The Emperor's knife

by Mazarkis Williams

  “All this to bed a queen?”

  Bed her? I have done that. Next I will own her. “Why set my sights so low?”

  Tuvaini asked. “Can I not hunger after power like every other man?” “With you it always has to be personal.” Arigu looked up from his goblet, a certain humour in his dark eyes. “There has to be someone to defeat, to humble… or covet.”

  “Perhaps you know less of me than you think, old friend.” Tuvaini wrinkled his nose at the sour whiff of Arigu’s ale. He’d picked up the taste on distant campaigns.

  “Perhaps.” Arigu acknowledged the possibility. “But I’m right, aren’t I? It’s Nessaket.” Drops of amber glistened in the tight curls of his beard as he lowered his goblet again.

  As Arigu grinned Tuvaini felt a pang of old hatred. So often he’d wanted to sink a fist into that broad, amiable face, though he’d probably break his hand on those raw-boned features. Rumour had it that the blood of Mogyrks flowed in the general’s veins; a grandmother raped when the Yrkmen rode the desert with sword and holy fire. The slander spread well; Arigu’s build and colouring fed the whispers. Tuvaini had never regretted starting that rumour.

  I had Nessaket. Soon I will have the empire. “You mistake me, Arigu. I’m as loyal to the emperor as you are.” Let him play with that. He returned his gaze to the Settu tiles between them. The game had run to plan. The game always ran to plan: Arigu had never beaten him in all their years of play, and yet here he was again, accepting one more challenge, showing no surprise that Tuvaini had discovered his return to the palace, no fear that he might be arrested at any moment. He sat calm, patient, ready to stand the tiles once more.

  Arigu had nothing, just the tenuous loyalty of soldiers camped in the desert. Even so, Tuvaini felt uneasy. His Fort tile and his Rock tile stood central to the board, dominant, flanked by Tulwars with a string of River tiles to the rear. Yet he felt disquiet.

  “What game are you playing, Tuvaini?” Arigu pushed a Spy stone out to the furthest corner of the board.

  Tuvaini placed the Tower, setting the tile squarely before the Rock. “Why, Settu, of course, Glorious General.”

  He doesn’t play to win, he plays to learn. To learn me.

  Tuvaini had his men waiting outside. He need only light the lamp in the window and they would rush in and seize the general. Yet he remained in his seat. Arigu led ten thousand loyal soldiers. What would they do, seeing their leader in chains? And he’d met no commander strong enough to take Arigu’s place. It troubled him, a loose thread against his finger. It did not escape his notice that he had cursed Beyon for the same hesitation. “So you have run back to the city alone.” Tuvaini waited for Arigu to admit the girl had died, that his plan had failed, but Arigu only fingered his tiles. Tuvaini continued, searching for the words that would provoke a reaction. “It would be a mistake to bring this Felting girl to the city with Beyon searching for her. And for you.”

  Arigu smiled his broad and friendly smile. “You have not arrested me, old friend.”

  “To ally yourself with the horse tribes is perilous. You risk the empire, and your throat, for your ambition,” he said.

  Arigu’s smile widened. “Whereas you risk only the emperor?”

  I risk nothing that has not already been lost.

  Tuvaini set the fifth and last of his Army tiles, white, for the White Hat Army. Taller than any tile on the board, it stood now at the head of an unstoppable advance into Arigu’s heartland. Tuvaini steadied the tile and drew his hand away quickly, spreading his fingers. It had been a long time since accident had felled any of his tiles before the Push. Settu was a game for steady hands. All games were. “Tuvaini, old friend, no man can risk the empire.” Arigu set another Spy stone.

  His tiles stood in scattered confusion. Tuvaini had the game. “The empire cannot be taken. It cannot be lost. It’s too strong,” Arigu said. He reached for his Dominants, the tiles he should have played at the start. They were useless now, but his to play if he chose. “The empire rests on three pillars, and each in turn could bear the load alone.” Arigu set out his own White Hat Army, the first pillar. “All the grass tribes, stretching out even to the trade lands of Kesh and the Vaulcan Marches, with the nomads from the dunes to sharpen their spears, would be held by the army at the Cerani gates. Not through numbers-there could be five Riders to each man of Cerani-but because war rests on the science of supply and method, not bravado and the application of warpaint.”

  “I’m not a schoolboy,” Tuvaini said, but Arigu went on.

  He set his Fort tile behind the Army tile. “The walls of Nooria are the second pillar: a stone currency with which time itself can be purchased. And with time, aid will come from the four corners of the empire.” Arigu tapped each of his Army tiles in turn, spread out at random across the board. Behind the Fort, Arigu laid the Tower. “And the third: the mages cannot be turned from their service to the throne.”

  “My tutor always taught me that the empire was indestructible.” Tuvaini pursed his lips. What about the girl? “But I am not reassured.” He reached towards his Assassin tile to claim the victory.

  Arigu waved Tuvaini’s hand away. “The empire is in no danger.” He laid a finger on his Emperor tile. “But there can be change.”

  Arigu made the Push. His Emperor tile fell. The Emperor caught the Assassin, and the Assassin the Vizier. The cascade continued, splitting, dividing around the Spy stones, spreading out across the board with the soft, rapid click of tile felling tile. Patterns Tuvaini had neither seen nor imagined emerged, grew and died, and still the toppling continued. Tuvaini stared at the ruin before him. Fallen tiles covered every inch of the Settu board. Six tiles only remained standing, the same on each side: the

  White Hat Army, the Fort and the Tower.

  “A draw.” Arigu drained his goblet and stood to leave.

  “Your plan is finished, Arigu.” Tuvaini couldn’t keep the anger from his voice.

  “Not yet.” Arigu straightened his tunic and reached for his swordbelt.

  “The girl comes.”

  She lives? His men had failed, and Arigu stood there smiling. Knowing.

  Tuvaini rose to his full height, fury guiding his words.

  “To seed claimants to the Petal Throne among the grass tribes? You would grow a pet emperor with relatives who live on horseback.” He made a sharp gesture towards the board. “Men who can’t even play Settu.” “We can all learn new games, Tuvaini. If enough emperors die, the kingmakers will eventually come to your door. You even have Beyon’s look, though scraped a little thinner, it’s true.” Arigu tightened his belt, jiggled his sword in its scabbard and flashed a dark smile. “We can’t all stake our hopes on ties to the royal bloodline, however tenuous. Some of us have less regal ancestry… or so the gossips say.”

  “She will die.” Tuvaini spoke the words to Arigu’s back. It would happen.

  He had the means and the will to make it happen.

  Arigu paused at the door, looking every inch the general.

  “I need an emperor who needs me, Tuvaini. I need an emperor who can see that we stand poised to take the world. I’ve seen it, Tuvaini. I’ve seen all the nations between the seas. There is nothing like Cerana.”

  The general’s unexpected eloquence struck Tuvaini. He’d spoken the truth: the empire set its sights too low. More could be found over mountain and water. Gems to the north, spice to the south, wood to the east; they spread out before him, dates for plucking.

  Tuvaini said, “Wait.”

  Arigu turned, the door half-open, his face drawn in question. Tuvaini swept the tiles away, clearing the board. “We can talk about that.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Mesema had heard nothing of Banreh. Perhaps he had already set off over the desert. Perhaps he sat in some other tent, scratching on his lambskin. Perhaps the emperor had killed him after all.

  Sahree had not allowed her to get her own riding clothes from the trunk on top of the carriage. Instead she had, after
much fussing, dressed her in thin silk pants and a long tunic. A wide blue scarf protected her head from the desert sun. “No padding?” Mesema asked Sahree, tapping her behind, but Sahree just shook her head and sighed.

  She moved through the silk corridor once again, but this time it ended not with a tent flap but with open sand and a group of horses. Mesema’s heart lifted when she saw Tumble at last, waiting next to a tall steed; she hadn’t quite believed she would be allowed to ride. She clambered into the saddle with a yelp of joy and patted his mane. “You’re a good boy, you are, getting through all that heat and sand for me,” she said. From her elevated position she could see the entire camp: waggons were being loaded, tents struck, fires doused. Men in different colored uniforms-Arigu’s in white hats and the emperor’s in blue-hastened to their tasks. She didn’t see Banreh.

  Everyone fell quiet, and she knew the emperor had arrived. He mounted the powerful horse on her right. He wore a rough tunic and breeches, nothing more than what a thrall might be given at her father’s holding; only the gold on his fingers showed him to be something more. Behind him, two soldiers in blue mounted their own horses. A fourth man waited well to the emperor’s right, his white robes fluttering, though no wind stirred. He looked at Mesema with eyes the color of the winter sky and she quickly turned away.

  The emperor gestured towards the mountains ahead. “We’ll ride to the east.”

  She didn’t ask where he was taking her-she didn’t feel that it mattered. He was the emperor, and if he wanted to take her to the top of a mountain or drop her down a well, it couldn’t be prevented.

  He smiled then, a natural smile from a Rider in his seat.

  “Let’s see you ride.” He set off, and she could see he treated his horse more as a thrall than an equal. Still, he rode well, and she had to struggle to keep up with him. She wasn’t used to the soft feel of the sand under Tumble’s hooves. The emperor rode ahead for the most part, but she managed to pull alongside for a few moments at a time. They exchanged no words. The blue-hatted soldiers followed at a distance, and behind them rode the strange man in white. When she turned, she could see them, sitting straight and awkward on their mounts.

  The mountains towered before them, lit by the evening sun. In time the rock grew distinct, shadows marking lower peaks, crags and ridges. They passed from the dunes to where the sand rose in tiny ripples. She could see a great rise of mist from the rocks to her right, and a swathe of green that trailed away, heading south-west. This could be no other than the River of a Hundred Names, which fed the Felting in the valleys and flowed down into Nooria and beyond.

  Mesema rode on, trailing the emperor, until the orange-lit rock face filled her vision. Here the mountain threw out two great stony arms, boulderstrewn and riven with deep clefts, in a protective embrace around an area of sand. The emperor steered his horse into the gap. Mesema looked up at the huge rocks that looked poised to fall and crush him.

  “Come,” he called back to her. Cerantic did not have the authoritative inflection her own language provided, but she recognised the command in his tone. She followed, clinging to Tumble’s mane.

  Once through, she drew in her breath. A riot of colours, yellow, purple and blue, danced from rock to rock. It could be the plains for all the flowers, except for the pale, shifting earth that lay beneath them. She slipped off Tumble and knelt by a sky-tinted blossom. She ran her fingers over the thick and fleshy petals.

  “It looks like you,” he said. He’d come to stand beside her.

  “The zabrina.”

  Mesema stood and backed away.

  “I meant the color is the same as your eyes.” He leaned over and snapped it from its stem.

  Mesema frowned at the flower as he twirled it between his thumb and forefinger. “Why did you bring me here, Your Majesty?” Behind him, the soldiers had dismounted and were standing guard. She didn’t see the man in white and was glad for it.

  “Do you see nothing here worth the bringing?” He threw the flower aside.

  “It is pretty.” Mesema looked around at the colours, intensifying now in the last light of the sun. “Where is my father’s voice-and-hands, Your Majesty?”

  Shadows reached across the valley.

  “He has gone to join the rest of his body.”

  She hoped he spoke truly. Mesema fingered the blue feather in her pocket. More questions bubbled up inside her. “Why didn’t you bring your brother the prince to greet me? Are you angry with him because of the general?”

  “No.” He studied her with copper eyes.

  She hugged her arms around herself. “Did he not wish to come?”

  “He-” The emperor glanced back at his guards, but they were not within earshot. “He’s not like us.”

  “Us? I am not like you, Your Majesty.” The words came out before she could stop them. She braced herself, but he only laughed.

  “Correct: nobody is like me. I am the Son of Heaven.” He laughed again. “The gods’ favour is obvious, is it not?”

  Mesema watched him laugh, feeling uncertain. Cerani humour eluded her. She took a few steps away, admiring the flowers that rose impossibly from the sand. The desert: this was the heart of the Cerani Empire. Her father had told her that a person who can live in the desert can live anywhere-fight anywhere. These flowers looked delicate, but they must be strong, to survive here. Indomitable.

  The soldiers pierced the ground with long torches and touched them with flame. Flowers did not look so pretty in firelight, but Mesema could still smell their perfume, and if she closed her eyes she could imagine springtime on the plains.

  Mesema felt something hard underfoot and when she drew back her shoe she could see metal, glimmering low in the sand. She glanced at the emperor, but he had turned away and was looking at something in his hand.

  Mesema lifted the item and turned it over in her palm. She’d seen such round discs before, in the sacks of the traders-who-walked. It was a coin, for people to use when they had nothing to barter. The face stamped on the coin looked like the emperor, but older. She dropped it and studied the desert floor. Other objects glittered in the flames, and she picked up each in its turn: a colored gemstone, a ring, a charm. She lifted the charm and held it up to the light of torches and sunset. A golden ship, held aloft by great clouds, twirled from her fingers. She turned it this way and that, trying to imagine if such a ship existed, one that could fly through the air. Sand shifted behind her and she tensed as the emperor spoke.

  “These are offerings to Mirra, goddess of beauty, children, and healing.” One does not take what belongs to the gods. Mesema gave a solemn nod and replaced the cloud-ship, but not before its golden mast pricked her index finger. She hissed and pressed her thumb against it to stop the bleeding. “Your goddess has blessed this place, Your Majesty.”

  He said nothing, but she could still sense him at her back. He expected her to make an offering.

  Perhaps the goddess could be a friend. She might ensure Mesema’s child would be a glorious ruler as her great-uncle had foreseen. Mesema fingered the beads around her neck. Glass and ceramic brought across the mountains by the traders-who-walked, strung with some of her mother’s gold on a woollen string. She had nothing better other than the silk clothing Sahree had given her.

  No sooner had she begun to lift the necklace over her head than she felt the string snap between her fingers. The beads cascaded over her palm and onto the sand, a fall of sparkling colour. She watched them roll and bounce between other, half-buried offerings, until they came to rest in a serpentine line.

  A wind blew from the west, sweeping the sand from around her feet and casting it against the mountain face. A long note sounded from the stone, higher and fuller than anything blown from a singing-stick. It seemed the final note of a longer piece, the last broken-hearted syllable of a mourningchant; it spoke of all the unheard notes that had come before it, chords that told of beauty, sorrow and violence. She felt it vibrate in her chest, and she knew that the entire song w
ould have been too much for her to bear.

  The guards fell into a whispered chant, while the emperor laughed once more. In a voice meant for only her, he said, “The ignorant say that Mirra sings for those She favors.”

  The wind shifted then, bending the flower-heads towards the south, where she knew the city lay. The sand scattered around her feet, hinting at shapes and lines, moving towards something she almost recognised. The Hidden God offered at first only two vague figures and a few spidery lines, but then the wind blew harder and for one moment the image lay clear before her: a woman, knife in hand, with a fallen man at her feet. The sand offered no detail but she knew them even so: herself and the emperor.

  Mesema felt each hair on her head standing on end. Her palms hurt where her fingernails dug deep. Her lungs began to burn before she remembered to inhale, and even then her breath came in gasps and gulps. She was more frightened now than when the Red Hooves had flown through her village on their cursed horses. Why would she kill an emperor? What would happen to her after she did?

  She had to run away.

  If she could get to Tumble, and start riding, the River of a Hundred Names would take her to the folk in the mountains, and they could take her home.

  She swung about. The emperor stood directly behind her. No. She put out her hand and tried to push him away. The cut on her finger burned, and she screamed.

  Darkness. Flowers, tobacco and leather. Someone held her.

  “Mirra’s song was too much for her. Bring me the water, now, quick!” The emperor. She opened her eyes and looked at his face. He glared over her at the soldiers in blue, his eyes wild and furious, and she saw the cruelty there, the other side of his strength. Had he killed Eldra, after all? How long before she too became a problem best solved with a cut throat or an arrow?

  He looked down at her and put a hand to her cheek. “Are you well?” She closed her eyes, fighting nausea. A message from the Hidden God. Its meaning was clear, and unavoidable, the most definite and most terrible message He had ever sent. It filled her mouth like a bitter root. “It is sometimes hard to serve the gods, Your Majesty.”