Seasons of War

lucky. Seedless was flawed work. Dangerously flawed. Brilliant, don’t misunderstand. Heshai-kvo did brilliant work when he bound Seedless, but he made the andat very clever and profoundly involved with destroying the poet. They all want to be free - it’s their nature - but Seedless was more than that. He was vicious.’
    ‘You sound as though you were fond of it,’ Nayiit said, only half-teasing.
    ‘We were friendly enough, in our fashion,’ Maati said. ‘We wouldn’t have been if things had gone by the Dai-kvo’s plan. If I’d become the poet of Saraykeht, Seedless would have bent himself to destroying me just the way he had to Heshai-kvo.’
    ‘Have you ever tried to bind one of the andat?’
    ‘Once. When Heshai died, I had the mad thought that I could somehow retrieve Seedless. I had Heshai-kvo’s notes. Still have them, for that. I even began the ceremonies, but it would never have worked. What I had was too much like what Heshai had done. It would have failed, and I’d have paid its price.’
    ‘And then I suppose I would never have been born,’ Nayiit said.
    ‘You would have,’ Maati said, solemnly. ‘Liat-kya didn’t know she was carrying you when she stopped me, but she was. I thought about it, afterward. About binding another of the andat, I mean. I even spent part of a winter once doing the basic work for one I called Returning-to-True. I don’t know what I would have done with it, precisely. Unbent things, I suppose. I’d have been brilliant repairing axles. But my mind was too fuzzy. There were too many things I meant, and none of them precisely enough.’
    The musicians ended their song and stood to a roar of approving voices and bowls of wine bought by their admirers. One of the old men walked through the house with a lacquer begging box in his hand. Maati fumbled in his sleeve, came out with two lengths of copper, and tossed them into the box with a satisfying click.
    ‘And then, I also wasn’t in the Dai-kvo’s best graces,’ Maati continued. ‘After Saraykeht . . . Well, I suppose it’s poor etiquette to let your master die and the andat escape. I wasn’t blamed outright, but it was always hanging there. The memory of it.’
    ‘It can’t have helped that you brought back a lover and a child,’ Nayiit said.
    ‘No, it didn’t. But I was very young and very full of myself. It’s not easy, being told that you are of the handful of men in the world who might be able to control one of the andat. Tends to create a sense of being more than you are. I thought I could do anything. And maybe I could have, but I tried to do everything , and that isn’t the same.’ He sighed and ate a pea pod. Its flesh was crisp and sweet and tasted of spring. When he spoke again, he tried to make his voice light and joking. ‘I didn’t wind up doing a particularly good job of either endeavor.’
    ‘It seems to me you’ve done well enough,’ Nayiit said as he waved at the serving boy for more wine. ‘You’ve made yourself a place in the court here, you’ve been able to study in the libraries here, and from what Mother says, you’ve found something no one else ever has. That alone is more than most men manage in a lifetime.’
    ‘I suppose,’ Maati said. He wanted to go on, wanted to say that most men had children, raised them up, watched them become women and men. He wanted to tell this charming boy who stood now where Maati himself once had that he regretted that he had not been able to enjoy those simple pleasures. Instead, he took another handful of pea pods. He could tell that Nayiit sensed his reservations, heard the longing in the brevity of his reply. When the boy spoke, his tone was light.
    ‘I’ve spent all my life - well, since I’ve been old enough to think of it as really mine and not something Mother’s let me borrow - with House Kyaan. Running errands, delivering contracts. That’s how I started, at least. Mother always told me I had to do better than the other boys who worked for the house because I was her son, and if people thought I was getting favors because of it, they wouldn’t respect her or me. She was right. I can see that. At the time it all seemed monstrously unfair, though.’
    ‘Do you like the work?’ Maati asked.
    The girl with the drum began tapping a low tattoo, her voice droning in a lament. Maati shifted to look at Nayiit. The boy’s gaze was fixed on the singer, his expression melancholy. The urge to put his hand to Nayiit’s