The Hand of the Sun King

by J. T. Greathouse

  “We are all the tools of others, aren’t we? He served your purpose, as you served his, and I served you both in different ways.”

  “Get out.” Her voice was cold, her eyes like disks of iron.

  “You would give up your only son?” I said. “I suppose that I am more a liability than an asset, now.”

  “What did she name you? Foolish Cur?” She stood. Her hands and shoulders quivered with her rage as she held it close, unwilling to raise her voice to match mine. “You are her creature now. Leave, before I am forced to send a runner for the magistrate’s guards.”

  I faced her hard eyes, and all the fury and indignation fell out of me and left me hollow. This was not what I had wanted.

  “Mother--” I switched to Sienese.

  “What? Will you castigate me? Blame me for seeking safety, for setting you on a gilded path, the brightest possible in these hard days? Your accusations are darts that sink deep into my heart, but it is accustomed to wounds. Now go. Fight your stupid war. Become the tool of that dried up old woman, kept alive by her hate and rage, I am sure. When I am asked where my son is and how he serves the Empire, I will say that he is dead.”

  I swallowed bile and felt an echo of the primal terror a child feels when it believes that its mother has abandoned it, never to return. I was astonished to find how much she mattered to me, this woman, whose truths and hopes and fears I had come to understand even as I lost her.

  “I’m sorry, mother,” I said. “Perhaps I should not have come to see you--”

  “No,” she said firmly. She stared at me for a long moment, then slumped back into her chair, as though the heat of her fury had been holding her up. “You have no place here, nor anywhere else in the Empire. It would have been better for you to flee far into the west, never to return.” She leaned across the table and again cupped my left hand. “But I am glad to have seen my son again, even if for the last time. My heart may break every day at the thought of this path you take, but it is only because I love you.”

  “A mother’s love should not be pain.”

  She smiled, but there was deep sadness in her eyes. “It has always been, for me.”

  I could think of no response, but there was no need. We sat there while the tea cooled, and the afternoon darkened to evening. Orchid returned to let us know that a meal had been prepared, and to ask whether we would like it served now, or later.

  “Now, thank you,” my mother said, and her voice broke the spell that bound us.

  When the serving girl had gone I stood, gathered my mother into a final embrace, and turned to leave.

  “Alder,” she called as I stood at the threshold. She opened a small chest in the center of the table, retrieved three taels of silver, and handed them to me. “Find a doctor to look at that hand. It is a dreadful wound, and you have done a pitiful job of tending it.”

  I promised her that I would, and then crept away from my father’s house, slipping over the wall as I had often done as a child. I left before filling my grumbling stomach--though I filled my pockets with apricots from my father’s favorite tree on my way through the garden. Yet I felt full. We had spoken, and I understood her, though understanding brought with it a pain I had never imagined.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The Journey North

  The moon and stars were out in full by the time I arrived in Ashen Clearing, the town nearest my father’s estate. It had been a market day, and a few townsfolk were still dismantling their stalls. I asked a woman of middle years where I might find a meal and a bed for the night. No bed, she promised, but I might find a bench or a patch of floor in the town common house.

  Her directions led me to a wide, two-storey building in the center of town that abutted a stable. Music drifted from the lamp-lit windows. Nayeni instruments: the two-stringed banjo, the reed flute, the ox-hide drum.

  A table ran the length of the common room’s first floor, and farmers, merchants, and tradespeople alike crowded the benches. A young woman met me with a smile, wiped her hands on her apron, and showed me to a seat at the end of one table beside a weathered old farmer and his wife.

  I showed her one of my silver taels, and her eyes opened wide in shock. It was likely more money than the common house made in a month. She said that the kitchens could slaughter a chicken for me, if I liked. I said there was no need and ordered a bowl of whatever the simplest fare of the evening happened to be.

  The warmth of the room, the openness of its people, all were out of step with the life I had known. Certainly, some were dressed in simple clothes while others wore splashes of silk and velvet, and some ate roast fowl and steamed buns while others had only bowls of rice and vegetables stir-fried with scraps of fat, but the old farmer and his wife welcomed me without question the moment I took my seat despite my rough appearance. Most stunning; men and women ate together. I had seen this in An-Zabat but taken it for a peculiarity of their culture. To find something so alien to my childhood--to my entire Sienese existence--only a few hours walk from my father’s estate was baffling.

  I offered the farmer and his wife apricots, and they gave me a bun stuffed with cabbage and pork in exchange. They asked where I had come from, and I dissembled.

  The old farmer put up a hand to stop me mid-sentence, not fooled for a moment by the explanation I had improvised for my strange, travel-worn garb.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m not one to pry into the goings-on of the witch-carved.”

  And I saw, to my further astonishment, a naming-scar on his palm. But of course, my grandmother had not begun with the intention of teaching me magic. That had come later, only after she felt she had no choice.

  * * *

  Before leaving Ashen Clearing, I bought a pair of hardy workman’s clothes, then fashioned my kaftan into a rough satchel. As the spring gave way to summer, I moved north, from common house to common house, enjoying the company of Nayen’s folk and, on quieter nights, reading the texts of Nayeni myth and legend I had taken from the temple of the flame.

  Inspired by those stories, I began to compose a narrative of my own. An account to make my grandmother and uncle understand the winding path my life had taken. I began with An-Zabat, refining the year I had spent there to capture the meaning of the experience in a series of vignettes. As I travelled, the narrative grew. It stretched backward to my childhood, then forward again through Iron Town, then into the present moment. Soon I had a book of my own, carved in slats of bamboo that I harvested from the side of the road, bound with strips torn from my kaftan.

  At each village, I kept an ear open for rumors of the rebellion. It still survived, divided into at least two bands. One, led by Frothing Wolf, had lain dormant for years. The other--which styled itself the Army of the Fox--was building strength, so the rumors went, in a place called Grayfrost Keep, nestled high in the mountains, not to be found on any map. A name that recalled to me a memory out of early childhood, when my mother chased her brother from our gate.

  At the height of summer, I reached the village of River Oak. As I approached the common house in late afternoon, I saw Sienese soldiers lounging about near the stables, keeping watch over their officer’s mounts. My first instinct was to press on to the next village. But would these men recognize me as the fugitive Hand Alder, wearing two months’ growth of beard and commoner’s clothes? More suspicious, I would think, to move on without any guarantee of reaching the next village before dark. I bobbed my head in deference--one of the soldiers responded with a dismissive grunt--and ducked into the common room.

  Two-dozen soldiers lounged within, talking amongst themselves, or jeering the singers and servants, their affect more hostile than jovial. Other than a group of local girls who sang a Nayeni folk song accompanied by a pipe and drum, every woman in the room was a servant of some kind, carrying trays to and from the tables or refilling cups with tea and wine. An off-putting sight, after my prior experiences with Nayeni women. It was impossible to imagine my grandmother, to say nothin
g of Frothing Wolf or Burning Dog, accepting such subjugation. Where Sienese soldiers went, it seemed, Sien's notions of gender followed, enforced in all likelihood by the sword. The few Nayeni men who sat near the door drank only tea, and quietly, without so much as a murmur.

  I stopped at the threshold, stunned by the sight of a bow-legged, wispy-bearded doctor who went among the soldiers, checking blisters and taking pulses. Doctor Sho seemed plucked from my childhood, unmarked by the years that had passed.

  I took a seat with the other Nayeni men and watched Doctor Sho go about his work. He diagnosed each patient with perfunctory speed, filled paper packets with herbs from his battered chest of drawers--which had aged far more than he--and pocketed the few coins offered in payment. When he finished with the last, I expected him to sit with them. He, too, was Sienese. But he hefted his chest and made for an unoccupied stretch at the end of the table. One of the hostesses brought him a bowl of pork and rice. He ate without looking up from his meal.

  I moved to sit across from him. He only glanced at me with cold hostility, then again with uncertainty.

  “What do you want?” he said, recognition playing at the edges of his eyes.

  I showed him my left hand. “I’ve an injury. I promised my mother that I would have a doctor look at it.”

  He ate another mouthful and, chewing, studied my palm. “You’ll have to pay.”

  While he spoke, I unwrapped my bandage, and as the linen fell away his eyes widened. The vague recognition in them became a piercing certainty.

  “You!” he gasped. “What by the pissing sages are you doing here? And looking like that?”

  “Travelling,” I said. “How are you still alive?”

  “I’m a doctor,” he said, as though that were all the explanation I needed. “Weren’t you Hand of the Emperor? Don’t be flattered. I have a good memory for idiot patients and I pride myself on keeping up with the Empire’s goings-on.” He again looked at my wounded palm. “Though I must say, you stand out more than most idiots.”

  “It’s a long story,” I said. “One vital to the Empire’s goings-on, and one that not many in this part of the world have heard.”

  “I gather it’s not a safe one to be telling within hearing of that lot,” he said, with a furtive glance at the soldiers. “Which way are you headed?”

  “North,” I said.

  Doctor Sho nodded, dipping a few whiskers in his bowl. He leaned closer and whispered; “To the rebels, then?”

  “Maybe,” I said, and nodded toward my injured hand.

  He grumbled, but shifted to my side of the table and began to examine the wound more closely. “Just so happens I’m headed north too. There’s a village called Burrow where I wait out the typhoons. I’ll treat this, and you can tell me your story on the way.”

  Doctor Sho wrapped my wound in a poultice that stank like a chicken coup and made the scab itch and burn. I asked after the purpose of the medicine, which made him cackle and jab me in the ribs. When I asked again, he ordered another bowl of rice.

  * * *

  While we travelled, I shared the narrative of my life with Doctor Sho, whose obvious distaste for the Sienese soldiers coupled with his other eccentricities made me trust him despite hardly knowing him. He asked no questions and, though he had asked to hear it, showed little interest in my story. My description of Oriole’s death--an old wound that still ached when I spoke of it--did not prompt so much as a blink.

  Only when I told of the last time Okara visited my dreams and his instruction to seek out the so-called woman of the bones did he react. A burst of laughter escaped him, which he quickly suppressed.

  “Do you know of her?” I said.

  “Enough to know not to meddle with her, or with gods,” he said. “But you’ve already pissed in the cistern, haven’t you?”

  “How do you know so much of magic?” I said. “I’ve never seen you use it, and your hands are unmarked--though those wrinkles might hide anything.”

  “Yes, mock the old man,” he said. “I know of all the ailments that might afflict my patients. Magic included. I’ve treated Hands of the Emperor other than you, I’ll have you know.”

  “And yet you shy away from soldiers.”

  Doctor Sho shrugged. “We didn’t offer to exchange stories, Foolish Cur. I fix your hand, you add to the library gathering dust between my ears. That was the deal. Now tell me this.” His tone became suddenly serious. “Why in all the frigid hells do you want to join the rebellion?”

  His question put me on my heels. “The Empire betrayed me. They tore apart my mother’s family, buried Sor Cala, and destroyed An-Zabat.”

  “They also gave you a life of luxury, something you’ll not find among the rebels,” Doctor Sho said. “Who, as I recall, murdered your closest friend.”

  “Frothing Wolf and her daughters did,” I said, troubled to hear my own doubts in his mouth. “My grandmother and uncle had nothing to do with that.”

  “I’m a doctor, and therefore accustomed to giving advice that isn’t wanted and won’t be heeded,” he said. “You should chart your own road, boy. Do as I do. Stay out of all the mess.”

  “I’ve the sense that it will find me, even if I try to run,” I said.

  Doctor Sho harrumphed and said no more about it.

  * * *

  It was the first sunny day we had seen in a week, now that the storms of early summer had begun washing across Nayen. Warm, but without the mugginess of rain. Songbirds flitted in the thick broad-leaf canopy overhead. We were in the foothills below the mountainous country of Nayen’s far north, where Oriole had died and where I would find the woman of the bones.

  We heard the rumble of carts and the echo of shouted Sienese, too distorted to make out clearly but with a commanding tone. Doctor Sho moved to the side of the road and unslung his medicine chest, as he often did while we waited for the Sienese patrols to pass--a more frequent occurrence the further north we journeyed. I moved to stand beside him and was careful to hide the palm of my left hand against my leg. Soon, twenty-odd soldiers emerged from around the bend. A few near the back of the column seemed abashed, like scolded children. They patted their swords and scowled when they caught me watching them.

  “What’re you staring at?” one of them said.

  “Leave off, Cutter,” said his companion. “Captain’ll tan us if you kill a couple locals too.”

  “Bad luck for that last village we passed,” Doctor Sho said, when the patrol was out of earshot. “Those bastards will need a place to stay through the typhoons. We’ll have the first one any day now.”

  I looked at the blue, cloudless sky. “Really?”

  Doctor Sho grunted. “Calm before the storm. For a witch you’re terrible at reading the weather.”

  “I spent most of my life indoors,” I said, and followed him back onto the road.

  As we rounded the bend, we saw blood on the cobbles. Bright red, standing out against the green moss and gray stone. A dog lay on the side of the road. One side of its face was matted with blood and a deep gash had split its eye.

  “Bastards,” Doctor Sho said, and spat on the ground. He put his hand in front of the dog’s nose. “Still breathing, but not much. Quickly, help me with this, or do you want the poor creature to die?”

  The dog whined as I lifted its head. Doctor Sho wiped away the blood, revealing the pattern left by the wounds. Long, thin cuts that crossed the dog's snout, one splitting its right eye. Scars I recognized, though I had seen them only in stone and in dreams, never carved in living flesh.

  “What are you, squeamish?” Doctor Sho said, rummaging through drawer after drawer. “Hold its mouth open.”

  I carefully pried the dog’s jaws apart. Doctor Sho pressed a ball of herbs and suet on its tongue, then massaged its throat until it swallowed. He bade me cradle the poor animal while he bandaged its wounds.

  “A one-eyed wild dog faces a hard life,” I said as he tied off the bandage.

  Doctor Sho stroked the d
og’s back. “We’ll take him with us. There was a sedative in the medicine. You’ll have to carry him.”

  For all his gruff demeanor and miserly affect, it was this kindness of soul which must have led Doctor Sho into his trade. I wondered at what this said about the Empire, that those whose role was to nurture and care--tutors and doctors--were such transient members of its society, travelling from student to student or patient to patient.

  We waited on the road until the dog fell asleep. It was heavier than I had expected, and would slow us, but Doctor Sho said that we were close to Burrow now and would still arrive before all the stars were out and the common house was closed for the night.

  * * *

  By early afternoon, the clear sky had filled with clouds. A wind brought the sound of thunder from the east and the rain began, gently stirring the canopy and undergrowth. As the road became muddy and the wind whipped at our clothes, I saw flashes of Oriole’s death in every lightning strike.

  The road crested a hill, then plunged into a valley, where the lights of distant oil lamps shone like jewels. As we descended into the shadow of mountains to the east and north and hills to the south and west, the storm seemed to lessen even as I knew it was gaining strength.

  “A good place for typhoon season!” I shouted to Doctor Sho. “But why not spend the season in the south?”

  “Shut up!” he yelled back.

  The dog whimpered in my arms, startled by the thunder and lightning. I made comforting sounds and stroked its head.

  As we approached Burrow, the palisade wall and the lone guard tower struck a familiar silhouette--too like Iron Town--and in the heavy rain I could see little of the surrounding landscape. My heart raced, and my vision narrowed, and deep breaths did little to calm me. The dog must have sensed my anxiety. It whimpered again and stuck its tongue out between its bandages to lick my hand.

  “It’s alright,” I said, as though to comfort the dog. “We’re close to shelter.”

  Shouts of recognition sounded from the gatehouse as we approached. The decorations on Doctor Sho’s chest of drawers were recognizable even through the veil of mist and rain. The gate was opened, and one of the townsfolk on guard duty shepherded us to the common house--thankful, I think, for the chance to get out of the rain for a moment. Along the way he told Doctor Sho the local gossip. A few children and old folk were down with a summer fever, and a carpenter had broken his leg falling off a roof. Oh, and did we meet that band of soldiers on the road? Nasty lot. Half the hostesses in the common room wouldn’t go near them, and with good reason. Lucky they moved on before the storm hit, or Burrow’d be stuck with them all through typhoon season.