by S. C. Emmett
If Zhaon had borne defeat, would Kai himself clamor for fresh battles?
Banh was silent for a short while, but Kai could feel the thoughts moving in the other man’s busy, nimble liver. Head-meat was all very well, but it was useless without the emperor of organs providing fuel and impetus.
When the astrologer spoke again, it was in the soft, reflective tone of a man relating a puzzling dream. “They cannot wish for war again.”
“It makes no sense,” Kai agreed, glad Banh’s thoughts had traveled in the same cart-track ruts as his own. “And yet.” It would have eased him immensely, had Banh arrived at a different estimation than his own.
But Zakkar Kai had not thought it likely.
“I won’t ask why you chose to dispose of the body in that particular fashion…” The words faded, the astrologer clearly wishing to ask the question very badly.
Kai did not reply. What he did not explain, Banh could very well say was only a suspicion, not actual knowledge. It was best not to place his oldest friend in a position where he might have to lie.
For all his depth, Banh was startlingly bad at untruths. Finally, the older man closed his eyes, fingers still laced over his widening stomach. He very pointedly did not glance at the ring again. “They may not wish for war.” Very softly. “But should war occur, they are well placed to deny Zhaon requests for aid, and to take a bit more than borderlands and bridges while a new Emperor is distracted.”
“Yes,” Kai said, heavily. “That is what I thought you would say.”
“’Tis only a feeling. But with the Pale Horde sending emissaries…” Again, Banh let the sentence stay unfinished, but there was no question in its lilt, just the weariness of a peasant eyeing the approach of bad weather.
Kai closed his own eyes. It was no use. He could still see that hurtful, hateful gleam upon its pad of red silk, and even the remaining, often-remembered tingle of Yala’s closeness in his arms and the exact space upon his chest where her cheek had rested more than once but not nearly often enough did not soothe his unease.
A GIFT, MUSTN’T WE
Deep in the Kaeje, a small round room was girdled twice with tapestries despite summer’s crushing heat. Inside, mirrorlight softened through falls of sheer material, and the greatest lady in Zhaon was settled upon a cushioned bench before a low, exquisitely carved wooden table draped with bright peach cotton, its surface holding serried ranks of bottles, jars, implements, and other means to turn whatever skin, hair, eyes, and teeth Heaven had given a woman into fashionable equivalents.
“You’re lucky to have no children, Yona.” First Queen Gamwone’s face was set as she stared into a highly polished brazen mirror, its back carved with characters to denote good luck; its metal was held to beam only the most healthful of reflections toward its user. “They bring you grief.”
Her chief maidservant Eun Yona— for the First Queen only rarely allowed ladies-in-waiting to attend her dressing, confining their attempts to gain her patronage to social hours, luncheons, and the odd ceremony or festival— made a soft, noncommittal noise that could be taken for agreement or a request for further wisdom. It was a skill she had learned early in palace service and it stood her in good stead, just as the ability to keep her face a blank, river-washed rock did.
Yona’s stomach ached ceaselessly, no matter how many ounces of medicine from the Artisan’s Home she swallowed. The pain had been very bad lately, but it did not affect her duties.
Nothing would. She kept to her work, her dry cool fingers busily stroking, twisting, separating, braiding. Her royal mistress did not abide idleness at any moment. It was better to seem busy at all times, and woe to the maidservant who did not grasp as much. Even the First Queen’s eunuch steward, bland attenuated Zan Guin, took pains to achieve a state of steady motion when her gaze seemed likely to fall upon him.
“They are all ungrateful,” Gamwone continued, after a short pause. Her round, beautiful face had not changed much in all the years of Yona’s service, save for some fine thin lines at the corners of the eyes and mouth massaged with nia oil every morning and evening. “Just like men. You’re lucky not to have a husband, either.”
Yona made another servile noise. As if she could ever think of marrying, especially now. Her youth was past, pressed out of her and leaving only an urn of dry powder where her womb had once sat; even the thriftiest of care had not accumulated a dowry that might have induced some minor merchant or Golden officer to accept a wife with the skills and useful connections gained in palace service. She chose bone and metal implements with care, using each without tugging long black strands, knowing exactly how Gamwone hated having her scalp irritated on hot, dusty days like today. Next would come the question of hairpins— a difficult matter, but at least the queen didn’t seem in a mood to find fault.
Not at the moment.
“Well,” Gamwone continued, still studying the mirror. “I suppose they aren’t all bad. If given proper training while young. Is there anything of interest today, Yona?”
“The Second Concubine visited the Emperor,” Yona said promptly, her inflection suitably deferential and each word low but clear so her mistress could not accuse her of mumbling. A faint iron taste against her palate was the morning’s medicine, tossed quickly down into her guts before dawn when she rose to harry slothful junior maidservants into activity. “Yesterday morn.”
Gamwone’s servants were to be ever vigilant as they went about their duties, and Yona was who they reported to. Oh, she knew what they called her— the dry stick for beating carpets, the woman all the juice had been pressed from, the pimple upon a queen’s backside. Sometimes it rankled, but on other days, she felt only a peasant’s mutinous joy at surviving.
In such a place as the great palace of Zhaon, survival was a victory. Yona longed to see a soldier or two, or even a vaunted prince, last a single day of woman’s work.
“Suffering little mouse,” Gamwone hissed. “No doubt she was going to beg more favors for that dog-general.”
Yona did not think it likely, unless it was to request an imperial blessing upon the general before his departure to the North three days hence, but she held her peace. The next batch of braids was going to be tricky; some of Gamwone’s hair was resisting the combined, constant pressure of comb, hairpin, and age.
Perhaps on some future day Yona could introduce padding to make certain her mistress was not embarrassed by thinning hair. Such an innovation would have to be deployed carefully, and she did not relish the thought of its advent.
“I don’t deny he’s useful,” Gamwone continued, in a meditative tone. “But he does not know his place.”
Yona made another sound of assent. This was a familiar song, one she could almost whistle, if such a thing were not bad luck. “He visits the Crown Prince regularly,” she offered, knowing it would not even begin to satisfy the queen’s appetite.
What would? Perhaps a long, slow, tortuous death meted out to one of her particular unfavorites. Zhaon’s First Queen read accounts of convicted criminals expiring upon the machines of the civil peace service with great avidity. Occasionally she would repeat a phrase or two aloud for the edification of her servants.
Those were bad days.
“The trash clots together in a canal,” Gamwone said softly. “What else is there today, Yona?”
“The bath-girl.” Yona kept braiding, steadily. If she arranged the strands just so, they would cover the thinning portion admirably. “One of our under-servants has heard her family in Suyon now has a new cow.”
“Whore a daughter, receive an ox,” Gamwone muttered.
Yona thought it was quite likely the bath-girl the Emperor was so enamored with didn’t have time to ask for her family’s preferment, being run ragged by her jealous fellows in that part of the palace. Gamwone was unlikely to take Yona’s next piece of news calmly, but keeping it in reserve was unwise. So she took care to keep her tone and inflection even more honorific than usual. “The Second Prince has requested
her thrice as an attendant, and gave her a scentwood comb just two days ago. The entire bath quarter was talking about it.”
“Is that so.” Much to Yona’s surprise, the queen smiled and stretched, catlike, yet kept her head still as a noblewoman learned to while hair was being dressed. Her son’s cultivation of the girl the Emperor was currently showering attention upon must be a planned maneuver, then. “Don’t pull my hair. You are inattentive today, Yona.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” She had not tugged a single strand, but of course, protesting would gain nothing but ill-luck. “My apologies.” Yona hurried to add more news, scraped from the lazy, chattering children pressed into palace service. The rest of the complex, from the Kaeje to the eunuchs’ quarters, called Queen Gamwone’s girls uncomplimentary things, and also noted that they did not grow sleek and polished in service, but thin and fretful instead.
It was no great loss, Yona thought. Their place was to serve, not to sit about on their fat hindquarters belittling their patroness. “There have been many letters from First Princess Sabwone,” she continued, anxious to change the subject. “The Second Queen did not read the last two, instead leaving them upon her study-desk. There are rumors that the Emperor is considering a marriage for the Second Princess, too, since the First’s was…advantageous.”
“Selling off my daughter too.” Gamwone tilted the mirror afresh, studying the curve of her plump cheek. Her hair was still very black and shining, lovingly combed and doused with scented oils every night before the queen retired to her well-padded bed, to dream whatever dreams a royal wife entertained when her lord husband no longer visited. “Well, anything less than a king won’t do for Gamnae. But not Khir. After all, they lost the war.”
Yona longed to ask if the queen thought Far Ch’han would take the Second Princess for their own august Emperor. That would be a bright hairpin for the First Queen to flaunt, a larger and more important country— though far more distant— swallowing another of Garan Tamuron’s daughters.
On the other hand, maybe the Emperor would send his remaining daughter to Khir. A girlchild for a girlchild— how that would irritate the First Queen, her precious bovine-tempered Gamnae sent to replace a horselord’s brat. Gossip about the foreign Crown Princess painted her as stupid but pretty; it was her lady-in-waiting with the catlike face and those same strange Khir ghost-eyes, so different than honest dark Zhaon gazes, who was held to be the greater danger. Especially once it was revealed that said lady wasn’t a noblewoman at all but an evil feline spirit with a long greenstone claw.
Or so the stories said. Carrying an undeclared weapon in the palace was supposed to be death, but the First Queen’s second son, the one who was supposed to have brought Shan to his mother like a naming-day present, had stepped between the foreign princess’s guardian spirit and a whip.
It was a pretty tale, but not one which would soothe the First Queen’s temper.
Yona looped the second braid, used a bentpin to secure it, and turned to the third as the pain in her middle subsided to a low grumble. Third Prince Takshin also spent his days in the Crown Prince’s burrow, currying favor with the son of the Emperor’s first, sainted, long-dead wife. It was difficult to tell what about the situation galled Gamwone most.
But Yona’s mistress was no longer interested in palace gossip, or perhaps the queen knew nothing more of interest would be reported. She turned to the next item of business, usually far more pleasant and mollifying. “Who sent gifts today?”
“Lady Aouan Mau, for Gamnae. Lady Gonwa, for Gamnae too. The Second Queen sent ink and a length of silk for your naming-day. The Emperor sent a small package; it has been left upon your night-table as you commanded.”
“Well, send someone to fetch it. My lord husband’s gifts must not wait.” But Gamwone’s mouth pulled down bitterly. Her husband would not give her anything she wanted.
Of course, if he could divine what this woman longed for, he would probably strike off her head like the old tale of the King of Wurei and the faithless, scheming, but quite beautiful courtesan Ging Mau. High position was perilous, especially for a woman gifted with beauty, ambition, or any intelligence at all.
Sometimes Yona wished she had less head-meat or liver-strength; being dismissed from palace service was a stain upon one’s prospects but might have been far more pleasant. At least begging in alleyways one expected to starve, instead of seeing luxury daily and being scolded or struck should one openly desire a fingerful.
Yona finished the third braid and bowed deeply before rising, hurrying to the partition on soft feet. Everything must be muffled for Gamwone’s delicate sensibilities; it was a shock that the noble lady was sometimes so crude. Of course, the Yulehi were rumored to have bought some claim to nobility, instead of acquiring it honestly by sword or Heaven’s will. That particular gossip— that her family genealogy was traced upon goatskin instead of upon stone stele— was not reported to Gamwone, but who dared to pass it along was.
There had been many such comments of late. More than usual, and that was a troubling sign.
When Yona returned, her mistress had laid the mirror face-down. “Yona,” she said, very kindly, “there is something to be done.”
“Yes, Your Highness?” The chief servant’s hands turned even colder despite the simmer of Zhaon’s summer in this round, padded room. She gathered the braids and began to twist them in becoming fashion, taking even more care not to pull, tug, or otherwise irritate a tender royal scalp.
“That fellow, so-called Honorable Tian.” Gamwone touched a small crimson pot of anwa paste, hau bark ground fine and mixed with certain other essences to treat skin discoloration and slight pains. Her resin-dipped fingernails, too long for a woman who lifted anything heavier than a scroll or a brush, made a small reptilian clicking against painted ceramic. “The physician. He hasn’t attended us in quite some time. We must send him a gift, mustn’t we.”
Oh, thank Heaven. As usual, Yona felt a great burst of swimming relief that it wasn’t her neck upon the block. Tian Ha was the First Queen’s personal physician— or had been for a very long while, and had been consequently very high in the estimation of the court. He had even, once or twice, deigned to palpate Yona’s abdomen with a wooden pointer and tell her the pain was simply an imbalance of female humors, and nothing a common draught would not cure. Still, the First Queen had turned a cold cheek in his direction since the affair of the mangled corpse upon her front steps, so it wasn’t quite a surprise that he had withdrawn to his estate outside the palace walls, probably sweating and trying vainly to remember his every word in order to find what had disturbed his patroness.
Yona could have told that august personage it was no use; the First Queen had decided her pet physician was either far too comfortable in her continued graces or worse, a danger to her own padded position. Once Garan Yulehi-a Gamwone decided such a thing, not even Heaven itself could move her to pity or mercy.
After all, Tian Ha knew certain secrets, just as Yona did. And Yona was increasingly nervous that soon, the First Queen would look into a mirror and murmur we must give Yona a gift, mustn’t we.
“If Your Highness says so, it must be so,” she said, and selected the hairpin most likely to please her mistress; it had a long fall of glittering gold beaten so thin it was like fluttering bebao leaves before an autumn storm. “His estate is upon the Street of Bright Pearlfruit, I am told.” See how useful I am, her fawning tone intimated, and how she hated the taste of it.
But those who smiled through a mouthful of noble shit survived, and there might even be undigested rai in such a dish.
“We must know someone in his household.” Gamwone’s tone was soft and pleasant; in that moment she was very beautiful indeed, round-faced, polished, black-eyed, and plump like the illustrations of the goddess of rai or the queen-wife of the Moon Himself. “Someone lowly, but…suitable.”
“Certainly, Great Queen.” The honorific, an ancient and somewhat ornate term for the only wife of Zhaon’s E
mperor, was the right move; Yona blessed her past self for some prudence in anticipating something of this sort. Only last week she had given one of the girls— a thin, lanky provincial creature with more presence of mind than most of her ilk— the duty of befriending someone suitable in Tian Ha’s household. “I think one of our maids knows one of the kitchen-scrubbers there.” Her throat dried too. Perhaps her humors were disarranged; whose would not be, in such a position as hers?
But she had chosen correctly, for her mistress relaxed, soft paws touching small things upon her beauty-bench. “Is that so?” Gamwone’s smile stretched, languid and beautiful, her face a full moon. Next would come the lacquering of her braids to keep them in place, then the application of zhu powder upon cheeks, forehead, and nose; after that the slight touch of color to her lips, and by then, Yona’s hands would have stopped wanting to shake as she attended to the largest and certainly cruelest goddess of the Kaeje. Then it would be time to whisk away the thin cotton capelet that kept zhu from dusting linen and under-robe before settling the day’s dress over her mistress’s shoulders, with two hurrying, silent undermaids in attendance to help tighten, tie, lace, and arrange. “Well. I am certain I have something small to send to the esteemed physician. Not this afternoon, but soon. Not too tight, Yona.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
Gamwone picked up the mirror again. She studied the hairpin’s bright glitter in its brazen depths. “Oh, no,” she said, in mock surprise. “That hairpin won’t do at all if I am to wear ear-drops today, Yona. Something a little less showy.”
Yona swallowed bitterness from her rancid stomach. “Yes, of course,” she repeated. “Your Highness.”
A COMFORT
It was best to ration anything pleasant, but Garan Takshin found he did not wish to. Being balked in every direction while attempting to find the assassin responsible for a princess’s death was bad enough; the added gossip surrounding a lady under his personal protection was a maddening fillip. He did not care what they said of him, but keeping their chattering mouths from a certain Khir girl was all but impossible even if he did glower at any so stupid as to spend their breath so in his presence.