The bloody throne, p.30
The Bloody Throne, page 30
Gamnae stared at him, wide-eyed, and he realized she was not so stupid as to think he was serious, nor to think he had not perceived her meaning. Hadn’t he often cautioned Sabwone that their smallest sister was not unintelligent, simply uninterested in making a fuss?
So Kurin indicated a small, hardly used sitting-room, and when the partition was closed he turned to face her. “What precisely did the physician say?”
“It was how he said it, Eldest Brother.” She was pale in the dimness, her yellow dinner gown a floating cloth like a gesekai come to harry a faithless suitor. “And before you tell me I am imagining it—”
“You are not.” Kurin’s head-meat, exercised by a day of balancing ministers against each other and brushing characters again and again upon—not to mention sealing—proclamations, policy decisions, summons to the imperial presence, directives to the Northern Army and to the Southron… it was endless, and he wondered if sometimes Father had wanted to burn all the paper and start anew.
Swinging a sword atop a plunging horse must be less draining than this.
“Kurin…” Gamnae’s breath seemed to have failed her. She stared at him, her large, very fine dark eyes wide. “What have you done?”
What? Oh, by Heaven, you will regret that, sister mine. “You think I… she is our mother, Gamnae.” Never mind that he had contemplated certain actions if Gamwone did not cease her meddling; he had always considered Gamnae, at least, willing to think the best of him.
Even if she was wrong.
“I know.” Where had the brat learned this quiet, declarative tone? Even the way she regarded him was uncomfortably direct, and startlingly adult. “But there will be questions.”
“Not the right ones.”
She fell silent. He longed to pinch her, perhaps, or find a more fitting punishment. “You are my beloved sister,” he said, persuasively enough. “Any of them may say as they please. But you, Gamnae?” It was not quite what he had meant to express, and his irritation mounted.
“Oh, I know I may not say anything, and I will not.” She shook her head, her hairpin’s bright dangle swinging. “She calls for you, Kurin. Over and over, for her favorite.”
And that is my fault too, I gather. “It is not as pleasant as you might suppose, holding that title.” Still, it must irk his sister that she was set aside so routinely. Kurin grasped for patience, and found some lurking within his liver.
A sliver, at least, and it would have to do.
“And all the others?” She sought to go past him, her left hand lifting and the plain, uncarved hurai upon the first finger glinting.
As if she expected him to strike her. A brother might do such a thing as a child, but a nobleman had other ways of gaining compliance—and an Emperor did, as well.
“Listen to me.” He grabbed her left arm, but did not let his fingers bite. “You are upset with me because Eldest Brother is dead and I must make difficult decisions. I am your brother, Gamnae.”
“So was Takyeo.” She clapped her right hand over her mouth, her eyebrows rising, the picture of a child caught saying a naughty word.
“Don’t call him back, now.” There was a certain satisfaction in tweaking her superstition, especially if she was determined to be such a dolt. “Which physician?”
Gamnae shook her head, her left arm caught and her right hand against her mouth, not the backs of the fingers as if she was a court lady affecting astonishment or hiding a smile.
He shook her—not very hard, just enough to focus her humors upon the question asked. “Which one, Gamnae?”
“Honorable Yung Yeo.” Her voice was muffled. “He comes in the afternoons. The one… the one Mother wanted to…”
To replace Tian Ha. Well, that’s a pity. Had it been a physician sent, for example, by Second or Third Mother, he could easily arrange either silence or speaking as it suited him. “Honorable Yung,” he murmured. “Very well. You will have dinner in your rooms tonight, Gamnae, and think well upon what you would accuse your Eldest Brother of.” He could not use the familial title accorded Takyeo, of course, but he was eldest in his own way, and due a little respect. After all, he had been first through their mother’s gate, and though sometimes an unfilial action had to be taken, Gamnae certainly had no reason to perform it nor aptitude to do so correctly.
His were thankless tasks, but she could at least pretend a little graciousness in his direction. Kurin gave her one final shake, ignoring her gasp and the bobbling of her head like a melon upon a spindly stem. “Do you understand?” Her surrender was assured, he only wished for it to be official. “Say you understand, little sister.”
“I… I understand.”
He let go of her, patting at the sleeve he had wrinkled. Soft, heavy silk, a royal luxury; she had no idea what deeds kept it upon her back. He would have to marry her off soon, but where? Possibly Khir, though the horse-lords there would tie her to a kitchen stove. What a shuddering, cringing thing she was.
He was glad to have been born a man.
Kurin forgot Gamnae as soon as he stepped back into the hallway proper, smoothing his own sleeves and making certain his topknot-cage was in place. This part of the Kaeje was so familiar as to be completely ignored as he strode through the corridors, barely noticing Yona bowing as she withdrew into an alcove, probably on her way to terrorize some of the other maids. Of all his worries, she was the least—perhaps she would moan and throw herself upon her mistress’s pyre, just like Hua Dinha’s faithful dog.
Assuming, of course, that Mother was actually ill, and not simply furious that her eldest son was not dancing attendance upon her every whim.
In short order his presence caused commotion in the hall leading to Gamwone’s sleeping chamber, and he heard his presence announced by one of her remaining little spiders—the frail-fingered, big-eyed girl who had often brought his tea upon princely mornings before he ascended to his rightful place. He allowed her to remain because she had been his creature from the start; Kurin had also applied some pressure to his mother’s steward and now owned him as well.
Beyond the partition, it smelled of tangy medicinal herbs and a faint odor of burning ice-resin; the whitish globules kept moths from woolen cloth but were also held to clear foul air. A table had been carried in, and was now loaded with medical paraphernalia; her beauty bench sat neglected, its brazen mirror shrouded so it did not draw away any invisible, healthful humor or magnify an unhealthy one.
“Out,” he said, and the spiders scattered. “Well, Mother, how are…” The sentence trailed off as he stepped into the circle of lampglow, a halu lamp burning faithfully upon her nightstand, the thin fabric swathing to keep bloodneedle insects from her nightly rest pulled carefully away.
His mother lay under a light counterpane, her long black hair—innocent of any winter just yet—a river over the stiff rectangular bolsters she preferred. A blue slipware cup and a wooden flask of sharp-smelling jikao tonic—good for the nerves and available from any apothecary, though the painted characters on the outside of the flask shouted it had come from the Artisan’s Home and was consequently thrice the price of such an article acquired elsewhere—stood to attention in the lampglow as well, soldiers ready for battle inside an ailing human body.
Gamwone’s cheeks had sunk alarmingly in the past few days. Her breathing was a shallow rasp, and scarcely seemed to lift the light embroidered counterpane, Gamnae’s careful stitches tangling the characters for Yulehi with those for peaceful sleep. It had been a New Moon Festival gift from his sister four winters ago, and he remembered how hard she had worked on it despite Sabwone’s teasing that a dress was better.
His mother’s skin was mottled, and her hand, with the silver filigree sheath over its smallest nail, trembled upon the counterpane’s folded top. Kurin glanced at the partition, his ears pricked for even the faintest noise of breathing, a pulse, any sign that he was being observed.
None was apparent, but he crossed the room again and glanced into the hall. Closing the partition would be a sign there was something to hide, so he left it half open and retraced his steps to the bedside. His hand dove into his sleeve, and he had a moment’s qualm.
Do not.
It had been a long while since he had hesitated, or been unsure of the next step to take. He eyed the flask of tonic, examined his mother’s sleeping face again.
There were tiny glimmers under her thick black eyelashes. She was beautiful, still. As a boy he had peered around the edge of a screen, watching her dabbing nia oil and patting zhu on her face; it had seemed, then, that his mother was Heaven’s greatest consort, the one whose infrequent dictates not even the emperor of the celestial realms could disobey.
Garan Gamwone’s lips were chapped now, and as he watched her feet moved at the end of the bed, a pair of hillocks contorting under a grassy carapace. Her eyelids fluttered, and her other hand must have been resting upon her illness-swollen belly. It twitched, moving atop a parody of early pregnancy, and Kurin’s humors were indeed disarranged, for he felt cold fingers brush his back again.
When one of Yona’s little household spies crept to the partition, she was treated to the sight of the Emperor of all Zhaon holding his ailing mother’s shoulders and a blue cup of tonic to her lips. “Drink your medicine, Mother,” Garan Kurin said very softly, and though it was a filial scene indeed, the maid’s throat was dry and well-banked hatred burned in her protruding eyes.
Her mistress, only half conscious, drank without complaint.
A USEFUL CRIME
It was a hot, pleasant morning, though there was a smudge of dark cloud to the north. Such a thing was not uncommon in late summer, and heralded a return of the rains and the swampy chill of autumn. The first harvest had passed, the second crop of rai planted in those places peasants knew would be sheltered from the plunging temperatures of almost-winter in a few moon-cycles, and Garan Jin rode with his chin almost touching his chest, sunk in profound thought.
His companion, a lady upon a black mare, rode with similar quiet. Garan Komor-a Yala accorded the Sixth Prince silence during this morning ritual, and he appreciated the gift. Of course, the lady was not known for chatter, but an observer might have thought them wholly unrelated, for all their converse.
At length, however, the bone-white tombs came into view, and Jin shook off the uncomfortable pressure building inside his head-meat, glancing at his charge. Even a married noblewoman should not travel outside the city walls alone, and he now remembered the duty of conversation as well as protection his presence implied.
“I’m very rude again,” he said, tentatively. Today the kaburei who usually held Yala’s reins was left at Takshin’s house, helping bring some order to the last bits of unpacking. “But you never take me to task, sister-in-law.”
“What good would come of that?” Yala laughed, a soft restful sound; he could see why Takshin liked her so much. “A querulous in-law is a curse upon a household.”
“I know that is a quotation, but I can’t tell from who.” He shook his head, an unwilling smile blooming. Any enjoyment seemed wrong, especially with his mother so… upset.
The world had changed out of all recognition. And he was so weary.
“Now, if it were a weapon…” A light, amused lilt lay under Yala’s words, and it wasn’t unpleasant in the least.
If it were a weapon, he would certainly know more. “You sound like Mother.”
“A high compliment, Sixth Prince Jin.” She bent slightly in the saddle, a shadow of a bow in his direction. Their horses had fallen entirely into companionable step; they sounded like one person riding down the road.
“If you do not call me brother I shall be quite put out.” At least he could try to be more polite, now that he realized he hadn’t spoken since before the gate in the palace complex’s wall. “Gamnae calls me a smelly longtail, though I don’t recommend that.”
“I would never.” The new princess outright laughed at the notion, as she hardly ever did; her black mare’s ears flicked at the pleasant sound. “She wrote to me this morning; she says First Mother is doing a little better.”
Jin wanted to remark that he didn’t give a single swelling muahgua if the First Queen was doing better, but that was rude, not to mention unfilial. His neck itched, but he did not scratch—a small penance. “That’s good.” His tone turned neutral, and Yala glanced at him.
“She also mentioned the theater,” she continued. “And she has done so twice. Do you think it would be acceptable to invite her? A daytime farce, not an evening one.”
It was a capital idea, and one Jin should have broached himself. “Just the thing to take her mind from… well, from everything. But let me brush the invitation.” He didn’t want to think about what the First Queen might make Gamnae suffer if Yala did so. As much as the woman disliked all other wives and children—that was perhaps only normal for a senior wife, all the books said so—she would reserve a special ire for Takshin’s new bride, especially since Yala had been a lady-in-waiting to the Crown Princess.
Anything given to Takyeo drove the First Queen into a fury. It had been a fact of life for so long Jin had thought it quite normal. Surely it was a tiny bit unfilial to compare patient, mild Ah-Yeo to the scary, coldly beautiful woman who stared hatefully at other wives’ children during public rituals.
Father had married her because of Yulehi, but it had occurred to Jin lately that perhaps, just perhaps it might have been a mistake. It was quite a foreign notion—that the remote, sometimes benevolent but always terrifying god of his childhood could do anything so mortal as commit an error. Still, it had to be possible.
Because Father, after all, was dead. Ascended was a pretty way to put it, and Jin supposed it was even possible that Heaven existed and Garan Tamuron was ensconced comfortably in a mansion there.
It was far more believable to think of his Eldest Brother there, though he didn’t know why he felt so. And there was no one to ask. Even Mrong Banh was distracted lately.
“That was indeed why I mentioned it.” Yala’s hands rested prettily upon the reins; married life suited her, and she had even gained some weight. Of course, how anyone could eat with Takshin glaring at them all day was beyond Jin, but she did not seem to mind much.
It was one thing to have a brother. It was quite another to have married brothers, and he found himself studying Takshin closely, wondering what he’d done to attract such a lady’s notice. He also studied Su Junha, who always bowed and murmured Sixth Prince Jin, how is your health with a merry twinkle in her solemn dark gaze upon meeting him.
He did not know quite how to answer, despite etiquette providing all the fine words a prince could ever want. Instead he always mumbled something silly and retreated, hoping the heat in his cheeks wasn’t a blush like an embarrassed maiden’s. “Will you bring your ladies? It might seem… well, if there was a large group, Gamnae might…” He meant to say his sister could escape gossip if more ladies came along, but suddenly could not think of a way to do so gracefully.
“I thought Su Junha might wish to come along.” Yala considered the question gravely, and gave a slight shake of her head, her hairpin swinging. Her veil was tucked aside; it must be dreadfully hard to breathe underneath it, though it would filter the dust somewhat. “Lady Hansei, though, would much prefer a book.”
That was no secret, and there seemed no hidden message in the observation.
They reached the tombs, and Jin remembered not to hurry to her horse this time. Khir noblewomen preferred to alight without aid, and such preferences were a lady’s prerogative.
Once she was safely aground she consented to take his arm, as usual, and they set off for Father’s tomb. The new princess walked with her head down, watching her steps; her bright green dress and veil bore a light coating of yellow road-dust, as did his sober dark blue robe.
“Have you heard anything?” Princess Yala finally murmured.
“Not much,” he had to admit. “All the gossip is of First Mother’s illness. And your marriage. Some say she is livid at her son marrying… well, you know.”
“Indeed I do.” Yala’s fingers weighed scarcely anything in the crook of his elbow. “What say the Golden?”
This was his favorite part of these visits. It was exciting to gather little snippets of gossip and half-heard asides, to decipher meaningful looks. Kurin might be angry, but what could he do, put Jin under house arrest in the Iejo for doing something even Father had winked at?
Besides, a court lady would hear different things than Jin might. And it pleased him to be of use to her.
“They like Eldest Brother a great deal,” he was forced to admit, and it irked him to call Kurin by a word that could possibly refer to Takyeo if one did not know better. “He has added to their stipend by at least a third. They say not even Father was this liberal. But do you recall, that day in the market…”
A delicate shudder paused her steady steps for a moment, and the new princess glanced at him. Her sharp features were blurred by the fine veil lowered in deference to the august ancestors, but there was a flash of paleness, her gaze with that clear ghostly quality of Khir. “It would be hard to forget.”
“Yes, well.” At least he didn’t have to describe it afresh; she had, after all, been present. The feel of a sword sinking into another man’s flesh was enough to unseat one’s liver, but he supposed being a nobleman entailed such things. “Kai and Takshin questioned the rest of that Golden’s square. Obviously they weren’t involved. But they were arrested two days ago.”
“How very odd,” Yala said softly, though her tone said she did not find it odd but instead troubling.
And so did he.
“None will speak of the reason. But I wonder.” Jin found himself patting her fingers with his free hand as if he were walking with Gamnae, attempting to express protection and fondness at once.
