"Not every poet is made for slaughter," Maati said as he tipped rice wine clear as water into the howl. "There was a part of him that rebelled at the prospect of turning the andat against the Galts. I know he struggled with it, and he and I both believed he'd made his peace with . 11 it.
"But now you think not?"
"Now I think perhaps he wasn't as certain as he told himself he was. He may not even have known what he meant to do. It would take so little, in a way. The decision of a moment, and then gone beyond retrieval. If he regretted it in the next breath, it would already be too late. But it can't he a coincidence, the Galts and StoneMade-Soft."
Liat sipped now, just enough to maintain the warmth in her body but not so much as to make her drunk. Maati drank directly from the bottle, wiping it with his sleeve after.
""There's another explanation," she said. "The Galts could have done it."
"How? They can't unmake a binding."
`.. They could have bought him."
Nlaati shook his head, frowning. "Not Cehmai. There's not a man in the world less likely to turn against the Khaiem."
"You're sure of that?"
"Yes. I'm sure," Nlaati said. "He was happy. He had his life and his place in the world, and he was happy."
"So much the worse for him," Liat said. "At least we don't have that to suffer, eh?"
"And now who sounds hitter?"
Liat chuckled and took a pose accepting the point that was made awkward by the howl in one hand.
"How are things with Otah-kvo?" Maati asked.
"He's like the wind on legs," Liat said. "Ile wants to know everything at once, control all of it, and I think he's driving the court half mad. And ... don't say I said it, but it's almost as if he's enjoying it. Everything's falling apart except him. If simple force of will can hold a city together, I think Machi will he fine."
"It can't, though."
"No," she agreed. "It can't."
The back of Maati's hand brushed against her arm. It was a small, tentative gesture, familiar as breath. It was something he had always done when he was uncertain and in need of comfort. There had been times when she'd found it powerfully annoying and times when she'd found herself doing it too. Now, she shifted the wine howl to her other hand, and resolutely laced her fingers with his.
"I haven't written hack to the Dal-kvo," Nlaati said. His voice was as low as a confession. "I'm not sure what I should ... I haven't been hack to Saraykeht, you know. I could ... I mean ... Gods, I'm saying this badly. If you want it, Liat-kya, I could come hack with you. You and Nayiit."
"No," she said. "There isn't room for you. My life there has a certain shape to it, and I don't want you to he a part of it. And Nayiit's a grown man. It's too late to start raising him now. I love you. And Nayiit is better, I think, knowing you than he was before. But you can't come hack with us. You aren't welcome."
hlaati looked down at his knees. His hand seemed to relax into her palm.
""Thank you," he whispered.
She raised his hand and kissed the wide, soft knuckles. And then his mouth. He touched her neck gently, his hand warm against her skin.
"Put out the candles," she said.
Time had made him a better lover than when they had been young. Time and experience-his and her own both. Sex had been so earnest then; so anxious, and so humorless. She had spent too much time as a girl worried about whether her breasts looked pleasing or if her hips were too thin. In the years she had kept a house with him, Maati had tried to hold in his belly whenever his robes came off. Youth and vanity, and now that they were doomed to sagging flesh and loose skin and short breath, all of it could be forgiven and left behind.
They laughed more now as they shrugged out of their robes and pulled each other down on the wide, soft bed. They paused in their passions to let Maati rest. She knew better now what would bring her the greatest pleasure, and had none of her long-ago qualms about asking for it. And when they were spent, lying wrapped in a soft sheet, Maati's head on her breast, the netting pulled closed around them, the silence was deeper and more intimate than any words they had spoken.
She would miss this. She had known the dangers when she had taken his hand again, when she had kissed him again. She had known there would be a price to pay for it, if only the pain of having had something pleasant and precious and brief. For a moment, her mind shifted to Nayiit and his lovers, and she was touched by sorrow on his behalf. He was too much her son and not enough Otah's. But she didn't want Otah in this room, in this moment, so she put both of these other men out of her mind and concentrated instead on the warmth of her own flesh and Maati's, the slow, regular deepening of his breath and of hers.