by Duncan, Dave
“Dreams, dreams!” But First Mandarin was starting to listen. “What else are you dreaming?”
Better and better. They were closing in on a deal.
“And summon this Boundless Shore lad to court. Is that not what the real Absolute Purity would do—to keep an eye on him?”
“Or to kill him.”
“Not my intention, I swear by all the worlds. Give him any guarantee you can think of. I am much more likely to give him the Empire and run, but don’t tell him that. Tell him I am anxious to meet my relatives. When will the army meet the Bamboo Banner? Can Iron Spur come here to receive his commission and still catch up with the army before the battle?”
“The army is probably marching in the wrong direction entirely.”
“Or in circles. What else, First Mandarin? I am gravely concerned about famine and the devastation in Jingyan and neighboring provinces. I got the impression, from what I was allowed to overhear, that the Golden Throne is not doing as much as it could to move food to the areas that need it the most.”
The old man scowled. “I have no money. Famine and insurrection cut off a third of the imperial revenue. Mobilization of the army took another third. Now the earthquake must have swallowed the rest.”
The numbers quoted at the last Small Council meeting had sounded like fanciful gibberish, but no one had dared question them. Oddly enough, Novice Horse must know far more about commerce and accounting than First Mandarin ever dreamed of, because mandarins were trained in history, philosophy, and classical poetry—trade and business were far beneath their notice. A graduate of the House of Joyful Departure in Sheep Rocks was no stranger to the principle or practice of economy, a word unknown on Sublime Mountain. But for Butterfly Sword to start meddling in fiscal details might alienate the old man faster than anything. He could only ask, not suggest.
“Where can we find money?”
“You could shut down the obscene expenditure on the Water Palace.”
“Done! Arrange it. Of course we cannot leave all those workmen unemployed, but I imagine you could put many of them to work repairing the Grand Canal. The little I saw of it last year was a disgrace. In many places, it is so silted up that the barges have to be dragged over the shallows by teams of men or oxen. The lock gates leak like sieves. What other economies can you suggest?”
First Mandarin’s ancient eyes widened a fraction. He glanced around and lowered his voice even more. “Disposing of six or seven thousand, um, roaches would help. Shut down ten or twelve palaces.”
Whispering was contagious. “We are in agreement. We must plan well, though. If one word gets out ahead of time, the roaches will strip Sublime Mountain bare at best and poison both of us at worst. ”
The old man shook his ancient head in amazement. “You are crazy, boy! A crazy child!”
“I have experience no Emperor ever has. I have known hunger, Excellency.”
For a long moment, First Mandarin stared blankly at the pink downy sky as if trying to see what lay behind it. At last, he said softly, “So did I, long ago.”
“Then we will make a good team. You will have my complete support but I need yours. Do it. Let us clean the stable! The eunuchs are termites. The scale of their larceny astounds me. You could denounce me, Excellency, but only at great risk to your own venerable skin. I cannot possibly survive without your backing. Do I have it or not? Are we partners or enemies? The decision is yours, but I think you have to make it now.” Sandalwood and his eunuch guardsmen were outside; which way would their loyalty jump if they had to choose between these two? Or between a horrified Emperor and an elderly mandarin suddenly dead of grief? That was another option.
The silence continued.
Emperor Absolute Purity turned and dragged his silken train across to the throne. He sat and made an effort to convey splendor. “Excellency, we require that you speedily call a meeting of our Great Council to consider the matter, manner, and consequences of our dear mother’s tragic demise. You have our leave to withdraw.”
First Mandarin followed him and knelt to kiss his slipper. “All things will be done as the Son of the Sun commands.”
Today, yes. Tomorrow, maybe.
So far, so good. Butterfly Sword leaned back on his throne in a very unritual posture to plan his next move. The imposter had crossed two very rickety bridges.
What happened after this? Chief Eunuch might try to have him poisoned in the hope of ruling through the infant Emperor. First Mandarin might send in his grandson at the head of his troops to take over the palace and start a new dynasty. Butterfly Sword was utterly alone. The only person he could trust was Snow Lily, and she was powerless. Anyone else he tried to enlist to his cause would sell him out to one of the main players. And if an enemy could gain possession of Snowbell, even her mother could be turned.
The safest course would be to summon Prince Boundless Shore and offer to abdicate in his favor in return for a fast horse. Regrettably, Lark had ordered him to hang on to the throne, so that might not be an option—Butterfly Sword’s vocal chords might not obey him. The first time he tried to disobey her commands, he might freeze, or be convulsed with agony. He must devise some test to establish the strength of her control over him. Until he knew that, he could make no plans.
He realized that a group of people in the white of mourning were waiting at the far end of the hall. Waiting for what? He sat up in proper form and tried to look wooden, the Emperor recovered from his sudden grief and ready to press on with his duties.
Chief of Protocol came scurrying to kowtow and—eventually—announce that the most senior courtier in attendance at the moment was Court Astrologer.
“Send the noble sage to us.”
The white-queued ancient arrived, crumpled to the ground, touched his forehead to the floor three times, crawled forward, and repeated twice.
“Court Astrologer, you have news for us?”
The old man lifted his eyes to study the Emperor’s shoes. “News from Your Majesty’s augurs and diviners: We, in our ignorance, have consulted the stars and oracles, and Chief Calligrapher also, and we most humbly offer a choice of auspicious names in the hope that Your Majesty in his ultimate wisdom will see fit—”
Huh? Oh … “To name our son? What of our dear mother’s funeral rites?”
Court Astrologer was so shattered that he actually looked the Emperor straight in the eye, while his toothless jaw dropped. Had Butterfly Sword made a major gaffe, putting a woman’s death ahead of a son’s birth?
The old man hastily averted his eyes. “But … It is traditional … May it please Your Exalted Majesty … Your esteemed and eternally mourned father, Emperor Zealous Righteousness, did not require the funeral auguries for his departed mother to be presented until nine days after her departure.” Grovel, mumble about failure, humiliation, and so on. …
“Your dedication and devotion are unquestioned, Court Astrologer. I see that I let my grief drive me into making unreasonable demands. We all miss my dear mother’s guiding hand. … Take all the time you need to make your divination. As for the child’s naming, let Concubine Sweet Melody choose from your auspicious list.”
That was another mind-wrenching shock. “The mother?”
“She did all the work,” the Emperor said cheerfully. Omnipotence did have its little pleasures. “Almost all of it.” Besides, the poor little tyke had been born on an inauspicious day, a day so inauspicious that his supposed grandmother had died on it. With that sort of start, he would never be allowed to ascend the Golden Throne.
Absolute Purity dismissed his Court Astrologer. While he waited for Chief of Protocol to come and announce the next suppliant, he wondered if any man had ever been quite so alone as he was, trying to steal an entire world singlehandedly.
Chapter 9
Silky had not needed long to decide that he enjoyed the princely life. He had restored
order, overseen the funeral rites, and been accepted by the three hundred or so surviving residents of Goat Haven as their lord, at least until someone else might come and tell them otherwise. The other Gray Helpers who had come with him—Carp, Watersprite, Windchime, and Mercy—had all survived the disaster and had worked to bolster his support among his subjects. He was confident that he would soon learn of any unrest. A hasty survey of the storerooms showed him that Goat Haven could survive for the next year or so.
About fifty ranch hands had been absent when the earthquake struck. Probably most of them still lived, somewhere out there in the open, but they had no way to return to their homes and families because the trail up from the road had been destroyed, much of it either completely buried or torn away by landslides. Silky was in no hurry to open the path again, for thousands of homeless refugees had come wailing to his doorstep—a very high doorstep—and he was content to wait until hunger drove them away or killed them. He had far more dead horses than the remaining inhabitants of Goat Haven could eat before the flesh putrefied, and he had already ordered it dropped over the edge. The refugees found it and ate it raw.
He worried about Thunderbot, for the sheer number of refugees proved that Cherish must have suffered severely. Sometimes he stood on the edge of the cliff and stared down at the wretched throng, wondering if any of his colleagues among the local Gray Helpers were in there, or even Verdant and his son, but there was no way he could rescue any of them. If there were, he would be overwhelmed by the starving mob.
Not his fault. Heaven sent earthquakes to reprimand the Emperor. It was not concerned with Prince Silk Hand.
The only opposition to raise its ugly head had appeared on the third evening while Silky was enjoying a bowl of horse with heavenly noodles while seated on his throne in the newly refurbished hall, overseeing the first seating of his subjects, a hundred cross-legged ranch hands. Women and children would eat later. Suddenly, a boy of around ten stepped up on his dais uninvited and scowled at him, hands on hips. He was nut brown and wore only the skimpy loincloth of youth. His behavior would have been an absurd insolence if the hall had not suddenly gone silent.
“Who’re you?” Silky demanded very coldly. The kid was too young to have thought this up by himself, or at least without receiving encouragement from adults.
“I’m Sky Musket, Sky Rider’s oldest son, and that’s my chair you’re sitting in!”
Silky threw the contents of his bowl in the kid’s face, then backhanded him so hard that he fell off the dais, flat on his back.
“Get up!” Silky roared, on his feet now, staring down at the kid, who was pale with shock. Probably no man had ever so much as raised his voice to him before. “From now on, you address me as Your Highness! Is that clear?”
Sky Musket obeyed, holding one eye and streaked with meat sauce.
“Right up where you were before, in case I need to hit you again.”
Even when he stepped up on the dais, the brat was forced to bend his head back to look up at the monster. His chin was quivering.
“What’s my name?”
“Your Highness.”
“Right. What you said was wrong. Your father had no right to inherit Goat Haven and I have proof of it. Can you read?”
Sky Musket shook his head and then, seeing Silky drawing back a hand, hastily said, “Just twelve characters, Your Highness.”
“Then you’re a stupid, ignorant brat! Aren’t you?”
A whisper. “Yes, Your Highness.”
“From now on, any more evil talk like that and I will have your back flogged raw, understand?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
Silky handed him the bowl. “Fetch me more meat and noodles. Run!”
Everyone else went back to eating.
Goat Haven was disgustingly lacking in the tools and materials required for forging documents—old silk, sepia ink to look faded, true camel hair brushes, and so on. Silky collected what he could, retired to the room he had commandeered as his personal office, and set to work. It wasn’t much of a room, a former bedroom too far from the hall to be convenient; its tiled floor had cracked in the quake and the window shutters rattled all the time. He must put up with it while he was making his plans to rebuild Goat Haven.
He spent the rest of the evening and half the night producing a brief affidavit, sealed by Sky Sword—which, as Silky knew from his painstaking research, had been the name used by the late lamented Sky Hammer 7 before he inherited the throne—granting his senior wife permission to pay a visit to her parents’ palace with her infant son. That she had never returned could be explained verbally. It was expected in the Good Land that rich men would have concubines or multiple wives.
It was a neat solution to the inheritance problem that Silky had rejected earlier because the Gray Helpers would have seen it as his attempt to cut them out of the deal. Now, with Cherish, and possibly Wedlock, in ruins, both the law and the Brotherhood would need years to start functioning normally again.
Soon after breakfast the next morning, he sent for Sky Musket. The boy appeared quickly, looking gratifyingly terrified and sporting a satisfactory black eye. At his age, Silky had been washing corpses. Who said life had to be fair?
The prince leaned back in his chair—the most imposing one he had been able to find—and did not tell his visitor to sit. He did not tell him to kneel, either. That might be pushing his luck, and these frontier hillbillies did not go in much for courtly manners.
“Good morning.”
“Good morning,” Sky Musket said, and hastily added, “Your Highness.”
“You told me you can’t read. Is there anyone here who can?”
A nod, quickly followed by speech. “Yes, Your Highness—Weaverbird, Grandsire’s clerk.”
“Fetch him.”
Weaverbird, when he arrived, proved to be a gangling youngster with a clubfoot and his right arm in a sling.
“You were Sky Hammer’s clerk?” Silky asked disbelievingly.
“I was the most junior secretary, um, Your Highness. The roof came down and—”
“Spare me the sanguinary details. Read this to the boy.” The affidavit would not stand inspection by a lawyer, but it ought to suffice here and now. Silky could prepare a better one at leisure, in case it would ever be needed when the access road was fit for lawyers.
Weaverbird tried, very hesitantly, but had to keep stopping to ask Silky to explain the many legal characters he had used.
“Oh, just tell him what it means. The woman mentioned was my mother, and I was the baby referred to as Sky Silk. You will note that it is dated two months before Sky Rider’s birth.”
White as newfallen snow, Weaverbird said, “Then it means that you are Prince Sky Hammer 7’s true heir, Your Highness.”
“Correct. You may go. Boy, you wait.” When the door closed, Silky said, “Tell your brothers about this. Sky Musket is a stupid name. You are not to call yourself that anymore. From now on you are just Musket, understand? If you behave yourself, in a year or so, I may permit you to address me as uncle. Now go away and make yourself useful in the kitchen. Tell chief cook she’s to whip you if you don’t work hard.”
It was true that Silky did not presently look older than Sky Rider had, but he could if he was ever required to.
A few days after that, Silky returned to the cliff edge to inspect the refugee crowds below. They had pretty much all gone, probably in search of water to die beside, and vultures were tidying up the few who remained. Aftershocks had become rarer, and the restoration work was sure to take several days anyway. It was safe to begin work on the access road.
The first problem was deciding where to put the new path. The landslide screes did not look stable enough to build on, and the scars left behind were all very steep, sure to require a lot of digging. Most of the gates and barriers had been swept away; the booby-trap ston
e cylinders had all been loosed from their nests, so anyone who had been going up or down when the quake hit must have been smeared to paste, one way or another. Silky needed a whole day’s mountaineering on the end of a rope just to scout out the best route. To start at the top and work down, with only two or three men able to work at the face, would take months. He would have to use three or four crews, and all but the uppermost would have to be lowered on ropes when they went to work every morning. On second thought, he decided they could probably be fed from above, so they could stay on their work site until the open trail reached them.
Organizing a major project like this was not as inspiring as murder or impersonation, but it made an interesting challenge.
The hands labored hard, but they still needed two weeks to open a usable path. Even then, it was mostly too narrow for horses to pass one another, with a few wider places on the gentler slopes. Bringing the approach back to its former standards would take years.
A couple of days before the last gaps were closed, Silky called a meeting of his four Gray Helpers. They crowded his office and he did not sit, or invite them to do so.
“We will need checkpoints at both the top and bottom of the trail,” he said. “I expect to see refugees returning when word gets around that we are accessible again. They will all be turned away, of course, because we are going to be hard-pressed just to feed ourselves this winter. But I will see that at least one of you is posted at the bottom gate to identify and admit any Gray Helpers who turn up. The only other people we will let in are the missing Goat Haven hands. Having horses, they have probably survived better than the city homeless, and some may have been granted shelter in neighboring ranches.”
He looked around at the nods, then continued. “What we must avoid is forty or fifty men riding in here in a block and deciding they do not approve of the change of dynasty. Somehow we must only let them up the hill in small bunches. Any suggestions on how we can do that?”
Glad to be consulted, they tossed the problem around, and decided that only men with families still surviving should be allowed in, with shortage of food given as the reason. Bureaucratic delay in processing the applicants ought to thin out the rush, if there was one.