some people set themselves above others."

The air was suddenly heavy. Maati stood, unsure what he was about to

say. Irit's sudden chirp saved him.

"Oh, it isn't much. No need to fuss about it. I'll be happy to do the

thing. No, Vanjit-cha, don't get up. If you don't feel up to doing it,

you ought not strain yourself."

The last words rose at the end as if they were a question. Maati nodded

as if something had been decided, then walked out of the hall. Vanjit

followed without speaking, and took herself and her small burden down a

side hall and out to the gardens. Maati could hear the voices of the

others as they cleaned away the remnants of the small, fallen birds.

They met as they always did, sitting in a rough circle and discussing

the fine points of binding the andat. There was no sign of the earlier

conflict; Vanjit and Ashti Beg treated each other with their customary

kindness and respect. Eiah explained the difference between accident,

intention, and consequence of design to Irit and Small Kae and, Maati

thought, learned by the experience. By the warm, soft light of the

lanterns, they might have been talking of anything. By the end, there

was even real laughter.

It should have been a good evening, but as he went back toward his bed,

Maati was troubled and couldn't quite say why. It had to do with

Otah-kvo and Eiah, Vanjit and Clarity-of-Sight. The Galts and his own

unsettling if unsurprising insight into the nature of time and decay.

He opened his book, reading his own handwriting by the light of the

night candle. Even the quality of his script had changed since Vanjit

had sharpened his vision. The older entries had been ... not sloppy,

never that. But not so crisp as he was capable of now. It had been an

old man's handwriting. Now it was something different. He picked up his

pen, touched nib to ink, but found nothing coherent to say.

He wiped the pen clean and put the book aside. Somewhere far to the

south, Otah was dining with the men who had destroyed the Khaiem. He was

sleeping on a bed of silk and drinking wine from bowls of beaten gold,

while here in the dry plains his own daughter prepared to risk her life

to make right what he had done.

What they had done together. Otah, Cehmai, and Maati himself. One was

crawling into bed with the enemy, another turning away and hiding his

face. Only Maati had even tried to make things whole again. Vanjit's

success meant it had not been wasted effort. Eiah's fear reminded him

that it was not yet finished.

He made his way down the corridors in the near darkness. Only candles

and a half-moon lit his way. He was unsurprised to see Vanjit sitting

alone in the gardens. Unlike the courtyard where they had spoken before,

the gardens were bleak and bare. They had come too late to plant this

season. Eiah's occasional journeys to Pathai provided food enough, and

they didn't have the surplus of spare hands that had once held up the

school. The wilderness encroached on the high stone walls here, young

trees growing green and bold in plots where Maati had sown peas and

harvested pods.

She heard him approaching and glanced back over her shoulder. She

shifted, adjusting her robes, and Maati saw the small, black eyes of the

andat appear from among the folds of cotton. She had been nursing it. It

shocked him for a moment, though on reflection it shouldn't have. The

andat had no need of milk, of course, but it was a product of Vanjit's

conceptions. Stone-Made-Soft had been involved with the game of stones.

Three-Bound-as-One had been fascinated by knots. The relationship of

poet and andat was modeled on mother and child as it had never been

before in all of history. The nursing was, Maati supposed, the physical

emblem of it.

"Maati-kvo," she said. "I didn't expect anyone to be here."

He took a pose of apology, and she waved it away. In the cold light, she

looked ghostly. The andat's eyes and mouth seemed to eat the light, its

skin to glow. Maati came nearer.

"I was worried, I suppose," he said. "It seemed ... uncomfortable at

dinner this evening."

"I'd been thinking about that," Vanjit said. "It's hard for them. Ashti

Beg and the others. I think it must be very hard for them."

"How do you mean?"

She shrugged. The andat in her lap gurgled to itself, considering its

own short, pale fingers with fascination.

"They have all put in so much time, so much work. Then to see another

woman complete a binding and gain a child, all at once. I imagine it

must gnaw at her. It isn't that she intends to be rude or cruel. Ashti

is in pain, and she lashes out. I knew a dog like that once. A cart had

rolled over it. Snapped its spine. It whined and howled all night. You

would have thought it was begging aid, except that it tried to bite

anyone who came near. Ashti-cha is much the same."

"You think so?"

"I do," she said. "You shouldn't think ill of her, Maati-kvo. I doubt

she even knows what she's doing."

He folded his arms.

"I can't think it's simple for you either," he said. He had the sense of

testing her, though he couldn't have said quite how. Vanjit's face was

as clear and cloudless as the sky.

"It's perfect," she said. "Nowhere near as difficult as I'd thought.

Only he makes me tired. No more than any mother with a new babe, though.

I've been thinking of names. My cousin was named Ciiat, and he was about

this old when the Galts came."

"It has a name already," Maati said. "Clarity-of-Sight."

"I meant a private name," Vanjit said. "One for just between the two of

us. And you, I suppose. You are as near to a father as he has."

Maati opened his mouth, then closed it. Vanjit's hand slipped into his

own, her fingers twined around his. Her smile seemed so genuine, so

innocent, that Maati only shook his head and laughed. They remained

there for the space of ten long breaths together, Vanjit sitting, Maati

standing at her side, and the andat, shifting impatiently in her lap.

"Once Eiah's bound Wounded," Maati said, "we can all go back."

Vanjit made a small sound, neither cough nor gasp nor chuckle, and

released Maati's hand. He glanced down. Vanjit smiled up at him.

"That will be good," she said. "This must all be hard for her as well. I

wish there was something we could do to ease things."

"We'll do what can be done," Maati said. "It will have to be enough."

Vanjit didn't reply, and then raised her arm, pointing to the horizon.