"The poet's come," the young man said.
Amiit rose, took a pose appropriate to the parting of friends, and left.
The young man went with him, and for a moment the door swung free, half
closing. Otah drank the last of his water, the grit rough in his throat.
Maati came in slowly, a diffidence in his body and his face, like a man
called in to hear news that might bring him good or ill or some
unimagined change that folded both inextricably together. Otah gestured
to the door, and Maati closed it.
"You sent for me?" Maati asked. "That's a dangerous habit, Otah-kvo."
"I know it, but ... Please. Sit. I've been thinking. About what we do if
things go poorly."
"If we fail?"
"I want to be ready for it, and when Kiyan and I were talking last
night, something occurred to me. Nayiit? That's his name, isn't it? The
child that you and Liat had?"
Maati's expression was cool and distant and misleading. Otah could see
the pain in it, however still the eyes.
"What of him?"
"He mustn't be my son. Whatever happens, he has to be yours."
"If you fail, you don't take your father's title-"
"If I don't take his title, and someone besides you decides he's mine,
they'll kill him to remove all doubt of the succession. And if I
succeed, Kiyan may have a son," Otah said. "And then they would someday
have to kill each other. Nayiit is your son. He has to be."
"I see," Maati said.
"I've written a letter. It looks like something I'd have sent Kiyan
before, when I was in Chaburi-Tan. It talks about the night I left
Saraykeht. It says that on the night I came back to the city, I found
the two of you together. That I walked into her cell, and you and she
were in her cot. It makes it clear that I didn't touch her, that I
couldn't have fathered a child on her. Kiyan's put it in her things. If
we have to flee, we'll take it with us and find a way for it to come to
light-we can hide it at her wayhouse, perhaps. If we're found and killed
here, it will be found with us. You have to back that story."
Maati steepled his fingers and leaned back in the chair.
"You've put it with Kiyan-cha's things to be found in case she's
slaughtered?" he asked.
"Yes," Otah said. "I don't think about it when I can help it, but I know
she could die here. There's no reason that your son should die with us."
Maati nodded slowly. He was struggling with something, Otah could see
that much, but whether it was sorrow or anger or joy, he had no way to
know. When the question came, though, it was the one he had been
dreading for years.
"What did happen?" Maati asked at last, his voice low and hushed. "The
night Heshai-kvo died. What happened? Did you just leave? Did you take
Mai with you? Did . . . did you kill him?"
Otah remembered the cord cutting into his hands, remembered the way Mai
had balked and he had taken the task himself. For years, those few
minutes had haunted him.