Low clouds obscured moon and stars. When Otah closed the shutters
against the cold night air, the room grew no darker. The great copper
tub the keeper had prepared glowed in the light of the fire grate. The
earthenware jar of soap beside it was half-empty, but at least Otah felt
like his skin was his own again and not hidden under layers of dust and
sweat. His traveling robes had vanished and he'd picked a simple garment
of combed wool lined with silk. The voices of the armsmen rose through
the floorboards. The song was patriotic and bawdy, and the drum that
accompanied them kept missing the right time. Otah rose on bare feet and
walked out to the stairs. No servants scuttled out of his way, and he
noticed the absence.
Danat was not among the armsmen or out with the horses. It was only when
Otah approached the room set aside for Ana Dasin that he heard his son's
voice. The room was on the lower floor, near the kitchens. The floor
there was stone. Otah's steps made no sound as he walked forward. Ana
said something he couldn't make out, but when Danat answered, he'd come
near enough to hear.
"Of course there are, it's only Papa-kya isn't one of them. When I was a
boy, he told me stories from the First Empire about a half-Bakta boy.
And he nearly married a girl from the eastern islands."
"When was that?" Ana asked. Otah heard a sound of shifting cloth, like a
blanket being pulled or a robe being adjusted.
"A long time ago," Danat said. "Just after Saraykeht. He lived in the
eastern islands for years after that. They build their marriages in
stages there. He's got the first half of the marriage tattoo."
"Why didn't he finish it?" Ana asked.
Otah remembered Maj as he hadn't in years. Her wide, pale lips. Her eyes
that could go from blue the color of the sky at dawn to slate gray. The
stretch marks on her belly, a constant reminder of the child that had
been taken from her. In his mind, she was linked with the scent of the
ocean.
"I don't know," Danat said. "But it wasn't that he was trying to keep
his bloodline pure. Really, there's a strong case that my lineage isn't
par ticularly high. My mother didn't come from the utkhaiem, and for
some people that's as much an insult as marrying a Westlander."
"Or a Galt," Ana said, tartly.
"Exactly," Danat said. "So, yes. Of course there are people in the court
who want some kind of purity, but they've gotten used to disappointment
over the last few decades."
"They would never accept me."
"You?" Danat said.
"Anyone like me."
"If they won't, then they won't accept anyone. So it hardly matters what
they think, because they won't have any sons or daughters at court. The
world's changed, and the families that can't change with it won't survive."
"I suppose," Ana said. They were silent for a moment. Otah debated
whether he should scratch on her door or back quietly away, and then Ana
spoke again. Her voice had changed. It was lower now, and dark as rain
on stone. "It doesn't really matter, though, does it. There isn't going