The Price of Spring (The Long Price Quartet Book 4) Read online

  He did not trust her, but had resolved to behave as if he did. At least for the present. The future was as unpredictable as it had always been, and he’d given up hope of anticipating its changes.

  He knew from long experience that he wouldn’t sleep if he went to bed now. His mind might be in a deep fog, but his body was punishing him for sitting too long. As it would have punished him for working too hard. The range allowed to him was so much narrower than when he’d been young. A walk to loosen his joints, and he might be able to rest.

  The armsmen at the door of his apartments took poses of obeisance as he stepped out. He only nodded and made his way south. He wore a simple robe of cotton. The cloth was of the first quality, but the cut was simple and the red and gray less than gaudy. Someone who didn’t know him by sight might have mistaken him for a member of the utkhaiem, or even a particularly powerful servant. He made a game of walking with his head down, trying to pass as a functionary in his own house.

  The halls of the palaces were immense and ornate. Many small items—statues, paintings, jeweled decoration—had vanished during the brief occupation by Galt, but the huge copper-sheathed columns and the high, clear glass of the unshuttered windows spoke of greater days. The wood floors shone with lacquer even where they were scraped and pitted.

  Incense burned in unobtrusive brass bowls, filling the air with the scent of sandalwood and desert sage. Even this late at night, singing slaves carried their harmonies in empty chambers. Crickets, Otah thought, would have been as beautiful.

  His back had begun to relax and his feet to complain when the illusion of traveling the palaces unnoticed was broken. A servant in a gold robe appeared at the far end of the hall, walking purposefully toward him. Otah stopped. The man took a pose of obeisance and apology as he drew near.

  “Most High, I am sorry to interrupt. Ana Dasin has come to request an audience. I would have turned her away, but under the circumstances…”

  “You did well,” he said. “Take her to the autumn garden.”

  The servant took a pose that accepted the command, but then hesitated.

  “Should I send for an outer robe, Most High?”

  Otah looked down at the wrinkled fabric and wondered what Ana would see if he met her like this: a man of great power and consequence at the end of a long day’s work, or an old slob in a cotton robe.

  “Yes,” he said with a sigh. “An outer robe would be welcome. And tea. Bring us fresh tea. She might not care for it, but I want some.”

  The man scurried away. They had known where he was, and that he didn’t wish to be disturbed. And they had known when to disturb him. To be the Emperor of the Khaiem was above all else to be known by people he did not know. He had discovered that truth a thousand times before, and likely would do so a thousand times again, and each one discomforted him.

  The autumn garden was nestled within the palaces. Trees and vines hid the stone walls, and paper lanterns gave the flagstone path a soft light. Near the center, a small brass fountain, long given to verdigris, chuckled to itself and a small wooden pavilion rested in the darkness. Otah walked down the path, still tugging the black and silver outer robe into place. Ana Dasin sat in the pavilion, her gaze on the water sluicing over bronze. The tea, set on a lacquered tray, had preceded him as if the servants had anticipated that he would ask for it as well and had had it ready.

  Otah gathered himself. He was almost certain that Danat had already had his second meeting with the girl. Hanchat Dor, Danat’s rival, was set to be freed in the morning. Otah found himself curious to see who Ana Dasin was in these circumstances.

  “Ana,” he said in her language. “I had not expected your company.”

  The girl stood. The soft light made her face rounder than it was, her eyes darker. She was wearing a dress of Galtic cut with pearls embroidered down the sleeves. Her hair, which had been pulled back into a severe formality, was escaping. Locks hung at the side of her face like silken banners draped from towers’ windows.

  “Emperor Machi. I have to thank you for seeing me so late,” she said. Her voice was hard, but not accusatory. Otah caught the faint scent of distilled wine. The girl was fortified with drink, but not yet dulled by it.

  “I am an old man,” Otah said as he poured pale tea into two porcelain bowls. “I need less sleep than I once did. Here, take one.”

  His little act of kindness seemed to make her stiffer and less pleased, but she accepted the bowl. Otah sat, blowing across the tea’s steaming surface.

  “I’ve come…”

  He waited.

  “I’ve come to apologize,” she said. She spoke the words as if she were vomiting.

  Otah sipped his tea. It was perfectly brewed, the leaves infusing the water with a taste like summer sun and cut grass. It made the moment even more pleasant, and he wondered if he was being unkind by taking pleasure in Ana’s predicament.

  “May I ask what precisely you wish to apologize for,” Otah said. “I would hate to have any further misunderstandings between us.”

  Ana sat, putting the bowl on the bench at her side. The porcelain clicked against the stone.

  “I presented myself poorly,” she said. “I…set out to humiliate you and Danat. That was uncalled for. I could have made my feelings known in private.”

  “I see,” Otah said. “And is that all?”

  “I would like to thank you for the mercy you’ve shown to Hanchat.”

  “It’s Danat you should thank for that,” Otah said. “I only respected his wishes.”

  “Not every parent respects her child,” Ana said, then looked away, lips pressed thin. Her child, meaning Issandra. Ana was right. The mother was indeed scheming against her own daughter, and Otah had made himself a party to the plot. He would not have done it to his own child. He took another sip of his tea. It wasn’t quite as pleasant as the first.

  The fountain muttered to itself, the wind sighed. Here was the moment that chance had given him, and he wasn’t sure how to use it. Ana, on whom all his plans rested, had come to him. There was something here, some word or phrase, some thought, that would narrow the distance between them. And in the space of a few more breaths, she would have collected herself again and gone.

  “I should apologize to you as well,” Otah said. “I forget sometimes that my view on the world isn’t the only one. Or even the only correct one. I doubt you would have been driven to humiliate me if I hadn’t done the same to you.”

  Her gaze shifted back to him. Whatever she had expected of him, it hadn’t been this.

  “I went to the wives of the councillors. There was very little time, and I thought they would have greater sway than the children. Perhaps they did. But I traded you as a trinket and didn’t even think to ask you your thoughts and feelings. That should have been beneath me.”

  “I’m a woman,” Ana said, her tone managing to be both dismissive and a challenge. I’m a woman, and we’ve always been traded, married off, shifted as the tokens of power and alliance. Otah smiled, surprised to find himself possessed by genuine sorrow.

  “Yes,” he said. “You are. And with my sister, my wife, my daughter…of all the men in the world, I should have known what that meant, and I forgot. I was in such a hurry to fix all the things I’ve done poorly that I did this poorly too.”

  She was frowning at him again as she had once before, on the journey to Saraykeht. He might have begun speaking in the language of birds or belching stones, to judge by her expression. He chuckled.

  “It was not my intention to treat you with disrespect, Ana-cha. That I did so shames me. I accept your apology, and I hope that you will accept mine.”

  “I won’t marry him,” she said.

  Otah drank the rest of his tea and set the empty bowl mouth-down on the lacquer tray.

  “My son, you mean,” Otah said. “You’ll stay with this other man. Hanchat? No matter what the price or who’s called on to pay it, no man deserves even your consideration? If it destroys your country and mi
ne both, it would still be just.”

  “I…I don’t…” the girl said. “That isn’t…”

  “I know. I understand. I’ll say this. Danat is a good man. Better than I was at his age. But what you choose is entirely yours,” Otah said. “If we’ve established anything, you and I, it’s that.”

  “Not his?”

  “Danat’s decision is whether he’ll marry you,” Otah said with a smile. “Not the same thing at all.”

  He meant to leave her there. It seemed the right moment, and there was nothing more he could think to say. As he bent forward, preparing to rise, Ana spoke again.

  “Your wife was a wayhouse keeper. You didn’t put her aside. You never took a second wife. It was an insult to the whole body of the utkhaiem.”

  “It was,” Otah said and stood with a grunt. There had been a time he could sit or stand in silence. “But I didn’t marry her for the effect it had on other people. I did it because she was Kiyan, and there wasn’t anyone else like her in the world.”

  “How can you ask Danat to obey tradition when you’ve broken it?” she demanded.

  Otah considered her. She seemed angry again, but it seemed as much on Danat’s behalf as her own.

  “By asking,” Otah said. “It’s the best I can manage. I’ve damaged the world badly. The reasons I had for doing it seemed good at the time. I would like to be part of putting it back together again. With his help. With yours.”

  “I didn’t break all this,” Ana said, her chin stubborn. “Danat didn’t either, for that matter. It’s not fair that we should have to sacrifice whatever we want to unmake your mistakes.”

  “It isn’t. But I can’t repair this.”

  “Why do you think I can?”

  “I have some faith in you both,” he said.

  By the time he made his way back to his rooms, Idaan had departed, leaving only a brief note saying that she intended to return in the morning and had some questions for him. Otah sat on a low couch by the fire grate, his eyes focused on nothing. He wondered what Eiah would have made of his conversation with the Galtic girl, and of whom he was truly asking forgiveness. His mind wandered, and he did not realize he had lain back until he woke to the cool light of dawn.

  He was sitting in his private bath, the hot water easing the knots that sleeping away from his bed had tied in his back, when the servant announced Sinja’s arrival. Otah considered the effort that rising, drying himself, and being dressed would require and had the man brought to him. Sinja, dressed in the simple canvas and leather of a soldier, looked more like a mercenary captain than the nearest advisor to an emperor. He squatted at the edge of the bath, looking down at Otah. The servant poured tea for the newcomer, took a ritual pose appropriate to a withdrawal from which he would have to be specifically summoned to return, and left. The door slid closed behind him, the waxed wooden runners as silent as breath.

  “What’s happened?” Otah asked, dreading the answer.

  “I was going to ask the same thing. You spoke to Ana Dasin last night?”

  “I did,” Otah said.

  Sinja sipped his tea before he spoke again.

  “Well, I don’t know what you said to her, but this morning, I had a runner from Farrer Dasin offering his ships and his men for Balasar’s fleet. The general’s meeting with him now to arrange the details.”

  Otah sat forward, the water swirling around him.

  “Farrer-cha…”

  Sinja put down the bowl of tea.

  “The man himself. Not Issandra, not one of his servants. The handwriting was his own. There weren’t details, only the offer. And since he’s been reticent and dismissive every time Balasar asked, it seemed that something had changed. If it’s what it looks like, it will mean putting off departure for a few days, but when we get there, it will be a real fighting force.”

  “That’s…” Otah began. “I don’t know how that happened.”

  “I’ve been swimming through palace gossip ever since, trying to find what made the change, and the only thing half-plausible I’ve heard is that Ana Dasin met with Danat-cha, after which she went to a second-rate teahouse, drank more than was considered healthy, and came here. After talking with you, she went back to the old poet’s house; the lanterns were all lit and they didn’t stop burning until the sun rose.”

  “We didn’t talk about the fleet,” Otah said. “The subject never came up.”

  Sinja unstrung his sandals and slid his feet into the warm water of the bath.

  “Why don’t you tell me what was said,” Sinja asked. “Because somehow, in the middle of it, you seem to have done something right.”

  Otah recounted the meeting, rising from his bath and drying himself as he did. Sinja listened for the most part, interrupting only to laugh when Otah told of apologizing to the girl.

  “That likely had as much to do with it as anything,” Sinja said. “A high councillor’s daughter with the Emperor of the Khaiem calling himself down for disrespecting her. Gods, Otah-kya, with that low an opinion of your own dignity, I don’t know how you managed to hold power all these years.”

  Otah paused, his hands shifting to a pose of query.

  “You apologized to a Galtic girl.”

  “I’d treated her poorly,” Otah said.

  Sinja raised his hands. It wasn’t a formal pose, but it carried the sense of surrender. Whatever it was Sinja didn’t understand about the act, he clearly despaired of ever learning.

  “Tell me the rest,” Sinja said.

  There wasn’t a great deal more, but Otah told it. He pulled on his robes by himself. The servants could adjust them when the meeting ended. Sinja drank another bowl of tea. The water in the bath grew still and as clear as air.

  “Well,” Sinja said when he had finished, “that’s unexpected all around.”

  “You think Ana-cha interceded for us.”

  “I can’t think anything else,” Sinja said. “She’s an interesting girl, that one. Quick to anger and about as tough as boiled leather if confronted, but I think you made her feel for you. It was clever.”

  “I didn’t mean it as a ploy,” Otah said.

  “That’s likely what made the ploy work,” Sinja said. “Issandra and Danat should hear more of it. You know that little conspiracy is beginning to slip its stitches?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Danat’s false lover. Shija Radaani? It seems your boy is starting to fall in love with her. Or if not love, at least bed. That was the other gossip this morning. Shija went to Danat’s rooms last night and hasn’t yet come out.”

  Otah tugged at the sleeves, his eyebrows trying to crawl up his forehead. Sinja nodded.

  “Perhaps it’s part of Issandra’s plan?” Otah said.

  “If it is, she’s more of a gambler than I am.”

  “I’ll look into it,” Otah said.

  “Don’t bother. I’ve already sent word to all the parties who need to know.”

  “Meaning Issandra.”

  “And nobody else,” Sinja said. “You worry about finding Maati and his poet girls. And your sister. Whatever you’re doing, keep one eye toward her.”

  Otah was halfway to objecting, but Sinja only tilted his head. Idaan had killed Otah’s brothers. His father. She was capable of casual slaughter, and everyone knew it. There was no point in pretending the world was something it wasn’t. Otah took a pose that accepted the advice and promised his best effort.

  In point of fact, Idaan was waiting in his rooms when he returned from his breakfast and the morning of audiences that he could not postpone. She wore a borrowed robe of blue silk as dark as a twilight sky. Her arms and shoulders were thicker than the robe allowed, the fabric straining. Her hair was pulled back in a gray tail as thick as a mane. She did not smile.

  “Idaan-cha,” he said.

  “Brother,” she replied.

  He sat across from her. Her long face was cool and unreadable. She touched the papers and scrolls on the low table between them. The scents
of cedar and apples should have made the room more comfortable.

  “I’m not done,” she said. “But I doubt a year and ten clerks would be enough to do a truly thorough job. With just the pair of us, and you off half the time at court, we can’t really hope for more than a weighted guess.”

  “Then we should get to work,” he said. “I’ll have them bring us food and—”

  “Before that,” Idaan said. “Before that, there’s something we should discuss. Alone.”

  Otah considered her eyes. They were the same black-brown as his own. Her jaw was softer, her mouth pale and lined. He could still see the girl she had been, whom he had drawn up from the deepest cells beneath Machi and given freedom where she’d expected slavery or death.

  “I’ll send the servants away,” he said. She took a pose that offered thanks.

  When he returned, she was pacing before the windows, her hands clasped behind her. The soft leather soles of her boots whispered against the wood. The city spread below them, and then the sea.

  “I never thought about them,” she said. “The andat? I never gave them half a thought when I was young. Stone-Made-Soft was something halfway between a trained hunting cat and another courtier in a world full of them. But they could destroy everything, couldn’t they? If a poet bound something like Steam or Fog, all that ocean could vanish in a moment, couldn’t it?”

  “I suppose,” Otah agreed.

  “I would have controlled it. Stone-Made-Soft, I mean. And Cehmai. If all the things I’d planned had happened as I planned them, I would have had the command of that power.”

  “Your husband would have,” he said. Otah had ordered her husband executed. Adrah Vaunyogi’s body had hung from the ruins of his family’s palace, food for the crows. Idaan smiled.