"Don't bother it," Otah said. "It might be a new world for sex, but
there was an old world for it too. And I'm sure there are any number of
other men who've made the same discoveries you have."
"That wasn't the matter. It's the wedding. I don't think I can ... I
don't think I can do it. When it was just thinking of it, I hadn't seen
what it would be to be married to someone who hated me. I have now."
His voice was thick with distress. A gust of stronger wind came,
rattling the shutters in their frames. Otah slid the wood closed, and
the meeting room dimmed, gold tiles turning bronze, blue tiles black.
"It will be fine," Otah said. "At worst, there are other councillors
with other daughters. It won't be a pleasant transition, but-"
"A different girl won't fix this. At best we'd find a girl less willing
to struggle. At worst, we'd find someone who hated me just as much, but
better versed in deceit."
Otah took his seat again. He could feel his brow furrow. If he hadn't
been so tired to begin with, it wouldn't have taken him as long to think
through Danat's words.
"Are you . . ." Otah said, then stopped and began again. "You're saying
you won't have Ana?"
"I thought I could. I would have, if she hadn't done what she did. But
I've spent all night looking at it, and I don't see a way."
"I do. I see it perfectly clearly. High families have been arranging
marriages for as long as there have been high families. It binds them
together. It shows trust."
"You didn't. You were Khai Machi. You could have had dozens of wives,
but you didn't. Even after the fever took Mother, you didn't. You could
have," Danat said. And then, "You could now. You could make one of these
girls your wife. Marry Ana-cha."
"You know quite well that I couldn't. A man of my years bedding a girl?
They wouldn't see a marriage so much as a debauch."
"Yes," Danat said. "And putting me in your place would only change how
it looked, not what it was. I'll do whatever I can to help. You know
that. I could marry a stranger and make the best of it. But I won't
father a child on an unwilling girl."
"Don't be an idiot," Otah said, and knew immediately that it was the
wrong thing. His son's smile was a mask now, cold and bright and hard as
stone. Otah raised his hands in a pose that took the words back, but
Danat ignored it.
"I won't do something I know in my bones is wrong," Danat said. "If it's
the only way to save us, then we aren't worth saving."
Otah watched the boy leave. There were a thousand arguments to make, a
thousand ways to rephrase the issue, to make something different of
these same circumstances. None of them would matter. He let his head
sink to his hands.
There had been a time when Otah had been young and the world had been,
if not simple, at least certain. Decades and experience had made him
sure that his sense of right and wrong were not the only ones. Before
he'd had that beaten out of him by the gods, he might well have taken
the same stand Danat had just now. Do what he believed to be right and