THE

much this means."

"What should we do?" Parit asked, sitting on his stool like a fresh

apprentice before his master. He'd always done that when he felt himself

at sea. Eiah found there was warmth in her heart for him even now

"Burn her," Eiah said. "Burn her with honors and treat her ashes with

respect."

"Shouldn't we ... shouldn't we tell someone? The utkhaiem? The Emperor?"

"You already have," Eiah said. "You've told me."

There was a moment's pause. Parit took a pose that asked clarification.

It wasn't quite the appropriate one, but he was flustered.

"This is it, then," he said. "This is what you were looking for."

"Yes," Eiah said.

"You know what happened to her."

"Yes."

"Would you..." Parit coughed, looked down. His brow was knotted. Eiah

was half-tempted to go to him, to smooth his forehead with her palm.

"Could you explain this to me?"

"No," she said.

AFTER THAT, IT WAS SIMPLE. THEY WOULDN'T REMAIN IN SARAYKEHT, NOT WHEN

they'd so nearly been discovered. The Emperor's daughter asked favors of

the port master, of the customs men on the roads, of the armsmen paid by

the city to patrol and keep the violence in the low towns to an

acceptable level. Her quarry weren't smugglers or thieves. They weren't

expert in covering their tracks. In two days, she knew where they were.

Eiah quietly packed what things she needed from her apartments in the

palace, took a horse from the stables, and rode out of the city as if

she were only going to visit an herb woman in one of the low towns.

As if she were coming back.

She found them at a wayhouse on the road to Shosheyn-Tan. The winter sun

had set, but the gates to the wayhouse courtyard were still open. The

carriage Eiah had heard described was at the side of the house, its

horses unhitched. The two women, she knew, were presenting themselves as

travelers. The man-old, fat, unpleasant to speak withwas posing as their

slave. Eiah let the servant take her horse to be cared for, but instead

of going up the steps to the main house, she followed him back to the

stables. A small shack stood away at an angle. Quarters for servants and

slaves. Eiah felt her lips press thin at the thought. Rough straw

ticking, thin blankets, whatever was left to eat after the paying guests

were done.

"How many servants are here now?" Eiah asked of the young maneighteen

summers, so four years old when it had happened-brushing down her horse.

He looked at her as if she'd asked what color ducks laid the eggs they

served at table. She smiled.

"Three," the servant said.

"Tell me about them," she said.

He shrugged.

"There's an old woman came in two days ago. Her master's laid up sick.

Then a boy from the Westlands works for a merchant staying on the ground

floor. And an old bastard just came in with two women from Chaburi-Tan."

"Chaburi-Tan?"

"What they said," the servant replied.

Eiah took two lengths of silver from her sleeve and held them out in her

palm. The servant promptly forgot about her horse.

"When you're done," she said, "take the woman and the Westlander to the

back of the house. Buy them some wine. Don't mention me. Leave the old man."

The servant took a pose of acceptance so total it was just short of an

open pledge. Eiah smiled, dropped the silver in his palm, and pulled up

a shoeing stool to sit on while she waited. The night was cool, but

still not near as cold as her home in the north. An owl hooted deep and

low. Eiah pulled her arms up into her sleeves to keep her fingers warm.

The scent of roasting pork wafted from the wayhouse, and the sounds of a

flute and a voice lifted together.

The servant finished his work and with a deferential nod to Eiah, made

his way to the servants' house. It was less than half a hand before he

emerged with a thin woman and a sandy-haired Westlands boy trailing him.

Eiah pushed her hands back through her sleeves and made her way to the

small, rough shack.

He was sitting beside the fire, frowning into the flames and eating a

mush of rice and raisins from a small wooden bowl. The years hadn't been

kind to him. He was thicker than he'd been when she knew him, an

unhealthy fatness that had little to do with indulgence. His color was

poor; what remained of his hair was white stained yellow by neglect. He

looked angry. He looked lonesome.

"Uncle Maati," she said.

He startled. His eyes flashed. Eiah couldn't tell if it was anger or

fear. But whatever it was had a trace of pleasure to it.

"Don't know who you mean," he said. "Name's Daavit."

Eiah chuckled and stepped into the small room. It smelled of bodies and

smoke and the raisins in Maati's food. Eiah found a small chair and

pulled it to the fire beside the old poet, her chosen uncle, the man who

had destroyed the world. They sat silently for a while.

"It was the way they died," Eiah said. "All the stories you told me when

I was young about the prices that the andat exacted when a poet's

binding failed. The one whose blood turned dry. The one whose belly

swelled up like he was pregnant, and when they cut him open it was all

ice and seaweed. All of them. I started to hear stories. What was that,

four years ago?"

At first she thought he wouldn't answer. He cupped two thick fingers

into the rice and ate what they lifted out. He swallowed. He sucked his

teeth.

"Six," he said.

"Six years," she said. "Women started appearing here and there, dead in

strange ways."

He didn't answer. Eiah waited for the space of five slow breaths

together before she went on.

"You told me stories about the andat when I was young," she said. "I

remember most of it, I think. I know that a binding only works once. In

order to bind the same andat again, the poet has to invent a whole new

way to describe the thought. You used to tell me about how the poets of

the Old Empire would bind three or four andat in a lifetime. I thought

at the time you envied them, but I saw later that you were only sick at

the waste of it."

Maati sighed and looked down.

"And I remember when you tried to explain to me why only men could be

poets," she said. "As I recall, the arguments weren't all that

convincing to me."