The bloody throne, p.41
The Bloody Throne, page 41
“No. We will hold gauntlets for the scun after travel for seven days. Those who survive will ride; those who do not, will not eat.” It was a time-honored tradition in the Horde, a way for the scun to lift themselves to freedom—but only if their masters did not object at the chance.
Some, like Etu himself, were too valuable to be allowed a horse and hookblade. He did not even bother to think of winning his freedom that way.
He longed to remove the collar, but even more than that, he longed for vengeance, and he would take it upon this whole menagerie.
But for now the man they called Etu was a faithful scun, and acting the part was disturbingly easy, as it had been for many a summer. “No new horses.” He turned to the next item needing his lord’s attention. Oh, it was fairly easy to set out a meal this lordly barbarian would eat; even shit would stir the Horde’s appetite if prepared in the right fashion. “Oxen, though. They may pull carts of tribute and spoil.” He already knew the son of Wistis would not like the idea.
“No. We travel lightly, and will take the best of the clay people’s nags. For the rest of the livestock, sacrifice what will please the Burning One, and turn the others loose. If the clay people are chasing their oxen they are not hiding to take unwary riders.” His tone suggested that if one of his followers was unwary, he was a liability, and should be pruned. There was no room for weakness among the Tabrak.
Etu nodded, concealing his glee. It had become almost comically easy to predict his master’s decisions. Of course, the longer the Horde lingered in these lands, the further all possibilities would narrow.
Now came seeding more dissension—laying an egg between two snakes, as his mother used to say. “Jasov Ba Jasov wishes to send you his middle daughter.” She was considered a winning child among the barbarians, despite stinking like all the rest of them and with her hair like dried yellow grass stacked in greasy braids upon a head too large and a neck too scrawny for such a burden.
“He may keep her. I must not be weighed down.”
Etu’s face was a placid mask, but a savage delight bit at his vitals next to the hate-sword. He could not remember his mother’s face, but he remembered some few of her sayings in a dialect that now did not exist, for the Horde had erased their small settlement at the edge of the waste so many years ago. “My lord, he may challenge you.”
Aro stiffened, and the bay lifted his head, sensing his rider’s tension. “Do you think so?”
“He has Aejir’s support, and Niko and Krilov of the First Horse’s as well. They have given each other many mares these past moons.” Etu was very careful not to let disdain creep into the words. These barbarians killed each other over any slight; they had no shame or true honor. Not that he was any better—he had worn the collar for many years before a plan had occurred to him, simple and devastating, upon the night the Horde celebrated the ascension of a son of Wistis to the first stirrup.
Feeding that child carefully—nurturing pride, aiding his pettiness, abetting his rise—had produced this. Etu had not been sure Aro would listen to the plan, but in the end, the barbarian had considered it his own idea.
And that was almost, almost the best revenge of all.
“Should he be dealt with?” Aro’s gaze was uncomfortably piercing, but it was focused on the northern horizon as if he could see Zunnan shimmering there, that fabled city of riches.
Etu knew his master did not really wish a reply; he was simply thinking aloud as one could do before a mute beast or a scun. To Aro Ba Wistis, Etu was simply a thing, possessing slightly less importance than the cousins he rode into battle or gifted his stirrup-holders to keep his primacy and position.
But even an ox could crush its tormentor, if it was patient enough. If it waited for the proper moment.
The king of the Horde finished his ruminations and gathered his reins. “What else, my faithful Etu? I should give you a mate; you would make many fine scun scribes for me.”
Loathing filled him to the brim, but Etu ducked his head as if pleased, his chin touching the filthy leathern collar. Applied when wet, it shrank to a choking fit, and some scun even decorated theirs, as if it were not a deep, killing shame to wear such a thing. “My lord is kind to a scun,” he said softly, and hoped the hatred was not leaking from his eyes. The Tabrak had a word for mutinous possessions; it was close to their term for disembowelment, which was the penalty for rising against a mounted man.
“Nonsense, you deserve it. I shall think upon the matter more.” The son of Wistis kneed the bay into a walk down the rocky hill, and the stallion’s tail flicked. “Come, we shall rejoin the Horde.”
And Etu—whose name as a child had been Turong Lai, and would be again once he finished the task he had set himself—persuaded his nag to follow at a slow walk, tasting his own bitter fury.
But not for long.
BLOOD BOILS WITHIN ME
The sky’s tears fell in silver strings all afternoon; Yala had rarely been so happy to hear rain. There was even a breath or two of cool breeze as the sun sank, a presage of autumn. Dinner was a very quiet affair, Su Junha and Hansei Liyue discussing several novels and which plays they were likely to attend at the theater once the Second Princess’s mourning was done. There were other court ladies eager to place their daughters, nieces, or cousins in a princely household, but the dance of doing so was hemmed by much etiquette and many indirect compliments.
Far more worrying was the attempt to spread the First Mother’s household servants among the surviving princes’ dependents. Both Steward Keh and Lady Kue gave the notion short shrift, the former muttering something about little spiders and Lady Kue shaking her head, her Shan-style braids looped over her ears swinging slightly. I would rather take in a collection of venomous rodents, that lady said, with quite uncharacteristic vehemence.
Yala was content to follow their advice, but parrying a direct gift from the Emperor, should he choose to force the matter, was a troubling prospect.
The conversation at the dinner table did not touch upon the royal pyres, though Su Junha inquired whether her patroness thought the Sixth Prince would welcome a letter of condolence, perhaps with a quotation from the Green Book, which held much upon the subject of mourning.
Garan Takyeo had been reading that text before his misfortune; Yala’s short thoughtful pause was taken as a gentle caution, and Junha looked rather chastened before her patroness remarked that it seemed a very kindly idea, so long as the quotation was chosen with care. Junha then very prettily asked for her patroness to suggest one, and the resultant conversation, with Liyue’s ardent help, finished the meal nicely indeed.
The evening round of letters flew between houses in the Noble Quarter, and Yala’s preferred place for answering them was the library, still smelling faintly of dust but now full of the good green fragrance of rain. Several of the scrollcases and spines upon the dark wooden shelves were familiar from the Jonwa; the young, dying Emperor had been most specific that not even a scrap of paper was to be left in the palace for his enemies, and Takshin had scrupulously carried out his wishes.
There was much to admire in her husband, Yala told herself again as she drew her wet brush over the inkstone. Kai’s missive was anonymous ash in a brazier, even its wax seal charred into invisibility. She considered the half-finished letter, thinking over her next few character choices; Lady Gonwa’s subtle offer of her young cousin Eulin for placement within Yala’s household must not be accepted quickly nor absolutely refused.
After all, Eulin had attended the Crown Princess well enough, but Yala had not forgotten how her elder reclaimed the girl after Mahara’s pyre. Still, it was a matron’s duty to keep younger kin from dangerous alliances, much as it was a patroness’s, and Yala could not afford to displease Lady Gonwa.
She was not required to bow immediately, though.
The flame in the glass lamp upon her desk wavered slightly; she glanced at the sliding door to the verandah, the garden beyond finishing its soaked, murmuring descent into twilight. She set her brush aside and stood, as if temporarily weary of writing; her right hand dropped to her side, her fingers tingling.
“Hist,” a familiar voice said in the gloom outside. There was a small creak as he shifted upon the verandah’s wooden floor. “’Tis only me, my lady; do not call out, I should not be here.”
That is a severe understatement. “Sixth Prince.” She glanced at the hall partition, firmly shut and on the other side of the room as well; then she glided for the porch. Her shadow distorted over bookshelves and a very fine Anwei woven rug; her heart pounded in her wrists and behind her knees. “How, under Heaven—”
“Kurin doesn’t like me leaping the palace walls, but I don’t care. Besides, Father let me.” Jin’s lean shadow detached from a deeper pool of gloom to her right; the gleam of his eyes and teeth were the only things giving him away. Not only had he left the palace, but he had somehow penetrated his elder brother’s house with apparently little trouble. It was good that he was an ally; he would make a difficult foe indeed. “I can’t drink with the Golden anymore, though.”
“I am sorry you must forego that pleasure, but your visit is a pleasant surprise.” She refrained from pointing out not drinking with palace soldiers was probably a blessing, tucking her shaking hands into her sleeves. Her yue could remain in its sheath; she had even been thinking of practicing tonight, once the rest of the household was safely abed. “But you would not come merely to say hello and leave like Dhao Kailung. What has happened?”
“Nothing. Well, nothing new.” Still, the youngest prince sounded uncertain. “May we speak, Princess Yala?”
“I hardly think anyone can hear us.” She leaned against the sliding door, bracing her shoulder against heavy dark wood. “You have chosen your time well, but when the next watch is called my kaburei will come to put me to bed or bring some jaelo tea.”
“We have some few moments, then.” His shoulders hunched uneasily; he was not in pale mourning, which said his errand was urgent indeed. “I do not know quite what to say. You may be angry with me.”
“Tell me what has happened, and we shall see.” The oppressive heat was returning under cover of darkness, and if Jin could reach the inner courtyard of her own home, what could halt a follower of the Shadowed Path from doing the same? At least Takshin had left her yue in her hands; it was another reason to fix her traitorous heart more firmly upon her husband.
Tossing in her bed at night, though, Yala could not help herself from thinking upon something, someone else entirely.
“I wasn’t looking for them,” Jin said hurriedly, the words tumbling excitedly over each other. “I wasn’t spying or sneaking, I swear. I was in Banh’s tower and there was a windowsill—”
Yala held up a hand. “Quietly, Prince Jin. Please.”
“I found papers,” he continued, in a heated but thankfully much more sedate whisper. “I don’t know what they mean and you might hate me for it, but… here.” And he proffered a packet of waxed paper, the string holding it tied in a complex knot. “I think they’re Takshin’s.”
Ah. “He lived in the Old Tower before the Crown Prince… ah, before your eldest brother asked him to move into the Jonwa.” It stood to reason her husband would leave some things he prized there. “But, Sixth Prince—”
“One of them is from Kurin.” Jin almost spat the words, audibly relieved to share a heavy burden. “And, sister-in-law, it concerns you.”
Yala’s breath caught. “Concerns me?” Her heart, wiser than her head-meat, continued its frantic throb; she could feel her pulse even in her underarms. Sweat greased her all over, but that was nothing new, here in Zhaon. “In what manner?”
“You should… look, the knot is easy to untie. There are ledger-notes too, written in Khir. I cannot read them but you…” Jin all but hopped from foot to foot. “I do not know if I have done well, sister-in-law. I have nobody to ask except perhaps Gamnae, and she is abed with grief.”
Or something close to it. Yala weighed the packet. “Will you come in? You may listen at the hall door so we are not surprised.”
“I’m wearing shoes.” He sounded scandalized, and she did not mean to laugh but could not help herself, catching the sound upon the back of her fingers as she carried her burden to the desk. The knot was indeed complex but not overly so, and she folded the bundle’s outside layers back.
Jin stepped inside despite being shod. He ghosted across the library, moving as cautious as a granary feline and casting many a glance at Yala, whose hands had grown very cold despite summer’s reasserting its dusty primacy outside.
She suspected it would be even more difficult to sleep tonight than usual.
Zhe Har wrote that the world could change in the blink of an eye, between one character in a letter and the next, even in the space between two breaths or heart-thumps. It changed as she scanned the marriage endorsement from Garan Kurin to Garan Suon-ei Takshin, dated some few days before their eldest brother’s death.
Yala did not gasp, nor did she stagger. She laid the heavy, expensive paper aside, and eyed the remainders. Zhe Har was twice proved correct, and at the second blow she did sway, her head-meat refusing to credit what her eyes reported, like a general disbelieving a courier’s report.
No. It cannot be.
“Princess? Sister?” Jin’s whisper turned quite alarmed.
Yala returned to herself, sweat-drenched, her hands flat upon the desktop and the brushes in their rack swaying gently as her trembling communicated itself through wood, paper, inkstone, and the lamp’s wavering flame. No. Please, no.
It was no use. She could not un-see. It flashed through her like the afternoon’s lightning, and the thunder afterward was slow in coming.
Takshin was thorough, and he could not have expected his eldest brother to live. He had prepared his trap, and she had been lured—oh, very well indeed. She could even forgive him that, for he… he valued her.
But it was the notes in Khir which stole her breath, because she recognized the hand upon them.
How could she not?
“My lady?” Jin was at her shoulder instead of the door. “Sit. You are pale, I shall… shall I call for tea? Or—”
“No,” Yala managed, through numb lips. Calling for tea, when you are not supposed to be here? Really, you are so very young. “I am merely… it is a shock.”
“I am sorry.” And he was, transparently so, his eyes wide and almost luminous, his bottom lip trembling before his mouth firmed. “I did not think it would—listen, I shall return them.”
For the love of Heaven, simply give me a moment to think. Her irritation crested; a lifetime’s worth of training in throttling that particular humor stood her in good stead. Yala shook her head, her hairpin’s bead-string swinging, and a bright thin blade turned in her chest. Her heart was pierced, all the more painfully because the wound was invisible.
How could he? How could he, of all the men in Zhaon, Shan, Khir itself, do this? And then Takshin, keeping it from her when he swore…
“Yala?” Jin touched her elbow, and the urge to draw her yue and strike sent another fierce shiver through her.
“Let me think,” she hissed, and realized she had spoken in Khir. She swallowed sour rage, attempted to calm her breathing, and repeated it in Zhaon, clear and low. “Let me think, Jin. Please. I must, for this is very dangerous.”
“Then I found something useful.” He gazed anxiously at her profile. “At last.”
“How could he?” Yala could not halt the words, Khir rubbing through Zhaon, both languages bitter upon her tongue. “How could he?”
“Takshin means well.” The young prince scratched at his cheek; he was sweating too, and his eyes were a frightened feline’s. “But the papers in Khir—I did not think he knew how to write in that tongue?”
“They are not his,” she said, and the realization was an icy bath amid summer’s muggy broil. “The endorsement is… well, no doubt he has an explanation.” But not one I would care to hear, if I were honest. Still, I am his wife now.
Garan Takshin was owed her loyalty. Yet he had told her their marriage was one of Garan Takyeo’s deathbed arrangements.
In the end, her marriage was a private matter. The sheets in Khir were otherwise.
The hand upon them was utterly familiar and damning; she read again, to make certain there could be no doubt. It had rained that terrible day in Zhaon-An’s Great Market, too, and Sixth Prince Jin had been there. Was Heaven itself taking pity upon a wayward woman who had failed to protect her princess, her best of friends, by showing her the truth once she could no longer perform her duty of striking at her princess’s murderer?
For Ashani Daoyan, Mahara’s half-brother, was riding north, safe with four Khir lords. And it was his particular handwriting upon the papers, a hand she knew as well as her own—how many letters had they written each other, before and after her departure? She had a bundle of his missives sent from Khir, carefully wrapped and hidden among her dresses—she had to find a better place. Or burn them.
My lady Komor Yala, you have been gone for thirteen days, and my blood boils within me.
Now Yala knew what boiling truly was.
When they had sought to kidnap her princess and taken Yala instead, they spoke of bringing her to one they called the Big Man. Who else could it be? There, black ink upon ledger paper, were the accounts. Silver and copper ingots paid, a contract for the removal of a thorn—except the Khir characters used held darker double meanings. Yala had heard rumors of such things even in Hai Komori’s high dark halls, though a noblewoman of Khir was not supposed to know politics even existed outside the narrow confines of making a good marriage. Let alone assassins.
In Zhaon, they discussed such things openly over tea. And now the puzzle made sense. The blindfold was taken from her; like Zhe Har the Archer, she could see which bolts had pierced the target.
Ihenhua, bought in the market and signed for with a careless set of characters, nah-ha-ri-khi.
