The Price of Spring (Long Price Quartet #4)(131)

"It would give away too much," Cehmai said. "Bringing them near enough to be hurt by the effort would also bring them near to succeed? ing.

The envoy looked at him silently. His placid eyes conveyed only a mild distrust.

"If you have a threat to make, feel free," Cehmai said. "It won't do you any good."

"Of course there's no threat, Cehmai-cha," the envoy said. "We're all on the same side here."

"Yes," the poetmaster said, rising from his chair with a pose that called the meeting to its close. "Try to keep it in mind."

His apartments were across the palaces. He made his way along the pathways of white and black sand, past the singing slaves and the fountain in the shape of the Galtic Tree that marked the wing devoted to the High Council. The men and women he passed nodded to him with deference, but few took any formal pose. A decade of joint rule had led to a thousand small changes in etiquette. Cehmai supposed it was smallminded of him to regret them.

Idaan was sitting on the porch of their entranceway, tugging at a length of string while a gray tomcat worried the other end. He paused, watching her. Unlike her brother, she'd grown thicker with time, more solid, more real. He must have made some small sound, because she looked up and smiled at him.

"How was the assassin's conference?" she asked.

The tomcat forgot his string and trotted up to Cehmai, already purring audibly. He stopped to scratch its fight-ragged ears.

"I wish you wouldn't call it that," he said.

"Well, I wish my hair were still dark. It is what it is, love. Politics in action."

"Cynic," he said as he reached the porch.

"Idealist," she replied, pulling him down to kiss him.

Far to the east, an early storm fell from clouds dark as bruises, a veil of gray. Cehmai watched it, his arm around his lover's shoulder. She leaned her head against him.

"How was the Emperor this morning?" he asked.

"Fine. Excited to see Issandra-cha again as much as anything about the caravan. I think he's more than half infatuated with her."

"Oh please," Cehmai said. "This will be his seventy-ninth summer? His eightieth?"

"And you won't still want me when you've reached the age?"

"Well. Fair point."

"His hands bother him most," Idaan said. "It's a pity about his hands."

Lightning flashed on the horizon, less that a firefly. Idaan twined her fingers with his and sighed.

"Have I mentioned recently how much I appreciate you coming to find me? Back when you were an outlaw and I was still a judge, I mean," she asked.

"I never tire of hearing it," Cehmai said.

The tomcat leaped on his lap, dug its claws into his robe twice, kneading him like bread dough, and curled up.

For even if the flowergrows from an ancient vine, the flowers of spring are themselves new to the world, untried and untested.

EIAH MOTIONED FOR OTAH TO SIT. SHE WAS GENTLE AS ALWAYS WITH HIS crippled hands. He sat back down slowly. The servants had brought his couches out to a wide garden, but with the coming sunset he'd have to be moved again. Eiah tried to impress on her father's servants that what he needed and what he wanted weren't always the same. She'd given up convincing Otah years earlier.

"How are you feeling?" she asked, sitting beside him. "You look tired."

"It was a long day," Otah said. "I slept well enough, but I can never stay in bed past dawn. When I was young, I could sleep until midday. Now that I have the time and no one would object, I'm up with the birds. Does that seem right to you?"

"The world was never fair."

"Truth. All the gods know that's the truth."

She took his wrists as if it were nothing more than the contact of father and daughter. Otah looked at her impatiently, but he suffered it. She closed her eyes for a moment, feeling the subtle differences of his pulses.

"I heard you woke confused again," she said. "You were calling for someone called Muhatia-cha?"

"I had a dream. That's all," Otah said. "Muhatia was my overseer back when I was young. I dreamed that I was late for my shift. I needed to get to the seafront before he docked my pay. That was all. I'm not losing my mind, love. My health, maybe, but not my mind. Not yet."

"I didn't think you were. Turn here. Let me look at your eyes. Have the headaches come back?"

"No," Otah said, and she knew by his voice he was lying. It was time to stop asking details. There was only so much physician's attention her father would permit. She sat back on the couch, and he let out a small, satisfied breath.

"You saw Issandra Dasin?" she asked.

"Yes, yes. She spent the better part of the afternoon here," Otah said. "The things they've done with Chaburi-Tan are amazing. I was thinking I might go myself. Just to see them."

"It would be fascinating," Eiah agreed. "I hear Farrer-cha's doing well?"

"He's made more out of that city than I could have. But then I was never particularly brilliant with administration. I had other skills, I suppose," Otah said. "Enough about that. Tell me about your family. How is Parit-cha? And the girls?"

Eiah let herself be distracted. Parit was well, but he'd been kept away from their apartments three nights running by a boy who worked for House Laarin who'd broken his leg falling off a wall. It had been a bad break, and the fever hadn't gone down quickly enough to suit anyone. It seemed as if the boy would live, and they were both happy to call that a success. Of Otah's granddaughters, Mischa was throwing all her free time into learning to dance every new form that came in from Galt, and wearing the dance master's feet raw in the effort. Gaber had talked about nothing besides the steam caravan for weeks, but Eiah suspected it was more Calin's enthusiasm than her own. Gaber assumed that Calin rose with the sun and set with the moon.