and Stone-Made-Soft as far as the compound of House Radaani, where a
litter and donkeys were waiting. They took poses of farewell, even the
andat, and Maati sat on the steps of the compound to watch them lumber
away to the North.
In the days since he, Otah, and Liat had broken the news to Cehmai,
Maati had found himself less and less able to do his work. The familiar
stacks and shelves and galleries of the library were uncomforting. The
songs of the singing slaves in the gardens seemed to pull at him when he
caught a phrase of their melodies. He found himself seeking out food
when he wasn't hungry, wine when he had no thirst. He walked the streets
of the city and the paths of the palaces more than he had in living
memory, and even when his knees ached, he found himself tinconsciously
rising to pace the rooms of his apartments. Restless. He had become
restless.
In part it was the knowledge that Liat and Nayiit were in the city, in
the palaces even. At any time, he could seek them out, invite them to
eat with him or talk with him. Nayiit, whom he had not known since the
boy was shorter than little Danat was now. Liat, whose breath and body
he had once said he would never he whole without. They were here at last.
In part it was the anticipation of a courier from the Dai-kvo, whether
about his own work or Liat's case against the Galts. And of the two, he
found the Galtic issue the lesser. Liat's argument was enough to
convince him that they did have a rogue poet, but the chances that he
would bind a new andat seemed remote. There in the middle of Galt
without references, without the Dai-kvo or his fellow poets to work
through the fine points of the binding, the most likely thing was that
the man would try, fail, and die badly. It was a problem that would
solve itself. And if the Dai-kvo took Liat's view and turned the andat
loose against Galt, the chances of tragedy coming to the cities of the
Khaiem was even less.
No, his unease came more from the prospect of his own success. He had
lived so long as a failure that the prospect of success disturbed him.
He knew that his heart should have been singing. He should have been
drunk with pride.
And yet he found himself waking in the night, knotted with anger. In the
darkness of his room, he would wake with the night candle over half
burned, and stare at the netting above his bed as it shifted in barely
felt drafts. The targets of his rage seemed to shift; one night he might
wake with a list of the wrongs done him by Liat, the next with the
conviction that he had suffered insult at the hands of Otah or the
I)ai-kvo. With the coming of dawn, the fit would pass, insubstantial as
a dream, the complaints that had haunted him in darkness thin as
cheesecloth in the light.
And still, he was restless.
He made his way slowly through the palaces and out to the city itself.
The black-cobbled streets were alive with people. Carts of vegetables
and early berries wound from the low towns toward the markets in the
center of the city. Lambs on rough hemp leads trotted in ignorance
toward the butchers' stalls. And wherever he went, a path was made for