He sat at one of the tables and lowered his head to his knees.
His heart was still pounding, and his face felt hot and flushed. The
voices of the keeper and Irit seemed to echo, as if he were hearing them
from the far end of a tunnel. He gritted his teeth, willing his body to
calm itself, to obey him.
Slowly, his pulse calmed. The heat in his face lessened. He didn't know
how long he'd been sitting at the little table by the back wall. It
seemed like only moments and it also seemed like half the day. Both were
plausible. He tried to stand, but he was weak and shaking. Like a man
who'd just run a race.
He motioned to the keeper and asked for strong tea. The man brought it
quickly enough. A cast-iron pot in the shape of a frog, the spigot a
hollow tongue between its lips. Maati poured the rich, green tea into a
carved wooden bowl and sat for a moment, breathing in the scent of it
before trying to lift it to his lips.
By the time Irit arrived, he felt nearly himself again. Exhausted and
weak, but himself. The woman sat across from him, her fingers knotted
about one another. Her smile was too wide.
"Maati-kvo," she said and belatedly took a pose of greeting. "I've just
come from the riverfront. Eiah has hired a boat. It looks like a good
one. Wide enough that it isn't supposed to rock so much. Or get stuck on
sandbars. They talked a bit about sandbars. In any case-"
"What's the matter?"
Irit looked out toward the main room as if expecting to see someone
there. She spoke without looking at him.
"I'm not ever going to make a binding, Maati-kvo. I may have helped, I
may not. But we both know I'm not going to do the thing."
"You want to leave," Maati said.
She did look at him now, her mouth small, her eyes large. She was like a
picture of herself drawn by someone who thought poorly of her.
"Take your things," Maati said. "Do it before we get on the river."
She took a pose that accepted his orders, but the fear remained in the
way she held her body. Maati nodded to himself.
"I'll tell Vanjit that I've sent you on an errand for me. That Eiah
needed some particular root that only grows in the south. You're to meet
us with it in Utani. She won't know the truth."
"Thank you," Irit said, relief in her expression at last. "I'm sorry."
"Hurry," Maati said. "There isn't much time."
Irit scuttled out, her hands fluttering as if they possessed a life of
their own. Maati sat quietly in the growing darkness, sipped his tea,
and tried to convince himself that his strength was coming back. He'd
let himself get frightened, that was all. It wasn't as if he'd fainted.
He was fine. By the time Eiah and Small Kae came to collect Vanjit and
Clarity-of-Sight, he mostly believed it.
Eiah accepted the news of Irit's departure without comment. The two Kaes
glanced at each other and kept loading their few remaining crates onto
the boat. Vanjit said nothing, only nodded and took Clarityof-Sight to
the bow of the little craft to stare out at the water.
The boat was as long as six men laid end to end, and as wide across as