The Price of Spring (Long Price Quartet #4)(118)

"She's at the palaces, and there's no point in rushing over there like a man on fire. She can see everything, and she knows to watch. We could no more take her by surprise than fly."

Maati took a deep breath and turned back along the path they'd just come. There was no reason to follow Otah's route now, and Maati wanted to sit down for a while, perhaps drink a bowl of wine, perhaps speak to Eiah for a time. He wanted to understand better why the dread in his breast was mixed with elation, the fear with pleasure.

"What does she want?" Danat asked, trotting to catch up to Maati.

"I suppose that depends upon how you look at things," Maati said. "In the greater scheme, she wants what any of us do. Love, a family, respect. In the smaller, I believe she wants to see me beg before I die. The odd thing is that even if she had that, it wouldn't bring her any last? ing peace.

"I don't understand."

Maati stopped. It occurred to him that if he had taken the wrong pose, made the wrong decision just now, he and the boy would be trying to find their way back to camp by smell. He put a hand on Danat's shoulder.

"I've asked Vanjit to meet with me tonight. She's agreed, but it can only be the two of us," Maati said. "I believe that once it's done I'll be able to tell you whether the world is still doomed."

"No," Otah said. "Absolutely not."

"All respect," Maati said. "You may be the Emperor, but this isn't your call to make. I don't particularly need your permission, and Vanjit's got no use for it at all."

"I can have you kept here."

"You won't," Maati said. The poet was sure of himself, Otah thought, because he was right.

When Danat and Maati had returned early, he had known that something had happened. The quay they had adopted as the center of the search had been quiet since the end of the afternoon meal. Ana and Eiah sat in the shadow of a low stone wall, sleeping or talking when Eiah wasn't going through the shards of her ruined binding, arranging the shattered wax in an approximation of the broken tablets. The boatman and his second had taken apart the complex mechanism connecting boiler to wheel and were cleaning each piece, the brass and bronze, iron and steel laid out on gray tarps and shining like jewelry. The voices of the remaining armsmen joined with the low, constant lapping of the river and the songs of the birds. At another time, it might have been soothing. Otah, sitting at his field table, fought the urge to pace or shout or throw stones into the water. Sitting, racking his brain for details of a place he'd lived three decades ago, and pushing down his own fears both exhausted him and made him tense. He felt like a Galtic boiler with too hot a fire and no release; he could feel the solder melting at his seams.

If they had followed his plan, Danat and Maati would have returned to the quay from a path that ran south along the river. They came from the west, down the broad stone steps. Danat held a naked blade forgotten in his hand, his expression set and unnerved. Maati, walking more slowly, seemed on the verge of collapse, but also pleased. Otah put down his pen.

"You've found her?"

"She's found us," Maati said. "I think she's been watching us since we stepped off the boat."

The armsmen clustered around them. Eiah and Ana rose to their feet, touching each other for support. Maati lumbered into the center of the quay as if it were a stage and he was declaiming a part. He told them of the encounter, of Vanjit's appearance, of the andat at her side. He took the poses he'd adopted and mimicked Vanjit's. In the end, he explained that Vanjit would see him-would see only him-and that it was to happen that evening.

"She doesn't know you," Maati continued, "and what little she does know, she doesn't have a use for. To her, you're the man who turned against his own people. And I am the teacher who gave her the power of a small god."

"And then plotted to kill her," Otah said, but he knew this battle was lost. Maati was right: neither of them had the power here. The poet and her andat were their masters whether he liked it or not. She could dictate any terms she wished, and Maati was important to her in a way that Otah himself was not.

It was a meeting with the potential to end the world or save it. He would have given it to a stranger before he trusted it to Maati.

"What are you going to tell her?" Ana asked. Her voice sounded hungry. Weeks-months now-Ana had been living in shadows, and here was the chance to make herself whole.

"I'll apologize," Maati said. "I'll explain that the andat manipulated us, playing on our fears. Then, if Vanjit will allow it, I'll have Eiah brought so that she can offer her apologies as well."

Eiah, standing where Otah could see her face, lifted her chin as if something had caught her attention. Something ghosted across her facealarm or incredulity-and then was gone. She became a statue of herself, a mask. She had no more faith in Maati than he did. And, to judge from her silence, no better idea of what to do either.

"She has killed thousands of innocent people," Otah said. "She's crippled women she had numbered among her friends. Are you sure that apologizing is entirely appropriate?"

"What would you have me do?" Maati asked, his hands taking a pose that was both query and challenge. "Should I go to her swinging accusations? Should I tell her she's not safe and never will be?"

The voice that answered was Idaan's.