"So the Dai-kvo sent him away in disgrace for something that wasn't his
fault," Otah said.
"No, not at first," Nayiit said. "The Dal-kvo only told him that he
wasn't to continue with his binding. That it was too great a risk. They
say Riaan took it poorly. There were fights and drunken rants. One man
said Riaan snuck a woman into the village to share his bed, but I never
heard anyone confirm that. Whatever the details, the Dai-kvo lost
patience. He sent him away."
"You learned quite a lot," Otah said. "I'd have thought the poets would
he closer with their disgraces."
"Once Riaan left, it wasn't their disgrace. It was his," Nayiit said.
"And they knew I had come from Nantani. I traded stories for stories. It
wasn't hard."
"The Dai-kvo wouldn't meet with us," Liat said. "I sent five petitions,
and two of them his secretaries didn't even bother to send refusals.
It's why we came here."
"Because you wanted me to make this argument? I'm not in the Daikvo's
best graces myself just now. He seems to think I blame the Galts when I
cough," Otah said. "Maati might be the better man to make the case.
Maati took a pose that disagreed.
"I would hardly be considered disinterested," Maati said. His words were
calm and controlled despite their depth. "I may have done some
interesting work, but no one will have forgotten that I defied the last
Dai-kvo by not abandoning these precise two people."
The rest of the thought hung in the air, just beyond speech. She
abandoned me. It was true enough. Liat had taken the child and made her
own way in the world. She had never answered Nlaati's letters until now,
when she had need of him. There was something almost like shame in
Liat's downcast eyes. Nayiit shifted his weight, as if to interpose
himself between the two of them-between his mother and the man who had
wanted badly to be his father and had been denied.
"We could also ask Cehmai," Kiyan said. "Ile's a poet of enough prestige
and ability to hold Stone-blade-Soft, and his reputation hasn't been
compromised."
"That might be wise," Otah said, grabbing for the chance to take the
conversation away from the complexities of the past. "But let's go over
the evidence you have, Liat-cha. All of it. From the start."
It took the better part of the day. Otah listened to the full story; he
read the statements of the missing poet's slaves and servants, the
contracts broken by the fleeing Galtic trade ship, the logs of couriers
whose whereabouts Nayiit had compiled. Whatever objections he raised,
Liat countered. He could see the fatigue in her face and hear the
impatience in her voice. This matter was important to her. Important
enough to bring her here. That she had come was proof enough of her
conviction, if not of the truth of her claim. The girl he had known had
been clever enough, competent enough, and still had been used as a stone
in other people's games. Perhaps he was harsh in still thinking of her
in that light. The years had changed him. They certainly could have
changed her as well.