An Autumn War Page 5

  When he became a man of arms in the service of Galt, he had been the smallest in his cohort. And in time, they had named him general. If the High Council needed to be convinced, then he would by God convince them.

  A polite cough came from the archways behind them, and Balasar turned. A secretary of the Council stood in the shade of the wide colonnade. As Balasar and Eustin rose, he bowed slightly at the waist.

  "General Gice," the secretary said. "The Lord Convocate requests your presence.

  "Good," Balasar said, then turned to Eustin and spoke quickly and low. "Stay here and keep an eye on our friend. If this goes poorly, we may need to make good time out of Acton."

  Eustin nodded, his face as calm and impassive as if Balasar asked him to turn against the High Council half the days of any week. Balasar tugged his vest and sleeves into place, nodded to the secretary, and allowed himself to be led into the shadows of government.

  The path beneath the colonnade led into a maze of hallways as old as Galt itself. The air seemed ancient, thick and dusty and close with the breath of men generations dead. The secretary led Balasar up a stone stairway worn treacherously smooth by a river of footsteps to a wide door of dark and carved wood. Balasar scratched on it, and a booming voice called him in.

  The meeting room was wide and long, with a glassed-in terrace that looked out over the city and shelves lining the walls with books and rolled maps. Low leather couches squatted by an iron fireplace, a low rosewood table between them with dried fruits and glass flutes ready for wine. And standing at the terrace's center looking out over the city, the Lord Convocate, a great gray bear of a man.

  Balasar closed the door behind him and walked over to the man's side. Acton spilled out before them-smoke and grime, broad avenues where steam wagons chuffed their slow way through the city taking on passengers for a half-copper a ride laced with lanes so narrow a man's shoulders could touch the walls on either side. For a moment, Balasar recalled the ruins in the desert, placing the memory over the view hefore him. Reminding himself again of the stakes he played for.

  "I've been riding herd on the Council since you gave your report. They aren't happy," the Lord Convocatc said. "The High Council doesn't look favorably on men of ... what should I call it? Profound initiative? None of them had any idea you'd gone so far. Not even your father. It was impolitic."

  "I'm not a man of politics."

  The Lord Convocate laughed.

  "You've led an army on campaign," he said. "If you didn't understand something of how to manage men, you'd be feeding some Westland tree by now."

  Balasar shrugged. It wasn't what he'd meant to do; it was the mo- nment to come across as controlled, loyal, reliable as stone, and here he was shrugging like a petulant schoolboy. He forced himself to smile.

  "I suppose you're right," he said.

  "But you know they would have refused you."

  "Know is a strong word. Suspected."

  "Feared?"

  "perhaps."

  "Fourteen cities in a single season. It can't be done, Balasar. Uther Redcape couldn't have done it."

  "tither was fighting in Eddensea," Balasar said. "They have walls around cities in Eddensea. They have armies. The Khaiem haven't got anything but the andat."

  ""I'he andat suffice."

  "Only if they have them."

  "Ah. Yes. That's the center of the question, isn't it? Your grand plan to do away with all the andat at a single blow. I have to confess, I don't think I quite follow how you expect this to work. You have one of these poets here, ready to work with us. Wouldn't it be better to capture one of these andat for ourselves?"

  "We will be. Freedom-From-Bondage should be one of the simplest andat to capture. It's never been done, so there's no worry about coming too near what's been tried before. The binding has been discussed literally for centuries. I've found books of commentary and analysis dating back to the First Empire ..."

  "All of it exploring exactly why it can't be done, yes?" The Lord Convocate's voice had gone as gentle and sympathetic as that of a medic trying to lead a man to realize his own dementia. It was a ploy. The old man wanted to see whether Balasar would lose his temper, so instead he smiled.

  ""That depends on what you mean by impossible."

  The Lord Convocate nodded and stepped to the windows, his hands clasped behind his hack. Balasar waited for three breaths, four. The impulse to shake the old man, to shout that every day was precious and the price of failure horrible beyond contemplation, rose in him and fell. This was the battle now, and as important as any of those to come.

  "So," the Lord Convocate said, turning. "Explain to me how 'annot means can.

  Balasar gestured toward the couches. They sat, leather creaking beneath them.

  ""I'he andat are ideas translated into forms that include volition," Balasar said. "A poet who's bound something like, for example, WoodUpon-Water gains control over the expression of that thought in the world. He could raise a sunken vessel up or sink all the ships on the sea with a thought, if he wished it. The time required to create the binding is measured in years. If it succeeds, the poet's life work is to hold the thing here in the world and train someone to take it from him when he grows old or infirm."

  "You're telling me what I know," the old man said, but Balasar raised a hand, stopping him.

  "I'm telling you what they mean when they say impossible. They mean that Freedom-From-Bondage can't be held. "There is no way to control something that is the essential nature and definition of the uncontrolled. But they make no distinction between being invoked and being maintained."

  The Lord Convocate frowned and rubbed his fingertips together.

  "We can bind it, sir. Riaan isn't the talent of the ages, but FreedomFrom-Bondage should be easy compared with the normal run. The whole binding's nearly done already-only a little tailoring to make it fit our man's mind in particular."

  "That comes back to the issue," the Lord Convocate said. "What happens when this impossible binding works?"

  "As soon as it is bound it is freed." Balasar clapped his palms together. "That fast."

  "And the advantage of that?" the Lord Convocate said, though Balasar could see the old man had already traced out the implications.

  "Done well, with the right grammar, the right nuances, it will unbind every andat there is when it goes. All of this was in my report to the High Council."

  The Lord Convocate nodded as he plucked a circle of dried apple from the howl between them. When he spoke again, however, it was as if Balasar's objection had never occurred.

  "Assuming it works, that you can take the andat from the field of play, what's to stop the Khaiem from having their poets make another andat and loose it on Galt?"

  "Swords," Balasar said. "As you said, fourteen cities in a single season. None of them will have enough time. I have men in every city of the Khaiem, ready to meet us with knowledge of the defenses and strengths we face. 'T'here are agreements with mercenary companies to support our men. Four well-equipped, well-supported forces, each taking unfortified, poorly armed cities. But we have to start moving men now. This is going to take time, and I don't want to he caught in the North waiting to see which comes first, the thaw or some overly clever poet in Cetani or Machi managing to hind something new. We have to move quickly-kill the poets, take the libraries-"

  "After which we can go about making andat of our own at our leisure," the Lord Convocate said. His voice was thoughtful, and still Balasar sensed a trap. He wondered how much the man had guessed of his own plans and intentions for the future of the andat.

  "If that's what the High Council chooses to do," Balasar said, sitting back. "All of this, of course, assuming I'm given permission to move forward."

  "Ah," the Lord Convocate said, lacing his hands over his belly. "Yes. That will need an answer. Permission of the Council. A thousand things could go wrong. And if you fail-"

  "The stakes are no lower if we sit on our hands. And we could wait forever and
never see a better chance," Balasar said. "You'll forgive my saving it, sir, but you haven't said no."

  "No," he said, slowly. "No, I haven't."

  "'T'hen I have the command, sir?"

  After a moment, the Lord Convocate nodded.

  3

  "What's the matter?" Kiyan asked. She was already dressed in the silk shift that she slept in, her hair tied back from her thin foxlike face. It occurred to Otah for the first time just how long ago the sun had set. He sat on the bed at her side and let himself feel the aches in his back and knees.

  "Sitting too long," he said. "I don't know why doing nothing should hurt as badly as hauling crates."

  Kiyan put a hand against his back, her fingers tracing his spine through the fine-spun wool of his robes.

  "For one thing, you haven't hauled a crate for your living in thirty summers.

  ""Twenty-five," he said, leaning back into the soft pressure of her hands. ""Twenty-six now."

  "For another, you've hardly done nothing. As I recall, you were awake before the sun rose."

  Otah considered the sleeping chamber-the domed ceiling worked in silver, the wood and bone inlay of the floors and walls, the rich gold netting that draped the bed, the still, somber flame of the lantern. The east wall was stone-pink granite thin as eggshell that glowed when the sun struck it. He couldn't recall how long it had been since he'd woken to see that light. Last summer, perhaps, when the nights were shorter. He closed his eyes and lay hack into the soft, enfolding bed. His weight pressed out the scent of crushed rose petals. Hayes closed, he felt Kiyan shift, the familiar warmth and weight of her body resting against him. She kissed his temple.

  "Our friend from the I)ai-kvo will finally leave soon. A message came recalling him," Otah said. "That was a bright moment. Though the gods only know what kept him here so long. Sinja's likely halfway to the VVestlands by now."

  "The envoy stayed for Maati's work," Kiyan said. "Apparently he hardly left the library these last weeks. Eiah's been keeping me informed."

  "Well, the gods and Eiah, then," Otah said.

  "I'm worried about her. She's brooding about something. Can you speak with her?"

  Dread touched Otah's belly, and a moment's resentment. It had been such a long day, and here waiting for him like a stalking cat was another problem, another need he was expected to meet. The thought must have expressed itself in his body, because Kiyan sighed and rolled just slightly away.

  "You think it's wrong of me," Kiyan said.

  "Not wrong," Otah said. "Unnecessary isn't wrong."

  "I know. At her age, you were living on the streets in the summer cities, stealing pigeons off firekeeper's kilns and sleeping in alleys. And you came through just fine."

  "Oh," Otah said. "Have I told that story already?"

  "Once or twice," she said, laughing gently. "It's just that she seems so distant. I think there's something bothering her that she won't say. And then I wonder whether it's only that she won't say it to me."

  "And why would she talk to me if she won't she talk to you?"

  When he felt Kiyan shrug, Otah opened his eyes and rolled to his side. "There were tears shining in his lover's eyes, but her expression was more amused than sorrowful. He touched her cheek with his fingertips, and she kissed his palm absently.

  "1 don't know. Because you're her father, and I'm only her mother? It was just ... a hope. The problem is that she's half a woman," Kiyan said. "When the sun's up, I know that. I remember when I was that age. My father had me running half of his wayhouse, or that's how it felt back then. Up before the clients, cooking sausages and barley. Cleaning the rooms during the day. He and Old Mani would take care of the evenings, though. They wanted to sell as much wine as they could, but they didn't want a girl my age around drunken travelers. I thought they were being so unfair."

  Kiyan pursed her lips.

  "But maybe I've told that story already," she said.

  "Once or twice," Otah agreed.

  "There was a time I didn't worry about the whole world and everything in it, you know. I remember that there was. It doesn't make sense to me. One had season, an illness, a fire-anything, really, and I could have lost the wayhouse. But now here I am, highest of the Khaiem, a whole city that will bend itself in half to hand me whatever it thinks I want, and the world seems more fragile."

  "We got old," Otah said. "It's always the ones who've seen the most who think the world's on the edge of collapse, isn't it? And we've seen more than most."

  Kiyan shook her head.

  "It's more than that. Losing a wayhouse would have made the world harder for me and Old Mani. There are more people than I can count here in the city, and all the low towns. And you carry them. It makes it matter more."

  "I sit through days of ceremony and let myself be hectored over the things I don't do the way other people prefer," Otah said. "I'm not sure that anything I've done here has actually made any difference at all. If they stuffed a robe with cotton and posed the sleeves ..."

  "You care about them," Kiyan said.

  "I don't," he said. "I care about you and Eiah and I)anat. And Maati. I know that I'm supposed to care about everyone and everything in Machi, but love, I'm only a man. "l'hey can tell me I gave tip my own name when I took the chair, but really the Khai Machi is only what I do. I wouldn't keep the work if I could find a way out."

  Kiyan embraced him with one arm. Her hair was fragrant with lavender oil.

  "You're sweet," she said.

  "Am I? I'll try to confess my incompetence and selfishness more often."

  "As long as it includes me," she said. "Now go let those poor men change your clothes and get hack to beds of their own."

  The servants had become accustomed to the Khai's preference for brief ablutions. Otah knew that his own father had managed somehow to enjoy the ceremony of being dressed and bathed by others. But his father had been raised to take the chair, had followed the traditions and forms of etiquette, and had never that Otah knew stepped outside the role he'd been horn to. Otah himself had been turned out, and the years he had spent being a simple, free man, reliant upon himself had ruined him for the fawning of the court. He endured the daily frivolity of having foods brought to him, his hands cleaned for him, his hair combed on his behalf. He allowed the body servants to pull off his formal robes and swathe him in a sleeping shift, and when he returned to his bed, Kiyan's breath was already deep, slow, and heavy. He slipped in beside her, pulling the blankets up over himself, and closed his eyes at last.

  Sleep, however, did not come. His body ached, his eyes were tired, but it seemed that the moment he laid his head back, Utah's mind woke. I Ic listened to the sounds of the palace in night: the almost silent wind through a distant window, the deep and subtle ticking of cooling stone, the breath of the woman at his side. Beyond the doors to the apartments, someone coughed-one of the servants set to watch over the Khai Machi in case there was anything he should desire in the night. Utah tried not to move.

  He hadn't asked Kiyan about Danat's health. He'd meant to. But surely if there had been anything concerning, she would have brought it up to him. And regardless, he could ask her in the morning. Perhaps he would cancel the audiences before midday and go speak with Danat's physicians. And speak to Eiah. He hadn't said he would do that, but Kiyan had asked, and it wasn't as if being present in his own daughter's life should he an imposition. He wondered what it would have been to have a dozen wives, whether he would have felt the need to attend to all of their children as he did to the two he had now, how he would have stood watching his boys grow tip when he knew he would have to send them away or else watch them slaughter one another over which of them would take his own place here on this soft, sleepless bed and fear in turn for his own sons.

  The night candle ate through its marks as he listened to the internal voice nattering in his mind, gnawing at half a thousand worries both justified and inane. The trade agreements with tJdun weren't in place yet. Perhaps something really was the
matter with Eiah. He didn't know how long stone buildings stood; nothing stands forever, so it only made sense that someday the palaces would fall. And the towers. The towers reached so high it seemed that low clouds would touch them; what would he do if they fell? But the night was passing and he had to sleep. If he didn't the morning would be worse. He should talk with Maati, find out how things had gone between him and the Dai-kvo's envoy. Perhaps a dinner.

  And on, and on, and on. When he gave tip, slipping from the bed softly to let Kiyan, at least, sleep, the night candle was past its threequarter mark. Utah walked to the apartment's main doors on bare, chilled feet and found his keeper in the hall outside dozing. He was a young man, likely the son of some favored servant or slave of Utah's own father, given the honor of sitting alone in the darkness, bored and cold. Utah considered the boy's soft face, as peaceful in sleep as a corpse's, and walked silently past him and into the dim hallways of the palace.

  His night walks had been growing more frequent in recent months. Sometimes twice in a week, Utah found himself wandering in the darkness, sleep a stranger to him. He avoided the places where he might encounter another person, jealously keeping the time to himself. 'lbnight, he took a lantern and walked down the long stairways to the ground, and then on down, to the tunnels and underground streets into which the city retreated in the deep, hone-breaking cold of winter. With spring come, Utah found the palace beneath the palace empty and silent. The smell of old torches, long gone dark, still lingered in the air, and Utah imagined the corridors and galleries of the city descending forever into the earth. Dark archways and domed sleeping chambers cut from stone that had never seen daylight, narrow stairways leading endlessly down like a thing from a children's song.