Mother. There's no reason that I shouldn't."

You have a wife, she didn't say. You have a child. You have a city to

defend, and it's Saraykeht. You'll be killed, and I cannot lose you. The

Gaits have terrorized every nation in the world that didn't have the

andat for protection, and Otah has a few armsmen barely competent to

chase down thieves and brawl in the alleys outside comfort houses.

"Are you sure?" she said.

She sat now, looking out over the wide, empty air as the mark grew

slowly smaller. As her son left her. Otah had managed more men than

she'd imagined he would. At the last moment, the utkhaiem had rallied to

him. Three thousand men, the first army fielded in the cities of the

Khaiem in generations. Untried, untested. Armed with whatever had come

to hand, armored with leather smith's aprons. And her little boy was

among them.

She wiped her eyes with the cloth of her sleeve.

"Hurry," she said, pressing the word out to the distant men. Get the

Dal-kvo, retrieve the poets and their books, and come back to me. Before

they find you, come back to me.

The sun had traveled the width of two hands together before she stepped

out onto the platform and signaled the men far below her to bring her

down. The chains clattered and the platform lurched, but Liat only held

the rail and waited for it to steady in its descent. She knew she would

not fall. That would have been too easy.

She had done a poor job of telling Maati. Perhaps she'd assumed Nayiit

would already have told him. Perhaps she'd been trying to punish Maati

for beginning it all. It had been the next night, and she had accepted

Maati's invitation to dinner in the high pavilion. Goose in honey

lacquer, almonds with cinnamon and raisin sauce, rice wine. Not far

away, a dance had begun-silk streamers and the glow of torches, the

trilling of pipes and the laughter of girls drunk with flirtation. She

remembered it all from the days after Saraykeht had fallen. There was

only so long that the shock of losing the andat could restrain the

festivals of youth.

The young are blind and stupid, she'd said, and their breasts don't sag.

It's the nearest thing they've got to a blessing.

Maati had chuckled and tried to take her hand, but she couldn't stand

the touch. She'd seen the surprise in his expression, and the hurt. That

was when she'd told him. She'd said it lightly, acidly, fueled by her

anger and her despair. She had been too wrapped up in herself to pay

attention to Nlaati's shock and horror. It was only later, when he'd

excused himself and she was walking alone in the dim paths at the edge

of the dance, that she understood she'd as much as accused him of

sending Nayiit to his death.

She had gone by Maati's apartments that night and again the next day,

but he had gone and no one seemed to know where. By the time she found

him, he had spoken with Otah and Nayiit. He accepted her apology, he

cradled her while they both confessed their fears, but the damage had

been done. He was as haunted as she was, and there was nothing to be

done about it.

Liat realized she'd almost reached the ground, startled to have come so

far so quickly. Her mind, she supposed, had been elsewhere.

Mach) in the height of summer might almost have been a Southern city.

The sun made its slow, stately way across the sky. The nights had grown

so short, she could fall asleep with a glow still bright over the

mountains to the west and wake in daylight, unrested. The streets were

full of vendors at their carts selling fresh honey bread almost too hot

to eat or sausages with blackened skins or bits of lamb over rice with a

red sauce spicy enough to burn her tongue. Merchants passed over the

black-cobbled streets, wagon wheels clattering. Beggars sang before

their lacquered boxes. Firekeepers tended their kilns and saw to the

small business of the tradesmen-accepting taxes, witnessing contracts,

and a hundred other small duties. Liat pulled her hands into her sleeves

and walked without knowing her destination.

It might only have been her imagination that there were fewer men in the

streets. Surely there were still laborers and warehouse guards and

smiths at their forges. The force marching to the west could account for

no more than one man in fifteen. The sense that Machi had become a city

of women and old men and boys could only be her mind playing tricks. And

still, there was something hollow about the city. A sense of loss and of

uncertainty. The city itself seemed to know that the world had changed,

and held its breath in dread anticipation, waiting to see whether this

transformed reality had a place for Machi in it.

She found herself back at her apartments-feet sore, back achingbefore

the sun had touched the peaks to the west. As she approached her door, a

young man rose from the step. For a moment, her mind tricked her into

thinking Nayiit had returned. But no, this boy was too thin through the

shoulders, his hair too long, his robes the black of a palace servant.

He took a pose of greeting as she approached, and Liat made a brief

response.

"Liat Chokavi?"

"Yes."

"Kiyan Machi, first wife of the Khai Machi, extends her invitation. If

you would he so kind, I will take you to her."

"Now?" Liat asked, but of course it was now. She waved away the question

even before the servant boy could recover from the surprise of being

asked in so sharp a tone. When he turned, spine straight and stiff with

indignation, she followed him.

They found Otah's wife standing on a balcony overlooking a great hall.

Her robes were delicate pink and yellow, and they suited her skin. Her

head was turned down, looking at the wide fountain that took up the hall

below, the sprays of water reaching up almost to the high domed ceiling

above. The servant boy took a pose of obeisance before her, and she

replied with one that both thanked and dismissed him. Her greeting of

Liat was only a nod and a smile, and then Kiyan's attention turned back

to the fountain.

There were children playing in the pool-splashing one another or

running, handy-legged, through water that reached above their knees and

would only have dampened half of Liat's own calves. Some wore robes of

cotton that clung to their tiny bodies. Some wore loose canvas trousers

like a common laborer's. They were, Liat thought, too young to be

utkhaiem yet. They were still children, and free from the bindings that

would hold them when there was less fat in their cheeks, less joy in

their movement. But that was only sentiment. The children of privilege

knew when they were faced with a child of the lower orders. 'T'hese

dancing and shouting in the clean, clear water could dress as they saw

fit because they were all of the same ranks. 'T'hese were the children