Seasons of War

time I saw him, he looked so old. I still picture him with dark hair. It hasn’t been like that in years, but it’s what’s in my mind.’
    ‘We’re doing the right thing,’ Maati said. His voice was little more than a whisper.
    ‘I don’t doubt it,’ Eiah said. ‘He’s turned his back on a generation of women as if their suffering were insignificant. Sexual indenture used to be restricted to bed slaves, and he would make an industry of it if he could. He would haul women across like bales of cotton. I hate everything about the scheme, but I miss him.’
    ‘I do too,’ Maati said.
    ‘You also hate him,’ she said. There was no place in this room for half-truths.
    ‘That too,’ Maati agreed.
    Dinner that night was a brace of quail Large Kae had trapped. The flesh was soft and rich. Maati sat at the head of the long table, Vanjit and Clarity-of-Sight at the far end, and plucked the delicate bones. The bright chattering voices of Small Kae and Irit seemed distant, the dry wit of Ashti Beg grim. Eiah also seemed subdued, but it might only have been that she was thinking of the binding. The meal seemed to last forever, and yet he found himself surprised when Ashti Beg gathered up the bowls and the talk shifted to cleanup chores.
    ‘I don’t think I can,’ Vanjit said, her voice apologetic. ‘I assumed that we had changed the rotation.’
    ‘We skipped you last time, if that’s what you mean,’ Ashti Beg said. ‘I don’t know if that’s the same as agreeing to wait on you.’
    There was laughter in the older woman’s voice, but it had teeth. Small Kae was smiling a fixed smile and staring at the table. If he hadn’t been so distracted, Maati would have seen this coming before it arrived.
    ‘I don’t think I can, though,’ Vanjit said, still firmly in her seat. The thing on her lap shifted its gaze from the poet to Ashti Beg and back as if fascinated.
    ‘I seem to recall my mother keeping the house even when she had a babe on her hip,’ Ashti Beg said. ‘But she always was unusually talented.’
    ‘I have the andat. That’s more work than washing dishes,’ Vanjit said. ‘At court, poets are forgiven other duties, aren’t they, Maati-kvo?’
    ‘The smallest brat of the utkhaiem is forgiven their duties,’ Ashti Beg said before Maati could frame a reply. ‘That’s why it’s court. Because some people set themselves above others.’
    The air was suddenly heavy. Maati stood, unsure what he was about to say. Irit’s sudden chirp saved him.
    ‘Oh, it isn’t much. No need to fuss about it. I’ll be happy to do the thing. No, Vanjit-cha, don’t get up. If you don’t feel up to doing it, you ought not strain yourself.’
    The last words rose at the end as if they were a question. Maati nodded as if something had been decided, then walked out of the hall. Vanjit followed without speaking, and took herself and her small burden down a side hall and out to the gardens. Maati could hear the voices of the others as they cleaned away the remnants of the small, fallen birds.
    They met as they always did, sitting in a rough circle and discussing the fine points of binding the andat. There was no sign of the earlier conflict; Vanjit and Ashti Beg treated each other with their customary kindness and respect. Eiah explained the difference between accident, intention, and consequence of design to Irit and Small Kae and, Maati thought, learned by the experience. By the warm, soft light of the lanterns, they might have been talking of anything. By the end, there was even real laughter.
    It should have been a good evening, but as he went back toward his bed, Maati was troubled and couldn’t quite say why. It had to do with Otah-kvo and Eiah, Vanjit and Clarity-of-Sight. The Galts and his own unsettling if unsurprising insight into the nature of time and decay.
    He opened his book, reading his own handwriting by the light of the night candle. Even the quality of his script had changed since Vanjit had sharpened his vision. The older entries had been . . . not sloppy, never that. But not so crisp as he was capable of now. It had been an old man’s handwriting. Now it was something different. He picked up his pen, touched nib to ink, but found nothing coherent to say.
    He wiped the pen clean and put the book aside. Somewhere far to the south, Otah was dining with the men who had destroyed the Khaiem. He was sleeping on a bed of silk and drinking wine from bowls of beaten gold, while here in the dry