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

by H. Leighton Dickson

  Not even the twitch of a whisker. She shrugged.

  “Okay. Alright then. So, I’m going to go sit over there, on the steps of that really nice shrine. Just don’t arrest me, okay? That would really not sit well with Pappa.”

  And she turned, wandered over to the steps of the shrine, crossed her legs and dropped to the stone. At least she wasn’t on the road. Not exactly. No one would hit the shrine so unlikely that anyone would hit her.

  She closed her eyes at the first bite of the fruit. It was delicious. Yes, she thought to herself, there could be worse places than here.

  She set the bowl down and with a resigned sigh, opened the mess that had once been her journals. She had made them herself, bound the parchments in leather and silk cord but they were never meant to be dropped down several sets of steps so in many cases, the parchment had torn. Carefully, she smoothed each sheet, slid them neatly into place. The order was all wrong, but it didn’t matter. Not now, with her unceremonious introduction to the University set. She wouldn’t be going anyway, so all of her sketches, calculations and diagrams meant nothing. Merely scratches on paper to bide the time.

  She could hear the sound of horses and she looked up. A troop of soldiers was riding in precision up the road toward her and she grinned, wondering if they would ride right on up to the palace. That would be impressive, she thought. Horses on stone steps. Such a thing would not even be imagined in Parnum’bah Falls. Then again, there were very few horses in Parnum’bah Falls. Yaks, goats, oxen but very few horses.

  They were so shiny, these horses, with their shaved manes and bound tails and she thought they looked very powerful as they trotted up the road toward her. Their riders looked equally powerful, with leather armour dyed in the colours of red and Imperial gold. People scrambled out of the way as the squadron charged past, and Fallon noticed a single lion accompanied by five leopards. She smiled and studied him – his regal bearing, his double swords and a long mane pulled in a simple queue behind his back. The stuff of dreams and legend.

  The squadron pulled up at the foot of the One Hundred Steps and the lion swung off his horse. He passed the reins to one of the guards and headed immediately up the steps. The troop turned and headed off ‘round the stair where presumably the horses were stabled. Life in Pol’Lhasa, she thought. So very exciting.

  She sighed, popped a syrupy chunk of banana between her teeth, chewing contentedly as she looked back at her books. Behind the sketches, there was paper of a different quality peeking out from the corners so she slipped it out. It was a puzzle, a series of puzzles actually, and not hers. She frowned. The first was a set of numbers and she recognized it as a simple number puzzle to derive a sequence. She snorted. A child could solve it and instinctively, she dug into her pocket for chalk.

  The second was also a number puzzle, a simple Magic Square and she filled it out quickly before moving on to the next. Soon, the puzzles alternated between numbers and words, line puzzles and a few simple tanagrams. Forgetting her fruit bowl, she began going through all of them, leaning back against the second step, knees up, tongue between her teeth. Riddles next, then ciphers, some written in Imperial, others in Hanyin and she tackled all of them with relish. They grew progressively more challenging however, and she found her self beginning to think hard, her chalk whittling down to dust. The last one was a word problem and she closed her eyes to wrestle the answer before a shadow fell across the sun.

  “There!” came a voice. “There she is! You, girl! Do you have them?”

  She opened her eyes.

  It was the man from the University steps, accompanied by a young leopard in Imperial gold.

  “Do you have them?” he asked again and he peered over her shoulder. “You do! Thief! She’s a thief! Arrest her!”

  “I’m not a thief!” she cried and pushed to her feet. “You gave them to me, remember? All the papers got mixed up and you made a pile of Yours and Not Yours and then you gave me the pile that was Not Yours and these were in there. I know ‘cause I was there! So here, take them back! They’re just stupid puzzles anyway.”

  And she grabbed the sheets in one hand and held them out, crumpled and sticky but intact. The university man looked at her.

  “You worked on them?” he asked.

  “Well, the only one that was really hard was that last one. The word problem. I’ve always hated word problems. Involves real world examples, you know. Not pheasant farms in Parnum’bah Falls kind of problems.” She tucked her hair behind her ears. “Not, ‘if twenty-seven eggs are laid and three hens are fighting, how many crows will steal the chicks from the temple?’ Not that kind of problem…”

  Frowning, he looked from her to the puzzles and back again.

  “There is chalk all over them.”

  “Oh,” she said.

  “Why would you write all over work that wasn’t yours?”

  “I…” She bit her lip. “I, I’m sorry. I didn’t think…”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “Please don’t arrest me.”

  “What is your name?”

  “Fallon,” she said, feeling her throat begin to tighten again. “Fallon Waterford.”

  “And you are from Cal’Cathah?”

  “No.”

  “Mum’bahai? Carah’chi?”

  “No, no, Parnum’bah Falls.”

  “Parnum’bah Falls…” he grunted. “Where is that?”

  “Southwest,” she said. “Near Khash’purr.”

  He rolled the pages up like a scroll, wrapped them with a silk cord. Frowned again and shook his head, seemed about to say something else before abruptly turning on his heel and marching back down the long road to the School of One Hundred Thoughts.

  She looked up at the leopard.

  “Am I under arrest?”

  He shrugged.

  “Do you want this?” She bent down to pick up the bowl of honeyed fruit. “It’s really good but I’m not hungry any more.”

  He studied it for a moment, before taking it and popping an orange piece in his mouth. He chewed, shrugged, then walked away toward the two sentinels guarding the steps of the palace.

  Fallon took a deep breath, then another before gathering her journals into one pile and pushing off down the Road of Enlightenment toward the Inn.

  ***

  She found her parents in the room when she returned, told them how well the day had gone, how pleasant the Registrar was, how friendly the students were. It was a small inn down a back street and above a money-lender’s shop, and there was only one low bed for her parents and a sari-hammock for her. Still, she spent most of the night arranging her journals, trying to find order and realizing with dismay that many of her sketches were missing.

  Not surprising, all things considered.

  She spent a fitful night with her father’s snoring, her mother’s swatting and the tragedies of the day playing and replaying through her mind. Finally, when her eyes did close, her sleep was filled with dreams of Imperial horses destroying the pheasantry and soldiers chasing her out of the jungle into the foothills of the mountains. All too soon, she awoke as a city filled with backyard roosters crowed the first light of dawn.

  “Do you wish us to walk with you?” asked her mother, placing the tea cups and empty pot on the courtesy tray. “It is a beautiful morning and we could stop somewhere for a light meal before your interview.”

  “No, but thank you, Momma,” said Fallon. “I think I need to do this myself.”

  “Good,” said her father. He was reading a morning scroll and didn’t look up. “I’ll send a footboy to tell Sanjay we’ll be leaving by noon.”

  “You never know, Sharan,” said her mother. “They might not make an offer immediately. Perhaps it takes time for such things.”

  “No,” said Fallon. “I’ll know right away.”

  “Well,” said her mother and she approached her daughter, tightened the obi-sash at her waist, smoothed the lines of the short green kosode. “Tigers or no, you will impr
ess them with your quick mind.”

  “And quicker tongue,” grunted her father.

  “Can we do something with this hair?” asked her mother. “I have a jade comb? Or what about a hummingbird pin?”

  “Nothing,” said Fallon. “It does what it wants.”

  “Like you,” grunted her father.

  “Sharan, stop,” said her mother. “Are you sure you don’t want us to come? You seem quiet.”

  Fallon leaned in and kissed her mother’s cheek.

  “I’m fine, Momma. I’ll be back before noon.”

  Still reading the scroll, her father tapped his cheek. She crossed the floor to kiss him too and when she turned, he surprised her by taking her hand, then both hands, pulling them up to his chin.

  “You are the very best of us,” he said and she could see his green eyes shining with tears. “My youngest daughter, my little sparrow, my artist, my poet, my thorn and my heart. I do not know what I will do without you but I will do without you, for I can’t keep you locked up in the pheasantry all your life. You belong here, in this great city with these wise men and women. You will go for your interview and however it ends, you will make us proud. You make me proud always.”

  She silently cursed her throat and her eyes, for it tightened and they stung and she threw her arms around her father’s wide neck and wept into his shoulders as he hugged her like he would never let her go. Finally, he pushed her away.

  “Go now, silly girl. You’ve put tears on the morning scroll and I need breakfast.”

  She nodded and hurried toward the door.

  “Fallon wait!” called her mother. “Your journals.”

  Her mother gathered it like a nest from the floor beneath the sari-hammock.

  “You cannot forget these.”

  “Thank you, Momma,” Fallon whispered and, clutching the journals to her chest, she slipped out the door.

  ***

  It was tall, it was regal and it was utterly terrifying.

  She sighed.

  Nothing had changed. A different morning, a different set of students rushing up and down the many, many steps. Fire urns were burning, people were laughing and her heart was as heavy as the stone as she walked toward the winged building.

  Yesterday, the Sacred man had pointed so she followed his direction, her feet growing more and more like clay with each step. In through the black door to a small set of signs cast in bronze.

  It was a quote from an Empress but she couldn’t remember which one. She had memorized it but it was gone from her mind like a pheasant escaping the rook. Third floor, he had said and she made her way up a carved staircase like she was walking to her execution. Step, step, step. Each step harder, heavier, each breath like scorpions in her chest.

  Finally, at the third floor and a sign that read “Registrar” in Imperial, Farashi and Hanyin. She approached a young man, kneeling at a low desk.

  “The Registrar, please,” she said. Her voice was gone, like the night. Like her dreams.

  “That’s me,” he said, not looking up. He was working on a list with a brush and inkpot. It was intricate and beautiful and far too complicated for her.

  “I have an appointment for an interview this morning.”

  Now he did look up. He was a clouded leopard, small, compact and efficient looking. He held his brush lightly over the paper, careful not to drip.

  “Your name?”

  Her name.

  Her name.

  “Your name, please, sidala?”

  Her name.

  “Sidala?”

  “Never mind,” she said quickly. “I have made a mistake.”

  “Fallon Waterford?” he asked.

  “I…”

  “You are Fallon Waterford, yes?”

  He laid the brush on a dragon-shaped rest stone, and lifted a paper from his desk.

  “Hmm, let me see. Yes, Fallon Waterford, put forward by Yuri Abhay-Townsend, Magistrate of Kash’purr, on the recommendation of the mayor of a place called… Parnum’bah Falls.” He looked up, squinted. “Is this you?”

  She nodded.

  “Well go in, go in,” he said, waiving the paper. “They are waiting for you.”

  “They?”

  “The Most Honourable Provost, Juan Jing-Carlos and Esteemed Guru Estabahn Navheen.”

  “In, in there?”

  She pointed to a blue door with gold rings for handles.

  “You are sitting an interview, yes? For admission?”

  “I was supposed to, yes.”

  “Well, unless you’ve changed your mind, I suggest you go.”

  You belong here, her father had said, in this great city with these wise men and women.

  She swallowed and stared at the door, clutching the journals to her chest.

  “Go now.”

  However it ends, you will make us proud.

  With a deep breath, she strode ahead and pushed open the door.

  ***

  It was a large room, completely made of polished wood. Walls, floor and ceiling fashioned from the same grain and it all gleamed with the light that flooded in through large, rectangular windows. With only one tapestry woven entirely with threads of red silk, the room was at once austere and serene and studious. Two men knelt at a low desk, dressed in kosode of most somber black.

  “There she is,” said a familiar voice. “The tigress who wants to go to school.”

  Her heart stopped beating. The air left her body. Even the journals clutched in her hands seemed light, made entirely of straw.

  “Sit, Fallon Waterford, thief of exams and owner of recalcitrant feet.”

  And the Sacred man waived a hand toward the lone black cushion in the center of the room.

  “Sit?” she asked and clutched the journals tighter. It occurred to her, rather absent-mindedly, that her journals had always been a shield protecting her from the world. Odd thought, but still.

  “Yes, sit,” said the other man, an old lion with a face and hair almost silver with age. “It is dishonourable to stand when your elders are sitting.”

  She dropped to her knees, cast her eyes to the floor, trying to stop her heart from beating out of her chest.

  “I am the Most Honourable Provost, Juan Jing-Carlos,” said the lion. “ And this is Esteemed Guru Estabahn Navheen.”

  She bent low over her knees, wishing she could become very small, wishing she were at home with the pheasants and the jungle.

  There was a sound of papers rustling, of them sliding, of the Guru clearing his throat.

  “I found these in the pile you astutely called ‘Mine,’ but they are ‘Not Mine’.”

  Her eyes flicked up to see. On the table under her nose were her missing sketches – the tree cycles and the weather patterns, the insects and the mushrooms, and finally the Chi’Chen dissections. Spread out on the table like evidence to a crime.

  “So,” the Guru went on, “I can deduce that if they are ‘Not Mine’, then they must be ‘Yours’?”

  She nodded swiftly, looked back at her floor. Lovely pattern in the woodgrain, she thought. Amur Maple with a glossy lacquered finish.

  “And these,” said the Provost. “How did you come upon the answers for these?”

  She glanced up again. He was holding up the puzzle pages, shuffling them in his silver-tipped grip.

  “I’m so sorry, Most Honourable and Esteemed sahidis,” she said. “Really, I’m really sorry. They were stuffed in my journals and when I saw them, I thought…I just...”

  “You thought?” asked the lion.

  “You just?” asked the Sacred man.

  “I just couldn’t resist. I mean,” she threw a hand up. Just a little throw but quickly clutched the journals again. “They’re puzzles! Who can resist a great puzzle? I sure can’t. I’m like a kitten with a marzipan. It’s just too irresistible to leave alone.”

  They exchanged glances.

  “But I can fix it,” she said and leaned forward, gathered her wide sleeve in her fist. “I m
ean, these are just chalks, not paint. You can wipe them off and do them over yourself.”

  She rubbed at the papers with her sleeve, smudging chalk all over paper and table and sleeve.

  “Um, you know, like this? You might not be able to see the marks…too much…”

  The old lion tugged on the paper, gathering the sheets into a neat bundle and removing them from the influence of her sleeve.

  She sat back, dropping her hands into her lap, rebuked.

  “You mean to tell us,” said the Provost. “That you completed these ‘puzzles’ on your own, during the short time that they were in your possession?”

  She nodded.

  “On your own? With no external source or consultations?”

  “They were pretty easy,” she said meekly. “Some of the later ones were tricky. And I could have finished the last one if I’d had more time, but there were these Imperial horses and a handsome lion and my bowl of honeyed fruit. I gave it to the leopard. The honeyed fruit, that is. He looked hungry but then again, I sort of think all soldiers must be hungry. I don’t know why. I’ve never met a soldier before today. Did I say that the lion was handsome?”

  “These puzzles are exams,” said Navheen.

  “Exams?” And she glanced between them.

  “Exams that we give to certain students in their third year. Students we think might have a mind for the Empire.”

  “A mind for the Empire?” she asked and she glanced between them again. “I don’t understand.”

  “Why do you think the School of One Hundred Thoughts was built down the road from Pol’Lhasa?”

  “On the road to the One Hundred Steps,” she breathed. “It’s a profound thought. I was considering it earlier but I don’t know the answer.”

  “To provide our Empress with the best minds in the Kingdom,” said the Provost. “Scholars who serve in her Court.”

  “Scholars,” she repeated.

  “Scholars in the Court of the Empress,” he said. “Intelligence is useful in the running of a Kingdom, as useful as laws or armies.”

  “Scholars,” she repeated again.

  “To study the old books,” said the Guru. “To advise her on Ancient philosophies and war strategies, to decipher secret Chi’Chen codes…”