Dragon and Phoenix

by Joanne Bertin

  Xiane took the letter. “You did well—Captain.”

  The young officer looked up in confusion. “But, Majesty, I’m only a—Oh!” His face split in a huge grin.

  “You did the right thing in bringing this to me, despite the possibility you would be punished. Go back to your barracks and trade your sergeant’s whip in for the grey of a captain’s.”

  The officer knocked his forehead against the floor three times. “Thank you, Phoenix Lord. Thank you!” He stood, backed the required three steps, then turned and strode off with a now jaunty step.

  Yesuin smiled. “That was well done, Xiane.”

  Xiane looked embarassed, but pleased. “That was a brave man who did his duty. He could have been killed for his presumption and he knew it. Some chicken-heart of a superior officer dumped the task on him, no doubt. Now let’s see what we have here.” He broke the seal on the folded sheet and read.

  Xiane’s long face gave away little. But Yesuin saw the tiny widening of his eyes, heard the faint catch of his breath. Then Xiane crumpled the letter in one hand, his face suddenly grim. He stared off into the distance.

  Yesuin blinked. Angry, happy, baffled, hurt—he’d seen Xiane in all those moods. But not once had he seen Xiane look like this. A chill ran down his spine. “What is it? Is Kirano dead?” he dared to ask at last. The Phoenix help Jehanglan if it were so; Yesuin was certain that Kirano was the only one who could convince the emperor of the rightness of the Way.

  At first Xiane seemed not to hear. Then he shook his head like a diver surfacing, and said, “Kirano? No, Kirano is well enough. V’houn says they must travel slowly, but there is nothing amiss with him.”

  Was there the faintest emphasis on “him?” Yesuin held his breath.

  “But V‘Choun sent a fast messenger ahead with other, less welcome news. Yesuin—cousin—I’m sorry, but V’Choun writes that your father is very ill. There’s death in his face, V’houn says.”

  Of all things, this was the last that Yesuin expected. He had not seen his father in years; his last memory was of a hale, hearty, and powerful man who seized the cup of life with both hands and drank deeply of it, then roared joyously for more. Why, he’d seen his father lift the corner of a wagon by himself so that a new wheel could be slipped on the axle! How could such a man be deathly ill?

  His head spun. Suddenly nothing seemed real. As if from a great distance, he heard a voice that sounded like his say, “If my father dies, then my brother becomes temur. As soon as Yemal can call the tribes together, he’ll break the treaty. The treaty that I’m the bond for. And then I will die.”

  How calm the voice sounded! Dazed, Yesuin wondered if he’d somehow fallen into a play; the actor who read his speech did the part well. So very brave …

  Or had he eaten poppy gum somehow, and dreamed now?

  A hand clamped onto his wrist so hard it hurt. But the pain brought Yesuin back from the wilderness of grief he’d wandered into. He stared into Xiane’s eyes, eyes that burned and held his so that he couldn’t look away.

  “It will not happen,” Xiane said. “Do you hear me? It will not happen. You’ve been my friend, Yesuin. No matter what your brother does, it won’t break that friendship.”

  You’ve been my friend.

  Yesuin nearly wept at those words, at the purity of what Xiane had given him all this time.

  No, he wanted to confess, I’ve been your betrayer. He dared not. Not because it might cost him his life, but because it would break Xiane’s heart to know that both he and Shei-Luin had tricked him. Yesuin was weak, yes; but he was not cruel.

  He placed his hand over the one that still gripped his wrist. “Thank you,” he whispered.

  Xiane’s mouth twitched in a wry smile. “It’s the least I can do. Have you any idea how good it’s been to have someone I can talk honestly to? Who understands the things my mother taught me?

  “But you won’t be able to stay here, cousin. You know that. You’d be a target for some fanatic who’d blame you for the breaking of the treaty.”

  Xiane released his wrist and leaned back in his chair. “I will make certain … arrangements against that time. You must be ready to move on a moment’s notice.”

  Yesuin nodded. “I understand. Thank you, Xiane. For everything.”

  “Where will you go?”

  “I dare not go back to my own people. Yemal will kill me, I’m certain of it.” Yesuin rubbed the bridge of his nose as he thought. “Perhaps the Tah’ehsieh. I remember their Seer, Zhantse, coming to visit ours when I was very little. He was a kind man, and once told me that I might visit him for as long as I wanted. I wonder now if somehow he knew that this day would come.”

  Xiane stood; he stared down at their forgotten game. Yesuin rose as well.

  “Well, ‘that day’ isn’t here yet,” the emperor said, his voice rough. “But when it does come, there’ll likely be no time for farewells. So I’ll say them now, cousin.”

  To Yesuin’s surprise, Xiane caught him in a fierce hug. Yesuin returned it, nearly undone by the sudden realization that he would miss this unpredictable, sometimes foolish, often exasperating man.

  “I’ll miss you, Yesuin,” Xiane said as if reading his mind.

  “And I shall miss you, Xiane. May you be happy,” Yesuin replied.

  “And you,” Xiane said, releasing him. “We must go back to the palace. I wish to begin those ‘arrangements’ I spoke of.” He glanced once more at the abandoned game. “I’ve no interest in finishing. Have you?”

  “No,” Yesuin admitted.

  “Thought not.” Xiane led the way from the pavilion. “Besides, I know who would have won.”

  “Oh?” said Yesuin, rising to the cocky certainty ringing in the words.

  “Of course. I would have.”

  Yesuin snorted. “With that defense?”

  “Cousin, you didn’t see what I had planned for you,” Xiane said. He grinned.

  They argued all the way back to the throne room, much to the scandal of the eunuchs and lords who heard them.

  Haoro leaned upon the arm of his attendant as the younger man led him into the hall.

  “You’ve been ill and abed a long time, Holy One,” the acolyte said. “You must go easy at first. Each day, the leech said, you can go a little farther.”

  Haoro nodded and set his teeth. By the end of the short hallway, he was so exhausted, the acolyte half carried him back to his bed.

  He slept then, and when he awoke, he called the acolyte to him. “I would walk again,” he said.

  “But Holy One—” the young man began, frightened.

  Haoro waved him to silence with a curt gesture. “Help me up—now.”

  This time he went three steps more before his strength gave out. Well enough, he thought when he lay on his bed once more; he would rest again, get up, walk three more steps than before, rest, and so on, until he had his full strength back. By the next full moon, he vowed to himself, he would walk unaided to the main temple.

  After a time, he beckoned the acolyte to him. “Again,” he said.

  Thirty-four

  The old priest heard the news in consternation. “The emperor did what?” He shook his head in horror.

  The kneeling messenger, a junior priest from one of the lesser temples, bowed his head. “As soon as the way had been cleared after the earth tremors, he went to the Phoenix Pavilion where the concubine Shei-Luin was recuperating from the birth of their second son. It’s said she nearly died giving birth.”

  Nira Pah-Ko frowned. “That doesn’t matter. He was wrong to have visited the woman during her period of purification. And she was not put to death?”

  “No, Holy One. Xiane Ma Jhi covered her with the hem of his robe. He even gave her Zyuzin the Jewel, of the Songbirds from the Garden of Eternal Spring, for her own.”

  The frown grew deeper. The messenger quailed visibly before it. Plainly the man feared he would be blamed for the bad news he brought. To ease him, Pah-Ko signaled Hodai to bring
the man a cup of tea, likely an honor beyond anything this lowly priest had ever expected.

  The man touched forehead to floor again and again in a frenzy of thanks. He took the cup in trembling hands and waited.

  Pah-Ko nodded approval at the courtesy; lesser priest and stripling youth though he was, this one had manners. The nira accepted a second cup of tea from Hodai and drank.

  The young priest bowed slightly over the cup once again and sipped. His eyes widened in delighted surprise at the taste of a tea fine enough to grace the emperor’s own table.

  Pah-Ko drank in silence and thought. Who would have thought that Xiane would flout custom so! And he the son of such a pious father. It seemed everything the young emperor did was in error. He had been wrong to seek the woman out during her purification, and wrong to have kept her from the proper punishment. Did it matter that she had given the Phoenix throne another heir? She was still impure from the birth. Xiane Ma Jhi had much to answer for. For if the emperor was not righteous, what hope had the empire?

  Pah-Ko shook his head sadly.

  The Way is open. Follow it.

  Yes, it was time to follow that path in truth.

  It was a most auspicious day. First the sun had risen strong and clear, a golden phoenix driving away the wispy morning clouds known as “dragon’s breath” from the sky. Then round-faced Zyuzin, now Murohshei’s “little brother,” saw a paradise bird in the garden. It had seized a jasmine blossom in its beak and flown to the west, the same direction Shei-Luin would journey this day.

  A very auspicious day, praise the Phoenix.

  Her period of confinement and purification was over at last. She had thought the first one unbearable; this one, though it was cut short, had seemed interminable.

  But, she exulted in the private fastness of her heart, she had borne yet another son! None would dare challenge her now as First Concubine. And, if Xiane kept his word, soon-to-be empress.

  Shei-Luin sat in state in the audience hall of the Phoenix Pavilion, awaiting the escort the emperor would send to bring her back to the palace, back to the heart of Jehanglan. Attendants went to and fro, arranging trunks and travel cases of gilded bamboo and camphor wood.

  The scarlet silk of her robes was heavy with embroidery; images of the Great Phoenix and its symbol, the sun, worked in gold bullion covered the outer robe so thickly that it could almost stand without her in it. She ran fingers over the ridges formed by the thick thread and wondered if anyone had managed to supplant her in Xiane’s affections during her absence. She didn’t think so, considering the great risk he’d taken in breaking custom and visiting her here in the Phoenix Pavilion before her time was over, and in calling her back early.

  She frowned at the memory of that visit. Fool—she could have been killed for that. She’d never known such terror as when that long ass’s face of his had peered through her door that cursed morning.

  So it would be all the more annoying if he’d found someone else. The last time she’d returned from her sequestering, she’d had to bribe one of the lesser eunuchs to falsely denounce the pretty twins, brother and sister, who had caught the emperor’s fancy in her absence. Then there was all the trouble to see that the eunuch met with a suitable … accident. Another fool, that one; he should not have tried to blackmail her. Had he been faithful, she would have rewarded him richly.

  She folded her hands in her lap and smiled very slightly. There were always some who thought to take her place—like Jhanun, and the niece he’d sent to Xiane. Shei-Luin remembered the empty face, and knew she’d find no real rival there. That bloodless rabbit hadn’t enough fire to hold Xiane.

  But she herself did. She might be years away from the People of the Horse, and only half of the blood, but she was still Zharmatian in her soul. What she took she held—as she had the emperor’s heart. And she was the only one to give Xiane children, and strong, healthy sons at that.

  Healthy sons. On that thought she had to press her lips together to still the smile that grew there. Soon she would see Yesuin again, and tell him she forgave him. Her heart thrilled at the idea. She couldn’t stay angry with him—especially since she’d never heard that her father had been sent for. Yesuin must have heeded her at last and talked Xiane out of that bit of idiocy.

  Murohshei approached, a cup of tea in his hands. He knelt and offered it to her. “Lady, some refreshment before your litter arrives?” His light eunuch’s voice fluted above the bustle in the hall.

  Shei-Luin took the proffered cup. It was a delicate thing, fine white porcelain so thin it seemed ready to float away, with golden phoenixes sporting around it. A tea cup that only one of the imperial family, or an esteemed favorite, might use. Her mind saw one like it in Yesuin’s tanned hand, remembered the nights he’d come in secret to her chambers.

  Shei-Luin drank. The taste was clean and slightly bitter under the sweetness of jasmine flowers. She looked over the cup’s edge at Murohshei. His eyes smiled at her. It was the same kind of tea she and Yesuin always shared after

  … He would be so surprised when she came to his chamber from the tunnels.

  If only she could bring little Xu with her; but he was already sent with his wet nurse and his brother to the hills to escape the summer fever demons that would rise soon.

  But at least she would be returning to court. True, there would be those old sticks who were sure to be scandalized that Xiane called her back before her time of purification was over, but she would risk their wrath. She thought she knew why Xiane took this gamble.

  Shei-Luin allowed herself the luxury of a tinkling laugh of delight at the thought. Certain of her women paused in their ordering of boxes, turning to look in surprise. The younger ones smiled, thinking, no doubt, that their mistress was as happy as they to return to the palace and the pageantry and excitement of the imperial court.

  If only Tsiaa were here … .

  “Murohshei, do you still burn incense for Tsiaa’s soul each day?”

  Murohshei nodded, serious again. “And a phoenix of yellow rice paper as well, that the Phoenix may know she gave the empire her life.”

  “That is well.” A coldness crept through Shei-Luin’s spirit. Did Xiane know how Tsiaa served the empire, we would pay with our lives—and the empire would be torn apart by the warlords as a lamb is by hungry dogs. I will not allow that. Xiane’s blood is weak. Not so my sons’. The Phoenix Throne shall be theirs and their sons’ after them, a new dynasty strong and vigorous.

  Someday Tsiaa would have better than one eunuch burning incense to her memory on the sly. Shei-Luin would see to it.

  “Lady Shei-Luin!”

  Zyuzin’s sweet, high boy’s voice rang through the audience room. He ran the length of the long room, soft white hands hiking up his robes, his patterned slippers twinkling across the polished floor. “Lady,” he called. “The litter is here and it is the emperor’s best, the one inlaid with gold and ivory and jade!” His moon face beamed with excitement. “And there are many, many soldiers to escort you, and drummers and singers and flute players. There’s even a tiger on a leash!”

  “Thank you, Zyuzin,” Shei-Luin said and smiled a tiny, satisfied smile.

  There would be no inconvenient rivals awaiting her this time.

  The troupe gathered around the fireplace in Lleld and Jekkanadar’s room to hear the news that Lady Mayhem brought them. Outside, the wind whistled around the eaves of the inn. It was, Linden thought as he poured wine for everyone, a maddening sound.

  “I spoke with Captain Okaril again,” Lleld reported. “He’s as frustrated as we are, and said that the instant this damned wind dies down, we’re to get down to the dock as—”

  She broke off as Otter broke into a fit of coughing. When it was over, he said, “Your pardon—some wine must have gone down the wrong way.”

  Linden frowned at him. “I hope that’s all it is; I noticed that one of the serving maids was coughing last night. If you get too sick to travel—”

  The bard waved
a hand. “I’ll be fine, boyo, don’t go fussing over me like a mother hen, now,” he said, holding out his goblet for more wine. “I’ll be on that ship with the rest of you.”

  “You’d best be,” Lleld said, much too sweetly.

  Otter blew her a kiss and drank. “See? The cough’s gone. Go on, Lleld.”

  “Not much more to say. He’ll send his cabin boy, Eustan, for us, and we’re to move our asses like never before, he said.”

  As if to mock her, a particularly powerful gust shrieked around the corner of the inn. They listened glumly as it went on and on.

  “I don’t know about anyone else,” Lleld said, “but I’m beginning to hate that sound.”

  Ah, to be in the palace, the home of all elegance, once more. Glittering courtiers in their fantastical robes and seashell belts, drinking and dancing; poets dedicating subtle verses to their patrons, scribing poems of moonlit trysts and lightning passions; conceits like jewels, such as the Garden of Eternal Spring, the Garden of the Moon, the Hall of Amber. A thousand, thousand things to delight and enchant.

  Shei-Luin stood as her women disrobed her, lifting a hand or holding out her arms as they respectfully asked, but making no move to help them. When she was naked, one led her to a carved bench by the bathing pool; she sat and the woman took the jeweled pins from her hair and began brushing it.

  Shei-Luin watched as the other women prepared her bath. One dribbled scented oil into the gently steaming water and swished it around to disperse it. The delicate bouquet of gardenias filled the air like a dream. No doubt the oil had been distilled by one of the lesser concubines as part of her household duties. Shei-Luin silently rejoiced that, as the mother of the heir, she no longer had any such responsibilities. She’d hated making the ginger soap Xiane favored. All too often the lamb’s fat sent up from the kitchens was rancid—courtesy of a well-placed bribe to the cooks by one of her chief rivals at the time, a rival who knew how sensitive Shei-Luin’s sense of smell was.