by S. C. Emmett
“Well, we shall do the best we can, and drink what we find.” The old joke must have pleased Tamuron, for he smiled as broadly as his wasted cheeks would allow.
Banh’s own grin in return felt only slightly strange. “Except the puddles, my lord; I’d rather drink falling rain than gathered. I would ask how you fare, but…” He sobered, and settled upon a plain three-legged stool at the bedside.
“You know I shall tell you, so why bother?” Tamuron’s smile turned wry instead of pained, but it faded by at least half. Still, he visibly appreciated his astrologer’s directness. “My eldest son refuses to see me, my second son is his mother’s creature, my third will not return to Shan— there is much refusal, Banh.”
“Sons grow into men, my lord.” Banh settled himself more firmly upon the stool. The discomfort of balancing upon such a seat would keep him sharp. “Takyeo is grieving, it is only natural; Takshin has ever been difficult. Kurin…well, he is filial in form to you and in deed to his mother. What son could not be?” Trapped between his father’s iron dish and his mother’s steady trickle of dissatisfaction, Kurin no doubt did his best.
Or so Mrong Banh wished to think.
“At least Makar troubles me little. Sensheo, though— he is in the sinks of the Theater District nightly, I am told.” Tamuron’s tone suggested the latter, while not unprincely in moderation, was not a thing to be regularly indulged, but then again, he had more often found his joy in battle instead of in theater-flower beds. “And Jin will not stay in his mother’s house but leaps the walls to search for dice-games and displays of strange weaponry.”
“Makar is a scholar, Sensheo has ever been a sybarite, Jin is still young, and a longtail to boot.” Banh could have recited each son’s name in his sleep, as well as their qualities, princely or not. “You have an embarrassment of good luck, my lord, with heirs to guide Zhaon and provide each other strength.”
“Ah, is that what it is?” The Emperor for once did not have kombin to hand, but his fingers moved, counting off invisible beads. “Sabwone is still sending those letters. She imagines herself a heroine.”
Well, Sabwone had ever been a dramatic sort, prone to reading light novelists instead of more appropriate but less exciting works. “Marriage will calm her headstrong nature.”
“It did not calm…” But the lord of Zhaon glanced at the portico, crowded with courtiers fanning themselves and eunuchs conferring. “Enough of that. Come, spread out your star-maps, and tell me what Heaven wills.”
Banh almost winced. “The stars are uneasy, my lord.” Pressed-paper did not crackle as its thinner rai-pounded counterpart, and he had drawn his charts with care. He could not sweeten the cake, though for once he longed to. “Disorder lurks in every house, and the northern horizon is making room for a newcomer.” In another time, such motions would be welcome, and Banh would have attributed them to new life swelling within a princess to provide one more link in the chain of Garan.
He wished he were doing so now.
“Ah.” Tamuron’s glance said he guessed as much. “Come closer. Closer.”
Brought to his lord’s very side, Banh could smell the malady ravaging Tamuron’s frame. Sweetish and faintly sharp, sweat full of acridity instead of a healthy man’s faint sour edge of oil and muscle. “I know what you wish to ask,” he murmured. “I cannot tell, my lord. I wish I could.”
For a long moment Tamuron was silent, and Banh almost feared the peevishness of ill health and the habit of command would push him to another hasty judgment. The affair of Lady Komor’s blade, not to mention the attack upon the Crown Prince ending in the murder of his foreign wife, had not merely shaken the court. It had cost Tamuron some of his beloved first son’s affection— a disaster brewing for years, only seen as inevitable in retrospect.
The stars had not spoken of such a small thing; it was beneath their notice. Yet Banh sometimes wondered if they had, and he had not seen the warning because the ever-modest, ever-patient Crown Prince simply seemed too tame to bolt.
A dog could not rule, and while it was a blessing Takyeo was finally showing his teeth, it might be too late to avoid…certain things, certain inevitable disorders when the Emperor’s malady finally took his inner posts.
Banh had known all his life that all men are mortal, but somehow, it did not seem to apply to the warlord who plucked him from tavern servitude and went on to unify the most ancient of lands, the great bountiful bowl of Zhaon. Even during numerous battles, while an astrologer listened to the chaos in the distance, trumpets and gongs passing commands along the army’s lines, he had not thought Garan Tamuron would fall.
Even now it was difficult to compass a world without him.
“Is it so uncertain, then?” Tamuron settled against his square pillows and rectangular bolsters. “I have ever done as Heaven wills, why torment me in my last days?”
“Perhaps it is not a torment,” Banh hurried to remark, though it was more a wistful hope than an accomplished fact. “Uncertainty does not mean defeat, my lord. The stars have always blessed you; this is perhaps only another battle.”
“I hope you are right.” His lord’s eyelids lowered a fraction. “The northern horizon, you say?”
For a moment, Banh’s throat closed and he could not say what he suspected. A newcomer among the stars, yes— and who, among all of Zhaon, had burned brightest? Who would be judged worthy to mount to Heaven itself if not Garan Tamuron? “There is great uncertainty,” he hedged. “I have compared the map of the night sky to a fragment from thirty winters ago, my lord, and to other maps from fifty and seventy.” He meant to add since Heaven treads in cycles, but then he would continue as a pedant. Instead, he contented himself with the barest of necessities. “I have found…much to provoke concern.”
“So. It is not a question of if, it is a question of when.” The edges of Tamuron’s gaze, like those of his voice and temper, were sharpened with fever now. His body might be failing, but he would ride it to exhaustion and beyond. He did not even need a spur; what beast could be recalcitrant with such a masterful rider? Pure will kept him a-saddle and swinging his plain, heavy, priceless-ancient sword. It looks like a poor fellow, he had remarked upon that blade, but so do I, sometimes.
Banh had ever taken it as a sign that his lord knew quality, even when it came wearing a less-than-pretty face. “Tabrak will ride, my lord. But I do not think you will meet them.” It was as painful a truth as he had ever uttered.
“Then I must leave Zhaon in a condition to face such a danger.” Another tight, pained smile, as if Tamuron intended to put his astrologer at ease. His cheeks were mottled, both with the paleness of discomfort and the spreading of the malady. Non-infectious, the physicians agreed, for no courtier or servant had taken ill yet; the physicians also agreed it was not poison, and yet it consumed the great strength of its victim in ever-larger mouthfuls. “How shall we do so, Banh?”
“The Crown Prince has my aid.” The astrologer could not help another serving of plain truth, like unpolished rai. “And he always will.”
Their gazes locked; Banh hoped his lord could decipher the message. He sought to be a clear pond, one Garan Tamuron could see the bottom of.
“That is good,” the Emperor murmured. “I have no fear of you, Banh. But remember to take refuge, should it become necessary.”
It warmed him, that his lord would worry for the safety of a humble servant. Perhaps it was only the tightness of his topknot that made his eyes prickle, and he sought refuge in memory as old men were wont to do. “When arrows fall, who can be careful?”
“Wandering like a cloudfur, oblivious to the counterattack.” Amazingly, Tamuron laughed, a wispy, reedy sound shaking his thinning chest and bobbing the pad in his throat meant to keep a full-grown man from choking upon life. “Had Kai not pulled you into shelter, Banh, I would be missing you now.”
“I was missed then.” Banh’s own smile was unforced, and for a moment they were merely friends upon a sunny hillside, discussing politics,
stars, classics, women, and whatever else a warlord would have use for or satisfaction in. “And glad of it, too.”
Afterward, Banh would wonder if he did well or rightly, keeping Kai’s suspicions upon the northern origins of an assassination plot to himself. The general had enjoined him to silence, to keep the field of battle clear. Suspicion was all very well, but more proof was required— and Banh had the idea that Zakkar Kai would seek to insulate his lord from what they suspected by bringing the matter first to Takyeo.
Who would be the next Emperor. And, Mrong Banh thought, that event would be sooner rather than later.
For Garan Tamuron had the look of an old man not quite resigned to Death, but entertaining the guest as politely as possible in the meantime.
GROWING UP
The gardens were always lovely in summer, but her breath was short. “He threw a sauce-dish. And a plate. Broke them both.” Gamnae pulled at Jin’s arm, sweat prickling under her dress as they passed into shade. “Do not hurry so, Jin. My feet hurt.”
“You are such a baby.” But at least her youngest brother slowed so she was not run to death like one of Lady Surimaki’s enchanted villains. Garan Jin, lean in his practice half-armor and usually smiling, was sober and thoughtful now; he scratched delicately at the scalp near his leather topknot-cage with its gilded wooden pin. “What did your mother do?”
“I don’t know.” She was more than content to have it so, but still, perhaps she should have tried to find out from the servants. “Kurin told me to leave; I left.”
“And?” Jin’s eyebrows raised. He halted, looking over a railing at the throbbing green of a water-garden under bright midmorning sunshine thick enough to be honey; light darted cruelly from the fountain’s play.
Those glitters threatened to poke right through her head. “He wants me to be friendly.” It had taken some doing to nerve herself up to this— it wasn’t like telling a secret, Gamnae had decided. It was more in the nature of seeking counsel from a minister or an exorcist. Father was unapproachable, Takyeo had more pressing concerns, Takshin would be uninterested, Makar would tell her she was being silly, Sensheo would be cruel, and Mrong Banh was not in his tower that morn. She had nowhere else to turn. “To Lady Komor.”
Jin swung from his study of the fountain and examined her for a few breaths. When he sobered and looked down his nose like that he slightly resembled Sabwone, which was disconcerting, and very much resembled Father, which was downright frightening. “What does he want with Lady Komor?”
“I don’t know.” She was glad he’d stopped walking, too. Her jatajatas produced lovely sounds and were prettily lacquered, but they made her calves and her back ache. The shade was just as welcome; her dress, a pretty light babu green, was appropriate for summer but was a little too heavy for exercise. A noblewoman shouldn’t caper about, in any case; Mother was very clear upon that point. Gamnae’s heart would not cease cantering, not quite a full gallop but refusing to return to a steady trot. “He wants me to visit her and be friendly.”
Their gazes met, her youngest brother’s expression matched her own, and Gamnae felt a certain relief. Jin didn’t suggest that perhaps Kurin was just being kind, as Makar or Sensheo might if they could be induced to listen at all to their baby sister’s reports.
But Jin, nearer her age and the recipient of Kurin’s brotherly ire more than once, knew better. And that was why Gamnae had put herself upon his way to the drillyard this morning, interrupting his second weapons-practice of the day with the duty to take a turn in the gardens with his youngest sister.
“I like Lady Komor,” Jin finally said, slowly, resting his hands upon the carved stone railing. His hurai was a green gleam upon his left first finger, its characters familiar as her own name, and his knuckles bore a slight scrape, well on its way to healing. “She is brave. And kind.”
Well, the Khir lady had been kind enough to Gamnae, but that was hardly the point. When Kurin took an interest in someone of lesser rank it was because he had his own plans, and those were not likely to be comfortable for his target— or for any tool he used in the meantime. “So do I. But, Jin…”
“You can be a good friend to her, Gamnae.” Jin nodded sharply, as if he had just made up his mind. “And protect her from Kurin.”
“Protect her?” Gamnae all but squeaked. Who would protect Gamnae, if she went against Kurin? Certainly none of her brothers except perhaps Takyeo, and he had much larger matters to worry over. A hot breeze fluttered her skirt, touched her sweating nape. “I thought you would help me find a reason not to visit, Jin.”
“He’ll send someone else,” Jin pointed out. He even rubbed thoughtfully at his chin, in imitation of Mrong Banh’s more serious moments. A faint shadow of prickling showed upon his upper lip. “Better if he thinks you’re stupid, right? Because you’re not.”
It was nice to have someone think so, Gamnae decided. She knew she was not a scholar like Makar, or even middling at her studies like Sabwone, who still managed to terrify her tutors into complimenting her efforts. Sabwone also filched novels she shouldn’t be reading, and sometimes gave Gamnae hair-raising little details about what they contained, but there would be no more of that now. “I don’t know,” she hedged. “Between him and Mother…perhaps they will forget all about me if they are busy with each other.”
“Those two always have time to give someone else misery,” he muttered, then caught himself. “Sorry, Gamnae.”
Of course she should take offense at such an estimation of her mother and eldest brother. And yet, she could not. “It’s true,” she said heavily. “Should I go to Takshin?” She devoutly hoped he would speak against the idea, but it had to be broached. “He is in the Jonwa too.”
Jin considered the notion. He was very fine at his studies when they interested him. Weapons and martial play were better, he said; brushes, to Garan Jin, were the most boring thing imaginable. “Maybe we should go to him together? He will want to know.”
Since he was not being impossible, she decided to risk a little more truth. She wished she’d brought a sunbell; the walk back to the Kaeje would be very warm. “He frightens me now.”
“He’s our brother. And if Kurin plans mischief, Taktak is best for foiling him.” Jin’s eyebrows drew together like two ferocious caterpillars, an expression he was much given to when thinking deeply. “Takyeo’s busy, Kai is too, Banh can’t do anything. At least Sabwone’s gone, so she won’t make it worse.”
If she was a bad sister for not defending Kurin, he was a bad brother for saying such a thing about Sabi. All the same, he wasn’t wrong, and Gamnae’s head hurt a little, untangling the implications. Perhaps both of them were bad, but not overly so. “Kurin wants something,” she said, slowly. “I do not know what yet.”
“You do not have to do what Kurin wants.” Jin said it as if it were easy to contemplate doing otherwise.
She didn’t like stating the obvious, but in this case it was perhaps permissible. “He will make me pay if I don’t.” Gamnae stared unseeing at the garden. It was pretty, but also familiar, and the beauty meant to soothe and uncomplicate troubled minds was not working as intended this morning.
“Who will pay if you do?” Jin asked, softly, as if to himself. “Lady Komor?”
It was on the tip of her tongue to say she’s only a lady-in-waiting, and a foreigner too. But Lady Komor had been kind to her as well. Not only that, but her princess— round pretty Mahara, not a barbarian at all despite Mother’s disdain— was dead. How awful was it to travel so far and be so alone, losing the only claim one had to a place in the palace? In a novel, Lady Komor would either pine away or meet some less fetching end.
But this was not a novel. Whatever Kurin wanted from the Khir lady could not be pleasant.
And it wasn’t fair. Gamnae would have liked to visit Lady Komor anyway. At least in Takyeo’s house nobody called her a dolt, and the oppressive, stifling tension in Mother’s part of the Kaeje didn’t close its bony fingers around her liver and tur
n her into a clumsy, stumbling fool. “Yes,” she said, decisively, and her hand tightened upon Jin’s arm as a distant babu water-clock thik-thock ed, its heartbeat brought to them on the back of a fitful summer breeze redolent of perfumed dust and green, growing things. “Of course. You’re right.”
“Am I?” Jin blinked, visibly startled out of his own musings. At least he gave her time to think, instead of prodding like an impatient tutor. “I think that’s the first time you’ve ever said so.”
She longed to pinch him. “Well, you are an idiot, otherwise. But you’re right now.”
He gave her a gentle poke in the ribs, and that was new, too. Before, he wouldn’t have been nearly so careful. “Ai, Naenae, I should pull your hair. What will you do?”
“I will write to Lady Komor asking when she will receive me,” Gamnae decided. The shade over them, full of leaf-flutter, was like warm liquid. “And you, will you speak to Takshin for me?”
“You’re really scared of him?” Jin sounded half as if he did not credit the notion, and half as if he understood.
“I suppose not. Not really.” Anyone who wasn’t a true fool, Gamnae thought, would hold Taktak in some caution. Kurin was mean, but Takshin was unpredictable. Still, he did not taunt or torment; she remembered very little of him before he’d been sent to Shan and come back scarred and full of that tense quiet that filled Gamnae’s head with painful scraping, but what she could remember of her third-eldest brother wasn’t cruelty. “You’ll see him before I will, that’s all. If you’re going to the drillyard.”
“Mh. Good point.” Jin nodded thoughtfully, another surprise. His shoulders had broadened lately, and some of his favorite tunics were a little short in the sleeves. This one exposed more of his wrists than was quite proper, but the wear upon its nap said it was well-loved, just the thing for cushioning the drill-armor that creaked as he shifted his weight slightly. Not as if he was eager to be gone, for once; he was proving much more patient than she had dared hope when she set out from the Kaeje.