Daniel Abraham - Autumn War

The door swung open, a gust of cool air coming from it, and Maati stood triumphantly in the frame. He held a small hook hound in blue silk as if it were a trophy of war.

"(; or the bastard!" he said, and walked over to Otah, presenting it over one arm like a sword. "For you, Most High, and your son."

Over Nlaati's shoulder, Otah could see Liat look away. Utah only took the hook, adopted a pose of thanks, and turned to gently shake Eiah's shoulder. She grunted, her brow furrowing.

"It's time to come home, Eiah-kya," Otah said. "Come along."

`M'wake," Eiah protested, but slowly. Rubbing her eyes with the hack of one hand, she rose.

They said their good nights, and Otah led his daughter out, closing the door to Maati's apartments behind them. The night had grown cool, and the stars had occupied the sky like a conquering army. Otah laid his arm across Eiah's shoulder, hers under it, around his ribs. She leaned into him as they walked. Night-blooming flowers scented the air, soft as rain. 't'hey were just coming in sight of the entrance of the First Palace when Eiah spoke, her voice still abstracted with sleep.

"Nayiit-cha's yours, isn't he, Papa-kya?"

Liat woke in dim moonlight; the night candle ihad gone out or else they hadn't bothered to light it. She couldn't recall which. Beside her, Nlaati mumbled something in his sleep, as he always had. Liat smiled at the dim profile on the pillow beside her. He looked younger in sleep, the lines at his mouth softened, the storm at his brow calmed. She resisted the urge to caress his cheek, afraid to wake him. She had taken lovers in the years since she'd returned to Saraykeht. A half-dozen or so, each a man whose company she had enjoyed, and all of whom she could remember fondly.

She thought, sometimes, that she'd reversed the way women were intended to love. Butterfly flirtations, flitting from one man to another, taking none seriously, were best kept by the young. Had she taken her casual lovers as a girl, they would have been exciting and new, and she would have known too little to notice that they were empty. Instead, Liat had lost her heart twice before she'd seen twenty summers, and if those loves were gone-even this one, sleeping now at her side-the memory of them was there. Once, she had told herself the world was nothing if she didn't have a man who loved her. A man of importance and beauty, a man whom she might, through her gentle guidance, save.

She had been another woman, then. And who, she wondered, had she become now?

She rose quietly, parting the netting, and stepped out onto the cool floor. She found her outer robe and wrapped it around herself. Her inner robes and her sandals she could reclaim tomorrow. Now she wanted her own bed, and pillows less thick with memories.

She slipped out the door, pulling it closed behind her. So far North and without an ocean to hold the warmth of the day, Machi's nights were cold, even now with spring at its height. Gooseflesh rose on her legs and arms, her belly and breasts, as she trotted along the wide, darkened paths to the apartments that Irani or Otah or the Khai Machi had given to her and her son.

More than a week had passed since he had come to Maati's apartments, gathering up a children's hook and a daughter halfway to womanhood and leaving behind a lasting unease. Liat had not spoken with him since, but the dread of the coming conversation weighed heavy. As Nayiit had grown, she'd seen nothing in him but himself. Even when people swore that the boy had her eyes, her mouth, her way of sighing, she'd never seen it. Perhaps when there was no space between a mother and her child, the sameness becomes invisible. Perhaps it merely seemed normal. She would have admitted that her son looked something like his father. It was only in seeing them together, seeing the simple, powerful knowing in Otah's wife's expression, that Liat understood the depth of her error in letting Nayiit come.

And with that came her understanding of how it could not he undone. Her first impulse had been to send him away at once, to hide him again the way a child caught with a forbidden sweet might stuff it away into a sleeve as if unseen now might somehow mean never seen at all. Only the years of running her house had counseled her otherwise. The situation was what it was. Attempting any subterfuge would only make the Khai wary, and his unease might mean Nayiit's death. As long as her son lived, he posed a threat to Danat, and she knew enough to understand that a babe held from its first breath meant something that a man full-grown never could. If Utah were forced to choose, Liat had no illusions what that choice would be.

And so she prepared herself, prepared her arguments and her negotiating strategies, and told herself it would end well. They were all together, allies against the Galts. 'T'here would be no need. She told herself there would be no need.

At her apartments, no candles were lit, but a fire burned in the grate: old pine, rich with sap that popped and hissed and filled the air with its scent. When she entered, her son looked up from the flames and took a pose of welcome, gesturing to a divan beside him. Liat hesitated, surprised by a sudden embarrassment, then gathered her sense of humor 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?"