by Devin Madson
With such thoughts throbbing through my head, I returned to my tent only to find him already waiting for me. I almost tripped over my feet so comically did I flinch, but he just smiled. And between that smile and the sight of him eating my dinner in his under-robe, I had to grip the tent pole and catch my breath. For whatever fears I harboured, he was a different man when he was here with me alone.
“Good evening, my dear,” he said. “I am still alive, as you see, or is it too much to hope you worried for me today?”
“I always worry for you. That’s why I keep myself busy.” I had too fuzzy a head to attempt to spar with him and resorted to honesty. “You’re angry with me because I organised aid for your injured enemies.”
He tilted his head to the side with a little half smile, and for a moment, fear and frustration warred with the desire his very presence demanded of my body. “Not angry,” he said at last. “Not while your actions make Kin look the fool rather than me. I do wonder, though, whether you will ever listen to what I say or believe someone else might understand the ways of war better than you do.”
“I do listen.”
“And then go and do exactly the opposite of what I say, yes. That, you must admit, my dear, makes it look as if it is you who rules me, not the other way around.”
There was a hint of challenge in his look that sent heat coursing through me, and happy to avoid serious discussion while tired and tipsy, I strode toward him. “Well,” I said, sitting on his lap, my chest pressed to his. “Perhaps I do.”
Seemingly as happy as I to avoid the conversation, he wrapped his arms around me and grunted a little moan into my hair. “Do you indeed?” he said, kissing my neck. “I should like to see you try.”
He pressed his next kiss to my lips only to pull a face. “Have you been drinking nettle wine?”
“Is that what it was? It was very foul and has made me feel quite wobbly.”
“I’ll bet it has.” He grinned and kissed my neck again. “Too wobbly for this? If you eat some dinner, you may soon feel better.”
I had drunk the wine to escape my doubts and had no desire to go back to them just yet. “I’d rather eat you.” I snapped at his nose and he laughed, and I was sure it wasn’t just my inebriated state that made me certain no sound more wonderful had ever existed. Except perhaps for the little groan he made when I kissed his ear. With another glorious laugh, he tumbled me onto the floor, and we soon lay together, breathless and sated.
While he held me to him in the fading afterglow, I thought of what I had said about Emperor Kin earlier, about wondering where the emperor ended and the man began. It was hard to see with Kin, but it had not taken long to realise Katashi was two separate men. This gentle, caring Katashi who kissed my forehead and murmured in my ear, who tightened his grip around my shoulders and traced patterns on my back was a man only I knew, only I saw. The moment he donned his robes or his armour and stepped out of my tent, he was gone.
Worries began to creep back in as the haze of wine and sex faded away. If he was a completely different man outside this space, how could I trust him? Which Katashi was the real Katashi? Would the kind man or the ruthless man be the one to sit upon the throne?
“Katashi?” I said, breaking the companionable silence. “What sort of deal are you making with the pirate enclave?”
“That,” he said somewhat sleepily, “is not a very romantic question.”
“Need all my questions be romantic?”
He turned his head to regard me, no smile in his eyes. “No, but you have already expressed concern that I am dealing with them. There seems little point in returning to that conversation now unless you’re seeking an argument.”
“No argument, just trying to understand. Do they not often raid the coast? Even attack Syan?”
“Yes, but that’s not what I am asking them to do.”
“But surely dealing with them at all can only anger those who suffer from such raids. Won’t the duke of Syan—?”
Katashi withdrew his arm from around me and propped himself up on one elbow. “How would he know I have any dealings with them at all?”
“Is it not common knowledge?”
“No. Beyond my advisors, no one knows. You may be sure your maid was informed of just how much trouble she would be in if she spoke of their presence in my camp to anyone.”
I drew back, both the afterglow and the lingering buzz from the wine entirely gone now. “You threatened Tili?”
“No one can know, Hana. No one. I told you before this all looks like a great victory, but it means nothing until I can take Mei’lian, until I can secure what I have. I cannot let it all come tumbling down because a maid talked when she ought not.”
“If I trust her, I don’t see why that isn’t enough assurance for you.”
“That must surely rank as the most naive thing you’ve ever said.” He got to his feet on the words and started pulling on the under-robe he had so hastily discarded. “I am an emperor. I cannot trust people. I cannot leave things to chance. I cannot hope. I cannot even allow myself the luxury of considering what is good and right and honourable because any weakness, any failure could end with my head on the block like my father’s before me. I have come too far to go back now, come too far to escape that end should it all go wrong, and I will do whatever it takes to ensure that doesn’t happen. I will not let that man finish the job of destroying our family, and if that means I deal with pirates, then I will deal with pirates.”
“I understand that, Katashi, I do, but there are some lengths that are too far. There must be better ways.”
He tugged the knot of his sash tight. “It’s almost time for the meeting, so you will have to excuse me, Your Grace.”
“Do your other advisors know exactly what deal you are making with them?” I said, drawing my own robe around me as his chilliness touched my very skin. “Because conversation about it has been lacking at the meetings. Unless, of course, you have other meetings to which I am not invited.”
“Conversations occur in many places, Your Grace,” he said with the slightest of sneers, though it was enough to make me hug my robe tight. “And just as you are capable of organising an entire group of physicians to give aid to my enemies without consulting me, so am I able to make decisions without consulting you. You have no greater claim on me than that of long-lost cousin, after all, having refused to be my wife.”
He strode to the tent flap through which a sliver of night peeped, only to turn back and bow. “Good evening, Your Grace,” he said and was gone, leaving me to stare after him and wish my words unsaid.
We travelled the next day and I kept my distance, unsure what to do. For the first time, he had transformed so completely into his imperial self in our sacred space, but I could no more promise to keep from discussing his plans and his movements than I could stop myself from wanting him. Instead, I watched his various advisors come and go from his side as he led his army ever south, and wondered what plans they were allowed knowledge of that I was not. And worse, why.
It was an uneventful day, and the scouts brought back no news of enemy movement. The camp went up with the same ease it always did, but when the usual time for our meeting arrived, Tili brought a message that there would be no meeting that night. I was about to send her back with one civilly asking for an explanation, when Katashi arrived. As usual, he had changed his armour for his imperial robes and stood in the tent aperture as though unsure of his welcome. Equally unsure whether I wanted to welcome him, I lifted my chin. “Good evening, Your Majesty.”
“Good evening, Your Grace,” he said, but there was a hint of his dimple peeping despite his gravity.
“Have you come to tell me about the alliance with the pirate enclave?”
The dawning smile faded. “No.” He strode in, restlessness in the way he moved about the small space from one silken wall to the other. “Hana, I know you want to be part of this. I know you want to fight and you want to have your opinions heard, but I can’t
let you talk me out of things that have to be done. I have lived the broken life of an exile long enough to know how to make hard choices. I have already made more hard choices than you know. I want you here, I want you at my side, but either you have to let go of the idea that you can always do the right thing, that duty and honour are more important than success, or you have to let me keep plans from you.”
“Are they really so terrible?” I said.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because they have to be.”
The hard note in his voice scared me. As Captain Monarch, he had done plenty of things a truly good man would never have done, and he had executed more members of Kin’s court at Koi than I could count. Those were the harsh actions of a man who knew what needed to be done, but he hadn’t shied away from me knowing of them.
“I can have a few dozen of my soldiers escort you back to Koi in the morning,” he said, finally stopping his restless pacing to look down at me.
“No,” I said. “I want to stay, but I want to know. Whatever your plans are, I want to know them.”
“No.”
I had thought I could cajole him, could argue my point until at last he let me in. But no matter what I said Katashi was stubborn in his refusal, and although our frayed tempers found release in the messy ruins of my sleeping mat, I felt more distant from him than ever by the time he left.
The following day, I found my thoughts shying into troubling places. Kin had said much of my father’s selfishness, of my family’s inability to rule fairly, and of Katashi’s unconcern for the people he would call his own. I’d had strong arguments once, but fear is a corroding force and I was growing afraid of the Katashi I could not control.
I tried talking to him again that night, but discussion soon became argument, and when we ended up gasping together on the floor my fear only increased. I began to imagine all the awful things he could be planning and tried to convince myself it was all necessary, only to hear Kin’s damning words. As if the god Otakos ever cared whether they did the right thing.
The next day we travelled only half the usual distance, because Katashi sent groups of soldiers out to burn the fields as we marched. He would not talk to me nor even look at me all day, and ill ease churned ever more sickeningly in my gut. I have worked hard to ensure Kisia had the stability it needed to grow and thrive, Kin had said, but your cousin cares nothing for the people and thinks only of his own desires.
Every day Katashi asked if I wanted to leave and every day I refused, caught between assuring myself his plans could not be that bad and the fear he would soon commit an atrocity I could never forgive. So when he did not come to see me that night, I did not send for him, not sure if I was more afraid he would convince me the burning had been necessary or that he would not.
The following morning, I woke to emptiness beside me, but it was Tili’s presence quietly shuffling around the tent that was out of place. The sunlight too was brighter than it ought to have been, and still drowsy from a night of worries, I asked how late it was.
“The sun has been up some two hours, Your Grace,” she said. “Breakfast is here. It may be starting to get cold, along with your washing water. You were so deeply asleep I didn’t want to wake you.”
“Are we not packing up the camp today?”
“No, Your Grace. Scouts came in the night. There was some enemy movement, and as there’s a… blind pass? It was decided this morning that we would stay here another day.”
Enemy movement meant another engagement. I closed my eyes, my thoughts darting from the Kisian soldiers left to die to the burning fields to the alliance with the pirate enclave, and I felt sick. “Has Katashi—? Have the soldiers already left?”
“No, Your Grace, I’m not sure why. Everyone seems to be just waiting around.”
I let out a sigh and hauled myself up off my sleeping mat, though fatigue tried to hold me down. “Help me into my armour. I had better go and see.”
The camp was oddly tense and quiet when I stepped out of my tent—Pikes and soldiers all gathered in groups and talking in low voices. I received the usual bows of acknowledgement from those who saw me pass, but though they were all dressed for battle, no one seemed to know what was going on.
I found Katashi, General Manshin, and Captain Chalpo standing together at the edge of the camp, staring out at the churned earth of what had once been a green meadow. There was no sign of anyone approaching, but the three of them were as intent on the horizon as they were on their discussion.
General Manshin turned first, a humourless smile spreading his thin lips. “Ah, Your Grace. You find us standing around to no purpose this morning, I’m afraid.”
Katashi greeted me with a nod and nothing more, and I could not tell if he was merely maintaining the guise of disinterested respect or wished me elsewhere. “We were expecting to meet one of Kin’s battalions in the field today,” he said, returning his gaze to the horizon. “But the scouts now tell us they are marching this way with white flags.”
“Surrendering?”
“So it would seem,” General Manshin said. “It may be a very dishonourable ruse, of course, but we are ready if that is so.”
I wished I could send both him and Chalpo away, sure there was more to the situation than Katashi was letting on, but there was nothing to do but walk away or join them. Failing to catch Katashi’s eye, I ranged myself alongside General Manshin and stared out at the flat expanse. Such level ground would grow increasingly rare as we moved south, the land around Esvar the most mountainous in the empire.
I fidgeted with my sash while we waited, unable to be calm. If the others noticed they showed no sign of it, just as Katashi was seemingly unaware of my ongoing attempts to catch his eye. All too soon, white flags appeared on the horizon, followed by the dark mass of an approaching army. Pikes, imperial soldiers, and camp labourers began to gather behind us, some with their hands on their weapons, others merely craning their necks to better see the show. Katashi stood at his ease and watched them approach.
There had to be at least a thousand of them, a broad force that stretched the width of the plain upon which we camped. Most wore the uniform of Kin’s imperial battalions, but a large portion were dressed in the common garb of town guards. There were even a few military messengers dotted about their ranks.
Leaving his soldiers at a little distance, their leader stepped forward holding a white flag high. Katashi could have walked out to meet him, but instead he stood patient as the man came to us.
It was a middle-aged man with bright, clever eyes, who halted before Katashi and let his white flag drop onto the churned earth at his feet. His sword followed with a thud. “Your Majesty,” he said and bowed. “My name is Commander Ko and I have taken over command of this military district. The previous commander was not a friend of yours, but he was… persuaded to step aside.”
The man gestured to one side of his force where a portion of the soldiers stood in chains.
“I see,” Katashi said. “And the rest of you and your men want what, Commander?”
“To fight for you, Your Majesty, we live to serve the true imperial blood.”
I held my breath, looking from the commander with his head bowed, to Katashi, to the general at his side. Seconds stretched in the still morning, until at last, Katashi nodded. “Very well, Commander. You and your men will take the oath, but first, bring forward the traitors.”
Without hesitation, the commander turned. “Bring them,” he called back to his men, and with a shuffling of many feet, a large chunk of his force started forward. Again, I was conscious of a desire to step closer to Katashi, fearing what he meant to do, but I could only stand and watch while Kin’s men were brought forward.
It was perhaps a quarter of the army, a whole great mass of soldiers hustled together to face the emperor they had refused to serve. Katashi stared back at them, and I not the only one who held my breath.
“Kill them.”
“What?
” I cried, but the word was drowned beneath a tumultuous cheer as Katashi’s soldiers thrust their weapons into the air. “Katashi, you can’t mean to—”
“Now.”
Had I been standing any closer, blood would have splattered over me, for as soon as the order left Katashi’s lips, Commander Ko slit the first prisoner’s throat. Blood poured down his neck, and the man slumped onto his knees. Another joined him, straining at his chains to reach his throat as all around them the soldiers who had switched sides killed those who had not. Within minutes, they all lay dead, a pile of discarded bodies with their hands still chained, heaped before their new emperor. It took all I had not to empty my stomach upon the grass.
“Get rid of the bodies,” Katashi said to General Manshin. “And I want each of these soldiers to come to my tent and give their oath in person. All of them, and any who doesn’t goes the same way as their comrades.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” General Manshin said, but Katashi was already striding away, and pushing through the closely packed spectators, I hurried after him, my pulse thrumming in my ears.
“Katashi—Your Majesty. Your Majesty!”
He looked over his shoulder, the crowd of his soldiers parting before him. “Do you really think this is the time?”
“Those men had surrendered,” I hissed, hurrying to catch up so I could keep my voice low. “None of them had to die. You could have imprisoned them or set them to work or sold them back to their families. You could have—”
Katashi pushed his way into his tent and rounded on me with a snarl. “This, this is why we can’t keep doing this. Yes, I could have done those things, but then I couldn’t have been sure of the other soldiers’ loyalty. Had they hesitated, I would have known I could not trust them and could not have them fight for me, but now through the deaths of a few, we have gained many, and that, Hana, is worth the sacrifice.”
“Hardly your sacrifice.”