habit. He paused at a cart and bought a meal of hot peppered beef and
sweet onions wrapped in waxed paper. The young man running the cart
refused to accept his lengths of copper. Another small amenity granted
to the other poet of Machi. Maati took a pose of thanks as best he could
with one hand full of the food.
The towers of Machi seemed to touch the lowest clouds. It had been years
since Maati had gone up one of the great towers. He remembered the
platform swaying, its great arm-thick chains clanking against the stones
as he rose. That far above the city, he had felt he was looking out from
a mountain peak-the valley spread below so vast he'd imagined he could
almost see the ocean. Not remotely truth, but what it felt like all the
same. Looking at the towers now, he remembered what Cehmai had said. If
there were an earthquake, the towers would certainly fall. For an
instant, he imagined the stones pattering down in a deadly rain, the
long, slumped piles of rubble that would lie where they fell. The
corpses of giants.
He shook himself, pushing the darkness away, and turned back toward the
palaces. He wondered, as he trundled toward the library, where Nayiit
was today. He had seen the boy-a man old enough to have a child of his
own, and still in Maati's mind a boy-several times since his arrival.
Dinners, dances, formal meetings. They had not yet had a conversation as
father and son. Maati wondered whether he wanted them to, or if the
reminder of what might have been would be too uncomfortable for them
both. Perhaps he could track the boy down, show him through the city for
a day. Or through the tunnels. There were a few teahouses still in
business down in their winter quarters. That was the sort of thing only
a local would know. Maybe the boy would be interested....
He paused as he rounded the slow curving path toward the library. Two
forms were sitting on its wide stone steps, but neither of them was
Nayiit. The older, rounder woman wore robes of seafoam green embroidered
with yellow. Liat's hair was still as dark as when she'd been a girl
sitting beside him on a cart leaving Saraykeht behind them. Her head
still took the same just-off angle when she was speaking to someone to
whom she was trying especially to he kind.
The younger looked thin and coltish beside her. Her robes were deep blue
shot with white, and Eiah had her hair up, held in place with thick
silvered pins that glittered even from here. She was the first to catch
sight of him, and her thin arm rose, waving him nearer. He was too thick
about the belly these days to trot or he would have.
"We've been waiting for you," Eiah said as he drew near. Her tone was
accusing. Liat glanced up at him, amused.
"I was seeing Cehmai off on his journey," Maati said. "He's going to the
Radaani mines in the North. A new vein, I think. But I did take the
longer way hack. If I'd known you were waiting, I'd have been here sooner.
Eiah considered this, and then without word or gesture visibly accepted
the apology.
"We've been talking about marriage," Liat said.
"I)id you know that Liat-cha never got married to anyone? Nayiit's her
son. She had a baby, but she's never been wed?"