Seasons of War

had come for her to turn to matters of court. She was the only daughter of the Khai Machi, and as such, a rare chance for a marriage alliance. She would be the most valued property in the city, and worse for her and her parents, she was more than clever enough to know it. Her time in the library had taken on a tone of defiance, but it was never leveled at Maati, so it never bothered him. In fact, he found it rather delightful.
    ‘Well,’ he said, settling his paunch more comfortably in the library’s deep silk-covered chair, ‘as it happens, his binding did fail. It was tragic. He started screaming, and didn’t stop for hours. He stopped when he died, of course, and when they examined him afterwards, they found slivers of glass all through his blood.’
    ‘They cut him open?’
    ‘Of course,’ Maati said.
    ‘That’s disgusting,’ she said. Then a moment later, ‘If someone died here, could I help do it?’
    ‘No one’s likely to try a binding here, Eiah-kya. Only poets who’ve trained for years with the Dai-kvo are allowed to make the attempt, and even then they’re under strict supervision. Holding the andat is dangerous work, and not just if it fails.’
    ‘They should let girls do it too,’ she said. ‘I want to go to the school and train to be a poet.’
    ‘But then you wouldn’t be your father’s daughter anymore. If the Dai-kvo didn’t choose you, you’d be one of the branded, and they’d turn you out into the world to make whatever way you could without anyone to help you.’
    ‘That’s not true. Father was at the school, and he didn’t have to take the brand. If the Dai-kvo didn’t pick me, I wouldn’t take it either. I’d just come back here and live alone like you do.’
    ‘But then wouldn’t you and Danat have to fight?’
    ‘No,’ Eiah said, taking a pose appropriate to a tutor offering correction. ‘Girls can’t be Khai, so Danat wouldn’t have to fight me for the chair.’
    ‘But if you’re going to have women be poets, why not Khaiem too?’
    ‘Because who’d want to be Khai?’ she asked and took another piece of cake from the tray on the table between them.
    The library stretched out around them - chamber after chamber of scrolls and books and codices that were Maati’s private domain. The air was rich with the scent of old leather and dust and the pungent herbs he used to keep the mice and insects away. Baarath, the chief librarian and Maati’s best friend here in the far, cold North, had kept it before him. Often when Maati arrived in the morning or remained long after dark, puzzling over some piece of ancient text or obscure reference, he would look up, half-wondering where the annoying, fat, boisterous, petty little man had gotten to, and then he would remember.
    The fever had taken dozens of people that year. Winter always changed the city, the cold driving them deep into the tunnels and hidden chambers below Machi. For months they lived by firelight and in darkness. By midwinter, the air itself could seem thick and stifling. And illnesses spread easily in the dark and close, and Baraath had grown ill and died, one man among many. Now he was only memory and ash. Maati was the master of the library, appointed by his old friend and enemy and companion Otah Machi. The Khai Machi, husband of Kiyan, and father to this almost-woman Eiah who shared his almond cakes, and to her brother Danat. And, perhaps, to one other.
    ‘Maati-kya? Are you okay?’
    ‘I was just wondering how your brother was,’ he said.
    ‘Better. He’s hardly coughing at all anymore. Everyone’s saying he has weak lungs, but I was just as sick when I was young, and I’m just fine.’
    ‘People tell stories,’ Maati said. ‘It keeps them amused, I suppose.’
    ‘What would happen if Danat died?’
    ‘Your father would be expected to take a new, younger wife and produce a son to take his place. More than one, if he could. That’s part of why the utkhaiem are so worried about Danat. If he died and no brothers were forthcoming, it would be bad for the city. All the most powerful houses would start fighting over who would be the new Khai. People would probably be killed.’
    ‘Well, Danat won’t die,’ Eiah said. ‘So it doesn’t matter. Did you know him?’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘My real uncle. Danat. The one Danat’s named for?’
    ‘No,’ Maati said. ‘Not really. I met him once.’
    ‘Did you like him?’
    Maati tried to remember what it had been like, all those years ago.