and sat beside him. He smelled of wine and smoke, and his robes hung as
loose on him as her own did on her.
"You've been to the teahouses," Liat said, trying to keep any note of
disapproval from her voice.
"You've been with my father," he replied.
"I've been with Maati," Liat said as if it were an agreement and not a
correction.
Nayiit leaned forward and took up a length of iron, prodding the burning
logs. Sparks rose and vanished like fireflies.
"I haven't been able to see him," Nayiit said. " WN'e've been here weeks
now, and he hasn't come to speak with me. And every time I go to the
library he's gone or he's with you. I think you're trying to keep us
from each other."
Liat raised her eyebrows and ran her tongue across the inside of her
teeth, weighing the coppery taste that sprang to her mouth, thinking
what it meant. She coughed.
"You aren't wrong," she said at last. "I'm not ready for it. Maati's not
who he was back then."
"So instead of letting us face each other and see what it is we see,
you've decided to start up an affair with him and take all his time and
attention?" "There was no rancor in his voice, only sadness and
amusement. "It doesn't seem the path of wisdom, Mother."
"Well, not when you say it that way," Liat said. "I was thinking of it
as coming to know him again before the conflict began. I did love him,
you know."
"And now?"
"And still. I still love him, in my fashion," Liat said, her voice
rueful. "I know I'm not what he wants. I'm not the person he wants me to
be, and I doubt I ever have been, truly. But we enjoy each other. "There
are things we can say to each other that no one else would understand.
They weren't there, and we were. And he's such a little boy. He's
carried so much and been so disappointed, and there's still the
possibility in him of this ... JOY. I can't explain it."
"If I ask you as a favor, will you let me know him as well? We may not
actually fight like pit dogs if you let us in the same room together.
And if there's conflict at all, it's between us. Not you."
Liat opened her mouth, closed it, shook her head. She sighed.
"Of course," she said. "Of course, I'm sorry. I've been an old hen, and
I'm sorry for it, but ... I know it's not a trade. We aren't
negotiating, not really. But Nayiit-kya, you can't say you haven't been
with a woman since we've cone here. You didn't choose to go south, even
when I asked you to. Sweet, is it so had at home?"
"Bad?" he said, speaking slowly. As if tasting the word. "I don't know.
No. Not bad. Only not good. And yes, I know I haven't been keeping to my
own bed. Do you think my darling wife has been keeping to hers?"
Liat's mind turned, searching for words, making sense as best she could
of what he had asked and what he had meant by it. It was true enough
that Tai had come into the world at an odd time, but he was a first
child, and wombs weren't made to he certain. She rushed through her
memory, looking for signs she might have missed, suggestions back in
their lives in Saraykeht that would have pointed at some venomous
question, and slowly she began, if not to understand, then at least to
guess.
"You think he isn't yours," she said. "You think Tai is another man's
child."
"Nothing like that," Nayiit said. "It's only that you can make a child
from love or from anger. Or inattention. Or only from not knowing what
better to do. A baby isn't proof of anything between the father and
mother beyond a few moments' pressure."
"It isn't the child's fault."
"No, I suppose not," Nayiit said.
"'t'his is why you came, then? To Nantani, and then up here? To he away
from them?"
"I came because I wanted to. Because it was the world, and when was I
going to see it again? Because you wanted someone to carry your bags and
wave off dogs. It was only partly that I couldn't stay. And then when
you were going to see him, NIaati-cha ... How could I not come along for
that too? The chance to see my father again. I remember him, you know? I
do, from when I was small, I remember a day we were all in a small but.
'T'here was an iron stove, and it was raining, and you were singing
while he bathed me. I don't know when that was, I can't put a time on
it. But I remember his face."
"You would have known him, if you'd seen him in passing. You'd have
known who he was."
Nayiit took a pose of affirmation. He pursed his lips and chuckled ruefully.
"I don't know what it is to be a father. I'm only working from-"
"Nayiit-kya?" came a voice from the shadows behind them. A soft,
feminine voice. "Is everything well?"
She stepped toward the light. A young woman, twenty summers, perhaps as
many as twenty-two. She wore bedding tied around her waist, her breasts
bare, her hair still wild from the pillows.
"Jaaya-cha, this is my mother. Mother, Jaaya Biavu."
The girl blanched, then flushed. She took a pose of welcome, not
bothering to cover herself, but her gaze was on Nayiit. It spoke of both
humiliation and contempt. Nayiit didn't look at her. The woman turned
and stalked away.
"That wasn't kind," Liat said.
"Very little of what she and I do involves kindness," he said. "I don't
expect I'll see her again. By which I mean, I don't suppose she'll see me."
"Is she politically connected? If her family is utkhaiem ..."
"I don't think she is," Nayiit said, his face in his hands. It was hard
to be sure in the firelight, but she thought the tips of his ears were
blushing. "I suppose I should have asked."
He struggled for a moment, trying to speak and failing. his brow
furrowed and Liat had to resist the urge to reach over and smooth it
with her thumb, the way she had when he'd been a babe.
"I'm sorry," he said. "You know that I'm sorry."
"t~ or what?" she asked, her voice low and stern. As if there were any
number of things for which he might he.
"For not being a better man," he said.
The fire popped, as if in comment. Liat took her son's hand, and for a
long moment, they were silent. "Then:
"I don't care what you do with your marriage, Nayiit-kya. If you don't
love her, end it. Or if you don't trust her. As you see fit. People come
together and they part. It's what we do. But the boy. You can't leave
the boy. That isn't fair."
"It's what Maati-cha did to us."
"No," Liat said, giving his hand the smallest pressure, and then
releasing it. "We left him."
Nayiit turned to her slowly, his hands folding into a pose that asked
confirmation. It was as if the words were too dangerous to speak.