beige with mud and clay. The horse trembled with exhaustion, driven too
hard through the wet. Large Kae, clucking her tongue in disapproval,
took the poor beast off to be rubbed down and warmed while the rest of
them crowded around Eiah. She wrung the water from her hair with pale
fingers, answering the first question before it was asked.
"Ashti Beg's left. She said she didn't want to come back. We were in a
low town just south of here off the high road. She said we could talk
about it, but when I got up in the morning, she'd already gone." She
looked at Maati when she finished. "I'm sorry."
He took a pose that forgave and also diminished the scale of the thing,
then waved her in. Vanjit followed, and then Irit and Small Kae. The
meal was laid out and waiting. Barley soup with lemon and quail. Rice
and sausage. Watered wine. Eiah sat near the brazier and ate like a
woman starved, talking between mouthfuls.
"We never reached Pathai. There was a trade fair halfway to the city.
Tents, carts, the wayhouse so full they were renting out space on the
kitchen floor. There was a courier there gathering messages from all the
low towns."
"So the letters were sent?" Irit asked. Eiah nodded and scooped up
another mouthful of rice.
"Ashti Beg," Maati said. "Tell me more about her. Did she say why she left?"
Eiah frowned. Color was coming back to her cheeks, but her lips were
still pale, her hair clinging to her neck like ivy.
"It was me," Vanjit said, the andat squirming in her lap. "It's my doing."
"Perhaps, but it wasn't what she said," Eiah replied. "She said she was
tired, and that she felt we'd all gone past her. She didn't see that she
would ever complete a binding of her own, or that her insights were
particularly helping us. I tried to tell her otherwise, give her some
perspective. If she'd stayed on until the morning, perhaps I could have."
Maati sipped his wine, wondering how much of what Eiah said was true,
how much of it was being softened because Vanjit and Clarity-ofSight
were in the room. It seemed more likely to him that Ashti Beg had taken
offense at Vanjit's misstep and been unable to forgive it. He recalled
the woman's dry tone, her cutting humor. She had not been an easy woman
or a particularly apt pupil, but he believed he would miss her.
"Was there other news? Anything of the Galts?" Vanjit asked. There was
something odd about her voice, but it might only have been that
Clarity-of-Sight had started its wordless, wailing complaint. Eiah
appeared to notice nothing strange in the question.
"There would have been if I'd reached Pathai, I'd expect," she said.
"But since there would have been nothing to do about it and our business
was done early, I wanted to come back quickly."
"Ah," Vanjit said. "Of course."
Maati tugged at his fingers. There was something near disappointment in
the girl's tone. As if she had expected someone that had not arrived.
"You're ready to work again?" Small Kae said. Irit flapped a cloth at
her, and Small Kae took a pose that unasked the question. Eiah smiled.
"I've had a few thoughts," she said. "Let me look them over tonight
after we unload the cart, and we can talk in the morning."