by S. C. Emmett
Badly.
MARROW FROM THE BONES
Two pyres in less than two months. It should have been Zakkar Kai lighting this one, but he could not move from north of the capital in case Khir took it upon themselves to display more of their threadbare martial spirit. So it was Garan Takshin who held the torch.
Chief among the witnesses was the Crown Prince, though, his pale armband much wider and bearing two knots of the kind called Elder’s Burden, their tails tucked like slinking dogs. Also in attendance was Komor Yala, pale under her copper coloring, her own mourning band single-knotted in the Khir fashion and her hair, for once, bare of any pin; the Khir mourned parents without adornment.
Even, it appeared, when the relationship was purely informal. It was an unexpected mark of respect, and one Takshin wished he could thank her for. A pall of heavy morning sunshine pressed upon Yala’s slim shoulders, but she eschewed even a sunbell. Faint traces of dewy sweat glittered upon her cheeks and forehead.
She had come from one tomb to see another’s occupant undergoing the change of flame, and several lengths before her, Mrong Banh, bareheaded in a pale mourning surplice, watched from upon his knees as the torch spat and crackled, borne by the Third Prince in his customary black.
The scarred son of Garan Tamuron did not admit of mourning except his own plain white armband, and he carried the torch to high-stacked wood drenched with costly oils to make the burning swift. The pyre-gifts were nestled in their appropriate places, and First Concubine Luswone, her hair dressed low and naked of pins instead of in the high asymmetrical fashion of Daebo, stood with her retinue, every single one in ghostly unbleached cloth. Second Queen Haesara abstained from attending, a move held to stem from her great tact and delicacy, but her pyre-gift was in its proper place, both her sons were in full mourning as befitted children suddenly bereft of even a junior mother.
Second Prince Kurin and Second Princess Gamnae were likewise in evidence, and both had brought their own pyre-gifts to nestle within the wooden structure. The princess’s gift was a crimson-wrapped sathron box; only she and Takshin knew that inside it was cushioned not a new, untouched item but one of her own childhood instruments, one the lady of lost Wurei had patiently taught a plump, lip-biting girl to pluck. The princess had also laid a handful of red crushflower, feeder of bees and most royal among its brethren, carefully upon the lid. Her lips had moved silently as she did so, perhaps bidding a kindness goodbye.
Do you think she would mind if I…Gamnae had asked her second-eldest brother, haltingly, and Takshin had, for once, been gentle in his reply.
I think she will treasure it above all the sathrons in Heaven, Naenae.
Takshin paused before he lowered the flame, his head hanging, and in the stillness a redthroat bird called. His own gift was in an unmarked box, plainly wrapped in heavy crimson silk and full of bright false fruit made of painted paste, a surplus fit for feeding a shade royally in the land beyond life. How others would laugh or look down their noses at what it contained, but it was all he could think of to give the woman who had cooed over his scraped knees and pretended not to notice stolen plums from her garden-tree.
He hoped she would understand. Kanbina had never needed stupid, weightless words in order to comprehend, to offer a gift— or to accept one.
The fire had to be quick in high summer, especially since the afternoon rains came with water-clock regularity. Still, he lingered before he lowered the torch.
Kanbina. He tried to think loudly, in case her shade was watching. I will make certain she pays for this. I promise it to you.
She would have gently chided him. Do not say such things, she had often murmured. She is your mother, after all.
If anyone could lay claim to that title, it was not Garan Gamwone who had birthed him and then cast him away like spoiled fruit, and it was not the Mad Queen of Shan. It was the woman who now lay, a tiny, inert husk wrapped in crimson from top to toe like a bride. Sometimes he had even fantasized that he was her child instead of Gamwone’s.
Kai could not be here, he thought, addressing her again. Watch over him when I cannot, Mother.
For such would he call her, if only in the secret chambers his skull contained.
Takshin laid the torch in its proper place. The pyre coughed as he retreated, and flame spread hungrily.
The space where the First Queen’s pyre-gift should have been was bare, an empty tooth-socket. Even now the First Queen of Zhaon disdained to notice a rival who had not, after all, done what was required and borne a child for her lord.
First Concubine Luswone’s lips were thin, pressed together in a tight line. Second Prince Kurin stood in a proper attitude of quiet bereavement, and if it bothered him to have so many gazes rest speculatively upon him, he did not show it.
Takshin retreated, step by step, to Yala instead of to Kurin and Gamnae. Mrong Banh folded over his knees upon white stone, his forehead touching lightly. He did not have to— his task as chief court astrologer was to find the most auspicious time for the pyre and mark the space below the greatest palace bell with chalk; when the bell’s shadow reached that mark, the ceremony could begin. Yet he lingered as well, bent in the attitude of profound reverence; slowly, Komor Yala sank to her knees as well, light as a leaf. She placed her palms upon sun-hot stone and bowed until her forehead was three lengths above them, pausing to drive the honor home before rising gracefully as Takshin halted at her side.
Takyeo, leaning upon his cane, stepped forward. He bowed, too, deeply as a Crown Prince was not required to do before any but his royal father. A startled rustle went through the onlookers as those lower in rank hurried to follow suit.
The Third Prince did not care who saw, now. He took Komor Yala’s hand, ignoring the surprised twitch as she sought to pull away— not very hard, though, aware of causing a scene at this most inappropriate moment. He laid her palm in the bend of his left elbow and locked his right hand over hers despite the heat. Sweat slid between their fingers, and Yala’s swift, startled glance was a thorny pleasure.
You see, little lure? He hoped his expression was not as forbidding as his frozen face felt. She is gone, but you are not alone.
Yala’s throat worked. The glitter in her eyes, salt drops welling, was an enemy he could not kill. So Takshin settled, his boots set in a swordsman’s readiness though he had left his blade behind in deference to the lady’s pyre, and made himself a pillar to lean upon.
Of course eunuchs and courtiers watched from the shaded galleries along the sides of the ceremonial ground. Even now, there was rumor walking among sober robes and high-crowned hats, whispering into ears whetted sharp by years of insinuation, gossip, backbiting, and occasionally even truth. Takshin imagined what they were saying, and it was a grim joke indeed.
The Emperor’s illness, the chief astrologer’s knee-bowing, the Crown Prince’s honoring of a junior mother, the Third Prince’s support given to an otherwise friendless foreign lady— all was juicy, but in the end, it was only scrapings from the bones of the largest roast, indeed.
He knew— taking care to know such things was a prince’s duty and a wolf’s instinctive habit— they were whispering of Garan Yulehi-a Gamwone’s beauty, her roundness, and her complaints of cold even during the hottest weather. They were whispering of her servant-girls: large-eyed, frail-fingered, scuttling, flinching things, and of the queen’s own pet physician who had habitually grinned like a skull and was now being prepared for his own pyre after a sudden, fatal belly-gripe. They spoke behind their sleeves or fans of certain shops in the Yuin where all manner of substances could be purchased, and they exchanged meaningful glances after studying the blank spot where a first queen’s pyre-gift to a concubine should have been.
Suspiciously absent from any of Wurei Kanbina’s pyre-gifts was any manner of tea.
HEAVEN UNASSISTED
I do not see why it should trouble us overmuch,” the Second Prince said, languidly stroking his chin. Of late he had made long strides toward g
rowing a larger beard like his imperial father, and it was said it suited him. His hurai was freshly polished after sealing some few letters, greenstone also sealing the vein in the first finger against ill-luck; he did not now arrange himself so that mark of royalty could be seen at every angle.
One who wished to curry his favor, or at least avoid his disdain, would say he did not need to.
“Your mother did not even send a pyre-gift.” Binei Jinwon, head of the Yulehi clan and chief minister to the Emperor for this half of the year, did not bother to truly taste his tea, simply set the cup down with a grimace. Normally, this conversation would be had in the First Queen’s part of the Kaeje, but the Second Prince had retired to his estate outside the Palace complex and wore a mourning armband as well.
Some might say it was grief for a junior mother. Those adept at watching the tides of influence swirl inside the high walls of Zhaon-An’s liver and head-meat had noted that his own pyre-gift had lacked nothing in taste or costliness, and thought the message Garan Kurin displayed was discreet aversion to his queenly mother’s behavior.
A good son could not openly make such a statement, of course, even a royal one. But his delicacy was being noted. “I did counsel her to.” He did not touch his own tea, since his guest had not begun to sip. Kurin’s topknot-cage, wood without any filigree, was sober to match mourning’s dictates. “Perhaps she did not listen.”
“I wonder that your sister did not think to…” Lord Yulehi hurried to amend the sentence when Kurin made no move, simply examining his uncle with that disconcertingly sleepy gaze.
“Gamnae has other tasks. Including readying herself for marriage.” Kurin’s fingers twitched, each tapping the tabletop once in turn, and he looked away, over a carved balustrade to a small, ruthlessly organized dry-garden full of river rock carved into fantastical shapes by years of flowing waters before being hauled by porters and groaning oxen to Zhaon-An, set in place by a gang of sweating laborers, and now contemplated by the man who had set the entire dragging, moaning mass in motion. The courtyard’s change had been sudden, but princes were allowed their whims. “Father is thinking of it too, I’m sure.”
“Your lord father has made no arrangements in that direction as of yet.” Binei Jinwon shook his sleek dark head. His own topknot-cage, silk drawn tight over a wooden frame and stabbed with a lacquered pin, meant both wealth and consequence, not to mention a certain amount of ministerial restraint as well. “Well, may he continue to guide us for many more years.” He touched his teacup with a finger, ostensibly gauging the temperature.
“I’m sure he will,” Kurin murmured. It seemed he was not disposed to be helpful this morning. In fact, the putative head of Yulehi— though he had heretofore been too young to take on those responsibilities— appeared rather bored with his mother’s uncle.
“Still…” Binei Jinwon did not shift anxiously upon his cushion, but he did eye his royal grand-nephew consideringly. He might well try the Third Prince’s uncertain temper, if the elder son proved unsatisfactory.
It did not, after all, matter which Yulehi sat upon the Throne once the Emperor’s illness reached its…natural conclusion. A good steward cared for his granaries, and Zhaon was the largest granary of all. There was nothing wrong with a clan benefiting as the rest of the country did from a strong, amenable man in its central seat.
Perhaps Garan Kurin knew which way his uncle’s thoughts were wending, because his gaze settled unflinching upon the older man. “Are the riders ready?”
“Thieves and cutpurses,” Lord Yulehi muttered. “But yes, they are in readiness. The dovecote servants are all beholden to us, our Golden are in position, and there are arrangements for the guards upon the main roads. It’s only prudent, after all.”
“I doubt Father would see it so.” Now Kurin’s lids lifted a few fractions, and Binei Jinwon began to feel a trifle uneasy. Nothing about the arrangements was illegal, of course. Except suborning the Golden, and they had merely been given a few gifts by the reigning minister— very quietly, of course, in thanks for their service to Zhaon’s Emperor. But they knew from whence their good fortune flowed, indeed. “And they were paid as I instructed?”
“Of course.” The chief minister’s expression held some minor dissatisfaction. “Though I dislike giving a man ingots before his service has been rendered.”
“I know what you dislike, Honorable Binei.” Kurin’s faint smile didn’t alter, but he also did not reach for his fan, or touch his Gurai slipware teacup again. “I am thoroughly aware of everything you have expressed a preference upon for the last fifteen winters or so. Please do me the honor of not repeating the list from the beginning again.”
Honorable, as if the clan head was no more than an artisan or scholar to be given lip service; until now, Kurin had always been deferential, if somewhat sarcastic at the same time. Binei Jinwon shook his head, tch-tch ing like an old dowager. “Your mother taught you to speak so, my nephew?”
“My mother remembers a time when you were merely an offshoot, Uncle.” The title was robbed of its honor by Kurin’s stress upon the first syllable instead of the last. “I take it you do not like our household tea?”
“It is still very hot, but I am certain it is of the highest quality,” Lord Yulehi answered haughtily. There were also cakes of pounded rai and a sweating jar of crushed fruit, but until the first teacup was drained fruit could not be even alluded to. “Have you no sense, young one?”
“I think I have enough for the task before me.” Kurin still studied his lord uncle, and his gaze was not like Gamwone’s at all. It entirely lacked the glinting malice the First Queen’s had hardened into, bit by bit, over the years.
If Binei Jinwon had been married to such a creature, he would have found some way to be rid of it long ago. He could not think Garan Tamuron above the task, or quailing at it. The Emperor must have kept his First Queen from the pyre for some reason, but Lord Yulehi could not, though he had thought upon it long and deeply, discern what that reason was.
Perhaps it was for the sake of this son. Kurin was certainly far more satisfactory than that whelp from the Emperor’s spear-wife; Binei Jinwon had more than once subtly suggested as much— oh, very carefully indeed, and been ignored by the Emperor each time.
Yes, at the moment Garan Kurin looked very much like his lord father, and it was an echo as unwelcome as unexpected.
Perhaps that was why Binei Jinwon’s palms were a trifle moist. Or perhaps it was the tea, very fragrant and sweet. Surely it was not a message.
Surely Kurin could not be so…overt.
“Of a certainty,” Lord Yulehi said, quietly. He had bent before the inevitable once or twice in his life, and now he wondered if he was to do so again. “Should what we fear come to pass…”
“You fear it? Why?” Kurin might have been simulating surprise, for his eyes opened wide, showing all their whites like a frightened kaburei’s. His mobile mouth moved through mock-startlement, then firmed as he sobered. “All you must do is your part, Uncle. If it goes awry, I am the one who will suffer.”
“My most lordly nephew—”
“Of course, should something happen to the head, the rest of the clan follows.” Kurin lifted his cup, which meant Lord Yulehi, as a good guest, had to as well. A cloying fragrance filled his nose, and even a wary, skilled physician might not be able to discern any admixture. “That is the way it is in the Hundreds and in tradition. Even in modern times, such a fate might be visited upon a clan under certain conditions. Don’t you think so?”
“Of course.” Binei Jinwon’s lips were numb, but perhaps that was only the heat of the tea collecting against them, dislodging other humors. “It falls to a clan to arrange a hedge of spears about its head.” The allusion, from Cao Luong’s Great Filial Book, prefaced the tale of the great Garan clan in the Years of Blood, and extolled the sacrifice of the current Emperor’s illustrious forebears. It could be taken as a warning or a statement of support, depending on Kurin’s mood.
&n
bsp; “It does, indeed.” Kurin’s smile turned slow and very sleepy, and his resemblance to his father faded slightly. “Now, my esteemed uncle, when you leave your servants shall bear a small, heavy chest. Keep it out of sight.”
Summer heat was better than winter frost, but all the same Binei Jinwon’s back was alive with chillflesh and slick, greasy sweat. “May I ask what—”
“Ingots, of course. And a few letters in a hand very much like one of my brothers’. Do not use either yet. Everything must be timed correctly, and the moment the Great Bell begins to ring we shall move. But not before, and while we’re speaking upon this, Uncle, you are to ensure none of our clan— especially Mother— engages an impresario of any sort. I want nothing at all to touch my Elder Brother until I give the word. Is that clear?”
“Y-yes, my lord nephew.”
“And when I say of any sort, I mean both the theater and the Shadowed Path. We are in mourning for Garan Wurei-a Kanbina, and there must be no merrymaking in any Yulehi house or courtyard. In fact, I want most of those ingots to go for hiring mourners, and we shall make offerings at her tomb as well.”
Binei Jinwon almost choked. To do so would say very plainly that Garan Kurin knew what was rumored, and had no part in the scheme. Of course, he had been a mere scrap not even past his fifth winter when the lady of lost Wurei miscarried her lord husband’s son.
It was a blow to First Queen Gamwone’s prestige, and not one she was likely to sit prettily upon. But Binei Jinwon dared make no remonstrance, for the small, heavy chest was undoubtedly already in the possession of his servants.
He could not refuse such a thing, nor make a scene in his royal nephew’s house.
Kurin took a mouthful of tea despite all hospitality and protocol, and his uncle mechanically followed suit. Guest or not, you could not refrain when your host drank. The tea coated his throat and continued down, and knowing it was likely pure did not help his racing heart or the sweat now coating the hollows of his armpits, gathering behind his knees.
