"I've gotten old. When I was your age I could walk all day and never
feel it."
"Perhaps if you made it more a habit," Cehmai said. "I have some tea.
It's a little tepid now, but if you'd like ..
Maati raised a hand, refusing politely. Cehmai, seeming to notice the
state of the house now there were someone else's eyes on it, opened the
shutters wide before he came to sit at Nlaati's side.
"I've come to ask for more time," Maati said. "I can make excuses first
if you like, or tell you that as your elder and an envoy of the Daikvo
it's something you owe me. Any of that theater you'd like. But it comes
to this: I don't know yet what's happening, and it's important to me
that if something does go wrong for Otah-kvo it not have been my doing."
Cehmai seemed to weigh this.
"Baarath tells me you had a message from the Dai-kvo," Cehmai said.
"Yes. After he heard I'd turned Otah-kvo over to his father, he called
me back."
"And you're disobeying that call."
"I'm exercising my own judgment."
"Will the Dai-kvo make that distinction?"
"I don't know," Maati said. "If he agrees with me, I suppose he'll agree
with me. If not, then not. I can only guess what he would have said if
he'd known everything I know, and move from there."
"And you think he'd want Otah's secret kept?"
Maati laughed and rubbed his hands together. His legs were twitching
pleasantly, relaxing from their work. He stretched and his shoulder cracked.
"Probably not," he said. "He'd more likely say that it isn't our place
to take an active role in the succession. That he'd sent me here with
that story about rooting through the library so that it wouldn't be
clear to everyone over three summers old what I was really here for. He
might also mention that the questions I've been asking have been bad
enough without lying to the utkhaiem while I'm at it."
"You haven't lied," Cchmai said, and then a moment later. "Well,
actually, I suppose you have. You aren't really doing what you believe
the Dai-kvo would want."
"No."
"And you want my complicity?"
"Yes. Or, that is, I have to ask it of you. And I have to persuade you
if I can, though in truth I'd he as happy if you could talk me out of it."
"I don't understand. Why are you doing this? And don't only say that you
want to sleep well after you've seen another twenty summers. You've done
more than anyone could have asked of you. What is it about Otah Machi
that's driving you to this?"
Oh, Maati thought, you shouldn't have asked that question, my boy.
Because that one I know how to answer, and it'll sting you as much as me.
He steepled his fingers and spoke.
"He and I loved the same woman once, when we were younger men. If I do
him harm or let him come to harm that I could have avoided, I couldn't
look at her again and say it wasn't my anger that drove me. My anger at
her love for him. I haven't seen her in years, but I will someday. And