Jehan would come for her. He was her bravest officer.
The one she had bitten had recovered a little from his outrage. “We have power.”
“It’s still a story.”
There was a long silence. Aude looked at them, one by one, and refused to lower her gaze. Finally, the stocky one said, “We are the Cadre, leaders of the bannermen. My name is Shirai.” He nodded at his companions, each in turn. “Sujien.” That was the bitten one. “Liyan.” The whisperer. “Qiaqia.” The woman.
“Thank you.” She was uncomfortable, still halfway to standing. She pulled her foot back and sat up straight. She considered. Temple doctrine claimed that each domain had its own guards, drawn from its own yet mirroring the pattern of the five. Five troops of bannermen, each with a leader, one for each of the elements: earth, water, fire, air, darkness. “Shouldn’t there be five of you?”
The one named Sujien lunged forward, a noise in his throat like strong wind in loose branches. Aude curled, knees tucking, arms curving over her head against the blow. It did not come. Shirai said, “No.” And then, “Leave, Jien-kai.” There was a silence, then a swish of fabric, a susurration from the bead curtain. When she raised her head, only one of the bannermen remained. He said, “Don’t provoke Sujien. It will not serve you.” He hesitated, then added, “There is water for you, and food, if you wish it. Clean garments. We will leave you to collect yourself.” And then he too turned and left the room.
For long moments she sat motionless, head on her knees, waiting, watching, bringing her breath slowly under control. They had grabbed and manhandled her here. Surely they would not leave her alone, unguarded? There was a trap, somewhere, a trick. She could smell plaster and oranges. The air was warm, gentle on her abused skin. No wind, no clatter and drag of shutters against woven walls, no gritty dust. No scrolls. Cautiously, she lifted her head, pushed her hair back. Take stock. Draw conclusions. What nature of place is this?
It could not be the steppe, not with the temperate, fragrant air. The sunset walls were decorated, at base and top, with a pattern of corn ears and petals and bees. The tiles were turquoise and amber and terra-cotta, small and square, set into waving lines of color. Through the lattices, the light fell dim and golden, making lozenge patterns on the floor. The carpets upon which she sat were woven in scarlet and sea green, dove gray and cobalt and bronze, patterned with birds and fruit and flowers, bordered with a band of knotted script of some unknown kind. She had seen such carpets and designs before, in books, on the wares of the expensive emporia of the Silver City, the work of craftsmen from the west and south. Vernal ware, the merchants called it, or Rice Palace ware, from the mythical residence of the Grass King.
Rice Palace. Bannermen. She had fallen into the myths she had so yearned for as a child, and all without need of Marcellan’s Stone House. Her dancers—for the Cadre, in their long robes, were most surely her dancers—had summoned her at last. Laughter once again welled up inside her, shrill and manic. She bit her lip. She had gone looking for answers and adventure. She should not—could not—complain if they found her instead.
They had been seeking her most of her life, after all. And she—oh, foolish Aude—had never stopped to wonder what they wanted from her, or if it was to her benefit.
She was thirsty and dirty and tired. She would be in better shape to escape if she was fed and clean and comfortable. Rising, she padded barefoot over the tiles and inspected the jug on the dresser. It was filled to the brim with water, pure and clear. It was too heavy for her to lift. Steadying it with both hands, she tilted it carefully and drank from the rim. The water tasted dimly of lemon and mint. Jehan would caution her not to drink too much or too fast. Five mouthfuls. Ten, and she made herself stop.
Jehan.
She had to find a way out of this place, somehow, and get back to him. She had to warn him of this new danger. She had been brought here; that meant there was a route between the two places. And if there was a route, she could locate it, or else make the bannermen reveal it to her. She was, after all, accustomed to being obeyed. And if they would not, then she would find their Grass King and lay her case before him. She straightened her spine. If she remained calm, if she put her case coolly, if she made it clear that she was a person of standing and wealth, that she owed these creatures nothing.
The Grass King isn’t some chieftain in a yurt or a merchant hoping for a sale. Her shoulders dropped. If this was a myth and she was in it, then the customs of the Silver City were likely to hold little sway. She was alone and captive, and she did not know the rules.
If, said Aude to Aude, you are going to think like that, you might as well give up now, curl up on those rugs, and die. You walked down the stairway; you read the pamphlets; you hunted and hunted for your shining place; you married a man from the common army; you ran away from the Silver City. So the shining place isn’t what you hoped. You can run away from it, too.
She did not know how.
Well, said that level voice in her head, then you’d better start finding out about that, hadn’t you?
She drank again, another ten mouthfuls. Then she took a piece of flat bread from the platter that stood beside the jug. Chewing, she stepped back and examined the chest. Latticed sliding doors covered its front. She slipped one aside and peered. Four shelves. The topmost held a flat bronze mirror, a comb, a towel, a bar of soap. The shelf below held clothing, neatly folded. She finished her bread, then lifted out a garment and shook it. A long shift in natural cotton, made to a simple T-shape. Beneath it was a long green tunic and a braided belt decorated with a pattern of feathers. No shoes. She put the shift back, crooked and lumpy now after the disturbance. The two bottom shelves were piled with what looked like bedding: pillows, a sheet, a quilt. She looked down at herself; her chemise was grubby and ripped, her trousers little better. Her outer layers were gone, along with her boots and gloves. She wanted a long bath and a maid to assist her. She would have to make do with what she had. She took the soap and towel from the chest. The jug was light enough for her to lift now; after pouring a little water from it into the bowl, she stripped. Her trousers might just still be wearable. Her shirt tore as she tugged it loose. Her gray inner scarf dropped out of it; it must have worked its way down her back at some point. She fished for her locket and found it gone. She bit her lip. She remembered it tearing from her as she was dragged from the Woven House. Another injury done her by these Cadre. She must not dwell on that now, she must stay calm. She let her clothes drop to the floor, a dull heap on the bright tiles. She washed her face and arms as best she could, dried herself on the cotton towel and pulled on the shift and tunic. The hems dragged on the ground; the sleeves hung over most of her hands. She rolled the latter back, did the best she might with the belt to shorten the length of the former. In the mirror, her hair was a scrim of knots. She winced, dragging the comb through it. She looked like jetsam, a waif washed up on a rich man’s shore. Her Silver City friends would not know her. They would not have known her any time in the last three months. She had forgotten, somehow, that she was so young. She had come to think of herself as a scholar, an antiquary pursuing the remnants of some ancient mystery through archives and ruins.
She had found more than she had bargained for. Helping herself to more bread, she went to the arch. The beads hung still, obscuring her view. When she pushed them aside, they sighed and chattered about her as she passed. Beyond the curtain a shady corridor ran. Her room was at one end; to her right the wall was plastered pale green and blue, embossed with leaves and branches and cut by several curtained openings. The wall to her left was plain green, running for around fifteen feet before giving way to a series of slim blue pillars. Light spilled between them, gray-gold. The tiled floor was warm and uneven under her bare feet. Her new clothes whispered about her legs as she walked. The air was sleepy, heavy with citrus. She passed by one arch, then another. The bead curtains were identical. Beside the fourth pillar, she paused. A small garden spread before her, m
ade up of a series of curving beds each bordered by a marble channel and a pebble path, each tapering toward a central feature, a tall fountain in the shape of a woman, her skin etched with more of that strange script. No water ran from it, and the channels were dry, littered with leaves. The beds were filled with dusty rose bushes, their leaves hanging, blossoms muted to sepia and mauve. The arcade extended along three sides; the fourth, abutting her room, was marked by another wall, painted in the same blue and green and topped with shiny cobalt tiles. Against this stood a line of trees, their intermingled branches heavy with oranges. She was all alone; there were no guards, no signs of life from behind any of the curtains. If this was a prison cell, it was a large one. Or perhaps her captors had no more use for her, having found her ignorant. She did not believe that, not for one instant. If the Cadre had left her alone, it was because they were secure in the faith that she was trapped.
In leaving her, they had granted her the opportunity to explore the trap, learn its dimensions and contents, and test its bounds. Somewhere there must be an exit. She would find it. She would escape. She would find Jehan. She would.
She had finished the second piece of bread. Taking the nearest path to the trees, she stretched up to pluck an orange from an overhanging branch. The rind tore easily under her fingers. The fruit inside was small and dry, more pith than flesh, bitter and hard to chew. After a couple of bites, she gave up. The flat bread was dry, but at least it was palatable. Her captors had provided water and clean clothing and food, which suggested they had some intention of looking after her.
She followed the path along the wall under the trees. Overhead, the sky was dark blue. The pebbles slipped under her bare feet, solid and yet oddly comforting. At the corner, she took the path leading along the curved edge of a flower bed, toward the central fountain. She halted at its edge and stooped. It rose before her, shaped from one smooth block of light green marble, a stone woman rising, drawing herself up toward the heavens, or lifted by a wave. She wore a robe of some kind, sleeveless, folding tightly about her torso. Her face was veiled. Her form shimmered, as if her skin were water and not stone. Her hands were held outward, cupped together; that was where the water would flow when the fountain played. Aude sat on the rim of the basin. The warm air made her drowsy; from somewhere came a faint soporific hum of bees. It would be easy, to give in, to go back to her room, curl up on the carpets and sleep until her captors chose to visit her. She had no such intention. Before they returned, she needed to explore this place, learn its boundaries and prepare herself as best she might. She dipped a hand into the basin, stirring the rose leaves with her fingers. They still retained some suppleness, some hint of moisture lingering within their veins. This place was healthier than the desiccated steppe. She felt her eyelids begin to droop and blinked them open. Move, Aude. Explore. Find the way out.
She rose and took a path at random toward the arcade. Somewhere, there must be an exit from this courtyard. The space beyond the pillars was shadowy. She peered into room after room; they were all but identical to the one to which the bannermen had taken her. Carpets in heaps, some piled with pillows. Chests, each with pitcher and ewer. In one or two rooms, tall mirrors stood against a wall. In others, the chest tops were crowded with cosmetic jars. In one room, a tapestry loom sat silent, its content sagging unfinished. She peered into chests, looked behind mirrors, finding folded robes and scarves, brushes and embroidery hoops, potpourri and perfumed oils. A land of women, this courtyard. She found no weapons. No doors that led anywhere other than back into the courtyard.
The rooms in the arcade opposite that of her cell were different. She parted the curtain and came to a stop. Beads slipped back against her, tapping shoulders and flank. The room stretched away before her, longer and deeper than any of the others. Its walls were washed the green-gray of a saltwater étang and textured with crystal and ceramic and plasterwork. Depicted on the longest wall, a mural of a silver stream wound its way across a landscape of rice fields and fruit trees. Here and there, goats and buffalo browsed. Herons fished in irrigation channels. Human figures in pale robes labored in the paddies or walked tracks between villages. The dwellings echoed the Woven House, sitting on their stilt legs. Above them the sky was rain-cloud heavy. Birds swooped and looped across it in skeins. Aude swayed, realized she had forgotten to breathe, and inhaled. Across the base of the picture marched a line of the foreign lettering. It was the steppe as she had expected it to be, hydrated and fertile and pulsing with life. She began, slowly, to walk along it, following the course of the river with her finger. It ran from left to right, winding through the land toward a hint of lake water on the painted horizon. Smaller streams fed into it, here and there, themselves braided and patterned with dykes and ditches. As the main river narrowed, it led back toward a low rise and a house built of gray stone.
The Stone House. Marcellan had written of a Stone House through which he had traveled to the realm of the Grass King. The scrolls she had found in the Woven House had told of a Stone House somewhere on the plain, ancient and uncanny and inhabited by witches. It was real. She ran her fingertips over its plaster likeness on the wall. She could not be sure which, if any, of the many stilted houses might be the Woven House. If this wall held an answer, she could not see it, not yet. But the two places—the steppe and WorldBelow—were linked in some way. And she could find her way back.
She stepped away from the wall to consider the rest of the room. Carved red wood divans and piles of large silk cushions stood around rugs in the same colors as those in her room. Here and there stood spindly tables holding boxes and lamps and glass cups. A tall archway led into a further room; here, a series of closets held silk robes in blue and green and gray and chests filled with cosmetics and fragrances. In an alcove behind a looped blue curtain was a bath, sunken into the floor, with gold faucets. She hesitated. She should find an exit. Her flesh yearned for the promise of cleanliness held out by that bath. She bit her lip. It had been so long since she had felt really clean. The quick wash in her cell had barely registered. She hesitated. It wouldn’t hurt to check.
Kneeling, she turned one of the faucets, and a trickle of rusty water began. A wrought bronze stand nearby held towels, soaps, unguent oils. She turned the faucet farther, and the trickle became a gush, color clearing as it ran. She tried the second faucet. It coughed at her, spitting rust and the stink of sulfur, before running cloudy and warm. At the far end of the bath, a drain was covered by a ceramic plate, preventing the water from escaping. She sank back onto her heels, watching the bath fill. She could not remember when she had last bathed in hot water. Before the plain, certainly. Not in any of the rough inns in which she and Jehan had stayed for the bulk of their journey. She could feel her muscles loosening just with the anticipation.
Hands laid hold of her shoulders, dragging her backward. She lost her balance, fell sideways, banging her hip on the tiles. She cried out. The hands gripped harder, hauling her into the center of the room and dropping her. She snatched at one of the hands, aiming to scratch, to hurt, anything to free herself. Panic beat within her. She thrashed, kicked out, and hit flesh.
Her captor yelled. It was one of the Cadre, the angry one, the one she had bitten. Sujien. She had not heard him enter over the noise of the water. He shoved her away from him and stood over her. Aude glared back at him. “Why are you doing this?” Her voice shook. She inhaled and sat up.
“You have no rights here, human thing.” His hands were clenched. She watched them, ready to twist before the next blow. “You should not be in these rooms.”
“They weren’t locked.” Her breath was more even now. She tucked her feet under her and rose. He stood no more than half a head taller than her. She said, “And I have a name. Or you may address me as ‘Madame.’”
There was a silence. She held still. It would do her no good at all to lose face in front of this one. As haughtily as she might, she said, “I’m not accustomed to being disturbed by men when I’m bathing.”
He continued to stare at her, stunned. She pressed home her advantage, “And I’m hungry. You are intending to feed me more than just dry bread soon, I trust?”
Beads bounced and chattered. She turned. Another of the Cadre appeared from an arch to a room she had not yet explored. She could not tell which one of them it was. She held the newcomer’s gaze, said, “Am I to expect your comrade to continue to abuse me?”
“I don’t know.” It was the woman, Qiaqia. “You must ask him. Do you intend violence, Jien-kai?”
“She’s outside her bounds,” Sujien said. “She’s a thief and a prisoner. These rooms belong to the Concubine. To Tsai.”
“Tsai is no longer here.” Qiaqia drifted into the room in a whisper of robes.
“This human thing is implicated in that…”
“Shirai believes that we don’t have proof of that.”
“Shirai procrastinates. This human thing…”
“Madame,” interjected Aude. “Not ‘thing.’”
Both of them looked at her. Qiaqia’s gaze was level. Sujien frowned. Aude said, “I don’t know why you’ve brought me here. I don’t know what you want. I don’t understand half of what you’re talking about. I’m tired and I’m filthy and I’m hungry, and I want you to let me go.” She folded her arms. “I want to know what’s going on.”
There was another silence. Then, behind her scarf, Qiaqia began to laugh. Sujien’s frown deepened. “This isn’t funny, Qia-kai.”
“It’s ridiculous. There’s no dealing with humans.” Qiaqia paused. Then, “Not alive, at least.”
The Grass King’s Concubine Page 15
