by S. C. Emmett
“Sit down.” Tamuron finished settling the royal robes and indicated the only other chair, lapsing into silence as trays were brought and unloaded. The court moved into the garden, low conversation and slippery laughter, eunuchs treading the gravel or stone paths in their walking-pairs of jatajata sandals and courtiers in thin-soled ambling shoes, slippers nestling in perfumed bags at their belts. Some few would hurry to table in other parts of the palace complex, but those who wished for power— or suspected they might be called upon at short notice— would have to forgo a late-morning snack unless a hurrying servant or kaburei could fly to fetch a tidbit or two.
For a short while neither general nor Emperor spoke. The tea was fragrant siao; ripe pearlfruit, breadfruit, summer greenmelon, long thin musk-smelling aiju, and soft crumbling curd lay in pleasing patterns upon gold-edged platters. A ceremonial greenstone cup full of an evil-smelling brew was medicine prepared under Physician Kihon Jiao’s unblinking attention, and the Emperor took it down in a single gulp as if it were sohju, grimacing.
“That looks unpleasant,” Kai remarked. His own seat was a lower, backless stool, commensurate with a rank below the Emperor’s but also thickly cushioned to soften the reminder.
“No more so than anything else.” Tamuron selected his eating-sticks and rolled them together for luck, a soldier’s habit. “Eat, and tell me. Are there dispatches?”
“Not recently.” Kai selected his own sticks; he preferred the spear-tipped to the square. “I thought it best to move the Northern Army to Kutau.” He could close his eyes and see the dispositions of the three great armies— south and west, and north the greatest of them all— but he knew where his lord would spend the most worry, and moved to answer a question not yet asked.
“A good choice. They won’t fall for Three Rivers again.” Tamuron’s eyebrows, still deeply black, knotted in the center. “The official explanation should reach Ashani Zlorih soon.”
Said official announcement of mourning— partly crafted by Zan Fein— called the Crown Princess’s death a “hunting accident.” The current rumor flooding Zhaon-An was that a cortege of black-clad acrobat-assassins had surrounded the Crown Prince and Princess, and that the latter had expired in her new husband’s arms.
It was difficult to tell which story would inflame Khir more.
I must write to my father, Yala murmured in his memory, and Kai did not have the heart to tell her any missive would be opened before it left the palace to make certain nothing unfortunate was brushed upon its inward folds. The details of the Crown Princess’s death were not of a manner to soothe her country’s ire, and as Princess Mahara’s only Khir lady-in-waiting, she was in a position to do Zhaon’s diplomacy much damage by an inadvisable character or two.
Of course any letter of hers might not even leave the Jonwa; Takyeo would no doubt quietly move to insulate the only remaining Khir woman from charges of spying or inappropriate influence. The Crown Prince valued his dead wife’s companion enough for that, at least.
Kai attempted to shelve his distractions, but it was a losing fight. He was in a mood he had rarely felt before, anticipation both pleasant and irksome riding his humors. After all, Yala had not said no; perhaps that was why the heart and liver both sat so lightly within Zakkar Kai today.
If she did attempt a letter to her father, how long would she wait for a reply?
Tamuron had larger concerns, of course. Much depended upon the king of Khir’s reaction to the news that his precious only daughter, sacrificed to the necessity of state marriage, had died choking upon her own blood deep in the conqueror’s country so soon after the wedding’s pomp and silk. “If the news has not reached Khir already.” Kai lifted the teapot lid to glance inside as etiquette demanded before pouring for both of them, a maneuver so familiar he could have done it blind with sleep— and had more than once or twice, during a campaign. “Perhaps he will only demand a bride-price, or an easing of the trade concessions.”
“I doubt it.” The Emperor’s brow was thunderous indeed with doubt and deep thought. Of course the great wains of negotiated tribute from their northern neighbor had not arrived even while the Crown Princess was alive, and that was a possible coincidence both strange and disturbing. “Khir received an envoy not long ago.”
From where? “An envoy?” Kai kept his attention upon pouring, a job that must be done neatly in a mirror-lit, luxurious room. Not like in an army tent, where you drank from whatever you could find— boot, bottle, or puddle, as the saying went.
“From them.” Tamuron’s lip curled briefly, smoothed. His topknot was greying; yet another mark of malady-driven decay, like a house left uninhabited fell quickly into ruin. “Tabrak.”
Ah. Several implications reshuffled themselves and assumed a far different configuration inside Kai’s skull. “And there may be a messenger from the Pale Horde moving toward us even now, I warrant.” That news was chilling enough, no matter how grateful he was to be unsurprised by its advent. The Horde were a cyclic menace, but they could be dammed or turned aside and did not stay to hold what they had conquered, much like the metuahghi falling upon crops in their multi-year cycles. “I see.”
“I would not have us fight Khir and Tabrak at once.” Tamuron merely picked at his food, appearing to eat without consuming much. Another change; his appetite had ever been hearty. “Even if the former is bled dry.”
And yet. Kai followed the line of thought to its natural conclusion, and mulled over the consequences, both possible and probable. “An invasion? Risky.”
The Emperor’s mouth pulled down; he took a mouthful of tea far back against his palate, swallowing hastily. He was drinking everything thus nowadays, as if the very act pained him. “Zlorih has a son left.”
“Newly legitimized.” There was precious little gossip about that particular byblow, and Kai had not found a way to broach the subject with Yala yet. “You are thinking of the Second Princess?” A Zhaon princess sent to a Khir prince— not the ideal solution, but perhaps the negotiations could be drawn out.
Gamnae was young, yet. If she was sent into Khir before Kai could obtain imperial permission for the wearer of a hurai to marry, would Yala go with her? The prospect was unpleasant to contemplate.
“Perhaps.” Tamuron lifted his cup again. His strong copper wrist was losing its muscle-pad from daily saber practice; a thin line of boiling rash disappeared up the underside into his crimson-and-gold sleeve. “Khir only take one wife; Zlorih will not waste his last son upon us if he has a choice. Therefore, should we intend to send a princess, we must give him no leeway.”
“What are his other options? A Tabrak dog-bride? A minor princess from beyond the northern wastes?” Faraway giant Ch’han, always eager to point the Khir’s dagger at Zhaon’s heart and extort tribute, might see that sacrifice as worth the return. Their coffers were ever hungry, and they held themselves to be the center of the world. Even Heaven flows from Ch’han, they said, so the gold must be pushed uphill.
Every country naturally considered itself central; Kai was, however, a son of Zhaon, and thought his own land best suited to the title. Where else had Heaven made such bountiful fields, such perfect heat in summer and such icy beauty in winter?
“It would help if we had a criminal to hang.” Tamuron eyed him, taking a single sip of siao. The smoke in its liquid might bring his humors closer to balance. “Zan Fein and Mrong Banh can find no trace of the assassin, even with Takshin’s help.”
“So I am told.” Kai weighed his most unsettling thoughts upon the matter and decided he could hardly avoid voicing them. “Does the sudden quiet strike you as ominous, my lord?”
“You like these, do you not? Take some.” Tamuron subtly indicated the sliced pearlfruit with his eating-sticks before selecting a hefty slice and laying it within Kai’s bowl. Protocol demanded Kai leap to his feet and bow at the sign of imperial approval— unless he wore a hurai. The Emperor had noticed more than one gaze bent in their direction, and was underscoring Kai’s positio
n once more. “And yes, it does. So many attempts upon my son’s life, then…nothing.”
Almost as if he was not the target at all. Kai did not wish to say as much, but Tamuron’s coal-hot glance spoke of understanding. “Who stands to gain?” the head general murmured, taking up his pair of silver-chased eating-sticks and tapping them once upon the side of the whisper-thin blue ceramic bowl for luck, another soldier’s habit. “Is that not always the question?”
“I find it difficult to believe Khir gains from this, unless it is less onerous trade-duties. We dealt fairly enough with them.” But Tamuron’s brow wrinkled, two familiar vertical lines rising between his eyebrows. It was the particular look he wore when an enemy was not behaving as expected. Such impertinence from an opponent meant even the most basic of assumptions about relative goals and strengths must be rethought, an intensive labor indeed.
Kai suspected the Khir nobles would take issue with his lord’s estimation of fairness. Still, the cold calculation required to send your daughter to her new home, then dispatch assassins…if Ashani Zlorih was responsible for this, he was a vastly different foe than the one Kai had fought to a blood-drenched standstill.
Which meant there was another player upon the board. Perhaps the king of Khir could not move as he willed in this matter, and his ministers— not to mention whatever nobles were left— had taken note of the fact.
Perhaps it had been this shrouded new prince, Ashani Daoyan? A fine, traditional name, but there was absolutely nothing about the man in any gossip, no matter how minor. If he had sent those of the Shadowed Path after his half-sister, he was a foe worth expending some silver upon learning about. Which meant questioning Yala upon her home— a pleasant enough duty, but one others at court might also be thinking of undertaking, and they would not treat a foreign lady kindly.
Kai gazed at his bowl, the shapes of food inside turning into a battle-map. Most of the assassins had borne some Northern stamp or another, but that could have been a clever feint if someone wished to inconvenience the Crown Prince by robbing him of potential heirs instead of moving against him directly.
“Eat,” Tamuron continued, his tone brooking no disobedience. “My Second Concubine will be disappointed if I do not feed you well.”
Kai decided it was time for this visit to move to business instead of chewing the old leather of stale news. “You plan to send me north.” He nodded as if it had just occurred to him and set about denuding his bowl, his eating-sticks flashing. “To merely menace, or do you truly mean to invade Khir?”
Tamuron’s own eating-sticks were carved of greenstone, that sacred, precious rock bringing good luck and proof against poison, their hand-ends sheathed in hammered silver. He preferred the square-cut, holding that it took greater delicacy to wield a blunt instrument with the requisite care. “Eventually. How soon can you leave?”
“I have some personal matters to set in order, that is all.” How much was acceptable to delay? Certainly waiting for a letter to wend its weary way to Khir and its reply to arrive was too long, and yet.
“What personal matters?” Tamuron eyed him closely, and a disbelieving grin spread over his face. For a few moments he looked rather young again, an echo of the fit, broad-shouldered warlord who had taken young Kai from the ashes, forging him anew. “Well, well. Have you been lucky in a softer campaign this year, my son?”
“Not quite lucky.” Kai almost winced. Nobody was close enough to overhear but the kaburei close-servant hovering to attend the ailing body of Zhaon himself. Still, even that creature could whine in an unfriendly ear if given leave— or enough inducement. “I have not been defeated yet, that is all.”
It would not be quite wise to inform Tamuron of his intentions toward a certain Khir lady-in-waiting at this particular moment. What the Emperor did not see he could not prevent, and any mention of Komor Yala was likely to irritate him. The affair with the false eunuch— and Third Prince Takshin’s reaction— was still fresh in the court’s memory, though the rumor-mongers of the palace did not quite go so far as to intimate Takshin had designs upon a foreign woman either.
Did he? So far as Kai could tell, the Third Prince treated Yala much as he treated anyone useful or kind to Takyeo who had not yet managed to earn Takshin’s own ire by some imagined slight or inadvisable expression of pity. The Third Prince’s rude, mocking tone did not seem to upset or incommode Yala in the slightest, but then again, the lady could probably smooth the worst temper in the palace handily, did it become necessary.
Or perhaps it was only Kai’s affection which made him think her capable of such victories.
“Well, do not take more than one wife, Kai. Women are trouble.” Tamuron frowned, selecting sliced pearlfruit and musky aiju. It was difficult to tell what would deepen his malady, or cause it to retreat. Every morsel passing his lips would be reported to Kihon Jiao for analysis, in case a pattern to the malady’s attacks could be discerned. “Leave when it suits you, but not too late. I merely wish your presence north of Zhaon-An to be remarked. Do not go too far.”
In other words, he was to be a bolster to the Crown Prince and a menace to Zhaon’s enemies at once. Maybe he would split in half, like the old sage Hurong Daewon. “Partly why I chose Kutau for the infantry.” The fields there were rich, and the farmers would be glad of extra help during the dry season’s repairs and weeding even as they bemoaned the extra mouths to feed. Cavalry, salted about in smaller detachments, were a similar burden, but even the elite among Zhaon’s armies lent a hand with harvests and the like in times of peace. “Headquarters at Tienzu Keep, I think— a few days’ easy ride from here, or a single courier upon a hard-used horse may do better.”
The Emperor considered, his eyes half-closed as a terrain map unfolded inside his head-meat. It was a look Kai knew well, and so was the faint air of dissatisfaction that followed. A multiplicity of bad choices meant selecting the best available was no comfort. “It is the best arrangement, yes. You never disappoint, Kai.”
“I shall remind you of those words next time I lose at chess.” Kai toasted him with the teacup, and smiled at Tamuron’s gruff bark-laugh. It was almost as painful to see the shadow of the old warlord as it was to mark the difference between the remembered man and the actual.
“No shame in defeat, Kai. Only in incompetence.” The Emperor nibbled upon aiju, his frown deepening, and his other hand made a short arrested motion, as if he wished to scratch and suppressed the movement just in time. “Begin your preparations, then, but do not hurry until—”
“— the situation clarifies itself.” Kai nodded. “If it were easy…”
“…all would be victorious. Niao Zheu. You have been studying, too.”
“You require it of me.” Along with much else. But then, a man owed everything to his parents, and this was the only father Kai would ever have. He watched the thoughts moving within Tamuron’s dark gaze; the breeze from the garden, tiptoeing into the room, stirred the cauldron of food-smell, the various scents of minister, courtier, and eunuch, and the sharpfuzz spoiled-hairfruit reek of illness and medicinal tinctures into a close fug that threatened to rob him of appetite.
Finally, Garan Tamuron arrived at what he most wished to ask. “Does Takyeo truly mean to retreat to the countryside?”
So that is what bothers you now. Kai’s heart twisted once, a pang like a stabbing blade. He had taken the dropped hurai back to Takyeo, but the damage was accomplished, and it was deep. “I know only that he is making preparations.” In other words, it might be a mere stratagem— but none who knew Takyeo well thought it likely.
It was not that Tamuron was a bad father, though certainly Heaven itself would blast Kai where he stood for such an unfilial thought if it ever accomplished itself inside his head-meat. It was that Garan Takyeo had borne so much, so patiently, for so long, that the final feather upon the pile had crushed any hope of swift reconciliation as thoroughly as the Hell of the Many Weights crushed a patricide.
“He must not, Kai.” Tam
uron laid his eating-sticks aside and regarded his general earnestly. “It will cause much uncertainty.”
What could Kai say? These were not his silk-folds to smooth, and besides, Takyeo was not in the wrong. How could he let his father-Emperor, the warlord who had given Kai’s own life meaning, understand as much? He was no courtier, with smooth words and soft pressure. Nor was he Yala, with her gift for providing a measure of comfort by mere presence. “He is grieving, my lord.”
“It was only a wife, Kai. A foreigner, at that.” The Emperor’s free hand curled into a fist, the hurai upon the first finger glittering in its own sheath of royal silver. “Surely he must understand Zhaon needs him more than mourning.”
“His mourning is sharp.” What could he say? There were proverbs about intruding between a man and his son for a reason. Kai could not enter the battle in any meaningful measure, nor did he quite think he should. “He was very fond of the Crown Princess.” Or more than fond; perhaps Takyeo had even loved her, though such a thing always ended in tragedy where princes were concerned.
It must have been strangely appealing for Takyeo to protect a creature placed in even closer confinement than his own royal self.
Tamuron’s eyebrows met, his face congesting briefly as he weighed both said and unsaid messages. “You think me cruel.”
You keep a shrine for your first wife, my lord, where the candles are ever-lit and the incense is continual. Mentioning as much was not very sensible, yet Tamuron deserved truth, and Kai was perhaps the only person who could serve that bitter dish.
Still, for the sake of Tamuron’s peace of mind, he sought to season the plate with as much tact as possible. “I think purely political considerations in this matter are slightly unwise, my lord.”
