"No," Idaan said, her voice oddly soft. "It's only childish."
"It fits together if you've raised a daughter," Otah agreed. "It's just
what Eiah would have done when at twelve summers. But if I'm right, it
changes things. I didn't want to say it in front of Ana-cha, but if your
poet's truly gone to ground, I can't believe we'd find her before
spring. She can find new allies if she needs them, or use the andat to
threaten people and get what she wants from them. At best, we might have
her by Candles Night."
"But if she's waiting to be found," Danat said.
"Then it's a matter of guessing where she'd wait," Otah said. "Where
she'd expect Maati to go looking for her."
"I don't know the answer to that," Maati said. "The school, maybe. She
might make her way back there."
"Or at the camp where we lost her," Eiah suggested.
Silence fell over the room for a moment. A decision had just been made,
and Maati could tell that each of them knew it. Utani would wait. They
were hunting Vanjit.
"The camp's nearest," Danat said.
"You can send one of the armsmen north with a letter," Eiah said. "Even
if we fail, it doesn't mean a larger search can't be organized while we
try."
"I'll round up the others," Idaan said, rising from the table. "No point
wasting daylight. Danat-cha, if you could tell our well-armed escorts
that we're leaving?"
Danat swilled down the last of his tea, took a pose that accepted his
aunt's instructions, and rose. In moments, only Otah, Eiah, and Maati
himself were left in the room. Otah took a bite of egg and stared out
into nothing.
"Otah-kvo," Maati said.
The Emperor looked over, his eyebrow raised in something equally query
and challenge. Maati felt his chest tighten as if it were bound by wire.
He sat silent for the rest of the meal.
To Maati's dismay, Ashti Beg, Large Kae, and Small Kae all preferred to
stay behind. There was a logic to it, and the keeper was more than happy
to take Otah's silver in return for a promise to look after them. Still,
Maati found himself wishing that they had come.
The Emperor's boat was, if anything, smaller than the one Maati had
hired. One of the armsmen had been sent north with letters that Otah had
hastily drafted, another to the south. Half of the rest were set to
finding a second boat and following with the supplies, and yet the
little craft felt crowded as they nosed out into the river.
Otah stood at the bow, Danat at his side. Idaan had appointed herself
shepherd of Eiah and Ana, the blinded women. Maati sat alone near the
stern. The sky was pale with haze, the river air rich with the scent of
decaying leaves and autumn. The kiln roared to itself, and the wheel
slapped the water. Far above, two vees of geese headed south, their
brash unlovely voices made beautiful by distance.
His rage was gone, and he missed it. All his fantasies of Otah Machi
apologizing, of Otah Machi debased before him, melted like sugar in