A Shadow In Summer(121)

"What would you have said, if you'd found him?"

Maati shifted, sitting with his legs crossed, the warm bowl in his hands. He blew across it to cool it before he answered.

"I'd have asked his forgiveness."

"Would you have deserved it, do you think?"

"I don't know. Possibly not. What I did was wrong."

Seedless chuckled and leaned forward, lacing his long graceful fingers together.

"Of course it was," Seedless said. "Why would anyone ask forgiveness for something they'd done that was right? But tell me, since we're on the subject of judgment and clemency, why would you ask for something you don't deserve?"

"You sound like Heshaikvo."

"Of course I do, you're evading. If you don't like that question, leave it aside and answer me this instead. Would you forgive me? What I did was wrong, and I know it. Would you do for me what you'd ask of him?"

"Would you want me to?"

"Yes," Seedless said, and his voice was strangely plaintive. It wasn't an emotion Maati had ever seen in the andat before now. "Yes, I want to be forgiven."

Maati sipped the wine, then shook his head.

"You'd do it again, wouldn't you? If you could, you'd sacrifice anyone or anything to hurt Heshaikvo."

"You think that?"

"Yes."

Seedless bowed his head until his hair tipped over his hands.

"I suppose you're right," he said. "Fine, then this. Would you forgive Heshaikvo for his failings? As a teacher to you, as a poet in making something so dangerously flawed as myself. Really, pick anything—there's no end of ways in which he's wanting. Does he deserve mercy?"

"Perhaps," Maati said. "He didn't mean to do what he did."

"Ah! And because I planned, and he blundered, the child is more my wrong than his?"

"Yes."

"Then you've forgotten again what we are to each other, he and I. But let that be. If your laborer friend—you called him Otahkvo, by the way. You should be more careful of that. If Otahkvo did something wrong, if he committed some crime or helped someone else commit one, could you let that go?"

"You know . . . how did you . . ."

"I've known for weeks, dear. Don't let it worry you. I haven't told anyone. Answer the question; would you hold his crimes against him as you hold mine against me?"

"No, I don't think I would. Who told you that Otah was . . ."

Seedless leaned back and took a pose of triumph.

"And what's the difference between us, laborer and andat that you'll brush his sins aside and not my own?"

Maati smiled.

"You aren't him," he said.

"And you love him."

Maati took a pose of affirmation.

"And love is more important than justice," Seedless said.

"Sometimes. Yes."

Seedless smiled and nodded.

"What a terrible thought," he said. "That love and injustice should be married."

Maati shifted to a dismissive pose, and in reply the andat took the brown book back up, leafing through the handwritten pages as if looking for his place. Maati closed his eyes and breathed in the fumes of the wine. He felt profoundly comfortable, like sleep—true sleep—coming on. He felt himself rocking slowly, involuntarily shifting in time with his pulse. A sense of disquiet roused him and without opening his eyes again, he spoke.

"You mustn't tell anyone about Otahkvo. If his family finds him . . ."

"They won't," Seedless said. "At least not through me."

"I don't believe you."

"This time, you can. Heshaikvo did his best by you. Do you know that? For all his failings, and for all of mine, to the degree that our private war allowed it, we have taken care of you and . . ."

The andat broke off. Maati opened his eyes. The andat wasn't looking at him or the book, but out, to the south. It was as if his sight penetrated the walls, the trees, the distance, and took in some spectacle that held him. Maati couldn't help following his gaze, but there was nothing but the rooms of the house. When he glanced back, the andat's expression was exultant.

"What is it?" Maati asked, a cold dread at his back.

"It's Otahkvo," Seedless said. "He's forgiven you."

THE SINGLE candle burned, marking the hours of the night. On the cot where Otah had left him, the poet slept, all color leached from his face by the dim light. The poet's mouth was open, his breath deep and regular. Maj, at his side, knelt, considering the sleeping man's face. Otah shut the door.

"Is him," Maj said, her voice low and tense. "Is the one who does this to me. To my baby."

Otah moved forward, careful not to rattle the bottles on the floor, not to make any sound that would wake the sleeper.