The Grass King’s Concubine

by Kari Sperring

  “It should give Sujien pause, at the very least.” A smile flickered briefly across his mouth. She could make no sense of it. Well, she would worry over it afterward. For now, she had a knife. She was away from the Courtyard of the Concubine. Liyan seemed unconcerned by either of those things. He nodded, once, then said, “Come, then.”

  She hesitated, hand tight on her new knife. The tower—clepsydra—whatever it was could easily turn into a far straiter prison than the Courtyard of the Concubine. She said, “I’m not…” and stopped.

  He folded his arms across his chest, looking at her. He said, “You come from WorldAbove.”

  “Yes.”

  “There are many engines. Many machines.”

  “I…I suppose so.” She could not see where this was leading.

  “And you don’t fear them.”

  She was less sure about that. The machines in the Brass City consumed men, wore their bodies to rags, snatched them up to be torn apart in their steel teeth. Their breath was poison and choking smoke. If machines were gods, they were cruel ones, rewarding few, devouring many. She said, “They aren’t…they don’t…” And then, “It’s not like that.”

  Liyan’s eyes widened. He asked, “Then what is it like?”

  She did not know where to begin. She did not know what he wanted of her. She said, “I’m not sure I…”

  “Mortal men make these machines to serve them, yes? To spread knowledge?”

  “Well…They make things. The machines, I mean. Things like cloth and iron and…” She did not know. She had watched the men in the factory yards, not the products over which they labored. “People own them—the machines—and they pay other people to use them to make things to sell. It’s more efficient that way.”

  Liyan seemed to have forgotten his intention to show her the clepsydra. He pulled a stool from under a bench and dusted it off with a sleeve. Thrusting it at her, he pushed himself neatly onto the bench top and pulled up his legs. He said, “Sit. Then explain.”

  Jehan would know all this far better than she did. Had he felt this way, when she marched into his life and demanded enlightenment? She said, “I don’t really know that much about it.”

  “A little is more than nothing.”

  “I don’t really understand it myself. I mean, I don’t know how the machines are made or how they work.” She looked at the papers on the bench in front of her. “I suppose they have cogs and things. Some of them work by steam; there are water boilers and…and valves and…” She did not know. It had not occurred to her to find out. It had not seemed important.

  Liyan said, “Tell me what you do know.”

  She knew how to read account books and choose servants. She knew pamphlets and illegal books and the hundred competing theories of their authors. She knew the dreams of Marcellan and the multiple explanations of his priests, followers, and critics. Seated opposite her, Liyan waited. She had the uncomfortable feeling he might do that indefinitely. She sat down on the stool, shook her head. She said, “I don’t have anything to do with machines. I own some, but I don’t make them work.” It was the same problem all over again, the same question of why some had wealth and ease and some had nothing and labored. “I didn’t make them. Someone else did that, I don’t know who.” An engineer who had sold his skills to her father or grandfather in return for patronage and an entrée into high society, perhaps. Her uncle had not encouraged her to ask those sorts of questions. At court, it was not polite to be related to someone like that. “Things like cloth used to be made by hand, by people in their homes, but the machines do it faster. They can make more of it.”

  “So the weavers built the machines to aid their labor?”

  Put like that, it made sense. Why wouldn’t the weavers control their own work? But it had not happened that way. Why? She frowned, “The weavers didn’t work for themselves. They were tenants. They owed rent—goods, money—to their landlords. The landlords built the machines. They’re expensive to build, and I suppose the weavers couldn’t afford them.” Would such machines, built by weavers or any other worker, have belonged to the landlords anyway? She did not know that, either. Some of the pamphlets wrote of tenants as if they were property, pure and simple, with no more rights or freedom than a horse or a field. She went on, “The landlords own the land, the houses. Tenants work for them.”

  “And hold no land.”

  “No.” And there it was. She said, “Some people inherit things—land, money, factories. Most people don’t. I don’t know why. Somehow some families become rich.” She looked at Liyan. “My family did. That’s why I came here. To the steppe, I mean. That’s the first place we had land, on the steppe. And I wanted to know why.” Rice and water and broken records. Hints of witches and Marcellan’s Stone House. Rice paddies and a Stone House on the wall in the Concubine’s rooms. It all fit together, somehow. Almost to herself, she went on, “But the records didn’t say. They didn’t explain. It just happened.” Perhaps that was all there would ever be to learn. “My family—my ancestors—were here, and they made money and bought more land and more and…” Generation building on generation, expanding, marrying into other wealthy families, climbing out from the steppe in small stages to end, marriage by marriage, sale by sale, in Aude herself, back on the steppe. She shook her head, “It’s all about luck, I guess. And money.”

  Liyan said, “Mar…Someone who was here before said it was about knowledge. Mortal men hoard their knowledge, won’t share. Sharing is fairer.”

  “Yes.” She longed for Jehan. He would know how to talk to Liyan, what to say. He understood so much more than she did. He had been right all along: She was crazy, arrogant in her pursuit of her history. The land, the cities, the people who worked in them, all of those supported her and protected her and allowed her to revel in her ignorance. There was a dissonance, somewhere in there. She said, “There are people in the Brass City—where I come from, sort of—who say that, too. Poor people, mostly.” She could not work out how she had come to here from machines. “The rich people don’t like it.” She looked down at her hands, found she was still holding the knife. “I really don’t understand it. I read and read, but there’s no answer. Or there are too many.” She shoved the knife into her sash. Something dropped onto the floor with a soft clack.

  Liyan said, “Questions are better. More useful. Questions open new routes, new options. Answers close them.” He jumped down to the ground. She started, pulled back on the stool. Ignoring her, he stooped and picked up the object that had fallen to the floor, holding it out to her. It was the earring she had found in the drain. He said, “This is an option.”

  She did not understand. She began to put out a hand for it, hesitated. She said, “I found it.”

  “Or it you. But it’s broken. A moment.” He looked down at the earring. “Yes, I have the wire…” Laying it down on a bench, he headed for the racks at the back of the workshop. Aude glanced at the opening. He was distracted. She could slip away into the hall and continue her search for a way out of the palace. She slid off the stool, took a careful step backward.

  Something whirred past her. She froze, looked around. Another whirr, and another. A spray of bees fanned around her, tracing patterns in the air. Had they come to help her? She took another step toward the exit and bees strafed past her, brushing her face with the fine tips of their wings. When she stopped, they returned to a distance of about a foot. She glanced back at Liyan. Then, softly, “What is it? I need to leave.”

  Bees danced around her, barring her way. They wanted her to remain. She could make no sense of it. She needed to escape. She could not decode the message they wove before her. She had believed that they might help her find her way back to the steppe. Her shoulders sagged. Logically, that made no better sense. She had followed her own needs and taken the interpretation that suited her. That was one of the charges leveled at the rich, the property owners, by the more radical of the pamphleteers.

  This was not her place, not her worl
d. It would not play by the rules she knew.

  Liyan came back, a small drum of bronze wire in his hand. He put it onto the bench and picked up the earring. “It also needs to be cleaned.” He turned to her. “Come. I need to measure.”

  She did not want to be closer. The bees drifted toward him. He said, “Don’t mind them, they’re harmless. They’re friendly.” She bit her lip and followed the bees, coming to a halt about three feet from him.

  He held up the earring, studying her. “Move your hair. I need to see your ears.” She pushed it back. He nodded. “Better. Bronze will do, with your skin. Gold might be better still. I must consider that. Tsai didn’t suit it.” He reached toward her, and she flinched. He frowned. “Don’t. I intend no harm.” His fingers closed on her chin, warm and strong. She fought not to struggle, to pull away. The bees circled them, humming. He seemed not to notice. He turned her head to her right with his hand. “Good. The neck is long.” He released her, and she stepped back, breath coming in quick gasps.

  He rummaged across the surface of the bench, pushing papers and tools and metal pieces to either side. “Ah, there.” He picked up a pair of cutters, showed them too her. Aude fought not to put a hand to her throat. No harm. What did that mean, here? He looked at her again, then snipped off a piece of wire. More rummaging, for files and sharkskin and a pot of some yellowish substance. She stood motionless while the bees looped about them both.

  “Liyan-kai?” The voice came from the courtyard. Aude started, reached for the comforting handle of the knife. Liyan did not trouble to look up from his work. “Liyan-kai?” A shadow crossed the light from the entrance. Aude turned. Another of the Cadre stood there. Not Shirai, the silhouette was not broad enough. She would, she realized, have felt safer had it been Shirai. If it was Sujien…The figure said again, “Liyan-kai,” and this time she knew the voice. Qiaqia. That was preferable. Probably. It had to be preferable. Qiaqia came into the workshop and stopped beside her in a rustle of heavy silk. The bees floated away, closer to Liyan.

  That meant something, doubtless, but Aude did not know what. She needed to be careful, to be watchful. She did not need to burn time wondering at the bees. Qiaqia was unveiled and out of uniform, her white skin luminous in the gloom. Her hair hung loose, a thick solid fall almost to her knees, purple-dark against her white garments.

  Like the pictures of mourning women on temple walls. The thought came unbidden. They were old pictures, fossilized by tradition since the first days of the Brass and Silver cities. Save that the skins of those pigment damsels were mahogany and amber. Qiaqia’s sleeves were long, covering her hands. They fell, those sleeves, from a short, wide jacket ending just below the bustline and fastened over a plainly cut dress that swept the floor. The clothes of old-fashioned mourners. Of the dead. Aude caught herself staring, looked down. I died in the Cave City, in the Yellow General’s army. Qiaqia belonged to death—she had said so.

  It had not occurred to Aude before this that the Cadre must have time outside their duties. They were not human. It had not seemed relevant. But if Qiaqia was off duty and Liyan was preoccupied…She began to shuffle, slowly.

  Liyan said, “Stand. I’m not finished.” He had not troubled to notice Qiaqia, who now stood a little before Aude and to his right. He went on, “It must be fitted. Checked.”

  Aude stopped moving, hand tight on her knife. She did not understand this. Neither of them seemed concerned that she was outside the Courtyard of the Concubine. She said, “But shouldn’t I…I mean…” Perhaps, if she pretended a desire to return, a chance to escape might appear, somewhere beyond the hall and all its doors and archways.

  “What are you doing?” Qiaqia asked Liyan.

  “Her earring was broken.” Liyan looked up, and his face was troubled. “I mended it. Was that wrong?”

  “I don’t know.” Stepping closer, Qiaqia peered at the earring. “Perhaps not. You might ask Shirai.”

  “Things are better mended.” Liyan turned back to his work. “They feel better. I feel better. Shirai knows that.”

  “So he does.”

  Aude took another step toward the exit. The route was clear, now that Qiaqia had moved closer to the workbench. Six or seven bees darted toward her, wove tight patterns before her face.

  “Best stay here.” That was Qiaqia. Aude halted. Qiaqia nodded. “I do not think they intend you harm. And they have always liked Liyan.”

  A minute or two more, and Liyan straightened. He stood back from his bench and held up the earring. It glittered, polished to a glow. Now it was clean, Aude could see that the bird held a speck of something green in its beak. He said, “It’s done. Come here.”

  Reluctantly, Aude came to him. He once more took hold of her chin and turned her head. His other hand explored her left ear, gently. The bees wove about them both. Then he slid the earring into its place and stood back. He said, “Yes. That’s good. Perhaps I should make you a mate for it, and the appropriate accompaniments.”

  “Work is good, Liyan-kai,” Qiaqia said.

  “Yes.” His voice was uncertain, now that the task was ended. Aude looked at him. Any sign of weakness in the Cadre could be useful to her. He had turned to face Qiaqia; in profile, she could not read his expression. He said, “It came to her. And she to me. The bees brought her.”

  “So.” Qiaqia nodded. “Shirai will approve, I think.”

  He put his hand on her sleeve. “Mo-Qia…” His voice was low, intimate. Aude looked away.

  Qiaqia said, “I should restore our guest to her lodgings.”

  It was too late. She should have taken a chance earlier, fled while Liyan was mending the earring, before Qiaqia appeared. She might have had a chance to elude one of them. She would never escape from two. She released the knife, tucking it lower into her sash. She said, “I was to be shown the clock.” It would buy her time. And perhaps Qiaqia would leave.

  “It doesn’t work,” Qiaqia said, turning to her.

  “It can be explained, nonetheless.” Liyan said.

  “It needs water. Without water, it makes no sense.”

  “Not so. It’s an idea, Mo-Qia. It can be made clear.”

  The two stood watching each other, Liyan frowning, Qiaqia calm and still, hands tucked into her long sleeves. Aude resumed her slow backward drift. The bees followed her, looping lazily. She moved cautiously, breathing careful and shallow. The Cadre still paid no heed. Five more steps and another five. She glanced over her shoulder. Only a couple of feet, now, to the exit. At the bench, Liyan gestured, voice quick and hard. Aude reached the threshold and turned.

  The golden light made her blink. She screwed her eyes up against it and ran. After the workshop, the stone flags were warm under her feet. Her abused knees complained. Ignoring them, she fled into the hall, heading for the closest archway. The room was dim and still dust puffed around her as she passed, slipping on the tiles. She plowed into the beads curtaining the arch, setting them ringing and bouncing. Beyond was a passageway, lit only by narrow slots set high up in its walls. From somewhere she could smell yeast and mold. A servant’s corridor, perhaps. It was plain, leading away into shadows. Kitchens, Aude told herself, or storerooms. It did not matter, so long as it could take her out of this complex. The bees had abandoned her. They did not, perhaps, like the emptiness. There were no obvious doors or arches to either side. That was less good—it narrowed her options, made her easier to track. She ran on. Every passage had to lead somewhere. There was no sound of any pursuit. It was dusty here, too. Her mouth was dry. Time to worry about that later, when she had put more distance between herself and the Cadre. The passage sloped downward, its floor slippery. She followed it. There was nowhere else to go.

  She hit the first stair and stumbled, one foot finding only air, going out from under her. Hard edges thumped into her flanks, struck limbs, sent her tumbling down the steps. She landed at their base on her right arm and shoulder, breathless and aching. She lay for a moment, breathing heavily, trying to listen. Her own
gasps were too loud in her ears. She pushed herself up to sit, wincing, and put a hand over her mouth. Listened again. No footsteps. No voices. Perhaps the Cadre had not chosen to follow her. She inhaled slowly, climbed to her feet, and froze. No more than five yards in front of her two figures stood watching. They wore long coats made up of overlapping dark plates; their hands rested on the hilts of swords, their faces were veiled. She swallowed. She lifted her chin. It would do her no good to be meek. She said, “I require the exit. Please show me.” The figures stood silent. She said, “Well?” Still no answer. One hand on her sash, over the knife, she moved closer. Their eyes were flat and black and expressionless. She halted in front of them. They were perhaps half a head taller than she was, clad in dull brown and ocher and…

  And dust. Every part of them was coated in it, lamellar and veils, hands and swords and heads. No breath lifted their chests; their eyes did not blink. Not alive at all, not even in the strange fashion of the Cadre. Statues. Aude put out a hand: stone, dry under her fingers. She realized she was holding her breath, released it in a rush.

  Stone guards and empty halls. A clock that did not work. She did not know what that meant, only that it might be useful. The Cadre were worried about something. What was it Qiaqia had said, in the workshop? Perhaps Shirai was right. They too were uncertain, seeking answers. That could be turned to advantage. She straightened her shoulders. She was away from the Courtyard of the Concubine and, so far at least, free from pursuit. The more she explored, the more she would learn, and the more she learned, the better it would serve her. She nodded and passed on along the corridor. A few feet beyond the statues it ended in a doorway, solid and closed. She set a hand to it.

  From behind her, a voice said, “This is not your place, human thing.”

  Sujien.

  18