The bloody throne, p.54
The Bloody Throne, page 54
Nobody else would remember their secret passwords or gossip. Even if Sabi had turned cold and haughty, even if she liked to pinch and make Gamnae’s eyes fill with hot water at an injustice, she was also familiar, and now she was irretrievably gone.
Like Father, and Mother, and everyone else. It would not stop; Garan Gamnae was helpless to halt anything.
Haesara accepted the deep bow of Luswone’s steward, the round and often merry Turong Beh.
“The princess has not returned yet,” Turong murmured, his plump hands clasping very tightly before his belly as he straightened. He grasped himself so hard his pudgy knuckles whitened. “Ladies Su and Hansei left a few moments ago to see if she may be found, for my lady wishes her. Honorable Kihon and the two physicians sent by the Glorious Emperor are with my lady, and her close-servants.”
Haesara nodded as if all this was expected, as if Su Junha and Hansei Liyue did not have reason to worry and were merely making social calls. “Has she taken any nourishment?” It was faintly outside etiquette to ask a steward such a thing, but a dowager queen could do as she liked.
Not that it had done Gamnae’s own mother much good, or satisfied whatever deep gaping absence had driven Gamwone to… what she had done.
Attending Haesara was Gamnae’s own private penance, even though she had always liked the Second Queen. But if a mother could be ashamed of her son—which Gamnae thought very likely, though the sages of course did not spend much time upon the question—a daughter could admit she had suspected her own mother of crimes even while supposedly too young to think of such things, and feel similarly helpless and baffled.
“Not so far as I know, Second Dowager Mother.” For a moment Steward Turong’s cheeks quivered; Luswone was well-regarded by her servants.
Not like Gamwone. Even Yona had disappeared from that part of the Kaeje, probably fleeing to some almost-forgotten family in a distant province; none of the frail, stick-fingered maids were left. They had melted into Zhaon-An or into the outlying fields even before Kurin’s… before what had happened to Kurin; now they had to contend with the barbarians and a city under siege.
Haesara’s sigh was deep and apparently real; never, in all her life, could Gamnae remember her father’s second queen making that sound, like a peasant’s maiden auntie expressing weary resignation. “Thank you, Steward Turong,” she murmured, and the round man in his well-dyed brown cotton robe bustled away, probably relieved not to be asked for more specifics. “Stubborn,” she continued, addressing empty air. “It served her well, though, these many years.”
Gamnae could not find a reply
The bedroom was pretty and airy with the partition open, but the stink of medicines and the brown blots of robed physicians destroyed any peace Gamnae might have gained from the beauty. Haesara did not stop to greet even Physician Kihon—that was Gamnae’s task—but glided directly for the bed, a maid hurrying to place the three-legged, cushioned stool the Second Mother used for her frequent visits. “Luswone,” she said softly, and bent over her husband’s first concubine, sliding her fingers under Third Mother’s limp hand, the resin-stains on Luswone’s fingertips fading. “Oh, my dear. You must try to swallow something.”
“How is she, Honorable Kihon?” Gamnae hoped the once-shabby physician could hear the warmth in her tone. Ever since Kai had brought him to the Palace, she had liked his calm; he reminded her powerfully of Mrong Banh, but not so merry.
Banh was another worry. Sooner or later Sensheo would be upset with him, too. Kurin at least could sometimes be reasoned with—and how she squirmed at the thought that she did not miss her eldest brother as she should while simultaneously too much.
She missed Takyeo more, yet now it was too late. She suspected it would be too late for much more, and in a very short while, too.
The thought filled her with weariness.
“Fading, Second Princess.” As usual, Physician Kihon did not bother with false hope. “Even with the cooling medicine to soothe the throat so she may drink, she refuses.”
I might too, if I looked like that. It was an unworthy thought, and Gamnae had been having quite a few of those lately.
She could not seem to stop.
“You must think of your son,” Haesara whispered. Gamnae almost hunched her shoulders, casting a guilty glance at the sickbed.
Third Mother stiffened, propped between pillows, and her dark eyes flashed. The edges of the wound twitched, but no sound came forth, just a small bubbling exhale.
I am thinking of my son, Luswone’s eyes said, perhaps more clearly than an unmarred mouth could. Or at least, so it seemed to Gamnae, who realized, as if she’d known it all along, that the Daebo princess taken as a warlord’s concubine knew very well she could be held hostage in the bed if Sensheo needed her son to behave in a particular manner.
Or if the newest Emperor wished her only remaining child to walk quietly to his own execution.
The chill pouring down Gamnae’s back made her sway, and Kihon Jiao stiffened. “Second Princess? Are you faint?”
“No, thank you,” she said politely, even though her head-meat did feel strangely stuffed with feathers. The sudden attacks of unworthy—but depressingly logical—thoughts seemed to stretch her skull from the inside each time. “I will try to convince her to drink a little, Physician Kihon. And don’t worry.” She could not tell if she was wearing a usual expression, and hoped she did not look wild-eyed. “You are… in no danger.”
It was a singularly inelegant way to phrase Gamnae’s willingness to protect a creature even weaker than herself at court; Yala would have had a better one. But whatever the physician would have said in return was forestalled by a deep throbbing toll, striking three times against ear and chest at once.
When the Great Bell was hit, the entire complex heard it. The closer you were, the more its heartbeat shocked your own. Instead of continuing, though, after three strikes there was a breathless caesura, then another three terrible heart-shattering knocks.
“What is that?” Gamnae did not mean to sound so squeaky-terrified. She knew what an uninterrupted tolling meant—yet another royal death, though it had not tolled for Kurin—but this pattern wasn’t familiar at all.
“It’s…” Second Mother Haesara clutched Luswone’s hand; Third Mother roused herself and squeezed back, her dark eyes more scorching than ever. “Heaven save us.”
“Well?” Kihon Jiao’s tone was sharper than any Gamnae had ever heard him use, and with his eyes blazing he looked almost handsome. “What is it?”
“Yes.” Haesara was so pale dark crescents suddenly rested under her eyes. “I have heard this signal once or twice, from smaller bells. The city wall is breached.”
The wall? For a moment Gamnae thought they meant one in the room, and she glanced around instinctively to see what she had, as usual, missed. The bell continued, jeong-jeong-jeong, pause, jeong-jeong-jeong.
Then she realized what it truly meant, and not only was her back cold but all the rest of her as well.
Of course the Palace was beautiful and utterly familiar, especially this particular large rectangular garden. Yet Hansei Liyue’s heart refused to settle properly inside her chest, hopping and throbbing in different places as if her humors were disarranged. Well, whose could not be?
Su Junha had spent more than one summer in the Palace’s confines; Hansei Liyue had arrived a little later, of course, but neither noblewoman needed to pay much attention to their footing as they hurried in search of their restrained and quite noble, even if foreign, patroness.
“I don’t know,” Liyue repeated. “He has never been very nice, certainly.” She glanced across a long dripping garden-vista, making certain there were no servants or Golden close enough to hear. Even though everyone with any sense was crowding behind whatever walls they could find, certain parts of the palace were curiously deserted the past few mornings.
It was unsettling.
“The Second Princess said once that he used to mount garden-insects upon pins, to watch them struggle.” Junha kept a watch the other direction; her dresses had often been close to threadbare before finding a proper benefactress, but nothing in her head-meat needed darning. Many a more advantageously placed court lady had snubbed a kinless girl with a poor but very noble name before Princess Yala selected her for the Crown Princess’s retinue; the ignored, though, heard much that others did not. “I heard from Lady Tsurai that he’s driven more than one courtesan outside the city, too.”
“Our princess says not to worry.” Liyue’s jatajatas made soft comforting sounds as they turned to pass under a vine-covered arch. The red trumpet-flowers were fading, though the rains had brought them to a last sad flush. Normally all the spent blossoms would be collected, but even the gardeners had other matters upon their minds at the moment. “Surely the Second Mother…”
“We can hope, I suppose.” Junha’s pace slowed; she glanced at the sky, gauging the prospect of more rain spotting their pale dresses—hers blue, Liyue’s green. It was not quite wise to wear colors approaching mourning, but their patroness did so, and every other court lady besides.
It was the only real power a noble girl possessed, the choice of a garment. Sometimes not even that. And surely the Emperor could not punish them all?
But he might not have to, Liyue knew. He could make an example of just one highly placed lady, and soon enough the brighter dresses would emerge.
Men did as they pleased, especially the Emperor. Even a collective expression of remonstrance could be broken by such an august creature.
She tried, once more that morning, to fix her attention solely upon the matter at hand. “She must have come this way.” It was not like Yala to be late. Were all Khir women so… of all the words Hansei had harvested from novels, she could not find the proper one. Of course their princess was scholarly and recommended one or two dusty old works from the Hundreds, but the novels were much more thrilling. Many were even brushed by women—once they were married, of course, but if Liyue found a good husband, it was a possibility.
She practiced her brushwork assiduously, after all. Look at the Third Prince, scarred and sharp-tempered, yet mild as a kitten when their lady was present. Perhaps Liyue should be more scholarly? But Su Junha, while perfectly literate, did not like the Hundreds and the Sixth Prince often looked at her, did he not? Nothing would come of it, but if something did that would be very pleasant indeed.
Liyue’s head-meat would not settle, flitting from one worry to the next, halting at a fond hope, then circling back to troubles. It was rather like having a jewelwing caught inside her skull.
Her companion’s steps were deliberately short to match Liyue’s own, and Junha was occupied with more immediate concerns. “When we reach the Great Hall, we may say the Second Mother has sent for her.” The taller girl’s mouth was drawn tight; her hairpin ornament swung, glittering as the leftover raindrops strewing the gardens. “Perhaps she has not even seen the Emperor yet. He must be very busy.”
With barbarians at the walls, certainly. Liyue could not repress a shudder. Everyone said that of course the Horde would be driven away, or starve over the winter. The city had stocks of food, there were springs in the Noble Quarter, and since the rains had begun the cisterns would be full. “Very busy indeed,” she agreed, somewhat morosely. Winter would be cold, but there was furniture to burn, as in Lady Funai’s Episodes of Jen-ji’s Life. “If, though… Junha, if something has happened…”
“Then you return to the Iejo, to help the Third Mother and Honorable Kihon.” But Junha slowed too, and turned away from her lookout to glance down at the younger girl. “I will go to the Second Mother, if she is not visiting. She will help. She has to.” But Junha’s voice quivered slightly. Not much disturbed her smooth copper complexion, yet at the moment she was almost ashen. “All will be well, Liyue. It will.”
They went round and round like the sleeve of a story-lantern, dismally repeating the same scenes. Liyue opened her mouth to utter her own firm assent despite the fact that her palms were damp and her heart would not stay in its proper place.
A strange deep sound interrupted, and for a moment she thought it an odd species of thunder. Both girls halted at the edge of a long paved path leading up a broad flight of stairs, two gilded stone pards at the top standing frozen, snarling sentinel. There should be Golden there too, but most of those bright-armored men had been sent to Zhaon-An’s ancient walls.
Three massive peals bounced from stone, echoing oddly, and Liyue’s heart decided her throat was more congenial than her rib cage, leaping into it like an angry spirit and throbbing. The noise could not be thunder, and it wasn’t her pulse.
“What is…” Su Junha almost staggered, clutching at Liyue’s arm. It would be inelegant of them to land in a heap, and it was utterly unlike the taller girl.
She was always so graceful.
Liyue realized what the tolling must be when it paused. Please don’t ring again, she thought. I can’t bear it. “Lady Munau,” she heard herself say. “The Fall of Khao Cao.” A positively thrilling novel, one no noble girl should ever admit to reading; she had snatched bits of it when she should have been sewing, or late at night by the fitful gleam of a candle in a blown-glass globe. “It’s… Junha, it’s the Great Bell.”
Three more deep, wild strokes almost swallowed her words, trailing echoes in their wake like a great lady’s retinue. Their princess had not yet had time to accumulate more ladies-in-waiting or clients; Liyue had sometimes wondered who Yala would choose while in her bed at night, a great warm feeling of satisfaction filling her as she thought of being one of the first in a princess’s noble procession.
“Why won’t it stop?” Junha whispered in the breathless pause. “Not again, please—”
The Great Bell, ignoring her, rang again. Liyue realized she was the one who must solve this mystery, and what they must do. “The city walls.” She had to almost shout, unnaturally loud as a noblewoman must never be in order to pierce the next triple-clamor. “The walls have been breached. Come, back to the Iejo. We must hurry.”
“But… the princess…” Wide-eyed, Junha stood frozen, like a stunned deer.
“He will be too busy to do anything now.” If the city walls were broken, it was the equally thick—though not as tall—palace walls they must depend upon. The Emperor had Golden to protect him, of course, and the eunuchs and noble ministers as well. Liyue tugged at Junha’s arm with one sweating hand, turning the older girl. “And she will want to look after Third Mother, she promised the Sixth Prince. She might go through the dry-gardens, we will take that route back. We must… come, Junha, please!”
Junha’s hand settled over hers and clutched, the palm just as damp as her own; the two girls, the sound of their jatajatas lost under thunderous distorted bell-song, found they were both able to run.
CLAY SOLDIERS
A victorious army and a defeated one marched south in tandem for several days before a hastily scrawled dispatch staggering northward upon a half-dead horse met the forward guard near the keep of Tienzu. Hurried up the chain of command, it reached Zakkar Kai deep in conference with generals both Khir and Zhaon, hammering out a battle plan that had some chance of working against the Horde and—such was Kai’s fond hope—would leave the head general of Zhaon placed advantageously enough near the capital to keep Khir from finishing Tabrak’s work.
It would, he suspected, be well-nigh impossible. Still, there was some pleasure in learning more of Khir strategy and tactics, not to mention the personalities of the men he would be facing should they decide to become troublesome; no such knowledge was ever wasted. Tamuron would have enjoyed it too, both for the outwitting of one’s temporary ally and for the company of like-minded men. It was almost an artisan’s pride in his craft, but not quite, for the cost in ended lives and broken bodies was terrible.
The keep itself would have been better for this meeting, but instead they had halted in a small clearing, the folding tables standing upon yellowed summer grass—greening at its root from the strengthening autumn downpours—and wildflowers gone to seed. It would not rain for another watch or so, or at least it did not look likely to.
“—quite simple,” Ashani Daoyan said, touching his right two fingers to the cup of his left hand to emphasize the point. “When one’s hunting has not gone well, one approaches the ground differently. They mean not to raid but to settle.”
“Perhaps they have not noticed the house is occupied,” Hurong Tai commented with mock-seriousness, and a ripple of amusement at the old, well-layered joke ran through both north and south, just as a breeze freighted with green petrichor brushed every topknot.
Khir’s new ruler—it was very possible, Kai thought, that he would hold the throne—contented himself with a tight smile. “It makes perfect sense. If he’s not wintering in Shan’s capital, then in Zhaon-An—which would be my choice too. He’ll turn it into an administrative seat, if he can leave enough of the scribes alive. It’s rather elegant, actually.”
“You have given this much thought, Great Rider?” Hazuni Ulo did not sound quite sardonic, but his manner toward Zlorih’s son had undergone an admiring change of late.
It was difficult not to like the fellow.
“’Tis not enough to merely survive, my lord Hazuni.” The young man’s pale gaze, very much like Komor Yala’s but without her quality of serenity, remained fixed upon the map. “If one wishes success, one must anticipate. Which is how I stayed alive.”
“Then he will be seeking to hold what he takes.” Kai rubbed at his chin, a movement of deep thought. His fingertips scraped upon stubble; there was not time for more than hurried camp-baths during their short halts. Anlon, standing beside him, stared at the edge of this particular forest clearing with a worried air, a similar habit. “Not the Horde’s strong suit.” Nor was it Khir’s, unless it was the defiles and high valleys of their dagger-shaped homeland, protecting the terraced mountainsides beyond.
