Daniel Abraham - Autumn War

When it was over-and it seemed to take half a day, though it couldn't have lasted more than half a hand-Otah thanked the man, ordered that payment be made to him, and waited calm and emotionless until the servants and court followers had gone. Only the body servants remained, half a dozen men and women of the utkhaiem who dedicated their lives to bringing him a cracker if he felt like one, or a cup of limed water.

"Find Eiah and take her to the blue chamber. Bring her under guard if you have to."

"tinder guard?" the eldest of the servants said.

"No, don't. Just bring her. See that she gets there."

"Most High," the man said, taking a pose that accepted the command. Otah rose and walked out of the room without replying. He stalked the halls of the palace, ignoring the Master of "fides and his ineffectual flapping papers, ignoring the poses of obeisance and respect turned to him wherever he went, looking only for Kiyan. The rest of these people were unimportant.

He found her in the great kitchens, standing beside the chief cook with a dead chicken in her hands. The cook, a woman of not less than sixty summers who had served Otah's father and grandfather, met his eyes and went pale. Ile wondered belatedly how many times the previous Khaiem of Machi had visited their kitchens, great or low.

"What's happened?" Kiyan asked instead of a greeting.

"Not here," Otah said. His wife nodded, passed the bird's carcass back to the cook, and followed Otah to their rooms. As calmly as he could, Otah related the audience. Eiah and two of her friends-Talit Radaani and Shoyen Pak-had visited a jeweler's shop in the goldsmiths' quarter. Eiah had stolen a brooch of emerald and pearl. The jeweler and his boy had seen it, had come to the court asking for payment.

"He was quite polite about the whole thing," Otah said. "He cast it as a mistake. Eiah-cha, in her girlish flights of attention, forgot to arrange for payment. He was sorry to bother me with it, but he hadn't been sure who I would prefer such issues be taken to and on and on and on. Gods!"

"How much was it?" Kiyan asked.

"Three lengths of gold," Otah said. "Not that it matters. I've got the whole city to put on for taxes and half a thousand bits of jewelry in boxes that no one's worn in lifetimes. It's… She's a thief! She's going through the city, taking whatever catches her eye and…"

Otah ran out of words and had to make do with a rough, frustrated grunt. He threw himself down on a couch, shaking his head.

"It's my fault," he said. "I've been too busy with the court. I haven't been a decent father to her. All the time she's spent with the daughters of the utkhaiem, playing idiot court games about who has the prettiest dress or the most servants-"

"Or the highest marriage," Kiyan said.

Otah put his hand over his eyes. That was more than he could think about just now. How to correct his daughter, how to show her what she'd done wasn't right, how to try to be a father to her; yes, that he could sit with. '['hat it was too late, that she was already old enough to be another man's wife; that was too much to bear.

"It's a problem, love, yes," Kiyan said. "But sweet. She's fourteen summers old. She stole a pretty thing to see if she could. It's not actually unusual. I was a year older than her when my father caught me sneaking apples off the back of a farmer's cart."

"And did he marry you off to the farmer in punishment?"

"I'm sorry I brought up the marriage. I only meant that Eiah's world's no simpler than ours. It only seems that way from here. 'l'o her, it's just as confused and difficult as anything you deal with. She's only half a girl, and not quite half a woman."

Kiyan frowned. Her eyes were rueful and resigned, and she stretched her arms until the elbows cracked.

"My father made me apologize to the farmer and work for the man until I'd earned back twice the cost of what I'd taken. I don't know that's much guidance for us, though. I don't think any of these girls could do work worth three lengths of gold."

"So what do we do?"

"It doesn't matter, love. As long as she's clear that what she did didn't end the way she'd hoped, we'll have come as close as we can. I'd say restrict her from seeing "Ialit Radaani for a week's time, but that hardly seems equal to the stakes."

"She could assist the physicians," Otah said. "Carry out the night pans, wash dressings for the hurt. A week of that to pay back the city for what it bought her."

Kiyan chuckled.

"So long as she doesn't start enjoying it. She plays at being repulsed by blood because it's expected of her. I think at heart, there's nothing she'd like more than to cut a body apart and see how it's built. She'd have made a fine physician if she'd been born a bit lower."

They talked a bit longer, and Otah felt his rage and uncertainty fade. Kiyan's quiet, sane, thoughtful voice was the most soothing thing he knew. She was right. It wasn't strange, it wasn't a sign that Eiah would grow up to be her aunt Idaan, scheming and killing and lying for the pleasure of it. It was a girl of fourteen summers seeing how far she could go, and the answer was not so far as this. Otah kissed Kiyan before they left, his lips on her cheek. She smiled. There were crow's-feet at the corners of her eyes now. White strands had shot her hair since she'd been young, but there were more now. Her eyes still glittered as they had when he'd met her in tJdun when she'd been the keep of a wayhouse and he had been a courier. She seemed to sense his thoughts, and put her hand to his cheek.

"Shall we go be the troll-like, unfair, unfeeling, stupid, venal dispensers of unjust punishment?" she asked.

The blue chamber was wide and round, a table of white marble dominating it like a sheet of ice floating in a far northern sea. The windows looked out on the gardens through walls so thick that sparrows and grackles perched in the sills and pecked at the carved meshwork of the inner shutters. Eiah had been pacing, but stopped when they came in. She looked from one to the other, trying for an innocence of expression that she couldn't quite reach.

"Come, sit," Kiyan said, gesturing to the table. Eiah came forward as if against her will and sat in one of the carved wooden chairs. Her gaze darted between the two of them, her chin already beginning to slide forward.

"I understand you took something from a jeweler. A brooch," Otah said. "Is that true?"

"Who told you that?" Eiah asked.

"Is it true?" Otah repeated, and his daughter looked down. When she frowned, the same small vertical line appeared between her brows that would sometimes show Kiyan's distress. Otah felt the passing urge to soothe her fears, but this wasn't the moment for comfort. Ile scowled until she looked up, then down again, and nodded. Kiyan sighed.

"Who told you?" Eiah asked again. "It was Shoyen, wasn't it? She's jealous because Talit and I were-"

"You told us, just now," Otah said. "That's all that matters."

Eiah's lips closed hard. Kiyan took a turn, telling Eiah that she'd done wrong, and they all knew it. Even she had to know that simply taking things wasn't right. They had paid her debt, but now she would have to make it good herself. 'T'hey had decided that she would work with the physicians for a week, and if she didn't go, the physicians had instructions to send for…

"I'm not going to," Eiah said. "It's not fair. "Ialit Radaani sneaks things out of her father's warehouse all the time and no one ever makes her do anything for it."

"I can see that changes," Otah said.

"Don't!" Eiah barked. The birds startled away; a flutter of wings that sounded like panic. "Don't you dare! 'Ialit will hate me forever if she thinks I'm making her… Papa-kya! Please, don't do that."

"It might be wise," Kiyan said. "All three girls were party to it."