The Price of Spring (Long Price Quartet #4)(50)

Her gaze shifted back to him. Whatever she had expected of him, it hadn't been this.

"I went to the wives of the councillors. There was very little time, and I thought they would have greater sway than the children. Perhaps they did. But I traded you as a trinket and didn't even think to ask you your thoughts and feelings. That should have been beneath me."

"I'm a woman," Ana said, her tone managing to be both dismissive and a challenge. I'm a woman, and we've always been traded, married off shifted as the tokens of power and alliance. Otah smiled, surprised to find himself possessed by genuine sorrow.

"Yes," he said. "You are. And with my sister, my wife, my daughter ... of all the men in the world, I should have known what that meant, and I forgot. I was in such a hurry to fix all the things I've done poorly that I did this poorly too."

She was frowning at him again as she had once before, on the journey to Saraykeht. He might have begun speaking in the language of birds or belching stones, to judge by her expression. He chuckled.

"It was not my intention to treat you with disrespect, Ana-cha. That I did so shames me. I accept your apology, and I hope that you will accept mine.

"I won't marry him," she said.

Otah drank the rest of his tea and set the empty bowl mouth-down on the lacquer tray.

"My son, you mean," Otah said. "You'll stay with this other man. Hanchat? No matter what the price or who's called on to pay it, no man deserves even your consideration? If it destroys your country and mine both, it would still be just."

"I ... I don't ..." the girl said. "That isn't. .

"I know. I understand. I'll say this. Danat is a good man. Better than I was at his age. But what you choose is entirely yours," Otah said. "If we've established anything, you and I, it's that."

"Not his?"

"Danat's decision is whether he'll marry you," Otah said with a smile. "Not the same thing at all."

He meant to leave her there. It seemed the right moment, and there was nothing more he could think to say. As he bent forward, preparing to rise, Ana spoke again.

"Your wife was a wayhouse keeper. You didn't put her aside. You never took a second wife. It was an insult to the whole body of the utkhaiem."

"It was," Otah said and stood with a grunt. There had been a time he could sit or stand in silence. "But I didn't marry her for the effect it had on other people. I did it because she was Kiyan, and there wasn't anyone else like her in the world."

"How can you ask Danat to obey tradition when you've broken it?" she demanded.

Otah considered her. She seemed angry again, but it seemed as much on Danat's behalf as her own.

"By asking," Otah said. "It's the best I can manage. I've damaged the world badly. The reasons I had for doing it seemed good at the time. I would like to be part of putting it back together again. With his help. With yours."

"I didn't break all this," Ana said, her chin stubborn. "Danat didn't either, for that matter. It's not fair that we should have to sacrifice whatever we want to unmake your mistakes."

"It isn't. But I can't repair this."

"Why do you think I can?"

"I have some faith in you both," he said.

By the time he made his way back to his rooms, Idaan had departed, leaving only a brief note saying that she intended to return in the morning and had some questions for him. Otah sat on a low couch by the fire grate, his eyes focused on nothing. He wondered what Eiah would have made of his conversation with the Galtic girl, and of whom he was truly asking forgiveness. His mind wandered, and he did not realize he had lain back until he woke to the cool light of dawn.

He was sitting in his private bath, the hot water easing the knots that sleeping away from his bed had tied in his back, when the servant announced Sinja's arrival. Otah considered the effort that rising, drying himself, and being dressed would require and had the man brought to him. Sinja, dressed in the simple canvas and leather of a soldier, looked more like a mercenary captain than the nearest advisor to an emperor. He squatted at the edge of the bath, looking down at Otah. The servant poured tea for the newcomer, took a ritual pose appropriate to a withdrawal from which he would have to be specifically summoned to return, and left. The door slid closed behind him, the waxed wooden runners as silent as breath.

"What's happened?" Otah asked, dreading the answer.

"I was going to ask the same thing. You spoke to Ana Dasin last night?"

"I did," Otah said.

Sinja sipped his tea before he spoke again.

"Well, I don't know what you said to her, but this morning, I had a runner from Farrer Dasin offering his ships and his men for Balasar's fleet. The general's meeting with him now to arrange the details."

Otah sat forward, the water swirling around him.

"Farrer-cha ..."

Sinja put down the bowl of tea.

"The man himself. Not Issandra, not one of his servants. The handwriting was his own. There weren't details, only the offer. And since he's been reticent and dismissive every time Balasar asked, it seemed that something had changed. If it's what it looks like, it will mean putting off departure for a few days, but when we get there, it will be a real fighting force."