and for Liat's. But what would that be to him? He's not still wrapped in

crib cloths. How would I say that I wanted him safe because his mother

would worry for him?"

"And what about his father," Maati said, but it had none of the

inflection of a question. "You have an opinion, Most High, on what his

father would think."

Utah's belly sank. He dried his hand on his sleeve, only thinking

afterward that it was the motion of a commoner-a dockfront laborer or a

midwife's assistant or a courier. The Khai Machi should have raised an

arm, summoned a servant to dry his fingers for him on a cloth woven for

the purpose and burned after one use. His face felt mask-like and hard

as plaster. Ile took a pose that asked clarification.

"Is that the conversation we're having, then?" he asked. "We're talking

about fathers?"

"We're talking about sons," Maati said. "We're talking about you

scraping up all the disposable men that the utkhaiem can drag out of

comfort houses and slap sober enough to ride just so they can appease

the irrational whims of the Khai. Taking those men out into the field

because you think the armies of Galt are going to slaughter the Dal-kvo

is what we're talking about, and about taking Nayiit with you."

"You think I'm wrong?"

"I know you're right!" Maati was breathing hard now. His face was

flushed. "I know they're out there, with an army of veterans who are

perfectly accustomed to hollowing out their enemies' skulls for wine

bowls. And I know you sent Sinja-cha away with all the men we had who

were even half trained. If you come across the Galts, you will lose. And

if you take Nayiit, he'll die too. He's still a child. He's still

figuring out who he is and what he intends and what he means to do in

the world. And-"

"Maati. I know it would be safer for me to stay here. For Nayiit to stay

here. But it would only be safe for the moment. If we lose the Daikvo

and all he knows and the libraries he keeps, having one more safe winter

in Machi won't mean anything. And we might not even manage the winter."

hlaati looked away. Otah bowed his head and pretended not to have seen

the tears on his old friend's cheeks.

"I've only just found him again," Maati said, barely audible over the

splashing water. "I've only just found him again, and I don't want him

taken away."

"I'll keep him safe," Otah said.

Maati reached out his hand, and Otah let him lace his fingers with his

own. It wasn't an intimacy that they had often shared, and against his

will, Otah found something near to sorrow tightening his chest. He put

his free hand to Maati's shoulder. When Maati spoke, his voice was thick

and Otah no longer ignored his tears.

"We're his fathers, you and I," Maati said. "So we'll take care of him.

Won't we?"

"Of course we will," Otah said.

"You'll see him home safe."

"Of course."

Maati nodded. It was an empty promise, and they both knew it. Otah

smoothed a palm over llaati's thinning hair, squeezed his palm one last

time, and stood. He was moved to speak, but he couldn't find any words

that would say what he meant. Instead he turned and softly walked away.

His servants and attendants waited just outside the garden, attentive as

puppies whose mother has left them. Otah waved them away, as he always

had. And as he might not do again. The Master of Tides brought the

ledger that outlined the rest of his day, and the day after, and was

suddenly perfectly blank after that. In two days, he would he traveling

with what militia he could, and there was no point planning past that.

As the man spoke, Otah gently took the book from him, closed it, and

handed it hack. The Master of rides went silent, and no one followed

Otah when he walked away.

He strode through the palaces, ignoring the poses of obeisance and

respect that bloomed wherever he went. He didn't have time for the forms

and rituals. He didn't have time to respect the traditions he was about

to put his life in danger to protect. He wasn't entirely sure what that

said about him. He took the wide, marble stairs two at a time, rising up

from the lower palace toward his personal apartments. When he arrived,

Kivan wasn't there. Ile paced the rooms, plucking at the papers on the

wide table he'd had brought for him. Maps and histories and lists of

names. Numbers of men and of wagons and routes. It looked like a nest

for rats: the piled hooks, the scattered notes. It was vaguely

ridiculous, he thought as he read over the names of the houses and

families who had sworn him support. He was no more a general than he was

a tinsmith, and still, here he was, the man stuck with the job.

He didn't recall picking up the map. And yet there it was, in his hands.

His eyes traced the paths he and his men might take. He and the men

Maati had called disposable. It wasn't the first time he'd wished

Sinja-cha were still in the city, if only to have the dispassionate eye

of a man who had actually fought in the field. Otah was an amateur at

war. He had the impression that it was a poor field for amateurs. He

traded the map for the lists of men and studied it again as if there

were a cipher hidden in it. He didn't notice when Kiyan and Eiah

arrived. When he looked up from his papers, they were simply there.

His wife was calm and collected, though he could see the strain in the

thinness of her lips and the tightness of her jaw. Her hair was grayer

now than the image of her in his mind. Her face seemed older. For a

moment, he was hack in the wayhouse she'd taken over from her father,

years ago in ildun. He was in her common room, listening to a flute

player fumble through old tunes that everyone knew, and wondering if the

lovely fox-faced woman serving the wine had meant to touch his hand when

she poured. From such small things are lives constructed. Something of

his thought must have shown in his face, because her fea tures softened

and something near a blush touched her cheeks as Eiah lowered herself to

a couch and collapsed. He noticed that her usual array of rings and

jewels were gone; but for the quality of her robe, she could have been a

merchant's daughter.

"You look spent, Eiah-kya," Utah said. "Then, to Kiyan, "What's she been

doing? Carrying stones tip the towers? And what's happened to jewelry?"

"Physicians don't wear metalwork," she said, as if he'd asked something

profoundly stupid. "Blood gets caught in the settings."

"She's been with them all day," Kiyan said.

" We had a boy come in with a crushed arm," Eiah said, her eyes closed.

"It was all bloody and the skin scraped off. It looked like something

from a butcher's stall. I could see his knuckle hones. l)orin-cha