An Autumn War

"Nlaati," Liat said, and the man startled like a rabbit. For a long moment, his face was a blank confusion as he struggled to make sense of what he saw. Slowly, she watched him recognize her.

In all fairness, she might not have known him either, had she not sought him out. Time had changed him: thickened his body and thinned his hair. Even his face had changed shape, the smooth chin and jaw giving way to jowls, the eyes going narrower and darker. The lines around his mouth spoke of sadness and isolation. And anger, she thought.

She had known when she arrived that she'd found the right apartments. It hadn't been difficult to get directions to Machi's extra poet, and the door had been open. She'd scratched at the doorframe, called out his name, and when she'd stepped in, it was the scent that had been familiar. Certainly there had been other things-the way the scrolls were laid out, the ink stains on the arms of the chairs-that gave evidence to Maati's presence. The faintest hint, a wisp of musk slight as pale smoke, was the thing that had brought back the flood of memory. For a powerful moment, she saw again the small house she'd lived in after she and Maati had left Saraykeht; the yellow walls and rough, wooden floor, the dog who had lived in the street and only ever been half tamed by her offerings of sausage ends from the kitchen window, the gray spiders that had built their webs in the corners. The particular scent of her old lover's body brought back those rooms. She knew him better by that than to see him again in the flesh.

But perhaps that wasn't true. When he blinked fast and uncertainly, when his head leaned just slightly forward and a smile just began to bloom on his lips, she could see him there, beneath that flesh. The man she had known and loved. The man she'd left behind.

"Liat?" he said. "You ... you're here?"

She took a pose of affirmation, surprised to find her hands trembling. Maati stepped forward slowly, as if afraid a sudden movement might startle her into flight. Liat swallowed to loosen the knot in her throat and smiled.

"I would have written to warn you I was coming," she said, "hut by the time I knew I was, I'd have raced the letter. I'm ... I'm sorry if ..."

But he touched her arm, his fingers on the cloth just above her elbow. His eyes were wide and amazed. As if it were natural, as if it had been a week or a day and not a third of their lives, Liat put her arms around him and felt him enclose her. She had told herself that she would hold back, he careful. She was the head of House Kyaan, a woman of business and politics. She knew how to be hardhearted and cool. There was no reason to think that she would he safe here in the farthest city from her home and facing again the two lovers of her childhood. The years had worked changes on them all, and she had parted with neither of them on good terms.

And yet the tears in her eyes were simple and sincere and as much joy as sorrow, and the touch of Maati's body against her own-strange and familiar both-wasn't awkward or unwelcome. She kissed his cheek and drew back enough to see his still wonder-filled face.

"Well," she said at last. "It's been a while. It's good to see you again, Maati-kya. I wasn't sure it would be, but it is."

"I thought I'd never see you again," he said. "I thought, after all this time ... My letters ..."

"I got them, yes. And it's not as if court gossip didn't tell everyone in the world where you were. The last succession of Machi was the favorite scandal of the season. I even saw an epic made from it. The boy who took your part didn't look a thing like you," she said, and then, in a lower voice, "I meant to write hack to you, even if it was only to tell you that I'd heard. That I knew. But somehow I never managed. I regret that. I've always regretted that. It only seemed so ... complex."

"I thought perhaps ... I don't know. I don't know what I thought."

She stood silently in his arms the space of another breath, part of her wishing that this moment might suffice; that the relief she felt at Maati's simple, unconsidered acceptance might stand in for all that she had still to do. He sensed the change in her thoughts and stepped hack, his hands moving restlessly. She smoothed her hair, suddenly aware of the streaks of gray at her temple.

"Can I get something for you?" Maati said. "It's simple enough to call a servant in from the palaces. Or I have some distilled wine here."

"Wine will do," she said, and sat.

He went to a low cabinet beside the fire grate, sliding the wooden panel back and taking out two small porcelain bowls and a stoppered bottle as he spoke.

"I've had company recently. He's only just left. I don't usually live in this disorder."

"I'm not sure I believe that," she said, wryly. Maati chuckled and shrugged.

"Oh, I don't clean it myself. It would he a hundred times worse than this. Otah-kvo's been very kind in loaning me servants. He has more than he has places for."

The name was like a cold breath, but Liat only smiled and accepted the bowl that Nlaati held out to her. She sipped the wine-strong, peppery, and warm in her throat-to give herself a moment. She wasn't ready yet for the pleasure to end.

"The world's changed on us," she said. It was a platitude, but Maati seemed to take some deeper meaning from it.

"It has," he said. "And it'll keep on changing, I think. When I was a boy, I never imagined myself here, and I can't say for certain what I'll be doing when next summer comes. The new Dal-kvo ..."

He shook his head slowly and sipped his wine for what Liat guessed was much the same reason she had. The silence between them grew. Maati cleared his throat.

"How is Nayiit?" he asked, careful, Liat noticed, to use the boy's name. Not our son, but Nayiit.

She told him about the work of House Kyaan, and Nayiit's role as an overseer. The stories of how he had made the transition from the child of the head of the house to an overseer in his own right. His courtship, his marriage, the child. Maati closed the door, lit a fire in the grate, and listened.

It was odd that of all the subjects she had to bring to the table, Nayiit should be the easiest. And Maati listened to it all, laughing or rapt, delighted and also sorrowful, longing to have been part of something that was already gone. Her words were like rain in a desert; he absorbed them, cherished them. She found herself searching for more-anecdotes of Nayiit and his friends, his early lovers, the city, anything. She searched for them and offered them up, part apology, part sacrifice. The candles had grown visibly shorter before he asked whether Nayiit had stayed in Saraykeht, and Liat reluctantly shook her head.

"I've left him at the wayhouse," she said. "I wasn't certain how this would go, between us. I didn't want him to be here if it was bad."

Mlaati's hands started to move toward some pose-a denial, perhaps-then faltered. His eyes locked on hers. "There were decades in them. She felt tears welling up.

"I'm sorry," she said. "If that's worth anything, I am sorry, Maatikya."

"For what?" he asked, and his tone said that he could imagine a number of answers.

"That you weren't a part of his life until now."

"It was my choice as much as yours. And it will be good to see him again."

He heaved a sigh and pressed the stopper back into the bottle's neck. The sun was long gone, and a cold breeze, thick with the perfume of night-flowering gardens, raised bumps on her arms. Only the air. Not dread.

"You haven't asked me why I've come," she said.

He chuckled and leaned back against his couch. His cheeks were ruddy from the candlelight and wine. His eyes seemed to glitter.

"I was pretending it was for me. Mending old wounds, making peace," Maati said. The anger she'd seen was there now, swimming beneath the pleasant, joking surface. She wondered if she'd waited too long to come to the issue. She should have asked before she'd told him Nayiit was in the city, before the sour memories came back.

Maati took a pose of query, inviting her to share her true agenda.

"I need your help," Liat said. "I need an audience with the Khai."

"You want to talk to Otah-kvo? You don't need my help for that. You could just-"

"I need you to help me convince him. To argue my case with me. We have to convince him to intercede with the Dai-kvo."

Maati's eyes narrowed, and his head tilted like that of a man considering a puzzle. Liat felt herself starting to blush. She'd had too much of the wine, and her control wasn't all it should be.

"Intercede with the Dai-kvo?" he said.

"I've been following the world. And the Galts. It was what Amat Kyaan built the house to do. I have decades of books and ledgers. I've made note of every contract they've made in the summer cities. I know every ship that sails past, what her captain's name is, and half the time, what cargo she carries. I know, Maati. I've seen them scheming. I've even blocked them a time or two."

""They had hands in the succession here too. They were backing the woman, Otah-kvo's sister. Anything you want to say about Galt, he'll half-believe before he's heard it. But how is the Dai-kvo part of it?"

""They won't do it without the Uai-kvo," Liat said. "He has to say it's the right thing, or they won't do it."

"Who won't do what?" Nlaati said, impatience growing in his voice.

""I'he poets," Liat said. ""They have to kill the Galts. And they have to do it now."

O'IAII PRESENTED THE MEETING AS A LUNCHEON, A SOCIAL GATHERING OF old friends. He chose a balcony high in the palace looking out over the wide air to the south. The city lay below them, streets paved in black stone, tile and metal roofs pointing sharply at the sky. The towers rose above, only sun and clouds hanging higher. The wind was thick with the green, permeating scent of spring and the darker, acrid forge smoke. Between them, the low stone table was covered with plates-bread and cheese and salt olives, honeyed almonds and lemon trout and a sweetbread topped with sliced oranges. The gods alone knew where the kitchen had found a fresh orange.

Yet of all those present none of them ate.

Maati had made the introductions. Liat and Nayiit and Otah and Kiyan. The young man, Liat's son, had taken all the appropriate poses, said all the right phrases, and then taken position standing behind his mother like a bodyguard. Maati leaned against the stone banister, the sky at his hack. Otah-formal, uneased, and feeling more the Khai Machi than ever under the anxious gaze of woman who had been his lover in his youth-took a pose of query, and Liat shared the news that changed the world forever: the Galts had a poet of their own.

"His name is Riaan Vaudathat," Liat said. "He was the fourth son of a high family in the courts of Nantani. Ills father sent him to the school when he was five."

"This was well after our time," Nlaati said to Otah. "Neither of us would have known him. Not from there."

"He was accepted by the Dai-kvo and taken to the village to be trained," Liat said. ""That was eight years ago. He was talented, well liked, and respected. The Dai-kvo chose him to study for the binding of a fresh andat."

Kiyan, sitting at Otah's side, leaned forward in a pose of query. "Don't all the poets train to hold andat?"

"We all try our hands at preparing a binding," Maati said. "We all study enough to know how it works and what it is. But only a few apply the knowledge. If the Dai-kvo thinks you have the temperament to take on one that's already hound, he'll send you there to study and prepare yourself to take over control when the poet grows too old. If you're bright and talented, he'll set you to working through a fresh binding. It can take years to be ready. Your work is read by other poets and the Daikvo, and attacked, and torn apart and redone perhaps a dozen times. Perhaps more."

"Because of the consequences of failing?" Kiyan asked. Maati nodded.

"Riaan was one of the best," Liat said. "And then three years ago, he was sent hack to Nantani. To his family. Fallen from favor. No one knew why, he just appeared one day with a letter for his father, and after that he was living in apartments in the Vaudathat holdings. It was a small scandal. And it wasn't the last of them. Riaan was sending letters every week hack to the Dai-kvo. Asking to be taken back, everyone supposed. He drank too much, and sometimes fought in the streets. By the end, he was practically living in the comfort houses by the seafront. The story was that he'd bet he could bed every whore in the city in a summer. His family never spoke of it, but they lost standing in the court. "There were rumors of father and son fighting, not just arguing, but taking up arms.

"And then, one night, he disappeared. Vanished. His family said that he'd been summoned on secret business. The Dai-kvo had a mission for him, and he'd gone the same day the letter had come. But there wasn't a courier who'd admit to carrying any letter like it."

"They might not have said it," Otah said. "They call it the gentleman's trade for a reason."

,,we thought of that," Nayiit replied. He had a strong voice; not loud, but powerful. "Later, when we went to the Dai-kvo, I took a list of the couriers who'd come to Nantani in the right weeks. None of them had been to the I)ai-kvo's village at the right time. The Dai-kvo wouldn't speak to me. But of the men who would, none believed that Riaan had been sent for."

Otah could still think of several objections to that, but he held them hack, gesturing instead for Liat to go on.

"No one connected the disappearance with a Galtic merchant ship that left that night with half her cargo still waiting to he loaded," Liat said. "Except me, and I wouldn't have if I hadn't made it my business to track all things Galtic."

"You think he was on that ship?" Otah said.

"I'm certain of it."

"Why?" he asked.

"The wealth of coincidences," Liat said. "The captain-Arnau Fentin-was the second brother of a family on the Galtic High Council. A servant in the Vaudathat household saw Riaan's father burning papers. Letters, he said. And in a foreign script."

"Any trade cipher could look like a foreign script," Otah said, but Liat wouldn't be stopped.

"The ship had been hound for Chaburi-"Ian and then Bakta. But it headed west instead-hack to Galt."

"Or Eddensea, or Eymond."

"Otah-kya," Kiyan said, her voice gentle, "let her finish."

Ile saw Liat's gaze flicker toward her, and her hands take a pose of thanks. He leaned hack, his palms flat on his thighs, and silently nodded for Liat to continue.

"There were stories of Riaan having met a new woman in the weeks before he left. That was what his family thought, at least. He'd spent several evenings every week at a comfort house whose hack wall was shared with the compound of House Fentin. The captain's family. I have statements that confirm all of this."

"I went to the comfort house myself," Nayiit said. "I asked after the lady Riaan had described. "There wasn't anyone like her."

"It was a clumsy lie," Liat said. "All of it from beginning to end. And, Itani, it's the Galts."

Whether she had used his old, assumed name in error or as a ploy to make him recall the days of his youth, the effect was the same. Otah drew a deep breath, and felt a sick weight descend to his belly as he exhaled. He had spent so many years wary of the schemes of Galt that her evidence, thin as it was, almost had the power to convince him. He felt the gazes of the others upon him. Mlaati leaned forward in his seat, fingers knotted together in his lap. Kiyan's rueful half-smile was sympathetic and considering both. The silence stretched.

"Is there any reason to think he would have ... done this?" Otah asked. ""I'he poet. Why would he agree to this?"

Liat turned and nodded to her son. The man licked his lips before he spoke.

"I went to the I)ai-kvo's village," Nayiit said. "My mother, of course, couldn't. "There were stories that Riaan had suffered a fever the winter before he was sent away. A serious one. Apparently he came close to death. Afterward, his skin peeled like he'd been too long in the sun. They say it changed him. He became more prone to anger. He wouldn't think before he acted or spoke. The Dai-kvo sat with him for weeks, training him like he was fresh from the school. It did no good. Riaan wasn't the man he'd been when the I)ai-kvo accepted him. So ..."

"So the Dai-kvo sent him away in disgrace for something that wasn't his fault," Otah said.

"No, not at first," Nayiit said. "The Dal-kvo only told him that he wasn't to continue with his binding. That it was too great a risk. They say Riaan took it poorly. There were fights and drunken rants. One man said Riaan snuck a woman into the village to share his bed, but I never heard anyone confirm that. Whatever the details, the Dai-kvo lost patience. He sent him away."

"You learned quite a lot," Otah said. "I'd have thought the poets would he closer with their disgraces."

"Once Riaan left, it wasn't their disgrace. It was his," Nayiit said. "And they knew I had come from Nantani. I traded stories for stories. It wasn't hard."

"The Dai-kvo wouldn't meet with us," Liat said. "I sent five petitions, and two of them his secretaries didn't even bother to send refusals. It's why we came here."

"Because you wanted me to make this argument? I'm not in the Daikvo's best graces myself just now. He seems to think I blame the Galts when I cough," Otah said. "Maati might be the better man to make the case.

Maati took a pose that disagreed.

"I would hardly be considered disinterested," Maati said. His words were calm and controlled despite their depth. "I may have done some interesting work, but no one will have forgotten that I defied the last Dai-kvo by not abandoning these precise two people."

The rest of the thought hung in the air, just beyond speech. She abandoned me. It was true enough. Liat had taken the child and made her own way in the world. She had never answered Nlaati's letters until now, when she had need of him. There was something almost like shame in Liat's downcast eyes. Nayiit shifted his weight, as if to interpose himself between the two of them-between his mother and the man who had wanted badly to be his father and had been denied.

"We could also ask Cehmai," Kiyan said. "Ile's a poet of enough prestige and ability to hold Stone-blade-Soft, and his reputation hasn't been compromised."

"That might be wise," Otah said, grabbing for the chance to take the conversation away from the complexities of the past. "But let's go over the evidence you have, Liat-cha. All of it. From the start."

It took the better part of the day. Otah listened to the full story; he read the statements of the missing poet's slaves and servants, the contracts broken by the fleeing Galtic trade ship, the logs of couriers whose whereabouts Nayiit had compiled. Whatever objections he raised, Liat countered. He could see the fatigue in her face and hear the impatience in her voice. This matter was important to her. Important enough to bring her here. That she had come was proof enough of her conviction, if not of the truth of her claim. The girl he had known had been clever enough, competent enough, and still had been used as a stone in other people's games. Perhaps he was harsh in still thinking of her in that light. The years had changed him. They certainly could have changed her as well.

And, as the sun shifted slowly toward the western peaks, Otah found his heart growing heavy. The case she made was not complete, but it was evocative as a monster tale told to children. Galt might well have taken in this mad poet. "There was no way to know what they might do with him, or what he might do with their help. The histories of the Empire murmured in the back of Otah's mind: wars fought with the power of gods, the nature of space itself broken, and the greatest empire the world had ever known laid waste. And yes, if all Liat suspected proved true, it might happen again.

But if they acted on their fears, if the Dai-kvo mandated the use of the andat to remove the possibility of a Galtic poet, thousands would die who knew nothing of the plots that had brought down their doom. Children not old enough to speak, men and women who led simple, honest lives. Galt would be made a wasteland to rival the ruins of the Empire. Otah wondered how certain they would all have to be in order to take that step. How certain or else how frightened.

"Let me sit with this," he said at last, nodding to Liat and her son. "I'll have apartments cleared for you. You'll stay here at the palaces."

"There may not be much time," Maati said softly.

"I know it," Otah said. "Tomorrow I'll decide what to do. If Cehmai's the right bearer, we can do this all again with him in the room. And then ... and then we'll sec what shape the world's taken and do whatever needs doing."

Liat took a pose of gratitude, and a heartbeat later Nayiit mirrored her. Otah waved the gestures away. He was too tired for ceremony. Too troubled.

When Maati and the two visitors had left, Otah rose and stood beside Kiyan at the railing, looking out over the city as it fell into its early, sudden twilight. Plumes of smoke rose from among the green copper roofs of the forges. The great stone towers thrust toward the sky as if they supported the deepening blue. Kiyan tossed an almond out into the wide air, and a black-winged bird swooped down to catch it before it reached the distant ground. Otah touched her shoulder; she turned to him smiling as if half-surprised to find him there.

"How are you, love?" he asked.

"I should be the one asking," she said. "Those two ... that's more than one lifetime's trouble they're carrying."

"I know it. And Maati's still in love with her."

"With both of them," Kiyan said. "One way and another, with both of them."

Otah took a pose that agreed with her.

"You know her well enough," Kiyan said. "Does she love him, do you think?"

"She did once," Otah said. "But now? It's too many years. We've all become other people."

The breeze smelled of smoke and distant rain. The first chill of evening raised gooseflesh on Kiyan's arm. He wanted to turn her toward him, to taste her mouth and lose himself for a while in simple pleasure. He wanted badly to forget the world. As if hearing his thought, she smiled, but he didn't touch her again and she didn't move nearer to him.

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

""Iell Cehmai, send out couriers west to see what we can divine about the situation in Galt, appeal to the Dai-kvo. What else can I do? A mad poet, prone to fits of temper and working for the Galtic High Council? There's not a story worse than that."

"Will the Dai-kvo do what she asks, do you think?"

"I don't know," Otah said. "He'll know this Riaan better than any of us. If he's certain that the man's not capable of a proper binding, perhaps we'll let him try and pay the price of it. One simple death is the best we can hope for, sometimes. If it saves the world."

"And if the Dai-kvo isn't sure?"

""Then he'll spin a coin or throw tiles or whatever it is he does to make a decision, and we'll do that and hope it was right."

Kiyan nodded, crossing her arms and leaning forward, gazing out into the distance as if by considering carefully, she could see Galt from here. Otah's belly growled, but he ignored it.

"He'll destroy them, won't he?" she asked. ""The Dai-kvo will use the andat against the Galts."

"Likely."

"Good," Kiyan said with certainty that surprised him. "If it's going to happen, let it happen there. At least Eiah and Danat are safe from it."