An Autumn War Read online

  He didn't consider where he intended to go until he reached his father's crypt and found himself unsurprised to be there. The dark stone seemed to wrap itself in shadows, words of ancient language cut deep into the walls. An ornate pedestal held the pale urn, a dead flower. And beneath it, three small boxes-the remains of Biitrah, Danat, Kaiin. Otah's brothers, dead in the struggle to become the new Khai Nlachi. Lives cut short for the honor of having a pedestal of their own someday, deep in the darkness.

  Utah sat on the bare floor, the lantern at his side, and contemplated the man he'd never known or loved whose place he had taken. Here was how his own end would look. An urn, a tomb, high honors and reverence for hones and ashes. And between the chill floor and the pale urn, perhaps another thirty summers. Perhaps forty. Years of ceremony and negotiation, late nights and early mornings and little else.

  But when the time came, at least his crypt would be only his own. Danat, brotherless, wouldn't be called upon to kill or die in the succession. 't'here would be no second sons left to kill the other for the black chair. It seemed a thin solace, having given so much of himself to achieve something that a merchant's son could have had for free.

  It would have been easier if he'd never been anything but this. A man horn into the Khaiem who had never stepped outside wouldn't carry the memories of fishing in the eastern islands, of eating at the wayhouses outside Yalakeht, of being free. If he could have forgotten it all, becoming the man he was supposed to be might have been easier. Instead he was driven to follow his own judgment, raise a militia, take only one wife, raise only one son. "I'hat his experience told him that he was right didn't make bearing the world's disapproval as easy as he'd hoped.

  The lantern flame guttered and spat. Otah shook his head, uncertain now how long he had been lost in his reverie. When he stood, his left leg had gone numb from being pressed too long against the bare stone. He took up the lantern and walked-moving slowly and carefully to protect his numbed foot-back toward the stairways that would return him to the surface and the day. By the time he regained the great halls, feeling had returned. The sky peeked through the windows, a pale gray preparing itself to blue. Voices echoed and the palaces woke, and the grand, stately beast that was the court of Machi stirred and stretched.

  His apartments, when he reached them, were a flurry of activity. A knot of servants and members of the utkhaiem gabbled like peahens, Kiyan in their center listening with a seriousness and sympathy that only he knew masked amusement. Her hand was on the shoulder of the body servant whom Otah had passed, the peace of sleep banished and anxiety in its place.

  "Gentlemen," Otah said, letting his voice boom, calling their attention to him. "Is there something amiss?"

  To a man, they adopted poses of obeisance and welcome. Otah responded automatically now, as he did half a hundred times every day.

  "Most High," a thin-voiced man said-his Master of 'T'ides. "We came to prepare you and found your bed empty."

  Otah looked at Kiyan, whose single raised brow told them that empty had only meant empty of him, and that she'd have been quite pleased to keep sleeping.

  "I was walking," he said.

  "We may not have the time to prepare you for the audience with the envoy from Tan-Sadar," the Master of 'rides said.

  "Put him off," Otah said, walking through the knot of people to the door of his apartments. "Reschedule everything you have for me today."

  The Master of'I'ides gaped like a trout in air. Otah paused, his hands in a query that asked if the words bore repeating. The Master of Tides adopted an acknowledging pose.

  "The rest of you," he said, "I would like breakfast served in my apartments here. And send for my children."

  "Eiah-cha's tutors . . ." one of the others began, but Otah looked at the man and he seemed to forget what he'd been saying.

  "I will be taking the day with my family," Otah said.

  "You will start rumors, Most High," another said. "They'll say the boy's cough has grown worse again."

  "And I would like black tea with the meal," Otah said. "In fact, bring the tea first. I'll be in by the fire, warming my feet."

  He stepped in, and Kiyan followed, closing the door behind her.

  "Bad night?" she asked.

  "Sleepless," he said as he sat by the fire grate. "That's all."

  Kiyan kissed the top of his head where she assured him that the hair was thinning and stepped out of the room. He heard the soft rustle of cloth against stone and Kiyan's low, contented humming, and knew she was changing her robes. The warmth of the fire pressed against the soles of his feet like a comforting hand, and he closed his eyes for a moment.

  No building stands forever, he thought. Even palaces fall. Even towers. He wondered what it would have been like to live in a world where Nlachi didn't exist-who he might have been, what he might have done-and he felt the weight of stone pressing down upon the air he breathed. What would he do if the towers fell? Where would he go, if could go anywhere?

  "Papa-kya!" Danat's bright voice called. "I was in the Second Palace, and I found a closet where no one had been in ever, and look what I found!"

  Otah opened his eyes, and turned to his son and the wood-and-string model he'd discovered. Eiah arrived a hand and a half later, when the thin granite shutters glowed with the sun. For a time, at least, Otah's own father's tomb lay forgotten.

  THE PROBLEM WITH ATHAI-KVO, MAATI DECIDED, WAS THAT HE WAS SIMPIX an unlikable man. "There was no single thing that he did or said, no single habit or affect that made him grate on the nerves of all those around him. Some men were charming, and would be loved however questionable their behavior. And then on the other end of the balance, there was Athai. The weeks he had spent with the man had been bearable only because of the near-constant stream of praise and admiration given to Nlaati.

  "It will change everything," the envoy said as they sat on the steps of the poet's house-Cehmai's residence. "°I'his is going to begin a new age to rival the Second Empire."

  "Because that ended so well," Stone-Made-Soft rumbled, its tone amused as always.

  The morning was warm. The sculpted oaks separating the poet's house from the palaces were bright with new leaves. Far above, barely visible through the boughs, the stone towers rose into the sky. Cehmai reached across the envoy to pour more rice wine into Maati's bowl.

  "It is early yet to pass judgment," Nlaati said as he nodded his thanks to Cehmai. "It isn't as though the techniques have been tried."

  "But it makes sense," Athai said. "I'm sure it will work."

  "If we've overlooked something, the first poet to try this is likely to die badly," Cehmai said. ""1'he Dai-kvo will want a fair amount of study done before he puts a poet's life on the table."

  "Next year," Athai said. "I'll wager twenty lengths of silver it will be used in bindings by this time next year."

  "Done," the andat said, then turned to Cehmai. "You can back me if I lose."

  The poet didn't reply, but Maati saw the amusement at the corners of Cehmai's mouth. It had taken years to understand the ways in which Stone-Made-Soft was an expression of Cehmai, the ways they were a single thing, and the ways they were at war. The small comments the andat made that only Cehmai understood, the unspoken moments of private struggle that sometimes clouded the poet's days. They were like nothing so much as a married couple, long accustomed to each other's ways.

  Maati sipped the rice wine. It was infused with peaches, a moment of autumn's harvest in the opening of spring. Athai looked away from the andat's broad face, discomforted.

  "You must be ready to return to the Dai-kvo," Cehmai said. "You've been away longer than you'd intended."

  Athai waved the concern away, pleased, Maati thought, to speak to the man and forget the andat.

  "I wouldn't have traded this away," he said. "Maati-kvo is going to be remembered as the greatest poet of our generation."

  "Have some more wine," Maati said, clinking the envoy's bowl with his own, but Cehmai shook his head
and gestured toward the wooded path. A slave girl was trotting toward them, her robes billowing behind her. Athai put down his bowl and stood, pulling at his sleeves. Here was the moment they had been awaiting-the call for Athai to join the caravan to the East. Maati sighed with relief. Half a hand, and his library would be his own again. The envoy took a formal pose of farewell that Maati and Cehmai returned.

  "I will send word as soon as I can, Maati-kvo," Athai said. "I am honored to have studied with you."

  Maati nodded uncomfortably; then, after a moment's awkward silence, Athai turned. Maati watched until the slave girl and poet had both vanished among the trees, then let out a breath. Cehmai chuckled as he put the stopper into the flask of wine.

  "Yes, I agree," Cehmai said. "I think the I)ai-kvo must have chosen him specifically to annoy the Khai."

  "Or he just wanted to be rid of him for a time," Maati said.

  "I liked him," Stone-Made-Soft said. "Well, as much as I like anyone."

  The three walked together into the poet's house. The rooms within were neatly kept-shelves of books and scrolls, soft couches and a table laid out with the black and white stones on their hoard. A lemon candle burned at the window, but a fly still buzzed wildly about the corners of the room. It seemed that every winter Maati forgot about the existence of flies, only to rediscover them in spring. He wondered where the insects all went during the vicious cold, and what the signal was for them to return.

  "He isn't wrong, you know," Cehmai said. "If you're right, it will be the most important piece of analysis since the fall of the Empire."

  "I've likely overlooked something. It isn't as though we haven't seen half a hundred schemes to bring hack the glory of the past before now, and there hasn't been one that's done it."

  "And I wasn't there to look at the other ideas," Cehmai said. "But since I was here to talk this one over, I'd say this is at least plausible. That's more than most. And the Dai-kvo's likely to think the same."

  "He'll probably dismiss it out of hand," Maati said, but he smiled as he spoke.

  Cehmai had been the first one he'd shown his theories to, even before he'd known for certain what they were. It had been a curiosity more than anything else. It was only as they'd talked about it that Maati had understood the depths he'd touched upon. And Cehmai had also been the one to encourage bringing the work to the Dai-kvo's attention. All Athai's enthusiasm and hyperbole paled beside a few thoughtful words from Cchmai.

  Maati stayed awhile, talking and laughing, comparing impressions of Athai now that he'd left. And then he took his leave, walking slowly enough that he didn't become short of breath. Fourteen, almost fifteen years ago, he'd come to Machi. The black stone roadways, the constant scent of the coal smoke billowing up from the forges, the grandeur of the palaces and the hidden city far beneath his feet had become his home as no other place ever had before. He strode down pathways of crushed marble, under archways that flowed with silken banners. A singing slave called from the gardens, a simple melody of amazing clarity and longing. He turned down a smaller way that would take him to his apartments behind the library.

  Nlaati found himself wondering what he would do if the I)ai-kvo truly thought his discovery had merit. It was an odd thought. He had spent so many years now in disgrace, first tainted by the death of his master Heshai, then by his choice to divide his loyalty between his lover and son on the one hand and the Dai-kvo on the other. And then at last his entrance into the politics of the court, wearing the robes of the poet and supporting Otah Machi, his old friend and enemy, to become Khai Machi. It had been simple enough to believe that his promotion to the ranks of the poets had been a mistake. He had, after all, been gifted certain insights by an older boy who had walked away from the school: Otah, before he'd been a laborer or a courier or a Khai. Maati had reconciled himself to a smaller life: the library, the companionship of a few friends and those lovers who would bed a disgraced poet halfway to fat with rich foods and long, inactive hours.

  After so many years of failure, the thought that he might shake off that reputation was unreal. It was like a dream from which he could only hope never to wake, too pleasant to trust in.

  Eiah was sitting on the steps when he arrived, frowning intently at a moth that had lighted on the back of her hand. Her face was such a clear mix of her parents-Kiyan's high cheeks, Otah's dark eyes and easy smile. Maati took a pose of greeting as he walked up, and when Eiah moved to reply, the moth took wing, chuffing softly through the air and away. In flight, the wings that had been simple brown shone black and orange.

  "Athai's gone then?" she asked as Maati unlocked the doors to his apartments.

  "He's likely just over the bridge by now."

  Maati stepped in, Eiah following him without asking or being asked. It was a wide room, not so grand as the palaces or so comfortable as the poet's house. A librarian's room, ink blocks stacked beside a low desk, chairs with wine-stained cloth on the arms and hack, a small bronze brazier dusted with old ash. Maati waved Eiah off as she started to close the door.

  "Let the place air out a bit," he said. "It's warm enough for it now. And what's your day been, Eiah-kya?"

  "Father," she said. "He was in a mood to have a family, so I had to stay in the palaces all morning. He fell asleep after midday, and Mother said I could leave."

  "I'm surprised. I wasn't under the impression Otah slept anymore. He always seems hip-deep in running the city."

  Eiah shrugged, neither agreeing nor voicing her denial. She paced the length of the room, squinting out the door at nothing. Maati folded his hands together on his belly, considering her.

  "Something's bothering you," he said.

  The girl shook her head, but the frown deepened. Maati waited until, with a quick, birdlike motion, Eiah turned to face him. She began to speak, stopped, and gathered herself visibly.

  "I want to be married," she said.

  Maati blinked, coughed to give himself a moment to think, and leaned forward in his chair. The wood and cloth creaked slightly beneath him. Eiah stood, her arms crossed, her gaze on him in something almost like accusation.

  "Who is the boy?" Maati said, regretting the word boy as soon as it left his mouth. If they were speaking of marriage, the least he could do was say man. But Eiah's impatient snort dismissed the question.

  "I don't know," she said. "Whoever."

  "Anyone would do?"

  "Not just anyone. I don't want to be tied to some low town firekeeper. I want someone good. And I should be able to. Father doesn't have any other daughters, and I know people have talked with him. But nothing ever happens. How long am I supposed to wait?"

  hlaati rubbed a palm across his cheeks. This was hardly a conversation he'd imagined himself having. He turned through half a hundred things he might say, approaches he might take, and felt a blush rising in his cheeks.

  "You're voting, Eiah-kya. I mean ... I suppose it's natural enough for a young woman to ... he interested in men. Your body is changing, and if I recall the age, there are certain feelings that it's ..."

  Eiah looked at him as if he'd coughed up a rat.

  "Or perhaps I've misunderstood the issue," he said.

  "It's not that," she said. "I've kissed lots of boys."

  The blush wasn't growing less, but Nlaati resolved to ignore it.

  "Ah," he said. "Well, then. If it's that you want apartments of your own, something outside the women's quarters, you could always-"

  ""Ialit Radaani's being married to the third son of the Khai Pathai," Eiah said, and then a heartbeat later, "She's half a year younger than I am."

  It was like feeling a puzzle box click open in his fingers. He understood precisely what was happening, what it meant and didn't mean. He rubbed his palms against his knees and sighed.

  "And she gloats about that, I'd bet," he said. Eiah swiped at her betraying eyes with the back of a hand. "After all, she's younger and lower in the courts. She must think that she's got proof that she's terribly special."

/>   Eiah shrugged.

  "Or that you aren't," Maati continued, keeping his voice gentle to lessen the sting of the words. "That's what she thinks, isn't it?"

  "I don't know what she thinks."

  "Well, then tell me what you think."

  "I don't know why he can't find me a husband. It isn't as if I'd have to leave. There's marriages that go on for years before anyone does anything. But it's understood. It's arranged. I don't see why he can't do that much for me."

  "I lave you asked him?"

  "He should know this," Eiah snapped, pacing between the open door and the fire grate. "He's the Khai Machi. He isn't stupid."

  "lie also isn't . . ." hlaati said and then bit down on the words a child. The woman Eiah thought she was would never stand for the name. "He isn't fourteen summers old. It's not so hard for men like me and your father to forget what it was like to be young. And I'm sure he doesn't want to see you married yet, or even promised. You're his daughter, and ... it's hard, Eiah-kya. It's hard losing your child."

  She stopped, her brow furrowed. In the trees just outside his door, a bird sang shrill and high and took flight. Maati could hear the fluttering of its wings.

  "It's not losing me," she said, but her voice was less certain than it had been. "I don't die."

  "No. You don't, but you'll likely leave to be in your husband's city. There's couriers to carry messages back and forth, but once you've left, it's not likely you'll return in Otah's life, or Kiyan's. Or mine. It's not death, but it is still loss, dear. And we've all lost so much already, it's hard to look forward to another."

  "You could come with me," Eiah said. "My husband would take you in. He wouldn't be worth marrying if he wouldn't, so you could come with me."

  Maati allowed himself to chuckle as he rose from his seat.

  "It's too big a world to plan for all that just yet," he said, mussing Eiah's hair as he had when she'd been younger. "When we come nearer, we'll see where things stand. I may not be staying here at all, depending on what the Dai-kvo thinks. I might be able to go hack to his village and use his libraries."