Daniel Abraham - An Autumn War

clothes."

Otah took a simple pose that acknowledged what Sinja said as truth.

"Where would you take them?"

"Annaster and Notting were on the edge of fighting last autumn.

Something about the Warden of Annaster's son getting killed in a hunt.

It's a long way south, but we're a small enough group to travel fast,

and the passes cleared early this year. Even if nothing comes of it,

there'll he keeps down there that want a garrison."

"How long before you could go?"

"I can have the men ready in two days if you'll send food carts out

after us. A week if I have to stay to make the arrangements for the

supplies."

Otah looked into Sinja's eyes. The years had whitened Sinja's temples

but had made him no easier to read.

"That seems fast," Otah said.

"It's already tinder way," Sinja replied, then seeing Otah's reaction,

shrugged. "It seemed likely."

"Two days, then," Otah said. Sinja smiled, stood, took a rough pose that

accepted the order, and turned to go. As he lifted the door's latch,

Otah spoke again. "Try not to get killed. Kiyan would take it amiss if I

sent you off to die."

The captain paused in the open door. What had happened between Kiyan and

Sinja-the Khai Machi's first and only wife and the captain of his

private armsmen-had found its resolution on a snow-covered field ten

years before. Sinja had done as Kiyan had asked him and the issue had

ended there. Otah found that the anger and feelings of betrayal had

thinned with time, leaving him more embarrassed than wrathful. That they

were two men who loved the same woman was understood and unspoken. It

wasn't comfortable ground for either of them.

"I'll keep breathing, Otah-cha. You do the same."

The door closed softly behind him, and Otah took another sip of wine. It

was fewer than a dozen breaths before a quiet scratching came at the

door. Rising and straightening the folds of his robes, Otah prepared

himself for the next appearance, the next performance in his ongoing,

unending mummer's show. He pressed down a twinge of envy for Sinja and

the men who would be slogging through cold mud and dirty snow. He told

himself the journey only looked liberating to someone who was staying

near a fire grate. He adopted a somber expression, held his body with

the rigid grace expected of him, and called out for the servant to enter.

'T'here was a meeting to take with House Daikani over a new mine they

were proposing in the South. Mikah Radaani had also put a petition with

the Master of Tides to schedule a meeting with the Khai Machi to discuss

the prospect of resurrecting the summer fair in Amnat- "Ian. And there

was the letter to the Dai-kvo to compose, and a ceremony at the temple

at moonrise at which his presence was required, and so on through the

day and into the night. Otah listened patiently to the list of duties

and obligations and tried not to feel haunted by the thought that

sending the guard away had been the wrong thing to do.

EIAH TOOK A BITE OF THE ALMOND CAKE, WIPING HONEY FROM HER MOU"FH with

the back of her hand, and Maati was amazed again by how tall she'd

grown. He still thought of her as hardly standing high as his knees, and

here she was-thin as a stick and awkward, but tall as her mother. She'd

even taken to wearing a woman's jewelry-necklace of gold and silver,

armbands of lacework silver and gems, and rings on half her fingers. She

still looked like a girl playing dress-up in her mother's things, but

even that would pass soon.

"And how did he die?" she asked.

"I never said he did," Maati said.

Eiah's lips bent in a frown. Her dark eyes narrowed.

"You don't tell stories where they live, Uncle Maati. You like the dead

ones."

Maati chuckled. It was a fair enough criticism, and her exasperation was

as amusing as her interest. Since she'd been old enough to read, Eiah

had haunted the library of Machi, poking here and there, reading and

being frustrated. And now that she'd reached her fourteenth summer, the

time had come for her to turn to matters of court. She was the only

daughter of the Khai Machi, and as such, a rare chance for a marriage

alliance. She would be the most valued property in the city, and worse

for her and her parents, she was more than clever enough to know it. Her

time in the library had taken on a tone of defiance, but it was never

leveled at Maati, so it never bothered him. In fact, he found it rather

delightful.

"Well," he said, settling his paunch more comfortably in the library's

deep silk-covered chair, "as it happens, his binding did fail. It was

tragic. He started screaming, and didn't stop for hours. He stopped when

he died, of course, and when they examined him afterwards, they found

slivers of glass all through his blood."

"They cut him open?"

"Of course," Maati said.

"That's disgusting," she said. "l'hen a moment later, "If someone died

here, could I help do it?"

"No one's likely to try a binding here, Eiah-kya. Only poets who've

trained for years with the I)ai-kvo are allowed to make the attempt, and

even then they're under strict supervision. Holding the andat is

dangerous work, and not just if it fails."

"'T'hey should let girls do it too," she said. "I want to go to the

school and train to he a poet."

"But then you wouldn't he your father's daughter anymore. If the

I)ai-kvo didn't choose you, you'd he one of the branded, and they'd turn

you out into the world to make whatever way you could without anyone to

help you."

"That's not true. Father was at the school, and he didn't have to take

the brand. If the Dai-kvo didn't pick me, I wouldn't take it either. I'd

just come back here and live alone like you do."

"But then wouldn't you and I)anat have to fight?"

"No," Eiah said, taking a pose appropriate to a tutor offering

correction. "Girls can't be Khai, so Danat wouldn't have to fight me for

the chair."

"But if you're going to have women be poets, why not Khaiem too?"

"Because who'd want to he Khai?" she asked and took another piece of

cake from the tray on the table between them.

The library stretched out around them-chamber after chamber of scrolls

and books and codices that were Maati's private domain. The air was rich

with the scent of old leather and dust and the pungent herbs he used to

keep the mice and insects away. Baarath, the chief librarian and Maati's

best friend here in the far, cold North, had kept it before him. Often

when Maati arrived in the morning or remained long after dark, puzzling

over some piece of ancient text or obscure reference, he would look up,

half-wondering where the annoying, fat, boisterous, petty little man had

gotten to, and then he would remember.

The fever had taken dozens of people that year. Winter always changed

the city, the cold driving them deep into the tunnels and hidden

chambers below Machi. For months they lived by firelight and in

darkness. By midwinter, the air itself could seem thick and stifling.

And illnesses spread easily in the dark and close, and Baraath had grown

ill and died, one man among many. Now he was only memory and ash. Maati

was the master of the library, appointed by his old friend and enemy and

companion Otah Machi. The Khai Machi, husband of Kiyan, and father to

this almost-woman Eiah who shared his almond cakes, and to her brother

Danat. And, perhaps, to one other.

"Maati-kya? Are you okay?"