The man nodded rather than take any more-complex pose. His hands and
eyes were occupied. The breeze shifted, a waft of smoke and thick steam
washing her in its scent, and the cart lurched, shuddered, and turned
again to the north along its constant route. Eiah sighed and made
herself comfortable. It would take her almost the time for the moon to
move the width of her hand before she stepped down at the pathway that
led to the palaces. In the meantime, she watched the night city pass by her.
The streets nearest the seafront alternated between the high roofs of
warehouses and the low of the tradesmen's shops. In the right season,
the clack of looms would have filled the air, even this late at night.
The streets converged on wide squares where the litter of the week's
market still fouled the street: cheeses dropped to the cobbles and trod
into mush, soiled cabbages and yams, even a skinned rabbit too corrupt
to sell and not worth hauling away. One of the men on the far side of
the steamcart stepped down, shifting the balance slightly. Eiah watched
as his red-brown cloak passed into darkness.
There had been a time, she knew, when the streets had been safe to walk
down, even alone. There had been a time beggars with their boxes would
have been on the corners, filling the night with plaintive, amateur
song. She had never seen it, never heard it. It was a story she knew,
Old Saraykeht from long ago. She knew it like she knew Bakta, where she
had never been, and the courts of the Second Empire, gone from the world
for hundreds of years. It was a story. Once upon a time there was a city
by the sea, and it lived in prosperity and innocence. But it didn't anymore.
The steamcart passed into the compounds of the merchant houses, three,
four, five stories tall. They were almost palaces in themselves. There
were more lights here, more voices. Lanterns hung from ropes at the
crossroads, spilling buttery light on the bricks. Three more of Eiah's
fellows stepped down from the cart. Two stepped on, dropping their
copper lengths into the firekeeper's box. They didn't speak, didn't
acknowledge one another. She shifted her hands on the leather grip. The
palaces of the utkhaiem would be coming soon. And her apartments, and
bed, and sleep. The kiln roared when the firekeeper opened it and poured
in another spade's worth of coal.
The servants met her at the gateway that separated the palaces from the
city, the smooth brick streets from the crushed marble pathways. The air
smelled different here, coal smoke and the rich, fetid stink of humanity
displaced by incense and perfume. Eiah felt relieved to be back, and
then guilty for her relief. She answered their poses of greeting and
obeisance with one of acknowledgment. She was no longer her work. Among
these high towers and palaces, she was and would always be her father's
daughter.
"Eiah-cha," the most senior of the servants said, his hands in a pose of
ritual offering, "may we escort you to your rooms?"
"No," she said. "Food first. Then rest."
Eiah suffered them to take her satchel, but refused the sable cloak they
offered against the night air. It really wasn't that cold.
"Is there word from my father?" she asked as they walked along the wide,
empty paths.