girl who can ruin the world. What she's done to Galt, she could do to
us. Or to all the world, if she wanted it. How do we plan for a marriage
between Danat and Ana when it's just as likely that we'll all be
starving and blind by Candles Night?"
"We're all born to die, Most High," Idaan said, the title sounding like
an endearment in her voice. "Every love ends in parting or death. Every
nation ends and every empire. Every baby born was going to die, given
enough time. If being fated for destruction were enough to take the joy
out of things, we'd slaughter children fresh from the womb. But we
don't. We wrap them in warm cloth and we sing to them and feed them milk
as if it might all go on forever."
"You make it sound like something you've done," Otah said.
Idaan made a sound he couldn't interpret, part grunt, part whimper.
"What is it?" he asked the darkness.
The silence lasted for the length of five long breaths together. When
she spoke, her voice was low and rich with embarrassment.
"Lambs," she said.
"Lambs?"
"I used to wrap up the newborn lambs and keep them in the house. I even
had Cehmai build them a crib that I could rock them in. After a few
years, we had to switch to goats. I couldn't slaughter the lambs after
all that, could I? By the end, I think we had sixty."
Otah didn't know whether to laugh or put his arms around the woman. The
thought of the hard-hearted killer of his own father, his own brothers,
cuddling a baby lamb was as absurd as it was sorrowful.
"Is it like this for everyone?" he asked softly. "Does every woman
suffer this? Is the need to care for something that strong?"
"Strong? When it strikes, yes. But everyone? No," Idaan said. "Of course
not. As it happened, it struck me. I assume Maati's students all feel
strongly enough about it to risk their lives. But not every woman needs
a child, and, thank the gods, the madness sometimes passes. It did for me."
"You wouldn't be a mother now? If it were possible, you wouldn't choose to?"
"Gods, no. I'd have been terrible at it. But I miss them," Idaan said.
"I miss my little lambs. And that brings us back to Ana-cha, doesn't it?"
Otah took a pose that asked clarification.
"Who am I," Idaan asked, "to say that falling in love is ridiculous just
because it's doomed?"
22
The weeks spent at the school had let Maati forget the ways in which the
world broadened when he was traveling, and also the ways in which it
narrowed when he was traveling with company. Living in the same walls,
the same gardens, and surrounded as he had been by only a few deeply
familiar faces had begun to grate on him before they left, but there had
still been a way to find a moment to steal away. On the road, all of
them together, the chances for private conversation were few and precious.
Since the andat had spoken, he hadn't found himself alone with Eiah, or
at least not so clearly so that he would risk speaking. He didn't want
either of the Kaes or Irit to know what had happened. He was afraid that
they would say something where Vanjit could hear them. He was afraid