the rail and waited for it to steady in its descent. She knew she would
not fall. That would have been too easy.
She had done a poor job of telling Maati. Perhaps she'd assumed Nayiit
would already have told him. Perhaps she'd been trying to punish Maati
for beginning it all. It had been the next night, and she had accepted
Maati's invitation to dinner in the high pavilion. Goose in honey
lacquer, almonds with cinnamon and raisin sauce, rice wine. Not far
away, a dance had begun-silk streamers and the glow of torches, the
trilling of pipes and the laughter of girls drunk with flirtation. She
remembered it all from the days after Saraykeht had fallen. There was
only so long that the shock of losing the andat could restrain the
festivals of youth.
The young are blind and stupid, she'd said, and their breasts don't sag.
It's the nearest thing they've got to a blessing.
Maati had chuckled and tried to take her hand, but she couldn't stand
the touch. She'd seen the surprise in his expression, and the hurt. That
was when she'd told him. She'd said it lightly, acidly, fueled by her
anger and her despair. She had been too wrapped up in herself to pay
attention to Nlaati's shock and horror. It was only later, when he'd
excused himself and she was walking alone in the dim paths at the edge
of the dance, that she understood she'd as much as accused him of
sending Nayiit to his death.
She had gone by Maati's apartments that night and again the next day,
but he had gone and no one seemed to know where. By the time she found
him, he had spoken with Otah and Nayiit. He accepted her apology, he
cradled her while they both confessed their fears, but the damage had
been done. He was as haunted as she was, and there was nothing to be
done about it.
Liat realized she'd almost reached the ground, startled to have come so
far so quickly. Her mind, she supposed, had been elsewhere.
Mach) in the height of summer might almost have been a Southern city.
The sun made its slow, stately way across the sky. The nights had grown
so short, she could fall asleep with a glow still bright over the
mountains to the west and wake in daylight, unrested. The streets were
full of vendors at their carts selling fresh honey bread almost too hot
to eat or sausages with blackened skins or bits of lamb over rice with a
red sauce spicy enough to burn her tongue. Merchants passed over the
black-cobbled streets, wagon wheels clattering. Beggars sang before
their lacquered boxes. Firekeepers tended their kilns and saw to the
small business of the tradesmen-accepting taxes, witnessing contracts,
and a hundred other small duties. Liat pulled her hands into her sleeves
and walked without knowing her destination.
It might only have been her imagination that there were fewer men in the
streets. Surely there were still laborers and warehouse guards and
smiths at their forges. The force marching to the west could account for
no more than one man in fifteen. The sense that Machi had become a city
of women and old men and boys could only be her mind playing tricks. And
still, there was something hollow about the city. A sense of loss and of
uncertainty. The city itself seemed to know that the world had changed,
and held its breath in dread anticipation, waiting to see whether this
transformed reality had a place for Machi in it.
She found herself back at her apartments-feet sore, back achingbefore
the sun had touched the peaks to the west. As she approached her door, a
young man rose from the step. For a moment, her mind tricked her into
thinking Nayiit had returned. But no, this boy was too thin through the
shoulders, his hair too long, his robes the black of a palace servant.
He took a pose of greeting as she approached, and Liat made a brief
response.
"Liat Chokavi?"
"Yes."
"Kiyan Machi, first wife of the Khai Machi, extends her invitation. If
you would he so kind, I will take you to her."
"Now?" Liat asked, but of course it was now. She waved away the question
even before the servant boy could recover from the surprise of being
asked in so sharp a tone. When he turned, spine straight and stiff with
indignation, she followed him.
They found Otah's wife standing on a balcony overlooking a great hall.
Her robes were delicate pink and yellow, and they suited her skin. Her
head was turned down, looking at the wide fountain that took up the hall
below, the sprays of water reaching up almost to the high domed ceiling
above. The servant boy took a pose of obeisance before her, and she
replied with one that both thanked and dismissed him. Her greeting of
Liat was only a nod and a smile, and then Kiyan's attention turned back
to the fountain.
There were children playing in the pool-splashing one another or
running, handy-legged, through water that reached above their knees and
would only have dampened half of Liat's own calves. Some wore robes of
cotton that clung to their tiny bodies. Some wore loose canvas trousers
like a common laborer's. They were, Liat thought, too young to be
utkhaiem yet. They were still children, and free from the bindings that
would hold them when there was less fat in their cheeks, less joy in
their movement. But that was only sentiment. The children of privilege
knew when they were faced with a child of the lower orders. 'T'hese
dancing and shouting in the clean, clear water could dress as they saw
fit because they were all of the same ranks. 'T'hese were the children
of the great houses, brought to play with the one boy, there, in the
robe. The one deep in disagreement with the petulant-looking girl. The
one who had eyes and mouth the same shape as Utah's.
Liat looked up and found Kiyan considering her. The woman's expression
was unreadable.
""['hank you for coming," Kiyan said over the sounds of falling water
and shrieking children.
"Of course," Liat said. She nodded down at the boy. "That's I)anat- cha?"
"Yes. lie's having a good day," she said. "Then, "Please, come this way."
Liat followed her through a doorway at the balcony's rear and into a
small resting room where Kiyan sat on a low couch and motioned Liat to
do the same. The sounds of play were muffled enough to speak over, but
they weren't absent. Liat found them oddly comforting.
"I heard that Nayiit-cha chose to go with the men," Kiyan said.
"Yes," Liat said, and then stopped, because she didn't know what more
there was to say.
"I can't imagine that," Kiyan said. "It's hard enough imagining Utah
going, but he's my husband. Tie's not my son."
"I understand why he went. Nayiit, I mean. But his father asked the Khai
to take care of him."
Kiyan looked tip, confused for a moment, then nodded.
"Maati, you mean?"
"Of course," Liat said.