THE

"What have you done?" he whispered.

"I'm a physician," Eiah said, her tone dismissive. "Holding that

abomination the rest of my life would have gotten in the way of my work,

and who told you that you were allowed to sit up? On your back or I'll

call in armsmen to hold you down. No, don't say anything. I don't care

if you're feeling a thousand times better. Down. Now."

He lay back, staring up at the ceiling. His mind felt blasted and blank.

The enameled brick was blurred in the torchlight, or perhaps it was only

that his eyes were only what they had been. The cold air that breathed

in through the window too gently to even be a breeze felt better than he

would have expected, the stone floor beneath him more comfortable. The

voices around him were quiet with respect for his poor health or else

with awe. The world had never seen a night like this one. It likely

never would again.

She had freed it. Gods, all that they'd done, all that they'd suffered,

and she'd just freed the thing.

When Danat returned, Eiah forced half a handful of herbs more bitter

than the last into his mouth and told him to leave them under his tongue

until she told him otherwise. Idaan and one of the armsmen hauled

Vanjit's body away. They would burn it, Maati thought, in the morning.

Vanjit had been a broken, sad, dangerous woman, but she deserved better

than to have her corpse left out. He remembered Idaan saying something

similar of the slaughtered buck.

He didn't notice falling asleep, but Eiah gently shook him awake and

helped him to sit. While she compared his pulses and pressed his

fingertips, he spat out the black leaves. His mouth was numb.

"We're going to take you back down in a litter," she said, and before he

could object, she lifted her hand to his lips. He took a pose that

acquiesced. Eiah rose to her feet and walked back toward the great

bronze doors.

The footsteps behind him were as familiar as an old song.

"Otah-kvo," Maati said.

The Emperor sat on the dais, his hands between his knees. He looked pale

and exhausted.

"Nothing ever goes the way I plan," Otah said, his tone peevish. "Not ever."

"You're tired," Maati said.

"I am. Gods, that I am."

The captain of the armsmen pulled open the doors. Four men followed, a

low weaving of branches and rope between them. Eiah walked at their

side. One of the men at the rear called out, and the whole parade

stopped while the captain, cursing, retied a series of knots. Maati

watched them as if they were dancers and gymnasts performing before a

banquet.

"I'm sorry," Maati said. "This wasn't what I intended."

"Isn't it? I thought the hope was to undo the damage we did with

Sterile, no matter what the price."

Maati started to object, then stopped himself. Outside the great window,

a star fell. The smear of light vanished as quickly as it had come.

"I didn't know how far it would go."

"Would it have mattered? If you had known everything it would take,

would you have been able to abandon the project?" Otah asked. He didn't

sound angry or accusing. Only like a man who didn't know the answer to a

question. Maati found he didn't either.

"If I asked your forgiveness ..."

Otah was silent, then sighed deeply, his head hanging low.

"Maati-kya, we've been a hundred different people to each other, and

tonight I'm too old and too tired. Everything in the world has changed

at least twice since I woke up this morning. I think about forgiving

you, and I don't know what the word means."

"I understand."

"Do you? Well, then you've outpaced me."

The litter came forward. Eiah helped him onto the makeshift seat, rope

and wood creaking under his weight, but solid. The gait of the armsmen

swayed him like a branch in the breeze. The Emperor, they left behind to

follow in the darkness.

31

The formal joining of Ana Dasin and Danat Machi took place on Candles

Night in the high temple of Utani. The assembled nobility of Galt along

with the utkhaiem from the highest of families to the lowest firekeeper

filled every cushion on the floor, every level of balcony. The air

itself was hot as a barn, and the smell of perfume and incense and

bodies was overwhelming. Otah sat on his chair, looking out over the

vast sea of faces. Many of the Galts wore mourning veils, and, to his

surprise, the fashion had not been lost on the utkhaiem. He worried that

the mourning was not entirely for fallen Galt, but also a subterranean

protest of the marriage itself. It was only a small concern, though. He

had thousands more like it.

The Galtic ceremony-a thing of dirgelike song and carefully measured

wine spilled over rice, all to a symbolic end that escaped him-was over.

The traditional joining of his own culture was already under way. Otah

shifted, trying to be unobtrusive in his discomfort despite every eye in

Utani being fixed on the dais.

Fatter Dasin wore a robe of black and a red ocher that suited his

complexion better than Otah would have expected. Issandra sat at his

side in a Galtic gown of yellow lace over a profoundly celebratory red.

Danat knelt before them both.

"Farrer Dasin of House Dasin, I place myself before you as a man before

my elder," Danat said. "I place myself before you and ask your

permission. I would take Ana, your blood issue, to be my wife. If it

does not please you, please only say so, and accept my apology."

The whisperers carried his words out through the hall like wind over

wheat. Ana Dasin herself knelt on a cushion off to her parents' right

and Danat had been sitting to Otah's left. The girl's gown had been an

issue of long and impassioned debate, for the swell of her belly was

unmistakable. With only a few minor modifications, the tailors could

have done much to hide it. Instead, she had chosen Galtic dress with its

tight fittings and waist-slung ribbons, which would make it clear to the

farthest spectator in the temple that summer would come well after the

child. Etiquette masters from both courts had gone at the issue like pit

dogs for the better part of a week. Otah thought she looked beautiful

with her garland of ribbons. Her father apparently thought so as well.

Instead of the traditional reply, I am not displeased, Fatter looked

Danat square in the eyes, then turned to Ana.

"Bit late for asking, isn't it?" Fatter said.