The Grass King’s Concubine

by Kari Sperring

  Jehan’s voice. Her breath caught. The bees came closer, solicitous. Her voice would not answer her, stumbling in her surprise and fear and joy. Through stiff lips, she whispered, “It’s all right.” She could not stand. Her limbs were bound by the weight of her robe and her astonishment. Her hands fumbled on the tiles, knotting in her sleeves. Tears threatened. He had come for her; he had found her as he had found her in the Brass City. He would save her now, as he had then. He had come. She swallowed. He cared enough, despite everything she had demanded of him. She was no longer alone, no longer lost; she was whole again.

  Sujien cried out and his cry was the roar of tempests. Wind hammered past her, knocking her once more to the floor. The bees scattered. Two strides brought Sujien once more to her side, and his hands bit into her shoulders, dragging her down the room toward the dais and its burden. It stirred, reached out for her with heavy foul arms. She struggled, clawed at his hands, curled up to impede him. If he did that thing again, that motion that controlled her…

  “No!” Something struck Sujien from behind, knocking him sideways and forcing him to drop Aude. She fell back against the floor, her head ringing. Jehan. He was here; he was really here. She could see him behind Sujien. Light flashed above her, leaping from Sujien’s hands. She rolled aside as a sword blade whistled through it, trailing sparks. Jehan put himself between her and Sujien, sword drawn. She stared at him, square and steady and plain in this filigree palace. She had never seen anyone more beautiful, more precious.

  Jehan said, “You will not harm my wife.”

  “You have no rights here, human man.” Sujien sounded almost amused. She could see him clearly now, a few feet away, standing with his arms hanging loosely by his sides. He was smiling.

  Jehan could have no idea of what he was, of what he could do. Aude was in no position to help or shield him. She could not bear to see him hurt. She said, “Jehan, don’t…”

  Her husband did not turn to look at her. He watched Sujien, ready to move, to strike. She shuffled backward, climbed carefully to her knees. Her stomach clenched, throbbing with a steady dull ache. The two men ignored her, intent on one another. There was no sign of the bees. The air was still heady with the stench of whatever it was that lay across the throne, but it no longer choked her. She took long breaths, trying to calm the thunder in her veins.

  Sujien lifted a hand. Jehan stepped forward, striking down toward it. At the last moment, he twisted aside and thrust toward Sujien’s flank. Sujien jumped backward, reaching for his own blade. It glittered wickedly with its own blue-white light. Jehan brought the tip of his sword up, striking at Sujien’s neck. Sujien hissed and sidestepped. Jehan pressed his advantage, trying to force the other backward before he’d finished drawing. Sujien leaped to his right and completed the draw. For a moment both stood still, studying each other. Sujien smiled. “Not bad at all, for a mortal man.” He brought his sword up in a flourishing salute. “What is it you say? Ah, yes: en garde.”

  Jehan did not waste his breath replying. Before Sujien could assume the guard position, he thrust for the body. Sujien parried. Jehan disengaged and thrust again for his chest. Sujien once again fell back toward the dais. He was still smiling.

  That could not be a good sign. Aude had learned never to trust Sujien’s smile. Jehan could have no idea what he was up against. Her knife was lost to her. She looked around for some other weapon. Piles of garments lay in heaps all around the room; one of them would surely contain something she could use. She had seen no firearms anywhere in the Rice Palace, only swords and knives and axes.

  In the Silver City, no one save the royal guard might bear weapons in the presence of the regent. The guards of the Grass King still stood at their posts, their stone blades at their sides. There was no succor there. She was too dizzy to stand, so she crawled toward the nearest heap. Behind her, swords clashed. She hunted through the tangle of fabric, sending bones bouncing in every direction. Nothing. On to the next heap and still nothing. She peered back over her shoulder. Sujien was three-quarters of the way to the dais. Blood dripped from a long gash on his right forearm and seeped from his shoulder. She could not see Jehan’s face. His back was to her, straight and determined. Where were the other Cadre? She pawed through yet another heap of clothing. More bones, a scroll, a handful of jewelry, and a stylus.

  A stylus. She caught it up and tested it on the point of her finger. Sharp. She would have to get very close to Sujien to use it. She would have to be able to stand. The pain in her gut throbbed. She looked back again in time to see Jehan pull back. Blood ran from a new cut across the back of his sword hand. She had to help him. Perhaps if she threw the stylus…

  She was a poor enough shot with a gun, or so Jehan said. This thing wasn’t weighted for throwing. She was as likely to hit Jehan as Sujien, if she hit either of them at all. She groped through the clothes again, and her fingers closed on a femur. She forced herself upright. A chill gust of wind whistled down the hall from the dais, wafting with it new gobbets of yeasty stench. She coughed, doubling over with renewed pain. Her eyes stung. She could hear Jehan coughing also. She blinked her eyes clear, clutching the bone. Jehan stood with his back to a pillar, sword held in sixte across his body. His shoulders heaved, and she could see sweat beading his brow. Sujien thrust at his flank, forcing Jehan to parry low. Sujien brought his blade up, striking Jehan once again on his wounded hand. Jehan cried out, and his sword wavered in his grasp.

  Aude flung the bone low and as hard as she could. It caught Sujien on the hip, knocking him off balance. Jehan swept his sword up and knocked Sujien’s blade spinning away. Jehan followed through with a cut to the flank. Sujien jumped backward, swearing.

  The smile was gone from his lips. He curled his right hand into a fist, brought it up in a curious circular motion. Blue light trickled between his fingers. Aude screamed.

  A black cloud dropped from the rafters, engulfing Sujien in a thick, angry seethe. Aude gathered up her robe and ran to Jehan, despite the gnawing ache in her gut. He caught her with his free hand, and she collapsed against him. She could smell him, warm, so very familiar. She buried her face in his neck and listened to the quick pulse of his breathing.

  He pushed her away gently, keeping his eyes fixed on Sujien. He said, “We have to leave.”

  “But you’re hurt.” It was not the right thing to say. She could not think of anything better. She was caught in the moment, in the presence of him, his warmth, his scent. She wanted to hide herself in him, to disappear into his solidity.

  “Get behind me.” Jehan gave her a push. Reluctantly, she moved aside. The bees buzzed and hummed, casting thick dark shadows over them both. There was a crackle of electricity, and he shoved her, hard. She went sprawling, Jehan on top of her. She lay flat, stunned and breathless. Thunder roiled and rolled, bouncing and echoing from the walls. A chaos of bees scattered outward, boiling past her. Sujien cried out in sudden pain.

  She could just about see him, beyond the sweep of Jehan’s protecting arm. He had dropped to his knees, scrabbling at his throat. Something—a sinewy dark creature—hung there, and blood bubbled out. Beside him, a naked scrawny woman wielded a book like a weapon.

  The floor heaved. Aude clutched at Jehan. From the door came the voice of the earthquake. “Hold.”

  How to find Marcellan when the scent trail was long cold? The twins dived into alcoves and scrambled up kitchen flues, wriggled through windows and squashed themselves under chests. Everywhere was still and silent, deserted and dusty. They found servants frozen in stone at their work, piles of garments and heaps of salts on the clerks’ stools. Their feet left hieroglyphs across the tiles and the tabletops. The air brought them citrus and soil and the knife edge of yeast but no life apart from their own musk.

  At last, in a corridor close to the Courtyard of the Concubine, Yelena’s nose caught the thick clotted scent of a human. She stopped, whiskers prickling, ears alert, sniffing and tasting. She said, “Here.”

  Julana
joined her, sharp nose twitching. “Human. Not Marcellan.”

  “No. Not new man either. Another.”

  “His mate?”

  The lost woman was not their business. But all the same…The scent led them by looping ways back toward the Cistern Court and the Great Chamber of Audience. They ran openly now, confident at the absence of inhabitants. “But what,” said Yelena, as they rounded a corner into the long Court of Ceremonies, “if the Grass King sees us?”

  Julana skidded to a halt to consider this. “He sent us away. He was angry. Punished us.” She sniffed the air. “Can’t smell anger now.”

  “The Grass King will know where Marcellan is,” Yelena said.

  The twins exchanged glances. “Perhaps,” Yelena ventured at last, “he knows we’re here. Perhaps he forgives us.”

  “Perhaps he’ll let us have Marcellan.”

  They set off again, even faster now, along the Aisle of the Ceremonies and through the Round Gate, across the Small Autumn Garden and over the roof of the Jade Arcade into the Courtyard of the Cistern. Their book lay where they had left it, in the tangle of their garments, under the arcade. A small clump of bees buzzed around it. As the twins approached, the bees flew to meet them, dancing and swirling. One brushed the tip of Yelena’s nose with a wing, making her sneeze. Another brushed along Julana’s cheek, leaving a sweet trace of its dust. Their smell was warmth and summer and sleepy content. When Julana made a playful jump at one, it flew up out of her way, then looped back round to drop a furry caress on her ear. Yelena extended her nose and sniffed carefully at one of them. It hovered before her. She sniffed again and stopped.

  Marcellan.

  The bees swirled backward toward the book, hovering over it, weaving their looping patterns. Their wings whispered, high-pitched soft sounds like the scratch of Marcellan’s pen on his papers. The pattern twisted, shimmered for an instant into the image of birds and back again into randomness.

  The twins came to a halt beside their book, surrounded by this cloud of their man. He caressed them and stroked them, and they stretched and rolled, aimed gentle pats.

  From the hall behind them came a clash of steel. The bees scattered upward, winging their way inside. Julana bounded after them. Yelena hesitated, shivering into her human shape. She bent and gathered up the book, then ran after her sister and the bees.

  “Hold.”

  Jehan did not dare take his eyes from the man who had been attacking him—attacking Aude. He rose carefully to a crouch over his wife’s prone form, trying to position himself so that he could see both. He had dropped his sword when he dived. It lay a few feet away, just out of reach. The floor slipped and shook beneath him. His aggressor swayed, clutching at the ferret twin; she hung on to his throat, raking his hands with her back feet. Her sister belabored him about the sides and shoulders with their book. Flakes of leather rained from it, and loose pages shook free and floated down to the floor. The bees were everywhere, darting here and there, some rushing in to sting, others holding back. A handful—ten, maybe—hovered nearer, brushing against Aude. She lay gasping, one hand clutched to her stomach. If she had been injured…If these creatures had harmed her in some way…The fear choked him. He had found her. He would not lose her again.

  “Hold.” The voice—it was Shirai, whom he so yearned to trust—was calmer now, and the floor stilled. Jehan reached for his sword, found it just out of reach of his arm. A number of the bees had settled upon it. When he leaned out farther, they buzzed at him warningly. He stopped, let his hand fall. His attacker wrenched again at the ferret twin, and she let go. Blood stained her mask and chest, dripped from his attacker’s hands. Jehan tensed. But the man merely sank back upon his heels and sat, chest heaving. The human twin raised the book one more time, then hesitated and lowered it to her side.

  Shirai strode past Jehan and halted partway between him and the fallen aggressor. On the dais, the doughy mound bubbled a little, shifted, leaned toward Shirai. The human twin let out a small squeak. At Jehan’s feet, Aude wriggled and tried to push herself up to sit. Jehan moved back, and she rose, leaning against him. He put an arm around her, felt the shiver that ran through her. She pressed herself to him, face nuzzling into his neck. He bent to drop a kiss on the top of her head.

  He said, “It’s all right now, I’m here.” And then, looking up at the Cadre, “What the hell were you doing to my wife?” His sword was still out of reach, but he had a knife in his boot. With his free hand, he began to reach for it. Bees drifted around him.

  The fallen Cadre—who must be that Sujien Qiaqia had been so anxious to avoid—said indistinctly, “She has to go to the Grass King.” Blood gurgled in his voice. The bees buzzed angrily.

  “We do not know that.” Shirai’s voice was soft, now, yet the edge of earthquake still trailed through it. On the dais, the yeast lump shuddered. Aude reached up and took hold of Jehan’s hand where it rested on her shoulder. He squeezed her fingers.

  Shirai continued, “We have never known that, Jien-kai.”

  “What else can she do? She’s failed to return our water or heal Tsai, whatever freedoms we gave her. So she has to replace Tsai.” Sujien glared toward Aude. “I’d almost convinced her. But something went wrong. She fought me.”

  Aude released Jehan’s hand. Slowly, carefully, she stepped forward, still clutching her stomach. Jehan followed, prepared to steady her should she waver. In a voice that sounded sore, she said, “I didn’t want to, but he made me, somehow…It hurt. It still hurts.”

  Sujien ignored her. He said, “Why wouldn’t it work?”

  Shirai spoke over him. “That’s not how we are made. It can’t be done that way.” The bees parted for him as he crossed to his colleague. The twins watched with round eyes, the ferret now crouching at her sister’s feet.

  “It’s how Qiaqia was made.” Sujien said.

  Qiaqia had not followed Jehan in his headlong flight from the workshop. He had not even thought to notice that until now. He looked around and saw only shadows and bone piles, the dais with its fetid burden. At his side, Aude was calmer, though tears streaked her dusty face.

  Shirai said, “Qiaqia leads the Darkness Banner, not that of water. And even if you had done what you intended, this woman couldn’t have replaced Tsai. She is not of us.” He looked back over his shoulder at Aude. “The palace has claimed no part of her.”

  “She found the cistern and the clock. She found one of Tsai’s earrings. And I…” Sujien fell silent.

  Aude pulled off the scarf that bound her hair, one hand going to an ear. Jehan had never seen the earrings she wore before, one a pretty thing like a frozen bronze wave, the other a great dark pearl. She touched the bronze one and said, “It was in a drain. I thought it might do as a lock pick, but it was too soft. Liyan mended it and gave it to me.”

  Something changed in Sujien’s face. His shoulders dropped. To the floor, he said, “Then I have no more ideas. There’s no solution, unless shedding your blood could help.” He reached into his sleeve.

  Jehan reached again for his knife. Shirai held up a hand. “Wait.” Swallowing, Jehan held still as Sujien withdrew a small knot of something and dropped it to the floor. A tiny twist of hair, dark brown, medium length. Aude’s hair. She made a small sound, like a whimper, and Jehan put his arm about her again. She leaned into him. He said, “You’re safe. They won’t hurt you. I won’t let them hurt you.”

  Shirai said, “That is so.” His face softened for an instant, and he looked at Aude. “She has stood strong against us in your absence. Be proud of her.” Jehan tightened his hold on her. Shirai looked back to Sujien. He said, “Blood is a human solution, Jien-kai. This woman can’t heal us. She is too tightly bound to WorldAbove. And her body holds a new life.” Aude put a hand once more to her stomach, her face wondering. Jehan swallowed. Somehow, in all their travels, neither of them had ever even considered that possibility. He dropped another kiss onto her hair, and she pressed her cheek against him.

  Sujien sa
id. “A human started this. The captive and his books and plans. Those vermin—” and he flung a hand toward the twins—“with their meddling. Liyan and his need to fiddle with things.” He shook his head. “I want it back, Shirai-kai. I want Tsai. I want the Grass King.” His face was drawn and sad. Aude made a soft noise in her throat and started to step toward him. Jehan shook his head at her, held onto her shoulders.

  “Tsai is back,” Shirai said. “Or part of her. That’s what I came to tell you.”

  “What?” Sujien staggered to his feet. “How?”

  “This man brought her,” and Shirai bowed to Jehan. Aude turned toward him, astonished.

  Jehan opened his mouth to deny all knowledge, but Shirai cut him off. “This man, and these two,” and he indicated the twins, “have done what we did not think to do. They looked to the oldest places.”

  Sujien rubbed his hands on this thighs, smearing blood. Then he, too, bowed. “Then I wronged you. Your pardon.” His voice was brusque; he did not meet Jehan’s eyes.

  The human twin shifted from foot to foot, looking from one to the other. Then she said, “Forget Tsai. We want our man.”

  Shirai smiled. “That also can happen.” He turned back to Sujien. “You should not have broken the clock.”

  “It was stealing Tsai. She flowed into it, and it kept her,” Sujien said, and stopped. Then, in another tone, he added, “But I didn’t break it. Just that other thing. The printing press. I don’t know who destroyed the clock.”

  “I did.” And there, at last was Qiaqia, stepping out from the shadows, in the loose white robes of the dead. On the dais, the mound shifted again. A ripple ran through it, and for a moment it held the shadow of a broad, stern face. Qiaqia continued, “Your pardon, Shirai-kai.”

  None of it meant anything to Jehan. He turned to Aude and said, softly, “What did I tell you about wandering off by yourself?”