well pack up our things now, because there isn't one."
Maati let the silence stretch, in part to leave Eiah room to think. In
part because he didn't know what wisdom he could offer.
"No, Uncle Maati, I don't want to stop. I only ... I only hope this
brings her some peace," Eiah said.
"It won't," Maati said, gently. "It may heal some part of her. It may
bring good to the world, but the andat have never brought peace to poets."
"No. I suppose not," Eiah said. Then, a moment later, "I'm going into
Pathai. I'll just need a cart and one of the horses."
"Is there need?"
"We aren't starving, if that's what you mean. But buying at the markets
there attracts less notice than going straight to the low towns. It
would be better if no one knows there are people living out here. And
there might be news."
"And if there's news, there will be some idea of how soon Vanjit-cha
will need to make her attempt."
"I was thinking more of how much time I have," Eiah said. She turned to
look at him. The warm light of the candle and the cool glow of the moon
made her seem like two different women at once. "This doesn't rest on
Vanjit. It doesn't rest on any of them. Binding an andat isn't enough to
... fix things. It has to be the right one."
"And Clarity-of-Sight isn't the right one?" he asked.
"It won't give any of these women babies. It won't put them back in the
arms of the men who used to be their husbands or stop men like my father
from trading in women's flesh like we were sheep. None of it. All the
binding will do is prove that it can be done. That a solution exists. It
doesn't even mean I'll be strong enough when my turn comes."
Maati took her hand. He had known her for so many years. Her hand had
been so small that first time he had seen her. He remembered her deep
brown eyes, and the way she had gurgled and burrowed into her mother's
cradling arms. He could still see the shape of that young face in the
shape of her cheeks and the set of her jaw. He leaned over and kissed
her hair. She looked up at him, amused to see him so easily moved.
"I was only thinking," he said, "how many of us there are carrying this
whole burden alone."
"I know I'm not alone, Maati-kya. It only feels like it some nights."
"It does. It certainly does," he said. Then, "Do you think she'll manage
it?"
Eiah rose silently, took a pose that marked parting with nuances as
intimate as family, and walked back into the buildings of the school.
Maati sighed and lay back on the stone, looking up into the night sky. A
shooting star blazed from the eastern sky toward the north and vanished
like an ember gone cold.
He wondered if Otah-kvo still looked at the sky, or if he had grown too
busy being the Emperor. The days and nights of power and feasting and
admiration might rob him of simple beauties like a night sky or a fear
grown less by being shared. Might, in fact, cut Otah-kvo off from all
the things that gave meaning to people lower than himself. He was, after
all, planning his new empire by denying all the women injured by the