The Price of Spring Read online

  She took a deep breath, steadying herself. Otah leaned forward, his hand on the woman's wrist.

  "I remember," he said softly, and she smiled.

  "It's beside the matter," she said.

  "It's at the center of the matter," Otah said, falling reflexively into a pose of disagreement. "And it's the part upon which we agree. Forgive me if I am being forward, but you are offering your support for my treaty in exchange for a marriage between our families? Your daughter and my son."

  "Yes," she said. "I am."

  "There may be others who ask the same price. There is a tradition among my people of the Khai taking several wives...."

  "You didn't."

  "No," Otah agreed. "I didn't."

  The wasp returned, buzzing at Otah's ear. He didn't raise a hand, and the insect landed on the brightly embroidered silk of his sleeve. Issandra Dasin, mother of his son's future wife, leaned forward gracefully and crushed it between her fingers.

  "No other wives," she said.

  "I would need assurances that the vote would be decisive," Otah said.

  "You'll have them. I am a more influential woman than I seem."

  Otah looked up. Above them, the sun burned behind a thin scrim of cloud. The same light fell in Utani, spilling through the windows of Danat's palace. If only there were some way to whisper to the sun and have it relay the message to Danat: Are you certain you'll take this risk? A life spent with a woman whom you've never met, whom you may never love?

  His son had seen twenty summers and was by all rights a man. Before the great diplomatic horde had left for Galt, they had discussed the likelihood of a bargain of this sort. Danat hadn't hesitated. If it was a price, he'd pay it. His face had been solemn when he'd said it. Solemn and certain, and as ignorant as Otah himself had been at that age. There was nothing else either of them could have said. And nothing different that Otah could do now, except put off the moment for another few breaths by staring up at the blinding sun.

  "Very well," Otah said. Then again, "Very well."

  "You also have a daughter," the woman said. "The elder child?"

  "Yes," Otah said.

  "Does she have a claim as heir?"

  The image appeared in his mind unbidden: Eiah draped in golden robes and gems woven into her hair as she dressed a patient's wounds. Otah chuckled, then saw the beginnings of offense in his guest's expression. He thought it might not be wise to appear amused at the idea of a woman in power.

  "She wouldn't take the job if you begged her," Otah said. "She's a smart, strong-willed woman, but court politics give her a rash."

  "But if she changed her mind. Twenty years from now, who can say that her opinions won't have shifted?"

  "It wouldn't matter," Otah said. "There is no tradition of empresses. Nor, I think, of women on your own High Council."

  She snorted derisively, but Otah saw he had scored his point. She considered for a moment, then with a deep breath allowed herself to relax.

  "Well then. It seems we have an agreement."

  "Yes," Otah said.

  She stood and adopted a pose that she had clearly practiced with a specialist in etiquette. It was in essence a greeting, with nuances of a contract being formed and the informality that came with close relations.

  "Welcome to my family, Most High," she said in his language. Otah replied with a pose that accepted the welcome, and if its precise meaning was lost on her, the gist was clear enough.

  After she had left, Otah strolled through the gardens, insulated by his rank from everyone he met. The trees seemed straighter than he remembered, the birdsong more delicate. A weariness he only half-knew had been upon him had lifted, and he felt warm and energetic in a way he hadn't in months. He made his way at length to his suite, his rooms, his desk.

  Kiyan-kya, it seems something may have gone right after all...

  2

  Ten years almost to the day before word of Otah's pact with the Galts reached him, Maati Vaupathai had learned of his son's death at the hands of Galtic soldiers. A fugitive only just abandoned by his only companion, he had made his way to the south like a wounded horse finding its way home. It had not been the city itself he had been looking for, but a woman.

  Liat Chokavi, owner and overseer of House Kyaan, had received him. Twice, they had been lovers, once as children, and then again just before the war. She had told him of Nayiit's stand, of how he had been cut down protecting the Emperor's son, Danat, as the final assault on Machi began. She spoke with the chalky tones of a woman still in pain. If Maati had held hopes that his once-lover might take him in, they did not survive that conversation. He left her house in agony. He had not spoken to her since.

  Two years after that, he took his first student, a woman named Halit. Since then, his life had become a narrow, focused thing. He had remade himself as a teacher, as an agent of hope, as the Dai-kvo of a new age.

  It was less glamorous than it sounded.

  All that morning he had lain in the small room that was presently his home, squinting at the dirty light that made its way through the oiledparchment window and thinking of the andat. Thinking of thoughts made flesh, of ideas given human form and volition. Little gods, held tight to existence by the poets who knew them best and, by knowing, bound them. Removing-the-Part-That-Continues, called Seedless. WaterMoving-Down, called Rain or Seaward. Stone-Made-Soft who had no other name. And his own-Corrupting-the-Generative, called Sterile, whom Maati had not quite bound, and who had remade the world.

  The lessons he had learned as a boy, the conversations he had had as a man and a poet, they all came back to him dimly. Fragments and moments, insights but not all the steps that had led him there. A mosquito whined in the gloom, and Maati waved it away.

  Teaching his girls was like telling the story of his life and finding there were holes in it. He knew things-structures of grammar and metaphor, anecdotes of long-dead poets and the bindings they had made, occult relationships between abstractions like shapes and numbers and the concrete things of the world-without remembering how he'd learned them. Every lecture he gave, he had to half-invent. Every question he answered, he had to solve in his mind to be sure. On one hand, it was as awkward as using a grand palace as a lesson on how to build scaffolding. And on the other, it was making him a better poet and a better teacher than he would ever have been otherwise.

  He sat up, the canvas cot groaning as his weight shifted. The room was tiny and quiet; the stone walls wept and smelled of fungus. Halfaware of his surroundings and half in the fine points of ancient grammars, Maati rose and trundled up the short flight of stairs. The warehouse stood empty, the muted daylight and the sound of light rain making their way through the high, narrow windows. His footsteps echoed as he crossed to the makeshift lecture hall.

  Benches of old, splintering wood squatted near a length of wall smooth enough to take chalk. The markings of the previous evening still shone white against the stone. Maati squinted at them.

  Age was a thief. It took his wind, it made his heart race at odd times, and it stole his sleep. But the worst of all the little indignities was his sight. He hadn't thought about the blessing that decent vision was until his eyes started to fail. It made his head ache a bit, but he found the diagram he'd been thinking of, traced it with his fingertips, considered, and then took a rag from the pail of water beside his little podium and washed the marks away. He could start there tonight, with the four categories of being and their relationships. It was a subtle point, but without it, the girls would never build a decent binding.

  There were five of them now: Irit, Ashti Beg, Vanjit, Small Kae, and Large Kae. Half a year ago, there had been seven, but Umnit had tried her binding, failed, and perished. Lisat had given up and left him. Just as well, really. Lisat had been a good-hearted girl, but slow-witted as a cow. And so, five. Or six, if he counted Eiah.

  Eiah had been a gift from the gods. She spent her days in the palaces of Utani, playing the daughter of Empire. He knew it was a life she
disliked, but she saw to it that food and money found their way to Maati. And being part of the court let her keep an ear out for gossip that would serve them, like a dispute over the ownership of a low-town warehouse that left both claimants barred from visiting the building until judgment was passed. The warehouse had been Maati's for two months now. It was beginning to feel like his own. He dropped the rag back into its pail, found the thick cube of chalk, and started drawing the charts for the evening's lecture. He wondered whether Eiah would be able to join them. She was a good student, when she could slip away from her life at the palace. She asked good questions.

  The crude iron bolt turned with a sound like a dropped hammer, and the small, human-size door beside the great sliding walls intended for carts and wagons opened. A woman's figure was silhouetted against the soft gray light. It was neither of the Kaes, but his eyes weren't strong enough to make out features. When she came in, closing the door behind her, he recognized Vanjit by her gait.

  "You're early, Vanjit-cha," Maati said, turning back to the wall and chalk.

  "I thought I might be able to help," she said. "Are you well, Maaticha?"

  Vanjit had been with him for almost a year now. She had come to his covert school, as all the others had, through a series of happy accidents. Another of his students-Umnit-had fallen into conversation with her, and something had sparked between them. Umnit had presented Vanjit as a candidate to join in their work. Reluctantly, Maati had accepted her.

  The girl had a brilliant mind, no question. But she had been a child in Udun, the only one of her family to survive when the Galts had come, and the memory of that slaughter still touched her eyes from time to time. She might laugh and talk and make music, but she bore scars on her body and in her mind. In the months he had spent working with her, Maati had come to realize what had first unnerved him about the girl: of all the students he had taught, she was most like him.

  He had lost his family in the war as well-his almost-son Nayiit, his lover Liat, and the man he had once thought his dearest friend. Otah, Emperor of the Khaiem. Otah, favored of the gods, who couldn't fall down without landing on rose petals. They had not all died, but they were all lost to him.

  "Maati-cha?" Vanjit said. "Did I say something wrong?"

  Maati blinked and took a pose of query.

  "You looked angry," she said.

  "Nothing," Maati said, shifting the chalk to his other hand and shaking the ache from his fingers. "Nothing, Vanjit-kya, my mind was just wandering. Come, sit. There's nothing that you need to do, but you can keep me company while I get ready."

  She sat on the bench, one leg tucked under her. He noticed that her hair and robe were wet from the rain. There was mud on her boots. She'd been walking out in the weather. Maati hesitated, chalk halfway back to the stone.

  "Or," he said slowly, "perhaps I should ask if you've been well?"

  She smiled and took a pose that dismissed his concerns.

  "Bad dream again," she said. "That's all."

  "About the baby," Maati said.

  "I could feel him inside of me," she said. "I could feel his heartbeat. It's strange. I hate dreaming about him. The nightmares that I'm back in the war-I may scream myself awake, but at least I'm pleased that the dream's ended. When I dream about him, I'm happy. I'm at peace. And then ..."

  She gestured at the childless world around them.

  "It's worse, wishing I could sleep and dream and never awake."

  Maati's heart rang in sympathy, like a crystal bowl taking up the ringing of a great bell. How many times had he dreamed that Nayiit lived? That the world had not been broken, or, if it had, not by him?

  "We'll bring him," Maati said. "Have faith. Every week, we come closer. Once the grammar is built solidly enough, anything will be possible."

  "Are we coming closer?" she asked. "Be honest, Maati-cha. Every week we spend on this, I think we're on the edge, and every week, there's more after it."

  He tucked the chalk into his sleeve and sat at the girl's side. She leaned forward, and he thought there was something in her expressionnot despair and not shame, but something related to both.

  "We are coming near, and we are close," he said. "I know it isn't something you can see, but each of you knows more about the andat and the bindings right now than I did after a year with the Dai-kvo. You're smart and dedicated and talented. And together, we can make this work. It sounds terrible, I know, but as soon as Siimat failed her binding and paid the price ... I won't say I was pleased. I can't say that. She was a brave woman, and she had a wonderful mind. I miss her. But that she and all the others died means we are very close."

  Ten bindings, ending in ten failures and ten corpses. His fallen soldiers, Maati thought. His girls who had sacrificed themselves. And here, wet as a canal rat and sad to her bones, Vanjit impatient to make her own try, risk her own life. Maati took her small hand in his own. The girl smiled at the wall.

  "This will happen," he said.

  "I know it," she said, her voice soft. "It's just so hard to wait when the dream keeps coming."

  Maati sat with her for a moment, only the tapping of raindrops and the songs of birds between them. He stood, fished the chalk from his sleeve, and went back to the wall.

  "If you'd like, you could light a fire in the office grate," Maati said. "We could surprise the others with some fresh tea."

  It wasn't called for, but it gave the girl something to do. He squinted at the figure he'd drawn until the lines came into focus. Ah, yes. Four categories of being.

  The rain slackened as the others arrived. Large Kae checked the coverings over the windows, careful that no stray light betray their presence, as Irit fluttered sparrowlike lighting the lanterns. Small Kae and Ashti Beg adjusted the seats and benches, the younger woman's light voice contrasting with her elder's dry one.

  The scents of wood smoke and tea made their warehouse classroom seem less furtive. Vanjit poured bowls for each of his students as they took their places. The soft light darkened the stone so that the chalk marks almost seemed written on air. Maati took a moment to himself to think of his teachers, of their lectures. He willed himself to become one of their number.

  "The world," Maati began, "has two essential structures. There's the physical"-he slapped the stone wall behind him-"and there's the abstract. Two and two are always four, regardless of whether you're talking about grains of sand or racing camels. Twelve could always be broken into two sets of six or three sets of four long before anybody noticed the fact. Abstract structure, you see?"

  They bent toward him like flowers toward the sun. Maati saw the hunger in their faces and the set of their shoulders.

  "Now," Maati said. "Does the physical require the abstract? Come on. Think! Can you have something physical that doesn't have abstract structure?"

  There was a moment's silence.

  "Water?" Small Kae asked. "Because if you put two drops of water together with two drops of water, you just get one big drop."

  "You're ahead of yourself," Maati said. "That's called the doctrine of least similarity. You're not ready for that. What I mean is this: is there anything real that can't be described by its abstract structure? Any of you? No one has a thought about this? I answered that one correctly before I'd seen ten summers."

  "No?" suggested Irit.

  "No. How many of you think she's right? Go on! Take a stand about it one way or the other! Good. Yes. Irit's right," Maati said and spat at the floor by his feet. "Everything physical has abstract structure, but not everything abstract need be physical. That's what we're doing here. That's the asymmetry that lets the andat exist."

  In all their faces, turned to his, there was the same expression. Hunger, he thought, or desperation. Or longing halfway forged into something stronger. It gave him hope.

  After the lecture, he made them run through grammar exercises, and then, as the moon rose and the lanterns smoked and the rats came out to chuff and chitter at them from the shadows, they considered the fail
ed bindings of the women who had gone before them. Slowly, they were developing a sense of what it was to capture an andat, to take a thought and translate it into a different form. To give it volition and a human shape. To keep the binding present in your mind for the rest of your life, holding the spirit back from its natural state of nothingness like holding a stone over a well: slip once, and it is gone. Maati could see the knowledge growing in the set of their poses and hear it in the questions they asked. He had almost reached the end of his night's plan when the small door to the street flew open again.

  Eiah strode in, her breath labored. She wore a drab cloak over a silk robe rich with all the colors of sunset. The others fell silent. Maati, standing before a wall now covered in white, ghostly notations and graphs, took a pose that expressed his alarm and asked the cause of hers.

  "Uncle Maati," she said between gasps, "there's news from Galt. My father."

  Maati shifted toward several poses at once, managing none of them. Eiah's expression was grim.

  "That's all for tonight," he said. "Come back tomorrow."

  He had intended to assign exercises, translation puzzles for them to work in their time away from class. He abandoned the idea and shooed them out the door. All of them left except Eiah, sitting on a low chair in the warehouse office, her face lit by the shifting flames in the grate.

  The letters had arrived by fast courier. Against all expectation, the Emperor's benighted mission to Galt had borne fruit. Danat was to be married to a daughter of the Galtic High Council. Terms were being arranged for the transport of a thousand Galtic women of childbearing age to the cities of the Khaiem. Applications would be taken for a thousand men to leave their lives among the cities of the Khaiem and move to Galt. It was, Eiah said, intended to be the first exchange of many.

  There were protests and anger in only a few cities. Nantani and Yalakeht, hit hard by the war, were sending petitions of condemnation. In the low towns, the anger burned brighter. Galt was still the enemy, and there were rumors of plots to kill whomever of them dared set foot on Khaiate soil: talk and rumor, drunken rhetoric likely to come to nothing.