whom she might, through her gentle guidance, save.
She had been another woman, then. And who, she wondered, had she become now?
She rose quietly, parting the netting, and stepped out onto the cool
floor. She found her outer robe and wrapped it around herself. Her inner
robes and her sandals she could reclaim tomorrow. Now she wanted her own
bed, and pillows less thick with memories.
She slipped out the door, pulling it closed behind her. So far North and
without an ocean to hold the warmth of the day, Machi's nights were
cold, even now with spring at its height. Gooseflesh rose on her legs
and arms, her belly and breasts, as she trotted along the wide, darkened
paths to the apartments that Irani or Otah or the Khai Machi had given
to her and her son.
More than a week had passed since he had come to Maati's apartments,
gathering up a children's hook and a daughter halfway to womanhood and
leaving behind a lasting unease. Liat had not spoken with him since, but
the dread of the coming conversation weighed heavy. As Nayiit had grown,
she'd seen nothing in him but himself. Even when people swore that the
boy had her eyes, her mouth, her way of sighing, she'd never seen it.
Perhaps when there was no space between a mother and her child, the
sameness becomes invisible. Perhaps it merely seemed normal. She would
have admitted that her son looked something like his father. It was only
in seeing them together, seeing the simple, powerful knowing in Otah's
wife's expression, that Liat understood the depth of her error in
letting Nayiit come.
And with that came her understanding of how it could not he undone. Her
first impulse had been to send him away at once, to hide him again the
way a child caught with a forbidden sweet might stuff it away into a
sleeve as if unseen now might somehow mean never seen at all. Only the
years of running her house had counseled her otherwise. The situation
was what it was. Attempting any subterfuge would only make the Khai
wary, and his unease might mean Nayiit's death. As long as her son
lived, he posed a threat to Danat, and she knew enough to understand
that a babe held from its first breath meant something that a man
full-grown never could. If Utah were forced to choose, Liat had no
illusions what that choice would be.
And so she prepared herself, prepared her arguments and her negotiating
strategies, and told herself it would end well. They were all together,
allies against the Galts. 'T'here would be no need. She told herself
there would be no need.
At her apartments, no candles were lit, but a fire burned in the grate:
old pine, rich with sap that popped and hissed and filled the air with
its scent. When she entered, her son looked up from the flames and took
a pose of welcome, gesturing to a divan beside him. Liat hesitated,
surprised by a sudden embarrassment, then gathered her sense of humor
and sat beside him. He smelled of wine and smoke, and his robes hung as
loose on him as her own did on her.
"You've been to the teahouses," Liat said, trying to keep any note of
disapproval from her voice.
"You've been with my father," he replied.