Seasons of War

looked out to the south and east, where the men of Machi made their way through the high green grasses of summer. From this distance, they looked like a single long black mark on the landscape. She could no more make out an individual wagon or rider than she could take to the air and fly. And still she strained her eyes, because one part of that distant mark was her only son.
    He had only told her when it was already done. She had been in her apartments - the apartments given her by the man who had once been her lover. She had been thinking of how a merchant or tradesman who took in an old lover so casually would have been the subject of gossip - even a member of the utkhaiem would have had answers to make - but the Khai was above that. She had gone as far as wondering, not for the first time, what Kiyan-cha thought and felt on the matter, when Nayiit had scratched at her door and let himself in.
    She knew when she saw his face that something had happened. There was a light in his eyes brighter than candles, but his smile was the too-charming one he always employed when he’d done something he feared she’d fault him for. Her first thought was that he’d offered to marry some local girl. She took a pose that asked the question even before he could speak.
    ‘Sit with me,’ he said and took her by the hand.
    They sat on a low stone bench near the window. The shutters were opened, and the evening breeze had smelled of forge smoke. He kept her hand in his as he spoke.
    ‘I’ve been to see the Khai,’ Nayiit said. ‘You know he believes what Maati-cha . . . what Father said. About the Galts.’
    ‘Yes,’ Liat said. She still hadn’t understood what she was seeing. His next words came like a blow.
    ‘He’s taking men, all the men he can find. They’re going overland to the Dai-kvo. I’ve asked to go with them, and he’s accepted me. He’s finding me a sword and something like armor. He says we’ll leave before the week’s out,’ he said, then paused. ‘I’m sorry.’
    She knew that her grip on his hand had gone hard because he winced, but not because she felt it. This hadn’t been their plan. This had never been their plan.
    ‘Why?’ she managed, but she already knew.
    He was young and he was trapped in a life he more than half regretted. He was finding what it meant to him to be a man. Riding out to war was an adventure, and a statement - oh, by all the gods - it was a statement that he had faith in Maati’s guess. It was a way to show that he believed in his father. Nayiit only kissed her hand.
    ‘I know the Dai-kvo’s village,’ he said. ‘I can ride. I’m at least good enough with a bow to catch rabbits along the way. And someone has to go, Mother. There’s no reason that I shouldn’t.’
    You have a wife, she didn’t say. You have a child. You have a city to defend, and it’s Saraykeht. You’ll be killed, and I cannot lose you. The Galts have terrorized every nation in the world that didn’t have the andat for protection, and Otah has a few armsmen barely competent to chase down thieves and brawl in the alleys outside comfort houses.
    ‘Are you sure?’ she said.
    She sat now, looking out over the wide, empty air as the mark grew slowly smaller. As her son left her. Otah had managed more men than she’d imagined he would. At the last moment, the utkhaiem had rallied to him. Three thousand men, the first army fielded in the cities of the Khaiem in generations. Untried, untested. Armed with whatever had come to hand, armored with leather smith’s aprons. And her little boy was among them.
    She wiped her eyes with the cloth of her sleeve.
    ‘Hurry,’ she said, pressing the word out to the distant men. Get the Dai-kvo, retrieve the poets and their books, and come back to me. Before they find you, come back to me.
    The sun had traveled the width of two hands together before she stepped out onto the platform and signaled the men far below her to bring her down. The chains clattered and the platform lurched, but Liat only held the rail and waited for it to steady in its descent. She knew she would not fall. That would have been too easy.
    She had done a poor job of telling Maati. Perhaps she’d assumed Nayiit would already have told him. Perhaps she’d been trying to punish Maati for beginning it all. It had been the next night, and she had accepted Maati’s invitation to dinner in the high pavilion. Goose in honey lacquer, almonds with cinnamon and raisin sauce, rice wine. Not