Seasons of War

been so disappointed, and there’s still the possibility in him of this . . . joy . I can’t explain it.’
    ‘If I ask you as a favor, will you let me know him as well? We may not actually fight like pit dogs if you let us in the same room together. And if there’s conflict at all, it’s between us. Not you.’
    Liat opened her mouth, closed it, shook her head. She sighed.
    ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Of course, I’m sorry. I’ve been an old hen, and I’m sorry for it, but . . . I know it’s not a trade. We aren’t negotiating, not really. But Nayiit-kya, you can’t say you haven’t been with a woman since we’ve come here. You didn’t choose to go south, even when I asked you to. Sweet, is it so bad at home?’
    ‘Bad?’ he said, speaking slowly. As if tasting the word. ‘I don’t know. No. Not bad. Only not good. And yes, I know I haven’t been keeping to my own bed. Do you think my darling wife has been keeping to hers?’
    Liat’s mind turned, searching for words, making sense as best she could of what he had asked and what he had meant by it. It was true enough that Tai had come into the world at an odd time, but he was a first child, and wombs weren’t made to be certain. She rushed through her memory, looking for signs she might have missed, suggestions back in their lives in Saraykeht that would have pointed at some venomous question, and slowly she began, if not to understand, then at least to guess.
    ‘You think he isn’t yours,’ she said. ‘You think Tai is another man’s child.’
    ‘Nothing like that,’ Nayiit said. ‘It’s only that you can make a child from love or from anger. Or inattention. Or only from not knowing what better to do. A baby isn’t proof of anything between the father and mother beyond a few moments’ pressure.’
    ‘It isn’t the child’s fault.’
    ‘No, I suppose not,’ Nayiit said.
    ‘This is why you came, then? To Nantani, and then up here? To be away from them?’
    ‘I came because I wanted to. Because it was the world, and when was I going to see it again? Because you wanted someone to carry your bags and wave off dogs. It was only partly that I couldn’t stay. And then when you were going to see him, Maati-cha . . . How could I not come along for that too? The chance to see my father again. I remember him, you know? I do, from when I was small, I remember a day we were all in a small hut. There was an iron stove, and it was raining, and you were singing while he bathed me. I don’t know when that was, I can’t put a time on it. But I remember his face.’
    ‘You would have known him, if you’d seen him in passing. You’d have known who he was.’
    Nayiit took a pose of affirmation. He pursed his lips and chuckled ruefully.
    ‘I don’t know what it is to be a father. I’m only working from—’
    ‘Nayiit-kya?’ came a voice from the shadows behind them. A soft, feminine voice. ‘Is everything well?’
    She stepped toward the light. A young woman, twenty summers, perhaps as many as twenty-two. She wore bedding tied around her waist, her breasts bare, her hair still wild from the pillows.
    ‘Jaaya-cha, this is my mother. Mother, Jaaya Biavu.’
    The girl blanched, then flushed. She took a pose of welcome, not bothering to cover herself, but her gaze was on Nayiit. It spoke of both humiliation and contempt. Nayiit didn’t look at her. The woman turned and stalked away.
    ‘That wasn’t kind,’ Liat said.
    ‘Very little of what she and I do involves kindness,’ he said. ‘I don’t expect I’ll see her again. By which I mean, I don’t suppose she’ll see me.’
    ‘Is she politically connected? If her family is utkhaiem . . .’
    ‘I don’t think she is,’ Nayiit said, his face in his hands. It was hard to be sure in the firelight, but she thought the tips of his ears were blushing. ‘I suppose I should have asked.’
    He struggled for a moment, trying to speak and failing. His brow furrowed and Liat had to resist the urge to reach over and smooth it with her thumb, the way she had when he’d been a babe.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘You know that I’m sorry.’
    ‘For what?’ she asked, her voice low and stern. As if there were any number of things for which he might be.
    ‘For not being a better man,’ he said.
    The fire popped, as if in comment. Liat took her son’s hand, and for a long moment, they were silent. Then:
    ‘I don’t care what you do with your marriage, Nayiit-kya. If you don’t love