An Autumn War (23 page)

""There's another explanation," she said. "The Galts could have done it."

"How? They can't unmake a binding."

`.. They could have bought him."

Nlaati shook his head, frowning. "Not Cehmai. There's not a man in the world less likely to turn against the Khaiem."

"You're sure of that?"

"Yes. I'm sure," Nlaati said. "He was happy. He had his life and his place in the world, and he was happy."

"So much the worse for him," Liat said. "At least we don't have that to suffer, eh?"

"And now who sounds hitter?"

Liat chuckled and took a pose accepting the point that was made awkward by the howl in one hand.

"How are things with Otah-kvo?" Maati asked.

"He's like the wind on legs," Liat said. "Ile wants to know everything at once, control all of it, and I think he's driving the court half mad. And ... don't say I said it, but it's almost as if he's enjoying it. Everything's falling apart except him. If simple force of will can hold a city together, I think Machi will he fine."

"It can't, though."

"No," she agreed. "It can't."

The back of Maati's hand brushed against her arm. It was a small, tentative gesture, familiar as breath. It was something he had always done when he was uncertain and in need of comfort. There had been times when she'd found it powerfully annoying and times when she'd found herself doing it too. Now, she shifted the wine howl to her other hand, and resolutely laced her fingers with his.

"I haven't written hack to the Dal-kvo," Nlaati said. His voice was as low as a confession. "I'm not sure what I should ... I haven't been hack to Saraykeht, you know. I could ... I mean ... Gods, I'm saying this badly. If you want it, Liat-kya, I could come hack with you. You and Nayiit."

"No," she said. "There isn't room for you. My life there has a certain shape to it, and I don't want you to he a part of it. And Nayiit's a grown man. It's too late to start raising him now. I love you. And Nayiit is better, I think, knowing you than he was before. But you can't come hack with us. You aren't welcome."

hlaati looked down at his knees. His hand seemed to relax into her palm.

""Thank you," he whispered.

She raised his hand and kissed the wide, soft knuckles. And then his mouth. He touched her neck gently, his hand warm against her skin.

"Put out the candles," she said.

Time had made him a better lover than when they had been young. Time and experience-his and her own both. Sex had been so earnest then; so anxious, and so humorless. She had spent too much time as a girl worried about whether her breasts looked pleasing or if her hips were too thin. In the years she had kept a house with him, Maati had tried to hold in his belly whenever his robes came off. Youth and vanity, and now that they were doomed to sagging flesh and loose skin and short breath, all of it could be forgiven and left behind.

They laughed more now as they shrugged out of their robes and pulled each other down on the wide, soft bed. They paused in their passions to let Maati rest. She knew better now what would bring her the greatest pleasure, and had none of her long-ago qualms about asking for it. And when they were spent, lying wrapped in a soft sheet, Maati's head on her breast, the netting pulled closed around them, the silence was deeper and more intimate than any words they had spoken.

She would miss this. She had known the dangers when she had taken his hand again, when she had kissed him again. She had known there would be a price to pay for it, if only the pain of having had something pleasant and precious and brief. For a moment, her mind shifted to Nayiit and his lovers, and she was touched by sorrow on his behalf. He was too much her son and not enough Otah's. But she didn't want Otah in this room, in this moment, so she put both of these other men out of her mind and concentrated instead on the warmth of her own flesh and Maati's, the slow, regular deepening of his breath and of hers.

Her thoughts wandered, slowing and losing their coherence; turning into something close kin to dream. She had almost slipped into the deep waters of sleep when Maati's sudden spasm brought her back. He was sitting up, panting like a man who'd run a mile. It was too dark to see his face.

She called his name, and a low groan escaped him. He stood and for a moment she was afraid that he would stagger and fall. But she made out his silhouette, a deeper darkness, and he did not sway. She called his name again.

"No," he said, then a pause and, "No no no no no. Oh gods. Gods, no."

Liat rose, but Maati was already walking. She heard him bark his shin against the table in the front room, heard the wine bottle clatter as it fell. She wrapped her sheet around herself and hurried after him just in time to see him lumbering naked out the door and into the night. She followed.

He trotted into the library, his hands moving restlessly. When he lit a candle, she saw his face etched deep with dread. It was as if he was watching someone die that only he could see.

"Maati. Stop this," she said, and the fear in her voice made her realize that she was trembling. "What's the matter? What's happened?"

"I was wrong," he said. "Gods, Cehmai will never forgive me doubting him. He'll never forgive me."

Candle in hand, Maati lumbered into the next room and began frantically looking through scrolls, hands shaking so badly the wax spilled on the floor. Liat gave up hope that he would speak, that he would explain. Instead, she took the candle from his hand and held it for him as he searched. In the third room, he found what he'd been seeking and sank to the floor. Liat came to his side, and read over his shoulder as he unfurled the scroll. The ink was pale, the script the alphabet of the Old Empire. Maati's fingertips traced the words, looking for something, some passage or phrase. Liat found herself holding her breath. And then his hand stopped moving.

The grammar was antiquated and formal, the language almost too old to make sense of. Liat silently struggled to translate the words that had caught Nlaati short.

The second type is made up of those thoughts impossible to hind by their nature, and no greater knowledge shall ever permit them. Examples of this are Imprecision and FreedomFrom-Bondage.

"I know what they've done," he said.

Chapter 11

Nantani had been one of the first cities built when the Second Empire reached out past its borders to put its mark on the distant lands they now inhabited. The palace of the Khai was topped by a dome the color of jade-a single stone shaped by the will of some longdead poet. When the sunlight warmed it in just the right way, it would chime, a low voice rolling out wordlessly over the whitewashed walls and blue tile roofs of the city.

Sinja had wintered in Nantani for a few seasons, retreating from the snowbound fields of the Westlands to wait in comfort for the thaw and spend the money he'd earned. He knew the scent of the sea here, the feel of the soft, chalky soil beneath his feet. He knew of an old man who sold garlic sausages from a stall near the temple that were the best he'd had in the world. He knew the sound of the great sun chime. He had not known that the deep, throbbing tone would also come when the palace below it burned.

There were other fires as well: pillars of black, rolling smoke that rose into the air like filthy clouds. The doors he passed as he walked down to the seafront were broken and splintered. The shutters at the windows clacked open and closed in the breeze. Often they passed wide swaths of half-dry blood on the ground or smeared on the rough white walls.

The city had been home to over a hundred thousand people. It had fallen in a morning.

Balasar had sent three forces in through the wide streets to the Khai's palace, the poet's house, the libraries. When those three things were destroyed, the signal went out-brass horns blaring the sack. When the signal reached the remaining forces, it was a storm of chaos. Some men ran for the inner parts of the city, hoping to find richer pickings. Others grabbed the first mercantile house they saw and took whatever was there to find-goods, gold, women. For the time it took the sun to travel the width of a man's hand, Nantani was a scene from the old stories of hell as the soldiery took what they could for themselves.

And then the second call came, and the looting stopped. Those few who were so maddened by greed or lust that they ignored the call were taken to their captains, relieved of what wealth they had grabbed, and then a fifth of them killed as an example to others. This was an army of discipline, and the free-for-all was over. Now the studied, considered dismantling of the city began.

Quarter by quarter, street by street, the armies of Galt stripped the houses and basements, outbuildings and kitchens and coal stores. Sinja's own men led each force, calling out in breaking voices that Nantani had fallen, that her people were permanently indentured to Galt, their belongings forfeit. And all the wealth of the city was stripped down, put on carts and wagons, and pulled to a great pile at the seafront. Some men fought and were killed. Some fled and were hunted down or ignored, at the whim of the soldiers who found them. And the great blackening dome of jade sang out its grief and mourning.

Sinja caught sight of the pavilion erected by the growing pile of treasure. The banners of Galt and Gice hung from the bar that topped the fluttering canvas. Sinja and the soldiers Balasar Gice had sent to collect him strode to it. At the seafront, ships stood ready to receive what had once been Nantani, and was now the fortune of Galt. Balasar stood at a writing desk, consulting with a clerk over a ledger. The general still wore his armor-embroidered silk as thick as three fingers together. Sinja had seen its like before. Armor that would stop a spear or a sword cut, but weighed likely half as much as the man who wore it. And still when Balasar caught sight of them and walked forward, hand outstretched to Sinja, there was no weariness in him.

"Captain Ajutani," Balasar said, his hand clasping Sinja's, "come sit with me."

Sinja took a pose appropriate for a guard to his commander. It wasn't quite the appropriate thing, but it came near enough for the general to take its sense. Sinja walked behind the man to a low table where a bottle of wine stood open, two perfect porcelain wine bowls glowing white at its side. Balasar waved the attendant away and poured the wine himself. Sinja accepted a bowl and sat across from him.

"It was nicely done," Sinja said, gesturing with his free hand toward the city. "Well-managed and quick."

Balasar looked up, almost as if noticing the streets and warehouses for the first time. Sinja thought a hint of a smile touched the general's lips, but it was gone as soon as it came. The wine was rich and left Sinja's mouth feeling almost clean.

"It was competent," Balasar agreed. "But it can't have been easy. For you and your men."

"I didn't lose one of them," Sinja said. "I don't know that I've ever seen a campaign start where we took a city and didn't lose anyone."

"This is a different sort of war than the usual," Balasar said. And there, in the pale eyes, Sinja saw the ghosts. The general wasn't at ease, however casual he chose to he with his wine. It was an interesting fact, and Sinja put it at the back of his mind. "I wanted to ask after your men."

"Have there been complaints?"

"Not at all. Every report suggests that they did their work admirably. But this wasn't the adventure they expected."

"They expected the women they raped to look less like their sisters, that's truth," Sinja said. "And honestly, I expect we'll lose some. I don't know how it is in Galt, sir, but when I've taken a green company into battle the first time, we always lose some."

"Inexperience," Balasar said, agreeing.

"No, sir. I don't mean the enemy spits a few, though that's usually true as well. I mean there are always a few who came into the work with epics in their heads. Great battles, honor, glory. All that pig shit. Once they see what a battlefield or a sacked town really looks like, they wake up. Half these boys are still licking off the caul. Some of them will think better and sneak off."

"And how do you plan to address the problem?"

"Let them go," Sinja said and shrugged. "We haven't seen a fight yet, but before this is finished, we will. When it happens I'd rather have twenty soldiers than thirty men looking for a reason to retreat."

The general frowned, but he also nodded. At the edge of the pier, half a hundred seagulls took to the air at once, their cries louder than the waves. They wheeled once over the ships and then settled again, just where they had been.

"Unless you have a different opinion, sir," Sinja said.

"Do this," Balasar said, looking up from under his brow. "Go to them. Explain to them that I will never turn against my men. But if they leave me . . . if they leave my service, they aren't my men any longer. And if I find them again, I won't he lenient."

Sinja scratched his chin, the stubble just growing in, and felt a smile growing in his mind.

"I can see that they understand, sir," he said. "And it might stop some of the ones who'd choose to hang up their swords. But if there's someone you feel isn't loyal, one of my men that you think isn't yours, I'd recommend you kill him now. "There's no room on a campaign like this for someone who'll take up arms against the man that pays his wage.

Balasar nodded, leaning back in his chair.

"I think we understand each other," he said.

"Let's he certain," Sinja said, and put his hands open and palms-down on the table between them. "I'm a mercenary, and to judge by that pile of silk and cedar chests you're about to ship hack to Galt, you're the man who's got the money to pay my contract. If I've given you reason to think there's more happening than that, I'd rather we cleared it up now.

Balasar chuckled. It was a warm sound. That was good.

"Are you ever subtle?" Balasar asked.

"If I'm paid to be," Sinja said. "I've had a had experience working for someone who thought I might look better with a knife-shaped hole in my belly, sir, and I'd rather not repeat it. Have I done something to make you question my intentions?"