The Price of Spring (Long Price Quartet #4)(40)

It was difficult to call the process to a halt, but in the end, it was Vanjit and Vanjit alone who would make the attempt. They might help her and advise her, but he allocated two full weeks in which the binding was hers and hers alone.

Low clouds came in the morning Eiah returned. They scudded in from the north on a wind cold as winter. Maati knew it wouldn't take. There were weeks of heat and sun to come before the seasons changed. And yet, there was a part of Maati's mind that couldn't help seeing the shift as an omen. And a positive one, he told himself. Change, the movement of the seasons, the proper order of the world: those were what he tried to see in the low, gray roof of the sky. Not the presentiment of barren winter.

"The news is strange," Eiah said as they unloaded her cart. Boxes of salt pork and raw flour, canisters of spice and hard cheese. "The Galts have fallen on Saraykeht like they owned it, but something didn't go well. I can't tell if my brother thought the girl was too ugly or she fell into a fit when she was presented, but something went badly. What I heard was early and muddled. I'll know better next time I go."

"Anything that hurts him helps us," Maati said. "So whatever it was, it's good."

"That was my thought," Eiah said, but her voice was somber. When he took a pose of query, she didn't answer it.

"How have things progressed here?" she asked instead.

"Well. Very well. I think Vanjit is ready."

Eiah stopped, wiping her sleeve across her forehead. She looked old. How many summers had she seen? Thirty? Thirty-one? Her eyes were deeper than thirty summers.

"When?" she asked.

"We were only waiting for you to come back," he said. Then, trying for levity, "You've brought the wine and food for a celebration. So tomorrow, we'll do something worth celebrating."

Or else something to mourn, he thought but did not say.

"By everything holy, don't tell Balasar," Sinja said. "He can't know about this."

"Why?" Idaan asked, sitting on the edge of the soldier's bed. "What would he do?"

"I don't know," Sinja said. "Something bloody and extreme. And effective."

"Stop," Otah said. "Just stop. I have to think."

But sitting there, head resting in his hands, clarity of mind wasn't coming to him easily. Idaan's story-her travels in the north after her exile, Cehmai's appearance on her doorstep, their rekindled love, and Maati's break with his fellow poet and then his return-had the feel of an old poem, if not the careful structure. If he hadn't had the pirates or Ana or her father or his own son or the conspiracy between Yalakeht and Obar State, or the incursions from the Westlands, he might have enjoyed the tale for its own sake.

But she hadn't brought it to him as a story. It was a threat.

"What role has Cehmai taken in this?" he asked.

"None. He wanted nothing to do with it. Or with my coming here, for that. I've left him to look after things until I've paid my debt to you. Then I'll be going home."

"Is it working?" Otah said at length. "Idaan-cha, did Maati say anything to suggest it was working?"

His sister took a pose of negation that held a sense of uncertainty.

"He came to Cehmai for help," Sinja said. "That means at least that he thinks he needs help."

"And Cehmai didn't agree to it," Idaan said. "He isn't helping. But he also doesn't want to see Maati hung. He cut Maati off before he told me who was backing him."

"What makes you think he has backing?"

"He said as much. Strong backing and an ear in the palaces whenever he wanted one," Idaan said. "Even if that overstates the truth, he isn't out hunting rabbits or wading through a rice field. Someone's feeding him. And how many people are there who might want the andat back in the world?"

"No end of them," Otah said. "But how many would think the thing was possible?"

Sinja opened a small wooden cabinet and took out a fluted bottle of carved bone. When he lifted out the stopper, the scent of wine filled the room. He asked with a gesture. Otah and Idaan accepted simultaneously, and with the same pose.

"The books are all burned," Otah said. "The histories are gone, the grammars are gone. I didn't think he could do this when he wrote to me before, I don't see that he could manage it now."

Sinja, stunned, overfilled one of the wine bowls, the red pooling on his table like spilled blood. Idaan hoisted a single eyebrow.

"He wrote to you before?" she said.

"It was years ago," Otah said. "I had a letter. A single letter. Maati said he was looking for a way to recapture the andat. He wanted my help. I sent a message back refusing."

"All apologies, Most High," Sinja said. He hadn't bothered to wipe up the spilled wine. "Why is this the first I'm hearing of it?"

"It came at a bad time," Otah said. "Kiyan was dying. It was hopeless. The andat are gone, and there's no force in the world that can bring them safely back."

"You're sure of that?" Idaan asked. "Because Maati-cha didn't think it was hopeless. The man is many things, but he isn't dim."

"It hardly matters," Sinja said. "Just the word that this is happening, and that-may all the gods keep it from happening you knew he was thinking of it. That you've known for years ..."