The Price of Spring (Long Price Quartet #4)(105)

Maati built a small fire from last night's embers and brewed tea for the four of them still remaining. Large Kae wouldn't stop crying despite Small Kae's constant attentions. Eiah sat wrapped in her robes from the previous night. She looked drawn. Maati pressed a bowl of warm tea into her hand. Neither spoke.

At the end, Maati took the belts from their spare robes and used them to make a line. He led Eiah, Eiah led Small Kae, and Small Kae led Large Kae. It was the obscene parody of a game he'd played as a child, and he walked the path back to the boat, calling out the obstacles he passed-log, step down, be careful of the mud. They left the sleeping tents and cooking things behind.

To Maati's surprise, the boat was already floating. The boatman and his second were moving over the craft with the ease and silence of long practice. When he called out, the boatman stopped and stared. The man's mouth gaped in surprise; the first strong reaction Maati had seen from him.

"No," the boatman said. "This wasn't the agreement. Where's the other one? The one with the babe?"

"I don't know," Maati called out. "She left in the night."

The second, guessing the boatman's mind, started to pull in the plank that bridged boat and sticky, dark mud. Maati yelped, dropped Eiah's lead, and lumbered out into the icy flow, grabbing at the retreating wood.

"We didn't contract for this," the boatman said. "Missing girls, blinded ones? No, there wasn't anything about this."

"We'll die if you leave us," Eiah said.

"That one can see after you," the boatman called, gesturing pointlessly at Maati, hip deep in river mud. It would have been comic if it had been less terrible.

"He's old and he's dying," Eiah said, and lifted her physician's satchel as if to prove the gravity of her opinion. "If he has an attack, you'll be leaving all the women out here to die."

The boatman scowled, looking from Maati to Eiah and back. He spat into the river.

"To the first low town," he said. "I'll take you that far, and no farther."

"That's all we can ask," Eiah said.

Maati thought he heard Small Kae mutter, I could ask more than that, but he was too busy pulling the plank into position to respond. It was a tricky business, guiding all three women into the boat, but Maati and the second managed it, soaking only Small Kae's hem. Maati, when at last he pulled himself onto the boat, was cold water and black mud from waist to boots. He made his miserable way to the stern, sitting as near the kiln as the boatman would allow. Eiah called out for him, following the sound of his voice until she sat at his side. The boatman and his second wouldn't speak to either of them or meet Maati's eyes. The second walked to the bow, manipulated something Maati couldn't make out, and called out. The boatman replied, and the boat shifted, its wheel clattering and pounding. They lurched out into the stream.

They were leaving Vanjit behind. The only poet in the world, her andat on her hip, alone in the forest with autumn upon them. What would she do? How would she live, and if she despaired, what vengeance would she exact upon the world? Maati looked at the dancing flames within the kiln.

"South would be faster," Maati said. The boatman glanced at him, shrugged, and sang out something Maati couldn't make out. The second called back, and the boatman turned the rudder. The sound of the paddle wheel deepened, and the boat lurched.

"Uncle?" Eiah asked.

"It's all fallen apart," Maati said. "We can't manage this from here. Tracking her through half the wilds south of Utani? We need men. We need help."

"Help," Eiah said, as if he'd suggested pulling down the stars. Maati tried to speak, but something equally sorrow and rage closed his throat. He muttered an obscenity and then forced the words free.

"We need Otah-kvo," Maati said.

"Will you go back?" Ana asked. "When this is over, I mean."

"It depends on what you mean by over," Idaan said. "You mean once my brother talks the poets into bringing back all the dead in Galt and Chaburi-Tan, rebuilding the city, killing the pirates, and then releasing the andat and drowning all their books? Because if that's what overlooks like, you're waiting for yesterday."

Otah shifted, pretending he was still asleep. The sun of late morning warmed his face and robes, the low chuckle of the river against the sides of the boat and the low, steady surge of the paddle wheel became a kind of music. It had been easy enough to drowse, but his body ached and pinched and complained despite three layers of tapestry between his back and the deck. If he rose, there would be conversations and planning and decisions. As long as he could maintain the fiction of unconsciousness, he could allow himself to drift. It passed poorly for comfort, but it passed.

"You can't think we'll be chasing these people for the rest of our lives, though," Ana said.

"I'm hoping we live longer than that, yes," Idaan said. "So. If this ends in a way that lets me return to him, then I will. I enjoy Cehmai's company.

"And he'll take you back in, even after you've been gone this long?"

Otah could hear the smile in Idaan's voice when she replied.

"He's overlooked worse from me. Why do you ask?"

"I don't know," Ana said. And then a moment later, "Because I'm trying to imagine it. What the world will be. I've never traveled outside Galt before, except one negotiation in Eymond. I keep thinking of going back to it. Acton. Kirinton. But it's not there anymore."