Seasons of War

Your world, too.’
    Danat took a pose that asked elaboration. Otah rose, stretching. His back didn’t improve.
    ‘Political marriage isn’t a new thing,’ Otah said. ‘We’ve always suffered it. They’ve always suffered it. But, once the rules changed, it stopped meaning so much, didn’t it? As long as Ana-cha has been alive, she hasn’t seen political marriages take place. If Radaani married his son to Saya’s daughter, they wouldn’t be joining bloodlines. No children, no lasting connection between the houses. Likewise in Galt. I doubt it’s stopped the practice entirely, but it’s changed things. I should have thought of it.’
    ‘And she could take lovers,’ Danat said.
    ‘People took lovers before,’ Otah said.
    ‘Not without fear,’ Danat said. ‘There’s no chance of a child. It changes how willing a girl would be.’
    ‘And how exactly do you know that?’ Otah asked.
    Danat blushed. Otah walked to the window. Below, the gardens were in motion. Wind shifted the boughs of the trees and set the flowers nodding. The scent of impending rain cooled the air. There would be a storm by nightfall.
    ‘Papa-kya?’ Danat said.
    Otah looked over his shoulder. Danat was sitting on the table, his feet on the seat of a cushioned chair. It was the pose of a casual boy in a cheap teahouse. Danat’s face, however, was troubled.
    ‘Don’t bother it,’ Otah said. ‘It might be a new world for sex, but there was an old world for it too. And I’m sure there are any number of other men who’ve made the same discoveries you have.’
    ‘That wasn’t the matter. It’s the wedding. I don’t think I can . . . I don’t think I can do it. When it was just thinking of it, I hadn’t seen what it would be to be married to someone who hated me. I have now.’
    His voice was thick with distress. A gust of stronger wind came, rattling the shutters in their frames. Otah slid the wood closed, and the meeting room dimmed, gold tiles turning bronze, blue tiles black.
    ‘It will be fine,’ Otah said. ‘At worst, there are other councillors with other daughters. It won’t be a pleasant transition, but—’
    ‘A different girl won’t fix this. At best we’d find a girl less willing to struggle. At worst, we’d find someone who hated me just as much, but better versed in deceit.’
    Otah took his seat again. He could feel his brow furrow. If he hadn’t been so tired to begin with, it wouldn’t have taken him as long to think through Danat’s words.
    ‘Are you . . .’ Otah said, then stopped and began again. ‘You’re saying you won’t have Ana ?’
    ‘I thought I could. I would have, if she hadn’t done what she did. But I’ve spent all night looking at it, and I don’t see a way.’
    ‘I do. I see it perfectly clearly. High families have been arranging marriages for as long as there have been high families. It binds them together. It shows trust.’
    ‘You didn’t. You were Khai Machi. You could have had dozens of wives, but you didn’t. Even after the fever took Mother, you didn’t. You could have,’ Danat said. And then, ‘You could now. You could make one of these girls your wife. Marry Ana-cha.’
    ‘You know quite well that I couldn’t. A man of my years bedding a girl? They wouldn’t see a marriage so much as a debauch.’
    ‘Yes,’ Danat said. ‘And putting me in your place would only change how it looked, not what it was. I’ll do whatever I can to help. You know that. I could marry a stranger and make the best of it. But I won’t father a child on an unwilling girl.’
    ‘Don’t be an idiot,’ Otah said, and knew immediately that it was the wrong thing. His son’s smile was a mask now, cold and bright and hard as stone. Otah raised his hands in a pose that took the words back, but Danat ignored it.
    ‘I won’t do something I know in my bones is wrong,’ Danat said. ‘If it’s the only way to save us, then we aren’t worth saving.’
    Otah watched the boy leave. There were a thousand arguments to make, a thousand ways to rephrase the issue, to make something different of these same circumstances. None of them would matter. He let his head sink to his hands.
    There had been a time when Otah had been young and the world had been, if not simple, at least certain. Decades and experience had made him sure that his sense of right and wrong were not the only ones. Before he’d had that beaten out of him by the gods, he might well have taken the same stand Danat had