The Grass King’s Concubine

by Kari Sperring

  It was her only way out. She had to try it. She wound herself back onto the path and looked down at her clothes. A T-shaped dress over soft trousers and a short chemise, all tied at the waist with a wide sash. Not much protection against stones or debris. Her clothes from the steppe were rags. She stripped down, keeping only the trousers and chemise. Bare arms…She hesitated. Wide sleeves would ride up, catch and impede her. She had seen nothing in the closets with tight cuffs or even wrist ties. The floor of the pipe had looked to be in good shape—she could manage. She wrapped the sash around her waist again and looked about her for something she could use as a weapon. The Cadre allowed her no knives, no scissors. When Sujien came to loom over her, she defended herself with lamps and cushions. Those were too large to carry, even assuming that they would be of the least use. Nowhere in the courtyard had she seen a loose or cracked tile whose edges might serve her. She would go unarmed, then, and rely on nails and teeth and such cunning as she possessed. She straightened her shoulders. She had no idea how long it would be before any of the Cadre chose to check on her. Delaying would serve no purpose. She dropped to hands and knees and worked her way to the open grille. She peered down into it. Dust. No water had flowed regularly here for some time. The terra-cotta smelled dry and clean. She slipped her hands into the hole and wriggled forward, dipping her head under the lip, pushing with her toes. Darkness ahead. She paused, halfway in, to allow her eyes to adjust. Another shove and her hips reached the gap. For a moment, she hesitated. What if she got stuck? She had to do this. She had to escape. She pushed again, and her hips slipped through easily. She realized she had been holding her breath and released it in a long sigh. Her arms were already at the arch, up to the elbow. She wriggled, and her legs followed her down. She lay on the floor of the pipe, head level with the arch. Faint light filtered down from somewhere ahead. She began to inch her way forward, hunching her shoulders to pass them through the arch, twisting to make her hips follow. It was easier than she had expected. Beneath her, through the silk of her garments, the clay was cool and smooth. Once through the arch, she was able to raise herself onto her elbows and use them to draw herself onward. Thin light trickled done around her from a new grille above her, throwing leafy shadows. Another courtyard, most like. She could smell oranges. She stopped. Could she lift a grille from down here? She had not thought of that. It would be of no use to her to emerge into another sealed courtyard. This conduit had to emerge somewhere: That should be her concern. She inhaled slowly and moved forward into darkness.

  Pull and heave, heave and pull. Another foot on, and another and another. A gap opened suddenly to her left, and she froze. A breath of stagnant water…another drain, joining this one. Another three feet. A faint hint of light ahead of her and another grille, another tight archway, another wall. She was across the next courtyard, then. She paused again under the grille, breathing air that was perhaps fractionally cleaner. Forward again into dust and darkness, past tributary pipes and grilles, scenting roses and pine and frangipani. She counted arches, marking walls, one, two, five. She reached the next arch. From somewhere above her in this new courtyard came the faint hum of bees at work. Practical Jehan, doubtless, would ascribe that to coincidence. Aude chose to believe otherwise. A bee had led her here, and bees watched over her now. She wriggled and crawled her way onward, comforted.

  Another arch, and this time there was no grille, no hint of amber light and gardens. Ahead of her, the pipe slipped into solid darkness. She swallowed. She was under something else, then, not a garden but what? A building? Water must pass under the rooms—how else did it reach the faucets of the Concubine’s bathroom? At least twice already she had made her way through sections that hinted at that. This one was larger. Some kind of hall, then. It would end. Her elbows and knees burned. The slope was steeper, now, and the side openings more frequent. There was a new tang to the air. Something, somewhere in this darkness, smelled of rust and decay. She made herself move faster. From several side channels came a thick odor of yeast, rich and overripe and cloying, making her gag. She squirmed and pushed on, taking small, shallow breaths. The surface of the pipe felt smoother. Down here under the hall—or temple or crypt or whatever was overhead—there were no shards of old leaves or traces of earth.

  Something shimmered up ahead. She paused, frowning, trying to focus. Another bee? Surely they would not venture down here where there were no blossoms to harvest? A rat, said some nervous corner of her brain. Remember the Brass City. Rats live in gutters and sewers and drains. She shuddered. When there were rats and mice in her townhouse, the servants closed off the affected rooms, brought in cats and traps and terriers. No one expected her to deal with the problem.

  There had been mice and worse in the inns she and Jehan had stayed in on their long journey. She had learned to hold back her shrieks, but her flesh still shrank away. “You wouldn’t last long in most homes,” said Jehan, disapproving. But he had held her hand when the night was full of scrabblings and scratchings, helped her comb through her hair for lice and hunt fleas from her garments. He would go on now, and so would she, because to do otherwise would be to let the Cadre win. She inhaled and moved. A rat would not shimmer. Perhaps she was approaching a cistern or an access point to a well.

  Another shimmer, this one brighter. She blinked and stopped abruptly, eyes streaming. She shut them, saw small spots dancing against her lids. Not a rat. Not a creature of any kind at all. Light. The pipe must have turned without her realizing. She had found an exit. The bee had drawn her to an exit. She opened her eyes slowly and waited to let them readjust. About twenty yards in front of her was an oval of warm amber light, dappled by darker bands. Another grille, no doubt, this one set vertically into a wall. She found she was laughing, quick gasping bubbles of relief shaking her chest.

  She hurried down the last section, almost sliding on the ceramic in her haste. The grille was much the same size as the earlier ones but its bars were finer, set closer together, running side to side as well as up and down. The last foot or two of the pipe in front of it was ramped with debris: twigs and bark strips, broken shreds of parchment, feathers, small bones, strips of old fabric, counters for games, hairpins, sharp-edged potsherds or chips of glass. She poked at it with careful hands, picking out the pieces that might cut or tear and pushing them behind her, parting a way for herself through the heap. She had done enough damage already to her skin. Her fingers closed on something small and hard—another bone, perhaps, or a game piece or the boss of a hair ornament. It was curved, heating up in her palm. She opened her fingers to study it.

  An earring made of tarnished bronze and shaped like a wave or a crescent moon. A smaller curve—a bird, perhaps—took wing from it. The hook that would have held it to an ear was missing. Once, some time before this place turned to silence, someone—a maid, a minor lady—had worn this. Aude closed her hand over it again and tucked it securely into her sash. It might do as a lock pick, if she was careful. She turned her attention to the grille.

  It was well made, this one, and set snugly into the stone surround; at its base, it extended perhaps an inch below the level of the pipe. She pushed at it once, and it stood firm. This was going to be considerably more trouble than the first one. Nevertheless, it would have to be opened from time to time, surely, or else all the rubbish carried in the water would have blocked it long ago. She peered at the edges. Yes, there was the hinge, at the base below the level of the pipe. Which meant that any latch or lock must, logically, be at the top. She wriggled, trying to get an angle by which she could see upward. The grille impeded her; she had to roll onto her back, lying with her hair in the garbage. On the outside of the grille was a bolt, holding it closed. If she could just reach it.…The mesh was too tight for her fingers. She rolled again and fished through the debris. A longish hairpin might do, or a strong piece of wood. The earring would be too short.

  The first twig she found was long enough, but too thin to do more than break. She found and rejected two
more that were too thick to fit through the bars. Her fourth attempt yielded a broken-tipped pin made of some soft gray metal. It slipped easily through the grille, and a little manipulation slid it end up to the bolt. But it would not catch. She squinted upward. If she bent the tip, it would fit around the shaft of the bolthead, and she could drag it down. She tried again, and this time the pin caught. Carefully, slowly, she pulled on the bolt. It resisted, then with a puff of dust came suddenly free. The grille toppled open with a clang, spilling her out into a wide stone drain.

  Her right shoulder hit the surface hard, and she swore. For a moment or two she lay still, gasping. Then she pushed herself onto her knees and looked around. It was another courtyard, but wholly unlike the one in which she had been held. On three of its five sides, it was closed off by plain high walls of dark stone. The fourth wall was occupied by a workshop, fronted with heavy sliding doors, which stood partially open. Beyond them a forge stood cold and deserted, flanked by racks of tools, benches, and a huge dresser. The remains of some contraption rusted to one side of the latter. Behind her, the grille had opened out at the base of a three-foot plinth, itself the foot of a long terrace. The drain sloped away, cut into stone flags, toward a vast…a vast something that occupied the center of the courtyard. The air held a faint tang of oil and metal.

  She rose, knees complaining at this further requirement and moved closer to the object. What was it? Some kind of fountain? The drain led toward it, opening out into a flattish funnel before vanishing through an arch set in the base of the thing. Surely it was too vast. A tower? Like the courtyard, it was five-sided, but where the walls were plain, this thing was ornate. Fluted stone pillars rose up at each corner, branching out into a series of fine arches. Intricately carved screens decorated in gold and green filled each arch. Under the center were closed shutters. Each set of arches was topped by a curving roof, like the eaves of a pagoda. She craned her neck: one, two…five stories in total, and atop them all an openwork dome. The side nearest her was decorated with the familiar wreathes of corn and garlands of grape vines, painted onto the carved wood. She walked around it, slowly. The second side was in shades of blue and sea-green, depicting waves and waterfalls. The one beyond that spoke of fire: scarlet and orange and yellow flames fanning in faded tints. The fourth bore clouds in pale blues and grays. The fifth, facing the workshop, was completely plain: no carvings, no lattices, simply smooth black-stained wood and stone. There were no windows on that side, only a single door set at the top of a flight of steps leading up to the second story. She stepped backward, peering up at the structure at the very top. Under the dome something stood: a nest of rings set at angles to one another.

  She had seen something like that before, at least, in the west gallery of the royal palace in the Silver City. An astrolabe…No, an orrery, used to watch the cycles of the moons, presented to some old regent by the Guild of Merchant Adventurers. She did not know why such a thing would need to stand on top of a tower. She did not know why such a tower was necessary at all. Not to study the moons, surely, not here in this place where they did not shine. She had read of machines to lift water and grind corn, to roll metal and weave cloth, to stamp out clay and power spinning frames. She had seen them at work in the guts of the Brass City. This thing was nothing of that kind, if machine it was at all. And why did the water conduit—the same one that ran, it seemed, under so many courtyards—feed into its base? Was it a device for regulating water flow? There were sluices and locks and even an inclined plane for lifting barges in the docks of the Brass City. If so, where did the water flow out? She couldn’t see an exit pipe. She walked around the tower again, considering. Given where it entered, and assuming it flowed in a straight line, the water should leave the tower at one of its corners. The obvious corner was smooth and blank. Was this perhaps some kind of engine, like the huge steam pumps that were the workhorses of Brass City industry? She could not see what it drove, unless it was the orrery on its roof. She could make no sense of it.

  She sat down on the steps up to the workshop and inspected the state of her elbows. Raw and red. Well, she was out of her prison courtyard, that was something, and this one was far more promising. From this side, she could see that the terrace gave onto a hall with many curtained archways leading out from it. The workshop was likely to hold hammers and knives and wrenches to help her break through locks or defend herself. Best of all, none of the Cadre were here. The drain had dead-ended, but before her were many new possibilities. She hugged her knees and smiled to herself. This was more than a start. Jehan would be proud of her. So would Colonel Lord Saverell.

  She pulled herself upright and turned, contemplating the workshop. Sooner or later, the Cadre would discover she was not where they had stored her. Best to equip herself first before exploring any further.

  Inside the workshop, it was dark and cool, raising goose bumps on her arms. She stood in the opening, waiting once again for her eyes to adjust. Benches stood to either side of her, wide and hefty, their tops scattered with tools of different sizes, papers, and pieces of metal in various stages of work. At least two of them were given over entirely to printers’ frames, their edges buckled. Blocks of type scattered willy-nilly under them, spilling out onto the rest of the floor. Beyond to her left stood a forge, its bed piled with ashes. Vats of some kind flanked it. Against the back wall were wide shelves, stacked higgledy-piggledy with coils of wire, sheets of metal, lumps of ore. Racks held vast tongs and hammers, wrenches and clamps and every kind of metalworking tool, from the mallets used for beating sheets down to tiny implements for engraving. All of it, every part, was coated in a fine layer of dust.

  No one but herself and the four Cadre. She was beginning to think that this place was as deserted as the steppe.

  She went to the nearest bench. Somewhere would be a knife, a sharp chisel, a file. Papers stirred at her movement, fluttering their edges. The topmost one held a diagram, a machine anatomized in ink to its gear chains and drive shafts and cogs. She could not tell what it was. She had not read much about engineering, except as it related to the economics of the Silver and Brass cities. Jehan, perhaps, might know. He had spent far longer than she amid the factories and foundries and dockyards. She flipped through the papers. More cogs and chains and struts. Toward the bottom of the pile were images of people: men and women in long coats and wide trousers holding drums and bells and cymbals in narrow hands, attached at the ankle to long rods. That she had seen before, on the ugly clock that adorned the front of the Central Guild and Counting House in Great Market Square in the Brass City. On the hour, every hour, a parade of soldiers marched beneath the clockface beating gongs or blowing wooden trumpets. In the palace in the Silver City, the regent had a collection of far daintier clocks, adorned with acrobats and dancers and birds that flapped their wings and sang. She looked back at the tower. Could it be a clock? There was no face to show the time. And why the orrery on the top? She shook her head and turned back to the bench.

  “It’s a clepsydra,” said a voice from the shadows at the back of the workshop. Aude started, one hand going to her throat where her locket had once hung. From the darkness in the farthest corner, a shade detached itself and came toward her with a leisurely stride. She stepped backward and banged her hip on one corner of the bench. With her other hand, she groped across its surface for a weapon of some kind. The figure came nearer, forming itself into one of the Cadre. Narrow eyes, braid hanging over one shoulder, a dark brown robe thrown over green tunic and trousers. Liyan, who seldom spoke, only watched her. Her fingers found the handle of something and closed on it. He stopped about eight feet away and asked, “Do you know what a clepsydra is?”

  “No.” Her mouth was dry. She could not see if he was armed. She would never make it back to the water pipe before he caught her. If she fled into the hall…

  “It’s a water clock.” He made no move to come closer. “Well, it’s partly a water clock. Telling time is useful, but I wanted to model the moons.
”

  “What?” Despite herself, Aude was puzzled. “Why?” That, surely, was the job of sea captains and factors in harbors.

  Liyan shrugged. “Because it’s interesting. I like to know.”

  I like to know. She looked at him. His face was calm; his arms hanging relaxed at his sides. He did not look threatening or angry.

  He went on, “I can show you, if you like. Well, I can show you the mechanism. It doesn’t work anymore. It’s broken. And there isn’t enough water. It went away.”

  “Like the steppe,” she said.

  “The steppe.” That seemed to catch him. “Is it dry? I don’t think I looked.”

  “There’s no water anywhere. Just dust and dried-up grass and…” She shied away from the memory of that desiccated dead thing in the Woven House. “No one lives there. No people.”

  “I should ask Sujien. He goes to look. Or Shirai. The land speaks to him.” Perhaps he had not heard her. She began to back toward the exit. He continued, “Drought above and below. And Tsai…” Suddenly he was aware of her again. “Where are you going?”

  “I…” Aude swallowed. “You were going to show me the…the clepsydra.” The word caught on her tongue, tripping her.

  “Yes.” He reached into a sleeve, and she gasped. He paused, looked at her oddly. “I won’t hurt you. I can see no reason to.” He removed his hand from the sleeve and spread it out. He held a pen. “See. Nothing harmful.”

  He stepped forward. Her hand brought up her impromptu weapon. She found herself holding a thin file. He looked at it, then shook his head. “Not effective.” He turned to the bench beside him, moving items, hunting through the heaps of things. Then, “Here.” He was holding out a knife, fat-bladed and squat. “This is better.”

  The Cadre did not even allow her a blunt knife to spread conserves. She said, “But,” and stopped herself. If he willingly offered her a weapon…She took the knife, felt the hilt solid and hard in her hand. “Thank you.”