Seasons of War

‘Lift the death order. The girl we sent out in the snow might as well have died. And the man who sent her, for that. We are, all of us, different people now.’
    Otah walked back to his rooms alone. The palace wasn’t quiet or still. Perhaps it never wholly was. But the buzzing fury of the day had given way to a slower pace. Fewer servants made their way down the halls. The members of the high families who had business here had largely gone back to their own palaces, walking stone paths chipped by the spurs and boot nails of Galtic soldiers, passing through arches whose gold and silver adornments had been hacked off by Galtic axes. They went to palaces where the highest men and women of Galt had come as guests, eating beef soup and white bread and fruit tarts. Sipping tea and wine and water and working, some of them at least, to build a common future.
    And Idaan had come to warn him against Maati.
    He slept poorly and woke tired. The Master of Tides attended him as he was bathed and dressed. The day was full from dawn to nightfall. Sixteen audiences had been requested, falling almost equally between members of the utkhaiem and the Galts. Three of the Galtic houses had left letters strongly implying that they had daughters who might be pressed to serve should Ana Dasin refuse. One of the priests at the temple had left a request to preach against the recalcitrance of women who failed to offer up sex. Two of the trading houses had made it clear that they wished to be released from shipping contracts to Chaburi-Tan. The Master of Tides droned and listed and laid out the form of another painful, endless, wasted day. When the stars came out again, Otah knew he would feel like a wrung towel and all the great problems he faced would still be unsolved.
    He instructed that the priest be forbidden, the trading houses be referred to Sinja-cha and the Master of Chains, who could renegotiate terms but not break the contract, and then dictated a common response to the three letters offering up new wives for Danat that neither encouraged nor refused them. All this before the breakfast of fresh-brewed tea, spiced apples, and seared pork had appeared.
    He had hardly begun to eat when the Master of Tides returned with a sour expression and took a pose that asked forgiveness, but pointedly did not suggest that the offending party was the Master of Tides herself.
    ‘Most High, Balasar Gice is requesting to join you. I have suggested that he apply for an audience just as anyone else, but he seems to forget that his conquest of Saraykeht was temporary.’
    ‘You’ll treat Balasar-cha with respect,’ Otah said, though he couldn’t quite keep from smiling. And then a breath later, his chest tightened. Something bloody and extreme. And effective . What if the general had heard Idaan’s news? ‘See him in. And bring another bowl for tea.’
    The Master of Tides took a pose that accepted the command.
    ‘A clean bowl,’ Otah added to the woman’s back.
    Balasar followed all the appropriate forms when the servants escorted him back. Otah matched him, and then gestured for all the others to leave. When they were alone, Balasar lowered himself to the cushion on the floor, took the bowl of tea and the bit of pork that Otah offered him, and stretched out. Otah watched the man’s face and body, but there was no sign there that he’d heard of Idaan’s arrival or of her news.
    ‘I’ve had a couple of discreet conversations,’ Balasar said.
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘About taking a fleet to Chaburi-Tan?’
    Otah nodded. Of course. Of course that was what they were meeting about.
    ‘And what have you found?’ Otah asked.
    ‘It can be done, but there are two ways to go about it. We have enough men to make a small, effective fighting force. Eight ships, perhaps, fully armed and provisioned. I wouldn’t go to war on it, but it would outman most raiding parties.’
    Otah sipped his tea. The water wasn’t quite hot enough to scald.
    ‘The other way?’
    ‘We can use the same number to man twenty ships. A mixed force, ours and your own. Throw on as many men as we can find who are well enough to stand upright. It would actually be easier to defeat in a battle. The men who knew what they were about would be spread thin, and amateurs are worse than nothing in a sea fight. But weigh it against the sight of twenty ships. The pirates would be mad to come against us in force.’
    ‘Unless they know we’re all lights and empty show,’ Otah said.