by S. C. Emmett
Court Lady Gonwa accepted the compliment with a slight, gracious bow. Yala studied the other princess—Sabwone, the First Concubine’s daughter. Straight-nosed and gem-eyed in heavy, rich dark silk patterned with subtle geometrics, she was visibly conscious of her greater age and supposedly greater seriousness. She fanned herself, a trifle ostentatiously, and leaned slightly aside to whisper to Lady Kanhar, an acknowledged beauty in viridian cotton trimmed with only the slimmest band of black silk as befitted her station.
Court ladies gathered in strictly defined ranks along the sides of the North Pavilion. When the weather was fine, the female half of Court life gathered in this wide wooden porch nestled in the angle between the wall of the Emperor’s quarters and the jutting of the Second Queen’s apartments. The effect was supposed to be one of harmony, women drinking tea or embroidering, feeding small pets or reading, sometimes aloud, from approved scrolls. Eunuchs hurrying by upon court business often paused; courtiers also took the time to stop and glance, no doubt appreciating the picture. In reality, the jostling for position was eternal, and those who affected to read were more than likely planning a cutting remark. Gossip flared from one end of the pavilion to the other, and Yala already had some idea of its main sources. Anh was invaluable, chattering on while dressing her mistress, but of course that was a double-edged sword.
Yala had toyed with the idea of dropping an item or two into Anh’s well, to see if the ripples spread outside the Jonwa walls. Such an operation required subtlety, and she had not quite decided which stones to toss. Today would no doubt give her some ideas.
There was Lady Huan, whose daughter—a thin, tall, wan girl with a fine mouth—had a rich dowry. Lady Huan was rumored to have her bowl set for Prince Makar, but her daughter was held to be averse to the notion despite the advantages of such a match. Lady Jae the Elder was a great favorite with the First Queen, but not so great among the ladies, and her small coterie did a great deal of laughing behind their sleeves as they surveyed the rest of the Pavilion. Lady Jae the Younger, a cousin from the provinces, had attached herself to Lady Gonwa’s faction, nominally favorites of Concubine Luswone. Queen Haesara rarely appeared in the Pavilion, but when she did, it was the group around Lady Aoan Mau who received her patronage, with their embroidery and habit of singing unaccompanied. They dyed their fingertips with suma as the Second Queen did, and took many opportunities to show their graceful wrists and long sienna nails. Some even wore small glittering shields over the nails of their smallest left fingers, flaunting the delicacy of court life and pausing just at the edge of the sumptuary laws.
Some few played instruments. The sathron was held in high regard in Zhaon, and one or two ladies plucked desultorily at theirs while they eyed the newcomer and her attendant.
“I am told Khir ladies ride well, Crown Princess.” Gamnae raised the back of her fingers to her mouth as her nose wrinkled, suppressing what might have been a sneeze with well-practiced politeness. Every lady present paused, looking away for a fraction of a moment, but the Second Princess was more than a match for a nose-tickle. “And that they play a game upon horses, with sticks?”
“You must mean kaibok.” Mahara brightened visibly to match her under-dress. Amber beads depended from one hairpin, both thrust at the required angle, and her hair was simply but most becomingly dressed. A hot breeze whispered catfoot through the Pavilion, ruffling hair and dresses. It was like standing before an oven. How did the Zhaon ladies bear being wrapped in such material, under this heat? And it was only spring. “It is a good game. The sticks have… oh, a stiffened net.” Her hands shaped the air, and Yala leaned slightly forward, ready to supply any word she might need. “You ride, and seek to take the ball—it is this large, and heavy—from your opponent. Yala and I have played many times.”
“Isn’t it dangerous?” The Second Princess’s eyes widened. She had a soft, blurred beauty; if it sharpened as she grew, she might become a coquette. Thin gilt bangles chimed upon her wrists. She wore enough adornment to double her weight, and Yala wondered at the display. Did her mother not chide her, and was the Emperor not a strict father? Gamnae’s honor was, after all, in her father’s keeping until she married.
“Oh, a little.” Mahara accepted a fine, almost paper-thin cup made of Shan bonefire clay, cupping her right wrist with her left hand and dropping her chin slightly to thank Lady Gonwa. The secret of Shan bonefire was jealously guarded, and perhaps this was Gamnae’s showing-off as well, a gift from her recently returned brother? Or perhaps the tea service was Sabwone’s? “But Yala never falls. She played with her brother, too.” Mahara paused, probably aware that mentioning Bai was not quite polite but also knowing Yala would forgive her.
“A brother?” Gamnae laughed. “They are a trial. Lady Yala, tell me of your brother. I have two.”
Yala gathered herself, deliberately not looking into her blue-clad lap. She would not give any Zhaon the satisfaction of seeing her abashed or grieving. Bai would have looked at this girl with a curled lip and scarcely concealed impatience. Kaibok with him was exhilarating; all her strength and skill stretched to the limit, their horses neck to neck and lathered. “There is not much to tell,” she said, carefully. “But I agree, they are trying.”
“Pulling your hair, poking you with brushes, breaking your toys—Sabwone has a brother too. Sixth Prince Jin is not so bad, though.”
“I disagree.” First Princess Sabwone deigned to take notice of the conversation. Her ear-drops were simple, her hairpin holding a string of three modest golden beads, stamped with good-luck characters. “A younger brother is a pest and an annoyance.” Her pronouncement was delivered gravely, with a single arch of her well-manicured left eyebrow.
“And elders are two generals with one army.” Gamnae looked pleased to have drawn her elder sister out. “Which is yours, Lady Yala?”
“Elder,” Yala managed. “He was firstborn.” The Zhaon even sounded natural, instead of strained.
“Ah, those are the most insufferable! Kurin used to pinch me, when we were children. Takshin would make him stop, but then he was sent to Shan.” Gamnae sobered. “Did yours pinch you?”
“Princess Mahara has brothers, too.” Sabwone’s lips stretched, a cat-satisfied smile. She had finally seen her opening. “Two. And a half, I hear.”
Mahara’s expression did not falter. “My brothers are riding the Great Fields now,” she said, softly. Of course she would not speak of Daoyan in the same breath. It was ill-luck, and the king’s acknowledgment did not mean her half-brother had been presented to her before she left the Great Keep, or that she could speak upon him with more than embarrassment.
“Crown Princess.” Lady Gonwa visibly decided this had gone far enough. “Tell us more of Khir. It is very cold there, no?”
Yala leaned aside slightly, her left foot sliding from under her hip. It brought her shoulder closer to Mahara’s. Not enough to touch, but enough to feel the heat from her clothes, different from the oven-breath of Zhaon’s spring. It was all the comfort she could offer. The thought of pouring ink into Sabwone’s tea was entertaining, but not as satisfying as it would have been in Khir.
Bai would have distracted the group so Yala could accomplish mischief; he would only need a glance to understand what she intended. He would have also taken the blame, should anyone else notice. A sewing-needle had stuck itself in Yala’s heart, and would not dislodge.
“Yes.” Mahara took the subject change gracefully. “There, it would not be warm yet, as it is here. The yeoyan blossoms have perhaps all fallen, but the paiyan should be in bloom.”
It was a lovely image, very poetically delivered, and Court Lady Gonwa gave a small, encouraging nod of appreciation, her round zhu-powdered face starred with faint perspiration at her hairline.
So she felt the heat as well.
First Princess Sabwone lowered her own white cup. A single ring, of smooth greenstone, clasped her left middle finger. It looked akin to the rings the princes wore, except theirs were carved
with characters. Hers was blank, but Yala thought the echo of her brothers’ adornments was intentional.
Zakkar Kai wore a greenstone character-ring, too; his had carving upon its curve. It must have something to do with his recent change in status. She filed away the observation for later.
“Riding the Great Fields?” Sabwone tapped the ring against the side of her cup, a small, bony click. Her pale-peach mouth pursed. “Prettily put, but what does that Khir aphorism mean?”
A scalding went through Yala, followed by a crackle of winter ice. When the great Lioa River running along the Teeth at the eastron edge of Khir froze from dangerous crunching floes to a solid sheet, it made the same noise. Later, it surprised her to think no one else had heard. “It means they have met death as noblemen,” she said, in sharp, clear Zhaon. “Cowards who flee battle go into darkness. One who stands fast to greet the end goes to the Great Fields, and rides eternal.”
Silence greeted her statement. The Khir nobles had refused to retreat at Three Rivers; many of the Zhaon conscripts had broken before their charges. Zakkar Kai had won, certainly.
But any Khir able to ride a horse had not fled when the battle turned, choosing instead to stand and die.
Mahara turned her head. She could not, of course, look directly at Yala, but could take her in with peripheral vision. Her princess’s mouth had the slight, pleased, startled curve it wore while she watched Yala at yue practice.
Verbal fencing was not so different, after all.
“How very interesting.” Second Princess Gamnae recovered first, and with far more diplomacy than her costume suggested she possessed. “I have heard there is a cave in Khir where a sage goes each winter to meditate, and the entrance freezes shut. Is there such a thing?”
“There is a legend of a man who lived in such a cave,” Mahara began, choosing each word with care. The tale was a simple one, and she should have no trouble telling it, even in Zhaon.
Yala sipped at her tea. It was still hot, and the scent of jaelo was overpowering as a bath. Her gaze locked with First Princess Sabwone’s, and the Zhaon princess’s zhu-dusted cheeks had flushed slightly. No doubt from heat; it did not look as if that proud girl had it in her to be embarrassed.
When the fury inside Yala died, perhaps she would regret her words. At the moment, however, she did not.
LET ME WIN
The Old Tower, clothed in blue tile and looming over the Artisans’ Home, was full of cluttered, comfortable coolness once the weather turned warm. Each room had seen several years of princes, running feet, and impatient questions as Mrong Banh explained science and stars to Garan Tamuron’s sons, but the round room most crowded with memories was this one in the middle of the cylinder, its sliding door opening onto a walkway-hall two floors above the ground. A long heavy wooden table stood in the exact center, and a small arrow-chamber off its interior side, curtained away, was where the astrologer often prepared tea for his guests. Shelves and scroll-racks marched in orderly, curved ranks in every direction, crammed with paper and scroll cases of wood, hide, ribbons of jointed bone. Some of the shelves held astrologer’s implements or other scientific junk, and good-luck charms hung from them next to babu and paper models of fantastical machines or structures. The high wooden ceiling was studded with hooks, and sometimes Banh had hung particular models or constellation-shapes from them to teach princes the movements of the Five Winds—or other forces—upon the night sky.
“Kai!” Sixth Prince Jin, his topknot askew, yanked the partition aside. Even his belt was pulled off-center, and a tendril of red-black hair had come free, pushed behind his ear. “You have to come see—oh.”
Mrong Banh, in the act of pouring tea at a low table while scratching at one mildly stubbled cheek, blinked like a sleepy owl. Kai, a rough, square black pottery cup halfway to his lips, tilted his head. On the other side, Third Prince Takshin, in his customary black Shan cloth, lowered his own cup, his left hand twitching as if it sought a hilt.
“Jin.” Kai beckoned, somewhat airily. He was in half-armor today, which meant he had not been called to Council, and that accounted for his cheeriness. “Come in, we are discussing theater.”
“We are not,” Takshin said, but not very loudly. He, too, looked uncommonly at ease, and set his cup down, flicking his left-hand fingers as if to rid them of water droplets.
Jin hopped from one foot to the other, alive and alight, bursting with news. One end of his belt had come untucked, and danced with him. Spring sunshine outlined him from head to foot, catching stray hairs escaped from his topknot in a floating halo. “The Khir! The Khir girls! They’re—”
“They are what?” Mrong Banh shook his head, clicking his tongue. The shadows under his eyes said he had been up late again, studying the paths of Heaven. “Look, I’ve spilled.” He reached for a rag amid scrollcases, scattered notes, empty teacups, and stacked plates in varying stages of cleanliness, and couldn’t find one. “You are very rude, Prince Jin.”
“They are playing a game, the Khir princess and her lady! With horses, and a ball, and—”
“Kaibok,” Kai said. Interesting. Of course, noble girls would play. It was almost the only freedom a Khir girl could lay claim to, even while in a bride’s formal seclusion. “That will make the court ladies gasp.”
“A game? Women? On horses?” Takshin frowned. Shan was not a country where noblewomen rode other than upon light palfreys for pleasure. Wearing that expression, he looked very much like his father. “This sounds… unconventional.”
“It’s true!” Jin’s cheeks were reddened from running, and his robe was pulled almost sideways. He’d almost worn through his slippers, wooden soles peeking through leather sheathing. “They have sticks, and a heavy ball, and they are both masked. Riding back and forth on the big cavalry practice ground! Hitting with the sticks!” His eyes danced. “Come on!”
“I’ve read of kaibok,” Mrong Banh said. “But… women playing it?”
“Noblewomen,” Kai supplied. “They ride to hunt, and to play. The Khir believe it grants them strong sons.” Otherwise, a Khir woman’s place was in bower or kitchen. Even in the market they had to be shepherded, for a Khir husband was a jealous one, or so the proverb went.
“The Crown Princess is playing?” Mrong Banh set the square red-lacquered teapot—his favorite, a gift from Garan Tamuron before the Second Battle of Wurei—down and abandoned his hunt for a rag. The spilled tea would simply dry where it was and leave a ring to match the others blooming upon the tabletop. “With her lady-in-waiting?”
“All the court ladies are watching.” Jin, hopping from foot to foot, visibly decided telling them more was a worthless task, spun-slid on his heel, and almost put his hip through the edge of the partition, avoiding it by a mere hairsbreadth. He vanished into the dark hallway, and Kai was already rising.
“Kai?” Takshin scrambled to his feet. So did the astrologer, bumping the table. The teacups chatter-danced, and a spill of scrap paper floated from the far end of the table.
Kai was already out the door, following the Sixth Prince’s retreating back.
The horses were a fine pair of matched bays, slight figures wrapped in spring blue upon their backs. They cantered down the cavalry training-rectangle, hooves bell-chiming, and one of the riders was almost out of the saddle, leaning drunkenly aside, a long stick in gloved hands flaring into a cup near the ground. The heavy leather-wrapped ball bumbled and rolled, shoved along, and the rider, masked, a long tail of braided black hair whipping in the wind, neatly turned her wrist, knocking away the other rider’s stick-cup. Her opponent did not lean so dangerously, perhaps too cautious—or too wise.
That caution appeared to be rewarded as the ball shot forward and the first rider, knee hard-tucked against the high saddle-front, slipped even farther. Her bay, sensing something amiss, lunged, and the second rider let out a high piercing cry of incipient victory.
It was close, very close, to a Khir battle-yell.
Kai’s heart leapt in
to his throat. He halted at the edge of the high stone gallery along the east side of the ground, where a cavalry commander and his honored guests would stand to watch maneuvers performed. Bright plumage gathered at the other end, the court ladies whispering among themselves, none so ill-bred as to point but visibly longing to do so. Crown Prince Takyeo was a tall green-clad figure upon the stairs, his topknot slightly disarranged, and had clasped his hands behind him and was staring with an expression halfway between mystification and pride—of course, he had to be present. Beside him, Makar, his eyebrows nesting in his hairline, frankly stared, openmouthed, the edges of his sumptuous brown scholar’s robe fluttering. Second Princess Gamnae, in a bright-patterned orange and blue dress, her arm through her brother Kurin’s, halted at the near end of the ground, on the path from the gardens clustering the Kaeje.
The first rider caught a fistful of mane and almost slithered from the saddle. A collective gasp echoed from the court ladies, and Takshin appeared at Kai’s elbow. Behind him, Mrong Banh skidded to a stop, out of breath.
The bay, sensing what the first rider wanted, did not slow. The stick-cup touched the ground, a splintering jolt used to propel the first rider up, thigh tensing, gaining the saddle again with natural grace. She dropped into the bay’s rhythm like a potter’s thumb into spinning clay, and the other rider—slightly taller and rounder, Kai thought it the princess—overshot the ball as it turned upon a stray buckled paver and bounded to the left.
“Born in the saddle,” Kai murmured, unaware of speaking.
Takshin glanced at him. “Which one’s which?”
“I think that’s the princess?” He cupped his hand, indicating the slightly taller figure, but remembered his manners just in time. His hand fell back to his side.
