Seasons of War

situation called her to do it. Comfortable lies had no place with her. Liat looked down. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Perhaps there won’t be.’
    ‘Here, now,’ the physician said. ‘Take this with you, Liat-cha. Pour it into a bowl of water and once it’s dissolved, drink the whole thing. It will be bitter, so drink it fast. You’ll likely want to lie down for a hand or two afterward, to let it work. But it should do what needs doing.’
    Liat took the paper packet and slipped it into her sleeve before taking a pose of gratitude.
    ‘We should have a lunch in the gardens again,’ Eiah said. ‘You and Uncle Maati and me. Loya-cha would come too, except he’s a servant.’
    Liat felt herself blush, but the physician’s wry smile told her it was not the first such pronouncement he’d been subjected to.
    ‘Perhaps you should wait for another day,’ he said. ‘Liat-cha had a headache, remember.’
    ‘I know that,’ Eiah said impatiently. ‘I meant tomorrow.’
    ‘That would be lovely,’ Liat said. ‘I’ll talk with Maati about it.’
    ‘Would you be so good as to get the stiff brushes from the back and wash them for me, Eiah-cha?’ the physician said. ‘Tamiya’s anxious to be done with us, I’m sure.’
    Eiah dropped into a pose of confirmation for less than a breath before darting off to her task. Liat watched the physician, the amusement and fondness in his expression. He shook his head.
    ‘She is a force,’ he said. ‘But the powder. I wanted to say, it can be habit-forming. You shouldn’t have it more than once in a week. So if the pain returns, we may have to find another approach.’
    ‘I’m sure this will be fine,’ Liat said as she rose. ‘And . . . thank you. For what you’ve done with Eiah, I mean.’
    ‘She needs it,’ the man said with a shrug. ‘Her father’s ridden off to die, her mother and her friend the poet are too busy trying to keep us all alive to take time to comfort her. She buries herself in this, and so even if she slows us down, how can I do anything but welcome her?’
    Liat felt her heart turn to lead. The physician’s smile slipped, and for a moment the dread showed from behind the mask. When he spoke again, it was softly and the words were as gray as stones.
    ‘And, after all, we may need our children to know how to care for the dying before all that’s coming is done.’

    Maati rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands, squinted, blinked. The world was blurry: the long, rich green of the grass on which they lay was like a single sheet of dyed rice paper; the towers of Machi were reduced to dark blurs that the blue of the sky shone through. It was like fog without the grayness. He blinked again, and the world moved nearer to focus.
    ‘How long was I sleeping?’ he asked.
    ‘Long enough, sweet,’ Liat said. ‘I could have managed longer, I think. The gods all know we’ve been restless enough at night.’
    The sun was near the top of its arc, the remains of breakfast in lacquered boxes with their lids shut, the day half gone. Liat was right, of course. He hadn’t been sleeping near enough - late to bed, waking early, and with troubled rest between. He could feel it in his neck and back and see it in the slowness with which his vision cleared.
    ‘Where’s Eiah got to?’ he asked.
    ‘Back to her place with the physicians, I’d guess. I offered to wake you so that she could say her good-byes, but she thought it would be better if you slept.’ Liat smiled. ‘She said it would be restorative. Can you imagine her using that kind of language a season ago? She already sounds like a physician’s apprentice.’
    Maati grinned. He’d resisted the idea of this little outing at first, but Cehmai had joined Eiah’s cause. A half-day’s effort by a rested man might do better for them than the whole day by someone drunk with exhaustion and despair. And even now the library seemed to call to him - the scrolls he had already read, the codices laid out and put away and pulled out to look over again, the wax tablets with their notes cut into them and smoothed clear again. And in the end, he had never been able to refuse Eiah. Her good opinion was too precious and too fickle.
    Liat slid her hand around his arm and leaned against him. She smelled of grass and cherry paste on apples and musk. He turned without thinking and kissed the crown of her head as if it were something he had always done. As if there had not been a lifetime between the days