. Her eyes were rueful and resigned, and she stretched her arms until the elbows cracked.

  "My father made me apologize to the farmer and work for the man until I'd earned back twice the cost of what I'd taken. I don't know that's much guidance for us, though. I don't think any of these girls could do work worth three lengths of gold."

  "So what do we do?"

  "It doesn't matter, love. As long as she's clear that what she did didn't end the way she'd hoped, we'll have come as close as we can. I'd say restrict her from seeing "Ialit Radaani for a week's time, but that hardly seems equal to the stakes."

  "She could assist the physicians," Otah said. "Carry out the night pans, wash dressings for the hurt. A week of that to pay back the city for what it bought her."

  Kiyan chuckled.

  "So long as she doesn't start enjoying it. She plays at being repulsed by blood because it's expected of her. I think at heart, there's nothing she'd like more than to cut a body apart and see how it's built. She'd have made a fine physician if she'd been born a bit lower."

  They talked a bit longer, and Otah felt his rage and uncertainty fade. Kiyan's quiet, sane, thoughtful voice was the most soothing thing he knew. She was right. It wasn't strange, it wasn't a sign that Eiah would grow up to be her aunt Idaan, scheming and killing and lying for the pleasure of it. It was a girl of fourteen summers seeing how far she could go, and the answer was not so far as this. Otah kissed Kiyan before they left, his lips on her cheek. She smiled. There were crow's-feet at the corners of her eyes now. White strands had shot her hair since she'd been young, but there were more now. Her eyes still glittered as they had when he'd met her in tJdun when she'd been the keep of a wayhouse and he had been a courier. She seemed to sense his thoughts, and put her hand to his cheek.

  "Shall we go be the troll-like, unfair, unfeeling, stupid, venal dispensers of unjust punishment?" she asked.

  The blue chamber was wide and round, a table of white marble dominating it like a sheet of ice floating in a far northern sea. The windows looked out on the gardens through walls so thick that sparrows and grackles perched in the sills and pecked at the carved meshwork of the inner shutters. Eiah had been pacing, but stopped when they came in. She looked from one to the other, trying for an innocence of expression that she couldn't quite reach.

  "Come, sit," Kiyan said, gesturing to the table. Eiah came forward as if against her will and sat in one of the carved wooden chairs. Her gaze darted between the two of them, her chin already beginning to slide forward.

  "I understand you took something from a jeweler. A brooch," Otah said. "Is that true?"

  "Who told you that?" Eiah asked.

  "Is it true?" Otah repeated, and his daughter looked down. When she frowned, the same small vertical line appeared between her brows that would sometimes show Kiyan's distress. Otah felt the passing urge to soothe her fears, but this wasn't the moment for comfort. Ile scowled until she looked up, then down again, and nodded. Kiyan sighed.

  "Who told you?" Eiah asked again. "It was Shoyen, wasn't it? She's jealous because Talit and I were-"

  "You told us, just now," Otah said. "That's all that matters."

  Eiah's lips closed hard. Kiyan took a turn, telling Eiah that she'd done wrong, and they all knew it. Even she had to know that simply taking things wasn't right. They had paid her debt, but now she would have to make it good herself. 'T'hey had decided that she would work with the physicians for a week, and if she didn't go, the physicians had instructions to send for ...

  "I'm not going to," Eiah said. "It's not fair. "Ialit Radaani sneaks things out of her father's warehouse all the time and no one ever makes her do anything for it."

  "I can see that changes," Otah said.

  "Don't!" Eiah barked. The birds startled away; a flutter of wings that sounded like panic. "Don't you dare! 'Ialit will hate me forever if she thinks I'm making her ... Papa-kya! Please, don't do that."

  "It might be wise," Kiyan said. "All three girls were party to it."

  "You can't! You can't do that to me!" Eiah's eyes were wild. She pushed back the chair as she stood. "I'll tell them Nayiit's your son! I'll tell!"

  Otah felt the air go out of the room. Eiah's eyes went wide, aware that she had just done something worse than stealing a bauble, but unsure what it was. Only Kiyan seemed composed and calm. She smiled dangerously.

  "Sit down, love," she said. "Please. Sit."

  Eiah sat. Otah clasped his hands hard enough the knuckles ached, but there weren't words for the mix of guilt and shame and anger and sorrow. His heart was too many things at once. Kiyan didn't look at him when she spoke; her gaze was on Eiah.

  "You will never repeat what you've just said to anyone. Nayiit-cha is Liat's son by M1aati. Because if he isn't, if he's the thing you just said, then he will have to kill Danat or Danat will have to kill him. And when that happens, the blood will he on your hands, because you could have prevented it and chose not to. Don't speak. I'm not finished. If any of the houses of the utkhaiem thought Danat was not the one and only man who could take his father's place, some of them would start thinking of killing him themselves in expectation of Nayiit-cha favoring them once he became Khai Nlachi. I can't protect him from everyone in this city, any more than I can protect him from air or his own body. You have done a wrong thing, stealing. And if you truly mean to hold your brother's life hostage to keep from being chastised for it, I would like to know that now."

  Eiah wept silently, shocked by the cold fire in Kiyan's voice. Utah felt as if he'd been slapped as well. As if he ought somehow to have known, all those years ago, in that distant city, that the consequences of taking to his lover's bed would come back again to threaten everything he held dear. Ilis daughter took a pose that begged her mother's forgiveness.

  "I won't, Mama-kya. I won't say anything. Not ever."

  "You'll apologize to the man you stole from and you will go in the morning to the physician's house and do whatever they ask of you. I will decide what to do about 'l alit and Shoyen."

  "Yes, :Mama-kya."

  "You can leave now," Kiyan said and looked away. Eiah rose, silent except for the rough breath of tears, and left the room. The door closed behind her.

  "I'm sorry-"

&n
bsp; "Don't," Kiyan said. "Not now. I can't ... I don't want to hear it just now.

  Otah rose and walked to the window. The sun was high, but the towers cast shadows across the city all the same, like trees above children. Far to the west, clouds were gathering over the mountains, towering white thunderheads with bases dark as a bruise. "There would be a storm later. It would come. One of the sparrows returned, considered Otah once with each eye, and then flew away again.

  "What would you ask me to do?" Otah said. His voice was placid. No one would have known from the words how much pain lay behind them. No one except Kiyan. "I can't unmake him. Should I have him killed?"

  "How did Eiah know?" Kiyan asked.

  "She saw. Or she guessed. She knew the way that you did."

  "No one told her? Maati or Liat or Nayiit. None of them told her?"

  "No.,,

  "You're sure?"

  "I am."

  "Because if they did, if they're spreading it through the city that you have-"

  "They aren't. I was there when she realized it. Only me. No one else."

  Kiyan took a long, low, shuddering breath. If it had been otherwiseif someone had told Eiah as part of a plan to spread word of Nayiit's parentage-Kiyan would have asked him to have the boy killed. He wondered what he would have done. He wondered how he would have refused her.

  "They'll leave the city as soon as we have word from the Dal-kvo," Otah said. "Either they'll go back to Saraykeht or they'll go to the I)aikvo's village. Either way, they'll be gone from here."

  "And if they come back?"

  "They won't. I'll see to it. They won't hurt Danat, love. He's safe."

  "He's ill. He's still coughing," Kiyan said. That was it too, of course. Seasons had come and gone, and Danat was still haunted by illness. It was natural for them-Kiyan and himself both-to bend themselves double to protect him from the dangers that they could, especially since there were so many so close over which they were powerless.