"We may still beat her to Udun," Idaan said, prying the gray wax shards
that had been Eiah's binding from the muck. "She spent a fair amount of
time doing this. Tents like those are hard to cut through."
One of the armsmen muttered something about the only thing worse than a
mad poet being a mad poet with a knife, but Otah was already on his way
back to the river.
The boatman and his second had fitted poles into thick iron rings all
along the boat's edge and raised a tarp that kept the deck near to dry.
As darkness fell and the rain grew heavier, the drops overhead sounded
like fingertips tapping on wood. The kiln had more than enough coal. The
wide-swung doors lit the boat red and orange, and the scent of pigeons
roasting on spits made the night seem warmer than it was.
Maati had returned last, and spent the evening at the edge of the light.
Otah saw Eiah approach him once, a few murmured phrases exchanged, and
she turned back to the sound of the group eating and talking in the
stern. If Idaan hadn't risen to lead her back, he would have. The
boatman's second handed her a tin bowl, bird's flesh gray and steaming
and glistening with fat. Otah shifted to sit at her side.
"Father," Eiah said.
"You knew it was me?"
"I'm blind, not dim," Eiah said tartly. She plucked a sliver of meat
from her bowl and popped it into her mouth. She looked tired, worn thin.
He could still see the girl she had been, hiding beneath the time and
age. He felt the urge to stroke her hair the way he had when she was an
infant, to be her father again.
"This is, I assume, when you point out how much better your plan was
than my own," she said.
"I didn't intend to, no," Otah said.
Eiah turned to him, shifting her weight as if she had some angry retort
that had stuck in her throat for want of opposition. When he spoke, he
was quiet enough to keep the conversation as near to between only the
two of them as the close quarters would allow.
"We each did our best," Otah said. "We did what we could."
He put his arm around her. She bit down on her lip and fought the sobs
that shook her body like tiny earthquakes. Her fingers found his own,
and squeezed as hard as a patient under a physician's blade. He made no
complaint.
"How many people have I killed, Papa-kya? How many people have I killed
with this?"
"Hush," Otah said. "It doesn't matter. Nothing we've done matters. Only
what we do next."
"The price is too high," Eiah said. "I'm sorry. Will you tell them that
I'm sorry?"
"If you'd like."
Otah rocked her gently, and she allowed him to do it. The others all
knew what they were saying, if not in specific, then at least the sketch
of it. Otah saw Danat's concern, and Idaan's cool evaluating glance. He
saw the armsmen turn their backs to him out of respect, and at the bow,
Maati turned his back for another reason. Otah felt a flicker of his