was no end of it because of course there wasn't. No more than a farmer

could stop planting fields, a fisherman stop casting nets, a tradesman

close up warehouses and stalls and spend long days singing in teahouses

or soaking in baths.

"I should be pleased," he said. "Please convey my gratitude to Farrercha

and his family."

The boy bowed his thanks rather than make a formal pose, then, blushing,

adopted a pose of gratitude and retreated back to the landsman's chair.

With a great shouting and the creak of wood and leather, the chair rose,

swung out over the water, and descended. Otah watched the boy vanish

over the rail, but didn't see him safely to the boat. The invitation was

a reminder of all that waited for him in his cabin below decks. Otah

took a long, deep breath, feeling the salt and the sunlight in his

lungs, and descended to the endless business of Empire.

Letters had arrived from Yalakeht outlining a conspiracy by three of the

high families of the utkhaiem still bitter from the war to claim

independence and name a Khai Yalakeht rather than acknowledge a Galtic

empress. Chaburi-Tan had suffered another attack by pirates. Though the

invaders had been driven off, it was becoming clear that the Westlands

mercenary company hired to protect the city was also in negotiation with

the raiders; the city's economy was on the edge of collapse.

There was some positive news from the palaces at Utani. Danat wrote that

the low farms around Pathai, Utani, and Lachi were all showing a good

crop, and the cattle plague they'd feared had come to nothing, so those

three cities, at least, wouldn't be starving for at least the next year.

Otah read until the servants brought his midday meal, then again for two

and a half hands. He slept after that in a suspended cot whose oiled

chains shifted with the rocking ship but never let out so much as a

whisper. He woke with the low sunlight of evening sloping in the cabin

window and the dull thunder of feet above him announcing the change of

watch as clearly as the drum and flute. He lay there for a moment, his

mind pleasantly emptied by his rest, then swung his legs over, dropped

to the deck, and composed two of the seven letters he would send ahead

of the massive, celebratory fleet.

WHEN, THE NEXT EVENING, HIS MASTER OF TIDES SENT TO REMIND HIM OF the

engagement he'd agreed to, Otah had indeed forgotten it. He allowed

servants to dress him in robes of emerald silk and cloth of gold, his

long, white hair to be bound back. His temples were anointed with oils

smelling of lavender and sandalwood. Decades now he had been Emperor or

else Khai Machi, and the exercise still struck him as ridiculous. He had

been slow to understand the value of ceremony and tradition. He still

wasn't entirely convinced.

The boat that bore him and his retinue across to the Dasins' ship, the

Avenger, was festooned with flowers and torches. Blossoms fell into the

water, floating there with the reflections of flame. Otah stood,

watching as the oarsmen pulled him toward the great warship. His footing

was as sure as a seaman's, and he was secretly proud of the fact. The

high members of the utkhaiem who had joined him-Auna Tiyan, Piyat Saya,

and old Adaut Kamau-all kept to their benches. The Avenger itself glowed

with candlelight, the effect lessened by the last remnant of the

glorious sunset behind it. When full darkness came, the ship would look

like something from a children's story. Otah tried to appreciate it for

what it would become.

The landsman's chair took each of them up in turn, Otah last out of

respect for his rank. The deck of the Avenger was as perfect and

controlled as any palace ballroom, any Khaiate garden, any high chamber

of the Galts. Chairs that seemed made of silver filigree and breath were

scattered over the fresh-scrubbed boards in patterns that looked both

careless and perfect. Musicians played reed organ and harp, and a small

chorus of singers sat in the rigging, as if the ship itself had joined

the song. Swinging down in the landsman's chair, Otah saw half-a-dozen

men he knew, including, his face upturned and amused, Balasar Gice.

Farrer Dasin stood with his wife Issandra and the young woman-the

girl-Ana. Otah let himself be drawn up from the chair by his servants,

and stepped forward to his hosts. Farrer stood stiff as cast iron, his

smile never reaching his eyes. Issandra's eyes still had the reddened

rims that Otah recalled, but there was also pleasure there. And her

daughter ...

Ana Dasin, the Galt who would one day be Empress of the Khaiem, reminded

Otah of a rabbit. Her huge, brown eyes and small mouth looked

perpetually startled. She wore a gown of blue as pale as a robin's egg

that didn't fit her complexion and a necklace of raw gold that did. She

would have seemed meek, except that there was something of her mother in

the line of her jaw and the set of her shoulders.

All he knew of her had come from court gossip, Balasar Gice's comments,

and the trade of formal documents that had flowed by the crate once the

agreements were made. It was difficult to believe that this was the girl

who had beaten her own tutor at numbers or written a private book of

etiquette that had been the scandal of its season. She was said to have

ridden horses from the age of four; she was said to have insulted the

son of an ambassador from Eddensea to his face and gone on to make her

case so clearly that the insulted boy had offered apology. She had

climbed out windows on ropes made from stripped tapestry, had climbed

the walls of the palaces of Acton dressed as an urchin boy, had broken

the hearts of men twice her age. Or, again, perhaps she had not. He had

heard a great deal about her, and knew nothing he could count as truth.

It was to her he made his first greeting.

"Ana-cha," he said. "I hope I find you well."

"Thank you, Most High," she said, her voice so soft, Otah halfwondered

whether he'd understood. "And you also."

"Emperor," Farrer Dasin said in his own language.

"Councilman Dasin," Otah said. "You are kind to invite me."

Farrer's nod made it clear that he would have preferred not to. The

singers above them reached the end of one song, paused, and launched

into another. Issandra stepped forward smiling and rested her hand on

Otah's arm.

"Forgive my husband," she said. "He was never fond of shipboard life.

And he spent seven years as a sailor."

"I hadn't known that," Otah said.

"Fighting Eymond," the councilman said. "Sank twelve of their ships.

Burned their harbor at Cathir."

Otah smiled and nodded. He wondered how his own history as a fisherman

would be received if he shared it now. He chose to leave the subject behind.

"The weather is treating us gently," Otah said. "We will be in Saraykeht