"One of us has to succeed before you'll let her make the attempt."
"That's so," Maati agreed, a moment's discomfort passing through him. He
didn't want to explain the thinking behind that decision. When Vanjit
went on, it was happily not in that direction.
"She's shown me some of the work she's done. She's working from the same
books that I am, you know."
"Yes," Maati said. "That was a good thought, using sources from the
Westlands. The more things we can use that weren't part of how the old
poets thought, the better off we are."
Maati described Cehmai's suggestion of making an andat and withdrawing
its influence as a strategy of Eiah, pleased to have steered the
conversation to safe waters. Vanjit listened, her full attention upon
him. Ashti Beg and Irit, walking before them, paused. If Vanjit hadn't
hesitated, Maati thought he might not have noticed until he bumped into
them.
"Small Kae is making soup for dinner," Irit said. "If you have time to
help her ..."
"Maati-kvo's much too busy for that," Vanjit said.
When Ashti Beg spoke, her voice was dry as sand.
"Irit-cha might not have been speaking to him."
Vanjit's spine stiffened, and then, with a laugh, relaxed. She smiled at
all of them as she took a contrite pose, accepting the correction. Irit
reached out and placed her hand on Vanjit's shoulder as a sister might.
"I'm so proud of you," Irit said, grinning. "I'm just so happy and proud."
"So are we all," Ashti Beg said. Maati smiled, but the sense that
something had happened sat at the back of his mind. As the four of them
walked to the kitchens-the air growing rich with the salt-and-fat scent
of pork and the dark, earthy scent of boiled lentils-Maati reviewed what
each of them had said, the tones of voice, the angles at which they had
held themselves. Small Kae assigned tasks to all of them except Maati,
and he waited for a time, listening to the simple banter and the crack
of knives against wood. When he took his leave, he was troubled.
He was not so far removed from his boyhood that he had forgotten what
jealousy felt like. He'd suffered it himself in these same halls and
rooms. One boy or another was always in favor, and the others wishing
that they were. Walking through the bare gardens, Maati wondered whether
he had allowed the same thing to happen. Vanjit was certainly the center
of all their work and activity. Had Ashti Beg and Irit interrupted their
conversation from an urge to take his attention, or at least deny it to her?
And then there was some question of Vanjit's heart.
The truth was that Eiah had been right. For all the hope and attention
placed upon her, the project of the school was not truly Vanjit and
Clarity-of-Sight. It would be Eiah and Wounded. Vanjit had seen it. It
couldn't be pleasant, knowing she was taking the lead not for her own
sake but to blaze the trail for another. He would speak to her. He would
have to speak with her. Reassure her.
After the last of the lentil soup had been sopped up by the final crust
of bread, Maati took Vanjit aside. It didn't go as he had expected.
"It isn't that Eiah-cha's work is more important," Maati said, his hands