Seasons of War

a strategy of Eiah, pleased to have steered the conversation to safe waters. Vanjit listened, her full attention upon him. Ashti Beg and Irit, walking before them, paused. If Vanjit hadn’t hesitated, Maati thought he might not have noticed until he bumped into them.
    ‘Small Kae is making soup for dinner,’ Irit said. ‘If you have time to help her . . .’
    ‘Maati-kvo’s much too busy for that,’ Vanjit said.
    When Ashti Beg spoke, her voice was dry as sand.
    ‘Irit-cha might not have been speaking to him.’
    Vanjit’s spine stiffened, and then, with a laugh, relaxed. She smiled at all of them as she took a contrite pose, accepting the correction. Irit reached out and placed her hand on Vanjit’s shoulder as a sister might.
    ‘I’m so proud of you,’ Irit said, grinning. ‘I’m just so happy and proud.’
    ‘So are we all,’ Ashti Beg said. Maati smiled, but the sense that something had happened sat at the back of his mind. As the four of them walked to the kitchens - the air growing rich with the salt-and-fat scent of pork and the dark, earthy scent of boiled lentils - Maati reviewed what each of them had said, the tones of voice, the angles at which they had held themselves. Small Kae assigned tasks to all of them except Maati, and he waited for a time, listening to the simple banter and the crack of knives against wood. When he took his leave, he was troubled.
    He was not so far removed from his boyhood that he had forgotten what jealousy felt like. He’d suffered it himself in these same halls and rooms. One boy or another was always in favor, and the others wishing that they were. Walking through the bare gardens, Maati wondered whether he had allowed the same thing to happen. Vanjit was certainly the center of all their work and activity. Had Ashti Beg and Irit interrupted their conversation from an urge to take his attention, or at least deny it to her?
    And then there was some question of Vanjit’s heart.
    The truth was that Eiah had been right. For all the hope and attention placed upon her, the project of the school was not truly Vanjit and Clarity-of-Sight. It would be Eiah and Wounded. Vanjit had seen it. It couldn’t be pleasant, knowing she was taking the lead not for her own sake but to blaze the trail for another. He would speak to her. He would have to speak with her. Reassure her.
    After the last of the lentil soup had been sopped up by the final crust of bread, Maati took Vanjit aside. It didn’t go as he had expected.
    ‘It isn’t that Eiah-cha’s work is more important,’ Maati said, his hands in a pose meant to convey a gentle authority. ‘You are taking the greater risk, and the role of the first of the poets of a new age. It’s only that there are certain benefits that Eiah-cha brings because of her position at court. Once those aren’t needed any longer, you see—’
    Vanjit kissed him. Maati sat back. The girl’s smile was broad, genuine, and oddly pitying. Her hands took a pose that offered correction.
    ‘Ah, Maati-kvo. You think it matters that Eiah is more important than I am?’
    ‘I didn’t . . . I wouldn’t put it that way.’
    ‘Let me. Eiah is more important than I am. I’m first because I’m the scout. That’s all. But if I do well, if I can make this binding work, then she will have your permission. And then we can do anything. That’s all I want.’
    Maati ran a hand through his hair. He found that none of the words he had practiced fit the moment. Vanjit seemed to understand his silence. When she went on, her voice was low and gentle.
    ‘There’s a difference between why you came to this place and why we have,’ she said. ‘Your father sent you here in hopes of glory. He hoped that you would rise through the ranks of all the boys and be sent to the Dai-kvo and become a poet. It isn’t like that for me. I don’t want to be a poet. Did you understand that?’
    Maati took a pose that expressed both an acceptance of correction and a query. Vanjit responded with one appropriate to thanking someone of higher status.
    ‘I had the dream again,’ Vanjit said. ‘I’ve been having it every night, almost. He’s in me. And he’s shifting and moving and I can hear his heart beating.’
    ‘I’m sorry,’ Maati said.
    ‘No, Maati-kvo, that’s just it. I wake up, and I’m not sad any longer. It was only hard when I thought it would never come. Now, I wake up, and I’m happy all day long. I can feel him getting close. He’ll be here.