Seasons of War

Otah supposed, the kind of sex lovers had on the nights before wars, pleasure and fear and a sorrow that anticipated the losses ahead. And afterward, he lay against her familiar, beloved body and pretended to sleep until, all unaware, the pretense became truth and he dreamed of looking for a white raven that everyone else but him had seen, and of a race through the tunnels beneath Machi that began and ended at his father’s ashes. He woke to the cool light of morning and Kiyan’s voice.
    ‘Sweet,’ she said again. Otah blinked and stretched, remembering his body. ‘Sweet, there’s someone come to see you. I think you should speak with him.’
    Otah sat up and adopted a pose that asked the question, but Kiyan, half smiling, nodded toward the bedchamber’s door. Before the servants could come and dress him, Otah pulled on rose-red outer robes over his bare skin and, still tying the stays, walked out to the main rooms. Ashua Radaani sat at the edge of a chair, his hands clasped between his knees. His face was as pale as fresh dough, and the jewels set in his rings and sewn in his robes seemed awkward and lost.
    ‘Ashua-cha,’ Otah said, and the man was already on his feet, already in a pose of formal greeting. ‘What’s happened?’
    ‘Most High, my brother in Cetani . . . I received a letter from him last night. The Khai Cetani is keeping it quiet, but no one has seen poet or andat in the court in some time.’
    ‘Not since the day Stone-Made-Soft escaped,’ Otah said.
    ‘As nearly as we can reckon it,’ he agreed.
    Otah nodded, but took no formal pose. Kiyan stood in the doorway, her expression half pleasure and half dread.
    ‘May I have the men I asked of you, Ashua-cha?’
    ‘You may have every man in my employ, Most High. And myself as well.’
    ‘I will take whoever is ready at dawn tomorrow,’ Otah said. ‘I won’t wait past that.’
    Ashua Radaani bowed his way out, and Otah stood watching him leave. That would help, he thought. He’d want the word spread that Radaani was firmly behind him. The other houses and families might then change their opinions of what help could be spared. If he could double the men he’d expected to have . . .
    Kiyan’s low chuckle startled him. She still stood in the doorway, her arms crossed under her breasts. Her smile was gentle and amazed. Otah raised in hands in query.
    ‘I have just watched the Khai Machi gravely accept the apology and sworn aid of his servant Radaani. A day ago you were an annoyance to that man. Today, you’re a hero from an Old Empire epic. I’ve never seen things change around a man so quickly as they change around you.’
    ‘It’s only because he’s frightened. He’ll recover,’ Otah said. ‘I’ll be an incompetent again when he’s safe and the world’s back where it was.’
    ‘It won’t be, love,’ Kiyan said. ‘The world’s changed, and it’s not changing back, whatever we do.’
    ‘I know it. But it’s easier if I don’t think too much about it just yet. When the Dai-kvo’s safe, when the Galts are defeated, I’ll think about it all then. Before that, it doesn’t help,’ Otah said as he turned back toward the bed they had shared for years now, and would for one more night at least. Her hand brushed his cheek as he stepped past, and he turned to kiss her fingers. There were no tears in her eyes now, nor in his.

12
    ‘ I gave him too much and not enough men to do it,’ Balasar said as they walked through the rows of men and horses and steam wagons. Eustin shrugged his disagreement.
    Around them, the camps were being broken down. Men loaded rolled canvas tents onto mules and steam wagons. The washerwomen loaded the pans and stones of their trade into packs that they carried on bent shoulders. The last of the captured slaves helped to load the last of the ships for the voyage back to Galt. The gulls whirled and called one to another; the waves rumbled and slapped the high walls of the seafront; the world smelled of sea salt and fire. And Balasar’s mind was on the other side of the map, uneased and restless.
    ‘Coal’s a good man,’ Eustin said. ‘If anyone can do the thing, it’s him.’
    ‘Six cities,’ he said. ‘I set him six cities. It’s too much. And he’s got far fewer men than we do.’
    ‘We’ll get finished here in time to help him with the last few,’ Eustin said. ‘Besides, one of them’s just a glorified village, and Chaburi-Tan was likely burning before we were out of Aren. So