young. So there must have been some damage to them. So are the changes
of age wounds? White hair? Baldness? When a woman loses her monthly
flow, is it because she's broken?"
"You can't consider age," Maati said. "For one thing, it muddies the
water, and for another, I will swear to you that more than one poet has
reached for Youth-Regained or some such."
"But how can I make that fit?" Eiah said. "What makes an old man's
failing hip different from a young girl's bruised one? The speed of the
injury?"
"The intention," Maati said, and touched a line of symbols. His finger
traced the strokes of ink, pausing from time to time. He could feel
Eiah's attention on him. "Here. Change ki to toyaki. Wounds are either
intentional or accident. Toyaki includes both senses."
"I don't see what difference it makes," Eiah said.
"Ki also includes a nuance of proper function. Behavior that isn't
misadventure or conscious intention, but a product of design," Maati
said. "If you remove that ..."
He licked his lips, his fingers closing in the air above the page. Once,
many years before, he had been asked to explain why the poets were
called poets. He remembered his answer vaguely. That the bindings were
the careful shaping of meaning and intention, that makers or
thought-weavers were just as apt. It had been a true answer for as far
as it went.
And also, sometimes, the grammar of a binding would say something
unexpected. Something half-known, or half-acknowledged. A profound
melancholy touched him.
"You see, Eiah-cha," he said, softly, "time is meant to pass. The world
is meant to change. When people fade and die, it isn't a deviation. It's
the way the world is made."
He tapped the symbol ki.
"And that," he said, "is where you make that distinction."
Eiah was silent for a moment, then drew a pen from her sleeve and a
small silver ink box. With a soft pressure, gentler than rain on leaves,
she added the strokes that remade the binding.
"You accept my argument, then?" Maati asked.
"I have to," Eiah said. "It's why we're here, isn't it? Sterile didn't
add anything to the world, it only broke the way humanity renews itself.
I've seen enough decline and death to recognize its proper place. I'm
not here to stop time or death. Just to put back the balance so that new
generations can come up fresh."
Maati nodded. When Eiah spoke, her voice sounded tired.
"I miss him," she said. He knew that she meant her father. "The last
time I saw him, he looked so old. I still picture him with dark hair. It
hasn't been like that in years, but it's what's in my mind."
"We're doing the right thing," Maati said. His voice was little more
than a whisper.
"I don't doubt it," Eiah said. "He's turned his back on a generation of
women as if their suffering were insignificant. Sexual indenture used to
be restricted to bed slaves, and he would make an industry of it if he