Of Dragons, Feasts and Murders

by Aliette de Bodard

  “Oh, my name is Dang Quang,” the official said. “I’m the prefect of Dai An.”

  It was a faraway province which wasn’t very familiar to Thuan. “If you’ll excuse me,” he said, hardening his voice. “I’ve got other pressing business to deal with.”

  Dang Quang moved—seemingly innocently, but ending up in Thuan’s way all the same. “Oh, I won’t hold you long, your Highness. I just wanted to make sure you hadn’t been deceived.”

  Nice bait, but Thuan wasn’t biting. “I’m three hundred years old and not a naive innocent anymore.” He was about to add another blistering remark, when he noticed Van’s uncanny silence. Turning, briefly, he saw she was holding herself straight, knuckles white and much too close to Thuan—using him as a shield. “You’re Van’s old superior,” he said. “The former magistrate of Tam Phong.”

  “I had that honour.”

  He needed to get Van out as soon as possible, but he also needed to make sure that Dang Quang wasn’t going to come back into her life anymore. “Talk,” he said, curtly.

  Dang Quang smiled. “She’s a thief and a liar, your Highness, and she’ll betray you as she betrayed me.”

  “Hmm,” Thuan said. “She serves a use. And she’s mine now, child.” He deliberately used a pronoun he was entitled to use, but which emphasized Dang Quang’s vastly inferior status.

  A pause. Dang Quang said, “She should be dead.”

  Ah. That kind of man, vindictive in addition to being a sadist. On second thought… magistrate of a county to prefect was a rather sharp and unusual promotion, which probably meant he’d risen on the strength of something. Thuan would have bet anti-corruption, with Van as one of his prize achievements, one of his own clerks caught stealing from the state and afforded no favour due to her position. So not only a victim he didn’t want to let go of, but a symbol of his former life he’d want eradicated.

  Great.

  Thuan said, softly, “She’s what I want her to be. No more, no less. And you should really consider whether you want to make enemies of us.”

  Dang Quang smiled. “I have always acted in respect of the First Teacher’s rules, your Highness. My loyalty to the state is unquestioned.”

  A not particularly subtle threat, but then it didn’t need to be. Thuan and Asmodeus weren’t exactly on very firm ground by taking one of the empire’s own subjects and binding her to their House—and a condemned criminal overdue punishment at that.

  Thuan raised an eyebrow, with a confidence he didn’t particularly feel. “Let’s test, this, shall we? Care to come with me see the Dowager Empress?”

  It was a bluff, but it worked. Dang Quang grimaced. “Far be it from me to stand between you and your grandmother, your Highness. But I’ll respectfully keep inquiring about the proper course of action.”

  “Of course,” Thuan said—and watched him go, heart sinking. He made sure that Dang Quang was completely out of sight before he grabbed Van and marched her into a secluded alcove, and held her until the shaking of her body vanished—because it wouldn’t exactly have been seemly to be hugging one’s own retainer in the context of the imperial citadel.

  “My lord…” Van looked as though she was going to be sick.

  “Ssssh,” Thuan said. “You all right?”

  “No,” Van said. “But you really shouldn’t involve yourself—”

  “Don’t,” Thuan said. He released her, and leant against the carvings of the wall, breathing hard. “That’s the way it goes. House rules.” Or at any rate the ones he and Asmodeus had made for themselves. A belated thought came to him. “And let me know if I should be touching you the next time. I’m sorry, I should have asked first and I panicked when I saw how white you looked.”

  Van looked as though she didn’t know what to say anymore. Thuan laughed, with a carelessness he very much didn’t feel. “Consent,” he said. “It’s not a word I take lightly. And Dang Quang isn’t going to touch you anymore. It’d be war between House Hawthorn and the kingdom if he did.”

  “You wouldn’t—”

  “I might not,” Thuan said. “But Asmodeus would.”

  “Your husband—”

  Thuan sighed. “I get it. He’s aggressive and he threatened you and he’s generally very, very unpleasant. But he’s also very difficult to shake off when it comes to the wellbeing of his people.”

  Van looked doubtful.

  “You’ll see,” Thuan said. And then, because he had to, “Is Dang Quang likely to hurt your mother or your wife?”

  Van shook her head. “All his issues are with me, and it’s harder to look like a good official if you touch old women or lesser spouses.”

  “Ah.” Thuan said. He wasn’t sure if it made better or worse.

  Worse, probably.

  The Empress Dowager’s quarters were further into the citadel, a palace accessed through a huge recessed courtyard, and then a huge flight of stairs leading to a platform where one waited to be picked up by a eunuch or one of the Dowager’s handpicked servants. The palace itself was entered through a pillared entrance, the reception room vast and airy, a long embroidered carpet leading to a throne at the back of the room, everything carved in what had once been white stone but was now bluish or greyish. Thuan could have taken on his full dragon shape and not even touched the distant ceiling, and there was barely a trace of mildew anywhere: not because it didn’t grow, but because an army of servants would have removed it.

  The Empress Dowager was sitting on the steps in front of the regal chair she was meant to be occupying, propped up on embroidered cushions and nibbling on a dumpling Asmodeus had just handed her. He was kneeling on the other side of a low lacquered table loaded with food, which looked extensively sampled—and he was probably the only person who could pull off kneeling without seeming submissive.

  “Ah, husband,” Asmodeus said, laying down his chopsticks near a bowl of sautéed cucumbers. “How good of you to join us.”

  “Grandmother,” Thuan said, and bowed. “Husband.” He wasn’t going to bow, and in any case he was reasonably sure he was the eldest in the couple. “I trust you had a good time.” Behind him, Van had prostrated herself; when she got up, she took up a silent kneeling position a pace behind Asmodeus.

  “Very good,” Grandmother said. “Your husband was just telling me about the interrogations he’d led in the Court of Persuasion.” She looked like a sweet, forgetful old dragon, her antlers translucent, her eyes rheumy and unfocused, the scales on her cheeks and the back of her hands lustreless—and perhaps she was forgetful those days, but she hadn’t risen to marry Thuan’s grandfather through smiles. Thuan had it on good authority—hers, in fact—that she’d murdered about five concubines to get noticed by the then-Emperor, and executed quite a few more to keep the peace in the six chambers.

  “What a delightful conversation,” Thuan said. “If you’ll excuse me, Asmodeus and I really need to get going.”

  Grandmother patted one of the cushions next to her. “So fast? Come, come, tell me about your time in the citadel. You must be finding it so dreadfully boring.”

  In fact, Thuan had about reached his upper limit of excitement. When he moved past Asmodeus, Asmodeus’s gaze rose, sharply, towards him, his mouth shaping a single word. Blood?

  Yes, Thuan said, and sat down next to Grandmother and dearly hoped that her sense of smell had weakened with age. “It’s changed,” he said, finally, casting about for subjects of conversation that wouldn’t be about impending rebellion or the mandate of Heaven or anything that would involve breaking Hong Chi’s confidence.

  A silence. Grandmother considered him, unfocused eyes turned towards his face. Her perfume of sandalwood and cedar floated to him, sweet and familiar. “You have changed.”

  On second thought, perhaps he’d have preferred to be grilled about the rebellion.

  “He has,” Asmodeus said. He sounded smug. “Fortunately, he’s learnt to be a little more ruthless.”

  “Ha! I bet you’re still the ruthless o
ne,” Grandmother said.

  “Touché.” He bowed to her, with a mocking smile. “Thuan is the bookish one.”

  “Books are such useful resources,” Grandmother said. “Our ancestors were nowhere as squeamish as the court these days.” A snort. “Would you believe they only exile traitorous officials those days?”

  “An awful waste of lives that could be spectacularly taken,” Asmodeus said.

  Van, who’d remained kneeling behind Asmodeus, was shivering. Thuan cast about for a change of conversation. “Traitorous officials. So there’s much unrest in some ministries those days, then?”

  A snort from Grandmother. “The Ministry of Rites is a shambles. Particularly the Court of Imperial Sacrifices. Not only can they not keep track of their own personnel, but they can’t keep them in line anymore, it seems.”

  The ones in charge of the large and small acts of state worship. Thuan frowned. “I hope the lineage is still properly worshipped?”

  “Of course, of course.”

  “That’s such a shame,” Thuan said, brightly. “About the personnel. You’d think people could be better disciplined.”

  “Hmmmf,” Grandmother said. “People kept vanishing or coming back at inopportune times. Gone home to mourn a relative or for New Year’s, they said. Easier to say this than admit the Ministry didn’t keep track of their own people.” She picked a dumpling from the table, held it out to him. “Eat. You look thin and over worried. That’s not good for you. You should have children.”

  Asmodeus’s mouth closed on whatever cutting remark he’d been about to make. Thuan would have had much greater joy in Asmodeus’s discomfiture if he hadn’t been at the forefront of said discomfiture. “We’ll think about it,” he said.

  Van looked uncomfortable. Thuan couldn’t blame her. He grabbed the dumpling and ate it, washing it down with tea and hoping to Heaven Grandmother wasn’t about to follow this up with another remark in the same vein. “Thank you,” he said. “We’ll come and visit you again before the New Year?”

  “Please,” Grandmother said. “I always enjoy hearing from my grandchildren, and your husband is such a sweet delight.”

  The sweet, murderous delight rose and bowed gravely to Grandmother, and they made their way out of the Empress Dowager’s quarters in silence, with Van a few paces behind them.

  At least it wasn’t a major diplomatic incident.

  “So,” Asmodeus said, when they were back in their quarters. “Blood?”

  Thuan withdrew the tunic from under his clothes. His under robes were soaked: fortunately he’d been wearing the full five-panel dress and it had only touched the under layers. He threw it on the floor of the reception room. “Van can explain where we found it. I’m going to put on some other clothes.”

  When he came out of the bedroom—wearing red robes embroidered with dragons that felt too pretentious—Asmodeus had spread the suit out, and was examining it with Fallen magic, Van silently watching him.

  At length he rose. “It’s soaked with arterial blood, but then again given the neck area it was quite likely the severing of the carotid artery caused the death. Van said the bones you found were a dragon’s.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Mmm,” Thuan said. “A nameless dragon official of the fourth rank who was brought there and killed.”

  “And that’s your only lead? That’s… thin.”

  “A little more than tea and dumplings with my grandmother,” Thuan said, sharply.

  “It was delightful tea,” Asmodeus said. “She has scintillating conversation.”

  “Reminiscing about everyone she’s tortured to death?”

  “Precisely.”

  Van said, “You asked the question about the ministries on purpose. Didn’t you?”

  “Yes,” Thuan said. “And I got my answer. A court in shambles is a great way to ‘lose’ someone. I think we should check there for the owner of this tunic.” He paused, but he couldn’t leave Asmodeus out of the other thing. “I also need to talk to you. Alone.”

  Asmodeus smiled. “Of course.”

  They moved to the bedroom. Asmodeus leant against the wall, smiling. “Is this the part where you beg for my forgiveness?”

  “What?”

  “For stealing Van.”

  “You didn’t need Van.”

  “I beg to differ. One source of entertainment doesn’t preclude another.” A smile, and an invisible touch of magic on both of Thuan’s cheeks, slowly descending towards his lips and briefly holding there, like a finger silencing him. “Fortunately, I have a few ideas on how you can make it up to me.”

  “Now isn’t the time.”

  The same touch of magic pinned both his arms at his sides, and stroked, again and again, his earlobes and the base of his neck. “Asmodeus—” he said, struggling to move—or to breathe, as the touch circled his chest, pinching again and again, slowly descending along his spine.

  Asmodeus kissed him. It felt like coming up for air for the briefest of moments, inhaling the heady perfume of orange blossom and bergamot—before the magical touch all started again and desire, unbearable and sharp, rose—he turned his lips up again, for another kiss, struggling to sort out his thoughts, to seek or want anything other than the fire that seemed to be engulfing all of it.

  Abruptly, it stopped; and he stood, panting, in the middle of the bedroom, with Asmodeus back where he’d been, leaning against the wall with a mocking smile on his face. “You—” Thuan said.

  “Oh, I’m not heartless.” Asmodeus smiled. “Not totally. But you do deserve to be left hanging for a while, after what you pulled off with Van.”

  Thuan closed his eyes, trying to find thoughts—any coherent thoughts that wouldn’t be a primal scream of frustration. “I’d very much appreciate another form of retribution next time,” he finally managed. “Also, we have a problem.”

  Asmodeus raised an eyebrow.

  “His name is Dang Quang, and he wants Van back.”

  “Back?” Asmodeus’s eyebrow went higher. “Really, he doesn’t know either of us very well.”

  “Mmm,” Thuan said. “But he knows how the imperial court works, and that we’re not exactly on very solid ground. And I don’t know what he did to Van, but—”

  “You can guess, surely,” Asmodeus said.

  “You’re not guessing.” Thuan’s voice was sharp.

  “No. The clothes she was wearing when she arrived are quite flimsy—” he sounded clinical, but then again he wasn’t attracted to women in the slightest, and for all that he enjoyed people’s pain, his idea of sex was mutual consent—“and I have a good eye for wounds.” His gaze was harsh, not admirative. Really, really bad, then.

  “Do you think I need the details?” Thuan asked.

  “Mmm.” Asmodeus considered him. “No. You’d get angry, and next thing I know you’d be hauling Dang Quang in front of the Empress. Come on, let’s go see Van.”

  * * *

  Thuan didn’t really know if Van had eavesdropped on them—he didn’t think so, because she’d busied herself with the tunic: she’d taken a paper and a brush from the large reception room table and was busy sketching

  “What’s this?” Asmodeus asked.

  “Body-shape,” Van said.

  “From a tunic?”

  “They’re a court official,” Van said. “They’ll have had it tailored. It’s practically compulsory. The state will provide the seal of the office, for passing orders, and they will also provide mass-produced robes, but everyone wants to personalise their rank patches to look like more powerful officials, and there’s so much gold and silver that can be worked into clothes while still following official dressing code, if you have a good tailor.”

  “We could ask the tailors, then,” Asmodeus said.

  “We could, but we’d need to narrow it down. There’s too many of them in the capital.” She bit her lip. Thuan couldn’t help but notice she wasn’t scared of Asmodeus when she was in her element.

  Van finished annotating
her sketch, and laid it on the table. “There. It’s quite a large person.”

  Asmodeus and Thuan bent over it at the same time—Thuan’s antlers tangling, briefly, with Asmodeus’s hair. “That’s unusual but hardly extraordinary,” Asmodeus said.

  Van said, “They had visible shoulder spurs, and they weren’t very wealthy. The cloth is distended on the shoulder-line. There are ways to accommodate this, but they cost money.”

  Asmodeus raised an eyebrow. “Observant.”

  Van shrugged. “I’ve been a civil servant for a while.” Her hands became pincers for a brief moment. “And it’s not always convenient for a crab either. Carapace does tend to make a mess of clothes.”

  “I don’t imagine they keep records of officials by size or by visible features,” Asmodeus said.

  “No,” Thuan said. “From what Grandmother was saying, it’s possibly a miracle if they’ve kept records at all.”

  “Hmm.” Asmodeus weighed the sketch, staring at it, for a while. “I’m going to ask again. How much does this all mean to you?”

  Thuan looked up, chilled. “What do you mean?”

  “You’re upset by each new discovery on this case. And Van feels unsafe, which is unfair to her.”

  “So you just want us to give up?”

  “I want us to return to Hawthorn,” Asmodeus said. “After a detour to track down Van’s mother and wife and make sure they’re safe, too.”

  “Van agreed to help us.”

  “Did she?”

  “Why don’t we ask her? Van?”

  Van looked from one of them to the other, her face white. “My lords…” Thuan remembered what they’d told each other, her doubts, her carefully phrased neutrality. Not contradicting him, because he was her head of House. How could he have missed it?

  Asmodeus laughed, and it was low-pitched and wounding. “You’re asking her to choose between her two masters. See what I mean about unfair?”

  “But you’re not being fairer.”

  “I know about fear,” Asmodeus said, simply. And, to Van, “You’d give anything to be away from Dang Quang, wouldn’t you.” It wasn’t a question.