Seasons of War

it work.’
    Her smile outshone the sun. Maati nodded; yes, they would attempt the binding. Yes, Vanjit would be the first woman in history to hold an andat or else the next of his students to die.

7
    ‘ N o, I will not forbid her a goddamned thing. The girl’s got more spine than all the rest of us put together. We could learn something from her,’ Farrer Dasin said, his arms folded before him, his chin high and proud. And when he said the rest of us , Otah was clear that he meant the Galts. The courts of the Khaiem, the cities and people of Otah’s empire were not part of Farrer Dasin’s us ; they were still apart and the enemy.
    Six members of the High Council sat at the wide marble table along with Balasar Gice and Issandra Dasin. Otah, Danat, and representatives of four of the highest families of the utkhaiem sat across from them. Otah wished he’d been able to scatter each side among the other instead of dividing the table like a battlefield. Or else keep the group smaller. If it had been only himself, Farrer, and Issandra, there might have been a chance.
    Ana, the girl who had taken a stick to this political beehive, was not present, nor was she welcome.
    ‘There are agreements in place,’ Balasar said. ‘We can’t unmake them on a whim.’
    ‘Yes, Dasin-cha. Contracts have been signed,’ one of the utkhaiem said. ‘Is it Galt’s intention that any contract can be invalidated if the signer’s daughter objects?’
    ‘That isn’t what happened,’ the councilman at Farrer’s right hand said. ‘We have our hands full enough without exaggerating.’
    And so it started off again, voices raised each over the other with the effect that nothing but babble could be heard. Otah didn’t add to the clamor, but sat forward in his chair and watched. He considered the architecture - vaulted ceiling of blue and gold tiles, the sliding wooden shutters. He found a scent in the air: sugared almonds. He struggled to hear a sound beyond the table: the wind in the treetops. Then, slowly, he pulled his awareness back to the people before him. It was an old trick he’d learned during his days as a courier, a way of withdrawing half a step from the place where he was and considering the ways that people moved and held themselves, the expressions they wore when they were silent and when they spoke. It often said more than the words. And now, he saw three things.
    First, he was not the only silent one at the table. Issandra Dasin was rocked a degree back in her chair, her eyes fixed on the middle distance. Her expression spoke of exhaustion and a barely hidden sorrow, the complement to her husband’s self-destructive pleasure. Danat was also withdrawn, but with his body canted forward, as if he was trying to hear every phrase that fluttered through the heavy air. He might as easily drink a river.
    Second, Otah saw that neither side was united. The Galts across from him ran the gamut from defiant to conciliatory, the utkhaiem from outraged to fearful. It was the same outside. The palaces, the teahouses, the baths, the street corners - all of Saraykeht was filled with agreements and negotiations that were suddenly, violently uncertain. He recalled something his daughter had said once about the reopened wound being the one most plagued by scars.
    Third, and perhaps least interesting, it became clear that he was wasting his time.
    ‘Friends,’ Otah said. Then again, louder, ‘Friends!’
    Slowly, the table grew quiet around him.
    ‘The morning has been difficult,’ he said. ‘We should retire and reflect on what has been said.’
    Whatever it was, he didn’t add.
    There was a rumble of assent, if not precisely agreement. Otah took a pose of gratitude to each man and woman as they left, even to Farrer Dasin, for whom he felt very little warmth. Otah dismissed the servants as well, and soon only he and Danat remained. Without the pandemonium of voices, the meeting room seemed larger and oddly forlorn.
    ‘Well,’ his son said, leaning against the table. He was wearing the same robe as he had at the botched ceremony the day before. The cloth itself looked weary. ‘What do you make of it?’
    Otah scratched idly at his arm and tried to focus his mind. His back ached, and there was an uneasy, bright feeling in his gut that presaged a sleepless and uncomfortable night. He sighed.
    ‘Primarily, I think I’m an idiot,’ Otah said. ‘I should have written to the daughters. I forget how different their world is.