Daniel Abraham - An Autumn War

winter cloak.

There was nothing to be gained. He knew all the reasons for all the

choices he had made, and he could as easily explain them to a mine dog

as to this proud young man who'd traveled weeks for the privilege of

taking him to task. Otah sighed, turned, and took a deeply formal pose

of apology.

"I have distracted you from your task, Athai-cha. That was not my

intention. What was it again the Dai-kvo wished of me?"

The envoy pressed his lips bloodless. They both knew the answer to the

question, but Otah's feigned ignorance would force him to restate it.

And the simple fact that Otah's bed habits were not mentioned would make

his point for him. Etiquette was a terrible game.

"The militia you have formed," the envoy said. ""I'he Dai-kvo would know

your intention in creating it."

"I intend to send it to the Westlands. I intend it to take contracts

with whatever forces there are acting in the best interests of all the

cities of the Khaiem. I will he pleased to draft a letter saying so."

Otah smiled. The young poet's eyes flickered. As insults went, this was

mild enough. Eventually, the poet's hands rose in a pose of gratitude.

""There is one other thing, Most High," the envoy said. "If you take any

aggressive act against the interests of another of the Khaiem, the

Dal-kvo will recall Cehmai and Stone-Made-Soft. If you take arms against

them, he will allow the Khaiem to use their poets against you and your

city."

"Yes," Otah said. "I understood that when I heard you'd come. I am not

acting against the Khaiem, but thank you for your time, Athai-cha. I

will have a letter sewn and sealed for you by morning."

After the envoy had left, Otah sank into a chair and pressed the heels

of his hands to his temples. Around him, the palace was quiet. He

counted fifty breaths, then rose again, closed and latched the door, and

turned hack to the apparently empty room.

"Well?" he asked, and one of the panels in the corner swung open,

exposing a tiny hidden chamber brilliantly designed for eavesdropping.

The man who sat in the listener's chair seemed both at ease and out of

place. At ease because it was Sinja's nature to take the world lightly,

and out of place because his suntanned skin and rough, stained leathers

made him seem like a gardener on a chair of deep red velvet and silver

pins fit for the head of a merchant house or a member of the utkhaiem.

He rose and closed the panel behind him.

"He seems a decent man," Sinja said. "I wouldn't want him on my side of

a fight, though. Overconfident."

"I'm hoping it won't come to that," Otah said.

"For a man who's convinced the world he's bent on war, you're a bit

squeamish about violence."

Otah chuckled.

"I think sending the Dai-kvo his messenger's head might not be the most

convincing argument for my commitment to peace," he said.

"Excellent point," Sinja agreed as he poured himself a bowl of wine.

"But then you are training men to fight. It's a hard thing to preach

peace and stability and also pay men to think what's the best way to

disembowel someone with a spear."

"I know it," Otah said, his voice dark as wet slate. "Gods. You'd think

having total power over a city would give you more options, wouldn't you?"

Otah sipped the wine. It was rich and astringent and fragrant of late

summer, and it swirled in the bowl like a dark river. He felt old.

Fourteen years he'd spent trying to be what Machi needed him to

besteward, manager, ruler, half-god, fuel for the gossip and backbiting

of the court. Most of the time, he did well enough, but then something

like this would happen, and he would be sure again that the work was

beyond him.

"You could disband it," Sinja said. "It's not as though you need the

extra trade."

"It's not about getting more silver," Otah said.

"Then what's it about? You aren't actually planning to invade Cetani,

are you? Because I don't think that's a good idea."

Otah coughed out a laugh.

"It's about being ready," he said.

"Ready?"

"Every generation finds it harder to bind fresh andat. Every one that

slips away becomes more difficult to capture. It can't go on forever.

There will come a time that the poets fail, and we have to rely on

something else."

"So," Sinja said. "You're starting a militia so that someday, genera-

bons from now, when some Dai-kvo that hasn't been born yet doesn't

manage to keep up to the standards of his forebears-"

"There will also he generations of soldiers ready to keep the cities safe."

Sinja scratched his belly and nodded.

"You think I'm wrong?"

"Yes. I think you're wrong," Sinja said. "I think you saw Seedless

escape. I think you saw Saraykeht stiffer the loss. You know that the

Galts have ambitions, and that they've put their hands into the affairs

of the Khaiem more than once."

"That doesn't make me wrong," Otah said, unable to keep the sudden anger

from his voice. So many years had passed, and the memory of Saraykeht

had not dimmed. "You weren't there, Sinja-cha. You don't know how had it

was. "That's mine. And if it lets me see farther than the Dai-kvo or the

Khaiem-"

"It's possible to look at the horizon so hard you trip over your feet,"

Sinja said, unfazed by Otah's heat. "You aren't responsible for

everything tinder the sky."

But I am responsible for that, Utah thought. He had never confessed his

role in the fall of Saraykeht to Sinja, never told the story of the time

he had killed a helpless man, of sparing an enemy and saving a friend.

The danger and complexity and sorrow of that time had never entirely

left him, but he could not call it regret.

"You want to keep the future safe," Sinja said, breaking the silence,

"and I respect that. But you can't do it by shitting on the table right

now. Alienating the Dai-kvo gains you nothing."

"What would you do, Sinja? If you were in my place, what would you do?"

"Take as much gold as I could put on a fast cart, and live out my life

in a beach hut on Bakta. But then I'm not particularly reliable." He

drained his bowl and put it down on the table, porcelain clicking softly

on lacquered wood. "What you should do is send us west."

"But the men aren't ready-"

"They're near enough. Without real experience, these poor bastards would

protect you from a real army about as well as sending out all the

dancing girls you could find. And now that I've said it, girls might

even slow them down longer."

Utah coughed a mirthless laugh. Sinja leaned forward, his eyes calm and

steady.

"Put us in the Westlands as a mercenary company," he said. "It gives

real weight to it when you tell the Dai-kvo that you're just looking for

another way to make money if we're already walking away from our

neighboring cities. The men will get experience; I'll be able to make

contacts with other mercenaries, maybe even strike up alliances with

some of the Wardens. You can even found your military tradition. But

besides that, there are certain problems with training and arming men,

and then not giving them any outlet."

Otah looked up, meeting Sinja's grim expression.

"More trouble?" Otah asked.

"I've whipped the men involved and paid reparations," Sinja said, "but

if the Dai-kvo doesn't like you putting together a militia, the fine

people of Machi are getting impatient with having them. We're paying

them to play at soldiers while everybody else's taxes buy their food and