The Price Of Spring(51)

"How can you ask Danat to obey tradition when you've broken it?" she demanded.

Otah considered her. She seemed angry again, but it seemed as much on Danat's behalf as her own.

"By asking," Otah said. "It's the best I can manage. I've damaged the world badly. The reasons I had for doing it seemed good at the time. I would like to be part of putting it back together again. With his help. With yours."

"I didn't break all this," Ana said, her chin stubborn. "Danat didn't either, for that matter. It's not fair that we should have to sacrifice whatever we want to unmake your mistakes."

"It isn't. But I can't repair this."

"Why do you think I can?"

"I have some faith in you both," he said.

By the time he made his way back to his rooms, Idaan had departed, leaving only a brief note saying that she intended to return in the morning and had some questions for him. Otah sat on a low couch by the fire grate, his eyes focused on nothing. He wondered what Eiah would have made of his conversation with the Galtic girl, and of whom he was truly asking forgiveness. His mind wandered, and he did not realize he had lain back until he woke to the cool light of dawn.

He was sitting in his private bath, the hot water easing the knots that sleeping away from his bed had tied in his back, when the servant announced Sinja's arrival. Otah considered the effort that rising, drying himself, and being dressed would require and had the man brought to him. Sinja, dressed in the simple canvas and leather of a soldier, looked more like a mercenary captain than the nearest advisor to an emperor. He squatted at the edge of the bath, looking down at Otah. The servant poured tea for the newcomer, took a ritual pose appropriate to a withdrawal from which he would have to be specifically summoned to return, and left. The door slid closed behind him, the waxed wooden runners as silent as breath.

"What's happened?" Otah asked, dreading the answer.

"I was going to ask the same thing. You spoke to Ana Dasin last night?"

"I did," Otah said.

Sinja sipped his tea before he spoke again.

"Well, I don't know what you said to her, but this morning, I had a runner from Farrer Dasin offering his ships and his men for Balasar's fleet. The general's meeting with him now to arrange the details."

Otah sat forward, the water swirling around him.

"Farrercha ..."

Sinja put down the bowl of tea.

"The man himself. Not Issandra, not one of his servants. The handwriting was his own. There weren't details, only the offer. And since he's been reticent and dismissive every time Balasar asked, it seemed that something had changed. If it's what it looks like, it will mean putting off departure for a few days, but when we get there, it will be a real fighting force."

"That's. . ." Otah began. "I don't know how that happened."

"I've been swimming through palace gossip ever since, trying to find what made the change, and the only thing half-plausible I've heard is that Ana Dasin met with Danat-cha, after which she went to a secondrate teahouse, drank more than was considered healthy, and came here. After talking with you, she went back to the old poet's house; the lanterns were all lit and they didn't stop burning until the sun rose."

"We didn't talk about the fleet," Otah said. "The subject never came up.

Sinja unstrung his sandals and slid his feet into the warm water of the bath.

"Why don't you tell me what was said," Sinja asked. "Because somehow, in the middle of it, you seem to have done something right."

Otah recounted the meeting, rising from his bath and drying himself as he did. Sinja listened for the most part, interrupting only to laugh when Otah told of apologizing to the girl.

"That likely had as much to do with it as anything," Sinja said. "A high councillor's daughter with the Emperor of the Khaiem calling himself down for disrespecting her. Gods, Otah-kya, with that low an opinion of your own dignity, I don't know how you managed to hold power all these years."

Otah paused, his hands shifting to a pose of query.

"You apologized to a Galtic girl."

"I'd treated her poorly," Otah said.

Sinja raised his hands. It wasn't a formal pose, but it carried the sense of surrender. Whatever it was Sinja didn't understand about the act, he clearly despaired of ever learning.

"Tell me the rest," Sinja said.

There wasn't a great deal more, but Otah told it. He pulled on his robes by himself. The servants could adjust them when the meeting ended. Sinja drank another bowl of tea. The water in the bath grew still and as clear as air.

"Well," Sinja said when he had finished, "that's unexpected all around."

"You think Ana-cha interceded for us."