Otah's arm.
"Forgive my husband," she said. "He was never fond of shipboard life.
And he spent seven years as a sailor."
"I hadn't known that," Otah said.
"Fighting Eymond," the councilman said. "Sank twelve of their ships.
Burned their harbor at Cathir."
Otah smiled and nodded. He wondered how his own history as a fisherman
would be received if he shared it now. He chose to leave the subject behind.
"The weather is treating us gently," Otah said. "We will be in Saraykeht
before summer's end."
He could see in all their faces that it had been the wrong thing. The
father's jaw tightened, his nostrils flared. The mother's smile lost its
sharp corners and her eyes grew sad. Ana looked away.
"Come see what they've done with the kitchens, Most High," Issandra
said. "It's really quite remarkable."
After a short tour of the ship, Issandra released him, and Otah made his
way to the dais that was intended for him. Other guests arrived from
Galtic ships and the utkhaiem, each new person greeting the councilman
and his family, and then coming to Otah. He had expected to see a
division among them: the Galts resentful and full of barely controlled
rage much like Fatter Dasin, and Otah's own people pleased at the
prospects that his treaty opened for them. Instead, he saw as the guests
came and went, as the banquet was served, as priests of Galt intoned
their celebratory rites, that opinions were more varied and more complex.
At the opening ceremony, the divisions were clear. Here, the robes of
the Khaiem, there the tunics and gowns of the Galts. But very quickly,
the people on the deck began to shift. Small groups fell into
discussion, often no more than two or three people. Otah's practiced eye
could pick out the testing smile and almost flirtatious laughter of men
on the verge of negotiation. And as the evening progressed-candles
burning down and being replaced, slow courses of wine and fish and meat
and pastry making their way from the very cleverly built kitchens to the
gently shifting deck-as many Galts as utkhaiem had the glint in their
eyes that spoke of sensed opportunity. Larger groups formed and broke
apart, the proportions of their two nations seeming almost even. Otah
felt as if he'd stirred a muddy pool and was now seeing the first
outlines of the new forms that it might take.
And yet, some groups were unmoved. Two clusters of Galts never budged or
admitted in anyone wearing robes, but also a fair-sized clot of people
of the cities of the Khaiem sat near the far rail, their backs to the
celebration, their conversation almost pointedly relying on court poses
too subtle for foreigners to follow.
Women, Otah noted. The people of his nation whose anger was clearest in
their bodies and speech tended to be women. He thought of Eiah, and cool
melancholy touched his heart. Trafficking in wombs, she would have
called it. To her, this agreement would be the clearest and most nearly
final statement that what mattered about the women of the cities-about
his own daughter-was whether they could bear. He could hear her voice
saying it, could see the pain in the way she held her chin. He murmured