The Price of Spring (Long Price Quartet #4)(51)

"That's. . ." Otah began. "I don't know how that happened."

"I've been swimming through palace gossip ever since, trying to find what made the change, and the only thing half-plausible I've heard is that Ana Dasin met with Danat-cha, after which she went to a secondrate teahouse, drank more than was considered healthy, and came here. After talking with you, she went back to the old poet's house; the lanterns were all lit and they didn't stop burning until the sun rose."

"We didn't talk about the fleet," Otah said. "The subject never came up.

Sinja unstrung his sandals and slid his feet into the warm water of the bath.

"Why don't you tell me what was said," Sinja asked. "Because somehow, in the middle of it, you seem to have done something right."

Otah recounted the meeting, rising from his bath and drying himself as he did. Sinja listened for the most part, interrupting only to laugh when Otah told of apologizing to the girl.

"That likely had as much to do with it as anything," Sinja said. "A high councillor's daughter with the Emperor of the Khaiem calling himself down for disrespecting her. Gods, Otah-kya, with that low an opinion of your own dignity, I don't know how you managed to hold power all these years."

Otah paused, his hands shifting to a pose of query.

"You apologized to a Galtic girl."

"I'd treated her poorly," Otah said.

Sinja raised his hands. It wasn't a formal pose, but it carried the sense of surrender. Whatever it was Sinja didn't understand about the act, he clearly despaired of ever learning.

"Tell me the rest," Sinja said.

There wasn't a great deal more, but Otah told it. He pulled on his robes by himself. The servants could adjust them when the meeting ended. Sinja drank another bowl of tea. The water in the bath grew still and as clear as air.

"Well," Sinja said when he had finished, "that's unexpected all around."

"You think Ana-cha interceded for us."

"I can't think anything else," Sinja said. "She's an interesting girl, that one. Quick to anger and about as tough as boiled leather if confronted, but I think you made her feel for you. It was clever."

"I didn't mean it as a ploy," Otah said.

"That's likely what made the ploy work," Sinja said. "Issandra and Danat should hear more of it. You know that little conspiracy is beginning to slip its stitches?"

"What do you mean?"

"Danat's false lover. Shija Radaani? It seems your boy is starting to fall in love with her. Or if not love, at least bed. That was the other gossip this morning. Shija went to Danat's rooms last night and hasn't yet come out."

Otah tugged at the sleeves, his eyebrows trying to crawl up his forehead. Sinja nodded.

"Perhaps it's part of Issandra's plan?" Otah said.

"If it is, she's more of a gambler than I am."

"I'll look into it," Otah said.

"Don't bother. I've already sent word to all the parties who need to know."

"Meaning Issandra."

"And nobody else," Sinja said. "You worry about finding Maati and his poet girls. And your sister. Whatever you're doing, keep one eye toward her."

Otah was halfway to objecting, but Sinja only tilted his head. Idaan had killed Otah's brothers. His father. She was capable of casual slaughter, and everyone knew it. There was no point in pretending the world was something it wasn't. Otah took a pose that accepted the advice and promised his best effort.

In point of fact, Idaan was waiting in his rooms when he returned from his breakfast and the morning of audiences that he could not postpone. She wore a borrowed robe of blue silk as dark as a twilight sky. Her arms and shoulders were thicker than the robe allowed, the fabric straining. Her hair was pulled back in a gray tail as thick as a mane. She did not smile.

"Idaan-cha," he said.

"Brother," she replied.

He sat across from her. Her long face was cool and unreadable. She touched the papers and scrolls on the low table between them. The scents of cedar and apples should have made the room more comfortable.

"I'm not done," she said. "But I doubt a year and ten clerks would be enough to do a truly thorough job. With just the pair of us, and you off half the time at court, we can't really hope for more than a weighted guess."

"Then we should get to work," he said. "I'll have them bring us food and-"

"Before that," Idaan said. "Before that, there's something we should discuss. Alone."

Otah considered her eyes. They were the same black-brown as his own. Her jaw was softer, her mouth pale and lined. He could still see the girl she had been, whom he had drawn up from the deepest cells beneath Machi and given freedom where she'd expected slavery or death.

"I'll send the servants away," he said. She took a pose that offered thanks.

When he returned, she was pacing before the windows, her hands clasped behind her. The soft leather soles of her boots whispered against the wood. The city spread below them, and then the sea.

"I never thought about them," she said. "The andat? I never gave them half a thought when I was young. Stone-Made-Soft was something halfway between a trained hunting cat and another courtier in a world full of them. But they could destroy everything, couldn't they? If a poet bound something like Steam or Fog, all that ocean could vanish in a moment, couldn't it?"