"I have distracted you from your task, Athai-cha. That was not my intention. What was it again the Dai-kvo wished of me?"
The envoy pressed his lips bloodless. They both knew the answer to the question, but Otah's feigned ignorance would force him to restate it. And the simple fact that Otah's bed habits were not mentioned would make his point for him. Etiquette was a terrible game.
"The militia you have formed," the envoy said. ""I'he Dai-kvo would know your intention in creating it."
"I intend to send it to the Westlands. I intend it to take contracts with whatever forces there are acting in the best interests of all the cities of the Khaiem. I will he pleased to draft a letter saying so."
Otah smiled. The young poet's eyes flickered. As insults went, this was mild enough. Eventually, the poet's hands rose in a pose of gratitude.
""There is one other thing, Most High," the envoy said. "If you take any aggressive act against the interests of another of the Khaiem, the Dal-kvo will recall Cehmai and StoneMade-Soft. If you take arms against them, he will allow the Khaiem to use their poets against you and your city."
"Yes," Otah said. "I understood that when I heard you'd come. I am not acting against the Khaiem, but thank you for your time, Athai-cha. I will have a letter sewn and sealed for you by morning."
After the envoy had left, Otah sank into a chair and pressed the heels of his hands to his temples. Around him, the palace was quiet. He counted fifty breaths, then rose again, closed and latched the door, and turned hack to the apparently empty room.
"Well?" he asked, and one of the panels in the corner swung open, exposing a tiny hidden chamber brilliantly designed for eavesdropping.
The man who sat in the listener's chair seemed both at ease and out of place. At ease because it was Sinja's nature to take the world lightly, and out of place because his suntanned skin and rough, stained leathers made him seem like a gardener on a chair of deep red velvet and silver pins fit for the head of a merchant house or a member of the utkhaiem. He rose and closed the panel behind him.
"He seems a decent man," Sinja said. "I wouldn't want him on my side of a fight, though. Overconfident."
"I'm hoping it won't come to that," Otah said.
"For a man who's convinced the world he's bent on war, you're a bit squeamish about violence."
Otah chuckled.
"I think sending the Dai-kvo his messenger's head might not be the most convincing argument for my commitment to peace," he said.
"Excellent point," Sinja agreed as he poured himself a bowl of wine. "But then you are training men to fight. It's a hard thing to preach peace and stability and also pay men to think what's the best way to disembowel someone with a spear."
"I know it," Otah said, his voice dark as wet slate. "Gods. You'd think having total power over a city would give you more options, wouldn't you?"
Otah sipped the wine. It was rich and astringent and fragrant of late summer, and it swirled in the bowl like a dark river. He felt old. Fourteen years he'd spent trying to be what Machi needed him to besteward, manager, ruler, half-god, fuel for the gossip and backbiting of the court. Most of the time, he did well enough, but then something like this would happen, and he would be sure again that the work was beyond him.
"You could disband it," Sinja said. "It's not as though you need the extra trade."
"It's not about getting more silver," Otah said.
"Then what's it about? You aren't actually planning to invade Cetani, are you? Because I don't think that's a good idea."
Otah coughed out a laugh.
"It's about being ready," he said.
"Ready?"
"Every generation finds it harder to bind fresh andat. Every one that slips away becomes more difficult to capture. It can't go on forever. There will come a time that the poets fail, and we have to rely on something else."
"So," Sinja said. "You're starting a militia so that someday, genera-bons from now, when some Dai-kvo that hasn't been born yet doesn't manage to keep up to the standards of his forebears-"
"There will also he generations of soldiers ready to keep the cities safe."
Sinja scratched his belly and nodded.
"You think I'm wrong?"
"Yes. I think you're wrong," Sinja said. "I think you saw Seedless escape. I think you saw Saraykeht stiffer the loss. You know that the Galts have ambitions, and that they've put their hands into the affairs of the Khaiem more than once."
"That doesn't make me wrong," Otah said, unable to keep the sudden anger from his voice. So many years had passed, and the memory of Saraykeht had not dimmed. "You weren't there, Sinja-cha. You don't know how had it was. "That's mine. And if it lets me see farther than the Dai-kvo or the Khaiem-"