The Price of Spring Read online

  "The news is strange," Eiah said as they unloaded her cart. Boxes of salt pork and raw flour, canisters of spice and hard cheese. "The Galts have fallen on Saraykeht like they owned it, but something didn't go well. I can't tell if my brother thought the girl was too ugly or she fell into a fit when she was presented, but something went badly. What I heard was early and muddled. I'll know better next time I go."

  "Anything that hurts him helps us," Maati said. "So whatever it was, it's good."

  "That was my thought," Eiah said, but her voice was somber. When he took a pose of query, she didn't answer it.

  "How have things progressed here?" she asked instead.

  "Well. Very well. I think Vanjit is ready."

  Eiah stopped, wiping her sleeve across her forehead. She looked old. How many summers had she seen? Thirty? Thirty-one? Her eyes were deeper than thirty summers.

  "When?" she asked.

  "We were only waiting for you to come back," he said. Then, trying for levity, "You've brought the wine and food for a celebration. So tomorrow, we'll do something worth celebrating."

  Or else something to mourn, he thought but did not say.

  9

  "By everything holy, don't tell Balasar," Sinja said. "He can't know about this."

  "Why?" Idaan asked, sitting on the edge of the soldier's bed. "What would he do?"

  "I don't know," Sinja said. "Something bloody and extreme. And effective."

  "Stop," Otah said. "Just stop. I have to think."

  But sitting there, head resting in his hands, clarity of mind wasn't coming to him easily. Idaan's story-her travels in the north after her exile, Cehmai's appearance on her doorstep, their rekindled love, and Maati's break with his fellow poet and then his return-had the feel of an old poem, if not the careful structure. If he hadn't had the pirates or Ana or her father or his own son or the conspiracy between Yalakeht and Obar State, or the incursions from the Westlands, he might have enjoyed the tale for its own sake.

  But she hadn't brought it to him as a story. It was a threat.

  "What role has Cehmai taken in this?" he asked.

  "None. He wanted nothing to do with it. Or with my coming here, for that. I've left him to look after things until I've paid my debt to you. Then I'll be going home."

  "Is it working?" Otah said at length. "Idaan-cha, did Maati say anything to suggest it was working?"

  His sister took a pose of negation that held a sense of uncertainty.

  "He came to Cehmai for help," Sinja said. "That means at least that he thinks he needs help."

  "And Cehmai didn't agree to it," Idaan said. "He isn't helping. But he also doesn't want to see Maati hung. He cut Maati off before he told me who was backing him."

  "What makes you think he has backing?"

  "He said as much. Strong backing and an ear in the palaces whenever he wanted one," Idaan said. "Even if that overstates the truth, he isn't out hunting rabbits or wading through a rice field. Someone's feeding him. And how many people are there who might want the andat back in the world?"

  "No end of them," Otah said. "But how many would think the thing was possible?"

  Sinja opened a small wooden cabinet and took out a fluted bottle of carved bone. When he lifted out the stopper, the scent of wine filled the room. He asked with a gesture. Otah and Idaan accepted simultaneously, and with the same pose.

  "The books are all burned," Otah said. "The histories are gone, the grammars are gone. I didn't think he could do this when he wrote to me before, I don't see that he could manage it now."

  Sinja, stunned, overfilled one of the wine bowls, the red pooling on his table like spilled blood. Idaan hoisted a single eyebrow.

  "He wrote to you before?" she said.

  "It was years ago," Otah said. "I had a letter. A single letter. Maati said he was looking for a way to recapture the andat. He wanted my help. I sent a message back refusing."

  "All apologies, Most High," Sinja said. He hadn't bothered to wipe up the spilled wine. "Why is this the first I'm hearing of it?"

  "It came at a bad time," Otah said. "Kiyan was dying. It was hopeless. The andat are gone, and there's no force in the world that can bring them safely back."

  "You're sure of that?" Idaan asked. "Because Maati-cha didn't think it was hopeless. The man is many things, but he isn't dim."

  "It hardly matters," Sinja said. "Just the word that this is happening, and that-may all the gods keep it from happening you knew he was thinking of it. That you've known for years ..."

  "It's a dream!" Otah shouted. "Maati was dreaming, that's all. He wants something back that's gone beyond his reach. Well, so do I. Anyone who has lived as long as we have knows that longing, and we know how useless it is. What's gone is gone, and we can't have it back. So what would you have had me do? Send the message back with an assassin? Announce to the world that Maati Vaupathai was out, trying to bind the andat, so they should all send invading armies at their first convenience?"

  "Why didn't you?" Idaan asked. "Send the assassin, I mean. The invading armies, I understand. For that, why did you let them go at the end of the war?"

  "I am not in the mood, Idaan-cha, to be questioned by a woman who killed my father, schemed to place the blame on me, and is only breathing air now because I chose to let her. I understand that you would have happily opened their throats."

  "Not Cehmai's," she said softly. "But then I know why I wouldn't have done it. It doesn't follow that I should know why you didn't. The two aren't the same."

  Otah rocked back in his chair. His face was hot. Their gazes locked, and he saw her nod. Idaan took a pose that expressed both understanding and contrition while unmasking the question.

  "That isn't true," she said. "Thinking for a moment, I suppose they are.

  Otah took the bowl Sinja held out to him. The wine was unwatered, rich and astringent. He drank it dry. Sinja looked nervous.

  "There's nothing I can do about any of this tonight," Otah said. "I'm tired. I'm going to bed. If I decide it needs talking of further, it'll be another time."

  He rose, taking a pose that ended an audience, then feeling a moment's shame, shifted to one that was merely a farewell.

  "Otah-cha," Sinja said. "One last thing. I'm sorry, but you left standing orders. If she came back, I was supposed to kill her."

  "For plotting to take my chair and conspiring with the Galts," Otah said. "Well. Idaan-cha? Are you hoping to become Emperor?"

  "I wouldn't take your place as a favor," she said.

  Otah nodded.

  "Find apartments for her," he said. "Lift the death order. The girl we sent out in the snow might as well have died. And the man who sent her, for that. We are, all of us, different people now."

  Otah walked back to his rooms alone. The palace wasn't quiet or still. Perhaps it never wholly was. But the buzzing fury of the day had given way to a slower pace. Fewer servants made their way down the halls. The members of the high families who had business here had largely gone back to their own palaces, walking stone paths chipped by the spurs and boot nails of Galtic soldiers, passing through arches whose gold and silver adornments had been hacked off by Galtic axes. They went to palaces where the highest men and women of Galt had come as guests, eating beef soup and white bread and fruit tarts. Sipping tea and wine and water and working, some of them at least, to build a common future.

  And Idaan had come to warn him against Maati.

  He slept poorly and woke tired. The Master of Tides attended him as he was bathed and dressed. The day was full from dawn to nightfall. Sixteen audiences had been requested, falling almost equally between members of the utkhaiem and the Galts. Three of the Galtic houses had left letters strongly implying that they had daughters who might be pressed to serve should Ana Dasin refuse. One of the priests at the temple had left a request to preach against the recalcitrance of women who failed to offer up sex. Two of the trading houses had made it clear that they wished to be released from shipping contracts to Chaburi-Tan.
The Master of Tides droned and listed and laid out the form of another painful, endless, wasted day. When the stars came out again, Otah knew he would feel like a wrung towel and all the great problems he faced would still be unsolved.

  He instructed that the priest be forbidden, the trading houses be referred to Sinja-cha and the Master of Chains, who could renegotiate terms but not break the contract, and then dictated a common response to the three letters offering up new wives for Danat that neither encouraged nor refused them. All this before the breakfast of fresh-brewed tea, spiced apples, and seared pork had appeared.

  He had hardly begun to eat when the Master of Tides returned with a sour expression and took a pose that asked forgiveness, but pointedly did not suggest that the offending party was the Master of Tides herself.

  "Most High, Balasar Gice is requesting to join you. I have suggested that he apply for an audience just as anyone else, but he seems to forget that his conquest of Saraykeht was temporary."

  "You'll treat Balasar-cha with respect," Otah said, though he couldn't quite keep from smiling. And then a breath later, his chest tightened. Something bloody and extreme. And effective. What if the general had heard Idaan's news? "See him in. And bring another bowl for tea."

  The Master of Tides took a pose that accepted the command.

  "A clean bowl," Otah added to the woman's back.

  Balasar followed all the appropriate forms when the servants escorted him back. Otah matched him, and then gestured for all the others to leave. When they were alone, Balasar lowered himself to the cushion on the floor, took the bowl of tea and the bit of pork that Otah offered him, and stretched out. Otah watched the man's face and body, but there was no sign there that he'd heard of Idaan's arrival or of her news.

  "I've had a couple of discreet conversations," Balasar said.

  "Yes?"

  "About taking a fleet to Chaburi-Tan?"

  Otah nodded. Of course. Of course that was what they were meeting about.

  "And what have you found?" Otah asked.

  "It can be done, but there are two ways to go about it. We have enough men to make a small, effective fighting force. Eight ships, perhaps, fully armed and provisioned. I wouldn't go to war on it, but it would outman most raiding parties."

  Otah sipped his tea. The water wasn't quite hot enough to scald.

  "The other way?"

  "We can use the same number to man twenty ships. A mixed force, ours and your own. Throw on as many men as we can find who are well enough to stand upright. It would actually be easier to defeat in a battle. The men who knew what they were about would be spread thin, and amateurs are worse than nothing in a sea fight. But weigh it against the sight of twenty ships. The pirates would be mad to come against us in force."

  "Unless they know we're all lights and empty show," Otah said. "There are suggestions that the mercenaries we have at Chaburi-Tan are working both sides."

  Balasar sucked his teeth.

  "That makes it harder," he agreed.

  "How long would you need?" Otah asked.

  "A week for the smaller force. Twice that for the larger."

  "How many of our allies would we lose in the court here?"

  "Hard to say. Knowing who your friends are is a tricky business right now. You'll have fewer than if they stayed."

  Otah took a slice of apple, chewing the soft flesh slowly to give himself time. Balasar was silent, his expression unreadable. It occurred to Otah that the man would have made a decent courier.

  "Give me the day," he said. "I'll have an answer for you tonight. Tomorrow at the latest."

  "Thank you, Most High," Balasar said.

  "I know how much I've asked of you," Otah said.

  "It's something I owe you. Or that we owe each other. Whatever I can do, I will."

  Otah smiled and took a pose of gratitude, but he was wondering what limits that debt would find if Idaan spoke to the old general. He was dancing around too many blades. He couldn't keep them all clear in his mind, and if he stumbled, there would be blood.

  Otah finished his meal, allowed the servants to change his outer robe to a formal black with threads of gold throughout, and led his ritual procession to the audience chamber. The members of his court flowed into their places in the appropriate order, with the custom-driven signs of loyalty and obeisance. Otah restrained himself from shouting at them all to hurry. The time he spent in empty form was time stolen. He didn't have it to spare.

  The audiences began, each a balancing between the justice of the issue, the politics behind those involved, and the massive complex webwork that made up the relationships of the court, of the cities, of the world. When he'd been young, the Khai Saraykeht had held audiences for things as simple as land disputes and broken contracts. Those days were gone, and nothing reached so high as the Emperor of the Khaiem unless no one lower dared rule on the matter. Nothing was trivial, everything fraught with implication.

  Midday came and went, and the sun began its slow fall to the west. Storm clouds rose, white and soft and taller than mountains, but the rain stayed out over the sea. The daylight moon hung in the blue sky to the north. Otah didn't think of Balasar or Idaan, Chaburi-Tan or the andat. When at last he paused to eat, he felt worn thin enough to see through. He tried to consider Balasar's analysis, but ended by staring at the plate of lemon fish and rice as if it were enthralling.

  Because he had been hoping for a moment's peace, he'd chosen to eat his little meal in one of the low halls at the back of the palace. The stone floor and simple, unadorned plaster walls made it seem more like the common room of a small wayhouse than the center of empire. That was part of its appeal. The shutters were open on the garden behind it: crawling lavender, starfall rose, mint, and, without warning, Danat, in a formally cut robe of deep blue hot with yellow, blood running from his nose to cover his mouth and chin. Otah put down the bowl.

  Danat stalked into the hall and halfway across it before he noticed that a table was occupied. He hesitated, then took a pose of greeting. The fingers of his right hand were scarlet where he had tried to stanch the flow and failed. Otah didn't recall having stood. His expression must have been alarmed, because Danat smiled and shook his head.

  "It's not bad," he said. "Just messy. I didn't want to come through the larger halls."

  "What happened?"

  "I have met my rival," Danat said. "Hanchat Dor."

  "There's blood? There's blood between you?"

  "No," Danat said. "Well, technically yes, I suppose. But no."

  He lowered himself to sit at the table where Otah's food lay abandoned. There was a carafe of water and a porcelain bowl. As Otah sat, his boy wet one of his sleeves and set about wiping the blood from around his grin. Otah's first violent impulses to protect his son and punish his assailant were disarmed by that smile. Not conquered, but disarmed.

  "He and Ana-cha were haunting the path between the palaces and the poet's house, just before the pond," Danat said. "We had words. He took some exception to our demand that Ana-cha apologize. He suggested that I should feel honored to have breathed the same air as his darling chipmunk. Seriously, Papa. `Darling chipmunk."'

  "It might be a Galtic endearment," he said, trying to match his son's light tone.

  Danat waved the thought away. It would be no more dignified, Otah admitted to himself, because a whole culture said it. Danat went on.

  "I said that my business wasn't with him, but with Ana-cha. He began declaiming something in rhymed verse about him and his love being one flesh. Ana-cha told him to stop, but he only started bellowing it."

  "How did Ana-cha react?"

  Danat's grin widened. Blood had pinked his teeth.

  "She seemed a bit embarrassed. I began speaking to her as if he weren't there. And ..."

  Danat shrugged.

  "He hit you?"

  "I may have goaded him," Danat said. "A little."

  Otah sat back, stunned. Danat raised his hands to a pose appropriate to the announcement
of victory in a game. Otah let himself smile too, but there was a touch of melancholy behind it. His son was no longer the ill, fragile child he'd known. That boy was gone. In his place was a young man with the same instinct to rough-and-tumble as any number of young men. The same as Otah had suffered once himself. It was so easy to forget.

  "I had the palace armsmen throw him in a cell," Danat said. "I've set a guard on him in case anyone decides to defend my abused dignity by killing him."

  "Yes, that would complicate things," Otah agreed.

  "Ana followed the whole way shrieking, but she was as angry at Hanchat-cha as at me. Once I get to looking a bit less like an apprentice showfighter's first night, I'm sending an invitation to Ana-cha for a formal dinner at which we can further discuss her poor treatment of our hospitality. And then I'm going to meet my new lover."

  "Your new lover?"

  "Shija Radaani has offered to play the role. I think she was flattered to be asked. Issandra-cha is adamant that nothing makes a man worth having like another woman smiling at him."

  "Issandra-cha is a dangerous woman," Otah said.

  "She is," Danat agreed.

  They laughed together for a moment. Otah was the first to sober.

  "Will it work, do you think?" he asked. "Can it be done?"

  "Can I win Ana's heart and make her want what she's professed before everyone of power in two empires that she hates?" Danat said. Saying it that way, he sounded like his mother. "I don't know. And I can't say what I feel about the way it's happening. I'm plotting against her. Her own mother is plotting against her. I feel that I ought to disapprove. That it isn't honest. And yet ..."

  Danat shook his head. Otah took a querying pose.

  "I'm enjoying myself," Danat said. "Whatever it says of me, I've been struck bloody by a Galt boy, and I feel I've scored a point in some game.

  "It's an important game."

  Danat rose. He took a pose that promised his best effort, appropriate to a junior competitor to his teacher, and left.