in seeing them together, seeing the simple, powerful knowing in Otah's

wife's expression, that Liat understood the depth of her error in

letting Nayiit come.

And with that came her understanding of how it could not he undone. Her

first impulse had been to send him away at once, to hide him again the

way a child caught with a forbidden sweet might stuff it away into a

sleeve as if unseen now might somehow mean never seen at all. Only the

years of running her house had counseled her otherwise. The situation

was what it was. Attempting any subterfuge would only make the Khai

wary, and his unease might mean Nayiit's death. As long as her son

lived, he posed a threat to Danat, and she knew enough to understand

that a babe held from its first breath meant something that a man

full-grown never could. If Utah were forced to choose, Liat had no

illusions what that choice would be.

And so she prepared herself, prepared her arguments and her negotiating

strategies, and told herself it would end well. They were all together,

allies against the Galts. 'T'here would be no need. She told herself

there would be no need.

At her apartments, no candles were lit, but a fire burned in the grate:

old pine, rich with sap that popped and hissed and filled the air with

its scent. When she entered, her son looked up from the flames and took

a pose of welcome, gesturing to a divan beside him. Liat hesitated,

surprised by a sudden embarrassment, then gathered her sense of humor

and sat beside him. He smelled of wine and smoke, and his robes hung as

loose on him as her own did on her.

"You've been to the teahouses," Liat said, trying to keep any note of

disapproval from her voice.

"You've been with my father," he replied.

"I've been with Maati," Liat said as if it were an agreement and not a

correction.

Nayiit leaned forward and took up a length of iron, prodding the burning

logs. Sparks rose and vanished like fireflies.

"I haven't been able to see him," Nayiit said. " WN'e've been here weeks

now, and he hasn't come to speak with me. And every time I go to the

library he's gone or he's with you. I think you're trying to keep us

from each other."

Liat raised her eyebrows and ran her tongue across the inside of her

teeth, weighing the coppery taste that sprang to her mouth, thinking

what it meant. She coughed.

"You aren't wrong," she said at last. "I'm not ready for it. Maati's not

who he was back then."

"So instead of letting us face each other and see what it is we see,

you've decided to start up an affair with him and take all his time and

attention?" "There was no rancor in his voice, only sadness and

amusement. "It doesn't seem the path of wisdom, Mother."

"Well, not when you say it that way," Liat said. "I was thinking of it

as coming to know him again before the conflict began. I did love him,

you know."

"And now?"

"And still. I still love him, in my fashion," Liat said, her voice

rueful. "I know I'm not what he wants. I'm not the person he wants me to

be, and I doubt I ever have been, truly. But we enjoy each other. "There

are things we can say to each other that no one else would understand.

They weren't there, and we were. And he's such a little boy. He's

carried so much and been so disappointed, and there's still the

possibility in him of this ... JOY. I can't explain it."

"If I ask you as a favor, will you let me know him as well? We may not

actually fight like pit dogs if you let us in the same room together.

And if there's conflict at all, it's between us. Not you."

Liat opened her mouth, closed it, shook her head. She sighed.

"Of course," she said. "Of course, I'm sorry. I've been an old hen, and

I'm sorry for it, but ... I know it's not a trade. We aren't

negotiating, not really. But Nayiit-kya, you can't say you haven't been

with a woman since we've cone here. You didn't choose to go south, even

when I asked you to. Sweet, is it so had at home?"

"Bad?" he said, speaking slowly. As if tasting the word. "I don't know.

No. Not bad. Only not good. And yes, I know I haven't been keeping to my

own bed. Do you think my darling wife has been keeping to hers?"

Liat's mind turned, searching for words, making sense as best she could

of what he had asked and what he had meant by it. It was true enough

that Tai had come into the world at an odd time, but he was a first

child, and wombs weren't made to he certain. She rushed through her

memory, looking for signs she might have missed, suggestions back in

their lives in Saraykeht that would have pointed at some venomous

question, and slowly she began, if not to understand, then at least to

guess.

"You think he isn't yours," she said. "You think Tai is another man's

child."

"Nothing like that," Nayiit said. "It's only that you can make a child

from love or from anger. Or inattention. Or only from not knowing what

better to do. A baby isn't proof of anything between the father and

mother beyond a few moments' pressure."

"It isn't the child's fault."

"No, I suppose not," Nayiit said.

"'t'his is why you came, then? To Nantani, and then up here? To he away

from them?"

"I came because I wanted to. Because it was the world, and when was I

going to see it again? Because you wanted someone to carry your bags and

wave off dogs. It was only partly that I couldn't stay. And then when

you were going to see him, NIaati-cha ... How could I not come along for

that too? The chance to see my father again. I remember him, you know? I

do, from when I was small, I remember a day we were all in a small but.

'T'here was an iron stove, and it was raining, and you were singing

while he bathed me. I don't know when that was, I can't put a time on

it. But I remember his face."

"You would have known him, if you'd seen him in passing. You'd have

known who he was."

Nayiit took a pose of affirmation. He pursed his lips and chuckled ruefully.

"I don't know what it is to be a father. I'm only working from-"

"Nayiit-kya?" came a voice from the shadows behind them. A soft,

feminine voice. "Is everything well?"

She stepped toward the light. A young woman, twenty summers, perhaps as

many as twenty-two. She wore bedding tied around her waist, her breasts

bare, her hair still wild from the pillows.

"Jaaya-cha, this is my mother. Mother, Jaaya Biavu."

The girl blanched, then flushed. She took a pose of welcome, not