of the great houses, brought to play with the one boy, there, in the

robe. The one deep in disagreement with the petulant-looking girl. The

one who had eyes and mouth the same shape as Utah's.

Liat looked up and found Kiyan considering her. The woman's expression

was unreadable.

""['hank you for coming," Kiyan said over the sounds of falling water

and shrieking children.

"Of course," Liat said. She nodded down at the boy. "That's I)anat- cha?"

"Yes. lie's having a good day," she said. "Then, "Please, come this way."

Liat followed her through a doorway at the balcony's rear and into a

small resting room where Kiyan sat on a low couch and motioned Liat to

do the same. The sounds of play were muffled enough to speak over, but

they weren't absent. Liat found them oddly comforting.

"I heard that Nayiit-cha chose to go with the men," Kiyan said.

"Yes," Liat said, and then stopped, because she didn't know what more

there was to say.

"I can't imagine that," Kiyan said. "It's hard enough imagining Utah

going, but he's my husband. Tie's not my son."

"I understand why he went. Nayiit, I mean. But his father asked the Khai

to take care of him."

Kiyan looked tip, confused for a moment, then nodded.

"Maati, you mean?"

"Of course," Liat said.

"Do we have to keep tip that pretense?"

"I think we do, Kiyan-cha."

"I suppose," she said. And then a moment later, "No. You're right.

You're quite right. I don't know what I was thinking."

Liat considered Otah's wife-thin face, black hair shot with threads of

white, so little paint on her cheeks that Liat could see where the lines

that came with age had been etched by pain and laughter. There was an

intelligence in her face and, Liat thought, a sorrow. Kiyan took a deep

breath and seemed to pull herself back from whatever place her mind had

gone. She smiled.

"Otah has left the city with a problem," she said. "With so many men

gone, the business of things is hound to suffer. "There are crops that

need bringing in and others that need planting. Roofs need the tiles

repaired before autumn comes. There are still parts of the winter

quarters that haven't been cleaned out since we've all resurfaced. And

the men who coordinate those things or else who oversee the men who do

are all off with ()tali playing at war."

"'T'hat is a problem," Liat agreed, unsure why Kiyan had brought her

here to tell her this.

"I'm calling a Council of wives," Kiyan said. "I think we're referring

to it as an afternoon banquet, but I mean it to be more than light

gossip and sweet breads. I'm going to take care of Machi until Otah

comes hack. I'll see to it that we have food and coal to see us through

the winter."

If, Kiyan didn't need to say, we all live that long. Liat looked at her

hands and pressed the dark thoughts away.

""That seems wise," she said.

"I want you to come to the Council, Liat-cha. I want your help."

Liat looked up. Kiyan's whole attention was on her. It made her feel

awkward, but also oddly flattered.

"I don't know what I could do-"

"You're a woman of business. You understand schedules and how to

coordinate different teams in different tasks so that the whole of a

thing comes together the way it should. I understand that too, but

frankly most of these women would be totally lost. They've bent their

minds to face paints and robes and trading gossip and bedroom tricks,"

Kiyan said, and then immediately took a pose that asked forgiveness. "I

don't mean to make them sound dim. They aren't. But they're the product

of a Khai's court, and the things that matter there aren't things that

matter, if you see what I mean?"

"Quite well," Liat said with a chuckle.

Kiyan leaned forward and scooped up Liat's hand as if it were the most

natural thing to do.

"You helped Otah when he asked it of you. Will you help me now?"

The assent came as far as Liat's lips and then died there. She saw the

distress in Kiyan's eyes, but she couldn't say it.

"Why?" Liat whispered. "Why me? Why, when we are what we are to each other."

"When we're what to each other?"

"Women who've loved the same man," Liat said. "Mothers of ... of our

sons. How can you put that aside, even only for a little while?"

Kiyan smiled. It was a hard expression. Determined. She did not let go

of Liat's hand, but neither did she hold it captive.

"I want you with me because we can't have other enemies now," she said.

"And because you and I aren't so different. And because I think perhaps

the distraction is something you need as badly as I do. There's war

enough coming. I want there to be peace between us."

"I have a price," Liat said.

Kiyan nodded that she continue.

"When Nayiit comes back, spend time with him. Talk with him. Find out

who he is. Know him."

"Because?"

"Because if you're going to have me fall in love with your boy, you owe

it to fall a little in love with mine."

Kiyan grinned, tears glistening in her eyes. Her hand squeezed Liat's.

Liat closed her grip, fierce as a drowning man holding to a rope. She

hadn't understood until this moment how deep her fear ran or the

loneliness that even Maati couldn't assuage. She couldn't say whether

she had pulled Kiyan to her or if she herself had been pulled, but she

found herself sobbing into the other woman's shoulder. Otah's wife

wrapped fierce arms around her, embracing her as if she would protect

Liat from the world.

"They would never understand this," Liat managed when her breath was her

own again.

""They're men," Kiyan said. ""They're simpler."

13

For years, Otah had been a traveler by profession. He had worked the

gentleman's trade, traveling as a courier for a merchant house with

business in half the cities of the Khaiem. He had spent days on

horseback or hunkered down in the backs of wagons or walking. He

remembered with fondness the feeling of resting at the end of a day, his

limbs warm and weary, sinking into the woolen blanket that only half