by S. C. Emmett
“I have little time for niceties.” The Emperor stared at his plate, at dewy, innocent, sliced globes of pearlfruit with their mild sheen. “Tabrak will not halt for all Takyeo’s grieving, nor will Khir.”
“You are not your son’s enemy, my lord. You are his father.” Should you not act as such? Adding such a sting to that tail would not earn him any thanks, though, so Kai stopped short.
“Then I must be twice as harsh, to prepare him for his duties.” Tamuron all but glowered, a relief from his recent, abstract air of pained discipline. “Come, Kai. Surely you can see as much.”
“Would you have me lie to you, Garan Tamuron?” Kai set his own eating-sticks down, resting their tips upon a small fish-shaped dish as manners demanded instead of sticking them upright, banners for a stomach’s war, in his bowl. This was a conversation apt to turn even a soldier’s liver sideways. “It has never been my way, and I do not wish to start.”
For a moment he was certain he had miscalculated, for his almost-father’s expression hardened and a dull, ugly flush crept to the Emperor’s thinning cheeks. But then, Tamuron’s shoulders softened, and he exhaled sharply.
“No,” he said, softly. “I do not wish for that. Time is slipping through my fingers, Kai, and I wish Takyeo to be safe when I am…gone.”
“A father’s kindest wish, indeed.” Kai did not bother to assure the Emperor of continued heartiness. What was the point? If he were to serve his lord truth, it was best a constant dish or none at all. “I will speak to him, my lord. More I cannot promise.”
“Good.” Tamuron’s mouth eased, He reclaimed and tapped his own eating-sticks, selecting another strip of aiju. “Enough politics, then. Tell me, what have you read recently?”
Kai would have vastly preferred politics to reciting his lessons, but he acceded and the conversation turned to Zhe Har. Kai had been reading the Archer much of late, but would only admit to the treatises upon strategy, not the story of the Moon Maiden and her warrior.
Still, the gleam in Tamuron’s gaze told Kai his reticence had been noticed. Now the Emperor might exert himself to find out what court lady had caught the general’s attention.
At least Kai could elude direct questioning upon that matter for some short while, especially if he left the palace and Zhaon-An for a post slightly north. There was no help, and much harm, in speaking to Tamuron upon such irritants as a lady-in-waiting he already disliked— and one who, despite all law and custom, perhaps still carried a hidden greenmetal blade inside the Palace walls.
Just wait a little longer, Kai told himself. Yala had not even brushed her letter yet, in all likelihood. Patience brings a man what he needs.
Later, he thought he should not have been so forbearing.
MUCH LESS UNLUCKY
Across the hall from a sealed door in the Jonwa, a small set of rooms held dark furniture and some few restrained decorations. Yet the spareness, even under bright glowing mirrorlight, did not seem plain at all. The quality of each item, and the taste with which it was placed, spoke more loudly than a leather-lunged square leader berating his soldiers. It was strange how just a few wooden boxes and hangings could express an occupant’s station so clearly.
Or so Anh thought, when she had enough time to consider such matters. “My lady?” The kaburei bowed, her braids swaying over her shoulders, as she halted just inside the partition. “The ladies Su and Hansei are here.”
Anh’s Khir lady looked up from the empty page. Her brush, poised over the inkstone, had hovered there for some while to judge by the fat black drop trembling at its end. Ink splashed free as Lady Yala gazed at the doorway, her wide grey eyes blank and haunted. “Oh?” For a moment, she looked as if she did not recognize her own servant, and Anh’s chest suffered a strange twisting sensation.
“Lady Su and Lady Hansei,” Anh repeated. “Shall I bring tea?” She shouldn’t presume, but her lady’s blank stare was almost terrifying. From the very beginning, her lady had been crisp and direct, never unkind but also never overly familiar— in all things, a true noblewoman.
“Yes, tea,” Yala said, distractedly, and rinsed her brush before placing it, with infinite care, upon the rack meant for such cargo.
Anh bowed the two young noblewomen into her lady’s quarters. Dreamy Lady Hansei was for once not carrying a bound book with her thumb marking the page; she wore her very best dress, too, bright yellow cotton with thick viridian silk edging. Lady Su was in a very prettily reworked pale-peach cotton with threadbare, faded orange silk edging, probably the closest she had to mourning. To show their sadness, neither wore hairpins in their nested red-black braids, and both had wide belts of unbleached linen to mark grief for a Crown Princess they had barely begun to know.
Anh’s lady wore silk like a princess, though. In Khir, some highborn families shared that royal fabric instead of merely using it to edge their brightest and best garb. It was one more reason to take pride in her service, Anh thought, and sometimes she held her chin high in the Jonwa halls as she bustled about upon her lady’s business, her chest full of smugness and her liver no doubt swelling dangerously. A prideful servant was a bad one, but there was a certain amount of justifiable pleasure to be had when one was not yoked to an embarrassing beast.
Even the proverbs said so.
Weighed down by a lacquered wooden tea tray, Anh made her steps as quiet as possible upon her return, and strained her ears.
“— to her aunt,” Lady Su said, steadily. “She will ask to accompany us; I am not certain Lady Gonwa will give leave.”
“The good Lady Gonwa no doubt has a more useful place for her niece.” Lady Yala sounded far more like herself now, cultured, accented Zhaon crisp even through its softness. “And you, Junha?”
“I stay with you,” the young lady said, firmly. “Liyue and I have discussed the matter.”
“We are both determined.” Hansei Liyue’s tone was much sharper than usual; she was a soft-voiced one. “We requested permission of the Crown Prince, and he has granted it. I hear his estate near Nuah-An is very fine. Perhaps that is where we are bound.”
Well, that was good news. Anh had been half afraid the Crown Prince would send Lady Yala swiftly back to cold, barbarous Khir, all alone and grieving. Of course Anh would go with her lady, she had decided as much— but it was a relief to keep her inside slippers on, as the proverb went. Travel was a barbarity, Khir was by all accounts a harsh land even if her lady was somewhat mild, and to be given to another household in the Palace was not a fate to be desired, much less when you already belonged to a kind mistress.
Kind, but also firm. A servant’s disdain was cringing when it came to a cruel master, and sneaking when it came to an easily bullied or hoodwinked one. The middle ground, as Zhaon was balanced between the greatness of Heaven and the punishments of the many hells, was to be cherished.
“He intends for me to stay, then. At least for the moment.” Lady Yala had moved to her usual thin but well-embroidered cushion at a low ebonwood table, where she often took tea in the afternoons. The noble girls, a pair of temple statues, barely turned their heads as Anh hurried in to arrange the tea-tray; Lady Hansei, as the youngest, arranged the cups with swift movements and began to pour without ado. “I had wondered.”
“The Jonwa is brighter for your presence, he says. And travel is so dangerous without a proper retinue.” Su Junha did not deign to glance at Anh, who settled upon her knees just inside the door, ready for more errands. “I’m glad you’re staying. Lady Kue is too; she was there when we came from the Crown Prince’s study.”
“She frightens me,” Lady Hansei murmured, and finished pouring. “This is Lady Gonwa’s heaven tea, my lady. She sent more, though she kept Eulin to herself.”
“Kind of her. I shall write a note of thanks.” Yala lifted her cup and inhaled the steam, which meant the other ladies could drink— but she set it down immediately afterward, untasted.
A few strands of blue-black hair had escaped Yala’s braids, and Anh longed t
o take the comb to them. It was unlike her lady to be even slightly disheveled, and doubly unlike her to halt, looking between her guests as if she could not remember what came next. If the Crown Princess were here, Lady Yala would be occupied in smoothing her way, and very prettily, too.
Well, the Crown Princess was decidedly not here. Her poor body had been crushed, Anh heard, and it was a shame. She had been so beautiful, and with the Prince, a real pair of love-birds in a gilded osier cage. They had all, from kaburei to housekeeper, expected a haughty foreign tyrant instead of a docile, kind noble girl sent all the way from the cold North with merely a single lady-in-waiting.
Su Junha took over the burden of conversation. “Of course you shall stay with us.” She blew across her tea to cool it; fragrant amber liquid trembled inside simple but expensively thin blue-glazed ware. “After all, if the Crown Prince remarries—”
Lady Hansei made a small warning noise in the back of her throat, shook her head. “It is far too soon.” The motion was strange with no hairpin dangling its cargo of bright decoration. “Even the Emperor must know as much.”
“But with Khir—” Su Junha caught herself, lifting the back of her left fingers to her mouth to trap the remainder of an unwary sentence. “I am sorry, my lady.”
“In Khir, ladies do not speak of politics.” There was no reproof in Lady Yala’s tone, she was simply remarking upon a difference. Her Zhaon had improved quite steadily, but the song of another language with much harsher consonants still wore through its rhythm. “Here, though, everything is strange.”
“Well, what else is there to talk about?” Lady Hansei set her cup down and fussed with her sleeves, settling them properly. The three ladies looked very much like a wall-hanging, and Anh lost herself in admiration of their clear smooth cheeks, their bright and prettily sewn dresses, their soft hands. “They are saying General Zakkar will be sent north, and Third Prince Takshin will go to Shan.”
“Now he gives me the shivers.” Lady Su shuddered delicately to prove it, her sleeves rustling a fraction as she turned her cup a quarter, to help the tea absorb both luck and the pleasure of conversation. “Do you think he will go?”
Anh watched her lady’s hands retreat into her own sleeves. There was no change in Yala’s expression, but Anh though it very unlikely indeed that the Third Prince would return to the pierced towers and barbarous bandit-hunting of Shan. The First Princess had been sent to that land to marry King Suon Kiron, and though Suon and the Third Prince were battle-brothers, there was very little affection between the Third Prince of Zhaon and First Princess Sabwone.
There was gossip about the First Princess’s raging when she was told of the match, too, though that great lady had— thankfully— behaved impeccably during the attendant ceremonies, with their great pomp, expense, and hurrying of every servant’s feet down to the bone. Perhaps the First Concubine had finally taken the sudo to her daughter; high time, too, though it was not Anh’s place to think such things.
The Third Prince and his scars were held to be unlucky at best and actively harmful at worst, but he had brought Anh’s lady home the terrible day of Princess Mahara’s pyre, fixing Anh with a cold stare and ordering the lady attended to while she wept as if her liver had broken into pieces.
And as if that was not enough, it had been Third Prince Takshin who stepped before the whip for Lady Yala upon a hot spring morning, and for that Anh was willing to believe him much less unlucky than gossip insisted.
“I wouldn’t go. I hear they put lard in their siao.” Lady Hansei did not quite shiver, but it looked a near thing. The two junior ladies had taken to dressing their hair very much like Yala’s, and their close-servants treated Anh with due reverence, in the case of Lady Junha’s kaburei, and distant but marked politeness in the case of Lady Hansei’s common close-girl. “Will you sew with us after tea, Lady Komor? I could read aloud.”
“You would.” Su Junha laughed, a soft, merry sound. “But yes, please, Lady Komor. Come sew with us after tea.”
“Perhaps.” Anh’s lady touched her blue teacup with a fingertip. “I am afraid I am not quite conversational today, but if you do not mind my quiet, I shall be glad to.”
Anh’s relief threatened to make her sway upon her knees. If her lady was attempting to sew, she was not sitting in these lovely but somehow suffocating rooms and staring at blank paper, or— worse— gazing intently at nothing, her pale Khir eyes blank and her mouth turned slightly down, her graceful hands cradling a strange sharp greenmetal blade with no proper hilt, just cross-hatching upon the long, bare tang.
That strange Khir blade had saved the Crown Prince and Princess, and brought Lady Yala to the whipping-post. Now the well-healed scratches upon a noblewoman’s thighs and upper arms made sense, and Anh burned with deep satisfaction at her lady’s exotic skill.
You, girl, the Third Prince had said the day of the pyre. Make certain she does not use that upon herself, or I will have you flogged to death.
No, she did not think the Third Prince would return to Shan. Anh’s chin lifted a little as she sensed the visit coming to an end, the younger ladies having achieved their purpose of drawing Yala out. There would be the tea things to clean and rearrange, her lady’s sleeping-robe to put on the smaller stand over a coil of healthful incense carefully chosen for the weather conditions and her lady’s bath additives, the sewing-basket to fetch, the dinner tray to be planned or a dinner-robe to be chosen and placed upon the larger stand, a fresh jar of nia oil to protect soft skin— a kaburei’s work, from before dawn to after the long summer twilight. It was pleasant to have as much to look forward to, but far more pleasant to know that Lady Komor Yala, and by extension Anh herself, were going to stay in the center of civilization.
Or, at worst, retire to what had once been the heart of lost Wurei.
“Anh?” Her lady turned her finely modeled head. “Bring more tea to the receiving-room, and my sewing basket.”
“Yes.” Anh bowed upon her knees to show she had heard, and her heart leapt for joy.
A QUESTION OF HOW
What she longed for was perhaps a single slice of peppery walanir, enough tea to drown her liver, and her own bed. What Komor Yala received instead was word that the Crown Prince of Zhaon invited her to attend his dinner, and that left her seeking to decide what to wear. She could hardly appear in mourning if he did not, but if he did, she could certainly not appear in normal attire. Lady Kue the housekeeper was busy with other affairs, and of course Su Junha and Hansei Liyue did not think to speak upon the Crown Prince’s planned attire, even should they be apprised of it.
It was Anh who saved her as Yala stood before her clothespress looking at bright silk, carefully folded under-robes, and thin linen modesty-shifts. “My lady?” the kaburei whispered from the door. “Your dinner dress is upon the larger stand.”
Yala half-turned, and of course, there it was, floating like a ghost. So, apparently the Crown Prince was still in mourning, for the dress was pale undyed silk, cuffs and collar unembroidered but stitched with great care.
It was an unexpected relief, and Yala told her knees, sternly, that they would not turn to pounded rai. Across the hall from her antechamber, the Crown Princess’s door was sealed with royal crimson wax; it was only imagination to think a cold draft exhaled from it at odd intervals. “Ah, yes. I see. Thank you.” Zhaon fit easily in her mouth now, and she hated the very sound of it. “I suppose I should ready myself.”
Anh clasped her hands, a worried crease nesting between her eyebrows. “Shall I tell the Honorable Steward you prefer to—”
Yala shook her head. They did not wear hairpins while grieving here, but an unmarried Khir noblewoman would not go without that appurtenance, however simple, unless a parent had lately gone to the Great Fields. Still, there was no decoration hanging from her hairpin’s head, and the lack of its sway was a constant reminder. “No, Anh. That will not be necessary.”
If the Crown Prince required her company, the least Yala coul
d do was attempt to ameliorate his grief. She owed her princess’s husband a debt of gratitude, and a certain amount of obedience as well.
A half-candlemark later, dressed appropriately, she tucked her hands into her sleeves and glided into the now-familiar hall. As usual, she paused at the door opposite her own, barred with red ribbons and sealed with a large circle of crimson wax, the Crown Prince’s personal device pressed sharply before it hardened. If she was accompanying Mahara to dinner…but she was not, and it was best not to think upon such things.
Yala’s jaw set, an ache growing in her neck to match the lump in her throat.
The Crown Prince’s private quarters were familiar now too, and the table in the receiving room was laid for three. Takyeo was at the sliding door to the porch, looking out upon a small gemlike water-garden, his hands clasped behind his back and his topknot uncaged. Yala paused at the doorway, performed her usual bow, and tried not to look at the closed sliding door to the bedroom.
“Ah, Lady Yala.” He turned from the view and inclined his top half a fraction, accepting her bow. His bandaged leg bore his weight with stoicism if not grace, and the silver-headed cane stood ready, leaning against the partition. “I invited Takshin, too, but he is late.”
“Am I?” She knew very well she was not, since not a single dish had been brought, or even the beginning tea.
“No, and in any case, to wait for a lady is a nobleman’s joy.” His mouth twitched, and she could not help smiling in return.
He had been kind to his foreign wife, kinder than Yala had thought a Zhaon capable of. To ease him, therefore, she could attempt a sally or two. “Is it so in Zhaon? There is no waiting for a slow woman in Khir.”
“It must be why you are so punctual.” He indicated the table. “Please, sit, unless it pleases you to view the garden while we wait for Takshin or tea.” He switched the order of the last three words, a very deft pun upon “late,” “tea,” and a possible second character of the Third Prince’s name.
