Otah nodded her on.
"He could choose to fall in love with her. Cultivate the feeling within himself, and then ..." She shrugged. "Let the world take its course. I haven't known many women who failed to be charmed by an attractive man's genuine admiration."
"You think he could simply decide to feel what we want him to feel?"
"I've done it every day for nearly thirty years," Issandra said.
"That is either the most romantic thing I've heard or the saddest," Otah said. And then, "Ana-cha did me a great favor. I'm sorry that Danat repaid it with an indiscretion."
Issandra waved the apology away.
"I doubt she took offense. I'm sure she assumed Danat and this Radaani creature were sharing whatever flat surfaces came available. I remember what it was like at their age. We were all heat and dramatic gestures. We thought we were the first generation to truly discover love or sex or betrayal." Her voice softened.
Otah recalled a girl named Liat with skin the brown of eggshell and the night his one true friend had confessed his affair with her. The night Maati had confessed. He hadn't seen or spoken to either of them for years afterward. He had killed a man, in part as a blessing upon them, Liat and Maati, and the freedom that together they had given him.
All heat and dramatic gestures, he thought. Amusement mixed with sorrow, the way it always did.
"Still, it is a pity," Issandra said. "The Radaani girl is beautiful, and vanity is a powerful lever, no matter how sophisticated you take my daughter to be."
"We may hope for the best," Otah said. "Perhaps Shija-cha will take Danat's apology in stride and return to only acting the role."
Issandra's gaze told him exactly how likely she thought that was, but she only shook her head.
"It would be pleasant," she said.
He ate alone that night, though there were scores of men, Galtic and utkhaiem both, who would have been pleased to share his table. The pavilion sat atop a high tower, the air smelling of lavender and the sea. Otah sat on a cushion by a low table and watched the sunset; orange and red and gold spread out upon a wide canvas of clouds and sky. There were no singing slaves here, but soft chimes danced in the breeze with a sound like bells made from wood. An iron brazier sat close to keep him warm. The evening was beautiful and rich with sadness.
He had known that his daughter was angry with him. He had encouraged the high families to import wives for their sons. They had come from Bakta, Eymond, Eddensea. Women of middling birth commanded huge dowries. The coffers of the utkhaiem had dropped, but a handful of children had been born. A few dozen, perhaps, in every city. It hadn't been enough. And so he'd conceived the plan to join with Galt, old enemies made one people. Yes, it left behind a generation of Khaiate women. And Galtic men, for that. No doubt they would feel angered, lost, discarded. It was a small price to pay for a future.
The Comfort House Empire, she'd called it the last time they'd spoken. And her father, her father, the Procurer King. She said it, and she spat.
Thinking of it stung.
A flock of gulls wheeled below him and to the south. Lemon rice and river trout rested warm on his fingers and in his mouth. When he was alone, he still ate like a laborer.
He wondered if he had been wrong. Perhaps in the approach he had taken, trying to find women capable of bearing children for the cities. Perhaps in speaking to Eiah about it in the terms he'd used. Perhaps in failing to accept her criticism, in speaking harshly. Eiah had accused him of turning his back on the women whom Sterile had wounded because they were inconvenient. Eiah was one of those women, and the injury she'd suffered was as deep as any of his own. Deeper.
It might, he supposed, have been enough to turn her against him. She had always been close to Maati. She had spent long evenings at the library of Machi, where Maati had made his home. She had known Nayiit, the man that Otah had fathered and Maati had called son. In the many years that he had struggled with being merely the Khai Machi, Eiah had made a friend and an uncle of Maati Vaupathai. There was little reason to believe that she would withhold her loyalty from Maati now.
The wheeling gulls landed, leaving the sky to itself. The fleet had long passed the horizon, and Otah wished he had some magical glass that would let him see it still. It was a short enough voyage to ChaburiTan. Shorter if the pirates and raiders came out to confront them. He wished Sinja had stayed behind. In the failing light, the gaudy sunset turning to gray, he wanted his old friend back and was only half-startled to realize he meant Maati as much as Sinja.
A servant emerged from the darkened arches at the pavilion's edge and came forward. Otah knew the news he carried before he spoke. Idaan Machi had answered his summons and awaited at his pleasure. Otah ordered that she be brought to him. Her and more food.