The Price of Spring Read online

  "I won't, Vanjit-kya," Maati said. The room was on the first floor. Fresh rushes on the floor. A small cot of stretched canvas. Oak shutters closed against the daylight. "You leave this to me. I'll see to it."

  Large Kae left, murmuring something about seeing to the animals. When the door closed behind her, Vanjit let the blanket fall and set the andat on the cot. It cooed and burbled, waving its hands and grinning toothlessly. It was a parody of infantile delight, and seeing Vanjit's smilepleasure and fear and anger all in the smallest stretching of her lipsmade Maati's flesh crawl.

  "You have to do something," she said. "Eiah-kya can't be trusted with the andat. You wouldn't ..."

  The baby shrieked and flopped to its side, trying to lower itself to the floor. Vanjit moved forward and lifted it back up before she went on.

  "You wouldn't let someone you can't trust bind the andat. You wouldn't do that."

  "Certainly, I'd try not to," Maati said.

  "That's a strange answer."

  "I'm not a god. I use the judgment I have. It isn't as if I can see into someone's heart."

  "But if you think Eiah can't be trusted," Vanjit said, anger growing in her voice, "you will stop her. You have to."

  Who am I speaking to? he wondered. The girl? The andat? Does Vanjit know what she's saying?

  "Yes," Maati said slowly. "If she isn't fit to be a poet to wield the andat, it would be my duty to see that she does not. I will stop her. But I have to be sure. I can't do this thing until I'm sure there's nothing I can do that will mend her."

  "Mend her?" Vanjit said and took a pose that scorned the thought.

  "I won't kill someone unless there is no other way."

  Vanjit stepped back, her face going pale. The andat's gaze shifted from one to the other and back, its eyes shining with unfeigned delight.

  "I never said to kill her," Vanjit said, her voice soft.

  "Didn't you?" Maati said as if making it an accusation. "You're sure of that?"

  He turned and left the room, his hands trembling, his heart racing.

  He'd been an idiot. He'd slipped. Perhaps making him say more than he'd intended had been the point; perhaps the andat had guessed that it could make him go too far. He paused in the main room, his head feeling light. He sat at one of the tables and lowered his head to his knees.

  His heart was still pounding, and his face felt hot and flushed. The voices of the keeper and Irit seemed to echo, as if he were hearing them from the far end of a tunnel. He gritted his teeth, willing his body to calm itself, to obey him.

  Slowly, his pulse calmed. The heat in his face lessened. He didn't know how long he'd been sitting at the little table by the back wall. It seemed like only moments and it also seemed like half the day. Both were plausible. He tried to stand, but he was weak and shaking. Like a man who'd just run a race.

  He motioned to the keeper and asked for strong tea. The man brought it quickly enough. A cast-iron pot in the shape of a frog, the spigot a hollow tongue between its lips. Maati poured the rich, green tea into a carved wooden bowl and sat for a moment, breathing in the scent of it before trying to lift it to his lips.

  By the time Irit arrived, he felt nearly himself again. Exhausted and weak, but himself. The woman sat across from him, her fingers knotted about one another. Her smile was too wide.

  "Maati-kvo," she said and belatedly took a pose of greeting. "I've just come from the riverfront. Eiah has hired a boat. It looks like a good one. Wide enough that it isn't supposed to rock so much. Or get stuck on sandbars. They talked a bit about sandbars. In any case-"

  "What's the matter?"

  Irit looked out toward the main room as if expecting to see someone there. She spoke without looking at him.

  "I'm not ever going to make a binding, Maati-kvo. I may have helped, I may not. But we both know I'm not going to do the thing."

  "You want to leave," Maati said.

  She did look at him now, her mouth small, her eyes large. She was like a picture of herself drawn by someone who thought poorly of her.

  "Take your things," Maati said. "Do it before we get on the river."

  She took a pose that accepted his orders, but the fear remained in the way she held her body. Maati nodded to himself.

  "I'll tell Vanjit that I've sent you on an errand for me. That Eiah needed some particular root that only grows in the south. You're to meet us with it in Utani. She won't know the truth."

  "Thank you," Irit said, relief in her expression at last. "I'm sorry."

  "Hurry," Maati said. "There isn't much time."

  Irit scuttled out, her hands fluttering as if they possessed a life of their own. Maati sat quietly in the growing darkness, sipped his tea, and tried to convince himself that his strength was coming back. He'd let himself get frightened, that was all. It wasn't as if he'd fainted. He was fine. By the time Eiah and Small Kae came to collect Vanjit and Clarity-of-Sight, he mostly believed it.

  Eiah accepted the news of Irit's departure without comment. The two Kaes glanced at each other and kept loading their few remaining crates onto the boat. Vanjit said nothing, only nodded and took Clarityof-Sight to the bow of the little craft to stare out at the water.

  The boat was as long as six men laid end to end, and as wide across as five. It sat low in the water, and the back quarter was filled with coal and kiln, boiler and wide-slatted wheel ready to take to the river. The boatman who watched the fires and the rudder was older than Maati, his skin thin and wrinkled. The second who took duty whenever the old man rested might have been his son. Neither man spoke to the passengers, and the sight of the baby struggling in Vanjit's arms seemed to elicit no reaction.

  Once they were all on and their belongings tied down, Eiah took a pose that indicated their readiness. The second called out, his voice almost a song. The riverfront clerk called back. Ropes were untied, the evil chuffing from the wheel grew louder, and the deep, violent slap of wood against water jerked them away from the bank and into the river. It seemed as if a breeze had come up, though it was likely only the speed of the boat. Eiah sat beside Maati, taking his wrists.

  "We told them the child was the get of one of the utkhaiem on a Westlands girl. Vanjit is the nurse."

  Maati nodded. It was as good a lie as any. At the bow, Vanjit looked back at the sound of her name. Her eyes were clear, but something in the set of her face made him think she'd been crying. Eiah frowned, pinching his fingertips until they went white, then waiting for the blood to pour back into them.

  "She asked about your tablets," he said. "You have been busy with them. The binding?"

  "I'm trying to cut deep enough that I can read it with my fingers," Eiah said quietly. "It's a better exercise than I'd expected. I think I've seen some ways to improve the grammar itself. It will mean another draft, but ... How are you feeling?"

  "What? Ah, fine. I feel fine."

  "Tired?"

  "Of course I'm tired. I'm old and I've been on the road too long and ..."

  And I have loosed a mad poet on the world, he thought. All the cruelties and tricks of the Dai-kvo, all the pain and loss that I suffered to be a poet was justified. If it kept people like Vanjit from the power of the andat, it was all justified. And I have ignored it.

  As if reading the words in his eyes, Eiah glanced over her shoulder at Vanjit. The sun was shining off the water, surrounding the dark, huddled girl with a brilliant halo of gold and white. When Maati looked away, the image had scarred his eyes. It lay over everything else he saw, black where it had been light, and a pale shape the color of mourning robes where Vanjit had been.

  "I'm making your tea," Eiah said, her voice grim. "Stay here and rest."

  "Eiah-kya? We ... we have to kill her," Maati said.

  Eiah turned to him, her expression empty. He gestured to Vanjit's back. His hand trembled.

  "Before your binding," he said, "we should be sure that it's safe for you. Or, that is, as safe as we can make it. You ... you understand."

  Eia
h sighed. When she spoke again, her voice was distant and reflective.

  "I knew a physician in Lachi. She told me about being in a low town when one of the men caught blood fever. He was a good person. Wellliked. This was a long time ago, so he had children. He'd gone out hunting and come back ill. She had them smother him and burn the body. His children stayed in their house and screamed the whole time they did it. She didn't sleep well for years afterward."

  Her eyes were focused on nothing, her jaw forward as if she was facing someone down. Man or god or fate.

  "You're saying it's not her fault," Maati said softly, careful not to speak Vanjit's name. "She was a little girl who had her family slaughtered before her. She was a lost woman who wanted a child and could never have one. What's wrong with her mind was done to her."

  Eiah took a pose that disagreed.

  "I'm saying no matter how little my physician friend slept, she saved those children's lives," Eiah said. "There are some herbs. When we stop for the night, I can gather them. I'll see it's done."

  "No. No, I'll do the thing. If it's anyone, it should-"

  "It will have to be quick," Eiah said. "She mustn't know it's coming. You can't do that."

  Maati took a pose that challenged her, and Eiah folded his hands gently closed.

  "Because you still want to save her," she said. Something about weariness and determination made her look like her father.

  Otah, who had killed a poet once too.

  23

  Otah rose in the mornings with stiff, aching joints and a pain in his side that would not fade. The steamcarts allowed each of them the chance to sleep for a hand or two in the late mornings or just after the midday meal. Without the rest, Otah knew he wouldn't have been able to keep pace with the others.

  The courier found them on the road. His outer robe was the colors of House Siyanti and mud-spattered to the waist. His mount cantered alongside the carts now, cooling down from the morning's travel as its rider waited for replies. The man's satchel held a dozen letters at least, but only one had occasioned his speed. It was written on paper the color of cream, sewn with black thread, and the imprint in the wax belonged to Balasar Gice. Otah sat in his saddle, afraid to open it and afraid not to.

  The thread ripped easily and the pages unfolded. Otah skimmed the letter from beginning to end, then began again, reading more slowly, letting the full import of the words wash over him. He folded the letter and slipped it into his sleeve, his heart heavy.

  Danat drew closer, his hands in a pose that both called for inclusion and offered sympathy. The boy might not know what had happened, but he'd drawn the fact that it wasn't good.

  "Chaburi-Tan," Otah said, beginning with the least of the day's losses. "It's gone. Sacked. Burned. We don't know whether the mercenaries turned sides or simply wouldn't protect it, but it comes to the same thing. The pirates attacked the city, took what they could, and set the rest alight."

  "And the fleet?"

  Otah looked at the roadside. Sun had melted the snow as far as its light could reach, but the shadows were still pale. Otah had known Sinja Ajutani for more years than not. The dry humor, the casual disrespect of all things pompous or self-certain, the knife-sharp and unsentimental analysis of any issue. When Kiyan died, they had been the only two men in the world who truly understood what had been lost.

  Now, only Otah knew.

  "What ships remain have been set to guard the seafront at Saraykeht," he said when he could speak again. "The thought is that winter will protect Yalakeht and Amnat-Tan. When the thaw comes in spring, we may have to revisit the plan."

  "Are you all right, Papa-kya?"

  "I'll be fine," Otah said, then he raised his hand and called the courier close. "Tell them I read it. Tell them I understood."

  The courier made his obeisance, turned his mount, and rode away. Otah let himself sit with his grief. The other letters for him could wait. They had come from his Master of Tides, and from others he'd named to watch the Empire crumble in his absence. Two had been for Ana Dasin, and he assumed they were from her parents. The letters had made their way up from Saraykeht and then along the low roads, tracking Otah and his party for days. And each day had marked the ending of lives, in Galt especially, but everywhere.

  He had known that Sinja might die. He'd sent the fleet out knowing it might happen, and Sinja had gone without any illusions of safety. If it hadn't been this and now, it would have been something else at some other time. Every man and woman died, in time.

  And in truth, death wasn't the curse he'd set out to break. All his work and sacrifice had been only so that they could balance the constant withering of age with some measure of renewal. He thought of his own children: Eiah, Danat, and even long-dead Nayiit. They had each of them been wagers he'd placed against a cruel world. A child comes into the world, and its father holds it close and thinks, If all goes as it should, I will die first. This one, I can love and never mourn for. That was all he wanted to leave for Danat and Eiah. The chance of knowing a love that they would never be called to bury. It was the world as it was intended to be.

  He didn't notice Idaan riding close to him until she spoke. Her voice was gruff, but he imagined he could hear some offer of comfort in it.

  "It's past time to shift. Crawl up on that cart and rest awhile. You've been riding that thing for five hands together."

  "Have I?" Otah said. "I didn't notice."

  "I know. It's why I came," she said. After a moment's pause, she added, "Danat told us what happened."

  Otah took a pose that acknowledged having heard her, but nothing more than that. There wasn't anything more that could be meaningfully said. Idaan respected it and let him turn his horse aside and shift to the steamcart where Ana Dasin and Ashti Beg sat, their sightless eyes fixed on nothing. Otah sat on the wide boards not far from them, but not so near that their conversation would include him. Ana laughed at something Ashti Beg had said. The older woman looked vaguely pleased. Otah lay back, his closed eyes flooded with the red of sun and blood. He willed himself to sleep, certain that it would elude him.

  He woke when the cart jerked to a halt. He sat up, half-thoughts of snapped axles and broken wheels forming and falling apart like mist in a high wind. When he was awake enough to make sense of the world, he saw that the sun had sunk almost to the treetops, and the cart was sitting in the yard of a wayhouse. The memory of the morning's foul message flooded back into him, but not so deeply as before. It would rise and fall, he knew. He would be jarred by the loss of his friend again and again and again, but less and less and less. It said something he didn't want to know that mourning had become so familiar. He plucked his traveling robes into their proper drape and lowered himself to the ground.

  The one thing he truly didn't regret about the journey was that his servants were all in Utani or Saraykeht. Walking into the low, warm main room of the wayhouse without being surrounded by men and women wanting to change his robes or powder his feet was a small pleasure. He tried to savor it.

  "Half a day east of here," a young man in a leather apron was saying, but he was pointing north. "Must have been five or six days ago. Raised ten kinds of trouble, then left in the middle of the night. So far as I can see, no one's talked about anything else since."

  "Did you see them?" Danat asked. His voice had an edge, but Otah couldn't see his face to know if it was excitement or anger.

  "Not myself, no," the young man said. "But it's the ones you asked after. An old man with a physician, and nothing but women traveling with him. There was even some talk he was trying to start a comfort house or something of that kind, but that was before the baby."

  "Baby?" The voice was Ana's.

  "Yes. Little one, not more than eight months old from the size. So I'm told. I didn't see him either, but they all saw him over at Chayiit's place. Walked right out in the middle of the main room."

  Otah slipped down at a bench by the fire grate. The fire was small but warm. He hadn't realized how cold he'd
gotten.

  "Those are the people," Danat said.

  "Five, six days then," the young man said with a pleased nod. He glanced over at Otah, their eyes meeting briefly. The other man paled as Otah took a pose of casual greeting and then turned his attention back to the flames. The conversation behind him grew softer and ended. Danat came to sit at his side. Through the open door, the yard fell into evening as the armsmen finished unloading and leading away their horses.

  "We've gotten closer," Danat said. "If they keep traveling as slowly as they have up to now, we'll overtake them well before Utani."

  Otah grunted. There was a deep thump from overhead and voices lifted in annoyance. Danat's fingers laced his knee.

  "I told Balasar that I would beg," Otah said. "I told him that I would bend myself before this new poet and beg if it meant restoring him and Galt."

  "And now?"

  "I don't believe I can. And more than that, having heard Ashti Beg talk about this Vanjit, it's hard work thinking it would help."

  "Maati, perhaps. He holds some sway with her."

  "But what can I say that would move him?" Otah asked, his voice thick. "We were friends once, and then enemies, and friends again, but I'm not sure we know each other now. The more I look at it, the more I'm tempted to set some sort of trap, capture the new poet, and give her over to blind torturers until she makes the world what it should be."

  "And what about Eiah?" Danat asked. "If she manages her bind„ ing-

  "What if she does?" Otah said. "She's been against me from the start. She's gone with Maati, and between them they've sunk the fleet, burned Chaburi-Tan, blinded Galt, and killed Sinja. What would you have me say to her?"

  "You'll have to say something," Danat said, his voice harder than Otah had expected. "And we'll be upon them soon enough. It's a thing you should consider."

  Otah looked over. Danat's head was bowed, his mouth tight.

  "You'd like to suggest something?" Otah asked, his voice low and careful. The anger in his breast shifted like a dog in sleep. Danat either didn't hear the warning or chose to ignore it.