"Every generation, it's become more difficult," Tahi-kvo said, angry, it seemed, at speaking the words. "There are fewer men who take up the mantle. The andat that escape are more and more difficult to recapture. Even the fourth-water ones like Seedless and Unstung. The time will come—not for me, I think, but for my successor or his—when the andat may fail us entirely. The Khaiem will be overrun by Galts and Westerman. Do you understand what I'm telling you?"
"Yes," Otah said. "But not why."
"Because you had promise," Tahi-kvo said bitterly. "And because I don't like you. But I have to ask this. Otah Machi, have you come here with this letter because you've regretted your refusal? Was it an excuse to speak to me because you're seeking the robes of a poet?"
Otah didn't laugh, though the questions seemed absurd. Absurd and—as they mixed in his mind with the sights and scents of the village—more than half sad. And beneath all that, perhaps he had. Perhaps he had needed to come here and see the path he had not chosen to know as a man whether he still believed in the choices he had made as a boy.
"No," he said.
Tahi-kvo nodded, undid the clasps on the great book and opened it. It was in no script Otah had ever seen. The poet looked up at him, his gaze direct and unpleasant.
"I thought not," he said. "Go then. And don't come back unless you decide you're man enough to take on the work. I don't have time to coddle children."
Otah took a pose of leave-taking, then hesitated.
"I'm sorry, Tahi-kvo," he said. "That your master died. That you had to live this way. All of it. I'm sorry the world's the way it is."
"Blame the sun for setting," the Dai-kvo said, not looking at him, not looking up.
Otah turned and walked out. The magnificence of the palaces was amazing, rich even past the Khai Saraykeht. The wide avenues outside it were crowded in the late afternoon with men going about business of the highest importance, dressed in silks and woven linen and leather supple as skin. Otah took in the majesty of it and understood for the first time since he'd come the hollowness that lay beneath it. It was the same, he thought, as the emptiness in Heshaikvo's eyes. The one was truly a child of the other.
He was surprised, as he walked down to the edge of the village, to find himself moved to sorrow. The few tears that escaped him might have been shed for Maati or Heshai, Tahi-kvo or the boys of his cohort scattered now into the world, the vanity of power or himself. The question that had carried him here—whether he was truly Otah Machi or Itani Noyga; son of the Khaiem or seafront laborer—was unresolved, but it was also answered.
Either one, but never this.
"WHEN?" MAJ demanded, her arms crossed. Her cheeks were red and flushed, her breath smelled of wine. "I've been weeks living with whores and you, their pimp. You told me that the men who killed my child would be brought to justice. Now tell me when."
The island girl moved quickly, scooping up a vase from Amat's desk and throwing it against the far wall. The pottery shattered, flowers falling broken to the floor. The wet mark on the wall dripped and streaked. The guard was in the room almost before Amat could move, a knife the length of his forearm at the ready. Amat rose and pushed him back out despite his protests, closing the door behind him. Her hip ached badly. It had been getting worse these last weeks, and it added to everything else that made her irritable. Still, she held herself tall as she turned back to her sometime ally, sometime charge. The girl was breathing fast now, her chin jutting out, her arms pulled back. She looked like a little boy, daring someone to strike him. Amat smiled sweetly, took two slow strides, and slapped her smartly across the mouth.
"I am working from before the sun comes up to half through the night for you," Amat said. "I am keeping this filthy house so that I have the money we need to prosecute your case. I have ruined my life for you. And I haven't asked thanks, have I? Only cooperation."
There were tears brimming in Maj's pale eyes, streaking down her ruddy cheek. The anger that filled Amat's chest like a fire lessened. Moving more slowly, she walked to the mess against the far wall and, slowly, painfully, knelt.
"What I'm doing isn't simple," Amat said, not looking as she gathered the shards and broken flowers. "Wilsincha didn't keep records that would tie him directly to the trade, and the ones that do exist are plausible whether he knew of the treachery or not. I have to show that he did. Otherwise, you may as well go home."
The floor creaked with Maj's steps, but Amat didn't look up. Amat made a sack from the hem of her robe, dropped in the shattered vase and laid in the soft petals afterwards. The flowers, though destroyed, smelled lovely. She found herself reluctant to crush them. Maj crouched down beside her and helped clean.