by Devin Madson
‘You mean for Katashi?’
‘Emperor Katashi, yes.’
‘I don’t care if you lie to me, because I can tell,’ I said. ‘But don’t lie to yourself. You’ve been a Pike longer than he’s been an emperor. You’re a rebel. Why?’
‘What sort of stupid question is that anyway?’
‘It isn’t a stupid question. Men fight for what is important. Sometimes it’s money, sometimes it’s honour, sometimes it’s revenge.’
A humourless laugh cut through a roll of thunder. ‘What about food, wine and women?’
‘If you’re thinking with your stomach.’
‘And my cock.’ I knew he was grinning, the grin of a broken man determined to keep introspection at bay.
‘And what if your cock was cut off?’ I said. ‘What if there was no food and no wine. What would you fight for then? The divine right of Otakos to sit on a lump of crimson lacquered wood and tell everyone what to do?’
A new storm was coming.
‘I can see why you ended up here. I’m not sure I like you myself.’
‘I’m a god. It doesn’t matter if people like me.’
No. Wrong answer.
One million, three hundred and sixteen thousand, four hundred and two.
I’m going to die here. I’m going to damn well die here sitting in my own mess and talking to a mad prince. You should have left me where you found me, my lady. What was I thinking? Of glory and gold, of fighting for something worthwhile and dying for something that had meaning. But there’s no such thing. Death is just death and I don’t want to die.
More thunder rumbled.
One.
Three thousand four hundred and eighty five.
One hundred and twenty-six thousand and twelve.
One million, three hundred and sixteen thousand, three hundred and ninety-seven.
Wen cried.
Chapter 8
I called Katashi’s council, amused as always that his advisors had as little control over him as Katashi had over himself. From the Pikes who thought they knew him to the lords who thought they owned him, all were equally powerless and yet spared me no second glance. I was just another traitor sitting at a table of traitors.
The generals arrived together. Manshin, Tikita and Roi had always been loyal to the Otako name. At the end of the war they had been the last to bow to Emperor Kin, but sixteen years had seen them grow as comfortable with their expanding waistlines as they had with the world Kin created. Now they bowed to a new emperor – the Otako they had always wanted – but every day their fear was growing. It was the fear of men not used to being afraid.
Katashi held them by a thread.
‘Ah, Minister Laroth, you are before us,’ General Manshin exclaimed, halting in the tent opening so Tikita and Roi were forced to edge around him to get out of the rain. ‘It never fails to amuse me to see you dancing to the exile’s tune.’
‘I do not dance, General,’ I said from my place at the foot of the table. ‘It is you, I think, who is doing that.’
The Pike captains watched our interchange. Even Lord Flint trailed off in his conversation with his son, Katashi’s quartermaster, to listen. Katashi was, as always, keeping his council waiting. It was one of the few powers he had left.
‘Are you sure, Laroth?’ General Manshin said. ‘I can imagine you would dance very gracefully.’
He took his place opposite Captain Yorah, the most senior Pike. Not a word passed between them, not even a look or a nod. Out in the camp the attitude was the same. To the Pikes the traitors were untrustworthy turncoats who had joined too late, while to the traitors the Pikes were chaotic madmen. They enjoyed reminding everyone that the fish for which the Pikes were named ate their own kind when food was scarce.
‘It must be odd to find yourself at the right hand of two emperors, Laroth,’ General Manshin said when further conversation was not forthcoming. ‘An interesting take on loyalty, to be sure.’
‘I was discharged from Emperor Kin’s service, General,’ I said, watching Tikita and Roi kneel beside him. ‘But no doubt you have a good reason for betraying your oath.’
The rest of the council watched hungrily, but General Manshin did not flinch. He smiled. ‘Undoubtedly.’
An awkward silence fell. Stiff-backed, the Pike captains stared across the table at the traitor generals, who resolutely refused to be put out of countenance.
When Katashi finally arrived the tension was thick. Every man at the table rose to his feet, but though I stood I did not bow with them. No one else noticed, but Katashi’s eyes locked to mine as the others retook their places with varying degrees of grace.
‘This will not be a long meeting,’ Katashi said when all was quiet but for the rain. ‘We have only one matter of business to discuss – the immediate frontal assault of Shimai.’
Had I owned less control I might have laughed at their faces. Even General Manshin’s mouth dropped open. But it was Captain Yorah who broke the silence first. ‘Shimai? The sister capital?’
‘Yes,’ Katashi said. ‘Shimai.’
He offered no more information. General Manshin cleared his throat. ‘And might I ask, Your Majesty, what you mean by “immediate”?’
‘As soon as we can march to its gates, leaving behind everything but what we need to lay siege to a city.’
Beside me, General Roi muttered: ‘Might as well march our men to Lin’ya and order them to leap off the cliff.’
‘Let’s call that a day-and-a-half pushing hard from this side of the Fen,’ Manshin said, ignoring his companion. ‘But even if Kin does not realise what we are doing, Shimai is more defensible than Mei’lian. Our Minister of the Left here–’ he indicated me ‘–could tell you about the standing garrison. What is it, Laroth? One-and-a-half thousand men in peace time?’
‘You are correct, General,’ I said as eyes turned my way. ‘Set to rise to three immediately upon a state of internal or external conflict. What you perhaps do not realise, General, is that half of them have been removed to a camp outside Risian. Kin is planning an attack. Now is our time to move.’
Katashi turned his head and I caught the malice in his aura. ‘Are you speaking for me, Laroth?’ he said, his tone silky.
Every eye in the tent fixed on me. Let him play his petty power games. I could bow and scrape and simper as well as any other court buffoon. ‘My apologies, Your Majesty,’ I said.
A triumphant smile twitched his lips. ‘As my all too confident chief advisor said, Kin isn’t expecting us to lay siege to one of the most fortified cities in the empire.’
General Manshin met his emperor’s gaze with one equally direct. ‘That is because opportunity does not always translate into good military strategy.’
Rain drummed on the tent roof. It was too much to say that General Tikita and General Roi edged away from their comrade, but they certainly took a great interest in the grain of the table. They were both younger by a decade, but all three had been honoured as heroes after the battle of Riyan Bridge four years earlier – the last time relations with Chiltae had soured to the point of war.
‘Neither does fear of failure, General,’ Katashi replied.
General Manshin moved his jaw as though he chewed on air. His mind would be turning fast, playing the conversation in his head the same way I played Errant. Though better known for his exploits with Kisia’s finest yijis, he owned the sharpest mind present, barring only my own.
‘Are we sure the garrison has been depleted?’ Captain Yorah asked, he the apparent spokesman for the two silent Pikes at his side. ‘We don’t have the numbers to fight them and the army Kin will pull south from Kogahaera.’
No “Your Majesty” I noted. His Pikes had been with him too long for that.
‘If we move fast enough Kin won’t have time to move his men from Kogahaera at all,’ General Manshi
n said. ‘That, I assume, is the reason for such haste. But with all due respect, Your Majesty, an attack of such magnitude requires planning and preparation.’
‘Only if your brain moves very slowly, General. My Pikes need barely an hour’s notice.’
Each of the generals made a concerted twitch as though reaching for an absent wine bowl. They were used to more respect. And they were used to being entertained in grander style, the table they had once knelt at no makeshift affair.
General Manshin took the insult with a smile as fake and calculating as I had ever seen. ‘You have a much larger army now, Your Majesty, and a much larger army requires more care. An attention to detail. Its every move planned.’ His gaze flicked to me, so quickly that to anyone else it might have appeared just an irritation of the eye. ‘Perhaps you already have a plan.’
‘Yes, General, I do.’ Katashi’s skin was growing red with excitement. ‘I’m going to burn the gates down.’
Silence. Fear grew like rising damp.
‘With what fuel?’ General Manshin enquired all too calmly. ‘Those gates are at least four hundred years old and as dense as iron. It would take days, maybe even weeks. Not only could the defenders rain all manner of things upon us from the battlements, but it would give Kin plenty of time to move his men from Kogahaera.’
‘Not weeks, General,’ he said. ‘Hours at the most, likely less.’
Give them a reason to love you for it, not fear you, I had said. And what better reason than success.
Katashi splayed his fingers dramatically. ‘You’ve heard the rumours about me,’ he said, lighting his own flesh with a jolt of anger. ‘You’ve heard my Pikes whispering. Now see it for yourselves.’
Every man at the table leaned back as Katashi pressed his palm to the table. Smoke rose in curls, filling the tent with choking grey clouds and the stink of burning wood. The table crackled. Flames leapt to life like extra fingers and just as Lord Flint started coughing, a chunk of charcoal hit the floor.
Katashi removed his hand and the flames died, leaving behind a hand-shaped hole rimmed in black.
‘But how?’ General Tikita breathed, fanning smoke from his eyes.
‘How?’ Katashi got to his feet. The sleeve of his crimson robe was charred. ‘The gods gave the Crimson Throne to the Otakos, and the gods will take their vengeance. We will take Shimai. Ready your men to move out. Now.’
Chapter 9
Tili combed my hair, just as she had the first time I had dined with Emperor Kin. A lifetime ago I had sat before the mirror in Lord Pirin’s guest quarters and we had talked of nothing but men. Now there was just silence. There had been a lot of that of late.
‘My lady—’
‘You don’t need to call me that,’ I said for perhaps the hundredth time since I had talked Kin into letting her stay.
‘Yes, I do, my lady.’
There was silence for a time and I stared at my misty reflection in the mirror. It wasn’t the finest glass, but we made do. Duplicate stars of lantern light flickered around me.
‘My lady,’ she began again and this time I did not interrupt. ‘Why is honour so important?’
I looked at her through the scratched glass, but she did not look at me, just went on combing my hair, each curl bouncing back as the comb let it go. ‘Because our name is all we truly have,’ I said. ‘Beauty, fortune, property, power – everything else is transient. Without our integrity we are nothing.’
‘What about the men who swore an oath to Emperor Kin and now fight for Emperor Katashi? What happened to their honour?’
‘For some people honour is expendable.’ I heard the hard note in my voice and bit my tongue. It was foolish to say more without knowing what was in her mind. ‘Why do you ask?’
She seemed not to hear my question. ‘Could they perhaps have been coerced, my lady, into... into pledging their word.’
I turned to look up at her. ‘What is this about, Tili? Are you all right?’
Tili smiled. ‘Yes, my lady, I am quite well, just trying to... make sense of... of everything that has happened.’
‘You’re worrying me.’ I gripped the hand that held the wooden comb, a hand that trembled as much now as it had on the way to Kuroshima. ‘Haven’t we been through enough together to be honest now?’
She met my gaze then, wide brown orbs glistening in the lantern light. ‘I’m afraid for you, my lady,’ she said, her gaze flicking to the tent entrance and then back to my face. ‘I’m afraid of what you’re doing. What if Emperor Kin is not a good man?’
These last words she whispered, fingers clamping around the comb to stop them from shaking.
I pulled back a little. ‘Why would you say that? What has been said?’
‘Nothing! Nothing at all, my lady.’ She pulled out of my grip. ‘I just... I want you to be safe and happy. You deserve that, my lady.’
‘And there is no place in Kisia I would be safer or happier. Although…’ I got to my feet and ran my hands down the pink robe I had worn beneath my armour at Kuroshima. ‘If I could change out of this robe I would be happier. It is crinkled and stinks of leather and sweat.’
‘Here.’
Tili put her hand to the chastity knot and I stepped back, bumping my head on the canvas roof. ‘It can’t be undone.’
‘I would not dare, my lady, but there is a way to loosen it. You don’t think noble ladies go the full seven days without bathing or changing their robe, do you?’
I had, silently dreading how awful I would smell by the seventh day. ‘No, of course not.’
‘Here, let me show you.’
This time I did not flinch as Tili hooked a finger under one of the loops of cloth. ‘See this piece here? It slides through one of the small knots in the base. Sometimes it takes a bit of tug—’
She pulled at the silk, and the tight sash around my waist loosened.
‘See?’
‘Thank you. But Kin will know if I change my robe.’
‘And he won’t say anything, my lady. This is how these things are done. When Lady Tanike stayed at the palace for her sevenday she wore a different coloured robe each day. Some ladies prefer to have seven the same, of course.’
Feeling even more stupid, I allowed Tili to slide the precious sash down over my hips and dress me in a new robe.
Rain was falling when we made our way across the darkening camp to Kin’s tent. Tili held a parasol to protect me from the worst of it, but by the time we arrived rain had started to seep through its fabric.
‘Lady Hana Otako, Your Majesty.’ Kin’s guards bowed as they announced me, rain rolling off their leather hoods.
Kin’s voice came from within. ‘Let her come.’
Lantern light spilled as the tent was held open. Inside Kin was frowning over a slew of maps, every line of his face etched with sleeplessness. ‘Good evening, my lady,’ he said, nodding dismissal to his guard. ‘How glad I am that you could join me.’
I could not help but smile at his solemnity. ‘Really?’ I said. ‘Are we going to be that formal?’
He gave a little shrug and offered me the place across the table, just as he had in Risian the first time we had dined together. ‘There’s a time and a place.’
‘Yes, there is, but I think it is not here and not now.’
‘Perhaps you are right, Hana.’ He pushed the maps aside, filling the space briefly with the noise of crackling parchment.
‘What are you looking at?’ I asked, indicating the pile. The pale blue sleeve of my clean robe brushed the table as I did so, but just as Tili had predicted, he made no comment.
‘Maps of Kisia. More specifically the southern portion of Nivi Fen.’
I tried to read his face, but there was nothing telling in its harsh lines. ‘I told you where his camp is.’
‘You told me where his camp was. Katashi is smart enou
gh to move knowing you would betray him.’
The word “betray” stung. ‘No, you don’t know him. He would stay because I would betray him. He won’t show fear.’
‘That might explain the pattern then,’ he muttered, staring at the topmost map on the pile.
‘Explain what pattern?’
It was a grave look he shot me across the table and for a time it seemed as though he would not answer. Then suddenly he said: ‘You were right. Your cousin is more dangerous than anyone thinks.’
‘Your Majesty,’ one of the guards said from outside. ‘Your dinner.’
‘Send it in.’
We lapsed into silence as a boy bowed and began the arduous task of serving our meal. I paid no heed to what was set in front of me. I had tried to tell them, but no one had listened. A lantern must have set the tent on fire, they had said. There is no way a man can create fire from his skin. It would kill him. Even I had begun to doubt what I had seen. What I had felt.
The boy took forever to set the meal. I had to bite my tongue to keep from ordering him out, but when he finally finished my anger remained unvoiced. It was Kin who broke the silence.
‘I received an account of the battle at Risian,’ he said. ‘There weren’t any survivors, but a farmer came forward. He saw Katashi burning people alive with nothing but a touch. All those times we thought they were burning our dead...’
‘They were burning our living.’
He nodded. ‘We’ve been losing scouts, too. Another body was found while we were away, covered in burn marks in the shape of hands. We are fighting a force far worse than we thought.’
There was no apology for disbelieving me, no more acknowledgement of my part in it than was present in his initial admission, but somehow it was enough. An Emperor was a god. He could not be wrong.
‘And the pattern you spoke of?’
‘Where burned scouts have been found since we arrived.’
‘Since we arrived?’
Kin returned my stare and said nothing.
‘How long have you known?’ I asked.