Swallowtail & Sword: The Scholar's Book of Story & Song (Tails from the Upper Kingdom 4)

by H. Leighton Dickson

  Outside, a plume of white smoke escaped a chimney and the entire kingdom was plunged into mourning.

  The Empress was dead. Long live the Empress.

  Fa dropped to his knees, then his elbows, laying his forehead on the floor at her feet. Ho and her father followed and like a ripple on a pond, every knee, elbow and forehead kissed the floor as they bowed before her. The White Tea Room was a sea of backs and outstretched arms and she took first one breath, then another to still the racing of her heart.

  “Rise,” she said, her voice far too small for the World.

  They did, all eyes upon her now. For the rest of her life, all eyes would be upon her.

  “Chancellor Ho,” she said. “Will you escort me to my mother?”

  “I…” Ho blinked his great yellow eyes. He looked like an owl. “I…”

  “Your Excellency,” said Fa but she stopped him with a wave of her fingers.

  “Fa, you are dismissed. I thank you for your many years of service to the Kingdom. You have until the end of the day to remove your presence from your office on the third floor. Go in peace, but go.”

  She turned to the Pershan.

  “I ask again. Chancellor Ho, will you escort me to my mother?”

  He bowed deeply and with great pride.

  “I live to serve you, Most Honoured Excellency.”

  He turned and flowed like a wave across the Tea Room floor, but before she moved, she stole a glance at Kirin, his expressionless face, his unyielding posture. In one breath, she had gone from friend to Empress. She now owned everything in the entire world – lands and armies and riches and titles but she would never again see his smile.

  It was a door closing.

  “Excellency?” called Ho.

  She steeled her will and followed.

  ***

  The Room of Dying Swallows was filled with women. Simply clad women preparing mixtures and potions for the embalming of the body. It all smelled of incense and Ling wondered if any of the women were Alchemists. It would make sense. She had never met an Alchemist, had heard stories of their craft and mystery.

  Chancellor Ho was at her side. She did not move her face.

  “Who is First Mage of Agaratha?” she asked.

  “Jet barraDunne, Excellency,” he said. “A more noble and skilled Alchemist you will never meet. He is a legend.”

  She nodded.

  “Would he make a progressive addition to my new Council?”

  “Most progressive, Excellency.”

  “And you believe you could work with him to advance the Kingdom?”

  “It would be an honour, Excellency.”

  “Summon him,” she said.

  The women had turned at the sight of her, had immediately bent their knees and lowered their eyes. They however did not genuflect as those in the White Tea had done. No, these were working women, allowed to bow with only knees and eyes. It was the way of things and for once, completely appropriate.

  Behind them was a kang bed and upon it, a body under a sheet of raw silk. Her heart thudded once in her chest.

  Chancellor Ho shifted beside her.

  “You do not need to stay, Excellency,” he began. “There is nothing here for you to do.”

  “Thank you, Chancellor,” she said. “But I wish to be alone with my mother.”

  The women exchanged painted glances. The Mistresses of Eyes, of Walking and of Communications and Letters appeared at her other side.

  “Excellency, it is unseemly for you to be in the room with the dead,” said Mistress of Communications and Letters.

  “We must make preparations for your coronation,” said Mistress of Walking.

  “And you must be seen offering prayers and incense at the Temple Shrine,” said Mistress of Eyes. “It will be a comfort your people.”

  “My people,” Ling repeated. “My people.”

  “Yes,” said Mistresses of Walking. “You are mother to your people now.”

  “Then I am mother to you,” said Ling. “And I would like you to leave.”

  From the hallway, a man coughed. She looked out to see Kirin with the rest of the Imperial Guard. The old Captain’s tail lashed and Kirin looked down at his feet. She smiled to herself, wondering if things might not change so very much after all.

  “Your Most Royal Excellency,” said Chancellor Ho. “These hard working women will be too happy to allow you a moment with your Most Sacred Mother. We will be waiting outside this door until the release of the doves.”

  The release of the doves, signaling the ascent of her mother’s chi, her línghún, to the heavens. Traditionally, they were released at the moment of death, but with a death as significant as her mother’s, there were rules for the correct number of doves, rituals regarding their specific release, and so on. It was the way of things.

  “Yes,” she said. “Until the release of the doves.”

  With a small bow, the Chancellor stood aside, commanding all the women in the room with his great yellow stare. Finally, he himself stepped back, sliding the door closed and for the first time in all her life, she was alone.

  She looked around the room. It was small, very white and made entirely from marble. The walls were so angled that they formed a circle and above, a vaulted ceiling mirrored the angles of the walls with intricately painted cedar. There was a single window high up so that the bright spear of Kathandu could be seen and banners hung from the rafters, moving ever so slightly on the smoke of the incense. They were painted with images of all manner of birds – from swallows to cranes to eagles in the sad, beautiful throes of death.

  The painted cedar, the window, the banners, the curling smoke - everything drew the eye and the chi, away from the cold marble and upwards to heaven.

  One banner hung above the kang bed – a dragon curled upon itself, eyes rolled upwards, tongue protruding, blood dripping from its jaws and staining the banner red.

  The death of dragons.

  She knelt down next to kang and the body under the sheet, let her eyes roam over the bumps of feet and nose. There was no one in the Room of Dying Swallows, no one at all, so she reached trembling fingers to pluck at the sheet, pull it down over the lifeless ebony face of Prarthana Thereza Markova Wu, her mother.

  She sat for a long while, studying the face she should have known well but could barely remember. The pelt as black as night, shining with blue highlights like her own. The forehead curved, the proud brow, the high cheekbones. Her cheeks were sunken, however, her eye sockets hollow. The illness had been swift and sudden and as yet undetermined, and poison had not been ruled out.

  Hence the tension. It all made sense but surely, no one would poison the Empress.

  Her mother’s hair was loose likely for the first time since becoming Empress. It fell across the base of the kang like spider silk and Ling touched it with the tips of her fingers. Brittle, she thought, not like the satin of her youth. But her mother was very young, not yet in her twenty-eighth summer, far too young for brittle hair and sunken cheeks.

  The last time she had seen her mother, it had been purely by chance. An accidental meeting in the Imperial Library. All too short. She had been ten.

  She felt her throat tighten.

  “How could you, Māmā,” she whispered. “How could you do this to me?”

  The room did not answer.

  “I am too young for this. I am too willful. You should have taught me what I need to know but now, I must learn things by myself and these are such dangerous things. Maybe I should have agreed to a Regency but I don’t know whom to trust, or why to trust, or even how. I trust Kirin Wynegarde-Grey and perhaps his brother but beyond them, whom? I have already made an enemy in ex-Chancellor Fa and an ally in Ho, but at what cost?”

  Her voice echoed off the marble like whistling bamboo.

  “And one day, I will have to marry a Sacred man but I don’t want to marry anyone so how will I know? Will the Council tell me whom to marry and as Empress, I obey? How will I raise my daught
ers and sons? How will I weigh the requests of the Council or judge the rightness of their claims? When do I go to war with the Chi’Chen and when do I make peace? When do I rain fire down on the land of the dogs and when do I increase the patrols on the Wall? How can I strengthen the Empire when I’ve never even left these halls?”

  For some reason, her eyes were stinging. Tears. Tears for a woman she barely knew.

  “All this pretense, for what? Why are our people like this? Why couldn’t you be more than Empress? Why couldn’t you be my mother?”

  Her chest was aching and she fought back the shudders.

  “I could have loved you, Māmā. I would have. It is all I have ever wanted.”

  And she leaned forward, her forehead touching her mother’s, not caring that the Phoenix crown slipped from its position atop her very small head. She pulled her hands up to grip the sheet as the shudders won, buried her face in the lifeless curve between chin and chest. Tears ran down her mother’s neck to stain the silk as a little girl wept for the very last time. The death of dragons, the weeping of swallows.

  Bad luck for the Dragon-born.

  Finally, after what seemed like hours, the tears ran dry and the shudders waned, leaving only pebbles of breathing in their wake.

  She straightened, wiped her cheeks with her palms, not caring that the white dots had been smeared or the paint on her lips smudged. Carefully, she pushed the Phoenix crown back into position, reached for the pins to keep it secure. Paused at the touch of the swallowtail pin hidden deep in her coiled hair.

  She wiggled it free, held it a moment in her palm.

  “The Breath of Butterflies,” she said softly. “You are the Swallowtail, Māmā, the beautiful, fragile butterfly, whose life is cut short at the first wind of autumn. That is not me. That will not be me.”

  She let her eyes drift up to the Dragon banner and beyond it to the lone window and the peak of Kathandu, Fang of the Great Mountains.

  “No, I am not a butterfly. I am Iron. I am Stone. I will become the Great Mountains and I will rule for me, as much as for our people. There will be no bad luck for me this year or any year. I am a Dragon Empress and I will rule like one.”

  And she reached forward, sliding the pin into her mother’s hair when the Room of Dying Swallows trembled at the low drone of the dungchen. The horn sounded once, twice, three times and a great flurry of wings rushed past the window, rattling the glass and casting flickering shadows from the sun. The doves had been released, she realized. It was over and yet, only begun.

  Behind her, the door slid open and she rose to her feet, turned. Amid the throng of women and guards, Chancellor Ho smiled at her, his great yellow eyes beaming with approval. She gathered her breath into her chest and arched her neck, holding her head like a swan. The little girl who dreamed of butterflies was gone. What was left was iron.

  And so with tea and intrigue and the flutter of wings, that is how Thothloryn Parillaud Markova Wu, daughter of the Shagar’mathah, heir of the Great Mountains became the Dragon Empress in her twelfth summer.

  And still, on some nights, she would dream of butterflies.

  Lament for a Restless Woman

  Still, no dream comes to her,

  the split-bamboo-made mat cool

  on the silver-inlaid bed.

  The deep blue skies appear like water,

  the night clouds nothing but mist.

  The cries of the wild geese journey

  as far as the Great Mountains.

  The moon continues shining

  into her room.

  But there is only bamboo and silver

  And still no dream comes to her.

  Song of Silver and Steel

  Year of the Dog

  Steel will win the day

  But songs attend the night when

  Swords lay down to rest

  It was not a day for Yin.

  It was a day for Yang. A day for summer and sunshine and warmth, for speed and strength, for men and power and battles. A day of threes and of sevens, of swords and of steel. A day to glory in the army of the Upper Kingdom and the honour of her men. A tribute to their Most Holy Empress in all her majesty and might, but not for her yin.

  It was not a day for women.

  “How many this time,” Kirin asked and the young lion next to him grunted.

  “Seven,” said the lion. “What did you expect?”

  Kirin held back a grin. Middle Captain Liam al’Massay-Carr was in fine spirits this morning as they strode toward the armory doors. He had arrived from Path’na only last night and together, the pair had stayed up far too late, remembering the days spent at the Gate of Five Hands under Captain Ben Shin-Portsmith and Bo Fujihara, the new Chi’Chen ambassador. Liam had indulged in a few too many pots of sakeh, while Kirin had nursed his one long into the night.

  “Seven,” said Kirin. “Of course. I should have known.”

  Leopards watched their approach, swung the heavy doors to let them pass into the armory, and the Hall of the Tang echoed as the floor changed from marble to stone. It was dimly lit and cold but the smell of oiled steel was as familiar as horses or leather or home.

  “I hope I can find a better one this time,” grumbled Liam. “The last one was useless. Couldn’t swing a sword if he tried.”

  “Was he lion?”

  “In breeding, I suppose. And I suppose I should be grateful that he found a posting more to his, shall we say, delicate nature.”

  “Delicate? A delicate soldier?” Kirin glanced at him as they walked. “Where is he now?”

  “The School of One Hundred Thoughts. He’s decided to teach Chai’Chi warrior-style.”

  “Liam…” Kirin shook his head.

  “It’s true, Kirin. I swear. He’s a bloody dancer now, here in Dharamshallah.”

  Now he did smile. The thought of dancing soldiers was something only Liam could think of. Liam or Kerris, and not for the first time, he wondered where his brother was.

  “Ben’s dead, you know,” Liam went on. “Did I tell you that?”

  “Ben? No.”

  “Took a bloody whistling arrow in the thigh. Never got it looked at. Bloody dogs.”

  “Did he get the black-rot?”

  al’Massay-Carr shook his head. “Took the last road off the Wall one night. That has more honour than dying piece by bloody piece. His second, Windsor-Chan, has the posting now.”

  Kirin grunted. Ben Shin-Portsmith had been a good Captain and brilliant diplomat. Between him, Fujihara and the Empire’s celebrated Kaidan, there was now a glimmer of peace between the two nations.

  Another door, two more leopards and this time, the footing changed from stone to earth. They paused as the door opened onto a great courtyard filled with soldiers.

  A day for Yang.

  The two lions exchanged glances before stepping out into the sunlight.

  It was the training grounds of Sri’Pol’Lhasa, a garrison situated at the base of the palace herself. High above, her many winged roofs and blackened cedar beams gleamed like gold in the early-morning sun. Kirin smiled now and swept his eyes across the arena. Soldiers practicing drills and marching in precise patterns, polishing weapons and binding sword hilts, smoothing the bamboo and rattan of the bos. In a corner, several men moved like sharp water, performing the Sun Salute of Chai’Yogath and Imperial horses worked along the outsides of the courtyard, heavily-muscled and sweating foam from their exertions.

  Home.

  “Have you been assigned a horse yet?” asked Kirin, shading his eyes and scanning the yard for the Master of Recruits.

  “Not yet,” said Liam. “I’m still partial to my stallion, Kaballah. He’s a fine leggy Marwari.”

  “He’s not Imperial.”

  “You are so gold,” Liam snorted. “Everything must be perfect for you.”

  Kirin grinned again. “Life in Dharamshallah, my friend. As gold as gold can be.”

  “You’ll find yourself a golden stallion, then?”

 
; “First is luck,” he said.

  “Oh, you will fall one day, Kirin,” grinned Liam. “But never fear. I’ll be there to pick you up. Laugh first, then pick you up.”

  He spied the Master of Recruits standing next to the Master at Arms. Both leopards, they were chatting and watching everything in the court with quick eyes that sharpened once they fell upon the pair. ‘The Recruits’ were sparring in the center of the yard as if the drills couldn’t come soon enough. Some sparred with swords, some with staffs, others in fierce hand to hand that was poetry to watch. They were not new recruits, rather experienced officers who had been sent from elevated garrisons - soldiers who had too quickly risen in the ranks of their peers and had been recommended for promotion above the normal ranking system outside their districts. Here and today, three would be chosen to serve as adjutants to the three new Middle Captains and it would solely be a test of combat skills followed by an interview. Compatibility was a requisite, unlike dancing.

  Both he and Liam bowed, fist to cupped palm, as they approached the Masters. The Masters bowed back. Unnecessary but good form, and the four fell in line to watch the recruits and await the third Middle Captain.

  “Who is our third, Esteemed Masters?” Kirin asked.

  “Middle Captain Devraj Trevisan-White,” said the Master of Recruits. He was a leopard of middling years, with a short black top-knot and dual swords. “From the garrison at Anna’purananna.”

  “That’s a dangerous trek,” said Kirin.

  “Life is dangerous, Middle Captain,” said the Master. “It is only the Hand of Siddhartha that keeps men alive.”

  Kirin grunted. There were as many faiths in Dharamshallah as there were races. It was foreign to him, this belief in unseen deities. His faith was in Bushido, the warrior’s code. It was the air he breathed. It pulsed the very blood in his veins. He couldn’t imagine life following any other system.