He looked tired. His robes had been blue once, but from the hem to the
knee they were stained the pale brown of the mud through which they had
traveled. Otah considered the weight of their situation-the young man's
dual role as Maati's son and his own, the threat he posed to Danat and
the promise to Machi, the aid he might be in this present endeavor to
prevent harm to the Dal-kvo-and dismissed it all. He was too tired and
pained to chew everything a hundred times before he swallowed.
He took a pose of welcome, and Nayiit returned one of greater formality.
Otah nodded to a camp chair and Nayiit sat.
"Your attendant wasn't here. I didn't know what the right etiquette was,
so I just came through."
"He's running an errand. Once he's hack, I can have tea brought," Otah
said. "Or wine."
Nayiit took a pose of polite refusal. Otah shrugged it away.
"As you see fit," Otah said. "And what brings you?"
"There's grumbling in the ranks, Most High. Even among some of the
utkhaiem."
"There's grumbling in here, for that," Otah said. "There's just no one
here to listen to me. Are there any suggestions? Any solutions that the
ranks have seen that escaped me? Because, by all the gods that have ever
been named, I'm not too proud to hear them."
"They say you're driving them too hard, Most High," Nayiit said. "That
the men need a day's rest."
"Rest? Go slower? That's the solution they have to offer? What kind of
brilliance is that?"
Nayiit looked up. His face was long, like a Northerner's. Like Otah's.
His eyes were Liat's tea-with-milk brown. His expression, however, owed
to neither of them. Where Liat would have kept her eyes down or Otah
would have made himself charming, Nayiit's face belonged on a man
hearing a heavy load. Whatever was in his mind, in this moment it was
clear that he would press until the world was the way he wanted it or it
crushed him. It was something equal parts weariness and joy, like a man
newly acquainted with certainty. Otah found himself curious.
"They aren't wrong, Most High. These men aren't accustomed to living on
the road like this. You can't expect the speed of a practiced army from
them. And the walkers have been rising early to drill."
"Have they?"
"They have the impression their lives may rest on it. And the lives of
their families. And, forgive me Most High, but your life too."
Otah leaned forward, his hands taking a questioning pose.
"They're afraid of failing you," Nayiit said. "It's why no one would
come to you and complain. I've been keeping company with a man named
Saya. He's a blacksmith. Plow blades, for the most part. I Iis knees are
swollen to twice their normal size, and he wakes before dawn to tic on
leather and wool and swing sticks with the others. And then he walks
until he can't. And then he walks farther."
Nayiit's voice was trembling now, but Otah couldn't say if it was with
weariness or fear or anger.
"These aren't soldiers, Most High. And you're pushing them too hard."