you're refusing me out of fear."
Ana began to speak, stumbled on the words, and went silent. Danat rose,
and the girl took a step toward him.
And a moment later, "Does Hanchat know you're here?"
Ana was still, and then almost imperceptibly she shook her head. Danat
put a hand on her shoulder and gently turned her to face him. Otah might
have been imagining it, but he thought the girl's head inclined a degree
toward that hand. Danat kissed Ana's forehead and then her mouth. Her
hand, palm against Danat's chest, seemed too weak to push him away. It
was Danat who stepped back.
He murmured something too low to hear, then bowed in the Galtic style,
took his lantern, and left her. Ana slowly lowered herself to the
ground. They waited, one girl alone in the night and four hidden spies
with legs and backs slowly beginning to cramp. Without word or warning,
Ana sobbed twice, rose, scooped up her own lantern, and vanished through
the door she'd first come from. Otah let out a pained sigh and made his
uncomfortable way out from beneath the willow. There were green streaks
on his robe where his knees had ground into the ivy. The armsmen had the
grace to move away a few paces, expressionless.
"We're doing well," Issandra said.
"I didn't hear a declaration of marriage," Otah said. He felt
disagreeable despite the evidence of Ana's changing heart. He felt
dishonest, and it made him sour.
"So long as nothing comes to throw her off, it will come. In time. I
know my daughter. I've seen this all before."
"Really? How odd," Otah said. "I know my son, and I never have."
"Then perhaps Ana is a lucky woman," Issandra said. He was surprised to
hear something wistful in the woman's voice. The moon passed behind a
high cloud, deepening the darkness around them, and then was gone.
Issandra stood before him, her head high and proud, her mouth in a
half-smile. She was, he thought, an interesting woman. Not beautiful in
the traditional sense, and all the more attractive for that.
"A marriage is what you make of it," she said.
Otah considered the words, then took a pose that both agreed and
expressed a gentle sorrow. He did not know how much of his meaning she
understood. She nodded and strode off, leaving him with his armsmen.
Otah suffered through the rest of the banquet and returned to his
apartments, sure he would not sleep. The night air had cooled. The fire
in the grate warmed his feet. The fear that had dogged him all these
last months didn't vanish, but its hold upon him faded. Somewhere under
the stars just then, Danat and Ana were playing out their drama in
touches and whispers; Issandra and Fatter Dasin in silences and the
knowledge of long association. Idaan was hunting, Ashua Radaani was
hunting, Sinja was hunting. And he was alone and sleepless with nothing
to do.
He closed his eyes and tried to feel Kiyan's presence, tried to bring
some sense of her out of the scent of smoke and the sound of distant
singing. He tricked himself into thinking that she was here, but not so
well that he could forget it was a trick.