The Price of Spring (Long Price Quartet #4)(27)

The servant fell into a pose that accepted the command as law. It seemed a little overstated to Otah, but he'd grown accustomed to other people taking his role more seriously than he did himself. He refreshed himself, met with the representatives of two high families and a trading house with connections in Obar State and Bakta, and allowed himself to be swept along to the grand celebration. They would welcome their onetime invaders with music and gifts and intrigue and, he suspected, the equivalent weight of the palaces in wine and food.

The grandest hall of his palaces stood open on a wide garden of nightblooming plants. A network of whisperers stood on platforms, ready to repeat the ceremonial greetings and ritual out to the farthest ear. Otah didn't doubt that runners were waiting at the edge of the gardens to carry reports of the event even farther. The press of bodies was intense, the sound of voices so riotous that the musicians and singers set to wander the garden in serenade had all been sent home.

Otah sat on the black lacquer chair of the Khai Saraykeht, his spine straight and his hands folded as gracefully as he could manage. Cushions for Danat and Sinja and all of Otah's highest officers were arrayed behind him, perhaps two-thirds filled. The others were, doubtless, in the throng of silk and gems. There was nowhere else to be tonight. Not in Saraykeht. Perhaps not in the world.

Danat brought him a bowl of cold wine, but it was too loud to have any conversation beyond the trading of thanks and welcome. Danat took his place on the cushion at Otah's side. Farrer Dasin, Otah saw, had been given not a chair but a rosewood bench. Issandra and Ana were on cushions at his feet. All three looked overwhelmed about the eyes. Otah caught Issandra's gaze and adopted a pose of welcome, which she returned admirably.

He turned his attention to her husband. Farrer Dasin, stern and gray. Otah found himself wondering how best to approach the man about this new proposal. Though he knew better, he could not help thinking of Galt and his own cities as separate, as two empires in alliance. Farrer Dasin- indeed, most of the High Council-were sure to be thinking in the same ways. They were all wrong, of course, Otah included. They were marrying two families together, but more than that they were binding two cultures, two governments, two histories. His own grandchildren would live and die in a world unrecognizably different from the one Otah had known; he would be as foreign to them as Galt had been to him.

And here, on this clear, crowded night, the cycle of ages was turning. He found himself irrationally certain that Farrer Dasin could be persuaded to lead, or at least to sponsor, a campaign against the pirates at Chaburi-Tan. They had done this. They could do anything.

The signal came: flutes and drums in fanfare as the cloth lanterns rose to the dais. Otah stood up and the crowd before him went silent. Only the sound of a thousand breaths competed with the songbirds and crickets.

Otah gave his address in the tones appropriate to his place, practiced over the course of years. He found himself changing the words he had practiced. Instead of speaking only of the future, he also wanted to honor the past. He wanted every person there to know that in addition to the world they were making, there was a world-in some ways good, in others evil-that they were leaving behind.

They listened to him as if he were a singer, their eyes fastened to him, the silence complete apart from his own words in the hundred throats of the whisperers echoing out into the summer night. When he took the pose that would end his recitation, he saw tears on more than one face, and on the faces of more than one nation. He made his way to Farrer Dasin and formally invited the man to speak. The Galt stood, bowed to Otah as a gesture between equals, and moved forward. Otah returned to his seat with only the lightest twinge of trepidation.

"Are you sure you should let him speak?" Sinja murmured.

"There's no avoiding it," Otah replied, still smiling. "It will be fine."

The councilman cleared his throat, stood in the odd, awkward style of Galtic orators-one foot before the other, one hand in the air, the other clasping his jacket and spoke. All of Otah's worst fears were put at once to rest. It was as if Issandra had written the words and spoke them now through her husband's mouth. The joy that was children, the dark years that the war had brought, the emptiness of a world without the laughter of babes. And now, the darkness ended.

Otah felt himself begin to weep slightly. He wished deeply that Kiyan had lived to see this night. He hoped that whatever gods were more than stories and metaphors took word of it to her. The old Galt bowed his head to the crowd. The applause was like an earthquake or a flood. Otah rose and held his hand out to Danat as Fatter Dasin did the same with his daughter. The Emperor-to-be and his Empress meeting here for the first time. There would be songs sung of this night, Otah knew.

Ana was beautiful. Someone had seen to it that the gown she wore flattered her. Her face was painted in perfect harmony with her hair and the gold of her necklace. Danat wore a black robe embroidered with gold and cut to please the Galtic eye. Farrer and Otah stepped back, leaving their children to the center of the dais. Danat tried a smile. The girl's eyes fluttered; her cheeks were flushed under the paint, her breath fast.

"Danat Machi?" she said.

"Ana Dasin," he replied.

The girl took a deep breath. Her pretty, rodentlike face shone. When she spoke, her voice was strong and certain.

"I will never consent to lay down with you, and if you rape me, I will see the world knows it. My lover is Hanchat Dor, and I will have no other."