respect your wishes. You want to dunk your head in river water, I
haven't objected. You run off into the wilderness for half an evening
with no guard or escort, and I've accepted that. But if you are about to
suggest that we put the Emperor of the Khaiem in a sleeping tent in a
wayhouse courtyard because someone else got here first, I'm resigning my
commission."
"Actually, I was going to suggest that we offer the present guests our
tents and compensation for their rooms," Otah said. "It seemed polite."
"Ah. Yes, Most High," the captain said. It was hard to tell in the night
whether the man was blushing.
"There's room in the stables," the keeper said. She had an eastern accent.
"Yalakeht?" Otah asked, and the woman blinked.
"I grew up there," she said, a note of awe in her voice. As if
recognizing an accent were a sign of supernatural power.
"It's a good city," Otah said. "Would there be room enough for your
present guests if we put my guardsmen in the stables as well?"
"We'll find space, Most High," the keeper said.
"Then I'll go negotiate rooms for us," Otah said, and to the captain,
"It might be more impressive if I went in with a guard. They'll be less
likely to mistake me for a fraud."
"I ... yes, Most High," the captain said.
The air in the wayhouse was thickened by a chimney with a poor draw.
Smoke haze gave the place a feeling of dread and poverty. The tables
were dark wood, the floors packed earth. A dozen men and women sat in
groups, a few in a smaller room to the side. All eyes were on the guard
as they strode in and took formal stances. Otah stepped in.
The movement that stopped him was so slight it might almost not have
existed and familiar enough to disorient him. A woman by the fire grate
with her back to him shifted her shoulders. In anyone else, it would
have been beneath notice. Otah stood, stunned, his heart thudding like
it was trying to break free of his ribs. Idaan appeared at his side, her
hand on his arm. He motioned her back.
"Eiah?" he said.
The woman by the fire turned to him. Her face was thin and drawn, older
than time alone could explain. Her eyes were the same milky gray as Ana's.
"Father," she said.
26
The years had changed Otah Machi. The last time Maati had seen him, his
hair had been black or near enough to pass. His shoulders had been
broader, his eyebrows smooth. The man who stood before the smoking fire
grate now was thinner, his skin loose against his face. His robes,
though travel-stained, were of the finest cloth. They draped him like an
altar; they made him more than a man. Or perhaps Otah Machi had always
been something more than the usual and his robes only reminded them.
Danat, at his father's side, was unrecognizable. The ill, coughing boy
confined to his bed had grown into a hale young man with intelligent
eyes and his father's distant, considering demeanor. The others Maati
had either seen recently enough that they held no disturbing sense of
change or were strangers to him.