Iron Jaw and Hummingbird

by Chris Roberson

  “I am well pleased that a relation of mine would choose to serve the Dragon Throne with the strength of his arm and the mettle of his will, rather than hiding behind perfumed fans in the corridors of power, practicing calligraphy and the art of gossip.” The governor’s voice was loud and low, and Huang could feel the words almost as physical blows. “Too many children of privilege follow the easy path, the comfortable path, and never learn the true meaning of sacrifice. It makes my tired old heart soar to find in you such devotion, such selflessness.”

  The personal secretary returned, panting only slightly, holding in his hands a sheathed saber.

  “Your Excellency.” The secretary held the saber out to the governor in both hands, bowing slightly from the waist.

  Governor Ouyang drew the saber from the sheath. The blade, its metal having a faint red tint, was of the willow-leaf design, curving slightly to the point, with a phoenix motif picked out in ivory on the hilt and carried through in etchings along the blade length and on the fittings. He held the saber point up, admiring it for a moment.

  “This is the blade I carried during my recent tour of the northern province, which spilled not a little bit of insurrectionist blood. There are many raiders who learned to fear its red gleam on the sands, and many more for whom the firebird of its blade was their last living sight.”

  The governor slid the sword back into its sheath with a snick and held it out to Huang.

  “I am pleased to present you with my own saber, that it might serve you half as well. And if you should die for the Dragon Throne, remember that you die for a purpose greater than yourself, to preserve and protect the rule of the emperor.”

  Huang took the saber from the governor’s hands, feeling numb. He tried to stammer some response, but no words would come. Finally the personal secretary was forced to take Huang’s elbow and steer him back toward his parents. Huang shuffled across the floor, the eager expressions on his parents’ faces awaiting him, and felt the heavy weight of the sword in his hands.

  Gamine answered every question correctly, danced the quadrille flawlessly, and devised correct solutions to any number of ethical and logical problems put to her. The seven adults asked questions or posed riddles or otherwise gave instructions, each in turn, addressing the children individually. It seemed that each adult could question any child, as often as he or she liked. If ever a child failed to answer a question or perform a task correctly, guards were summoned who escorted the child out of the antechamber, through a doorway, and out of sight.

  As the evening wore on, one by one the other children faltered, taking a misstep in their dancing, or incorrectly parsing a grammatical fragment, or misremembering trivial bits of historical data, until only Gamine was left standing at the center of the room.

  Then each of the adults questioned her once more, one examination from each, and again Gamine answered them all without error.

  She beamed with pride, her chest thrust forward, eyes seeking her mistress’s approval. Whatever Madam Chauviteau-Zong’s purpose in bringing her to this gathering, Gamine had performed admirably. Her mistress’s features were, as always, calm and unreadable, sapphire blue eyes in a face of flawless porcelain, but her posture and the slight movements of her hands suggested deep satisfaction.

  A chime sounded somewhere in the hall, and the other six adults all turned their attention to Gamine’s mistress.

  Madam Chauviteau-Zong swept forward, stopping just short of where Gamine stood, and regarded her, blue sapphires briefly meeting Gamine’s own jade green eyes. Gamine stiffened. Might the mistress be preparing to embrace her? Had Gamine performed well enough to be so regarded? Gamine had never come into physical contact with Madam Chauviteau-Zong, and she readied herself for the jolt and the joy. But the embrace never came.

  The guards who had escorted the other children away returned, as though awaiting instruction.

  Madam Chauviteau-Zong regarded Gamine for a long moment, and then turned aside momentarily, directing her attention to the merchant with whom she’d spoken on their arrival.

  “I told you, Fong, that mine was the likely contender.”

  “Yes, Cerise, and you’ll have your winnings in the morning,” the merchant said. He paused, and said with a smirk, “But don’t expect to be so lucky next time.”

  Madam Chauviteau-Zong nodded regally and then turned and glided toward the door.

  Gamine’s throat constricted, and she found it difficult to breathe.

  “Mistress?” Gamine said, in a tentative voice, the first time in living memory that she’d addressed her mistress without being spoken to first.

  Gamine’s mistress, not pausing, glanced back at her, and then motioned to the two guards with a languid movement of her hand.

  “Do see to the child,” Gamine’s mistress said distractedly, and then left the antechamber behind.

  Gamine did not understand what was happening. Her mind raced. The two guards stepped to her side, and each took an arm.

  “What do we do with this one?” one asked the other in a loud whisper.

  “The same thing we’ve done with the rest,” the other answered. “Remove any articles of value she might have squirreled away, and toss her out the nearest door.”

  The men searched her quickly, with rough hands, and came away with a tortoiseshell comb her tutor had put in her hair and a jade pendant at her throat.

  “Wh-what have I done wrong?” Gamine managed to say as the guards pocketed her valuables and dragged her from the room. “What is happening?”

  The guards refused to make eye contact, their expressions hard.

  “Pl-please! What have I done?”

  The guards took her through servants’ corridors, far away from the light and warmth of the main hall, coming at last to a back entrance. The night air outside was cold, and the streets were empty and dark.

  “Sorry, kid,” one of the guards said, picking Gamine up off her feet. “Tough break.”

  The guards threw her bodily out of the doorway like a sack of rice, then closed the door behind her, shutting off the last faint light from inside. Gamine was left in the dirt, cold and alone.

  Huang’s parents had scarcely had time to question him about his audience with the governor, and about the sword in his hands, when they spied a merchant across the room with whom his father had recently opened negotiations.

  “You’ll excuse us, Fei,” his father said distractedly, already hurrying to the other side of the room. “We have business to conclude.”

  “Yes,” his mother said, following along, “we’ll see you before you leave in the morning, to speed you on your way.” Her eyes flicked to the saber in his hands, seeming not to notice the confused, horrified expression on his face. “We’re so very proud of you, Hummingbird.”

  Huang did not pause, but tucked the saber into his belt, grabbed a jar of wine off a nearby table, and slipped out the hall’s back entrance.

  The night air was cold, but Huang had gotten half the jar in him before he even felt the chill. If he hurried, he could meet his friends at a nearby tavern for one last night of leisure before leaving for the ends of the world. And for the end of Huang, for all he knew.

  Somewhere in the darkness he could hear the sound of a girl crying softly, but he paid it no mind.

  ACT I

  GAMINE’S THEME

  WOOD HARE YEAR, FIFTY-SECOND YEAR OF THE TIANBIAN EMPEROR

  GAMINE OPENED HER STINGING EYES, GRIT GATHERED IN their corners, as the city began to wake up around her, fish-mongers making their morning deliveries, shopkeepers rolling up their shutters to begin a day of trade, the priests in the temple ringing the morning bells. She was in the Sun-Facing District, not far from the Hall of Rare Treasures, and wasn’t sure whether she had slept at all, feeling more tired now than she’d been when she’d stretched out on the cold cobblestones in the lees of a temple, its high walls serving to block most of the wind but doing nothing to keep her warm. Gamine’s clothes were damp from the ligh
t dew that clung to the ground, and she shivered in the chill.

  Gamine had never thought that she’d end up back on the street. In the long, cold, sleepless hours of the night, she had begun to wonder if the last eight years had been a dream, and if she was now merely waking up to horrible reality.

  Madam Chauviteau-Zong had always called her Gamine, though whether that had been her name, surname, or a term of endearment, she had never known. Even so, for most of her life she had been Gamine, and Gamine she would remain. In her more optimistic moments, she liked to think that her mistress had said Gao Ming—meaning “clever,” or “a good strategist”—but considering what came later, the old woman had likely been drawing upon her own Gallic heritage and meant exactly what she said. Gamine was a gamine: a child of the streets, alone and unloved, with no family, clan, or station.

  Gamine was of mixed descent, her hair the straight black of the Han race, but her narrow nose and jade-colored eyes suggesting a strain of Briton, Francais, or Deutsch. The line of her jaw was a touch too strong—at least that’s what her mistress had often said, too masculine a frame for an otherwise appropriately feminine face.

  Until the age of five years old, Gamine had been a nameless child of the streets. She remembered nothing of her parents, or any relations, her earliest memories those of surviving hand-to-mouth in the back alleys of the city. Then everything changed. Men in the fine livery of household servants plucked her off the streets, bathed and clothed her, and presented her to a fine lady in a well-appointed room. The woman, dressed expensively, had alabaster skin, eyes the color of sapphires, and a Francais surname. She was a high-born lady, with family ties to the imperial court and an inherited fortune from a merchant forbearer.

  The lady had looked over the little, well-scrubbed urchin girl, and said, “Gamine. She’ll do.” In the eight years that followed, Gamine had lived in the grand lady’s house, trained by the finest tutors money could buy. She learned to read, write, and speak a half dozen languages, how to paint calligraphy with perfect brushstrokes, how to dress and present herself, how to ride, shoot a bow, and fight barehanded. She learned the history of the Imperial Throne all the way back to the Yellow Emperor and the Three Sovereigns of legend, and she learned the science that had brought man to the red planet they called Fire Star, turned its deserts into arable lands, and built cities in its low, warm places. And then, at the end of the eighth year, she was taken to a grand ballroom in the capital, to a formal reception honoring the governor-general. And her world came crashing to an end.

  Gamine’s first thought was to return to the only place of warmth and comfort that she knew. It was the work of hours to walk across the breadth of Fanchuan, from the Sun-Facing District in the east to the Green Stone District in the west. Her feet were crimped into formal slippers of elegant silk, with soles so thin that she could feel every stone and pebble in the street; by the time she reached the Chauviteau-Zong estate, her toes were swollen and her heels were bruised and numb with pain.

  At the front gate, the grounds of the estate visible behind the bars, she was stopped by the house guards, who barred her way with crossed staves, refusing to let her pass. Gamine thought she could see something like sympathy flickering behind their cold eyes, but their expressions were set and hard. Plead as she might, they refused to budge, and she was forced away.

  Her stomach grumbled audibly as she slunk away from the gate, hugging herself against the chill.

  Gamine came to a restaurant, where she had once eaten with her tutors and the other household servants while the mistress was abroad in the city conducting business. Madam Chauviteau-Zong had dined in a private room, conferring with a high-ranking city official behind closed screens, and when the company returned home that afternoon, Gamine found that many of her personal possessions had been moved from one corner of her little room to another. Later she would overhear some of the staff talking behind their hands, complaining about their things being misplaced in their absence, and whispering their theories that the mistress had taken them all out of the house that day to give some mysterious party an opportunity to break into the estate and search the rooms. Who would want to search the household, and what they might be looking for, no one knew for certain, but many on the mistress’s retainer were happy to voice their opinions, though never when the mistress was within earshot.

  Episodes like that had been common throughout Gamine’s years living at the Chauviteau-Zong estate, and many times dramas were acted out in shadows, of which Gamine only saw fleeting glimpses, and the meaning of which she could never hope to understand. It was a place of secrets and hidden mysteries, and none but the mistress herself knew the depths of all of them.

  All of which, though, bore no interest for Gamine at the moment. She could think now only of that day when the whole household had gathered in this restaurant, and of the fish-head stew she had eaten. It was the best she’d ever tasted, though her tutors had scolded her for the noise she made in slurping from the bowl, lashing her knuckles with a metal rod that left them bleeding. The bruises on her fingers had faded, while the memory of the fish-head stew had stayed with her to this day.

  Gamine, with dust all in her clothes, and her hair matted and dirty, walked in the front door of the restaurant. Her mouth would have already been watering, had her throat not been so parched and dry.

  “What do you want?” came a shout from within the darkened interior, and a man in a plain white vest and gown came rushing from the rear of the restaurant, drying his hands on a cloth. “You cannot come in here! You must go back outside; this place is for paying customers only!”

  Gamine forced a smile, and gave a gracious little bow.

  “O honored sir, I am sorry to say that I cannot pay, but if I could have just a bowl of your delicious fish-head stew, I would be most grateful.” Her manner was courteous and courtly, her elocution and diction precise and perfect enough to dazzle the courtiers at the Imperial Palace on faraway Earth.

  The waiter seemed not to be impressed.

  “Ha!” His laughter was a hard, grating sound. “We are not a charity, and serve no one without the coin to pay for the meal. If you have no money, you get no food.” He leaned forward, towering over her. “Do you have money?”

  Gamine shook her head, eyes wide.

  “Then get out!” The waiter shooed her out and closed the ornately-carved door behind her.

  Gamine stood in the street, as foot traffic and coaches passed hurriedly around her. She realized with a faint shock that she had not held a single coin in her hands since she’d been five years old and had begged a single disc of copper stamped with a square hole in the middle from a passerby to pay for a few grains of rice and a lump of near-rancid meat from a street vendor’s stall.

  She needed money. Perhaps she could find a job or turn her hand to begging again. The grumbling in her belly told her that however she managed it, she would need to eat, and soon.

  Gamine gnawed on a discarded rib bone, trying to get the last bits of meat off it, and thought about how best to break it open to suck out the marrow. In the two days since she’d been thrown out in the streets by the guards, she had eaten only a handful of stale rice and the bits of rotten meat and moldy pastries she could find in trash bins behind the city’s restaurants. She had to fight the rats for the few scraps she could lay hands on, and she’d narrowly avoided nasty bites that might have been deadly, considering the diseases the rats no doubt carried. It was an unwelcome irony that her education had covered information on a full gamut of infectious diseases and plagues but had not touched at all on emergency medicine or first aid. Were she bitten, she’d know precisely the progressive stages of the disease that would no doubt kill her, but would have no notion how to stop it.

  She’d tried to find work, but it was the same wherever she went: what she could do, no one was hiring for, and what people were hiring for, she could not do. Though she was a child prodigy in the pleasant pursuits of the ruling class, she was completely
unaware of how to make her way in the world. Able to speak a half dozen languages and explicate the intricacies of nuclear fusion, she didn’t have a single practical skill with which to earn a crumb to eat. She could not clean, could not build, could not wash, could not sew.

  She had tried several times to return to her mistress’s home—hungry, tired, and exhausted—but each time the guards had turned her away, and on the last attempt they threatened her bodily harm if she tried again.

  Gamine finished her exertions with the bone and decided to beg.

  She’d done so every free moment of the last two days, when not busy going through trash bins or pleading with restaurateurs and waiters for scraps of food. But whatever skill she had at begging as a child of five years old she’d lost as a girl of thirteen. Perhaps as a little orphaned waif she brought out feelings of sympathy in passersby that a girl of teenage years did not engender.

  She stood in the street, calling to drivers of coaches and vans as they sped past, shouting out that she just needed only a little help to make her way in the world.

  “Ha ha ha!”

  For the second time in as many days, Gamine was brought up short by the sound of cruel, mocking laughter. She looked from side to side, searching for the source of the noise. Finally she spied him, leaning against the side of a nearby building. His laughing eyes were fixed on her, a cruel smile on his thin lips.

  “L-leave me alone!” Gamine shouted, and turned back to the passing vehicles. She tried to call out to the drivers again, begging for any spare coins.

  “You’re doing it all wrong,” the man said, calling over the sound of the traffic, a bemused tone in his voice.

  Gamine turned and glared at the interloper.

  He looked like he was in his sixth decade of life, with teeth missing in his smile and wisps of hair around the sides and back of his balding head. He had a scraggly mustache that drooped down past his chin on either side of his mouth. He was wearing rough-made and well-traveled clothing, looking like a merchant who had seen better days, and the soles of his sandals were worn as thin as parchment. He had a walking staff in one hand, a bundle wrapped in leather straps in the other.