Most of them have been steeping in the shame of it since the day it

happened. They are less than men, and in their minds, it's because of

the Khaiem. If someone had humiliated and crippled you, how would you

feel about marrying your Eiah to him?"

"And none of them will see sense?"

"Some will," Balasar said, his gaze steady as stone. "Some of them think

what you've suggested is the best hope we have. Only not enough to win

the vote."

"So I have a week. How do I convince them?" Otah asked.

Balasar's silence was eloquent.

"Well," Otah said. And then, "Can I offer you some particularly strong

distilled wine?"

"I think it's called for," Balasar said. "And you'd mentioned something

about a fire against the cold."

Otah hadn't known, when the great panoply of Khaiate ships had come with

himself at the front, what his relationship with Balasar Gice would be.

Perhaps Balasar had also been uneasy, but if so it had never shown. The

former general was an easy man to like, and the pair of them had

experienced things-the profound sorrow of commanders seeing their

miscalculations lead loyal men to the slaughter, the eggshell diplomacy

of a long winter in close quarters with men who had been enemies in

autumn, the weight that falls on the shoulders of someone who has

changed the face of the world. There were conversations, they

discovered, that only the two of them could have. And so they had become

at first diplomats, then friends, and now something deeper and more

melancholy. Fellow mourners, perhaps, at the sickbeds of their empires.

The night wore on, the moon rising through the clouds, the fire in its

grate flickering, dying down to embers before being fed fresh coal and

coming to life again. They talked and they laughed, traded jokes and

memories. Otah was aware, as he always was, of a distant twinge of guilt

at enjoying the company of a man who had killed so many innocents in his

war against the Khaiem and the andat. And as always, he tried to set the

guilt aside. It was better to forget the ruins of Nantani and the bodies

of the Dai-kvo and his poets, the corpses of Otah's own men scattered

like scythed wheat and the smell of book paste catching fire. It was

better, but it was difficult. He knew he would never wholly succeed.

He was more than half drunk when the conversation turned to his

unfinished letter, still on his desk.

"It's pathetic, I suppose," Otah said, "but it's the habit I've made."

"I don't think it's pathetic," Balasar said. "You're keeping faith with

her. With what she was to you, and what she still is. That's admirable."

"Tends toward the maudlin, actually," Otah said. "But I think she'd

forgive me that. I only wish she could write back. There were things

she'd understand in an instant that I doubt I'd ever have come to. If

she were here, she'd have found a way to win the vote."

"I can't see that," Balasar said ruefully.

Otah took a pose of correction that spilled a bit of the wine from his bowl.

"She had a different perspective," Otah said. "She was ... she ..."

Otah's mind shifted under him, struggling against the fog. There was

something. He'd just thought it, and now it was almost gone again.

Kiyan-kya, his beloved wife, with her fox-sharp face and her way of

smiling. Something about the ways that the world she'd seen were

different from his own experience. The way talking with her had been

like living twice...

"Otah?" Balasar said, and Otah realized it wasn't the first time.

"Forgive me," Otah said, suddenly short of breath. "Balasar-cha, I think

... will you excuse me? There's something I need to ..."

Otah put his wine bowl on the desk and walked to the door of his rooms.

The corridors of the suite were dark, only the lowest of servants still

awake, cleaning the carpets and polishing the latches. Eyes widened and

hands fluttered as Otah passed, but he ignored them. The scribes and

translators were housed in a separate building across a flagstone

square. Otah passed the dry fountain in its center before the thought

that had possessed him truly took form. He had to restrain himself from

laughing.

The chief scribe was so dead asleep that Otah had to shake the woman

twice. When consciousness did come into her eyes, her face went pale.

She took a pose of apology that Otah waved away.

"How many of your best calligraphers can work in Galtic?"

"All of them, Most High," the chief scribe said. "It's why I brought them."

"How many? How many can we put to work now, tonight?"

"Ten?" she said as if it were a question.

"Wake them. Get them to their desks. Then I'll need a translator in my

apartments. Or two. Best get two. An etiquette master and a trade

specialist. Now. Go, now! This won't wait for morning."

On the way back to his rooms, his heart was tripping over, but his mind

was clearing, the alcohol burning off in the heat of his plan. Balasar

was seated where Otah had left him, an expression of bleary concern on

his face.

"Is all well?"

"All's excellent," Otah said. "No, don't go. Stay here, Balasar-cha. I

have a letter to write, and I need you."

"What's happened?"

"I can't convince the men on the council. You've said as much. And if I

can't talk to the men who wield the power, I'll talk to the women who

wield the men. Tell me there's a councilman's wife out there who doesn't

want grandchildren. I defy you to."

"I don't understand," Balasar said.

"I need a list of the names of all the councilmen's wives. And the men

of the convocation. Theirs too. Perhaps their daughters if ... Well,

those can wait. I'm going to draft an appeal to the women of Galt. If

anyone can sway the vote, it's them."

"And you think that would work?" Balasar asked, incredulity in his

expression.

In the event, Otah's letter seemed for two full days to have no effect.

The letters went out, each sewn with silk thread and stamped with Otah's

imperial seal, and no word came back. He attended the ceremonies and

meals, the entertainments and committee meetings, his eyes straining for

some hint of change like a snow fox waiting for the thaw. It was only on

the morning of the third day, just as he was preparing to send a fresh

wave of appeals to the daughters of the families of power, that his

visitor was announced.