sanyam 1 | Page 9

gold as I could put on a fast cart, and live out my life in a beach hut on Bakta. But then I'm not particularly reliable." He drained his bowl and put it down on the table, porcelain clicking softly on lacquered wood. "What you should do is send us west."

"But the men aren't ready-"

"They're near enough. Without real experience, these poor bastards would protect you from a real army about as well as sending out all the dancing girls you could find. And now that I've said it, girls might even slow them down longer."

Utah coughed a mirthless laugh. Sinja leaned forward, his eyes calm and steady.

"Put us in the Westlands as a mercenary company," he said. "It gives real weight to it when you tell the Dai-kvo that you're just looking for another way to make money if we're already walking away from our neighboring cities. The men will get experience; I'll be able to make contacts with other mercenaries, maybe even strike up alliances with some of the Wardens. You can even found your military tradition. But besides that, there are certain problems with training and arming men, and then not giving them any outlet."

Otah looked up, meeting Sinja's grim expression.

"More trouble?" Otah asked.

"I've whipped the men involved and paid reparations," Sinja said, "but if the Dai-kvo doesn't like you putting together a militia, the fine people of Machi are getting impatient with having them. We're paying them to play at soldiers while everybody else's taxes buy their food and clothes."

Otah took a simple pose that acknowledged what Sinja said as truth.

"Where would you take them?"

"Annaster and Notting were on the edge of fighting last autumn. Something about the Warden of Annaster's son getting killed in a hunt. It's a long way south, but we're a small enough group to travel fast, and the passes cleared early this year. Even if nothing comes of it, there'll he keeps down there that want a garrison."

"How long before you could go?"

"I can have the men ready in two days if you'll send food carts out after us. A week if I have to stay to make the arrangements for the supplies."

Otah looked into Sinja's eyes. The years had whitened Sinja's temples but had made him no easier to read.

"That seems fast," Otah said.

"It's already tinder way," Sinja replied, then seeing Otah's reaction, shrugged. "It seemed likely."

"Two days, then," Otah said. Sinja smiled, stood, took a rough pose that accepted the order, and turned to go. As he lifted the door's latch, Otah spoke again. "Try not to get killed. Kiyan would take it amiss if I sent you off to die."

The captain paused in the open door. What had happened between Kiyan and Sinja-the Khai Machi's first and only wife and the captain of his private armsmen-had found its resolution on a snow-covered field ten years before. Sinja had done as Kiyan had asked him and the issue had ended there. Otah found that the anger and feelings of betrayal had thinned with time, leaving him more embarrassed than wrathful. That they were two men who loved the same woman was understood and unspoken. It wasn't comfortable ground for either of them.

"I'll keep breathing, Otah-cha. You do the same."

The door closed softly behind him, and Otah took another sip of wine. It was fewer than a dozen breaths before a quiet scratching came at the door. Rising and straightening the folds of his robes, Otah prepared himself for the next appearance, the next performance in his ongoing, unending mummer's show. He pressed down a twinge of envy for Sinja and the men who would be slogging through cold mud and dirty snow. He told himself the journey only looked liberating to someone who was staying near a fire grate. He adopted a somber expression, held his body with the rigid grace expected of him, and called out for the servant to enter.

'T'here was a meeting to take with House Daikani over a new mine they were proposing in the South. Mikah Radaani had also put a petition with the Master of Tides to schedule a meeting with the Khai Machi to discuss the prospect of resurrecting the summer fair in Amnat- "Ian. And there was the letter to the Dai-kvo to compose, and a ceremony at the temple at moonrise at which his presence was required, and so on through the day and into the night. Otah listened patiently to the list of duties and obligations and tried not to feel haunted by the thought that sending the guard away had been the wrong thing to do.

EIAH TOOK A BITE OF THE ALMOND CAKE, WIPING HONEY FROM HER MOU"FH with the back of her hand, and Maati was amazed again by how tall she'd grown. He still thought of