by Devin Madson
Chapter 11
Darius
While I sat shuffling papers, I could almost believe I was back in my ministerial rooms. Monomoro had sent up a fine table, and I’d found a portion of the side portico that wasn’t about to collapse. There were no footsteps, no chatter, no potential for an imperial summons, but while I had problems to occupy my mind, I could bear with the differences.
A section of wall on this side of the house had collapsed, allowing an uninterrupted view of the western approach—a less overgrown track that cut steeply up the side of the hill—and the mountainous countryside beyond.
“Have you finished that letter?” I asked of the gangly youth who had been the only scribe Monomoro could find at such short notice.
“Yes, my—Your Excellency, just finishing the last word now. Your Excellency.”
“Good. When you’re done, run down to the library and see if you can find the most up-to-date land classification map we have.”
“Yes, Your Excellency.”
He dropped the finished letter on my desk, bowed as though I were the emperor himself, and hurried away so fast I could almost believe he preferred the rotting house to my company. The calligraphy on the letter was only fair, but it would have to do. I checked its contents, signed the bottom of the scroll, and rolled it up just as a head appeared over the brow of the hill. It was soon followed by shoulders, a torso, and a horse, none of them grandly clad.
“Excellency,” the messenger called in the slow way peculiar to people from the Valley. “A good morning to you.”
The man dismounted at the broken wall rather than risk his horse breaking a leg, and having thumped its rear and abjured it to stay as if it had been a dog, he clambered over the tumbledown stones with a saddlebag slung over his shoulder. “I’ve quite the heavy load o’ letters for you,” he said, jumping onto the portico and bowing in a way that more than made up for the boy’s excessive deference. “And quite the heavy load to go back, I see.” He pointed to the pile of letters all signed and sealed. “Where would you be wanting these ones?”
“In a pile on the other side,” I said, deciding there was no point explaining the court system of messages coming in on the left of the desk and going out on the right. “Then by all means, you may take these and ensure they are properly delivered.”
“Oh, as if I would ever think of dropping them in a ditch, my lord,” he said, giving a hearty wink that made me yearn for the fearful deference at court, even if it wasn’t always accompanied by competence.
He spilled the saddlebag’s contents by the simple expedient of turning the bag upside down and shaking, sending scrolls tumbling. Kimiko almost stepped on one as she emerged from the house. “We’re out of food again, Your Excellency,” she said, picking it up and dropping it back on the pile. “Although since the kitchen roof is still as collapsed as it was before, I guess it makes no difference.”
“Have food sent up,” I said to the messenger as he gathered the outgoing missives. “Food that doesn’t need a kitchen.”
“Or we could just stay at an inn in town,” Kimiko said. “Or have a carpenter come and fix the kitchens and hire a cook. If you want to stay here, you should at least make it comfortable.”
“Food it is,” said the messenger in his cheerful voice, once more slinging the saddlebag onto his shoulder. Another bow to me and a deeper one to Kimiko, and he jumped back off the portico and made his way toward the wall.
“That man is enraging,” I said once he was out of earshot. “He seems to think highly of you though.”
I picked up the closest scroll and broke its seal. “Ah, there was fighting at Hamaba and Yagi two days back.” I drew a map out from beneath the other papers and made a mark with my brush, adding the date as small as I could. Beside me, Kimiko knelt to tidy the scattered scrolls, though the pale blue robe she had donned that morning made her look every bit the grand lady she had been born.
When I set the scroll aside, she handed me another from the pile. “You don’t have to do that,” I said, taking it. “I don’t need an assistant.”
“But I need something to do. Your house is boring, and with your mark on me, it’s not like I can even go for a walk without you ordering me to go.”
“I gave you my word I wouldn’t order you to do anything, but you have my permission to go for a walk if that helps.”
She sighed and leant her head back, exposing the line of her throat. “I don’t even want to go for a walk. Nor do I want to get your permission for things. I don’t want to be here at all, it’s lonely.”
Having no answer, I broke the scroll’s seal and unrolled it. Another account of the clash at Hamaba, this time with estimated numbers. I tapped my chin with the tip of my brush.
Wax cracked as Kimiko opened a scroll. “Lord Laroth, as I have been apprised of your removal from the position of minister of the left, I must in good faith and service to His Majesty the great Emperor Kin Ts’ai of Kisia refuse to—”
I clenched my fists rather than snatch the scroll out of her hand. “If you could refrain from reading my correspondence, that would be best.”
“For you and very much more boring for me. This man doesn’t seem to want to come visit us, Darius. How rude of him when the hospitality of this house is second to none.” She looked to the bottom of the scroll. “Who is he? It’s signed ‘DC forty-six.’”
“District Commander Yao of the forty-sixth.”
“I don’t think he likes you.”
“It’s not my job to be likable.”
“Convenient.”
I held out my hand for the scroll. “Thank you for that assessment.”
She smiled as she put it in my hand. “Any time.”
The message said little more than had already been read out, but I read it over again before letting it curl up. “I’ll have to ride over to see him.” I indicated my left eye. “How is my bruise today?”
“Turning a sickly yellow colour that makes it look like a bear peed on you.”
“You know, no one listening to you would ever think you were a lady.”
“Phew!”
Annoyed by how easily she could goad me into unwise retorts, I took up another scroll and cracked its seal. “Ah, from Monomoro’s associate about that shepherd. He knows of at least three locations that fit my description, and one even has a blind cliff. What a useful thing to know with Katashi on his way.”
I had been speaking merely to focus my own thoughts, and Kimiko tensed at the sound of her twin’s name. “You think he is planning to attack the valley?” she said, and someone else might have taken it for bored curiosity, but I could feel the anxiety that lay behind it. Foolish to have voiced such a belief, but the situation was not so far beyond recall.
“It is one of many possibilities,” I said lightly. “This job has never just been about payrolls and red tape but about anticipating threats before they come and protecting against them.”
“Except that it’s not your job anymore.”
“I was to be relieved of my position once I had safely seen Emperor Kin take his oath at Koi. Did that happen?”
“No, but—”
“Then it’s still my job and I will keep doing it.”
Kimiko tilted her head to the side in a way that was uniquely her, endearingly birdlike and yet all too searching. One corner of her lips tended to twitch up while she did so, an expression I found far too attractive for my own safety. “Why do you serve Emperor Kin?”
“Is there a reason I should not?” I asked, dragging my thoughts from her lips with an effort.
“Because you were the sworn guardian of Lady Hana Otako and the son of an Imperial Protector.”
I leant back and stared out at the gardens. “My father hated your family by the end,” I said. “He hated all of the Otakos except Hana. I looked after her because I was honour-bound to do so. And I chose to serve Kin because he was the one ruling Kisia.” Not the whole truth, but we didn’t need Malice kneeling between us ri
ght now. “Five years ago, I didn’t even know whether you or your brother were alive.”
“Would you have come to serve us if you had?”
“No. You scowl, but I would have been a monster indeed to seek to plunge Kisia into civil war for nothing but my own ideology. As a servant of the people, I fight for stability and prosperity. For the man who already has the throne so no one has to die.”
“You know, it would be easier to hate you if you weren’t such a decent person, Darius.”
That her words stung surprised me, and I said, “I could tell you plenty of things that could make you hate me if that is your goal.”
“It would certainly make this easier.”
“Easier than liking me?”
Her bright, assessing gaze met mine for a moment, before we both looked away and the sting dug deeper into my skin. “You want to hate me because I’m an Empath,” I said. “I can’t say I blame you.”
I pushed back from the table and stood to stretch, but Kimiko didn’t move. Her restless fingers tugged gently at the frayed end of her sash. “Why did you leave Malice?”
An empty answer rose to my tongue but remained unsaid. She might hate me for the truth, but she would as surely hate me for the lie.
“Because guilt and remorse are heavy things to carry,” I said. “And I wanted to prove I wasn’t what he told me I was.”
The honesty left my soul raw, and before she could answer, I added, “Now I’m going to see the district commander who doesn’t like me. Don’t pine away without me, will you?”
Her expression was unreadable, and as she shook her head, I prided myself on not reaching out to see what lay beneath. It didn’t matter, after all, whether I had made her hate me more or less. It didn’t matter what she thought of me at all.
District Commander Yao had an office in the local guard barracks a few miles distant, a squat old building desperately in need of expansion to accommodate the ever-increasing military presence in the Valley. It had never been small, but mountain tribes had massacred four full battalions twenty-four years earlier, and the fear had never fully subsided. It had been before my time as minister of the left, but I’d held the position long enough to wince at the poorly outfitted guardhouse.
A boy ran out to take my horse, followed by an old man with the look of a retired soldier. “Greetings, my lord. If you’re wishful to report a crime—”
“No, my name is Lord Darius Laroth, minister of the left to Emperor Kin Ts’ai, and I would like to speak to District Commander Yao.”
I dismounted, but even once I had turned around and smoothed the skirt of my robe, the man was still staring at me open-mouthed. The boy holding the reins did the same, and a few guards loitering in the yard had stopped mid conversation. Unseen through an overhead window, someone hissed, “It’s the Monstrous Minister!” and I smiled upon them all.
“Ah, my reputation precedes me,” I said. “That does make things easier.”
“Excusing me, my lord,” said the man, finally finding his voice. “But I did hear you were no longer minister of the left.”
“An untruth, but I will not discuss it here in the road nor with you. I will see District Commander Yao now.”
Even were it true, he could hardly have refused entrance to the lord upon whose land the guardhouse stood, so with a gesture half shrug, half bow, he led the way inside.
Beyond the door, a narrow corridor carved its way from the entrance to the stairs, one side owning a number of small rooms for taking complaints and asking questions of prisoners, while the other side opened onto a large but poorly lit common area. This was full of whispers and wine fumes and staring men, and I made a mental list of all the upkeep regulations the commander had broken in case they proved useful.
At the top of the stairs, my guide stopped outside a sliding door with faded watercolour panes. “Commander,” he said as he knocked on the frame. “It’s uh… Lord Laroth to see you. Minister of the left.”
“Gods curse the man,” came the voice from inside. “Did you tell him we know he’s been removed from his position? Why must he insist on parading around as—?”
“Your good man did tell me that, yes, Commander,” I said.
Silence. I could imagine the man biting his fist at his desk. Paper shuffled. Then a throat was cleared. “Do invite His Lordship in, Chit.”
“Yes, Commander.”
The man grimaced something of an apology at me, his expression owning as much regret that he had gotten himself into this situation.
“His Exce—His Lordship, Commander,” he said and slid open the door with a bow.
Commander Yao had managed to compose himself and sat scowling behind his desk. “Lord Laroth,” he said as I entered, though the politeness seemed to cause him some pain. “Do pray excuse my… rudeness. Perhaps you are unaware that we have a civil war brewing.”
Not having been invited to sit, I stood and gave him my iciest stare until, flustered, he looked away. “I am quite aware of that, Commander,” I said. “And that it is not only brewing but has already broken out and is coming this way. I have reason to believe Katashi Otako has not only taken Hamaba but is marching a second army this way to disrupt the transport of food to Mei’lian and cut the Valley off from the rest of the empire.”
He stared at me a long, horrified moment, and knowing I had won, I sat down and slung the scroll canister off my shoulder. “I have estimated numbers on the size and disposition of his army, at least half of it being made up from forces that were, until recently, under my command. I have my maps too and a number of locations a smart man would seek to pull us into battle, and if you would send for some tea, I hope, between the pair of us, that we will soon have a plan for counteracting him.”
Commander Yao swallowed hard and, lifting his chin, shouted toward the door. “I know you’re still out there listening, Chit, so make yourself useful and go get the minister some tea.”
It was almost dark when I returned, and after rubbing down the horse and seeing it fed, I had to cross the courtyard by moonlight. Summer was starting to lose its grip on the world, leaving a chill in the air, but it wasn’t the cold that made me shiver as I stepped into the house. I had hoped to get used to the feeling of coming home, to shed my hatred of it, but despite the sense of victory still pumping through my veins, it took all the strength I possessed to make myself walk on.
I found Kimiko in the back room where we had rolled out sleeping mats the first night. She lay curled upon the divan and didn’t look up from the book in her hands. She did, however, point at a big sack of rice slumped against the wall. “You need to be more specific in your orders next time,” she said, eyes still on the book. “That’s all that arrived that apparently needs no kitchen.”
“It doesn’t need a kitchen, but I get your point,” I said, setting my scroll canister upon the table. “I guess we’ll have to cook some on the hot stone.”
It sat in the corner, half covered in moth-eaten cushions. “Do you know how?” Kimiko gave the stone a disdainful look.
“Given the amount of time I once spent living in this room, yes. Do not bestir yourself from your book, my lady, allow me to prepare you dinner.”
“Excellent.” She went back to reading.
“May I ask what is so engrossing?”
Kimiko held up the book, and I recognised the cover at once. In a half dozen strides, I crossed the room and ripped it from her hand. “Hey!”
“Where did you find this?”
“The library. There’s a whole bookcase of them and they’re really interesting.”
Had there been a fire, I would have thrown the book into it no matter how valuable the knowledge it contained. Without one I stood crushing its cover in my hands and glaring at her. She stared back, wholly unafraid.
“Actively searching for reasons to hate me now?” I said, tucking the book under my arm, though with so many in the library, any attempt to keep her from reading them might soon turn into a farce. Whichever La
roth had started keeping records about the Sight ought to have considered the consequences of someone else reading them. Or perhaps he had and I was merely the first Laroth to care.
Kimiko sat up. “Reasons to hate you? For being born different? I would rather choose to hate you for your choices than for what you cannot help. Your Empathy need not define you, Darius.”
I had been afraid she would hate me for what I was, but worse had been the fear she wouldn’t. The acceptance in her sad smile was truly frightening, and I turned away rather than face it. “How nice that sounds,” I jeered. “And how very naive.”
“Do you push everyone away?”
The book made a satisfyingly heavy thump as I dropped it on the table. “I try.” I swept the cushions off the hot stone, knocking over the rice pot that had been hidden beneath them. Lunging, I caught it just before it hit the floor, but as I straightened, Kimiko’s hands slid around my waist, locking together at my sternum.
“Isn’t that lonely?” she said, resting her head between my shoulder blades.
There was nothing amorous in her embrace, but the gentle companionship was far worse than any amount of lust would have been. It seemed to slice me open, exposing my very bones.
“Better alone than—”
“Understood? Accepted?”
I turned, taking a step back against the hot stone to escape the circle of her arms. “Better alone than weak.”
“Is that what you think love is? What friendship is?”
“I know so.”
That sad smile again. “Then I’m sorry to inform you of this, Your Excellency, but you’re wrong. In fact, you could not be more wrong. Would you fight so hard for Kin if he was not your friend? Would you hate this house so much if you did not love what you lost here?”
“You know nothing about what I have lost,” I growled. “Read the damn book if you must, but leave me alone.”
“I really did want to hate you, Darius, but I can only pity you.”