by S. C. Emmett
So, she had passed Lady Kue’s tests. At least the housekeeper was not jealous of her prince’s esteem, as some might be. Yala found a proverb to match the occasion, and forcing herself to think in Zhaon and find the proper inflection for its ending verb calmed her nerves somewhat. “Every great house is dangerous, Lady Kue.” The urge to kick the table, no matter how innocent and finely carved, was overpowering and useless at once. “I hope to be worthy of your friendship, and to return it tenfold.”
Lady Kue’s dark Shan gaze glittered. She had the deeply folded eyes and generous mouth of that land; how had she arrived here? “Then we understand each other.”
I certainly hope we do. “It seems so. The cotton may go in a storeroom, the dampest one possible.” And there it would hopefully rot. There would be no making dresses from this wedding gift, and if the First Queen affected anger at her “gift” gone unused, Mahara could blame her lady-in-waiting for the lapse. “I shall inform the princess personally, both of the gift and its use.”
In other words, Yala was prepared to take the blame. It was an elegant solution—the First Queen could not be seen to be feuding with a lowly lady-in-waiting, but if she decided she could indeed be seen so, a flagrant and too-ornate apology would be a most satisfying response. It could even be delivered in writing.
“I am most grateful.” Lady Kue bowed, and Yala accepted the gesture with a nod and a slight inclination of her upper body.
All the same, Yala somewhat dreaded carrying this tale through the spare, paneled halls into Mahara’s darkened bedroom. “I believe I shall explore the gardens for a short while this morning, to restore my temper.”
“Take a sunbell.” The housekeeper’s palpable relief was, at least, one pleasant thing amid a sea of irritations. “The sky is unkind today.” It sounded like a proverb, and Yala occupied herself with thinking upon how to place it upon a scroll as she walked away, taking care to keep her expression remote and neutral.
It was better than brooding, but not by much.
Yala wandered, opening and closing the cheerful yellow sunbell as she moved from shade to glare and back again. This Zhaon spring was indeed too warm, without the mountains to bring the five winds from Heaven. At home the nights would still bear frost except in the valleys, and the farmers would be singing as they planted upon terraces or the rich valley floors. The melt would be well under way, cistern and reservoir filling, terraces bearing traceries of green as frost-hardy weeds resurrected from black earth recently iron-hard.
A colonnade of white stone upon one side and a stone wall pierced with occasional arches upon the other invited lingering. Upon the colonnade side, a yellow-and-blue garden drowsed, bees bumbling and a yellow jewelwing cavorting over flower, leaf, and other insects. Farther away, a small pond scaled with green pads held itself still, brilliant dragonwings27 zipping and darting. Yala halted just beside one of the arches, her sunbell closed and lowered, and watched the dance. It was worthy of a poem, and she shuffled through quite a few before deciding Soguen Muor, the Mad Monk, was most appropriate. He had wandered far from Faejo-that-was-now-Shan, unable to return, and found himself among thieves and bandits who, enchanted by his songs, often fed and sheltered him.
Later, she would often wonder what would have happened had she found the correct poem a moment sooner, for her mouth opened and she inhaled to recite a passage.
Before she could, another voice intruded.
“You are worthless.” The last word was a tongue-throttled hiss, and Yala froze. The woman’s voice was familiar, soft mushy Zhaon with a slight, affected lisp. Many in the palace spoke that way, as if sibilants were ill-bred.
A man replied, each Zhaon word polished-sharp and the inflection chillingly respectful. “So you keep telling me, Mother.”
Yala shrank against the wall. Grey stone, chill-damp despite the sun filtering through the wooden lattice-roof overgrown with jaelo vines. When they flowered, a canopy of scented stars would make the air heady, almost too thick to breathe. It was too early in the season for them to hold such a profusion of swelling buds; she tried to think whether retracing her steps was wise or folly. If she could hear them, they would certainly hear her, no matter how much care she took.
The dreadfully familiar female voice spoke again. “You are to return to Shan, and take care of that—”
He did not give her the opportunity to say what he should attend to past Zhaon’s southwestron border. “I do not intend to return. At least, not yet.”
“You dare?” She did not quite shriek like a tradeswoman shaking her fist from a stall, but her tone was not well bred at all. Yala found her eyelids dropping and her head tilting, the very picture of an eavesdropper, and hot shame mixed with cold almost-fear. It could not be. The woman could not be who Yala thought it was.
“What else would a worthless child dare, given the chance?” A soft, mocking little laugh finished the sentence. “You bore me, Mother dear.”
A thin, stinging sound—a slap. Yala shrank further into the vines, her lungs burning. She let out her breath, softly, inhaled just as silently. It was the First Queen, of that she was sure. Who else? Prince Kurin? No, it did not sound like him; this voice was slightly deeper, with an accent almost like Lady Kue’s soft Shan drawl. Yala’s fingers wrapped tightly about the sunbell’s stem, thin resilient babu28 threatening to creak or snap if she clutched too hard.
“I regret giving birth to you,” Queen Gamwone said, soft and bitter as khep poison. So it was not Kurin; the palace rumors held him to be her favorite. There was another son, Yala was certain, but at the moment she could not think of his name.
“You’ve already said that. Several times.”
Silk, moving low-heavy and sweet. Skirts, of course. A woman’s footsteps, quick and mincing, passing behind Yala—and, thankfully, behind the wall as well.
Yala’s free hand touched cold stone, her knees weakening, but the queen did not enter the covered passageway. Tension drained, and she closed her eyes fully. To be caught would be embarrassing, to say the least. Had the man left? She could not tell through the pounding in her ears.
Finally, she opened her eyes again to examine her sunbell. How long should she wait before moving?
She was not given the chance. A hand closed around her other wrist, fingers digging in, and he almost yanked her off her feet.
“Ah, that’s what I smelled.” The man, in expensive black cloth, his topknot uncaged, twisted her wrist. A soldier’s boots, but of high quality, and a sharp oval face, his eyes narrowed even further than their folds dictated. “A Khir spy.”
For a moment, Yala’s voice failed her. She could only gape. To draw her yue would necessitate dropping her sunbell, but her fingers would not work. Her heart leapt into her head and threatened to explode at the same moment.
Perhaps he did not mean to sneer, but the vertical scar bisecting the left half of his mouth made it seem so. Another long-healed scar across his left cheek vanished into his hair, altering the pattern of red-black strands. A third, thicker than the other two but just as well healed, clutched at his throat. Arrogance and a dull banked fury fought for primacy in his expression, both claiming equal shares.
Thankfully, her wits recovered quickly. Yala tugged against his hold, her arm stiff between them like a rope for playing heave-the-plow. “Let go.” Her sunbell slid in her sweating palm.
Unarmed, his hand still bore calluses speaking of soldier’s practice. His tunic buttoned far to the right, a Shan cut like Lady Kue’s; that faint trace of an accent in his Zhaon was like hers as well. It could only be the First Queen’s second son, the one sent to Shan as hostage, and he did not seem overly concerned with manners. “Do you know the penalty for spying in the Palace?” The left side of his mouth, bearing the scar, twitched upward. “Hot lead run into both ears and eyes. After, of course, the rack.”
“I am no spy.” Yala twisted her wrist toward his thumb with a decided motion, breaking free. “I came for a walk in the pleasure-gardens, no
thing more.” Her sunbell hit the stone flags with a small, shattering sound. “It is only ill-luck that I have happened across you, whoever you are.” There was only one person he could possibly be, but they had not been introduced. Should she address him by his name, it would be confirmation indeed that she had been listening.
Besides, Yala could not quite remember the name. It was on the tip of her tongue, but it needed a few moments before it would jolt loose, time she did not have.
“And who are you?” He surveyed her from top to toe, unhurried.
Would every stranger here demand her name? “I am Lady Komor Yala, companion to Princess Ashan Mahara of Khir.” Her cheeks were afire. She had not been this close to a man since her father’s short, excruciating embrace in Komori’s great hall. “You are a barbarian.”
One corner of his mouth curled up. It was not quite a smile, but bitter amusement lurked in his dark, narrowed eyes. “You would name me thus?”
She retreated a step and cradled her wrist. It did not hurt, but his grasp had not been gentle in the slightest. “In the absence of anything better, yes.” A faint warm breeze entered the passageway, ruffling the green vines, mouthing her skirt. “You have not given your name, barbarian.”
“Such a sharp tongue for a Khir girl. Are not your kind trained to be silent?” He folded his arms, weight balanced just-so, and something in it reminded her of her brother.
The memory was a needle to her pounding heart, so she stepped back another pace, two. The distance helped. “Does your kind treat guests in this manner?”
“You are a court lady, not a guest.” Yes, Bai had stood just like this, especially when he was sharply amused and ready to cause mischief. This man was as tall as her brother, and possibly just as infuriating.
“Both are due some respect, and an introduction.” Yala’s temper, frayed already, mounted in her chest, an almost physical pain sharpened by the consciousness of being, however unwittingly, in the wrong. Eavesdropping, no matter how necessary, was not well-bred at all. Slim bars of sunshine pierced carved stone, speckling both of them. “Even in Zhaon.”
His eyebrows rose, sharply. “Indeed.” He bowed, a graceful movement even if perfunctory. “Then accept a prince’s apology, Lady Komor.”
“Ah, a prince, no less.” There was only one she had not seen, and thankfully, his name danced onto her tongue without further ado. “I have met your brothers, so you would be Third Prince Garan Takshin.”
“I would be, yes.” His face closed with an almost audible snap, his weight shifting to his heels for a brief moment as if she had swung at him with a weapon. “If I cared enough to claim the honor.”
Footsteps echoed behind her, boots ringing upon stone. Yala whirled, her blue skirts whispering as they swayed, and was faced with yet another extremely unpalatable occurrence in a day full of them.
General Zakkar Kai, a dark green tunic moving with vine-tinted dapples of sun and shade, bore down upon them with a measured step. He carried a sword; the prince did not, and Yala was not certain if she should feel comforted by that fact. He halted, bowed a trifle lower than absolutely necessary, and she was forced to return the honor, somewhat stiffly. When she straightened, he did not.
Instead, he bent farther, to scoop up her fallen sunbell. “Lady Komor, what a pleasant surprise. I take it you have met Third Prince Takshin?”
Her cheeks were probably as red as tirifruit. How on earth could she explain this? “We somewhat surprised each other, General Zakkar.”
“The Third Prince has often surprised me, as well.” Zakkar Kai straightened, and his gaze focused past her. “I come from your father the Emperor, Prince Takshin. He requests your presence.”
“Does he.” A slow, disdainful word. Prince Takshin’s hands had dropped to his sides. There were more scars across his knuckles, thin white ones Yala recognized. A short, sharp blade would bite its bearer during practice; this prince had held a knife or two. “Then I suppose I must answer, since he sent you to drag me.”
“A fool’s errand, I know.” General Zakkar offered Yala her sunbell with both hands, decorously enough. “Will you excuse us, Lady Komor? The Emperor does not like to wait.”
At least he had some manners. “I am certain he does not.” Help from an unexpected quarter—that was the Mad Monk as well, a quatrain on being caught in a rainstorm and finding a hidden cave in the Wailing Cliffs near the Hungry Sea. She forced herself to incline her top half to the prince, a stiff and not very mannerly bow. “My apologies, Prince Takshin. I did not mean to startle you.”
“Had you meant to, the morning would have turned out differently indeed.” With that, the Third Prince turned upon his heel and strode away, a black blot upon an otherwise sunny afternoon. The grace of a swordsman, with a slight stiffness in the shoulders, as if in pain.
If his mother treated him thus, perhaps he was. The First Queen seemed to sour everyone she came across. It was a pity, for she was so beautiful. There were beauties that could sicken in every corner of the world, though, from fragrant anjba to the exhalations of a marshy lake.
“He is not known for polished manners.” Zakkar Kai let go of her sunbell’s slender length. “Do not let it trouble you.”
“Thank you, General. I will not.” Yala fought the urge to bow again. He did, though, and very respectfully before setting off after the Third Prince with a stride unhurried but long enough to catch up. The green of his long tunic melded with the shade, and turned him into a retreating forest spirit.
Except those did not carry swords. The wild tengrahu did, but they were clad in sharp black feathers. A pair of spirits in a palace garden, and her an unwilling audience in more ways than one.
Yala sagged, clutching her sunbell and exhaling sharply once they were out of sight. Did the prince suspect what exactly she had heard? Even if he did, there was little proof; she could keep the entire incident stored behind a stopper. She was certain there would be several more occurrences of that type in the near future, and her own shoulders ached. It was time to return to the Crown Prince’s palace and give the news of the First Queen’s gift to Mahara.
Still, as she hurried away, it troubled her. I regret giving birth to you.
What mother could say such a thing?
STITCHERY
Clad in a bright silk working-robe, Second Queen Haesara slid the outer rim of the circular babu frame over the inner, stretching gossamer-fine blue fabric at just the required tautness. Hair-thin needles stood ready, carried step by step by traders from the great bowl of Anwei that collected trade from all over the world, their points pushed firmly into a pom of silk over horsehair to keep corrosion at bay. She considered the fabric for a long moment, her long eyes pond-still.
This Kaeje room, small and dainty, windowless and private, was swathed with tapestry. Fantastical beasts mostly worked stitch after stitch by her own hands hung upon polished wooden racks and softened the walls. The pillows, embroidered by her ladies and maids, were changed every year at the great lunar festival, the old ones given to those among the merchant families who had earned her favor. This early in the year every pillow was plump, and every color vibrant. A thin-walled, glowing white cup of cooling fan-yehan tea sat upon a small cow-carved table at her right.
Her second son, his elbow braced upon a fat bolster covered in swirling peacocks, rubbed at his horn thumb-ring. For once, he looked ill at ease, his topknot caged in carved bone painted with red lacquer. Finally, he spoke. “I hate him. I always have. You know as much.”
“He is your brother.” The queen’s face did not change. One corner of her mouth perhaps tightened slightly, that was all. Her ear-drops, feather-flutters with tiny rubies, dripped to her shoulders, and her crimson dress whispered as she reached for a basket of thread. Her sewing-robes were always red, so the luck and vitality would pass through her needle and into the creatures she created, piercing by tiny piercing. “Your eldest brother.”
“So they say.” Sensheo’s nose wrinkled. He had never li
ked being caught out, and sulked at even the gentlest of scolding. “And Makar is a coward.”
“You owe the Crown Prince your obedience.” Makar had already visited that morning, and brought unwelcome news. The Second Queen took a firmer hold upon her temper than ever, and kept her tone soft, reasonable. “And Makar is your elder too, the son of Zhaon’s Emperor just as you are.”
“So you say.”
Queen Haesara’s steady motion, searching through the basket, paused. Then she held up two rolls of blue thread, comparing them critically. “Will you treat your mother in this manner?” Her throat pinkened slightly, or perhaps it was a reflection of her dress. “You have always been my favorite sewing companion. Must that change?”
He subsided, pouting as prettily as the boy he had just recently been, but only for a moment. “Why do you let them—all of them—insult us?”
“We have our place beneath the sun.” She selected another roll, this time of gold. “It is no insult to stay within its warmth.” Very soon, now, she would have to tell him she knew, and that if Makar knew, the High General of Zhaon could only be a step or two behind.
“Mother—”
She laid all thread aside, folded her hands in her lap, and regarded him. “You are ambitious, Sensheo. Despite my best efforts, I might add. Can you not simply take your seat?”
“Why must I? I am a prince!”
“Do you think any of your schemes, even if they bear fruit, will save you from your father’s wrath?” Heat mounted her throat, touched her zhu-powdered cheeks. “You think you are cunning, Sensheo. You are a child, and Makar has saved you more than once from folly. Including this latest attempt upon that parvenu.”
Sensheo stilled. The small, furtive gleam in his eyes spoke volumes. Not that she had doubted her eldest son at all, especially when he brought ill news.
