An Autumn War(94)

"You can't," Otah said, and took the boy's hand. His son's hand. "You called a retreat when no one had given the order. In the Old Empire, I'd have had to see you killed for that. I can't have you come now."

The surprise on Nayiit's face was heartbreaking.

"You said it wasn't my fault," he said.

"And it isn't. I would have called the retreat myself if you hadn't. What happened to our men, what happened here, to the Dai-kvo.. . none of that's yours to carry. If you'd done differently, it would have changed nothing. But there will be a next time, and I can't have someone calling commands who might do what you've done."

Nayiit stepped hack, just out of his reach. Ah, Maati, Otah thought, what kind of son have we made, you and I?

"It won't," Nayiit said. "It won't happen again."

"I know. I know it won't," Otah said, making his tone gentle to soften hard words. "Because you're going back to Machi."

UDUN WAS A RIVER CITY. IT WAS A CITY OF BRIDGES, AND A CITY OF BIRDS. Sinja had lived there briefly while recovering from a dagger wound in his thigh. He remembered the songs of the jays and the finches, the sound of the river. He remembered Kiyan's stories of growing up a wayhouse keeper's daughter-the beggars on the riverside quays who drew pictures with chalks to cover the gray stone or played the small reed flutes that never seemed to be popular anywhere else; the canals that carried as much traffic as the streets. The palaces of the Khai Udun spanned the river itself, sinking great stone stanchions down into the river like the widest bridge in the world. As a girl, Kiyan had heard stories about the ghouls that lived in the darkness under those great palaces. She had gone there in boats with her cohort in the dark of night, the way that Sinja himself had dared burial mounds at midnight with his brothers. She had kissed her first lover in the twilight beneath a bridge just North of here. He had spent so little time in I. dun, and yet he felt he knew it so well.

The wayhouse where Sinja housed his men was south of the palaces. Its walls were stone and mud and thick as the length of his arm. The shutters were a green so dark they seemed almost black. It hadn't been built to fit as many men as Sinja commanded, but the standards of a soldier were lower than those of it normal traveler. And the standards of a soldier as likely to be mistaken for the enemy by his alleged fellows as killed by the defending armsmen were lower still. The great common room was covered from one wall to the other with thin cotton bedrolls. 'T'he upper rooms, intended for four men or fewer, housed eight or ten. 'T'here had been a few men who had ventured as far as the stables, but Sinja had called them hack inside. There was a madness on Balasar Dice's men, and he didn't intend to have his own fall to it.

In the small walled garden at the hack, Sinja sat on a camp stool and drank a howl of mint tea brewed with fresh-plucked leaves. "Thyme and basil grew around him, and a small black-leaf maple gave shade. Smoke rose into the skv, dark and solid as the towers of Machi. The birds were silent or lied. The scouts he'd sent out, their uniforms clearly the colors of Galt, reported that the rivers and canals had all turned red from the blood and the fish were dying of it. Sinja wasn't sure he believed that, but it seemed to catch the flavor of the day. Certainly he wasn't going to go out and look for himself.

An ancient man, spine bent and mouth innocent of anything resembling teeth, poked his head out the wide oaken doors at the end of the garden. The red-rimmed eyes seemed uncertain. The old hands shook so badly Sinja could see the trembling from where he sat. War is no place for the old, Sinja thought. It's meant for young men who can't yet distinguish between excitement and fear. Men who haven't yet grown a conscience.

"Mani-cha," Sinja called to the wayhouse keeper. "Is there something I can do for you?"

"'There's a man conic for you, Sinja-cha. Say's he's the ... ah ... the general."

"Bring him here," Sinja said.

The wayhouse keeper took a pose of acknowledgment, smiled an uncertain smile, and wavered half in, half out of the doorframe.

"You'll be fine, Mani-cha. You've my protection. He's not going to have you hanged, I promise. But you might bring him a bowl of tea."

Old Mani blinked and nodded his apology before ducking back into the house. The protection wasn't a promise he could keep. He hadn't asked General Gice's permission before he'd extended it. And still, he thought the old man's chances were good.

Balasar stepped into the garden as if he knew it, as if he owned it. It wasn't arrogance. That was what made the man so odd. The general's expression was drawn and thoughtful; that at least was a good sign. Sinja put his bowl of tea on the dusty red brick pathway, stood, and made his salute. Balasar returned it, but his gaze seemed caught by the shifting branches of the maple tree.