"I ... I wouldn't go so far as that," Maati said. "It's only that she's
young, and she's had a harder life than some. I wonder whether ..."
"None of us are perfect, Maati-kya," Eiah said. "We have to work with
the people we have. Vanjit is clever and determined."
"You think she can manage it? Bind this andat?"
"I think she has the best hope of any of us. Except possibly me."
Maati sighed, nodding as much to himself as to her. Dread thickened his
throat.
"Let me look at this," he said. "Let me think about it."
Eiah took a pose that accepted his command. Maati looked down again.
"Why didn't he come?" Eiah asked.
"Because," Maati began, and then found he wasn't able to answer as
easily as he'd thought. He folded the papers and began to tuck them into
his sleeve, remembered how wet the cloth was, and tossed them instead
onto his low, wood-framed bed. "Because he didn't want to," he said at last.
"And my aunt?"
"I don't know," Maati said. "I thought for a time that she might take my
side. She didn't seem pleased with how they were living. Or, no. That's
not right. She seemed to care more than he did about how they would live
in the future. But he wouldn't have any of it."
"He's given up," Eiah said.
Maati recalled the man's face, the lines and weariness. The authenticity
of his smile. When they'd first met, Cehmai had been little more than a
boy, younger than Eiah was now. This was what the world had done to that
boy. What it had done to them all.
"He has," Maati said.
"Then we'll do without him," Eiah said.
"Yes," Maati said, hoisting himself up. "Yes we will, but if you'll
forgive me, Eiah-kya, I think the day's worn me thin. A little rest, and
we'll begin fresh tomorrow. And where's that list of questions? Ah,
thank you. I'll look over all of this, and we'll decide where best to go
from here, eh?"
She took his hand, squeezing his knuckles gently.
"It's good to have you back," she said.
"I'm pleased to be here," he said.
"Did you have any news of my father?"
"No," he said. "I didn't ask. It's the first rule of running a race,
isn't it? Not to look back at who's behind you?"
Eiah chuckled, but didn't respond otherwise. Once she'd left and Maati
had banked the fire, he sat on the bed. The night candle stood straight
in its glass case, the burning wick marking the hours before dawn. It
wasn't to its first-quarter mark and he felt exhausted. He moved the
papers and the scroll safely off the bed, pulled the blanket up over
himself, and slept better than he had in weeks, waking to the sound of
morning birds and pale light before dawn.
He read over the list of questions on the scroll, only surveying them
and not bothering to think of answers just yet, and then turned to the
proposed binding. When he went out, following the smells of wood smoke
and warmed honey, his mind was turning at twice its usual speed.