Seasons of War

single thing that he did or said, no single habit or effect that made him grate on the nerves of all those around him. Some men were charming, and would be loved however questionable their behavior. And then on the other end of the balance, there was Athai. The weeks he had spent with the man had been bearable only because of the near-constant stream of praise and admiration given to Maati.
    ‘It will change everything,’ the envoy said as they sat on the steps of the poet’s house - Cehmai’s residence. ‘This is going to begin a new age to rival the Second Empire.’
    ‘Because that ended so well,’ Stone-Made-Soft rumbled, its tone amused as always.
    The morning was warm. The sculpted oaks separating the poet’s house from the palaces were bright with new leaves. Far above, barely visible through the boughs, the stone towers rose into the sky. Cehmai reached across the envoy to pour more rice wine into Maati’s bowl.
    ‘It is early yet to pass judgment,’ Maati said as he nodded his thanks to Cehmai. ‘It isn’t as though the techniques have been tried.’
    ‘But it makes sense,’ Athai said. ‘I’m sure it will work.’
    ‘If we’ve overlooked something, the first poet to try this is likely to die badly,’ Cehmai said. ‘The Dai-kvo will want a fair amount of study done before he puts a poet’s life on the table.’
    ‘Next year,’ Athai said. ‘I’ll wager twenty lengths of silver it will be used in bindings by this time next year.’
    ‘Done,’ the andat said, then turned to Cehmai. ‘You can back me if I lose.’
    The poet didn’t reply, but Maati saw the amusement at the corners of Cehmai’s mouth. It had taken years to understand the ways in which Stone-Made-Soft was an expression of Cehmai, the ways they were a single thing, and the ways they were at war. The small comments the andat made that only Cehmai understood, the unspoken moments of private struggle that sometimes clouded the poet’s days. They were like nothing so much as a married couple, long accustomed to each other’s ways.
    Maati sipped the rice wine. It was infused with peaches, a moment of autumn’s harvest in the opening of spring. Athai looked away from the andat’s broad face, discomforted.
    ‘You must be ready to return to the Dai-kvo,’ Cehmai said. ‘You’ve been away longer than you’d intended.’
    Athai waved the concern away, pleased, Maati thought, to speak to the man and forget the andat.
    ‘I wouldn’t have traded this away,’ he said. ‘Maati-kvo is going to be remembered as the greatest poet of our generation.’
    ‘Have some more wine,’ Maati said, clinking the envoy’s bowl with his own, but Cehmai shook his head and gestured toward the wooded path. A slave girl was trotting toward them, her robes billowing behind her. Athai put down his bowl and stood, pulling at his sleeves.
    Here was the moment they had been awaiting - the call for Athai to join the caravan to the East. Maati sighed with relief. Half a hand, and his library would be his own again. The envoy took a formal pose of farewell that Maati and Cehmai returned.
    ‘I will send word as soon as I can, Maati-kvo,’ Athai said. ‘I am honored to have studied with you.’
    Maati nodded uncomfortably; then, after a moment’s awkward silence, Athai turned. Maati watched until the slave girl and poet had both vanished among the trees, then let out a breath. Cehmai chuckled as he put the stopper into the flask of wine.
    ‘Yes, I agree,’ Cehmai said. ‘I think the Dai-kvo must have chosen him specifically to annoy the Khai.’
    ‘Or he just wanted to be rid of him for a time,’ Maati said.
    ‘I liked him,’ Stone-Made-Soft said. ‘Well, as much as I like anyone.’
    The three walked together into the poet’s house. The rooms within were neatly kept - shelves of books and scrolls, soft couches and a table laid out with the black and white stones on their board. A lemon candle burned at the window, but a fly still buzzed wildly about the corners of the room. It seemed that every winter Maati forgot about the existence of flies, only to rediscover them in spring. He wondered where the insects all went during the vicious cold, and what the signal was for them to return.
    ‘He isn’t wrong, you know,’ Cehmai said. ‘If you’re right, it will be the most important piece of analysis since the fall of the Empire.’
    ‘I’ve likely overlooked something. It isn’t as though we haven’t seen half a hundred schemes