The Price Of Spring (Long Price Quartet #4)

The Price Of Spring (Long Price Quartet #4) Page 6

The fastest ships arrived several days before the great mass of the fleet. They stood out half a hand's travel from the seafront, and Otah took in the whole city. He could see the masts at the farthest end of the seafront, berthed in order to leave the greatest space for the incoming traffic. Bright cloth hung from every window Otah could see, starting with the dock master's offices nearest the water to the towers of the palaces, high and to the north where the vibrant colors were grayed by humidity.

Crowds filled the docks, and he heard a roar of voices and snatches of drum and flute carried by the breeze. The air itself smelled different: rank and green and familiar in a way he hadn't expected.

The Emperor of the Khaiem had been away from his cities for eight months, almost nine, and his return with the high families of Galt in tow was the kind of event seen once in history and never again. This was the day that every man and woman at the seafront or watching from the windows above the streets would recall until death's long fingers touched them. The day that the new empress, the Galtic empress, arrived for the first time.

There were stories Otah had read in books that had been ashes for almost as long as this new Empress had been alive, about an emperor's life mirroring the state of his empire. An emperor with many children meant rich, fertile land; one without heir spoke of poor crops and thin cattle. An emperor who drank himself to sleep meant an empire of libertines; one who studied and prayed, a somber land of great wisdom. He had halfbelieved the stories then. He had no faith in them now.

"You would think they would have made some allowance for our arrival," a man's peevish voice said from behind him. Otah looked back at Balasar Gice, dressed in formal brocade armor and shining with sweat. Otah took a pose of powerlessness before the gods.

"The wind does what the wind does," he said. "We'll be on land by nightfall."

"We will," Balasar said. "But the others will be docking and unloading all night."

It was true. Saraykeht would likely add something near a tenth of its population in the next day, Galts filling the guest quarters and wayhouses and likely half the beds in the soft quarter. It was the second time in Otah's life that a pale-skinned, round-eyed neighborhood without buildings had appeared in his city. Only now, it would happen without drawn blades and blood.

"They're sending tow galleys out for us," Otah said. "It will all be fine."

The galleys, with their flashing banks of white oars and ornamental ironwork rails, reached the great ship just after midday. With a great clamor of voices-protests, laughter, orders, counterorders-thick cables of hemp were made fast to the ship's deck. The sails were already down, and with the sound of a bell clanging like an alarm, Otah's ship lurched, shifted directly into the wind, and began the last, shortest leg of his journey home.

A welcoming platform had been erected especially for the occasion. The broad beams were white as snow, and a ceremonial guard waited by a litter while a somewhat less ceremonial one kept the press of the crowds at a distance. Balasar and six of the Galtic High Council had made their way to Otah's ship in order to disembark with him. The Avenger with Ana and her parents would likely come next, after which the roar of competing etiquette masters would likely drown out the ocean. Otah was more than willing to leave the fighting for position and status for the dock master to settle out.

The crowd's voice rose when the ship pulled in, and again when the walk bridged the shifting gap between ship and land. His servants preceded him in the proper array and sequence, and then Otah left the sea. The noise was something physical, a wind built of sound. The ceremonial guard adopted poses of obeisance, and Otah took his ritual reply. The first of the guard to stand, grinning, was Sinja.

"You've shaved your whiskers," Otah shouted.

"I was starting to look like an otter," Sinja agreed. His expression became opaque and he bowed to Otah's right. "Balasar-cha."

"Sinja," Balasar said.

The past intruded. Once Sinja had played the part of Balasar's man, expert on the cities of the Khaiem and mercenary leader of war. He had spied on the Galts, betrayed Balasar, and killed the man Balasar held dearest to his heart. It thickened the air between them, even now. Balasar's eyes shifted to the middle distance, a frown on his lips as if he were counting how many of his dead might have lived, had Sinja remained true. And then the moment was gone. Or if not gone, covered over for the sake of etiquette.

The others of the Galtic party lurched in from the ship, unsteady on planks that didn't move, and the assembled masses cheered each of them like a hero returned from war. Servants dressed in light cotton robes led each sweating Galt to a waiting litter, Otah's station of honor making him the last to leave.

"I suspect they'll be changing to local clothes before long," Sinja said. "They all look half-dead with the heat."

"I'm feeling it myself," Otah said.

"Should I interrupt protocol?" Sinja asked. "I could have you loaded and on your way up the hills in the time it takes to kill a chicken."

"No," Otah said with a sigh. "If we're doing this, let's do it well. But ride with me, eh? I want to hear what's going on."

"Yes," Sinja said. "Well. You've missed some dramatics, but I don't think there's anything particularly ominous waiting. Except the pirates. And the conspiracy. You did get the report about the conspiracy in Yalakeht? It's apparently got ties to Obar State."

"Well, that's just lovely," Otah said.

"No more plague than usual," Sinja offered gamely, and then it was time and servants stepped forward to escort Otah to his litter. The shifting gait of his bearers was similar to being aboard ship, but also wrong. Between that and the heat, Otah was beginning to feel nauseated, but the buildings that passed by his beaded window were comforting. Great blue and white walls topped with roof tiles of gray and red; banners hanging in the slow, thick air; men and women in poses of welcome or else waving small lengths of brightly colored cloth. If it had been autumn or winter, the old firekeepers' kilns would have been lit and strange flames would have accompanied him up the wide streets to the palaces.

"Any problems with the arrival?" he asked Sinja.

"A few. Angry women throwing stones, mostly. We've locked them away until the last ship comes in. Danat and I decided to put the girl and her family in the poet's house. It isn't the most impressive location, but it's comfortable, and it's far enough back from the other buildings that they might have some privacy. The gods all know they'll be gawked at like a three-headed calf the rest of the time."

"I think Ana has a lover," Otah said. "One of the sailors was built rather like a courtier."

"Ah," Sinja said. "I'll tell the guard to keep eyes out. I assume we'd rather he didn't come calling?"

"No, better that he not," Otah said.

"I don't suppose there's a chance the girl's still a virgin?"

Otah took a pose that dismissed the concern. Even if she weren'tand of course she wasn't-she wouldn't be bearing another man's child. Not if the boy he had glimpsed in the hold of the Avenger was a Galt. Otah felt a moment's unease.

"If the guard do find a boy sneaking in, have him held until I can speak with him. I'd rather that this whole situation not get more complex than it already is."

"Your word is law, Most High," Sinja said, his tone light. Otah chuckled.

He had missed the man's company. There were few people in the world who could see Otah beneath his titles, fewer still who dared mock him. It was a familiarity that had been forged by years. Together, they had acted against the plot which had first changed Otah from outcast to Khai Machi. They had loved the same woman and come near violence over it. Sinja had trained Otah's son in the arts of combat and strategy, had gotten drunk with the Emperor after Kiyan's funeral, had spoken his mind whether invited to or not. Otah had no other advisor or friend like him.

As they moved north, the crowd that lined the street changed its nature. Once they had passed out of the throng at the seafront, the robes and faces had been those of laborers and artisans. As they passed the compounds of the merchant houses, the robes and banners became more ornate. Rich and saturated colors were edged with embroidery of gold and worked in the symbols of the various houses. And then almost without a pause, the symbols and colors were not of merchants, but of the families of the utkhaiem, and the high walls and ornate shutters were not mercantile compounds, but palaces. Men and women in fine robes took poses of welcome and obeisance as servants and slaves fanned them. A hidden choir burst into song somewhere to his left, the voices in complex harmony. The litter stopped before the grand palace, the first palace, the Emperor's palace. Otah stepped out, sweeping his gaze over the ordered rows of servants and high officials until he saw the one man he'd longed for.

Danat was in his twentieth summer, his face a mixture of Otah's long, northern features and Kiyan's, thin and foxlike. The planes of his cheeks had sharpened since Otah had gone. He looked older, more handsome. He wore a robe of deep gray set off with a rich, red sash that suited him. And still, Otah could see all the boys that had made this man: the babe, the bumbling child new to his own feet, the long-ill boy kept in his bed, the awkward and sorrowful youth, and the young heir to the Empire. All of them stood before him, hands in a pose of formal welcome, a smile glittering in his eyes. Otah broke protocol, embracing his son. The boy's arms were strong.

"You've done well," Otah murmured.

"None of the cities actually burned down while you were gone," Danat replied softly. There was pride in his voice, pleasure at the compliment.

"But you sound too much like Sinja."

"You knew that was a risk."

Otah laughed and let the swarm of servants precede him to his chambers. There would be no end of ceremonies later. Welcomes would drag on for weeks, audiences, special pleadings, feasts, dances, negotiations, councils. It all lay before him like a life's work started late. But now, sitting in the cool breeze of his private apartments with Sinja across from him and Danat pouring chilled water into stone bowls, the world was perfect.

Except, of course, that it wasn't.

"Perhaps we can mend both breaks with the same nail," Sinja said. "A strong showing against the pirates protects Chaburi-Tan and warns Obar State to keep to its own house."

"And a weak showing against them?" Otah asked.

"Shows we're weak, after which things go poorly," Sinja said. "But if we're going to assume failure from the start, there's not going to be anything of use that I can offer."

Otah propped up his feet. The palaces still felt as if they were swaying: the ghost motion of weeks aboard ship. The feeling was oddly pleasant.

"On the other hand," he said, "if we plan to decimate the enemy with a flower and a pillow, it's not going to help us. How strong is our fleet? Do we have enough men to take the pirates in a fair fight?"

"If we don't have them now, we certainly won't next year when all the sailors are a year older," Sinja said. "Even if you magically transport every fertile girl in Galt straight to some poor bastard's bed, it will be ten years before they can deliver us anyone strong enough to coil rope, much less fight. If we're going to do anything, it has to be now. We're going to grow weaker before we're strong."

"If we manage to get strong," Otah said. "And I don't know that we can spare the ships. We have eleven cities and the gods alone know how many low towns. We're talking about moving half a million of our men to Galt and bringing back as many of their women."

"Well, yes, shipping out anyone we have of fighting age now won't help the matter," Sinja said.

"Galt could do it," Danat said. "They have experience with sea wars. They have fighting ships and the veterans."

Otah saw the considering expression on Sinja's face. He let the silence stretch.

"I don't like it," Sinja said at last. "I don't know why I don't like it, but I don't."

"We're still thinking of our problems as our own," Danat said. "Asking Galt to fight our battles might seem odd, but they'd be protecting their own land too. In a generation, Chaburi-Tan is going to be as much their city as ours."

Otah felt an odd pressure in his chest. It was true, of course. It was what he had spent years working to accomplish. And still, when Danat put it in bare terms like that, it was hard for him to hear it.

"It's more than that," Sinja said.

"Is it Balasar?" Otah asked.

Sinja leaned forward, his fingers laced on his knee, his mouth set in a scowl. At length, he spoke.

"Yes," he said. "Yes, it is."

"He's forgiven me," Otah said. "Perhaps the two of you-"

"All respect, Otah-cha," Sinja said. "You were his enemy. That's a fair position. I broke my oath, lied to him, and killed his best captain. He's a man who loves loyalty, and I was one of his men. It's not the same."

"Perhaps it isn't," Otah agreed.

"Balasar-cha doesn't have to be the one to lead it," Danat said. "Or, all respect, Sinja-cha, for that."

"No, of course we don't," Sinja said. "It's not my head that's struggling with the thought. It's just ... The boy's right, Otah-cha. A mixed fleet, their ships and ours, sinking the pirates would be the best solution. I don't know if we can negotiate the thing, but it's worth considering."

Otah scratched his leg.

"Farrer-cha," he said. "Danat's new father. He has experience with sea fighting. I think he hates all of us together and individually for Anacha's upcoming marriage, but he would still be the man to approach."

Danat took a long drink of water and grinned. It made him look younger.

"After the ceremony's done with," Sinja said. "We'll get the man drunk and happy and see if we can't make him sign something binding before he sobers up."

"If it were only so simple," Otah said. "With the High Council and the Low Council and the Conclave, every step they take is like putting cats in a straight line. Watching it in action, it's amazing they ever put together a war."

"You should talk to Balasar," Sinja said.

"I will," Otah replied.

They moved on to other topics. Some were more difficult: weavers and stonemasons on the coasts had started offering money to apprentices, so the nearby farms were losing hands; the taxes from Amnat-Tan had been lower than expected; the raids in the northern passes were getting worse. Others were innocuous: court fashions had shifted toward robes with a more Galtic drape; the shipping traffic on the rivers was faster now that they'd figured out how to harness boilers to do the rowing; and finally, Eiah had sent word that she was busy assisting a physician in Pathai and would not attend her brother's wedding.

Otah paused over this letter, rereading his daughter's neat, clear hand. The words were all simple, the grammar formal and appropriate. She made no accusations, leveled no arguments against him. It might have been better if she had. Anger was, at least, not distance.

He considered the implications of her absence. On one hand, it could hardly go unnoticed that the imperial family was not all in attendance. On the other, Eiah had broken with him years ago, when his present plan had still been only a rough sketch. If she was there, it might have served only to remind the women of the cities that they had in a sense been discarded. The next generation would have no Khaiate mothers, and the solace that neither would they have Galtic fathers would be cold comfort at best. He folded his daughter's letter and tucked it into his sleeve, his heart heavy with the thought that not having her near was likely for the best.

After, Otah retired to his rooms, sent his servants away, and lay on his bed, watching the pale netting shift in a barely felt breeze. It was strange being home, hearing his own language in the streets, smelling the air he'd breathed as a youth.

Ana and her parents would be settled in by now, sitting, perhaps, on the porch that looked out over the koi pond and its bridge. Perhaps putting back the hinged walls to let in the air. Otah had spent some little time at the poet's house of Saraykeht once, back when he'd been Danat's age and the drinking companion and friend of Maati Vaupathai. Back in some other life. He closed his eyes and tried to picture the rooms as they'd been when Seedless and the poet Heshai had still been in the world. The confusion of scrolls and books, the ashes piled up in the grate, the smell of incense and old wine. He didn't realize that he was falling asleep until Seedless smirked and turned away, and Otah knew he was in dreams.

A human voice woke him. The angle of the sun had shifted, the day almost passed. Otah sat up, struggling to focus his eyes. The servant spoke again.

"Most High, the welcoming ceremonies are due in a hand and a half. Shall I tell the Master of Tides to postpone them?"

"No," Otah said. His voice sounded groggy. He wondered how long the servant had been trying to rouse him. "No, not at all. Send me clean robes. Or ... no, send them to the baths. I'll be there."

The servant fell into a pose that accepted the command as law. It seemed a little overstated to Otah, but he'd grown accustomed to other people taking his role more seriously than he did himself. He refreshed himself, met with the representatives of two high families and a trading house with connections in Obar State and Bakta, and allowed himself to be swept along to the grand celebration. They would welcome their onetime invaders with music and gifts and intrigue and, he suspected, the equivalent weight of the palaces in wine and food.

The grandest hall of his palaces stood open on a wide garden of nightblooming plants. A network of whisperers stood on platforms, ready to repeat the ceremonial greetings and ritual out to the farthest ear. Otah didn't doubt that runners were waiting at the edge of the gardens to carry reports of the event even farther. The press of bodies was intense, the sound of voices so riotous that the musicians and singers set to wander the garden in serenade had all been sent home.

Otah sat on the black lacquer chair of the Khai Saraykeht, his spine straight and his hands folded as gracefully as he could manage. Cushions for Danat and Sinja and all of Otah's highest officers were arrayed behind him, perhaps two-thirds filled. The others were, doubtless, in the throng of silk and gems. There was nowhere else to be tonight. Not in Saraykeht. Perhaps not in the world.

Danat brought him a bowl of cold wine, but it was too loud to have any conversation beyond the trading of thanks and welcome. Danat took his place on the cushion at Otah's side. Farrer Dasin, Otah saw, had been given not a chair but a rosewood bench. Issandra and Ana were on cushions at his feet. All three looked overwhelmed about the eyes. Otah caught Issandra's gaze and adopted a pose of welcome, which she returned admirably.

He turned his attention to her husband. Farrer Dasin, stern and gray. Otah found himself wondering how best to approach the man about this new proposal. Though he knew better, he could not help thinking of Galt and his own cities as separate, as two empires in alliance. Farrer Dasin- indeed, most of the High Council-were sure to be thinking in the same ways. They were all wrong, of course, Otah included. They were marrying two families together, but more than that they were binding two cultures, two governments, two histories. His own grandchildren would live and die in a world unrecognizably different from the one Otah had known; he would be as foreign to them as Galt had been to him.

And here, on this clear, crowded night, the cycle of ages was turning. He found himself irrationally certain that Farrer Dasin could be persuaded to lead, or at least to sponsor, a campaign against the pirates at Chaburi-Tan. They had done this. They could do anything.

The signal came: flutes and drums in fanfare as the cloth lanterns rose to the dais. Otah stood up and the crowd before him went silent. Only the sound of a thousand breaths competed with the songbirds and crickets.

Otah gave his address in the tones appropriate to his place, practiced over the course of years. He found himself changing the words he had practiced. Instead of speaking only of the future, he also wanted to honor the past. He wanted every person there to know that in addition to the world they were making, there was a world-in some ways good, in others evil-that they were leaving behind.

They listened to him as if he were a singer, their eyes fastened to him, the silence complete apart from his own words in the hundred throats of the whisperers echoing out into the summer night. When he took the pose that would end his recitation, he saw tears on more than one face, and on the faces of more than one nation. He made his way to Farrer Dasin and formally invited the man to speak. The Galt stood, bowed to Otah as a gesture between equals, and moved forward. Otah returned to his seat with only the lightest twinge of trepidation.

"Are you sure you should let him speak?" Sinja murmured.

"There's no avoiding it," Otah replied, still smiling. "It will be fine."

The councilman cleared his throat, stood in the odd, awkward style of Galtic orators-one foot before the other, one hand in the air, the other clasping his jacket and spoke. All of Otah's worst fears were put at once to rest. It was as if Issandra had written the words and spoke them now through her husband's mouth. The joy that was children, the dark years that the war had brought, the emptiness of a world without the laughter of babes. And now, the darkness ended.

Otah felt himself begin to weep slightly. He wished deeply that Kiyan had lived to see this night. He hoped that whatever gods were more than stories and metaphors took word of it to her. The old Galt bowed his head to the crowd. The applause was like an earthquake or a flood. Otah rose and held his hand out to Danat as Fatter Dasin did the same with his daughter. The Emperor-to-be and his Empress meeting here for the first time. There would be songs sung of this night, Otah knew.

Ana was beautiful. Someone had seen to it that the gown she wore flattered her. Her face was painted in perfect harmony with her hair and the gold of her necklace. Danat wore a black robe embroidered with gold and cut to please the Galtic eye. Farrer and Otah stepped back, leaving their children to the center of the dais. Danat tried a smile. The girl's eyes fluttered; her cheeks were flushed under the paint, her breath fast.

"Danat Machi?" she said.

"Ana Dasin," he replied.

The girl took a deep breath. Her pretty, rodentlike face shone. When she spoke, her voice was strong and certain.

"I will never consent to lay down with you, and if you rape me, I will see the world knows it. My lover is Hanchat Dor, and I will have no other."

Otah felt his face go white. In the corner of his eye, he saw Farrer Dasin rock back like a man struck by a stone and then raise a hand to his face. Danat's mouth opened and closed like a fish's. The whisperers paused, and then a heartbeat later, the words went out where they could never be called back. The voice of the crowd rose up like the waters of chaos come to drown them all.