The Price Of Spring(120)

They were not all there. Ashti Beg and the two Kaes had stayed up after many of the others had faded into their restless sleep. Maati had slipped into dream with the sound of their voices in his ears, and none of them had yet risen. Danat and Otah were sitting at the same table, looking like a painter's metaphor of youth and age. Eiah and Idaan shared his own table, and he did not know where the Galtic girl had gone.

"She didn't blind Maati. Why?" Otah asked, gesturing at Maati as if he were an exhibit at an audience rather than a person. "Why spare him and not the others?"

"Well, for Eiah it's clear enough," Danat said around a mouthful of pork. "She didn't want another poet binding the andat. As long as Vanjit's the only one, she's ... well, the only one."

"And the two Kaes," Eiah said, "so that they couldn't follow her."

"Yes," Idaan said, "but that's not the question. 117hy notMaati?"

"Because . . ." Maati began, and then fell short. Because she cared for him more? Because she didn't fear him? Nothing he could think of rang true.

"I think she wants to be found," Otah said. "I think she wants to be found, in specific, by Maati."

Idaan grunted appreciatively. Eiah frowned and then nodded slowly.

"Why would she want that?" Maati asked.

"Because your attention is the mark of status," Eiah answered. "You are the teacher. The Dai-kvo. Which of us you choose to give your time to determines who is in favor and who isn't. And she wants to show herself that she can take you from me."

"That's idiotic," Maati said.

"No," Idaan said, her voice oddly soft. "It's only childish."

"It fits together if you've raised a daughter," Otah agreed. "It's just what Eiah would have done when at twelve summers. But if I'm right, it changes things. I didn't want to say it in front of Ana-cha, but if your poet's truly gone to ground, I can't believe we'd find her before spring. She can find new allies if she needs them, or use the andat to threaten people and get what she wants from them. At best, we might have her by Candles Night."

"But if she's waiting to be found," Danat said.

"Then it's a matter of guessing where she'd wait," Otah said. "Where she'd expect Maati to go looking for her."

"I don't know the answer to that," Maati said. "The school, maybe. She might make her way back there."

"Or at the camp where we lost her," Eiah suggested.

Silence fell over the room for a moment. A decision had just been made, and Maati could tell that each of them knew it. Utani would wait. They were hunting Vanjit.

"The camp's nearest," Danat said.

"You can send one of the armsmen north with a letter," Eiah said. "Even if we fail, it doesn't mean a larger search can't be organized while we try."

"I'll round up the others," Idaan said, rising from the table. "No point wasting daylight. Danat-cha, if you could tell our well-armed escorts that we're leaving?"

Danat swilled down the last of his tea, took a pose that accepted his aunt's instructions, and rose. In moments, only Otah, Eiah, and Maati himself were left in the room. Otah took a bite of egg and stared out into nothing.

"Otahkvo," Maati said.

The Emperor looked over, his eyebrow raised in something equally query and challenge. Maati felt his chest tighten as if it were bound by wire. He sat silent for the rest of the meal.

To Maati's dismay, Ashti Beg, Large Kae, and Small Kae all preferred to stay behind. There was a logic to it, and the keeper was more than happy to take Otah's silver in return for a promise to look after them. Still, Maati found himself wishing that they had come.

The Emperor's boat was, if anything, smaller than the one Maati had hired. One of the armsmen had been sent north with letters that Otah had hastily drafted, another to the south. Half of the rest were set to finding a second boat and following with the supplies, and yet the little craft felt crowded as they nosed out into the river.

Otah stood at the bow, Danat at his side. Idaan had appointed herself shepherd of Eiah and Ana, the blinded women. Maati sat alone near the stern. The sky was pale with haze, the river air rich with the scent of decaying leaves and autumn. The kiln roared to itself, and the wheel slapped the water. Far above, two vees of geese headed south, their brash unlovely voices made beautiful by distance.

His rage was gone, and he missed it. All his fantasies of Otah Machi apologizing, of Otah Machi debased before him, melted like sugar in water when faced with the man himself. Maati felt small and alone, and perhaps that was merely accurate. He had lost everything now except perhaps Eiah. Irit was gone, and the wisest of them all for fleeing. He couldn't imagine Large Kae and Small Kae would return to him. Ashti Beg had left once already. And then Vanjit. All of his little family was gone now.