Free THE (tlpq-4) by Daniel Abraham Page B

was
    so faint it might almost have been the movement of the ship. Otah
    stepped carefully over the rough board, hitched his robes up to his
    shins, and sat at the girl's side. They were silent. Above them, the
    singers struck a complex rhythm, like jugglers tossing pins between
    them. Otah sighed.
     
    "I know this isn't easy for you," he said.
     
    "What isn't, Most High?"
     
    "Otah. Please, my name is Otah. You can call me that. I mean all of
    this. Being uprooted, married off to a man you've never met in a city
    you've never been to."
     
    "It's what's expected of me," she said.
     
    "Yes, I know, but ... it isn't really fair."
     
    "No," she said, her voice suddenly hard. "It isn't."
     
    Otah clasped his hands, fingers laced together.
     
    "He isn't a bad man, my son," Otah said. "He's clever and he's strong,
    and he cares about people. He feels deeply. He's probably a better man
    than I was at his age."
     
    "Forgive me, Most High," Ana Dasin said. "I don't know what you want me
    to say."
     
    "Nothing. Nothing in particular. Only know that this life that we've
    forced on you ... it might have some redeeming qualities. The gods all
    know the life I've had wasn't the one I expected, either. We do what we
    have to do. In my ways, I'm as constrained by it as you are."
     
    She looked at him as if he were speaking a language she hadn't heard
    before. Otah shook his head.
     
    "It's nothing, Ana-cha," he said. "Only know that I know how hard this
    time is, and it will get better. If you allow room for it, this new life
    might even surprise you."
     
    The girl was quiet for a moment, her brow furrowed. She shook her head.
     
    "Thank you?" she said.
     
    Otah chuckled ruefully.
     
    "I'm not doing a particularly good job of this, am I?" he said.
     
    "I don't know," Ana Dasin said after a pause. Her tone carried the
    shielded contempt of an adolescent for her elders. "I don't know what
    you're doing."
     
    Making his way back through the crowded belly of the ship, Otah wondered
    what he had thought he would say to a Galtic girl who had seen
    forty-five fewer summers than himself. He had expected to offer some
    kind of wisdom, some variety of comfort, and instead it had been like
    trying to hold a conversation with a cat. Who would have thought a man
    could be as old as he was, wield the power of empire, and still be so
    naive as to think his heart would be explicable to an eighteen-year-old
    girl?
     
    And, of course, as he reached the plank stairway that led up, he found
    what he wished he had said. He should have said that he knew what
    courage it took to face sacrifice. He should have said that he knew her
    suffering was real, and that it was in a noble cause. It made them
    alike, the Emperor and the Empress-to-be, that they compromised in order
    to make the lives of uncountable strangers better.
     
    More than that, he should have encouraged her to speak, and he should
    have listened.
     
    An approving roar came from the deck above him. A reed organ hummed and
    sang, flute and drum following a heartbeat later. Otah hesitated and
    turned back. He would try again. At worst, the girl would think he was
    ridiculous, and she likely already did that.
     
    As he drew near the hold, he heard her weeping again, her voice
    straining at words he couldn't make out. A man's voice answered, not her
    father's. Otah hesitated, then quietly stepped forward.
     
    In the gloom, Ana Dasin knelt, her arms around a young man. The boy,
    whoever he was, wore the work clothes of a sailor, but his arms were
    thin and his skin was as pale as the girl's. He returned her embrace,
    his arms finding their way around her as if through long acquaintance;
    his tear-streaked face nuzzled her hair. Ana Dasin stroked the boy's
    head, murmuring reassurances.
     
    Ah, Otah thought as he stepped back, unnoticed. That's how it is.
     
    Above deck, he smiled and nodded at Issandra and pretended to turn his
    attention back to the music. He wondered how many other