The Emperor's knife

by Mazarkis Williams

  Sarmin sat and watched the wall, listening for the telltale scrape within it. In the courtyard the Blue Shields made their first round of the evening, and beneath the regular tramp of boots on flagstones, Sarmin could hear the distant cries of moorhens on the river. He stilled his breath and opened himself to all the soft noises of the night: the creak of waggon wheels in the souk, tent poles straining under a sudden breeze, shouts and cries muffled and muted into an unintelligible hubbub. The Sayakarva noises, he named them, because he heard them through the window, where the name Sayakarva was engraved in a tiny, block-like script-the craftsman’s mark, no doubt.

  He stared at the alabaster pane: a window that let in light, but no meaning. He had broken that window once and been rewarded with a view of his brothers dead and dying. He let them keep him blind now. He looked away.

  Sarmin watched the wall, following the scrollwork, tracing a single line through the complexity. In a strange way the hidden door felt as much a betrayal as an opportunity-a greater betrayal, perhaps, than even his mother’s abandonment. The walls of his room had held him longer than ever she did. For nearly two decades, these four walls had been the certainty in his life-but now? Sarmin wondered where his certainty lay; not in painted stone, nor in those who hid inside it. He traced the line to its end and looked to the next wall. That hook, that flourish-had they been there before? He struggled to see the face that belonged to those brush-strokes.

  A scrape, a scratch, and then a grinding of stone on stone. The door opened by feather-widths. Lamplight fingered then flooded through the crack as Tuvaini slipped through into the room.

  Sarmin noted the careful way he scanned the chamber and found some assurance in the vizier’s uncertainty. “Sit.” Sarmin gestured to the bed. He had pushed his small table close to it, and now he took his place in the single chair.

  “Prince Sarmin.” Tuvaini gave a quick bow. He crossed to the bed with quick steps, took a last glance at the main door, and seated himself.

  Sarmin inclined his head. He rested his arms upon the table and laced his fingers. He held his hands tight against one another, to keep them from wandering and betraying his own nervousness. “So, tell me of the general.”

  “He is a passionate man, Your Highness, and a brave one. In military matters Arigu’s prowess has been demonstrated on both the personal level and on the larger scale.” Tuvaini kept his voice low. His eyes strayed to the moon-glow of the alabaster window.

  “You speak as if you know him, Vizier.”

  “We knew each other as boys, Highness. We both come from Ghara, in Vehinni Province. Our fathers were friends.”

  “And now your friend schemes with my mother to find me a bride from among the Felt?” Sarmin said. “Tell me, Vizier, why does such an alliance frighten you? Don’t speak to me of cleanliness or besna nuts. These are not matters of state, and I am no child.”

  Do I care that they drink sheep’s milk? I know where I suckled my milk, and the bitter taste is with me still.

  “He is no friend of mine, my prince.”

  The edge in Tuvaini’s voice convinced Sarmin.

  “The general sets his sights too high.” A pause. “To broker a royal marriage and pick a bloodline for the empire’s heir…”

  He sets his sights too high for your liking, Tuvaini. He looks upon my mother. Sarmin stared at the vizier and felt the stirrings of common feeling with him. They both had been denied the feel of her arms. Before he could stop himself, he laughed.

  The vizier paid no notice. He waited, his face bland.

  “And who would you have me marry, Vizier?” Sarmin asked after rubbing his lips. “Wherever there is objection, there is alternative.” From the Book of Statehood. Page two hundred.

  For the first time Tuvaini managed a smile. “I would have you choose your own bride, Highness. From the Petal Throne.”

  Sarmin took his hands from the table as if it burned them. More treachery, and beneath the canopy of the gods, no less.

  “Highness, hear me.” Tuvaini leaned in, intimate across the smallness of the table. “Beyon has the marks. Within the month the patterning will kill him-or, if it does not, all who see him will know him as a Carrier.”

  In the drawer beneath the tabletop Sarmin’s fingers found the dacarba. The steel felt cool to his touch. He recalled the despair that gave him the strength to take it. He ran his thumb along the top blade. “I don’t believe you.”

  Tuvaini’s eyes wandered to the window. “The emperor sent his royal body-slaves to the Low Executioner. He said they were marked. And yet their skin was clean when they stripped for the pyre, and each slave swore that it was the emperor himself who bore the pattern: from each man, the same story, until the Low Executioner brought me to bear witness.”

  “Then I would speak to the Low Executioner.”

  Tuvaini shook his head. “That man speaks no more.”

  “And the slaves?”

  A whisper. “Burned.”

  Murdered. All murdered. Sarmin felt the blood drip from his hand. “Beyon is my brother.”

  “You had other brothers, Highness.”

  Sarmin remembered them all, their chubby, laughing faces: Kashim and Amile, one too young to walk, one not yet talking. Asham, Fadil, and Pelar especially. Pelar and his red ball. He bounced it in the courtyard, in the tutor’s room, and in the kitchen. He bounced it against his brothers’ backs and his sisters’ legs. Sarmin closed his hand around the dacarba, felt the flesh of his palm giving way. “Tell me of the man who killed them.”

  Tuvaini startled. “It was Eyul’s duty. He carries the emperor’s Knife.”

  Consecrated by my brothers’ blood.

  Sarmin didn’t know how long he clutched the blade, thinking of the assassin Eyul, of the look he gave that dark night. One more for the Knife? He only heard Tuvaini saying, “My lord… my lord…?”

  Sarmin shook himself back to the present. “Carrier or not, Beyon is still the emperor.”

  “No,” Tuvaini pressed on, eager to explain himself, “the Carriers are not what you remember, Highness, wandering the Maze and staying to the low places. They become bold, attacking even on palace grounds. They serve some purpose, some other enemy we cannot see. A Carrier cannot sit on the Petal Throne, Highness.”

  The main door rattled; the handle turned, and Tuvaini almost knocked over the table as he stood. “I must go.”

  It took a moment for Sarmin to understand his urgency; the guards changed at the same hour every night, and at every changeover they turned the handle to confirm that the door was locked. It was a pointless tradition in Sarmin’s view; not once had the door ever opened to their test.

  “Better run, Vizier.” Sarmin laughed again, though more quietly this time. Tuvaini hurried for the secret door.

  The last Sarmin saw of him were his jewelled fingers pulling at the stone. “Next time, Tuvaini. Next time.” Sarmin spoke the words to the narrowing crack, softly, but loud enough to be heard.

  He leaned back in his chair in the darkness. Shadow hid the gods above him, but he knew they were there. The others were watching, too. He closed his hand around the cut he’d made, savouring the clarity of the pain. Conversation, being rare, always left him buzzing. In the empty hours he would replay every word ever spoken to him, relive every moment, consider each nuance. But now-now the future held the excitement, not the past, and the possibilities left him intoxicated.

  By two threads he was joined to the world, by his mother, and by Tuvaini, and each thread divided and divided again, spreading and reaching. The world came to him and he gathered his threads. He drew a circle with his palm, leaving a trail of blood on the wood. A spider in my web. He stood and crossed to stand at the secret door. He pressed his cheek to the smoothness of the wall, holding the dacarba in his crimson hand. “Eyul? Assassin? Can you hear me?” He brought the dacarba to his lips and kissed it. “We will have our reckoning soon.”

  Chapter Six

  Mesema folded her wedding dress, car
eful not to snag any of the quartz beads dangling from its heavy skirt. The alterations from Dirini’s size were hardly visible; the tiny darts and shortened hems had taken only a week to complete. She’d spent those days by the fire, the murmurs from the sewing circle flowing around her like a stream. The waters whispered war, but Mesema was unmoved. The summer had already wound its way towards harvest time. Her father had clearly chosen the path of peace, and she was one of his two emissaries. The Windreaders would be expected to defend the empire, just as the Red Hooves had before finding their strange god. But the empire was not at war.

  She hadn’t tried to run again. Every afternoon, Banreh left her father’s side to teach her the language of the Cerani Empire. She hoped that perhaps she would find a new way of thinking inside those rough words, some new way of considering herself a princess; but her understanding was too limited.

  Not like Banreh’s.

  Mesema turned and placed the dress inside her wooden trunk. She covered it with a layer of felt before reaching for her quilt, a wedding gift from her mother. It was made from the finest wool, and boasted shining threads of copper, more tiny beads, and even some pearls, bartered from the traders-who-walked. The quilt caught the sunlight as she lifted it and ran her hands along the edge. Tiny bells rang, soft as ladysong. She put it on top of her dress and folded the felt over it.

  The box held all she would bring from her home, besides Tumble. She didn’t want to close it; not yet. When she opened it in Nooria, perhaps her husband would run his hands along those bells, pull the wedding dress from its wrapping. She imagined him: dark hair and flat cheekbones, black eyes full of want. Would he dig through, heedlessly breaking beads and threads with rough hands?

  A shift in the tent flap, the sound of wool brushing wool. Her mother approached down the centre of the longhouse to where Mesema’s bed lay along the wall. Mesema didn’t turn, or speak. She wasn’t ready yet.

  “I have something for you.” A creak of ropes as her mother sat down on the bed.

  “I have until midday,” Mesema said, but more to herself than to her mother.

  “Ah, but we won’t have another chance to speak privately.” Mesema felt her mother pull on her skirts. “Sit down, daughter.” Mesema sat and folded her hands in her lap. She pressed her lips together to control the trembling. She would say goodbye like a woman.

  Her mother held a small pine box in her hands. She put it down on her knees and opened it, revealing an oiled bundle tied at both ends. “They will want a son from you almost before you get there,” she said, undoing the ties and pulling away the fabric. Inside was a stinking grey-brown resin.

  “Your husband will come to you every night and day until it takes-your father was the same way. But it is your duty to choose the right stars for your child. You must make them wait.”

  “Why-? How?” It was bad enough that Mesema had no plains-children. Now she must pretend to be barren?

  “Mesema, daughter, listen. The Cerani are strange and unholy creatures. Everything must be auspicious- for us.” She put emphasis on the final words as she pinched off a bit of resin the size of a thumb. “Work this between your fingers until it’s soft, then put it inside. It tricks his babies so they won’t take root in you. In the morning, pull it out and burn it. When the Bright One is over the moon, burn it all and make your child. Do you understand me, daughter?”

  “This doesn’t offend the Hidden God? He chooses the stars for every child.”

  “The Hidden God doesn’t live in Nooria. Outside His dominion, you do what you can.” Mesema’s mother rolled the resin back up in its fabric and retied the ends. “I will hide this at the bottom of your trunk.” She paused. “Keep it out of the sunlight. Listen to me: if you have a son, I will send you more. Listen. You must have only one son.”

  “Mamma! I should have many sons-”

  “Not in Nooria you shouldn’t.”

  A Rider stuck his head through the door flap. “Chief wants Mesema,” he shouted.

  “I’ve done nothing wrong!” Mesema put one hand over the pine box.

  Her mother drew in her breath. “Perhaps you will learn to hold your tongue among the Cerani,” she said. “But never mind that. Go on.”

  Mesema kept her back straight as she walked out of the rear of the longhouse. Fabric rustled as her mother hid the resin inside the wedding trunk behind her.

  Outside, the breeze carried the scents of late summer: apples, manure, and the fresh blooms of sheepseye, heaven-breath, and mountain beauty. The sun shone over the crest of the hill and warmed her skin. She took a deep breath. Her new home would not smell this way-even the flowers and the breeze would be different there.

  The Riders ran through their manoeuvres in the field, riding hard, slashing their swords through the tall grass, throwing their spears into the soil. New Cerani breastplates sparkled in the sun. Once it was harvest time, they wouldn’t have any more days left for their manly games. And after the harvest, the peace of winter would be upon them.

  Her father waited by the horse-pen, his shadow long and thin. His hair travelled two brown roads down his white tunic.

  “Mesema,” he said in the affectionate tone, opening his arms.

  But she held back and looked to Banreh, who stood by his side as always, golden and small.

  “Mesema,” her father continued more formally, “I have a gift for you: a teacher. He will guide you in the language of your new people. After your wedding, he will return to us.”

  Banreh’s eyes softened as she stared at him; did he pity her? A teacher to hound and scold her all the way to Nooria! Probably one of the captives from the Red Hoof Wars, someone not yet sold to the Cerani or to the traders-who-walked. The Red Hooves lived further south; they knew the harsh language of the empire. But such a man would despise her as the daughter of the clan chief who had enslaved him.

  “Who, Father?” she asked, her eyes wandering to the horse-pen, where Tumble cropped the grass.

  “Right here,” he said, motioning towards Banreh.

  His voice-and-hands. The tears came to her eyes before she could stop them.

  “Daughter,” said the chief, returning to the affectionate tone, “the son you will bear is going to seal our destiny at last. You honour us.”

  “Thank you, Father.” Mesema stood a little straighter. A compliment from the chief was rare. But just as she smiled towards the sun, a shadow fell across it.

  “I give you the greatest gift I can muster, but it must be for a short time only. I cannot spare him that long. Before the snows arrive…” Her father looked over his shoulder at the Riders.

  So the women had spoken true over their needles. The Riders did not practise their skills for play. The wind felt cold against her wet cheeks. “Arigu will come back before the snows close the paths,” she said. So he was planning a new attack on the Red Hoof tribe that lay between them both. Banreh would come home, to speak the words of war for everyone.

  In the chief ’s voice he replied, “Our clan’s future is too vast for one person to see. Do not concern yourself; you have your own duties. Become a mother, and soon. And learn what Banreh has to teach you.”

  “Yes, Father.” She wiped her eyes and looked at his boots. So hard, such strong leather.

  He took her hand, and dropped it. It seemed almost an accident. Then he turned and made his way through the mud to his Riders.

  Banreh’s eyes met hers with their usual composure, and he raised both hands to his chest, a sign of service. Clever hands. But those and his tongue were the two edges of a sword, concealed behind a patient expression. As terrible as a weapon could be, she knew it was nothing more than a tool for a strong man. She turned away from him and took three steps towards her longhouse.

  “Mesema,” he called out, his voice a croak, “are you unhappy?” She stalked back to him, her hands on her hips.

  “Do you not remember the Red Hoof Wars, Lame Banreh?”

  His cheeks grew red at the name. “I remember them.�
�

  “Do you remember my brother died that year? Stuck through the heart with a spear?” When he nodded, she went on, “Do you remember when some Redders got into our village and took Hola’s daughter against her will? She was too little to have that baby, and she died trying to give it life. Do you remember that?”

  Banreh nodded again. She could see from his eyes that he understood now, but she didn’t stop.

  “When you convinced me not to run, when you convinced me to turn back that day-you knew the war depended on it, and yet you said nothing to me.”

  “It is not for you to concern yourself-”

  “Not for me? Don’t make me laugh. You are barely more than a woman yourself, and my father uses you the same way.” As soon as the words left Mesema’s mouth, horror crept over her.

  Banreh sucked in his breath, but his next words were mild.

  “At midday, then.”

  “Banreh-” Mesema said, but he turned away.

  “Tame your mouth before you meet your Cerani royal.” He limped past the horse-pen, pulling his bad leg through the mud.

  The first chill wind of autumn swept over her. Mesema looked down at her feet, still in their summer slippers with no linings. She wouldn’t need to put the linings in this year. She would be warm. She would give birth to a prince in the summery sands. Or an emperor: a Windreader emperor, who might bring the two people, Felt and Cerani, together. Would that not bring a longer peace, over time?

  Perhaps Banreh had been right.

  “Greetings, Your Majesty,” she said in Cerantic. “Yes, Your Majesty.” The words felt sharp and unmanageable. But she would learn them.

  She turned towards the fields, breathing in the scents of home. A sharp wind came, bending the grass, and Mesema’s hair blew across her face in a dun storm. The grass thrashed, furious before the squall, and in the waving tumult she saw something, or thought she did. She shook her hair out so it streamed behind her and climbed the fence of the horse-pen for a better vantage point. A Red Hoof thrall, shovelling manure, gave her a look, halfsmirk, half-sneer. She turned her gaze away from him.