"No," she agreed. "It can't."
The back of Maati's hand brushed against her arm. It was a small,
tentative gesture, familiar as breath. It was something he had always
done when he was uncertain and in need of comfort. There had been times
when she'd found it powerfully annoying and times when she'd found
herself doing it too. Now, she shifted the wine howl to her other hand,
and resolutely laced her fingers with his.
"I haven't written hack to the Dal-kvo," Nlaati said. His voice was as
low as a confession. "I'm not sure what I should ... I haven't been hack
to Saraykeht, you know. I could ... I mean ... Gods, I'm saying this
badly. If you want it, Liat-kya, I could come hack with you. You and
Nayiit."
"No," she said. "There isn't room for you. My life there has a certain
shape to it, and I don't want you to he a part of it. And Nayiit's a
grown man. It's too late to start raising him now. I love you. And
Nayiit is better, I think, knowing you than he was before. But you can't
come hack with us. You aren't welcome."
hlaati looked down at his knees. His hand seemed to relax into her palm.
""Thank you," he whispered.
She raised his hand and kissed the wide, soft knuckles. And then his
mouth. He touched her neck gently, his hand warm against her skin.
"Put out the candles," she said.
Time had made him a better lover than when they had been young. Time and
experience-his and her own both. Sex had been so earnest then; so
anxious, and so humorless. She had spent too much time as a girl worried
about whether her breasts looked pleasing or if her hips were too thin.
In the years she had kept a house with him, Maati had tried to hold in
his belly whenever his robes came off. Youth and vanity, and now that
they were doomed to sagging flesh and loose skin and short breath, all
of it could be forgiven and left behind.
They laughed more now as they shrugged out of their robes and pulled
each other down on the wide, soft bed. They paused in their passions to
let Maati rest. She knew better now what would bring her the greatest
pleasure, and had none of her long-ago qualms about asking for it. And
when they were spent, lying wrapped in a soft sheet, Maati's head on her
breast, the netting pulled closed around them, the silence was deeper
and more intimate than any words they had spoken.
She would miss this. She had known the dangers when she had taken his
hand again, when she had kissed him again. She had known there would be
a price to pay for it, if only the pain of having had something pleasant
and precious and brief. For a moment, her mind shifted to Nayiit and his
lovers, and she was touched by sorrow on his behalf. He was too much her
son and not enough Otah's. But she didn't want Otah in this room, in
this moment, so she put both of these other men out of her mind and
concentrated instead on the warmth of her own flesh and Maati's, the
slow, regular deepening of his breath and of hers.
Her thoughts wandered, slowing and losing their coherence; turning into
something close kin to dream. She had almost slipped into the deep
waters of sleep when Maati's sudden spasm brought her back. He was