There's still a price, he thought, as clear as a voice speaking in his
head. You could still pay it.
Machi was ten days' walk, perhaps as little as four and a half days'
ride. If he could turn all eyes back to Mach], Kiyan might have at least
the chance to escape his idiocy. And what would she matter, if no one
need search for him. He could take a horse from the stables now. After
all, if he was an upstart and a poisoner and a man turned evil by love,
it hardly mattered being a horse thief as well. He closed his eyes, an
angry bark of a laugh forcing its way from his throat.
Everything you have won, you've won by leaving, he thought, remembering
a woman whom he had known almost well enough to join his life with
though he had never loved her, nor she him. Well, Maj, perhaps this time
I'll lose.
THE NIGHT CANDLE WAS PAST ITS MIDDLE MARK; TFIK AIR WAS FILLEI) WITH the
songs of crickets. Somewhere in the course of things, the pale mist of
netting had been pulled from the bed, and the room looked exposed
without it. Cehmai could feel Stone-Made-Soft in the back of his mind,
but the effort of being truly aware of the andat was too much; his body
was thick and heavy and content. Focus and rigor would have their place
another time.
Idaan traced her fingertips across his chest, raising gooseflesh. He
shivered, took her hand and folded it in his own. She sighed and lay
against him. Her hair smelled of roses.
"Why do they call you poets?" she asked.
"It's an old Empire term," Clehmai said. "It's from the binding."
"The andat are poems?" she said. She had the darkest eyes. Like an
animal's. He looked at her mouth. The lips were too full to be
fashionable. With the paint worn off, he could see how she narrowed
them. He raised his head and kissed them again, gently this time. His
own mouth felt bruised from their coupling. And then his head grew too
heavy, and he let it rest again.
"They're ... like that. Binding one is like describing something
perfectly. Understanding it, and expanding it ... I'm not saying this
well. Have you ever translated a letter? Taken something in the Khaiate
tongues and tried to say the same thing in Westland or an east island
tongue?"
"No," she said. "I had to take something from the Empire and rewrite it
for a tutor once."
Cchmai closed his eyes. He could feel sleep pulling at him, but he
fought against it a hit. He wasn't ready to let the moment pass.
"That's near enough. You had to make choices when you did that. Tiff',
could mean take or it could mean give or it could mean exchangeit's
yours to choose, depending on how it's used in the original document.
And so a letter or a poem doesn't have a set translation. You could have
any number of ways that you say the same thing. Binding the andat means
describing them-what the thought of them is-so well that you can
translate it perfectly into a form that includes will and volition. Like
translating a Galtic contract so that all the nuances of the trade are
preserved perfectly."