The Poison Prince

by S. C. Emmett

  “Do you think he will actually escape?” Kurin persisted.

  They both knew the answer, but apparently his elder brother wished to hear it said by someone other than himself. Makar saw no reason not to oblige, mostly because he felt a certain heaviness when he contemplated the prospect of the Crown Prince’s proposed retreat. “No.”

  “Of course not.” Satisfied, Kurin tapped his cheek with his forefinger. He looked over the railing into the regimented green well of his courtyard, and whether he saw the clipped bushes and ruthlessly trimmed babu or something else entirely was an open question. “And why? Because he is too weak, Makar. We both know it.”

  It would do no good to let his elder brother know Makar considered him mistaken upon one or two critical points. It would change nothing, and if two roads ended at the same city, the traveler’s choice between them was often more aesthetic than practical. “I know that it is my move, and you are chatting to distract me.”

  “Yes.” Kurin, still gazing aside, picked up his teacup. “It is your move.”

  In more ways than one. Makar allowed himself a mouthful of tea as well. When he set the cup down, he had decided. “Let us say, for the sake of argument, that some accident befalls our Eldest Brother— may Heaven keep such a thing from happening,” he added, a formulaic plea. “What is to keep Sensheo, Jin, and myself from fearing you as you now fear Takyeo?”

  He had never stated the problem so baldly, but Kurin would not cease until he had gained something from this game, and it might as well be something Makar did not mind giving.

  “I do not fear him,” Kurin said, turning to face him again. His gaze was direct as his brother had ever seen it, direct as it had been once or twice in childhood when the second-eldest of Garan Tamuron’s sons had proved to be telling an absolute truth. “That is the problem.”

  Indeed. For now, Kurin was restrained by Father, by custom, by the very fact that the board was not set and the players had not seated themselves.

  Not all of them. Not yet.

  “I fear for him,” Makar said, slowly. “But I think it is beyond reason to expect none of us to take…certain precautions. In case he proves to be a snow-pard in truth, and not a cloudfur in a horse’s skin.” The cats who eked out a living in the higher mountains were canny, but they were often mistaken for dogs until a hunter threw a rock in their direction. A dog would flee, but the pard would ascertain whence the missile issued from; they possessed long memories to add to their cunning.

  Not to mention claws.

  “Whether we will it or not, Makar, it is victory or death once Father ascends to whatever awaits him.”

  “Shall we no longer be friends then, Second Prince?” Makar held his brother’s gaze. “It would sadden me immensely.”

  “We shall be friendly to exactly the extent I do not fear your knife between my ribs.” Kurin’s sigh was deep, the exhalation of a man expecting a heavy burden to descend at some indefinite future moment, and, for once, he looked away first, if only to gaze across the balustrade and into the courtyard’s murmuring green well again. “We are brothers, after all.”

  “And princes,” Makar reminded him. “At least there is the comfort of honesty, between us.” If I plan a knife for between your ribs, my elder brother, you will not suspect it. Not unless you are much more intelligent than I have ever found you.

  There was no turning back, indeed. For either of them.

  “Yes,” Kurin murmured. “At least that. Now, will you move, or shall we admit no more play today and call a sathron-player? Or perhaps tell each other riddles?”

  Makar selected another chariot, set it down upon the best intersection available. “It is your move, Kurin.”

  They played in deep, thoughtful silence through intensifying heat and rustling from the courtyard until the light through the open courtyard took on a heavy yellow-green storm-cast, bringing polite visiting hours to a close. Makar made his perfunctory goodbyes and called for his horse. He even returned to his own quiet home before the rain began, but that was no comfort. He found himself worried, after all.

  It was not like Kurin to be so…direct.

  CHOICES

  The Jonwa was a hive of well-regulated activity, like a good racehorse needing only the lightest of touches, heel or whip, to direct its gallop. The hand responsible for giving those flicks and teases was the housekeeper’s, and Takyeo flattered himself often that he had found one of the best in all of Zhaon, never mind that she hailed from somewhat farther south.

  “My lord.” Lady Kue bowed in the Shan fashion as she entered the study, her dark cotton trousers whispering and her small, sober wooden hairpin glinting under mirrorlight. Her round, placid face was just as set as ever, and a few more lines had been graven at eye- and lip-corners since she had taken the responsibility for a prince’s domestic comfort many winters ago. “You sent for me?”

  “Lady Kue.” Takyeo glanced up from the cluttered desktop. He had no more time to contemplate the Green Book or similar texts; the business of caring for those under his protection had waited as long as it could. Paper, brush, and inkstone crowded the wide wooden estate before him— each advance in bookkeeping was supposed to ease the flood of pressed rai fibers or heavier pounded rag-paper, but the amount seemed constant no matter what inventiveness was applied to the problem. “How long?”

  “Ten days, my lord. Unless you wish to hurry, in which case five.” She clearly wished to add more, but instead clasped her hands and gazed at some indeterminate point upon the desk.

  He longed to be gone today, but that was not possible. So, as he always did, he merely turned to the next problem requiring a solution. “And Steward Keh?”

  “Quite formal since you spoke to him, my lord.”

  “If he continues so, good.” It was almost laughable, how clumsily Keh had attempted to lay his suit before the lady. Takyeo could have told him he would meet with little success, but a prince did not mock his servants or interfere with their heart-strings unless invited— or unless said strings looked fair to trip the entire household. “Though it would ease me to see you settled with a fine husband, Lady Kue.”

  “It would ease me too, my lord. But the Steward, though a man with much to recommend him, would never suit.” Now there was the hint of a grave smile lingering on her finely modeled lips. She was not prone to merriment, his housekeeper; she was even quieter than Lady Yala. “I am a solitary cat, as they say in Shan.”

  “Very well.” Perhaps in Shan some chose not to marry the manumit, either. He should ask Takshin. Keh’s restrained and quite unrequited passion for his master’s housekeeper could simply have been a function of what the man thought was fitting in two servants of such an august personage; the steward had some rather strange ideas in that regard. “Though if you change your mind, I should like to know. Seven days, then. Is it possible?”

  “Very.” She hesitated, her gleaming hair braided in loops over her ears, a nest of similarly rope-twisted braids dressed much lower than a Zhaon woman’s, held at the base of the neck. “My lord…”

  “If this is another plea to remain in this palace, Lady Kue, I might believe you acquiring a taste for luxury.” His own smile felt like a mask. Of course a good and faithful servant spoke to save their august master from a deep mistake; such speech was not to be penalized even if said master had equally good but unspoken reasons for committing what might be judged an error. “Nuah-An is now a small town, it’s true, but there are several estates nearby. We will not become provincial.”

  “Yes, my lord.” She bowed again, warned that she was reaching the edge of her master’s patience. “Steward Keh is engaging porters and dray animals; we shall be ready. I must ask after Lady Su, Lady Gonwa Eulin, Lady Hansei—”

  The noble girls would do better to scatter like dropped rai, but Takyeo could not say as much. “Lady Yala will know.”

  Lady Kue’s expression brightened somewhat, an entirely welcome event. “Will she be accompanying us?”

 
“Unless she chooses a different household.” Takyeo glanced at the list of figures upon the paper before him and the book underneath. Moving was expensive, especially when you didn’t wish to leave a single scrap of rai-paper for enemies to gloat over. “I will not leave even a single kaburei behind, lady housekeeper.”

  “Yes, my lord.” Her approval, while quite unnecessary, was still pleasant. “Lady Komor should arrive soon; I spoke to her of your summons.”

  “Invitation, Lady Kue.” One did not summon a silk-wearing woman, after all, even if she was foreign. “Thank you. Ah, one last thing. The matter of my wife’s clothing.”

  “Yes?”

  “Distribute the dresses among her ladies, save the wedding robe and headdress. Those will go into the household shrine.”

  “Yes, my lord.” At least she did not call him Crown Prince. He was beginning to hate those syllables with an intensity quite unnatural to his usual even temper.

  She took her leave, and he bent to his work again. A nobleman had to spend well, but profligacy was discouraged. Finding the way between while every gaze in Zhaon rested and every tongue loosened its hinges upon you as well was nerve-wracking.

  Sometimes he wondered if his father felt that weight, but it was ridiculous. Even now Garan Tamuron was the unquestioned master of all he surveyed, and no doubt counted the burden of gaze and gossip light— if he acknowledged it at all.

  Takyeo would be measured and found wanting, of course. That he had managed to stave off the inevitable for so long was perhaps deserving of a little applause…but not much. Achieving the bare minimum was not enough.

  A soft tap at the door interrupted that unpleasant meditation. “Enter,” Takyeo barked, and rose to ease his wounded leg when his visitor stepped through with a soft sweet sound of dark-blue skirts.

  The dress was of Khir cut, high-necked and long-sleeved. It hung a trifle loosely upon Komor Yala’s frame, perhaps because grief had robbed her of any pretty roundness she might have once possessed. Her blue-black hair was dressed in its usual fashion, and the pin— a strange, imprecious stone wrapped with red silk thread and dangling a single crystalline bead— was a familiar one. The only change from the grave, agreeable woman who had traveled from Khir was the mourning-band around her left arm, a wide, thick strip of pale linen that could have done duty as a bandage, if there were any wounds about to need one.

  And her clear grey eyes were very like Mahara’s.

  He all but winced. He had made up his mind not to think of his wife until evening. Docile while she was alive, her shade was proving otherwise.

  “Crown Prince Takyeo.” She bowed, much less deeply than Lady Kue. Of course, she had her pride. Though bled white by years of semi- and open warfare, Khir was nothing but pride; even his tractable warrior-wife had a certain tilt to her chin.

  That morning his close-servant had placed a sober brown robe upon the larger clothing-stand for him, too. He wondered if Yala felt as uneasy as he did in proper garb. Mourning had its time, yes…but his heart was not yet finished with the task, and he resented pretending otherwise.

  “Good morning, Lady Yala.” He hoped his genuine pleasure at seeing her would show just clearly enough. “I see our servants have decided the end of mourning is upon us.”

  “They appear to have, yes.” She folded her hands inside her sleeves, despite the morning’s heat. “But we may wear it upon our arms as long as we please.”

  “Siao Kuen.” He nodded in appreciation. The rest of that passage was a retelling of a Ch’han emperor’s search for an exorcist who could raise the shade of his beloved empress in order to discern if her death was truly an accident, or a minister’s poison. Neat, precise, and yet oblique— he had come to expect such behavior from her. “I will not put away my armband soon.”

  “Nor shall I.” With her hands tucked into her sleeves she was the picture of demure waiting, but he was not fooled. It was exotic, a woman carrying that slim sharp blade and yet so soft and retiring in every other way. Such a greenmetal claw was not spoken of in the treatises he had read upon Khir, and he wondered at the lack. “Lady Kue told me you wished to speak to me; I ascertain you have decided where to place me.”

  “You are not a hairpin, my lady. I thought to ask you which of several choices you prefer.”

  Her smile, somber as his housekeeper’s, was nevertheless a balm. “It is not often a noblewoman has choices, my lord. I look forward to them.”

  He might have remarked that in that they were akin, but alluding to his own lack of freedom before someone even more closely confined by tradition and rectitude would be impolite at best. “Come, sit. Will you have tea?”

  In short order they were both settled, Takyeo’s leg itching furiously. He ignored it; the bone had been badly bruised and Kihon Jiao said the itch meant healing. “In seven days this household departs for my estate near Nuah-An to the northwest. From there, arrangements may be made to bring you to the border, though crossing may prove difficult. There are those in the Palace who would offer you shelter too; the Second Concubine has sent me a letter asking if I may do without you. It is a graceful solution, should you wish to stay here.”

  “Did she?” Yala lifted a cup of strong tea, inhaled the scent with a noblewoman’s appreciation. Her fingertips lacked resin, and no filigree glittered upon her smallest nails, but then again, she was young and unmarried. “This is very kind of her. Forgive me, but…will it cause you less trouble to take along a foreign lady-in-waiting, or to give one such as me to the Second Concubine?”

  “Trouble?” He did not have to feign perplexity. She could hardly be unaware that trouble was, as Xan Geong said, the price of living. And she could hardly have missed that a prince would suffer a larger share of unpleasantness to accompany the luxury due his station. “It would be best to return you to your father, but I cannot see mine taking the time to negotiate such a small matter right now. I have sent letters to the border posts and am awaiting replies; it may be that we can reach some agreement. If so, I would certainly not begrudge you a small party of servants and chaperones, and as many guards as can be found. Once you are in Khir, though…I am told women do not travel unaccompanied there, and any men I send with you may meet with a hard reception indeed.”

  “You are kind to take such efforts upon my account.” Her eyelids lowered thoughtfully. Mahara had sat as she did, her back very straight and her gaze masked. “I must confess I feel somewhat superfluous here. I have no duties save the care of my princess’s tomb; and while honorable, those are hardly onerous.”

  “I would dislike to lose your influence in my household. You are a scholar, Lady Komor, and have proven yourself loyal and adept.” There was also the matter of that greenmetal blade. However useful such an item might be, it was still wielded by a woman, and it was unprincely to expect her to use it upon his behalf.

  How best to broach that particular subject? Was there a way?

  Yala inclined her head slightly, her hairpin’s dangling bead accenting the motion with a graceful curving swing. “You do me much honor, Crown Prince.”

  “Retreating to the provinces might expose you to gossip. Staying in the Second Concubine’s household might do so as well, but in a different fashion.” And now, he came to the most difficult question of all. “Of course, if you have received any—”

  He was interrupted by another knock at the lintel. Takshin did not wait but strode into his eldest brother’s study dressed in his usual Shan black, his topknot-cage bearing some gold filigree to match the hoop in his left ear. He had not laid aside a pale mourning armband either, though, and that oblique mark of respect for his eldest brother’s grieving was a comfort and irritant in equal measure. “Good morning, brother. And you, Lady Spyling.”

  “Takshin.” Takyeo suppressed a burst of annoyance. “Good morning. I was discussing some matters with Lady Komor—”

  Takshin had a dangerous glint in his dark eyes. “I must be rude; there is a matter I must bring you, Crown Prince.” He glan
ced at Yala. “You may return in a half-mark or so, my lady. By then we shall have set the world to rights.”

  Yala set her teacup down and prepared to rise. Takyeo’s irritation crested. “Takshin—”

  “Or you may let her stay, Takyeo. It is as you like.” His most maddening brother crossed to a loaded bookshelf and regarded the spines and scroll-caps with feigned interest. He was quite fond of that maneuver, employing it more and more lately.

  “In any case, I must think upon the question,” Komor Yala said, softly. It was a quiet, polite way of smoothing any trouble from the interruption, as was her habit. “Grant me some small time to do so, Crown Prince. I thank you for your kindness to one such as me.”

  That brought Takshin around, his slippered heel digging in sharply as he swung and regarded her. “What question is that?”

  “Little brother,” Takyeo hissed. “Have you no manners?”

  “None at all,” Takshin said with a smile, but his eyes had narrowed. It was an expression that usually meant trouble upon the horizon, Taktak ready to fling himself into a battle that could be avoided with a fractional turning-aside. Of course, such a turning had never been in his nature. “Has my Eldest Brother asked you a question, Lady Yala?”

  “Once or twice,” was her equable reply. “I have even answered a few in conversation, as one is wont to do. Crown Prince.” She bowed in Takyeo’s direction as etiquette demanded and was gone in an instant, the sound of her skirts merging with the morning-hurry in the hall.

  Takyeo’s jaw loosened, but he composed himself as Takshin watched the doorway as if she might suddenly reappear, a line between his eyebrows.

  It was extremely pleasant to see someone else get the last word on Taktak. Heaven knew few others had managed the feat.

  “Well.” His younger brother swung back to face him, and Takyeo was glad not to be found grinning like a fool. “What question have you asked her?”