Seasons of War

the little procession as Otah walked to the apartments granted him by the Khai. He was a curiosity - one of the Khaiem walking with the swagger of a man who’d sat too long on a horse, his retinue looking more like a mercenary captain’s crew than courtiers. And Otah suspected that martial air, however undeserved, would serve him. He scowled the way he imagined Sinja might have in his place.
    Ashua Radaani was sitting at the fire grate deep in conversation with Saya the blacksmith when Otah entered the wide hall that served as the center of the visitors’ palace. Battle and loss and the common enemy of Galt had mixed with the shared recognition of competence to make the two men something like friends. They stood and took poses of respect and welcome that Otah waved away. He sat on a low cushion by the fire and sent his servant boy to find them tea and something to eat.
    ‘It didn’t go well, I take it,’ Radaani said.
    ‘It didn’t go well and it didn’t go badly,’ Otah said. ‘He’s smart enough to be frightened. That’s good. I was afraid he’d be certain of himself. But his poet’s dead. Tried to recapture his andat and paid its price.’
    Radaani sighed.
    ‘Did he agree to your plan, Most High?’ Saya asked.
    ‘No,’ Otah said. ‘He’s determined that Cetani not fall without a fight. I’ve told him we’re leaving with him or without him. How was your hunting, Ashua-cha?’
    Radaani leaned forward. His features were thinner than they had been in Machi, and the ring he turned on his finger wasn’t so snug as it had once been.
    ‘The court’s frightened,’ he said. ‘There are a few people who came here from Yalakeht, and the stories . . . well, either they’ve grown in the telling, or it wasn’t pretty there. And the couriers from Amnat-Tan haven’t come the last two days.’
    ‘That’s bad,’ Otah said. ‘Will we have time, do you think?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ Ashua said. He seemed to search for more words, but in the end only shook his head.
    ‘Get the men ready,’ Otah said. ‘We’ll give Cetani tomorrow to join us. After that, we’ll head home. With enough time, we might be able to tear up some sections of the road behind us. Slow down the Galts, even if we can’t do all we hoped against them.’
    ‘What about the books?’ Saya asked. ‘If their poet’s dead, it isn’t as if they’ll have need of them. Perhaps ours would make something of them.’
    ‘I can ask,’ Otah said. ‘With luck, we’ll have the books and the people and the food stores.’
    ‘But the Khai refused you, Most High,’ Saya said.
    Otah smiled and shook his head. Only now that he found himself a moment to rest did the weariness drag at him. He tried to think how many days he’d been riding from first light to last. A lifetime, it felt like. He remembered the man who’d left Machi to save the Daikvo, but it no longer felt like something he’d done himself. He was changing. His heart still ached at the thought of Kiyan and Eiah and Danat. His apprehension at the struggle still before him was no less. And still, he was not the man he had once been, and to his surprise and unease, the man he was becoming seemed quite natural.
    ‘Most High?’ Saya repeated.
    ‘Walking away from a negotiation isn’t the same as ending it,’ Otah said. ‘Cetani’s proud and he’s lost, but he’s not a fool. He wants to do what we’re asking of him. He just hasn’t found the way to say yes.’
    ‘You sound sure of that,’ Saya said.
    Otah chose his words carefully.
    ‘If someone had come to me after that battle and said that they knew what to do, that they would take the responsibility, I would have given it to them. And that’s just what I’ve offered him,’ Otah said. ‘The Khai Cetani will call for me. Tonight.’
    He was wrong. The Khai Cetani didn’t send for him until the next morning.
    The man’s eyes were bloodshot, his face slack from worry and exhaustion. Otah doubted the Khai Cetani had slept since they had spoken, and perhaps not for days before that. Through the wide, unshuttered windows, the morning was cold and gray, low clouds seeming to bring the sky no higher than a sparrow might fly. Otah sat on the divan set for him - rich velvet cloth studded with tiny pearls and silver thread, but smelling of dust and age. The most powerful man in Cetani sat across from him on an identical seat. That alone was a concession, and Otah noted it without giving sign one way or the