The Emperor's knife

by Mazarkis Williams

  This tent was not for her; this was someone else’s tent, where she would wait for the emperor’s judgement.

  The old woman touched her arm and pointed to the tub.

  “Wash first,” she said.

  “I speak Cerantic,” said Mesema. “You needn’t speak to me that way.”

  The woman nodded, grinning. “I am called Sahree. Now you take off your clothes.” She pointed at the tub again. “You have sand ground into your skin, like a nomad.”

  Mesema almost asked why the emperor should care, but she held her tongue. Her fingers worked the lacings of her blouse as she looked around the tent once more. Two other women, both young, had come in behind her. When she looked at them, they giggled and huddled together. One had blue eyes, but she didn’t look Felting. The other looked Cerani.

  Mesema’s heart gave a twinge when she thought they might have been her friends, had things been different. If Arigu hadn’t been such a liar and Banreh such a fool.

  When she took off her blouse, the women exclaimed in laughter again. Mesema burned with humiliation and began to undo her skirt.

  Sahree must have seen the expression on her face, for she tapped Mesema’s shoulder and smiled. “This is good,” she said, pointing to her chest. She motioned to the blue-eyed woman, who stepped forwards and put her hand right over one of Mesema’s breasts. “Good skin. Tight,” she said. An odd compliment, Mesema thought; Cerani might not be the girl’s native language, but the message came across in any case. She nodded encouragingly at Mesema.

  Mesema tried to smile back, but her body had begun to shake. Would the emperor be looking at her chest? She wondered where Banreh was, and if he were still alive.

  “Don’t be frightened,” said Sahree. “It’s just some soap and a brush.” Her eyes betrayed a hint of impatience. “Willa, help her.” With that, the blueeyed girl took Mesema’s arm and eased her towards the tub.

  Mesema climbed in while the young women exclaimed over her thighs and buttocks. The water felt cool against her skin as Sahree cleaned her with gentle hands and rubbed soap into her hair. She hadn’t been washed like that, by another person, since she was a baby. It made her think of her mother. When she climbed out, the younger women dressed her hair. As their soft fingers unwound her tangles, tears ran down Mesema’s cheeks. She missed Dirini and Eldra.

  “No, no,” said the Cerani girl, the one Sahree had called Tarub, “don’t ruin your eyes.”

  Willa fetched a wet cloth and pressed it over Mesema’s face.

  “Better,” said the other.

  “Now for the difficult part,” said Tarub.

  Mesema panicked: what did they mean, the difficult part? She calmed her breathing. She was a princess. She would not scream, or be frightened, but she did push the cloth away. She wanted to see.

  They laid her back onto a cushion and held her legs apart as Sahree gave her a gentle smile. “We need to be sure you are a maiden. Please forgive.”

  “It will just take a moment,” said Tarub, grasping her hand. A few seconds later, when Sahree’s fingers found their way inside her, Mesema squeezed Tarub’s hand so tightly that she feared she’d injured her.

  Sahree laughed and let her go. “Maiden, for certain.”

  “This is good,” said Tarub, extricating her fingers from Mesema’s grasp.

  “Now we dress you,” said Sahree cheerfully, splashing her fingers in a bowl of water.

  Mesema pressed her legs together, but she still hurt. A Windreader could not be humiliated this way. “Who are you?” she asked at last. “Why are you here?”

  The women looked at her as if she were mad. “We are the body-slaves to the Old Wives, the emperor’s mothers and grandmothers,” said Sahree.

  “Are the Old Wives here, then?”

  Sahree shook her head, amused. “Of course not.”

  This didn’t answer anything at all, but Mesema chose not to pursue it as the women started holding up filmy pieces of cloth, more like scarves than dresses. “See this one?” Tarub shook out some fabric and held it against Mesema’s face. “It looks well on you.”

  Mesema wrung her hands together. The bath, the maiden check, the clothes-none of it made any sense. Why wasn’t she dead already? Was it a game? If so, all she could do was go along with it. “I choose that one, if I am allowed to choose.”

  The women exchanged glances. “Of course you may choose,” said Sahree. They gathered the fabric over her shoulder and pinned it with a jewelled brooch. It felt softer than the softest wool, softer than skin, as it fell cool against her body. Another piece went around her waist and they tied it all together with a patterned sash. They placed jewelled sandals on her feet and stood back to admire their work.

  Mesema lifted her arms. It felt strange to have no fabric between her arms and her ribs. She felt naked. “How do you name this color?” she asked. It looked like the grass and the sky mixed together.

  “That color is named ocean,” said Tarub. “It is good for you.”

  “It is very good,” said Willa.

  “What now?” Mesema held her hands awkwardly at her sides.

  “I will see if it is time,” said Sahree.

  Once again she had received no answer, but Mesema couldn’t ask another question, for Sahree had already disappeared through the tent flap. She kicked at the rug. Tarub and Willa smiled at her in encouragement, but still she felt awkward.

  After a minute Sahree returned and clapped her hands together. “Soon,” she said. “The emperor, heaven keep him, is almost ready. But you must learn the proper behaviour. First, when you come within your height of him, you must give obeisance. Do you know obeisance?” Sahree put her knees on the rug, then bent over, her hands stretched before her on the ground. “Now you try.”

  Mesema did the same.

  “Good,” said Sahree. “Then you wait until someone tells you to get up. Don’t mutter or fidget, now.”

  Mesema didn’t need to practise keeping still, but she did it anyway, for Sahree’s sake.

  “Good,” said Sahree at last. “Rise. You must do the same if he leaves the room before you. Now, when you speak to the emperor, you must address him properly as “Your Magnificence” or “Your Majesty”.”

  “All right,” said Mesema, folding her hands to keep them from shaking.

  “There is more,” said Sahree, “and we used to be very strict in his father’s day, may he live in heaven for ever, but we haven’t the time.”

  “Because the emperor is ill?”

  Sahree gave her a sharp look. “Ill? He is not ill.”

  Banreh, you fool. Mesema stared at her feet. If she allowed the tears that stung her eyes to come forth, they would throw cold rags on her face again. She bit her lip and dug her fingernails into her palms. The pain cleared her mind.

  It was clear the emperor didn’t intend to kill her quite yet, but it was also clear that Arigu had lied again. The emperor was not dying. She wished she could hit Banreh for believing Arigu’s nonsense. She sighed. No; she couldn’t hit Banreh. She would be too glad to see him.

  An invisible signal stirred Sahree to action. “Come!” she chirped, taking Mesema’s arm. Outside, a new series of red corridors appeared for her.

  “Why do they make silk paths for us?” she asked.

  “So that the common men cannot see you,” said Sahree. Mesema could tell from the morning sun that while her tent had been to the west, the emperor’s stood to the south. Their journey ended at a tent flap where two men stood guard. They wore round blue hats topped with feathers, different from the pointed white hats worn by Arigu’s men. They gaped at Mesema, and she looked at her feet, small in their jewelled sandals.

  After a few minutes the tent flaps parted, pushed from within, and a man wearing blue robes bowed slightly to her.

  “Enter,” he said, his voice crisp and cool. She couldn’t tell his age; he might have been twenty-five or forty.

  She took a breath to steady her nerves and moved forwards, taking tiny st
eps over a silk runner. Without looking up she could tell the tent was large, three or four times the size of the bathing tent, but she heard no voices or movement. It felt as if she were alone.

  After ten steps she looked up; she didn’t want to get too close for her proper obeisance. The emperor sat twice her height away, reclining on a pile of cushions. She saw his face first, the face of a Rider in his prime. He looked confident and strong. A smile played around his lips, and yet he seemed angry. She took a few more steps and faltered, now seeing Banreh, crumpled in obeisance, on her left.

  “Approach the emperor,” said the man who’d let her in. Mesema swallowed, ashamed of herself, and continued to walk forwards. She realised that she was staring at the emperor; she couldn’t remember if Sahree had told her not to look at him. He smiled at her, with the look of a man about to tell the end of a joke, but as she got closer, his expression changed to one of surprise.

  She knelt and put her face to the silk. She congratulated herself: she had made it this far. Banreh knelt just beside her and she wondered how long he’d been waiting. She worried about his leg. Her skin tingled. She refused to scratch herself.

  The emperor let them wait. After a minute she began to count stitches again. Perhaps this was their punishment: he would sit on his cushions and wait them out, until they starved to death. But soon after the thought passed through her mind, the man in the blue robes said, “The emperor will receive the lady now.”

  She sat up and faced him. He looked down at her with almond eyes.

  “I’ve seen you before,” he said.

  Mesema couldn’t meet his gaze any longer. She looked at his hair, straight and black.

  “Do you speak?” he asked.

  “Yes, Your Magnificence.”

  He leaned forwards, to a tray covered with silver goblets and pitchers. “Do you drink?”

  “Sometimes, Your Magnificence.”

  He snorted and poured two goblets full of red liquid. He handed one to his servant, who handed it to Mesema. “In the desert, one must provide food and drink to one’s guests,” he said.

  “Thank you… Your Majesty.”

  “Messeeema.” He downed his in one gulp and stared at her.

  “I saw you in a dream.”

  She sipped her drink and found it sour. Nevertheless she took another sip. She didn’t know what to make of his words, and in any case she was having difficulty speaking.

  The emperor twirled his goblet, lost in a daydream. Then he bounced back on the cushions, propping his head with one hand. “Do you ride?” He’d changed his mood as quickly as the wind in a storm, and he still hadn’t so much as glanced towards Banreh.

  “Your- Of course.” She lowered her goblet. “My horse’s name is Tumble. He’s very fine.”

  “Will you ride with me tomorrow? I should like to see a woman ride.” “Y-yes, Your Magnificence.” Fear blossomed in her chest.

  The emperor motioned towards Banreh. “What about him?” Mesema sighed with relief. “He has a horse too. He-”

  He cut her off. “I didn’t mean for him to join us. I am asking who he is.”

  “His name is Banreh, Your Majesty. My father’s voice-and-hands. His am-bass-a-dor.” Banreh had taught her that word.

  “So he is the one responsible for bringing you here?”

  And there it was.

  She steeled herself, concentrating through the buzzing in her ears. “Your Majesty, General Arigu is responsible. He lied to my father. Then he left us when the assassins came.”

  “Yes, I have heard about this.”

  Mesema took another drink, letting the sour liquid scour her throat. She hated the Cerani; they were liars, all of them. A familiar feeling rose in her chest, the kind that couldn’t be stopped by fear or etiquette or anything besides Banreh.

  “They killed my friend. Her name was Eldra. She was pretty and brave.” A real man had to take responsibility for his actions. He would know what he had done. “I took some fletching from the arrow in her chest. A blue feather.” Banreh didn’t move-couldn’t move-to stop her. “I’ll be holding it in my hand when I die. So let me know, and I will fetch it.”

  The blue-robed servant rushed forwards, his hands reaching for Mesema, and she flinched. She wasn’t sure whether he meant to strike her down or throw her from the tent.

  The emperor held up one hand and stilled him. “You are brave, Mesema. But I don’t kill women, and I didn’t send any assassins.”

  She looked down into her drink, overcome with confusion. Not even Banreh could stop her tongue so well.

  Silence fell between them. His servant stood on Mesema’s right, poised to intervene.

  “Well. Your father must be made aware of my displeasure.” The emperor motioned towards Banreh. “I will send him this one’s head, but then all will be forgiven. You will marry as planned, and your father will receive the goods and weapons Arigu promised.”

  She knew that she must save Banreh, only not how. “Your Majesty,” she said, her mind racing, her hands shaking, “if you send my father the head of his voice-and-hands, the man he considers to be a part of himself, he will never send you the wool you expect every year in tribute. Worse, he will refuse to send his Riders against your enemies. He has influence among the other tribes-the Black Horse Clan, the Blue River Clan, the Flat Earth Clan, even the River People and Rockfighters. He will bring them all to his side.”

  He gave her an appraising look. “And what threats are these, that we need the aid of the Windreaders to address?”

  Better not to mention treacherous generals; that might anger him. Her mind reached out and grabbed what it could. “The pattern-maker who kills your people, Magnificence.”

  His hand jerked, spilling his drink on the purple cushions, and he rubbed at it as he said, “And what do you know about the pattern, or its maker?”

  “I’ve seen the pattern twice now. I know nothing of its maker.”

  “Has the pattern reached the horse tribes, then?”

  “No, Your Majesty. I saw it only in the wind.”

  “In the wind.” The emperor threw aside his cushion and stood. He was as big as Arigu, and as muscular, but he moved with far more grace. He walked a slow circle around Banreh.

  “We will speak of this wind later. Now you will give me a better way to chastise your father, or I will kill this one.”

  She did not doubt him. She turned, her heart beating fast.

  “My father has sent many gifts for your family as my dowry, Your Majesty. His best wools and dyes, amber and rare healing plants. Send them all back.”

  “I would be doing him a favor,” said the emperor, pausing near Banreh’s shoulder, a smile playing about his lips. “You are sneaking your tiles off the board.”

  Mesema shook her head emphatically. “No. For the Felt the return of a gift is a great humiliation. It will mean that the gift was poor and inappropriate. My father will be shamed before everyone. And the power will be on your side, Majesty, to forgive or not to forgive.”

  The emperor considered this and laughed. “You are clever, Mesema Windreader.”

  She looked down at her silver goblet, out of words at last.

  “You may go. The ambassador will be returned to your father, along with his gifts. I will summon you when it’s time for our ride.”

  Mesema stood and curtsied. She felt dizzy; her ears hurt. The emperor turned his back, facing the red walls of the tent, looking at nothing. The man in blue robes tapped Banreh’s spine. Mesema turned; she didn’t want to see Banreh struggling to get up and walk. She hurried back along the runner and at the flap, Sahree’s wrinkled hand seized her arm and dragged her through. Full morning blasted across the sky-it had seemed night in the emperor’s tent. Time was galloping ahead. She would never see Banreh again.

  Sahree led her through more corridors, her fingers digging into Mesema’s arm, until at last they pushed their way back into the tent where she’d bathed. The three women changed Mesema’s clothes and combed
her hair once more, and rubbed creams into her feet and hands. Then, as the sun rose high in the sky, they laid her on her mat and stood over her, waving huge fans.

  Chapter Twenty

  Eyul studied the charred corpse. “A horse. They hadn’t the fuel to do much more than scorch it.”

  Amalya crouched over the twisted remains. The heat had tightened tendons and left the beast contorted. “There’s a body underneath, a woman.”

  “Tribesmen, then, Felting riders off the grass,” Eyul said. “A long journey that, to die in the desert.”

  Amalya lifted her hand. “Wait.” She kept still, her lips pressed tight in concentration. The smell of sulphur rose in the air, making Eyul cough, and blue flame flickered in Amalya’s eyes before orange bloomed there, wild and hot. When she opened her mouth again, smoke issued. Her words were rough, as if ash filled her throat. “Young, female. Stone around her throat and feathers on her chest. A horse with metal on its tail. A waste. The fire was not allowed to kill them.”

  “How did the female die?” Eyul had never addressed Metrishet before. The elemental unsettled him. He knew one day it would consume Amalya.

  Amalya closed her eyes and stood up, coughing. “An arrow.”

  “This is the Felting girl.” Eyul studied the hollow between the dunes. An empty barrel and a ripped canvas lay discarded in the sand. Someone had camped here and left in a hurry.

  “So it is. Beyon’s doing?”

  Eyul looked towards Nooria. “For all his killings, I’ve never known the emperor to cause the death of a woman or a child.”

  “But the pattern… Perhaps it has him now?”

  “Or he didn’t do it.” He looked at the bodies again.

  “Let us move on,” said Amalya. “There is nothing more for us to learn here.”