F,iah was practically at his side, crouched low in the water to preserve
her modesty. A gaggle of children of the utkhaiem behind her at what
Maati supposed must be a respectful distance. He raised hands from the
water and took a pose of greeting, somewhat cramped by being held high
enough to be seen.
"I haven't seen you in ages, I?iah-kya," he said. "What's been keeping you?"
The girl shrugged, sending ripples.
"'T'here are a lot of new people from Cetani," she said. ""There's a
whole other Radaani family here now. And I've been studying with
Loya-cha about how to fix broken bones. And ... and 'Mama-kva said you
were htisy and that I shouldn't bother you."
"You should always bother
me," \laati said with a
grin. "Is it going well%"
"It's a complicated thing," \laati said. "But it's a long wait until
spring. We'll have time."
"Complicated's hard," Eiah said. "Loya-cha says it's always easy to fix
things when there's only one thing wrong. It's when there's two or three
things at once that it's hardest."
"Smart man, Lova-cha," Nlaati said.
Flah shrugged again.
"I Ie's a servant," she said. "If you can't recapture Seedless, we can't
heat the Galts can we?"
"lour father did once," \laati said. "IIe's a very clever man."
"Rut we might not."
" WVe might not," \laati allowed.
F,iah nodded to herself, her forehead crinkling as she came to some
decision. When she spoke, her voice had a seriousness that seemed out of
place from a girl still so young, hardly half-grown.
"If we're all going to die, I wanted you to know that I think you were a
very good father to Nayiit-cha."
\laati almost coughed from surprise, and then he understood. She knew. A
warm sorrow filled him. She knew that Nayiit was Utah's son. That Nlaati
loved the boy. 't'hat it mattered to him deeply that Nayiit love him
hack. And the worst of it, she knew that he hadn't been a very good father.
"You're kind, love," he said, his voice thick.
She nodded sharply, embarrassed, perhaps, to have completed her task.
One of her companions yelped and dropped under the water only to come
back up spitting and shaking his head. Eiah turned toward them.
"heave him he!" Eiah shouted, then turned to Nlaati with an apologetic
pose. lie smiled and waved her away. She went back to her group with the
squared shoulders of an overseer facing a recalcitrant hand of laborers.
Nlaati let his smile fade.
A good father to Nayiit. And to he told so by Otah's daughter. Perhaps
binding the andat wasn't so complex after all. Not when compared with
other things. Fathers and sons, lovers and mother and daughters. And the
war. Saraykcht and Seedless. All of it touched one edge against another,
like tilework. None of it existed alone. And how could anyone expect him
to solve the thing when half of everything seemed to he broken, and half