before summer's end."

He could see in all their faces that it had been the wrong thing. The

father's jaw tightened, his nostrils flared. The mother's smile lost its

sharp corners and her eyes grew sad. Ana looked away.

"Come see what they've done with the kitchens, Most High," Issandra

said. "It's really quite remarkable."

After a short tour of the ship, Issandra released him, and Otah made his

way to the dais that was intended for him. Other guests arrived from

Galtic ships and the utkhaiem, each new person greeting the councilman

and his family, and then coming to Otah. He had expected to see a

division among them: the Galts resentful and full of barely controlled

rage much like Fatter Dasin, and Otah's own people pleased at the

prospects that his treaty opened for them. Instead, he saw as the guests

came and went, as the banquet was served, as priests of Galt intoned

their celebratory rites, that opinions were more varied and more complex.

At the opening ceremony, the divisions were clear. Here, the robes of

the Khaiem, there the tunics and gowns of the Galts. But very quickly,

the people on the deck began to shift. Small groups fell into

discussion, often no more than two or three people. Otah's practiced eye

could pick out the testing smile and almost flirtatious laughter of men

on the verge of negotiation. And as the evening progressed-candles

burning down and being replaced, slow courses of wine and fish and meat

and pastry making their way from the very cleverly built kitchens to the

gently shifting deck-as many Galts as utkhaiem had the glint in their

eyes that spoke of sensed opportunity. Larger groups formed and broke

apart, the proportions of their two nations seeming almost even. Otah

felt as if he'd stirred a muddy pool and was now seeing the first

outlines of the new forms that it might take.

And yet, some groups were unmoved. Two clusters of Galts never budged or

admitted in anyone wearing robes, but also a fair-sized clot of people

of the cities of the Khaiem sat near the far rail, their backs to the

celebration, their conversation almost pointedly relying on court poses

too subtle for foreigners to follow.

Women, Otah noted. The people of his nation whose anger was clearest in

their bodies and speech tended to be women. He thought of Eiah, and cool

melancholy touched his heart. Trafficking in wombs, she would have

called it. To her, this agreement would be the clearest and most nearly

final statement that what mattered about the women of the cities-about

his own daughter-was whether they could bear. He could hear her voice

saying it, could see the pain in the way she held her chin. He murmured

his counterarguments, as if she were there, as if she could hear him.

It wasn't a turning away, only an acknowledgment of what they all knew.

The woman of the Khaiem were just as clever, just as strong, just as

important as they had ever been. The brokering of marriage-and yes,

specifically marriage bent on producing children-was no more an attack

on Eiah and her generation than building city militias or hiring

mercenary companies or any of the other things he had done to hold the

cities safe had been.

It sounded patronizing, even to him.

There had to be some way, he thought, to honor and respect the pain and

the loss that they had suffered without forfeiting the future. He

remembered Kiyan warning him that some women-not all, but somewho could

not bear children went mad from longing. She told stories of babies

being stolen, and of pregnant women killed and the babes taken from

their dying wombs.

Wanting could be a sickness, his wife had said. He remembered the night

she'd said it, where the lantern had been, how the air had smelled of

burning oil and pine boughs. He remembered his daughter's expression at

hearing the phrase, like she'd found expression for something she'd

always known, and his own sense of dread. Kiyan had tried to warn him of

something, and it had to do with the backs of the people now at the

rails, turned away from the Galts and the negotiated future forming

behind them. Eiah had known. Otah felt he had still only half-grasped

it. Fatter Dasin, he thought, might see it more clearly.

"It appears to be going quite well, wouldn't you say, Most High?"

Balasar Gice stood beside the dais, his hands in a pose of greeting. The

cool night air or else the wine had touched his cheeks with red.

"Does it? I hope so," Otah said, smoothing away his darker thoughts. "I

think there are more trade agreements than wars brewing tonight. It's

hard to know"

"There's hope," Balasar said. And then, his voice growing reflective,

"There's hope, and that's actually quite new. I hadn't realized it had

become quite such a rare thing, these last few years."

"How nice," Otah said more sharply than he'd intended. Balasar looked at

him more closely, and Otah waved the concern away. "I'm old and tired.

And I've eaten more Galtic food than I could have wanted in a lifetime.

It's astounding you people ever got up from your tables."

"You aren't expected to finish every dish," Balasar said. "Ah, I think

the entertainment has begun."

Otah looked up. Servants and sailors were silently moving across the

deck like a wind over the water. The glow of candles lessened and the

scent of spent wicks filled the air as a stage appeared as if conjured

across the deck from Otah's dais. The singers that had hung from the

rigging had apparently made their way down, because they rose now,

taking their places. Servants placed three more chairs on the dais at

Otah's side, and Councilman Dasin and his family took their seats.

Fatter smelled prodigiously of distilled wine and sat the farthest from

him, his wife close at his side, leaving Ana nearest to Otah.

The singers bowed their heads for a moment, then the low sounds of their

voices began to swell. Otah closed his eyes. It was a song he knewa

court dance from the Second Empire. The harmonies were perfect and rich,

sorrowful and joyous. This, he understood, was a gift. Galtic voices

raised in a song of an empire that was not their own. He let himself be

carried by it, and when the voices fell again, the last throbbing notes

fading to silence, he was among the first to applaud. Otah was surprised

to find tears in his eyes.

Ana Dasin, at his side, was also weeping. When he met her eyes, she

looked down, said something he couldn't hear, and walked briskly away.

He watched her descend the stairs below decks as the singers began

another, more boisterous song. Otah's gaze flickered to Issandra. In the

dim light, the subtle signs of age were softened. He saw for a moment

who she had been as a younger woman. She met his eyes with a profound

weariness. Fatter had his hand on her arm, holding her gently to him,