An Autumn War(72)

"Why?" Liat whispered. "Why me? Why, when we are what we are to each other."

"When we're what to each other?"

"Women who've loved the same man," Liat said. "Mothers of ... of our sons. How can you put that aside, even only for a little while?"

Kiyan smiled. It was a hard expression. Determined. She did not let go of Liat's hand, but neither did she hold it captive.

"I want you with me because we can't have other enemies now," she said. "And because you and I aren't so different. And because I think perhaps the distraction is something you need as badly as I do. There's war enough coming. I want there to be peace between us."

"I have a price," Liat said.

Kiyan nodded that she continue.

"When Nayiit comes back, spend time with him. Talk with him. Find out who he is. Know him."

"Because?"

"Because if you're going to have me fall in love with your boy, you owe it to fall a little in love with mine."

Kiyan grinned, tears glistening in her eyes. Her hand squeezed Liat's. Liat closed her grip, fierce as a drowning man holding to a rope. She hadn't understood until this moment how deep her fear ran or the loneliness that even Maati couldn't assuage. She couldn't say whether she had pulled Kiyan to her or if she herself had been pulled, but she found herself sobbing into the other woman's shoulder. Otah's wife wrapped fierce arms around her, embracing her as if she would protect Liat from the world.

"They would never understand this," Liat managed when her breath was her own again.

""They're men," Kiyan said. ""They're simpler."





Chapter 13

For years, Otah had been a traveler by profession. He had worked the gentleman's trade, traveling as a courier for a merchant house with business in half the cities of the Khaiem. He had spent days on horseback or hunkered down in the backs of wagons or walking. He remembered with fondness the feeling of resting at the end of a day, his limbs warm and weary, sinking into the woolen blanket that only half protected him from the ticks. He remembered looking up at the wide sky with something like contentment. It seemed fourteen years sleeping in the best bed in Machi had made a difference.

"Is there something I can bring you, Most I Iigh?" the servant boy asked from the doorway of the tent. Utah pulled open the netting and turned over in his cot, twisting his head to look at him. The boy was perhaps eighteen summers old, long hair pulled back and bound by a length of leather.

"Do I seem like I need something?"

The boy looked down, abashed.

"You were moaning again, Most High."

Otah let himself lie back on the cot. The stretched canvas creaked under him like a ship in a storm. He closed his eyes and cataloged quietly all his reasons for moaning. His hack ached like someone had kicked him. His thighs were chafed half raw. They were hardly ten days out from Machi, and it was becoming profoundly clear that he didn't know how to march a military column across the rolling, forested hills that stretched from Machi almost to the mountains North of the Daikvo. The great Galtic army that had massed in the South was no doubt well advanced, and the Dal-kvo was in deadly danger, if he hadn't been killed already. Otah closed his eyes. Right now, the throbbing sting of his abused thighs bothered him most.

"Go ask the physicians to send some salve," he said.

"I'll call for the physician."

"No! Just ... just get some salve and bring it here. I'm not infirm. And I wasn't moaning. It was the cot."

The boy took a pose of acceptance and backed out of the tent, shutting the door behind him. Otah let the netting fall closed again. A tent with a door. Gods.

The first few days hadn't been this had. The sense of release that came from taking real action at last had almost outweighed the fears that plagued him and the longing for Kiyan at his side, for Eiah and Danat. The Northern summer was brief, but the days were long. He rode with the men of the utkhaiem, trotting on their best mounts, while the couriers ranged ahead and the huntsmen foraged. The wide, green world smelled rich with the season. The North Road ran only among the winter cities-Amnat-"Tan, Cetani, Machi. There was no good, paved road direct from Machi to the village of the Dai-kvo, but there were trade routes that jumped from low town to low town. Mud furrows worn by carts and hooves and feet. Around them, grasses rose high as the bellies of their horses, singing a dry song like fingertips on skin when the wind stirred the blades. The feeling of the sure-footed animal he rode had been reassuring at first. Solid and strong.

But the joy of action had wearied while the dread grew stronger. The steady movement of the horse had become wearisome. The jokes and songs of the men had lost something of their fire. The epics and romances of the Empire included some passages about the weariness and longing that came of living on campaign, but they spoke of endless seasons and years without the solace of home. Otah and his men hadn't yet traveled two full weeks. They were still well shy of the journey's halfway mark, and already they were losing what cohesion they had.