The Price of Spring

by Daniel Abraham

  It was interesting.

  "Are they all like this?" he asked.

  "The questions? Some of them, yes," Eiah said. "Vanjit's especially were beyond anything we could find a plausible answer for."

  Maati pursed his lips and nodded. An absolute made relative. What would that do? He found himself smiling without knowing at first what he was smiling about.

  "I think," he said, "leaving you to your own company may have been the best thing I've done."

  The firelight caught Eiah's answering smile.

  "I wasn't going to say so," she said. "It's been fascinating. At first, it was as if we were sneaking pies from the kitchens. Everyone wanted to do the thing, but it seemed ... wrong? I don't know if that's the word. It seemed like something we shouldn't do, and more tempting because of it. And then once we started talking with each other, it was like being on a loose cart. We couldn't stop or even slow down. Half the time I didn't know if we were going down the wrong road, but ..."

  She shrugged, nodding at the scroll in his hands.

  "Well, even if you were, some of this may be quite useful."

  "I'd hoped so," Eiah said. "And that brings me to something else. I found some books at court. I brought them."

  Maati blinked, the scroll forgotten in his hands.

  "Books? They weren't all burned?" he said.

  "Not that sort. These aren't ours," she said. "They're Westlands'. Books from physicians. Here."

  She took back the scroll and put a small, cloth-bound book in his hand. One of the sticks in the fire grate broke, sending out embers like fireflies. Maati leaned forward.

  The script was small and cramped, the ink pale. It would have been difficult in sunlight; by fire and candle, it might as well not have been written. Frustrated, Maati turned the pages and an eye stared back at him from the paper. He turned back and went more slowly. All the diagrams were of eyes, some ripped from their sockets, some pierced by careful blades. Comments accompanied each orb, laying, he assumed, its secrets open.

  "Sight," Eiah said. "The author is called Arran, but it was more likely written by dozens of people who all used the same name. The wardens in the north had a period four or five generations ago when there was some brilliant work done. We ignored it, of course, because it wasn't by us. But these are very, very good. Arran was brilliant."

  "Whether he existed or not," Maati said. He meant it as a joke.

  "Whether he existed or not," Eiah agreed with perfect seriousness. "I've been working with these. And with Vanjit. We have a draft. You should look at it."

  Maati handed her back the book and she pulled a sheaf of papers from her sleeve. Maati found himself almost hesitant to accept them. Vanjit, and her dreamed baby. Vanjit, who had lost so much in the war. He didn't want to see any of his students pay the price of a failed binding, but especially not her.

  He took the papers. Eiah waited. He opened them.

  The binding was an outline, but it was well-considered. The sections and relationships sketched in with commentary detailing what would go in each, often with two or three notes of possible approaches. The andat would be Clarity-of-Sight, and it would be based in the medical knowledge of Westlands physicians and the women's grammar that Maati and Eiah had been creating. Even if some Second Empire poet had managed to hold the andat before, this approach, these descriptions and sensibilities, was likely to be wholly different. Wholly new.

  "Why Vanjit?" he asked. "Why not Ashti Beg or Small Kae?"

  "You think she isn't ready?"

  "I ... I wouldn't go so far as that," Maati said. "It's only that she's young, and she's had a harder life than some. I wonder whether ..."

  "None of us are perfect, Maati-kya," Eiah said. "We have to work with the people we have. Vanjit is clever and determined."

  "You think she can manage it? Bind this andat?"

  "I think she has the best hope of any of us. Except possibly me."

  Maati sighed, nodding as much to himself as to her. Dread thickened his throat.

  "Let me look at this," he said. "Let me think about it."

  Eiah took a pose that accepted his command. Maati looked down again.

  "Why didn't he come?" Eiah asked.

  "Because," Maati began, and then found he wasn't able to answer as easily as he'd thought. He folded the papers and began to tuck them into his sleeve, remembered how wet the cloth was, and tossed them instead onto his low, wood-framed bed. "Because he didn't want to," he said at last.

  "And my aunt?"

  "I don't know," Maati said. "I thought for a time that she might take my side. She didn't seem pleased with how they were living. Or, no. That's not right. She seemed to care more than he did about how they would live in the future. But he wouldn't have any of it."

  "He's given up," Eiah said.

  Maati recalled the man's face, the lines and weariness. The authenticity of his smile. When they'd first met, Cehmai had been little more than a boy, younger than Eiah was now. This was what the world had done to that boy. What it had done to them all.

  "He has," Maati said.

  "Then we'll do without him," Eiah said.

  "Yes," Maati said, hoisting himself up. "Yes we will, but if you'll forgive me, Eiah-kya, I think the day's worn me thin. A little rest, and we'll begin fresh tomorrow. And where's that list of questions? Ah, thank you. I'll look over all of this, and we'll decide where best to go from here, eh?"

  She took his hand, squeezing his knuckles gently.

  "It's good to have you back," she said.

  "I'm pleased to be here," he said.

  "Did you have any news of my father?"

  "No," he said. "I didn't ask. It's the first rule of running a race, isn't it? Not to look back at who's behind you?"

  Eiah chuckled, but didn't respond otherwise. Once she'd left and Maati had banked the fire, he sat on the bed. The night candle stood straight in its glass case, the burning wick marking the hours before dawn. It wasn't to its first-quarter mark and he felt exhausted. He moved the papers and the scroll safely off the bed, pulled the blanket up over himself, and slept better than he had in weeks, waking to the sound of morning birds and pale light before dawn.

  He read over the list of questions on the scroll, only surveying them and not bothering to think of answers just yet, and then turned to the proposed binding. When he went out, following the smells of wood smoke and warmed honey, his mind was turning at twice its usual speed.

  They had made a small common room from what had once been the teachers' cells, and Irit and Large Kae were sitting at the window that Maati remembered looking out when he had been a child called before Tahi-kvo. Bald, mean-spirited Tahi-kvo, who would not have recognized the world as it had become; women studying the andat in his own rooms, the poets almost vanished from the world, Galts on the way to becoming the nobles of this new, rattling, sad, stumble-footed Empire. Nothing was the same as it had been. Everything was different.

  Vanjit, sitting with her legs crossed by the fire grate, smiled up at him. Maati took a pose of greeting and lowered himself carefully to her side. Irit and Large Kae both glanced at him, their eyes rich with curiosity and perhaps even envy, but they kept to their window and their conversation. Vanjit held out her bowl of cooked wheat and raisins, but Maati took a pose that both thanked and refused, then changed his mind and scooped two fingers into his mouth. The grain was rich and salted, sweetened with fruit and honey both. Vanjit smiled at him; the expression failed to reach her eyes.

  "I looked over your work. Yours and Eiah-cha's," he said. "It's interesting."

  Vanjit looked down, setting the bowl on the stone floor at her side. After a moment's hesitation, her hands took a pose that invited his judgment.

  "I . . ." Maati began, then coughed, looked out past Large Kae and Irit to the bright and featureless blue of the western sky. "I don't want to hurry this. And I would rather not see any more of you pay the price of falling short."

  Her mouth tightened, and her eyebrows ros
e as if she were asking a question. She said nothing.

  "You're sure you want this?" he asked. "You have seen all the women we've lost. You know the dangers."

  "I want this, Maati-kvo. I want to try this. And ... and I don't know how much longer I can wait," she said. Her gaze rose to meet his. "It's time for me. I have to try soon, or I think I never will."

  "If you have doubts about-"

  "Not doubts. Only a little despair now and then. You can take that from me. If you let me try." Maati started to speak, but the girl went on, raising her voice and speaking faster, as if she feared what he would say next. "I've seen death. I won't say I'm not afraid of it, but I'm not so taken by the fear that I can't risk anything. If it's called for."

  "I didn't think you were," he said.

  "And I helped bury Umnit. I know what the price can look like. But I buried my mother and my brother and his daughter too, and they didn't die for a reason. They were only on the streets when Udun fell," she said, and shrugged. "We all die sometime, Maati-kvo. Risking it sooner and for a reason is better than being safe and meaningless. Isn't it?"

  Brave girl. She was such a brave girl. To have lost so much, so young, and still be strong enough to risk the binding. Maati felt tears in his eyes and forced himself to smile.

  "We chose it for you. Clarity-of-Sight," she said. "I saw how hard it is for you to read some days, and Eiah and I thought ... if we could help ..."

  Maati laid his hand on hers, his heart aching with something equally joy and fear. Vanjit was weeping a bit as well now. He heard voices coming down the hallway-Eiah and Ashti Beg-but Irit and Large Kae were silent. He was certain they were watching them. He didn't care.

  "We'll be careful," he said. "We'll make it work."

  Her smile outshone the sun. Maati nodded; yes, they would attempt the binding. Yes, Vanjit would be the first woman in history to hold an andat or else the next of his students to die.

  7

  "No, I will not forbid her a goddamned thing. The girl's got more spine than all the rest of us put together. We could learn something from her," Farrer Dasin said, his arms folded before him, his chin high and proud. And when he said the rest of its, Otah was clear that he meant the Galts. The courts of the Khaiem, the cities and people of Otah's empire were not part of Farrer Dasin's us; they were still apart and the enemy.

  Six members of the High Council sat at the wide marble table along with Balasar Gice and Issandra Dasin. Otah, Danat, and representatives of four of the highest families of the utkhaiem sat across from them. Otah wished he'd been able to scatter each side among the other instead of dividing the table like a battlefield. Or else keep the group smaller. If it had been only himself, Farrer, and Issandra, there might have been a chance.

  Ana, the girl who had taken a stick to this political beehive, was not present, nor was she welcome.

  "There are agreements in place," Balasar said. "We can't unmake them on a whim."

  "Yes, Dasin-cha. Contracts have been signed," one of the utkhaiem said. "Is it Galt's intention that any contract can be invalidated if the signer's daughter objects?"

  "That isn't what happened," the councilman at Farrer's right hand said. "We have our hands full enough without exaggerating."

  And so it started off again, voices raised each over the other with the effect that nothing but babble could be heard. Otah didn't add to the clamor, but sat forward in his chair and watched. He considered the architecturevaulted ceiling of blue and gold tiles, the sliding wooden shutters. He found a scent in the air: sugared almonds. He struggled to hear a sound beyond the table: the wind in the treetops. Then, slowly, he pulled his awareness back to the people before him. It was an old trick he'd learned during his days as a courier, a way of withdrawing half a step from the place where he was and considering the ways that people moved and held themselves, the expressions they wore when they were silent and when they spoke. It often said more than the words. And now, he saw three things.

  First, he was not the only silent one at the table. Issandra Dasin was rocked a degree back in her chair, her eyes fixed on the middle distance. Her expression spoke of exhaustion and a barely hidden sorrow, the complement to her husband's self-destructive pleasure. Danat was also withdrawn, but with his body canted forward, as if he was trying to hear every phrase that fluttered through the heavy air. He might as easily drink a river.

  Second, Otah saw that neither side was united. The Galts across from him ran the gamut from defiant to conciliatory, the utkhaiem from outraged to fearful. It was the same outside. The palaces, the teahouses, the baths, the street corners-all of Saraykeht was filled with agreements and negotiations that were suddenly, violently uncertain. He recalled something his daughter had said once about the reopened wound being the one most plagued by scars.

  Third, and perhaps least interesting, it became clear that he was wasting his time.

  "Friends," Otah said. Then again, louder, "Friends!"

  Slowly, the table grew quiet around him.

  "The morning has been difficult," he said. "We should retire and reflect on what has been said."

  Whatever it was, he didn't add.

  There was a rumble of assent, if not precisely agreement. Otah took a pose of gratitude to each man and woman as they left, even to Fatter Dasin, for whom he felt very little warmth. Otah dismissed the servants as well, and soon only he and Danat remained. Without the pandemonium of voices, the meeting room seemed larger and oddly forlorn.

  "Well," his son said, leaning against the table. He was wearing the same robe as he had at the botched ceremony the day before. The cloth itself looked weary. "What do you make of it?"

  Otah scratched idly at his arm and tried to focus his mind. His back ached, and there was an uneasy, bright feeling in his gut that presaged a sleepless and uncomfortable night. He sighed.

  "Primarily, I think I'm an idiot," Otah said. "I should have written to the daughters. I forget how different their world is. Your world, too."

  Danat took a pose that asked elaboration. Otah rose, stretching. His back didn't improve.

  "Political marriage isn't a new thing," Otah said. "We've always suffered it. They've always suffered it. But, once the rules changed, it stopped meaning so much, didn't it? As long as Ana-cha has been alive, she hasn't seen political marriages take place. If Radaani married his son to Saya's daughter, they wouldn't be joining bloodlines. No children, no lasting connection between the houses. Likewise in Galt. I doubt it's stopped the practice entirely, but it's changed things. I should have thought of it."

  "And she could take lovers," Danat said.

  "People took lovers before," Otah said.

  "Not without fear," Danat said. "There's no chance of a child. It changes how willing a girl would be."

  "And how exactly do you know that?" Otah asked.

  Danat blushed. Otah walked to the window. Below, the gardens were in motion. Wind shifted the boughs of the trees and set the flowers nodding. The scent of impending rain cooled the air. There would be a storm by nightfall.

  "Papa-kya?" Danat said.

  Otah looked over his shoulder. Danat was sitting on the table, his feet on the seat of a cushioned chair. It was the pose of a casual boy in a cheap teahouse. Danat's face, however, was troubled.

  "Don't bother it," Otah said. "It might be a new world for sex, but there was an old world for it too. And I'm sure there are any number of other men who've made the same discoveries you have."

  "That wasn't the matter. It's the wedding. I don't think I can ... I don't think I can do it. When it was just thinking of it, I hadn't seen what it would be to be married to someone who hated me. I have now."

  His voice was thick with distress. A gust of stronger wind came, rattling the shutters in their frames. Otah slid the wood closed, and the meeting room dimmed, gold tiles turning bronze, blue tiles black.

  "It will be fine," Otah said. "At worst, there are other councillors with other daughters. It won't be a pleasant transition, b
ut-"

  "A different girl won't fix this. At best we'd find a girl less willing to struggle. At worst, we'd find someone who hated me just as much, but better versed in deceit."

  Otah took his seat again. He could feel his brow furrow. If he hadn't been so tired to begin with, it wouldn't have taken him as long to think through Danat's words.

  "Are you . . ." Otah said, then stopped and began again. "You're saying you won't have Ana?"

  "I thought I could. I would have, if she hadn't done what she did. But I've spent all night looking at it, and I don't see a way."

  "I do. I see it perfectly clearly. High families have been arranging marriages for as long as there have been high families. It binds them together. It shows trust."

  "You didn't. You were Khai Machi. You could have had dozens of wives, but you didn't. Even after the fever took Mother, you didn't. You could have," Danat said. And then, "You could now. You could make one of these girls your wife. Marry Ana-cha."

  "You know quite well that I couldn't. A man of my years bedding a girl? They wouldn't see a marriage so much as a debauch."

  "Yes," Danat said. "And putting me in your place would only change how it looked, not what it was. I'll do whatever I can to help. You know that. I could marry a stranger and make the best of it. But I won't father a child on an unwilling girl."

  "Don't be an idiot," Otah said, and knew immediately that it was the wrong thing. His son's smile was a mask now, cold and bright and hard as stone. Otah raised his hands in a pose that took the words back, but Danat ignored it.

  "I won't do something I know in my bones is wrong," Danat said. "If it's the only way to save us, then we aren't worth saving."

  Otah watched the boy leave. There were a thousand arguments to make, a thousand ways to rephrase the issue, to make something different of these same circumstances. None of them would matter. He let his head sink to his hands.

  There had been a time when Otah had been young and the world had been, if not simple, at least certain. Decades and experience had made him sure that his sense of right and wrong were not the only ones. Before he'd had that beaten out of him by the gods, he might well have taken the same stand Danat had just now. Do what he believed to be right and endure the consequences, no matter how terrible.