Seasons of War

road when Nayiit had been a child - the time between her break with Maati Vaupathai and her return to the arms of Saraykeht - held a powerful nostalgia for her. Alone in the world with only a son barely halfway to manhood, she had expected struggle and pain and the emptiness that she had always thought must accompany a woman without a man.
    The truth had been a surprise. Certainly the emptiness and struggle and pain had attended their travels. She and Nayiit had spent nights huddling under waxed-cloth tarps while chill rain pattered around them. They had eaten cheap food from low-town firekeepers. She had learned again all she’d known as a girl of how to mend a robe or a boot. And she had discovered a competence she had never believed herself to possess. Before that, she had always had a lover by whom to judge herself. With a son, she found herself stronger, smarter, more complete than she had dared pretend.
    The journey to Nantani had been a chance for her to relive that, one last time. Her son was a man now, with a child of his own. There wouldn’t be many more travels, just the two of them. So she had put aside any doubts, welcomed him, and set off to discover what she could about Riaan Vaudathat, son of a high family of the Nantani utkhaiem and missing poet. She had expected the work to take a season, no more. They would be back in the compound of House Kyaan in time to spend the autumn haggling over contracts and shipping prices.
    And now it was spring, and she saw no prospect of sleeping in a bed she might call her own any time soon. Nayiit had not complained when it became clear that their investigation would require a journey to the village of the Dai-kvo. As a woman, Liat was not permitted beyond the low towns approaching it. She would need a man to do her business within the halls of the Dai-kvo’s palaces. They had booked passage to Yalakeht, and then upriver. They had arrived at mid-autumn and hardly finished their investigation before Candles Night. So far North, there had been no ship back to Saraykeht, and Liat had taken apartments for them in the narrow, gated streets of Yalakeht for the winter.
    In the long, dark hours she had struggled with what she knew, and with the thaw and the first ships taking passages North, she had prepared to travel to Amnat-Tan, and then Cetani. And then, though the prospect made her sick with anxiety, Machi.
    A shout rose on the deck above them - a score of men calling out to each other - and the ship lurched and boomed. Nayiit blinked awake, looked over at her, and smiled. He always had had a good smile.
    ‘Have I missed anything?’ he asked with a yawn.
    ‘We’ve reached the low towns outside Amnat-Tan,’ Liat said. ‘We’ll be docked soon.’
    Nayiit swung his legs around, planting them on the deck to keep his hammock from rocking. He looked ruefully around the tiny cabin and sighed.
    ‘I’ll start packing our things, then,’ he said.
    ‘Pack them separate,’ she said. ‘I’ll go the rest of the way myself. I want you back in Saraykeht.’
    Nayiit took a pose that refused this, and Liat felt her jaw tighten.
    ‘We’ve had this conversation, Mother. I’m not putting you out to walk the North Road by yourself.’
    ‘I’ll hire a seat on a caravan,’ she said. ‘Spring’s just opening, and there are bound to be any number of them going to Cetani and back. It’s not such a long journey, really.’
    ‘Good. Then it won’t take too long for us to get there.’
    ‘You’re going back,’ Liat said.
    Nayiit sighed and gathered himself visibly.
    ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Make your argument. Convince me.’
    Liat looked at her hands. It was the same problem she’d fought all through the long winter. Each time she’d come close to speaking the truth, something had held her back. Secrets. It all came back to secrets, and if she spoke her fears to Nayiit, it would mean telling him things that only she knew, things that she had hoped might die with her.
    ‘Is it about my father?’ he said, and his voice was so gentle, Liat felt tears gathering in her eyes.
    ‘In a way,’ she said.
    ‘I know he’s at the court of Machi,’ Nayiit said. ‘There’s no reason for me to fear him, is there? Everything you’ve said of him—’
    ‘No, Maati would never hurt you. Or me. It’s just . . . it was so long ago. And I don’t know who he’s become since then.’
    Nayiit leaned forward, taking her hands in his.
    ‘I want to meet him,’ he said. ‘Not