the night she came to speak with him. Half-drunk. Too proud to be ruled
by pride.
He took a pose that commanded silence. Danat's words ended at once.
Issandra's took a moment longer to trail off.
"Between the two of you, you'll have to devise something," he said. "I
don't have the time or the resources to fix this for you. But consider
that you might be treating Ana with less respect than she deserves.
Danat-cha, do you intend to build a life with Shija Radaani?"
Danat sobered. He took no pose, spoke no word. Otah nodded.
"Then it would be disrespectful to behave as if you did," Otah said. "Be
honest with her, and if it damages relations with House Radaani, then it
does."
"Yes, Father," Danat said, hesitated, and then took a pose that asked
forgiveness before walking from the room.
Otah's spine ached. His eyes felt gritty with the efforts of the day. It
was all far from over.
"Issandra-cha," he said. "I don't know Ana well, but I lost my own
daughter by treating her as the girl I remembered instead of the woman
she'd become. Don't repeat my mistake. Ana may not be subject to the
manipulations that work on younger girls."
Issandra Dasin's face hardened. For a moment, Otah saw the resemblance
between mother and daughter. She took a pose of acknowledgment. It was
awkward, but her form was correct.
"There is, perhaps, another approach," she said. "I wouldn't have
considered it before, but I've spent a certain number of hours with your
son. He might be able to manage it."
Otah nodded her on.
"He could choose to fall in love with her. Cultivate the feeling within
himself, and then ..." She shrugged. "Let the world take its course. I
haven't known many women who failed to be charmed by an attractive man's
genuine admiration."
"You think he could simply decide to feel what we want him to feel?"
"I've done it every day for nearly thirty years," Issandra said.
"That is either the most romantic thing I've heard or the saddest," Otah
said. And then, "Ana-cha did me a great favor. I'm sorry that Danat
repaid it with an indiscretion."
Issandra waved the apology away.
"I doubt she took offense. I'm sure she assumed Danat and this Radaani
creature were sharing whatever flat surfaces came available. I remember
what it was like at their age. We were all heat and dramatic gestures.
We thought we were the first generation to truly discover love or sex or
betrayal." Her voice softened.
Otah recalled a girl named Liat with skin the brown of eggshell and the
night his one true friend had confessed his affair with her. The night
Maati had confessed. He hadn't seen or spoken to either of them for
years afterward. He had killed a man, in part as a blessing upon them,
Liat and Maati, and the freedom that together they had given him.
All heat and dramatic gestures, he thought. Amusement mixed with sorrow,
the way it always did.