them. He raised his head and kissed them again, gently this time. His
own mouth felt bruised from their coupling. And then his head grew too
heavy, and he let it rest again.
"They're ... like that. Binding one is like describing something
perfectly. Understanding it, and expanding it ... I'm not saying this
well. Have you ever translated a letter? Taken something in the Khaiate
tongues and tried to say the same thing in Westland or an east island
tongue?"
"No," she said. "I had to take something from the Empire and rewrite it
for a tutor once."
Cchmai closed his eyes. He could feel sleep pulling at him, but he
fought against it a hit. He wasn't ready to let the moment pass.
"That's near enough. You had to make choices when you did that. Tiff',
could mean take or it could mean give or it could mean exchangeit's
yours to choose, depending on how it's used in the original document.
And so a letter or a poem doesn't have a set translation. You could have
any number of ways that you say the same thing. Binding the andat means
describing them-what the thought of them is-so well that you can
translate it perfectly into a form that includes will and volition. Like
translating a Galtic contract so that all the nuances of the trade are
preserved perfectly."
"But there's any number of ways to do that," she said.
"There are very few ways to do it perfectly. And if a binding goes wrong
... Existing isn't normal for them. If you leave an imprecision or an
inaccuracy, they escape through it, and the poet pays a price for that.
Usually it comes as some particularly gruesome death. And knowing what
an andat is can be subtle. Stone-Made-Soft. What do you mean by stone?
Iron comes from stone, so is it stone? Sand is made of tiny stones. Is
it stone? Bones are like stone. But are they like enough to be called
the same name? All those nuances have to be balanced or the binding
fails. Happily, the Empire produced some formal grammars that were very
precise."
"And you describe this thing...."
"And then you hold that in your mind until you die. Only it's the kind
of thought that can think back, so it's wearing sometimes."
"Do you resent it?" Idaan asked, and something in her voice had changed.
Cehmai opened his eyes. Idaan was looking past him. Her expression was
unfathomable.
"I don't know what you mean," he said.
"You have to carry this thing all your life. Do you ever wish that you
hadn't been called to do it?"
"No," he said. "Not really. It's work, but it's work that I like. And I
get to meet the most interesting women."
Her gaze cooled, flickered over him, and then away.
"Lucky to be you," she said as she sat up. He watched her as she pulled
her robes from the puddle of cloth on the floor. Cehmai sat up. "I have
meetings in the morning. I'll need to be in my own rooms to be ready
anyway. I might as well go now."
"I might say fewer things that angered you if you talked to me," Cehmai
said, gently.
Idaan's head snapped around to him like a hunting cat's, but then her
expression softened to chagrin, and she took an apologetic pose.
"I'm overtired," she said. "'T'here are things that I'm carrying, and I
don't do it as gracefully as you. I don't mean to take them out on you."
"Why do you do this, Idaan-kya? Why do you come here? I don't think it's
that you love me."
"Do you want me to stop?"
"No," Cehmai said. "I don't. But if you choose to, that will be fine as
well."
"'That's flattering," she said, sarcasm thick in her voice.
"Are you doing this to be flattered?"
He was awake again now. He could see something in her expression pain,
anger, something else. She didn't answer him now, only knelt by the bed
and felt beneath it for her hoots. He put his hand on her arm and drew
her up. He could sense that she was close to speaking, that the words
were already there, just below the surface.
"I don't mind only being your bed mate," he said. "I've known from the
start that Adrah is the man you plan to be with, and that I couldn't be
that for you even if you wanted it. I assume that's part of why you've
chosen me. But I am fond of you, and I would like to be your friend."
"You'd be my friend?" she said. "That's nice to hear. You've bedded me
and now you'll condescend to be a friend?"
"I think it's more accurate to say you bedded me," Cehmai said. "And it
seems to me that people do what we've done quite often without caring
about the other person. Or even while wishing them ill. I'll grant that
we haven't followed the usual order-I understand people usually know
each other first and then fall into bed afterwards-hut in a way that
means you should take me more seriously."
She pulled hack and took a pose of query.
"You know I'm not just saying it to get your robes open," he said. "When
I say I want to be someone you can speak with, it's truth. I've nothing
to gain by it but the thing itself."
She sighed and sat on the bed. The light of the single candle painted
her in shades of orange.
"Do you love me, Cehmai-kya?" she asked.
Cehmai took a deep breath and then slowly let it out. He had reached the
gate. Her thoughts, her fears. Everything that had driven this girl into
his bed was waiting to be loosed. All he would have to do was tell one,
simple, banal lie. A lie thousands of men had told for less reason. He
was badly tempted.
"Idaan-kya," he said, "I don't know you."
To his surprise, she smiled. She pulled on her hoots, not bothering to
lace the bindings, leaned over and kissed him again. Her hand caressed
his cheeks.
"Lucky to be you," she said softly.
Neither spoke as they walked down the corridor to the main rooms. The
shutters were closed against the night, and the air felt stuffy and
thick. He walked with her to the door, then through it, and sat on the
steps, watching her vanish among the trees. The crickets still sang. The
moon still hung overhead, bathing the night in blue. He heard the high
squeak of bats as they skimmed the ponds and pools, the flutter of an
owl's wings.
"You should be sleeping," the low, gravel voice said from behind him.
"Yes, I imagine so."
"First light, there's a meeting with the stone potters."
"Yes, there is."
Stone-Made-Soft stepped forward and lowered itself to sit on the step
beside him. The familiar bulk of its body rose and fell in a sigh that
could only be a comment.
"She's up to something," Cehmai said.
"She might only find herself drawn to two different men," the andat
said. "It happens. And you're the one she couldn't build a life with.
The other boy ..."
"No," Cehmai said, speaking slowly, letting the thoughts form as he gave
them voice. "She isn't drawn to me. Not one."
"She could be flattered that you want her. I've heard that's endearing."
"She's drawn to you."
The andat shifted to look at him. Its wide mouth was smiling.
"That would be a first," it said. "I'd never thought of taking a lover.
I don't think I'd know what to do with her."
"Not like that," Cehmai said. "She wants me because of you. Because I'm
a poet. If I weren't, she wouldn't be here."
"Does that offend you?"
A gnat landed on the back of Cehmai's hand. The tiny wings tickled, but
he looked at it carefully. A small gray insect unaware of its danger.
With a puff of breath, he New it into the darkness. The andat waited
silently for an answer.
"It should," Cehmai said at last.
"Perhaps you can work on that."
"Being offended?"
"If you think you should be."
The storm in the back of him mind shifted. The constant thought that was
this thing at his side moved, kicking like a babe in the womb or a
prisoner testing the walls of its cell. Cehmai chuckled.
"You aren't trying to help," he said.
"No," the andat agreed. "Not particularly."
"Did the others understand their lovers? The poets before me?"
"How can I say? They loved women, and were loved by them. They used
women and were used by them. You may have found a way to put me on a
leash, but you're only men."
THE IRONY WAS THAT, HIS WOUND NOT FULLY HEALED, MAATI SPENT MORE time in
the library than he had when he had been playing at scholarship. Only
now, instead of spending his mornings there, he found it a calm place to
retire when the day's work had exhausted him; when the hunt had worn him
thin. It had been fifteen days now since Itani Noygu had walked away
from the palaces and vanished. Fourteen days since the assassin had put
a dagger in Maati's own guts. Thirteen days since the fire in the cages.
He knew now as much as he was likely to know of Itani Noygu, the courier
for House Siyanti, and almost nothing of Otah-kvo. Irani had worked in
the gentleman's trade for nearly eight years. He had lived in the
eastern islands; he was a charming man, decent at his craft if not
expert. He'd had lovers in "Ian-Sadar and tltani, but had broken things
off with both after he started keeping company with a wayhouse keeper in
Udun. His fellows were frankly disbelieving that this could be the rogue
Otah Machi, night-gaunt that haunted the dreams of Machi. But where he
probed and demanded, where he dug and pried, pleaded and coddled and
threatened, there was no sign of Otah-kvo. Where there should have been
secrecy, there was nothing. Where there should have been meetings with
high men in his house, or another house, or somebody, there was nothing.
There should have been conspiracy against his father, his brothers, the
city of his birth. There was nothing.
All of which went to confirm the conclusion that Maati had reached,
bleeding on the paving stones. Otah was not scheming for his father's
chair, had not killed Biitrah, had not hired the assassin to attack him.
And yet Otah was here, or had been. Maati had written to the Daikvo,
outlining what he knew and guessed and only wondered, but he had
received no word hack as yet and might not for several weeks. By which
time, he suspected, the old Khai would be dead. That thought alone tired
him, and it was the library that he turned to for distraction.
He sat back now on one of the thick chairs, slowly unfurling a scroll
with his left hand and furling it again with his right. In the space
between, ancient words stirred. The pale ink formed the letters of the
Empire, and the scroll purported to be an essay by Jaiet Khai-a man
named the Servant of Memory from the great years when the word Khai had
still meant servant. The grammar was formal and antiquated, the tongue
was nothing spoken now. It was unlikely than anyone but a poet would be
able to make sense of it.
'T'here are two types of impossibility in the andat, the man long since
dust had written. The first of these are those thoughts which cannot be
understood. Time and Mind arc examples of this type; mysteries so
profound that even the wise cannot do more than guess at their deepest
structure. These bindings may someday become possible with greater
understanding of the world and our place within it. For this reason they
are of no interest to me. The second type is made up of those thoughts
by their nature impossible to bind, and no greater knowledge shall ever
permit them. Examples of this are Imprecision and Freedom-FromBondage.
Holding Time or Mind would be like holding a mountain in your hands.
Holding Imprecision would be like holding the backs of your hands in
your palms. One of these images may inspire awe, it is true, but the
other is interesting.
"Is there anything I can do for you, Maati-cha?" the librarian asked again.
`.. Thank You, Baarath-cha, but no. I'm quite well."
The librarian took a step forward all the same. His hands seemed to
twitch towards the books and scrolls that Maati had gathered to look
over. The man's smile was fixed, his eyes glassy. In his worst moments,
Maati had considered pretending to catch one of the ancient scrolls on
fire, if only to see whether Baarath's knees would buckle.
"Because, if there was anything ..."
"Nlaati-cha?" The familiar voice of the young poet rang from the front
of the library. Maati turned to see Cehmai stride into the chamber with