The bloody throne, p.27
The Bloody Throne, page 27
Her silence did not anger him; Takshin seemed to understand she required some short while to absorb this news. He returned to his breakfast, and she to her tea. Yala stared into her cup, the amber liquid innocent and fragrant, and sought to think.
The girl who left Khir at Mahara’s side would have considered it a pack of Zhaon lies. But… it made a certain amount of sense. The jostling for position among the noblewomen of the Great Rider’s keep and the city nestling under it was fierce, for all it was never admitted that they considered politics during their intrigues instead of simple marriage-ambition. But their fathers, brothers, husbands? Which of those—the Great Rider’s ministers, other noble families with less rectitude than Komori Dasho’s, the many allied clans or those seeking to buy some manner of nobility—would have sent ingots, silver and copper both, south to pay for a princess’s death?
Perhaps she should have returned to Khir with Daoyan after all. She had been so sure it was a Zhaon in the palace’s warren who had paid for the deed. The sudden reverse left a bitterness in her mouth, and she wondered if a general ever felt this way when a battle turned.
Ashani Daoyan had left Khir before knowing of his sister’s death. He had brought her father’s ring, and the emissaries said her father had been struck down very close to that time. It was hideous to think ill of her childhood friend, even more hideous to wonder what other missives he might have been carrying for Khir trapped as she was in Zhaon-An’s busy guts.
Or if one or more among the noble Khir emissaries had been in the city before their “official” arrival, and had brought a few ingots along to pay for a royal death.
Her appetite was gone, but she was still under her husband’s gaze. So Yala consumed broth and her tea, with small ladylike sips, and blinked furiously against the hot prickling in her eyes.
Every wall was double-hung with tapestries, and every corner rounded in the First Dowager Mother of Zhaon’s usual breakfast room. This morning her eldest son was not present; the business of rule did not permit leisurely rising. More unusual was her daughter’s absence, but Gamnae was visiting Third Mother Luswone in the hopes that she might ease some of that lady’s grief. The Emperor had suggested the move with a friendly letter to his younger sister, who took it—quite rightly—as a command, and hastened to obey.
Her relief at the event was not visible—the child had enough self-control for that—but it was guessed at all the same by every servant in this part of the Kaeje. Adept at sensing the slightest shift in household currents, the remaining spiders of Queen Gamwone—those thin-fingered, big-eyed, skinny girls she seemed to prefer, their flesh pared down to bone despite their position supposedly and traditionally admitting enough scrapings and leavings to feed a detachment of soldiers several times over—exchanged somber looks as they hurried about their tasks, and if their silence was not quite as fearful or complete as it had been, it was at least sufficient.
The new servants, despite their lack of pejorative title, were just as quiet.
Even Yona, feared almost as much as her mistress, moved a little more slowly than usual. Lately she had eaten nothing but polished rai, that staple of health and life, but it did not seem to be doing much good. Any sauce, salt, or additive for her bowl, however timidly offered, was brusquely refused. Perhaps she had made a vow to one of Heaven’s governors or the Awakened One; in any case, everyone in the First Mother’s household knew to leave well enough alone.
There were no alliances among these servants, old or new, except the most temporary. To think otherwise was to court disaster—and the sudo, for Gamwone had a very fine collection of those instruments hanging in a polished wooden cupboard.
It was Yona who supervised the setting of the table to her mistress’s liking, with the tureens of broth both meat and vegetable, the sweet rai, the greens with the piquant sauce customary in the Yulehi family’s ancient lands, the sliced fruit arranged in pleasing patterns, the pot of haurang tea, the sweating, covered clay jar of crushed fruit. All the parts of a royal breakfast were in place, along with the dishes least likely to garner a stern reprimand from the mistress as being aesthetically displeasing.
Gamwone’s refined sensibilities changed from day to day; what was pleasant one morn was unbearable the next. It could have been a mark of noble sensitivity.
If it was attributed otherwise, at least no servant had the foolhardiness to mention as much openly.
Yona shooed the maids forth with her usual alacrity, though, and turned back to the table, perhaps to right some small angle between a plate and eating-sticks held ready upon a small fish-shaped stand, perhaps to check that the tea was properly hot, or perhaps to arrange the rai-paper squares for couth dabbing at fingers or lips between courses or sips.
As she did, she glanced at the partition—not even a shadow. She had a few moments before her mistress came shuffling down the hall in heavily embroidered morning slippers.
What was most likely? There was one thing Garan Yulehi-a Gamwone never failed to take at her first meal, were it available—the toothsome, musky, sugary aiju, square slices presented in a chessboard pattern upon their own whisper-thin Ihengua porcelain plate.
Yona’s bony yellowing hand dove into her sleeve. She produced a small blue ceramic bottle with a sliver of soakwood as a stopper, and took care to hold it well away while sliding the sliver out. Her heart beat high and thin in her chest; she glanced again at the partition.
No shadow, no footstep. Activity elsewhere in the household was a distant rhythm of footstep, soft voices, moving cloth; she scattered a minuscule quantity of white powder from the bottle’s pursed lips with finger-taps on the bottle’s neck like a sathron player producing counterpoint. It took skill and patience to land each tiny puff upon a square of aiju, where the dry crystals vanished into the melon’s pallor, soaking into its damp humors.
The sliver returned to the bottle’s mouth, and blue-enameled ceramic slipped into a pocket in her sleeve holding other small, necessary items for the day’s work. She lingered a little longer to make certain the column of rai-paper squares upon the table was twisted to make it an architectural folly-tower, its sides spiraling, and folded the top one in half as manners demanded.
Then she hurried to the partition, checking the empty hall outside one more time. There was motion drawing closer; her sharp ears caught the familiar drag at the end of each step as her mistress’s morning-robe swept the spotless floor behind her.
Many a spider had learned to dread hall-washing duty if even a single smear were found upon the First Queen of Zhaon’s hem.
Yona was in her proper attitude just inside the partition as First Mother of the Revered Emperor Garan Gamwone appeared, her round, beautiful, indolent face lightly dusted with zhu and her cheerful orange morning-robe embroidered with chevrons in a slightly darker shade at hems and cuff. The stitchery was Second Princess Gamnae’s work, and perhaps the mistress wore it since her daughter was unable to attend the meal. In any case, it suited her, though her high-piled hair, perpetually stiff with lacquer, was slightly disarranged. Perhaps a close-maid had been slapped away from the task of morning twisting and thrusting a plain hairpin through, or perhaps Gamwone’s tender scalp could not bear such pressure this morning.
Yona bowed deeply. Her mistress did not see—who, after all, takes much notice of a familiar chair, a bench, a hanging one passes daily in a hall? Gamwone settled at the table, and when Yona hurried forward upon her knees to pour the tea, she was waved peremptorily away. The first lady of the Kaeje wished to breakfast without help.
Her most favored, faithful servant retreated to the other side of the partition and pulled it closed, her ears pricked for any tiny aggrieved sigh or expostulation from inside. Such slight sounds would be a gong summoning her to duty, and long practice had given her antennae as sensitive as a granary feline’s whiskers as it crouched motionless before a wall-hole.
The giver of the tiny blue bottle—bought from a shop tucked under an apothecary’s sign in the Left Market and well paid for his many services—assured her it would not take effect at once, and Grandfather never lied.
Yona composed herself, as she had so often in her life, to wait. The morning’s usual retching, attended to in a tiny, out of the way water-closet before dawn, held more bright blood than usual, and she could barely even eat plain rai.
Nevertheless, she wore a very small, very faint smile.
BURDENS OF RULE
It did not give him much pleasure to be sending one of his brothers to war. But it did not pain him overmuch, either, and Garan Kurin could not let that show. Etiquette demanded a ponderous gravity in solemn leave-taking, even if one’s heart and liver sat very easily within.
The vermilion-pillared hall was alive with witnesses, from the square-captains of the Golden who would serve as Makar’s personal bodyguards to the court ladies sorry to see him go, the eunuchs freed from endless brushing and the daily petty intrigue by a high ceremonial event, the ministers greater and lesser—most of them confirmed in their positions, for continuity was a way to calm the restive beast of public opinion—and, inevitably, more royal family.
Second Mother Haesara, exquisite in rosy silk with a character for abundance embroidered at hem and cuffs, was at the head of her train of court ladies. Lady Aoan Mau, skirting the edge of dishevelment, did not quite droop with sadness, but her gaze held the Fourth Prince’s several times during the formalities.
Perhaps the rumors about a certain partiality were true. In any case, the formal leave-taking of Garan Tamuron’s second queen and her eldest son was exceedingly aesthetic, and Makar made a soft observation for his mother’s ears alone that was no doubt scholarly, for she gave him a pained glance but smiled nonetheless.
The Third Prince, in his customary black Shan attire, gave his next-youngest brother a lopsided smile and no doubt a few stinging words of advice. Nothing Takshin said was without an edge; Kurin wondered how the Khir lady at his side stood such a husband. She was thin for a new bride, but there had been much upset in that lady’s recent past, and she had eschewed the indigo Kurin had seen her in a few times for a bright, pleasing babu-green gown prettily worked with hau characters at the sleeves. Her hairpin held a small, irregular stone wrapped with crimson thread at the top and dangled a string of bright green crystals; her ear-drops, held close with green ribbons, were shivering, ruddy metal with small green stones glittering at piquant points. For her first court ceremonial as a player instead of a spectator, she did well enough, clasping her brother-in-law’s hands and quoting from the Hundreds in a soft but very clear voice with the spike-scars of Khir consonants behind each word.
Garan Gamnae stood next to Haesara, glancing nervously at her now-eldest brother upon the Throne. The First Mother of the Revered Emperor was not in attendance, so Second Mother and the daughter stepped in to fill her role; Gamwone was not feeling well.
Or so his mother said, and since she had not risen from her bed in two days save to make her way to bath or soil-pan with Yona’s solicitous assistance, Kurin let it rest. At least she had ceased her ill-considered intriguing.
Or become far more adept at it in a very short while. He supposed the latter was just barely possible, and was alert for any indication that it had become the case.
Even Fifth Prince Sensheo—in bright orange silk despite having just shed house arrest and mourning both—behaved impeccably, bowing to his elder brother and wishing him both victory and a safe return in ornate, ceremonial Zhaon.
Mrong Banh, who had found the most auspicious day for a farewell, clasped Makar’s hands and nodded several times, his dark eyes very bright. He had kept himself in the Old Tower sheathed with blue tile for days, like a courtesan silly enough to think she was being cast aside. It was no matter; Kurin had already brought the old man explicitly back into favor, though Banh should have expected some gentle questions. He was only an astrologer who had once been a tavern-boy, not a sage.
Next to Banh stood Sixth Prince Jin, deep shadows under his eyes that had no business upon a boy his age. He bowed to Makar and bid him farewell in a somewhat choked voice.
The height of the ceremony was the solemn blessing, Emperor to general, elder brother to younger. Makar took the seal of military authority and their father’s priceless, ancient sword of Garan. “Use it well,” Kurin intoned, and wondered if any present saw past the high honor to the insult.
Father would have wanted Kai or Takyeo to carry it, but the more everyone focused on Makar instead of an upstart general who could not be stripped of a hurai just yet, the better. Makar would be painfully aware the gift was meant to spur him to great achievement. Now was the time to show he was not just a scholar but a warlord like his father, and Kurin could not wait for the inevitable.
Tabrak galloped over all in its way except strong-walled cities, but the Southron Army would bleed them before they reached Zhaon-An. Besides, an Emperor could not very well sit and wait for the Horde, especially when they had sent Sabi’s head in a box.
It was unpleasant to think of Sabwone. Of course, it was only natural he should have an ill dream—or two—haunted by her headless shade, his humors strained by the burdens of rule.
“Avenge our sister,” he added.
“My lord Emperor.” Makar’s bow was not perfunctory in the least, the sword of Garan held high upon both his palms. A ripple ran through the court, probably admiration for the scroll-illustration they made. Later, of course, it might be a point of high tragedy.
Kurin could affect high grief for his beloved brother at the proper time; if Maki survived, there were other plans in place. But for now, the Emperor simply performed his ceremonial duties, and his gaze rested once or twice, speculatively, upon his Second Mother’s second son instead of her first.
Sensheo, busy accepting muted congratulations for his release and condolences upon his brother’s departure, did not notice.
WELL PLEASED
Riding through a scorch-hot Zhaon summer was unpleasant, even with the thickening copses along their route to provide shade and relief. The company was likewise not to his taste; Ashani Daoyan was well-practiced in not letting his disdain show, but his fellow nobles would not cease their yammering and his temper had thinned with each step from Zhaon-An.
“It is not so bad,” Moruri repeated. “She will be well cared for even among the Zhaon, and you may marry a princess instead.”
Daoyan, his knees tight to his horse’s sides and his hands aching for swordhilt or bow, did not reply. His face might be set to the North but his heart and liver were full of rebellion, and yet he rode. There was no point in doing anything else.
“Is he still sulking?” Namori Ekaian leaned in his saddle, grinning hugely. The pockmark fellow was very pleased by his prince’s discomfiture, and sometimes Dao amused himself with planning how to kill the fellow without suspicion.
Each hoof-fall led him farther away. Let it, then. Let Yala find out how the Zhaon treated their wives, and when he returned to that stinking midden of a city he would burn it to the ground and spit that mocking, scarred fellow like a haunch for roasting. Then she would see.
“Leave him be.” Hazuni Ulo’s leather half-armor was stamped with swallow designs, both beautiful and functional. The man inside it was paradoxically as prosaic as possible, though his clear grey gaze moved over hill, valley, field, and woods with a hunter’s watchfulness. He had announced that morning they were not being pursued, and the others accorded him the honor of being believed without question or jest.
Which meant he was far more dangerous than he appeared. Maybe he should be dealt with first.
The last member of the quartet—a shield-square, but they obeyed one of their own instead of the man they pretended to honor—was lean dark Shohuri; words could not be pried easily out of him. Still, he did not mock, and kneed his horse closer to Dao’s. That meant Namori had to fall back to take another position in their scout-pattern; it also meant the clodlike, ill-favored lord could not jape. Shohuri cast Dao an indecipherable glance, and of them all, his quiet gaze was most like Yala’s.
He was trying not to think about her. He should have dragged her from that filthy palace by her hair, slung her over his saddle, and been done with it. He would never make the same mistake again.
Zhaon passed away underneath them. It might have been a pleasant ride in a hunting-party with hawks at the wrist or a summer-fat feral curltail to track. Even a game of kaibok in one of the fields would have been a relief, but instead they were ghosts moving northward, avoiding towns and villages, eschewing the main road during daylight and reserving their mounts’ strength carefully. And even that might have been acceptable if a certain noblewoman had consented to leave the morass, the great Zhaon city like a giant hornbeast sinking in a bottomless mudhole.
At least her father could not stand in Dao’s way, though it was faint comfort now. If he could have just pried her free of Zhaon-An…
They followed the edge of a thick wood, staying to the shade both for camouflage and coolth. The hills would start to rise soon; they were traveling swift and light, but far to the west, using the broken ground in the foothills to cover their approach to Khir. The bridges and fords were probably still held by Zhaon detachments, and in the borderlands there was a chance of being halted, then questioned—if not outright recognized by those they had fought before and during Three Rivers.
Hazuni’s horse, a fine bay, shook her mane as she trotted, her step slowing for a fraction of a babu water-clock’s ticking. Her rider reined her immediately, his head upflung like a widehorn shagcoat hearing a hunting horn, and Daoyan smelled it too.
Smoke.
They halted, four Khir lords and a mutinous royal scion. Their mounts, well-trained and used to sudden stops, barely flicked an ear.
