by S. C. Emmett
What would someone who knew how to handle this say? “I heard,” Gamnae heard herself state, dismally. “I did not believe it. You can’t die, Ah-Yeo.”
“All men may accomplish such a feat,” Makar murmured from his place. It was probably a learned allusion, but Gamnae darted him a look that should have broken the inkstone. “I have made four copies, Ah-Yeo, and am starting on the fifth.”
“Very good. Come.” Takyeo beckoned Gamnae, and she realized that the smell— the bad part of it at least— must be coming from him. “I would hold your hand for a short while too, Naenae.”
It had been a long time since anyone except Jin called her that. Sabwone was missing, too. She would have been at the garden door with Sensheo, making observations in the haughtiest possible tone to cover up her own fear. And Kai would have been at Takyeo’s side, ever watchful but ready to smile encouragingly.
As long as she was seeing the missing, she might as well add Father, but he would have ordered them all from the room so his first son could rest. Still, he would have had a gentle word and a pat on the hand or head for Gamnae, though she had long outgrown the latter.
She approached the bedside; there was another three-legged stool cuddled close to Jin’s. Her sixth brother’s chin was set and his mouth was a thin line, but his lips wobbled slightly as he glanced at her.
It was a relief to find someone else felt like crying, too.
Takshin settled her upon the stool with great care, even bowing close enough to mutter, “A welcome sight, Gamnae, well done,” in her ear. Which threatened to break the tears free as well. Did he not know that he was supposed to be insulting, so she could be annoyed?
The smell was indeed very bad, and thin red lines were crawling up Takyeo’s chest along his veins. He was sweating, and when he took her hand his grasp was loose bones inside a thin, fever-hot skin sack. “You two,” he said affectionately. “A longtail and a kitten.” The words broke halfway, and his breath was sour too.
“I do not purr,” Jin said, and Gamnae elbowed him.
“You’re the smelly longtail,” she muttered, just loudly enough for Takyeo to hear.
Eldest Brother’s laugh was cut short as he winced. “Ai, even merriment hurts. Listen, I am ceding you Guahua and Jin, Haeniu. They are next to each other, but you must not fight.”
“We never fight,” Jin said.
“Not where you can hear us,” Gamnae added, mildly enough. So, she was to be the absurd little sister, and ease his mind.
Plenty of things were beyond her power, but this, at least, she could do. The two estates he mentioned were fine ones, and no doubt Mother would be pleased— but Gamnae was, just at the moment, not quite ready to accept such a gift.
The corners of Takyeo’s eyes crinkled, but he did not laugh again. It probably hurt too much. “You must promise to help each other, when I am gone.”
“Stop it,” Jin said, fierce and low. “Stop. You can’t. Please, Ah-Yeo.”
She longed to elbow him. “When you are recovered we will tease Jin about this.”
“Certainly. But not too much.” Takyeo squeezed her hand again, gently, and lifted his left hand to reach across his chest and pat at hers. The hurai slipped upon his first finger; he had lost so much weight in so short a time.
The tiny movement of that greenstone band stabbed her chest. Her liver, probably half the size of anyone else’s to match her failed courage, was spinning in place like a child’s top.
“Guahua will also provide a fine living for you should you choose not to marry,” Takyeo continued, brisk and businesslike though his voice was a cricket-whisper. “Promise me you will consider the notion.”
Choose not to marry? Well, Sabi had gone to be a queen, and Mother would not let Gamnae do any less. Still…Takyeo was dying, and when your eldest brother was so close to joining the ancestors, what could you say? “I promise I shall consider,” she said, numbly.
“Good.” Takyeo’s gaze unfocused and he sagged upon the pillows, both his hands grasping hers.
Jin seized them, so hard his knuckles whitened and her own hurt. “Ah-Yeo? Ah-Yeo!”
“The pain is very bad,” Eldest Brother said softly. Gamnae’s throat closed to a pinhole in heavy silk, the kind it took an iron thimble to force even a thick, very sharp needle through.
“Physician?” Takshin appeared, and reached to work Jin’s fingers free, also loosening Gamnae’s. “Do not break their fingers, Jin.”
“I’m not.” Jin stood, his hip bumping Gamnae almost off her stool, and shoved blindly past their third-eldest brother. He stamped for the verandah door and Sensheo, who for once only ignored him instead of turning with a cutting remark.
The physician bustled up, and held a cup to Takyeo’s dry, cracked lips. “Nightflower and omyei.” His tone was matter-of-fact, and the announcement was to stave off any question of what he was giving to his patient.
Gamnae all but gaped. With that brew flowing inside his humors, Ah-Yeo should be unable to speak at all.
“Come.” Takshin plucked at her shoulder. “You may attend Makar, and hand him what he requires to seal the paperwork.”
“Must I?” she whispered, but obediently let him draw her away. “And Lady Komor? Is she better? I must visit her.”
“Not today,” Takshin said, and his expression was so forbidding she almost quailed.
Almost. After all, she had disobeyed Mother, and she was far more terrifying than Taktak.
“I thought you would be weeping,” Makar said by way of greeting. “Sit there.”
At least he was always the same. Takshin glanced over Gamnae’s shoulder at what the Fourth Prince was writing, nodded, and returned to Takyeo’s side.
“I am stronger than you think.” Gamnae settled, rolled up her sleeves in case she had to touch the inkstone, and watched him wield the brush. The room still smelled awful, but she made up her mind not to care.
And she made up her mind to consider any marriage carefully indeed.
THE RETURN
One last cloudburst hovered over Zhaon-An after several dry days, and those in the labyrinthine streets watched the darkening sky nervously. The Palace held its breath, eunuchs hurrying on strangely hushed jatajatas; ministers visited each other and spoke in hushed tones behind their fans; lesser and junior civil servants watched their masters allying and breaking alliance while the work of sealing, stamping, and minor policy decisions went on. The great administrative apparatus was not quite smitten and brooding like an anthill without its guiding intelligence, but it was very close.
So uncertain was the Palace that a small band of riders almost passed through the main gates unchallenged. At the last moment they were hailed, and their leader recognized as he barked a single command.
The Golden drew aside.
The riders passed all aclatter through two baileys and past several gardens, arriving at a long flight of stairs meant only for human feet. Their leader, the crest of his helm floating upon the strengthening breeze, again did not hesitate but urged his great grey mount up the slope; the horse, only slightly hesitant, did as he was bid.
They trotted to the stairs of the Jonwa itself; the leader dismounted with a creak of leather and a half-muffled curse, striding for Emperor Takyeo’s door. The two Golden on duty, caught between the imperative to let none but a prince pass and the greenstone hurai flashing upon the visitor’s finger, drew aside, and he stripped his helm as he plunged into the dimness. Even the mirrorlight was muted, and a rumble of thunder roll-rattled like clay weights inside a kettle.
So it was that Zakkar Kai returned to the bedside of Emperor Garan Takyeo, whose reign lasted less than a moon-cycle. The Emperor, dosed with a prodigious amount of nightflower and omyei, did not wake to see his old friend but slipped the moorings of physical life as infection— and the hunger of the cinnabar his wound was packed with— drained his humors and snuffed his kind, princely life.
It was also Zakkar Kai who carried the news that one of the men attem
pting to keep the news of his beloved battle-father’s death and the new Emperor’s need from reaching him was alive, and had spoken the name of his royal patron.
Garan Sensheo.
TEN THOUSAND YEARS
This is very disturbing.” Kurin stroked at his chin. The Jonwa hallway resounded with hurrying feet; deeper in the palace customarily given to the Crown Prince’s use wailing began as female servants took up their traditional task at their master’s ascension to Heaven. “Things are uncertain enough as it is, we cannot begin killing each other.”
Easy for you to say. Kai’s eyes burned and his hindquarters still felt the bounce and jolt of galloping to reach Takyeo in time. Takshin was gazing at him every so often with a strange expression; he hoped the Third Prince did not think Kai had tarried. Mrong Banh, his topknot so askew it was more of a bird’s nest, sat at Takyeo’s bedside, and the astrologer’s hand was caught in a corpse’s cooling claw.
For the first time, Banh looked elderly; he did not greet the new arrival. Tears gleamed upon his cheeks as his jaw worked over and over, his lips twitching faintly as if he prayed or addressed the newly fled shade with his inner voice. The body upon the bed lay, a silent and uncaring witness.
Takyeo’s shade would linger to hear those last admonishments, perhaps, and that was the only faint comfort Kai could find in the situation.
“It wasn’t me,” Sensheo repeated, spreading his hands. He did not even look surprised at the accusation; a smirk lingered at the corners of his full lips. “I have no idea.”
“He was very clear upon whose behalf he had been paid,” Kai repeated. His hand ached for a hilt; it took more strength than he liked to keep it clear. Takyeo’s face was grey and slack; lines graven by suffering easing bit by bit as flesh lost the heat of living humors. “And the triggering command, brushed upon silk and tied to a messenger-dove’s leg, was explicit enough.”
Takshin’s gaze swung toward Kurin. Kai willed him to speak if there was anything to say, but the Third Prince held his silence. He stood with his hand easy upon the hilt of a curved Shan dagger with a flawed ruby in its hilt, and his readiness was the coiling of a viper before the strike.
“I don’t suppose there is proof other than the word of a common bandit,” Sensheo sniffed. Pale mourning did not suit him, and his topknot-cage was vermilion lacquer upon dark wood. “Who could have been paid by anyone at all, I might add. Why would I wish to kill Takyeo? It makes no sense.”
“It makes far more sense for you to attempt upon Kai,” Kurin supplied with a shrug; Kai’s gaze swung to him. “What? It is well known he hates you.”
“Be that as it may.” Kai did not fold his arms. His right hand ached, ached. Even his shoulder hurt with the urge to draw and to strike. “If not Sensheo, who? Who would you have me believe the impresario of this performance, Kurin?”
“There is no shortage of suspects.” Kurin folded his hands inside his sleeves. “But, if I may venture an observation, Sensheo is simply not intelligent enough, nor forward-thinking enough, to send more than a cheap assassin or two, Kai.”
Sensheo did not bridle at the comment, merely gazed at the doorway as if he expected reinforcements.
“Then who shall I consider?” Kai almost added a few uncomplimentary terms common among angry soldiers, locked them in his throat with an effort. A small voice very much like Takyeo’s own echoed inside Kai’s head, urging calm. Perhaps it was truly the shade of Tamuron’s eldest son, cautioning him against murder before a fresh corpse of a loved one. Such a thing was terrible indeed— but not as terrible as what had already occurred. “Who would move to forestall news that Takyeo summoned me? I could have been here days ago, if not for—”
“You mean you’ve left the Northern Army, while Khir re-arms upon our border?” Kurin clicked his tongue, thoughtfully. “Unwise.”
Kai’s face set itself in granite. Gamnae, sitting near the small letter-desk, pressed her fingers to her mouth. Next to her, Makar kept brushing, steadily and softly, his head bent. He had taken his topknot-cage out, and his hair lay loose upon broad shoulders, a mark of extreme grief. Still, he kept at his work, and though a tremor passed through his shoulders his wrist and fingers held their steadiness.
He was brushing the third copy of Takyeo’s will, now that the paperwork of the individual bequests was written, signed, witnessed, and sealed. It was just like Ah-Yeo to attend to both matters, and just like Maki to perform the brush-duty.
Jin, his back against the wall, stared from one brother to another, his mouth loose and his eyes glazed. His fingers rose, plunged into his hair, and he ripped at his topknot blindly. “We shouldn’t fight.” Perhaps he thought he was screaming, but all he produced was a throat-cut whisper.
“This is not the fight,” Kurin observed. Tension had invaded his frame, and he kept his gaze upon Kai’s. “This is where we find who has won.”
“Won what?” Kai’s hands knotted so tightly the bones groaned. Tamuron, dead. Yala, pale from bloodloss, thrusting a bloodstained letter into waiting hands, her hair raveling over a pillow while she repeated her message over and over as if she did not quite believe she had reached him after all. And now Takyeo, his breath stolen and his fingers too thin for his hurai, a sacrifice laid open upon a smoking altar while a priest chanted for fortune or omen. “Death, and more death. That is all that has been achieved today.”
“Stop,” Gamnae moaned, the piping of a small bird caught in a trap. “He will not go quietly if you all…”
“He is beyond any of us.” Kihon Jiao had not moved from the bedside, and the man’s face was etched with sleeplessness as well. He had visibly driven himself to extremity to save his royal patient, and now might be wondering what would become of him. His hand had descended to Mrong Banh’s shoulder, and the knuckles whitened under spatters of herb-paste and other marks as he squeezed to grant the astrologer some mooring against this current. “If you must wrangle, go to some other room.”
“Mind who you speak to, physician.” Sensheo all but sneered.
Kai’s hand leapt for his snarling sword-hilt, closed tight, and sweat greased his entire body. Takshin met his gaze, and the Third Prince shook his head.
Just slightly, just enough. Not now, that small motion said, and repeated less loudly, I am with you, but not now.
“Enough!” Kurin freed his hands from his sleeves and spread them, a short, sharp motion. “You have arrived, Kai, so be it. A full investigation shall be made, and all proofs examined. But for right now…” He glanced at the bed, and his throat-stone bobbed. It was the only mark of emotion he showed, beyond the paleness under his copper. “For right now,” he continued, softly but with great force, “we shall act as brothers should. And you, Sensheo, will be under house arrest until this…allegation…is thoroughly investigated.”
“I can agree to that,” Takshin said, heavily. His gaze had moved to Sensheo, and his scars were livid against paleness. “And if you do not, little brother, I will make you.”
“I will not—” Kai began, but Makar looked up from his steady brushing.
The Fourth Prince’s eyes were wet, and so were his cheeks. “Enough!” he bellowed, and Gamnae started with a wounded little cry.
Mrong Banh finally spoke, surging upward and staggering the physician back two steps; his voice was a terrible brazen trumpet. “Go elsewhere with your bickering and your threats.” He rounded upon them all, and the tears upon his cheeks were bright under the choked mirrorlight. “The best of us is dead; will you continue wrangling until the rest follow?”
Kai’s hand fell from the hilt. Jin, trembling, slumped against the wall, wringing his hands and looking very young, strings of hair falling in his face as his topknot-cage bounced upon the floor, free at last. Takshin’s hand fell upon Sensheo’s shoulder, fingers biting cruelly, and the younger man started but said nothing, the color draining from his face.
“The Emperor is dead,” Kai said, heavily. He stared at Kurin, and a muscle flickered in his cheek.
“May the Emperor live ten thousand years,” Kihon Jiao replied, formulaic, and scrubbed at his face with his tincture-dyed hands. If he longed to weep like Makar, or as Gamnae now began to, it did not show.
A DELICATE TIME
A cortege of Golden receded into the distance; a shield-square of those bright-armored palace guards stayed at the high, very expensive gate to the Fifth Prince’s estate outside the Palace walls, often described as a jewel in the heart of the Noble District. The guards did not step onto the grounds; it was Makar, his hair still loose against his shoulders, who accompanied his mother’s younger son to the bright-polished white stairs before a pile of expensive blue stone and immense ceduan timbers.
“I do not see why I should suffer this.” Sensheo all but sulked, gesturing the door-servants away with a short, sharp movement. His steward was not in evidence, but that worthy would come running as soon as news reached him of his master’s advent. “For all I know, you arranged the whole affair to—”
“Stop being a child.” Makar’s hands ached. So did his eyes, and his heart. He spared barely a glance at the entry-hall, graced by a heavy, indifferently executed but no doubt very expensive statue of a horse’s front half seeking to struggle free of the unfinished lower half, green veins in the white stone glowing under a pillar of mirrorlight. The carver should have turned the beast’s head at a more pleasing angle. “The investigation will reach no conclusion, and after a decent amount of time you will rejoin the world. For right now, keep your mouth sewn shut and your intrigues to a minimum.”
“You did arrange it.” Sensheo’s lower lip stuck out. He rounded on his elder brother, and he had not the grace to remove his topknot-cage. He had not even the grace to pretend at grief, and his idiocy was making it very easy for Kurin to trap not just him but all of Hanweo if Makar could not find some means of slowing its spread. “Does Mother know? Or did she help?”
The weariness was far more than physical, and Makar’s shoulders bowed under it. “Neither of us arranged anything. It’s far more likely Kurin did this to deflect attention.” And very neatly, too. I expected him to pin a rai-slip upon your shoulder, but not in this particular fashion. All in all, they could be grateful their now-eldest brother had not been more thorough, though Sensheo, with his particular genius for missing the point, would not see the matter thus. “We must think, Sensheo. This is a delicate time, and I cannot have you bumbling about.”