The Poison Prince

by S. C. Emmett

  It was the servant girl with the scar upon her jaw. She was a quiet one, steady, with good hands. Best of all, she was not one of the First Queen’s little spiders. Kanbina’s adoptive-son had put an end to that spying and sneaking within the household, and the Second Concubine was grateful.

  So Kanbina merely shook her head, her hair a heavy river. Her neck was a frail stem and the pain, a constant companion, had retreated under the tinctures Zakkar Kai’s physician mixed for her. Now she floated, and as she did so, memory filled her in successive waves.

  Her rotting childhood home, great holes in the roof and the elderly, shuffling servants, her father’s bony liver-spotted hand upon a knifehilt. You must strike for Wurei, he had said, pressing the weapon into her own maiden’s hand. If I fall in battle. In the very marriage-bed, if you must.

  Perhaps she might even have found the strength to do so if Father had not died in the Battle of Nashua-An and Garan Tamuron had not ridden to the door of the keep with blood still smoking upon his armor. He seemed a very spirit of battle and murder, a creature sent by Heaven to visit terrible vengeance upon the living. I will keep you, the warlord said, but I cannot have another wife. What say you, lady of Wurei?

  Had he thought her silence pride, like his first queen’s, or even aristocratic disdain, like his first concubine’s? No, she had merely quailed before the armored warrior with his great horned helm as the elderly servant woman who performed both as chaperone and teacher moaned in fear and fat roundbirds called softly in the rafters of the keep that had once held Zhaon’s rulers.

  Wurei was a noble house, and she its last twig. Was that why Gamwone had done it?

  Kanbina moved fretfully upon her bed. She did not wish to think upon that woman, not yet. Instead, she rallied her fading strength and opened her eyes.

  A faint hot breeze came from the verandah, and upon a pillow near the open partition was the Khir lady-in-waiting, her head bent as she sewed. Her hairpin, dark and sober as her dress, was thrust through a nest of blue-black braids and she raised her head as if she sensed a gaze upon her, laying aside the silk— it looked like a sleeve of bright, cheerful blue cotton with plum silk edging.

  She was quiet, this girl, and when she visited Kanbina’s adoptive-son watched her closely. He tried to hide it, certainly, but Kanbina had so few visitors she had sharpened her observation upon them until it was capable of slicing a hair into quarters, as the saying went. She approved, and had written to Zakkar Kai to tell him so.

  If she had birthed a son…oh, but that was useless. All she had birthed was a spreading stain upon bedding, clots of semiliquid flesh passing in chunks while invisible blades ripped into her vitals. And Garan Tamuron’s face, bloodless as if he already suspected…

  Had he known from the beginning and simply left her here as the years accumulated? She had never asked for any preferment or prize, even when the red lanterns hung at her door to show the Emperor was with his concubine. At first she had been dazed, and those few nights of his passion had not quite hurt, but…oh, she had been so young.

  So very, very young.

  He could have left her alone, rotting in that manse. It would have made no difference to the conqueror of Zhaon. But he was nothing if not thorough, her husband, and no house that had once ruled was left with sons to rise against him or eldest daughters to bear other heirs.

  It was the children who had come to her, by day or night. Little Takshin, with his hunger for plums and his fierce, prickly pride hiding the softest of hearts; sometimes plump little Gamnae fascinated by a recluse. Somber Takyeo, long-legged and biting at his thumbnail before remembering he was a prince and such creatures did not chew so; Sensheo visiting to see if she would give him small items his mother would not. Makar’s visits had grown perfunctory, Kurin’s slightly scornful, and Sabwone’s simply frittered into nothingness as she found other pastimes.

  But Zakkar Kai came again and again, listening to her play, performing small tasks, bringing her gifts.

  Takyeo, too. Father said I should, the not-yet Crown Prince had informed her once, and much later, after drinking a cup of sohju and watching flame-flowers bloom to announce a Knee-High Festival’s conclusion, he had glanced at his father’s second concubine and smiled. We are lonely together, he had said, and Kanbina could have wept with the shame.

  At least they had not accused her of ill-wishing other children since she could have none of her own— except Kai. His return from Three Rivers had brought peace in its wake, but now he was gone again, and she was too weak to even write.

  The Khir girl was at the bedside now, and laid a soft damp cloth upon Kanbina’s forehead. “You are flushed,” she murmured in her accented Zhaon. She was a child too, despite her quiet reserve, but she would make a fine wife to the boy Kanbina had secretly pretended was hers all these years.

  She was glad she had made the formal request to adopt him, even though her fingers had trembled when brushing the characters. The heavy, royal greenstone seal she hardly ever used, its characters of her adult name strange and sharp, had been pressed into service. It was a mark of the position she had never wanted, but she had used it and waited in an agony of half hope, half terror.

  Did it matter that she had not heaved and groaned through birthing him? Would she have loved him more if she had?

  It seemed impossible.

  A hot breeze touched the garden, gaining at least the illusion of coolness as it moved over water and through a filter of rustling green babu. Ka-thock, the water-clock said, and a bird in the high, lush green replied. It sounded like a redthroat, that messenger of Heaven.

  Is it time?

  But her body, not yet at the end of its blind, selfish grasping, forced her eyes to reopen and her chest to rise again with a long, slow inhale. She stared at the strange-eyed girl hovering over her before realizing just who it was and moved fretfully, disturbing the cool, scented cloth upon her brow.

  “Write,” Kanbina managed, through dry lips. “Write…for me.”

  “Of course.” The girl turned aside, spoke in a low firm tone, and servants began to scurry. Kanbina had never learned that trick; the elderly kaburei serving her father had bossed her relentlessly.

  “And how fares my royal patient?” This voice was new but familiar. It was the physician Kihon Jiao, newly arrived in his shabby cotton robe, but with his topknot oiled and immaculate in a carved wooden holder.

  “Asking for brush and paper, Honorable Physician.” The Khir girl could not bow to one of his status, of course, but she inclined her head and smiled warmly enough. A true noblewoman treated underlings with distance, yes— but also with kindness.

  “No harm in that.” The round-cheeked physician bowed deeply in Kanbina’s direction. “Lady Komor, I must attend to the Second Concubine; I do not like to ask, but may I have your chair?”

  Be still, Kanbina thought. I must concentrate. It was coming, amid the constant pain in her vitals— sometimes better, sometimes worse, but never more than ameliorated. She felt it, a chill amid the heat of summer’s beginning. The garden shimmered past the physician and the girl in deep indigo silk; she bent all her attention upon it and breathed through the heatless, cresting sensation.

  “Stop,” she said. It was no more than a cricket’s whisper, but both physician and lady-in-waiting halted. Two gazes, one ghostly and the other proper dark Zhaon, fastened upon Kanbina’s face. “I have little time.”

  The physician settled upon the chair, and his fingertips were dry and warm as he felt for the levels of her pulse. His face did not change, but Komor Yala, hovering behind him, tucked her hands into her sleeves as if she too felt a chill.

  That one has seen an elder leave the house before. The thought was amusing, and Kanbina forced down a laugh. She did not wish to, but merriment, even diluted, brought the coughing spasms in its wake, and with it the metallic slickness of blood filling her throat.

  Kihon Jiao glanced up, and she read the truth upon his features as well. Neither he nor the Kh
ir girl bothered to lie, with voice or countenance.

  It was an unexpected gift.

  “I wish…” Kanbina’s throat filled, and she thought for a moment she would strangle on warm, slippery tea from the morning’s attempt at breakfast. The coughing attacked like a sleek, well-fed cat shaking a toy or a pinchnose mouse; the physician slid an arm below her slight shoulders and lifted her. Yala hurried to bring a small covered metal bowl for the wad of bright crimson with its mixture of yellow bile. When the spasm had passed, the physician nestled her among pulled-high pillows and bolsters with a son’s solicitous care.

  Kanbina tried again. “I wish both of you to witness,” she whispered, painfully. The corners were darkening despite mirrorlight, a tenebrous veil rising like a painted screen to keep a noble bride’s modesty. “Witness…my words.”

  “I hear, Second Concubine.” The physician’s mien was grave. He did not dig in his bag of essentials or hurry to the small table for the mixing of tinctures. Instead, he kept his hand upon her wrist, following her pulse.

  The Khir girl murmured something in her own language, her face rising over his shoulder like a moon. Kanbina beckoned, bringing her to the other side of the bed. She wished them both close. “Hold…my hand. Are you?”

  “Yes, Garan Kanbina.” Excruciatingly polite, the girl ducked her dark head, her hairpin’s chained bead swinging.

  “Mother,” Kanbina insisted, the affectionate Zhaon term for a mother-in-law. Kihon Jiao did not so much as glance at Lady Komor, though he must have wondered.

  “Yes, Mother.” Komor Yala had paled. The poor girl, her princess gone so soon and now this. Kanbina had wanted to protect her, for Kai’s sake at least. Where would she go now?

  There was no protection under Heaven for the meek or the righteous. “Witness my words,” she whispered, and her eyelids sought to fall. She denied it, her will once more mastering the tired, shuddering horse her body had become. At last, the habit of years stood her in good stead instead of forcing her to plowing endurance. “I wish for you both.”

  They did, the physician’s dry fingers still upon her pulse and the girl…oh, the girl, older than Kanbina had been but still, still so young.

  “My…son,” she whispered. “Care for him.”

  “I will,” Komor Yala said, and her strange eyes glimmered, full of warm salt.

  “I…wish no ill…on anyone…” The wad of blood rose in Kanbina’s throat again, and the idea that she would perhaps die with the most important half of the sentence left unspoken filled her with a great, heaving, pointless rage.

  It was the first time in her life she had ever let herself feel such a thing, and its sharp temporary heat spurred her.

  “No ill,” she said, and her voice had become a brazen gong. “Unless it is upon Yulehi-a Gamwone, who poisoned me. I will take news of her treachery to Heaven itself—”

  “My lady,” the physician began. He had turned ashen under his wispy brown stubble. “My lady, save your strength.”

  “To Heaven itself,” Kanbina insisted, and the susurration near the door told her the servants had gathered. Death often came with a retinue in great houses, and for once she welcomed the attention. She wished the tale of hers to be told through the palace; she wished it to pad with the servants and be whispered behind court ladies’ fans, she wished for the eunuchs to discuss it in their enclave and the ministers to exchange significant looks as they hinted. “I will tell of poison in a gift of hrebao tea, and the Great Consort of Heaven Herself will hear me.”

  The pang arrived, a spike through her heart and her throat filling, her eyes bulging as she fought, for once. The last lady of lost Wurei had bent before the weight of expectation, suffering, and duty. Marrying the conqueror had halted any who might take up banners in Wurei’s cause, and thus, the land devastated by war again and again could heal. She had not even minded so much.

  Until children, the children she could have borne and loved, had been stolen from her.

  Years of patient waiting bent under the burden of Gamwone’s hate and Garan Tamuron’s negligence had turned to gall. And now, finally, she had the means to strike back.

  She had thought the shades of children she could have had would cluster her bedside— perhaps a strong tall son with Garan Tamuron’s eyes; she would have been endlessly content even with a daughter. Instead, it was a foreign woman and a stranger who held her hands as the shadows whispered her declaration, over and over again.

  “Do you hear me?” she cried, and denied the coughing again. “Witness, Heaven and all the hells of evildoers—”

  “My lady,” Kihon Jiao began, again. Of course, it would be dangerous for him to hear this.

  “Hush,” Komor Yala snapped.

  Oh, Kanbina liked the girl, and it was not fair to place her under this burden. But Kai would protect her, as he had protected his adoptive-mother.

  “Witness,” Garan Wurei-a Kanbina cried again, and the shadows gathered at the bedside. They were somber and solemn with large dark eyes; they were not children but her ancestors, stern tall men and round, long-sleeved women with their smallest fingers on each hand glittering under filigree sheaths. There was her father, too, his mouth drawn down in a disapproving curve.

  Of course they found her unacceptable. She had not struck down the conqueror or borne descendants; their shrines would go untended and their spirits hungry.

  “Wurei!” Kanbina called. “Wurei! She is to blame! Yulehi-a Gamwone is to blame!”

  She lost consciousness soon afterward, her wasted body deflating as its inhabitant was drawn softly forth. No more did Garan Wurei-a Kanbina speak, her lips starred with bright blood and mucus, and she did not need to.

  Her servants were loyal, true. But not even the stern gods of silence and rectitude could keep this event from being spoken of. Besides, she did not wish it to pass unremarked, and perhaps service to their lady— kind and retiring, shy and pleasant— loosened their tongues.

  Her only revenge was to make certain all knew, and to pronounce the doom upon her deathbed. The last words of the dying held weight and consequence, and she would have both flung at the First Queen like javelins, like stones from a trebuchet, like Heaven’s very own bolts.

  She lingered until the afternoon storm nestled over Zhaon-An, lightning stabbing black clouds to make fertilizing rain, and when the clouds raced away to spill over Zhaon’s fields and pastures, it carried a dying woman’s curse with it, free at last.

  HREBAO TEA

  Ridiculous.” The First Queen of Zhaon settled against a rectangular bolster, her hair piled high and held in place by old-fashioned braids and two hairpins, one with Anwei shellwork upon its flared head and the other plain dark metal. She patted the nia oil with the third finger of each hand, delicately dabbing beneath her large, dark, very fine eyes.

  “Nevertheless.” Her eldest son was behind an expensive screen painted with bronzefish enjoying a summer night’s feast of glowflies, as was often his wont while she attended to these nighttime chores.

  She had forgiven his former indiscretion at the breakfast table almost as soon as it was committed. What mother could not pardon such a son? He was, after all, high-spirited. Not inert, like Gamnae— girls were no good— and certainly not an ungrateful quillmonster like her other son.

  No, her firstborn was her sole hope.

  “Her servants are not known for gossip and I have done all I can,” Kurin continued, relentlessly. He did not shift upon his cushion but his strength was evident even in his shadow, a prop for his mother’s old age. “I suppose I should ask if there is any truth to the rumor.”

  “Rumor?” Gamwone scoffed again. What she did to keep her position unchallenged was, after all, for her children’s benefit. Who else should or would she extend such effort for? “It is ill-bred to ask a lady about rumors, much less your own mother.”

  “How can I not?” Her beloved son’s sigh was irritating, since it was very much like his father’s. “Shall you be hiring another exorc
ist, Mother?”

  Gamwone regarded herself in high-polished bronze. A ghost-woman met her gaze, her eyes unacceptably round for a few moments, and she firmed her mouth into its usual slight curve. There was no reason to look frightened or even particularly ashamed when one had done only what one must. “For what?”

  “To cleanse your steps of ill-luck. There seems a surfeit of it lately.”

  “They would do well to gossip about that Khir bitch.” Gamwone hoped someone was listening. Everyone knew Northerners were cold and secretive, untrustworthy. “Perhaps she slipped something into the little mouse’s grain.”

  “Mother.” Kurin’s tone held a warning. That was new; he would never have dared to speak to her so, before. Novel events, from breakfast table to nightly discussion, were crowding upon the Kaeje fast and thick these days.

  “I do not say anything I have not heard others mutter.” Unmollified, she turned her attention to the next step in her routine, the crushflower attar. “No need to lay anything at my chamber partition.”

  “I would counsel you to keep quiet about this, Mother.” Now Kurin sounded weary. His shadow did not move, however, so he could not be too upset at a rival’s disappearance. Thank Heaven the little Wurei bitch had not spawned, there were enough problems as it was.

  And was there a single word of thanks from her uncle or her son? Of course not. Gamwone did what they dared not; she shielded the entire clan and provided them with high honors and wealth, but they presumed and threw tantrums.

  Just let them go a single day without her efforts, though. They would feel the lack.

  “Oh, you would counsel me thus?” Gamwone studied her collection. Jars and lidded pots; unguents, oils, powders; brushes and pads for spreading or dabbing; creams and solid bars, perfume flasks and warm wooden or greenstone implements to smooth, chafe, shape, sculpt. Generals had soldiers and weapons, mothers had sons and decorative arts. “Don’t worry. I have swallowed so many insults, what is one more?”