Eiah was weeping openly, her arms around Ana. A clamor of voices and a
whoop from the stern said that whatever hope there might have been that
the thing would be kept quiet once they returned to court was gone. Otah
sat back, his stool creaking under his weight. Idaan took a pose of
query that carried nuances of both pity at his idiocy and
congratulations. Otah started laughing and found it hard to stop.
It had been so long since he'd felt joy, he'd almost forgotten what it
was like.
The rest of the day was spent in half-drunken conversation. Otah was
made to retell the details of Danat's birth, and of Eiah's. Danat grew
slowly more pleased with himself and the world as the initial shock wore
thin. Ana Dasin smiled, her grayed eyes taking in nothing and giving out
a pleasure and satisfaction that seemed more intimate in that she
couldn't see its reflection in the faces around her.
Stories came pouring out as if they had only been waiting for the chance
to be told. Idaan's spectacularly failed attempts to care for a younger
half-sister when she'd been little more than fourteen summers old.
Otah's work in the eastern islands as an assistant midwife, and the
awkward incident of the baby born to an island mother and island father
and with a complexion that sang to the stars of Obar State. Eiah spilled
out every piece of secondhand wisdom she'd ever heard about keeping a
new babe safe in the womb until it was ready to be born. At one point
the armsmen broke into giddy song and, against Danat's protests, lifted
him onto their shoulders, the deck shifting slightly under them. The sun
itself seemed to shine for them, the river to laugh.
Maati alone seemed not to recover entirely from the first surprise. He
smiled and chuckled and nodded when it fit the moment, but his eyes were
reading letters in the air. He looked neither pleased nor displeased,
but lost. Otah saw his lips moving as Maati spoke to himself, as if
trying to explain something to his body that only his mind knew. When
the poet hefted himself up and came to take Ana's hand, it was with a
formality that might have been mixed feelings on his part or only a fear
that his kind thoughts would be unwelcome. Ana accepted the formal,
somewhat stilted blessing, and afterward Eiah took Maati's hand, pulling
him down to sit at her side.
Even braided together, Otah's anger and distrust and sorrow couldn't
overcome the moment. The blood and horror of the world lifted, and a
future worth having peeked through the crack.
It was only much later, when the sun fell carelessly into the treetops
of the western bank and shadows darkened the water, that the celebration
faltered. The boat passed a brickwork tower standing on the riverbank,
ivy almost obscuring the scars where fire had burned through timber and
stripped the shutters from the empty windows. Otah watched the structure
with the eerie feeling that it was watching back. The river bent, and a
great stone bridge came into sight, gaps in its rail like missing teeth.
Birds as bright as fire sang and fluttered, even in the autumn cold.
Their songs filled the air, the familiar trills greeting Otah like the
wail of a ghost.
The ruins of the river city. The corpse of a city of birds.