Daniel Abraham - THE

their places in the appropriate order, with the custom-driven signs of

loyalty and obeisance. Otah restrained himself from shouting at them all

to hurry. The time he spent in empty form was time stolen. He didn't

have it to spare.

The audiences began, each a balancing between the justice of the issue,

the politics behind those involved, and the massive complex webwork that

made up the relationships of the court, of the cities, of the world.

When he'd been young, the Khai Saraykeht had held audiences for things

as simple as land disputes and broken contracts. Those days were gone,

and nothing reached so high as the Emperor of the Khaiem unless no one

lower dared rule on the matter. Nothing was trivial, everything fraught

with implication.

Midday came and went, and the sun began its slow fall to the west. Storm

clouds rose, white and soft and taller than mountains, but the rain

stayed out over the sea. The daylight moon hung in the blue sky to the

north. Otah didn't think of Balasar or Idaan, Chaburi-Tan or the andat.

When at last he paused to eat, he felt worn thin enough to see through.

He tried to consider Balasar's analysis, but ended by staring at the

plate of lemon fish and rice as if it were enthralling.

Because he had been hoping for a moment's peace, he'd chosen to eat his

little meal in one of the low halls at the back of the palace. The stone

floor and simple, unadorned plaster walls made it seem more like the

common room of a small wayhouse than the center of empire. That was part

of its appeal. The shutters were open on the garden behind it: crawling

lavender, starfall rose, mint, and, without warning, Danat, in a

formally cut robe of deep blue hot with yellow, blood running from his

nose to cover his mouth and chin. Otah put down the bowl.

Danat stalked into the hall and halfway across it before he noticed that

a table was occupied. He hesitated, then took a pose of greeting. The

fingers of his right hand were scarlet where he had tried to stanch the

flow and failed. Otah didn't recall having stood. His expression must

have been alarmed, because Danat smiled and shook his head.

"It's not bad," he said. "Just messy. I didn't want to come through the

larger halls."

"What happened?"

"I have met my rival," Danat said. "Hanchat Dor."

"There's blood? There's blood between you?"

"No," Danat said. "Well, technically yes, I suppose. But no."

He lowered himself to sit at the table where Otah's food lay abandoned.

There was a carafe of water and a porcelain bowl. As Otah sat, his boy

wet one of his sleeves and set about wiping the blood from around his

grin. Otah's first violent impulses to protect his son and punish his

assailant were disarmed by that smile. Not conquered, but disarmed.

"He and Ana-cha were haunting the path between the palaces and the

poet's house, just before the pond," Danat said. "We had words. He took

some exception to our demand that Ana-cha apologize. He suggested that I

should feel honored to have breathed the same air as his darling

chipmunk. Seriously, Papa. `Darling chipmunk."'

"It might be a Galtic endearment," he said, trying to match his son's

light tone.

Danat waved the thought away. It would be no more dignified, Otah

admitted to himself, because a whole culture said it. Danat went on.

"I said that my business wasn't with him, but with Ana-cha. He began

declaiming something in rhymed verse about him and his love being one

flesh. Ana-cha told him to stop, but he only started bellowing it."

"How did Ana-cha react?"

Danat's grin widened. Blood had pinked his teeth.

"She seemed a bit embarrassed. I began speaking to her as if he weren't

there. And ..."

Danat shrugged.

"He hit you?"

"I may have goaded him," Danat said. "A little."

Otah sat back, stunned. Danat raised his hands to a pose appropriate to

the announcement of victory in a game. Otah let himself smile too, but

there was a touch of melancholy behind it. His son was no longer the

ill, fragile child he'd known. That boy was gone. In his place was a

young man with the same instinct to rough-and-tumble as any number of

young men. The same as Otah had suffered once himself. It was so easy to

forget.

"I had the palace armsmen throw him in a cell," Danat said. "I've set a

guard on him in case anyone decides to defend my abused dignity by

killing him."

"Yes, that would complicate things," Otah agreed.

"Ana followed the whole way shrieking, but she was as angry at

Hanchat-cha as at me. Once I get to looking a bit less like an

apprentice showfighter's first night, I'm sending an invitation to

Ana-cha for a formal dinner at which we can further discuss her poor

treatment of our hospitality. And then I'm going to meet my new lover."

"Your new lover?"

"Shija Radaani has offered to play the role. I think she was flattered

to be asked. Issandra-cha is adamant that nothing makes a man worth

having like another woman smiling at him."

"Issandra-cha is a dangerous woman," Otah said.

"She is," Danat agreed.

They laughed together for a moment. Otah was the first to sober.

"Will it work, do you think?" he asked. "Can it be done?"

"Can I win Ana's heart and make her want what she's professed before

everyone of power in two empires that she hates?" Danat said. Saying it

that way, he sounded like his mother. "I don't know. And I can't say

what I feel about the way it's happening. I'm plotting against her. Her

own mother is plotting against her. I feel that I ought to disapprove.

That it isn't honest. And yet ..."

Danat shook his head. Otah took a querying pose.

"I'm enjoying myself," Danat said. "Whatever it says of me, I've been

struck bloody by a Galt boy, and I feel I've scored a point in some game.

"It's an important game."

Danat rose. He took a pose that promised his best effort, appropriate to

a junior competitor to his teacher, and left.

There had to be some way that he could aid in Danat's task, but for the

moment, he couldn't think what it might be. Perhaps if there was a way

to arrange some sort of isolation for the two. A journey, perhaps, to

Yalakeht. Or, no, there was the conspiracy with Obar State there that

still hadn't been rooted out. Well, Cetani, then. Something long and

arduous and cold by the time they got there. And without the bastard

who'd struck his son ...

Otah finished his fish and rice, lingering over a last bowl of wine and

looking out at the small garden. It was, he thought, the size of the

walled yard at the wayhouse Kiyan had owned before she became his first

and only wife and he became the Khai Machi. That little space of green

and white, of finches in the branches and voles scuttling in the low

grass, might have been the size of his life.

Until the Galts came and slaughtered them all with the rest of Udun.

And instead, he had the world, or most of it. And a son. And, however

little she liked it, a daughter. And Kiyan's ashes and his memory of

her. But it had been a pretty little garden.

Otah returned to the waiting supplicants with his mind moving in ten

different directions at once. He did his best to focus on the work

before him, but everything seemed trivial. No matter that men's fortunes

lay in his decision. No matter that he was the final appeal for justice,

or if not that, at least peace. Or mercy. Justice and peace and mercy

all seemed insignificant when held next to duty. His duty to Chaburi-Tan