He was an old man with a kind face in the brown robes of a poet. When Otah approached his table, the overseer took a pose that was both welcome and query with a flowing grace that he had seen only in the Khai Saraykeht or the andat. Otah replied with a pose of greeting, and for an instant, he was a boy again in the cold, empty hallways of the school.
"I've come with a letter for the Dai-kvo," he said, pushing the memory aside. "From Maati Vaupathi in Saraykeht."
"Ah?" the overseer said, "Excellent. I will see that he gets it immediately."
The beautiful, old hand reached to him, open to accept the packet still in Otah's sleeve. Otah considered the withered fingers like carved wood, a sudden alarm growing in him.
"I had hoped to see the Dai-kvo myself," he said, and the overseer's expression changed to one of sympathy.
"The Dai-kvo is very busy, my friend. He hardly has time to speak to me, and I'm set to schedule his days. Give the letter to me, and I will see that he knows of it."
Otah pulled the letter out and handed it over, a profound disappointment blooming in his breast. It was obvious, of course, that the Dai-kvo wouldn't meet with simple couriers, however sensitive the letters they bore. He shouldn't have expected him to. Otah took a pose of gratitude.
"Will you be staying to carry a reply?"
"Yes," Otah said. "If there is one."
"I will send word tomorrow whether the most high intends to respond. Where will I find you?"
Otah took a pose of apology and explained that he had not taken rooms and didn't know the village. The overseer gave him a recommendation, directions, and the patience Otah imagined a grandfather might have for a well-loved but rather slow grandchild. It was twilight—the distant skyline glorious with the gold and purple of the just-set sun—when Otah returned to the street, his errand complete.
On the way back down, there was time to see the village more closely, though the light around him was fading. It struck him for the first time that he had seen no women since he had left the road. The firekeeper's kilns, the food carts and stalls, the inn to which he'd been directed—all were overseen by men. None of the people passing him in the steep, dim street had a woman's face.
And as he looked more closely, he found other signs, subtler ones, that the life of the Dai-kvo's village was unlike that of the ones he had known. The streets had none of the grime and dust of Saraykeht—no small plants or grasses pushed at the joints of the paving stones, no moss stained the corners of the walls. Even more than its singularity of gender, the unnatural perfection of the place made it seem foreign and unsettling and sterile.
He ate his dinner—venison and wine and fresh black bread—sitting alone at a low table with his back to the fire. A dark mood had descended on him. Visions of Liat and some small house, some simple work, bread cooked in his own kiln, meat roasted in his own kitchens seemed both ludicrous and powerful. He had done what he said he'd set out for. The letter was in the Dai-kvo's hands, or would be shortly.
But he had come for his own reasons too. He was Otah, the sixth son of the Khai Machi, who had walked away from the greatest power in all the nations. He had been offered the chance to control the andat and refused. For the first time, here in this false village, he imagined what that must be to his brothers, his teachers, the boys who had taken the offer gladly when it had been given. To men like Maati.
And so who was this Itani Noyga, this simple laborer with simple dreams? He had come halfway across the lands of the Khaiem, he realized, to answer that question, and instead he had handed an old man a packet of papers. He remembered, setting out from Saraykeht, that it had seemed an important adventure, not only to Heshai and Seedless, the Khai Machi and Saraykeht, but to himself personally. Now, he wasn't sure why he'd thought delivering a letter would mean more than delivering a letter.
He was given a small room, hardly large enough for the stretched-canvas cot and the candle on the table beside it. The blankets were warm and thick and soft. The mattress was clean and free of lice or fleas. The room smelled of cut cedar, and not rat piss or unbathed humanity. Small as it was, it was also perfect.
The candle was snuffed, and Otah more than half asleep when his door opened. A small man, bald as an egg, stepped in, a lantern held high. His round face was marked by two bushy eyebrows—black shot with white. Otah met his gaze, at first bleary, and then an instant later awake and alert. He took the pose of greeting he'd learned as a boy, he smiled sweetly and without sincerity.
"I am honored by your presence, most high Dai-kvo."
Tahi-kvo scowled and moved closer. He held the lantern close to Otah's face until the brightness of the flame made his old teacher shadowy. Otah didn't look away.