"It's not bad," he said. "Just messy. I didn't want to come through the
larger halls."
"What happened?"
"I have met my rival," Danat said. "Hanchat Dor."
"There's blood? There's blood between you?"
"No," Danat said. "Well, technically yes, I suppose. But no."
He lowered himself to sit at the table where Otah's food lay abandoned.
There was a carafe of water and a porcelain bowl. As Otah sat, his boy
wet one of his sleeves and set about wiping the blood from around his
grin. Otah's first violent impulses to protect his son and punish his
assailant were disarmed by that smile. Not conquered, but disarmed.
"He and Ana-cha were haunting the path between the palaces and the
poet's house, just before the pond," Danat said. "We had words. He took
some exception to our demand that Ana-cha apologize. He suggested that I
should feel honored to have breathed the same air as his darling
chipmunk. Seriously, Papa. `Darling chipmunk."'
"It might be a Galtic endearment," he said, trying to match his son's
light tone.
Danat waved the thought away. It would be no more dignified, Otah
admitted to himself, because a whole culture said it. Danat went on.
"I said that my business wasn't with him, but with Ana-cha. He began
declaiming something in rhymed verse about him and his love being one
flesh. Ana-cha told him to stop, but he only started bellowing it."
"How did Ana-cha react?"
Danat's grin widened. Blood had pinked his teeth.
"She seemed a bit embarrassed. I began speaking to her as if he weren't
there. And ..."
Danat shrugged.
"He hit you?"
"I may have goaded him," Danat said. "A little."
Otah sat back, stunned. Danat raised his hands to a pose appropriate to
the announcement of victory in a game. Otah let himself smile too, but
there was a touch of melancholy behind it. His son was no longer the
ill, fragile child he'd known. That boy was gone. In his place was a
young man with the same instinct to rough-and-tumble as any number of
young men. The same as Otah had suffered once himself. It was so easy to
forget.
"I had the palace armsmen throw him in a cell," Danat said. "I've set a
guard on him in case anyone decides to defend my abused dignity by
killing him."
"Yes, that would complicate things," Otah agreed.
"Ana followed the whole way shrieking, but she was as angry at
Hanchat-cha as at me. Once I get to looking a bit less like an
apprentice showfighter's first night, I'm sending an invitation to
Ana-cha for a formal dinner at which we can further discuss her poor
treatment of our hospitality. And then I'm going to meet my new lover."
"Your new lover?"
"Shija Radaani has offered to play the role. I think she was flattered
to be asked. Issandra-cha is adamant that nothing makes a man worth