"Of course," Liat said.
"I need you to tell us about that," Otah said. "I need to know what she
did to keep Saraykeht together. What she tried that worked, what failed.
What she wished the Khai Saraykeht had done in response, what she would
have preferred he had not. Everything."
Liat's gaze went to Mlaati and then Cehmai and then hack to Otah. "There
was still a deep confusion in her expression.
"It's happened again," Otah said.
10
Given a half-decent road, the armies of Galt could travel faster than
any in the world. It was the steam wagons, Balasar reflected, that made
the difference. As long as there was wood or coal to burn and water for
the boilers, the carts could keep their pace at a fast walk. In addition
to the supplies they carried-food, armor, weapons that the men were then
spared-a tenth of the infantry could climb aboard the rough slats, rest
themselves, and eat. Rotated properly, his men could spend a full day at
fast march, make camp, and he rested enough by morning to do the whole
thing again. Balasar sat astride his horse-a nameless mare Eustin had
procured for him-and looked back over the valley; the sun dropping at
their back stretched their shadows to the east. Hundreds of plumes of
dark smoke and pale steam rose from the green silk banners rippling
above and beside them. The plain behind him was a single, ordered mass
of the army stretching hack, it seemed, to the horizon. Boots crushed
the grasses, steam wagons consumed the trees, horses tramped the ground
to mud. 'T'heir passing alone would scar these fields and meadows for a
generation.
And the whole of it was his. Balasar's will had gathered it and would
direct it, and despite all his late-night sufferings, in this moment he
could not imagine failure. Eustin cleared his throat.
"If they had found some andat to do this," Balasar said, "do you know
what would have happened?"
"Sir?" Eustin said.
"If the andat had done this-Wagon-'T'hat-Pulls-Itself or Horse-
l)oesn't-'l'ire, something like that-no one would ever have designed a
steam wagon. The merchants would have paid some price to the Khai, the
poet would have been set to it, and it would have worked until the poet
fell down stairs or failed to pass the andat on."
"Or until we came around," Eustin said, but Balasar wasn't ready to
leave his chain of thought for self-congratulations yet.
"And if someone had made the thing, had seen a way that any decent smith
could do what the Khai charged good silver for, he'd either keep it
quiet or find himself facedown in the river," Balasar said and then
spat. "It's no way to run a culture."
Eustin's mount whickered and shifted. Balasar sighed and shifted his
gaze forward to the rolling hills and grasslands where the first and
farthest-flung of Nantani's low towns dotted the landscape. Another day,
perhaps two, and he would be there. He was more than half tempted to
press on; night marches weren't unheard-of and the anticipation of what
lay before them sang to him, the hours pressing at him. But the summer
was hardly begun. Better not to suffer surprises too early in the
campaign. He moved a practiced gaze over the road ahead, considered the
distance between the reddening orb of the sun and the horizon, and made
his decision.
"When the first wagon reaches that stand of trees, call the halt," lie
said. ""That will still give the men half a hand to forage before sunset."
"Yes, sir," Eustin said. "And that other matter, sir?"
"After dinner," Balasar said. "You can bring Captain Ajutani to my tent
after dinner."
His impulse had been to kill the poet as soon as the signal arrived. The
binding had worked, the cities of the Khaiem lay open before him. Riaan
had outlived his use.
Eustin had been the one to counsel against it, and Sinja Ajutani had
been the issue. Balasar had known there was something less than trust
between the two men; that was to be expected. lie hadn't understood how
deeply Eustin suspected the Khaiate mercenary. He had tracked the
man-his visits to the poet, the organization of his men, how Riaan's
unease had seemed to rise after a meeting with Sinja and fall again
after he spoke with Balasar. It was nothing like an accusation; even
Eustin agreed there wasn't proof of treachery. The mercenary had done
nothing to show that he wasn't staying bought. And yet Eustin was more
and more certain with each day that Sinja was plotting to steal Riaan
back to the Khaiem, to reveal what it was he had done and, just
possibly, find a way to undo it.
The problem, Balasar thought, was a simple failure of imagination.
Eustin had followed Balasar through more than one campaign, had walked
through the haunted desert with him, had stood at his side through the
long political struggle that had brought this army to this place on this
supreme errand. Loyalty was the way Eustin understood the world. The
thought of a man who served first one cause and then another made no
more sense to him than stone floating on water. Balasar had agreed to
his scheme to prove Captain Ajutani's standing, though he himself had
little doubt. He took the exercise seriously for Eustin's sake if
nothing else. Balasar would be ready for them when they came.
I lis pavilion was in place before the last light of the sun had
vanished in the west: couches made from wood and canvas that could be
broken down flat and carried on muleback, flat cushions embroidered with
the Galtic 'I gee, a small writing table. A low iron brazier took the
edge from the night's chill, and half a hundred lemon candles filled the
air with their scent and drove away the midges. He'd had it set on the
top of a rise, looking down over the valley where the light of cook
fires dotted the land like stars in the sky. A firefly had found its way
through the gossamer folds of his tent, shining and then vanishing as it
searched for a way out. A thousand of its fellows glittered in the
darkness between camps. It was like something from a children's story,
where the Good Neighbors had breached the division between the worlds to
join his army. He saw the three of them coming toward him, and he knew
each long before he could make out their faces.
Eustin's stride was long, low, and deceptively casual. Captain Ajutani
moved carefully, each step provisional, the weight always held on his
back foot until he chose to shift it. Riaan's was an unbalanced,
civilian strut. Balasar rose, opened the flap for them to enter, and
rolled down the woven-grass mats to give them a level of visual privacy,
false walls that shifted and muttered in the lightest of breezes.
"'T'hank you all for coming," Balasar said in the tongue of the Khaiem.