Seasons of War

said, her tone dismissive. ‘Holding that abomination the rest of my life would have gotten in the way of my work, and who told you that you were allowed to sit up? On your back or I’ll call in armsmen to hold you down. No, don’t say anything. I don’t care if you’re feeling a thousand times better. Down. Now.’
    He lay back, staring up at the ceiling. His mind felt blasted and blank. The enameled brick was blurred in the torchlight, or perhaps it was only that his eyes were only what they had been. The cold air that breathed in through the window too gently to even be a breeze felt better than he would have expected, the stone floor beneath him more comfortable. The voices around him were quiet with respect for his poor health or else with awe. The world had never seen a night like this one. It likely never would again.
    She had freed it. Gods, all that they’d done, all that they’d suffered, and she’d just freed the thing.
    When Danat returned, Eiah forced half a handful of herbs more bitter than the last into his mouth and told him to leave them under his tongue until she told him otherwise. Idaan and one of the armsmen hauled Vanjit’s body away. They would burn it, Maati thought, in the morning. Vanjit had been a broken, sad, dangerous woman, but she deserved better than to have her corpse left out. He remembered Idaan saying something similar of the slaughtered buck.
    He didn’t notice falling asleep, but Eiah gently shook him awake and helped him to sit. While she compared his pulses and pressed his fingertips, he spat out the black leaves. His mouth was numb.
    ‘We’re going to take you back down in a litter,’ she said, and before he could object, she lifted her hand to his lips. He took a pose that acquiesced. Eiah rose to her feet and walked back toward the great bronze doors.
    The footsteps behind him were as familiar as an old song.
    ‘Otah-kvo,’ Maati said.
    The Emperor sat on the dais, his hands between his knees. He looked pale and exhausted.
    ‘Nothing ever goes the way I plan,’ Otah said, his tone peevish. ‘Not ever.’
    ‘You’re tired,’ Maati said.
    ‘I am. Gods, that I am.’
    The captain of the armsmen pulled open the doors. Four men followed, a low weaving of branches and rope between them. Eiah walked at their side. One of the men at the rear called out, and the whole parade stopped while the captain, cursing, retied a series of knots. Maati watched them as if they were dancers and gymnasts performing before a banquet.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ Maati said. ‘This wasn’t what I intended.’
    ‘Isn’t it? I thought the hope was to undo the damage we did with Sterile, no matter what the price.’
    Maati started to object, then stopped himself. Outside the great window, a star fell. The smear of light vanished as quickly as it had come.
    ‘I didn’t know how far it would go.’
    ‘Would it have mattered? If you had known everything it would take, would you have been able to abandon the project?’ Otah asked. He didn’t sound angry or accusing. Only like a man who didn’t know the answer to a question. Maati found he didn’t either.
    ‘If I asked your forgiveness . . .’
    Otah was silent, then sighed deeply, his head hanging low.
    ‘Maati-kya, we’ve been a hundred different people to each other, and tonight I’m too old and too tired. Everything in the world has changed at least twice since I woke up this morning. I think about forgiving you, and I don’t know what the word means.’
    ‘I understand.’
    ‘Do you? Well, then you’ve outpaced me.’
    The litter came forward. Eiah helped him onto the makeshift seat, rope and wood creaking under his weight, but solid. The gait of the armsmen swayed him like a branch in the breeze. The Emperor, they left behind to follow in the darkness.

31
    T he formal joining of Ana Dasin and Danat Machi took place on Candles Night in the high temple of Utani. The assembled nobility of Galt along with the utkhaiem from the highest of families to the lowest firekeeper filled every cushion on the floor, every level of balcony. The air itself was hot as a barn, and the smell of perfume and incense and bodies was overwhelming. Otah sat on his chair, looking out over the vast sea of faces. Many of the Galts wore mourning veils, and, to his surprise, the fashion had not been lost on the utkhaiem. He worried that the mourning was not entirely for fallen Galt, but also a subterranean protest of the marriage itself. It was only