It wasn't a turning away, only an acknowledgment of what they all knew.
The woman of the Khaiem were just as clever, just as strong, just as
important as they had ever been. The brokering of marriage-and yes,
specifically marriage bent on producing children-was no more an attack
on Eiah and her generation than building city militias or hiring
mercenary companies or any of the other things he had done to hold the
cities safe had been.
It sounded patronizing, even to him.
There had to be some way, he thought, to honor and respect the pain and
the loss that they had suffered without forfeiting the future. He
remembered Kiyan warning him that some women-not all, but somewho could
not bear children went mad from longing. She told stories of babies
being stolen, and of pregnant women killed and the babes taken from
their dying wombs.
Wanting could be a sickness, his wife had said. He remembered the night
she'd said it, where the lantern had been, how the air had smelled of
burning oil and pine boughs. He remembered his daughter's expression at
hearing the phrase, like she'd found expression for something she'd
always known, and his own sense of dread. Kiyan had tried to warn him of
something, and it had to do with the backs of the people now at the
rails, turned away from the Galts and the negotiated future forming
behind them. Eiah had known. Otah felt he had still only half-grasped
it. Fatter Dasin, he thought, might see it more clearly.
"It appears to be going quite well, wouldn't you say, Most High?"
Balasar Gice stood beside the dais, his hands in a pose of greeting. The
cool night air or else the wine had touched his cheeks with red.
"Does it? I hope so," Otah said, smoothing away his darker thoughts. "I
think there are more trade agreements than wars brewing tonight. It's
hard to know"
"There's hope," Balasar said. And then, his voice growing reflective,
"There's hope, and that's actually quite new. I hadn't realized it had
become quite such a rare thing, these last few years."
"How nice," Otah said more sharply than he'd intended. Balasar looked at
him more closely, and Otah waved the concern away. "I'm old and tired.
And I've eaten more Galtic food than I could have wanted in a lifetime.
It's astounding you people ever got up from your tables."
"You aren't expected to finish every dish," Balasar said. "Ah, I think
the entertainment has begun."
Otah looked up. Servants and sailors were silently moving across the
deck like a wind over the water. The glow of candles lessened and the
scent of spent wicks filled the air as a stage appeared as if conjured
across the deck from Otah's dais. The singers that had hung from the
rigging had apparently made their way down, because they rose now,
taking their places. Servants placed three more chairs on the dais at
Otah's side, and Councilman Dasin and his family took their seats.
Fatter smelled prodigiously of distilled wine and sat the farthest from
him, his wife close at his side, leaving Ana nearest to Otah.
The singers bowed their heads for a moment, then the low sounds of their
voices began to swell. Otah closed his eyes. It was a song he knewa