The Poison Prince

by S. C. Emmett

  He was almost to the Home when he saw a knot of bright-clad court ladies in one of the gardens, so he stepped aside into a long colonnade and took a different route to avoid being hailed and asked for advice. Afterward, he wondered if Heaven had been directing his steps, for at the end of the shadow-striped passageway were two familiar figures, one in bright blue and one in Khir indigo, both with the pale bar of mourning upon their sleeves just as it was upon Mrong Banh’s.

  It was the Crown Prince, leaning upon his silver-headed cane a little more heavily than usual, and Komor Yala with her faithful kaburei at her side, the girl whose adoring looks at her mistress were much like a small, expensively bred dog’s.

  “— will not heal,” Komor Yala said softly as Banh approached. “Anh may go for a palanquin.”

  “It simply needs exercise.” Takyeo shook his head slightly, and brightened as his gaze fell across the astrologer. “See? Here is Mrong Banh, and with both of you in attendance I may hobble at a healing pace.”

  “Honorable Mrong.” Lady Komor performed the slightest of bows, far more merit than Banh had likely accrued with her. Still, she was not the sort to bestow compliments where unnecessary, and even Takshin spoke well of her. “I am attempting to scold the Crown Prince into caring for his wounded leg; perhaps you shall have better luck.”

  “Ai, not likely.” Despite his tender head, Banh was pleased to be greeted so. Nothing eased a man’s pain like being considered useful. “He has been ignoring me since he could walk.”

  “I cannot ignore you, Banh. You nag too effectively.” Takyeo’s smile held no pained shade, for once. His leg, it seemed, was not the only part of him healing, even if at a spiral-shell’s pace. “Tell Lady Komor my leg is merely stiff, and will support me admirably as long as we do not run.”

  “It would be no trouble to send for a palanquin,” Lady Komor began, and Banh had to hide a weary smile behind his sleeve.

  “Ah,” he said, hoping the inkstains on his cuffs did not show too badly, “but should we send for one I might climb inside and ride while my betters walk, and that cannot be borne.”

  “You do look somewhat pale.” Lady Komor viewed him with a pretty air of mild anxiety. “Are you ill, Honorable Mrong?”

  “My head is somewhat tender this morn, and I did not even have the joy of drinking sohju last night to account for it. Never grow old, Lady Komor. It is a state full of many annoyances.”

  “You should marry.” A somberly uttered jest, for Takyeo knew Banh’s thoughts upon his own matrimonial prospects. “A wife would keep you young.”

  “Nag me into the tomb early,” Banh muttered, with a quick glance at Komor Yala. She did not seem to take offense, even going so far as to raise her own sleeve to her mouth as if suppressing laughter. “Why, as long as I have you, Crown Prince…”

  “Mayhap you should spear-marry.” Lady Komor’s eyes all but sparkled. A dark gaze was an honest one, the Zhaon said, but he did not find her pale one displeasing at all. “A scholar and a prince; a fine couple.”

  “Yes, but a spear-marriage’s courtship is as full of annoyances as aging.” Takyeo indicated the stairs through a very fine jewelwing-garden, masses of early flowers attracting the flutter-bright insects. “Whose turn it is to pour, who goes marketing for dinner— it is two generals without a single soldier, my lady, and that is a sad state of affairs.”

  Banh was actually feeling quite fortunate to meet them; plenty of courtiers would keep their distance seeing this company come over the rise. Lady Komor took very small steps, and he was almost irritated at her for doing so until he realized she was holding their pace to a minimum so successfully it was Takyeo who made one or two short, sharp hurrying motions.

  Not at her, of course— a prince should never treat a lady so— but at Banh, who could be comfortably harried.

  Consequently, mornlight had failed and the clouds settled their lid over Zhaon-An before they reached the Home. “I am bound for there.” Lady Komor lifted her cupped hand, her fingers held gracefully together since it was ill-bred to point and jab at another’s body or belongings.

  “And I am for there.” Mrong Banh indicated the apothecary’s alley, with three fingers instead of a cup. “Well, Crown Prince? I am not so pretty to gaze upon over tea, but if we are forced to wait for Lady Komor there is a small shop for teaware that serves a quite fine cup of khang-eng, very good for the bones.”

  “I do have a chaperone.” Lady Komor sounded very amused indeed. “And this may take me some short while.”

  “Women,” Banh muttered, but Takyeo now looked slightly pained.

  “I shall rest in Banh’s teaware shop, then.” Sweat glimmered upon the Crown Prince’s forehead, and the two men watched Komor Yala glide away, her skirts moving sweetly and her head held high. “It would do me well to see her settled, Banh.”

  “No doubt she feels the same.” Banh rescued a square of thick thirsty cotton from his sleeve and dabbed at his own damp forehead. “How is your leg?”

  “The same as the last few times you asked after its health. Come, show me this teaware.”

  In short order the Crown Prince was settled in the small shop, the round proprietor all but expiring of satisfaction to have such an august customer gravely considering his stock while sipping silken-smooth khang-eng from the very western fringes of Zhaon. It was a matter of a quarter-mark for Banh to conduct his own business and make an attempt to haggle the price of a nightflower draught to an acceptable level— for though he did not lack alloy or even half-ingots, Banh came of thrifty stock and disdained to act above his station— and as he returned his only thought was of a tepid bath once he had swallowed enough tea to be polite.

  Takyeo, his leg stretched before him and his elbow upon the table, brightened as Banh reappeared. The astrologer, however, halted, his eyes growing wide and his gaze fixing over the Crown Prince’s head.

  That was the only warning Garan Takyeo received, and had Banh been just a few moments later, or a few hard copper slivers thriftier, there would have been none. As it was, the Crown Prince spilled out of the chair, landing with a thump as the blade passed over his head with a whoosh and the assassin, his face muffled by a single sheer piece of dun cotton, raised the slightly curved onyashii to try again.

  SMOOTH ANOTHER TEMPER

  In the Artisan’s Home, early afternoon and the pall of stormlight turned regular bustle into slow swimming against a river’s heavy tide. “We could leave now,” Dao said softly, leaning over the table. He wore a different robe today; faint traces of sweat showed upon his throat and forehead; did he hate this clutching, suffocating heat as she did? “You can even bring that kaburei, it is easy enough to free ourselves of such an impediment later.”

  Anh was hardly an impediment, and Yala had no intention of allowing Daoyan to treat her as one. “And you have a plan for leaving the city, not to mention riding north?” Yala could barely believe her ears. She had finally been able to arrange another visit, and seeing him again brought a swift sharp pain to her heart. She had to tell him of her intent, but how? “A plan for crossing the border, and then—”

  “Come now, Yala. All things should be so easy as a pair of Khir deciding to leave an inhospitable city. Once we are over the border, I return you to Hai Komori, and no doubt your father will accept my offer for you this time.”

  She gazed upon the small glittering items upon the roll of velvet, different ones this time. Apparently his play at being a merchant was profitable enough, though a nobleman could only treat such a thing as a game. “This time?”

  “Oh, I offered before.” Dao’s mouth turned down, and it was one of the few unguarded expressions she had ever seen him display. He did not glance about to see who was watching, either. “Bai laughed at me.”

  “Ah.” She glanced at the door, where Anh sat upon a mat of coarse rush fiber waiting for her mistress. Close enough to guard Yala’s honor, far enough away to gain some privacy. It was only natural that a Khir lady-in-waiting should wish
to hear her own tongue spoken, and perhaps gain news from a merchant of her country. “I did not know that. Daoyan…” How could she even begin to tell him? I have promised twice over to stay, once to my princess’s shade and once to a Zhaon general.

  Of course the son of the Great Rider would not consider a weak woman’s promise binding. Best not to mention Zakkar Kai at all, and merely say that Mahara’s shade kept her in Zhaon-An until vengeance could be performed.

  “Or perhaps you wish to leave tonight.” He watched the door too, his grey gaze clear but troubled. “Simply tell me, Yala. We can be gone with very little trouble; I have come this far, have I not?”

  “I do not doubt your capability or your willingness, Your Highness.” What else could she say? There were more considerations, too. Daoyan should be in the city of the Great Keep; he was the only remaining son of the Great Rider. Her shock at finding him here had abated somewhat, and now she felt the chill of quite another set of considerations. “But I have made a vow, to stay for—”

  “Is it a man?” His eyes narrowed, his nostrils flaring, and Yala swallowed a handful of irritation. It scraped all the way down, her temper already frayed from the Crown Prince’s politely inviting himself along and the astrologer’s sudden appearance. Now she was forced to smooth yet another nobleman’s temper.

  It did not help that he was partially correct, though Kai was not the overriding reason for staying in this terrible place. Instead of answering immediately, she studied the fall of nasty, bruised light through the doorway onto wooden floor brushed to satin sheen by many footsteps. Sometimes, ignoring impoliteness carried more sting than a rebuke, and she knew Dao well.

  Or did she? She would never have thought him capable of leaving Khir behind, traveling to this horrible, suffocating pile of stone and lavishness, cooling his heels until she could plausibly meet him a second time. If anything, it was his willingness for the last that troubled her most.

  “Someone in this palace paid for a death,” she said, finally, turning her gaze to the hairpins and ear-drops displayed upon velvet pad, the small spindly table at her elbow a thin reason for yet another visit. She had to find the words that would make him see. “I would know who, Ashani Daoyan.” It was impossible for her inflection to be more honorific— or more remote.

  “And what would you do with such knowledge, Komor Yala? Serve vengeance with your maiden’s blade?” He did not outright scoff at the thought, but it was perhaps close. Today his topknot-cage was fine-carved scentwood, just the sort of understated taste a merchant with pretensions would employ. “Leave that to her kin.”

  Would that I could. “You are her brother. Who should be in Khir, aiding the Great Rider as his only remaining son.”

  “Half-brother. Bastard son.” There was no heat to the words, but a swift spasm of anger crossed his handsome features. Had he been born a little less comely and talented in the saddle, the nobles might not have been so sneeringly polite. “I know who and what I am. And I am unwilling to let you meet a similar fate to hers here. Were she still alive I would subtract you from her clutches soon enough—”

  “Daoyan.” Yala’s bones turned to ice within her. The feeling was not irritation, precisely; it was much colder, and its edges were a yue’s gleam. “I chose to accompany your royal sister.”

  “You were forced. Even your father had not the hunrao to gainsay it, though he made plans with me soon enough after.” Dao made a short sharp motion, brushing aside any maidenly objections. I know best, his tone said, for I am male and I am a Khir noble, and both are due your compliance. “What does it matter now? You will come with me.”

  Accusing her father of lacking hunrao was not something Yala could easily forgive, even if Dao was irritated enough to speak unguarded for once. “I do not—” she began, but halted, tilting her head. Anh had stiffened and was peering out the door, inquisitiveness in every line.

  Shouting. Running feet. Ringing metal.

  The Crown Prince. Yala’s mouth turned dry. “Something is amiss,” she finished, and rose swiftly, settling her skirts with a decided motion. “Anh? What is it?”

  “Yala.” Daoyan’s hand flashed out but she avoided the maneuver with a half-turn. Was he mad? The merchant he was playing could not lay a finger upon a Khir noblewoman, not without severe reprisal. It was unlike him to forget such a thing.

  Much about this troubled her, the thought that perhaps she did not know Ashani Daoyan as well as she thought most of all, but all else paled in comparison to this sudden hue and cry.

  “My lady?” Anh, anxious, in Zhaon. She rose halfway from her crouch like a peasant girl craning to see what had invaded a field— a ruminant bent on chewing, a dog or padfoot searching for prey, or worst of all, a soldier intent upon food or leisure.

  There were many dangers in the world, especially for a female creature.

  “Come.” Yala’s hands were heavy with sweat, and her right dropped to her side. The urge to draw her yue, or merely to touch cross-hatched metal with her fingertips and derive some comfort, was all but overwhelming.

  It was not ladylike to run, but she gathered her skirts anyway and hurried out the door, Daoyan left to shift for himself and Anh hard upon her heels.

  A FESTIVAL ROAST

  The great pierce-towered capital of Shan rose above choking mist mixed with cookfire smoke; the morning was slightly cooler than afternoon would be. Still, upon every corner there were cheering peasants and tradesmen. Sparksticks crackle-starred, pale under foggy sunlight. The flame-flowers would bloom at and after tonight’s banquet.

  And Garan Daebo Sabwone was cold with sweat.

  Shan did not require its royal brides to be pulled on a vast moving platform through the streets, dressed in a conqueror’s or bridegroom’s luxury. Instead, the First Princess of Zhaon was trapped in the hated bridal palanquin once more, scrubbed free of blood and with no sharp object inside, not even a fruit-knife or sewing pin. Perhaps it would have been worse to ride one of Shan’s stupid horses through the cheering, strangling throng, enduring the tossing of paper money and pastefruit, the gazes of the common crowd.

  She could not quite decide, so she sat and boiled with something uncomfortably like fear, dressed in heavy brocaded crimson nobody would see until the palanquin was peered into by a lord and that hateful merchant prince.

  In a novel, she would change into a white bird, or a real prince would break her free of imprisonment.

  At least her laces were properly tightened and her hair, braided and looped with multiple pins dangling clinking golden leaves, was well in place. Nijera had seen to it herself, cooing that this was a blessed day for the princess until Sabwone longed to slap her— or rise and run, screaming, in any direction that promised an escape.

  There was none, so she gritted her teeth and remained silent. Perhaps they even thought her refusal to speak a maidenly reticence instead of furious terror. She could not even open the slatted window to gain some air; she had to sit here, again, simmering in her own sweat. Even the Khir princess hadn’t been treated like this; she’d had a lady-in-waiting at her side, that ugly little ghost-eyed girl Takshin protected.

  If Taktak was here he would be riding alongside the palanquin. I would prefer to have him here, true. Her future husband, a merchant brat with no feeling at all, taunting a poor girl who had opened her veins.

  Just not thoroughly enough.

  Maybe she could take a hairpin, and stab him. The thought was immensely cheering.

  She did not even have a novel to pass the time, or a basket of fruit. Nothing but the robe, a few pillows, and the four wooden walls bearing down upon her as the palanquin lurched steadily toward doom.

  The ride to the capital was a type of hell no sage or novel had ever brushed a description of, and this just one more insult to be borne until she could somehow escape. They watched her and sneered, those ill-bred lords of Shan, new ones arriving at prearranged stops and introducing themselves to her in their barbarian dialect.

 
Well, she would not learn it, or their stupid names. She would speak proper Zhaon only, for the rest of her days. She had so few weapons, would they grudge her even that?

  The crowd-noise began to abate in increments, and the palanquin slowed— if that were possible, it was creeping like a spiral-shell or silver-smearing greasebug in a wet garden. She wished Kurin were here, or even Sensheo— he had been fond of picking up tiny shelled things, admiring their homes before crushing them slowly, his dark gaze alight. See, Sabi, it’s easy. All you have to do is press in the right place.

  Nijera and some of the other ladies were learning the Shan dialect. No doubt they thought to catch themselves merchant barbarian husbands, when what they should have been doing was helping their princess. There were even strange rumors of something happening between Shan’s capital and the border with Anwei, but Sabwone pointedly ignored that. What did she care if a few peasants were raided by bandits?

  After the interminable suffering and step-by-step dragging, the end was somewhat anticlimactic. The palanquin halted, was set upon its wooden legs with a thump that jolted all through her. Sabwone shut her eyes, her hands crossed in her lap, the filigree sheaths over her smallest fingernails on either hand scratching at brocade. Dressed up and trussed like a festival roast, sold off to jumped-up merchants, betrayed even by her mother— oh, if it was the start of a novel, it would have been thrilling.

  But it was not, and she was so small. And so terribly, utterly alone.

  Sabwone’s heart pounded. Next would come the banquet, which she would not see. They would all feast upon her degradation; when dark fell she would be trapped in a bedroom with a strange man and likely outraged. She had some idea of what the latter entailed, having seen the breeding of fine horses at some of the Daebo estates as well as illustrations in certain filched books.

  She was afraid, and she had failed. Both were insupportable.

  There was a courteous knock upon the palanquin’s side. Sabwone kept her eyes closed. If she did not look, it would all remain unreal.