by Matt Weber
“Well,” he said at last, “I should have realized the risks of admitting a woman to our company. Envied of Snakes and the Eager Edge are not nearly so sensitive to odors.”
“I envy them,” said Datang.
The gong rang thrice for the start of the third shift. “This is mine.” Netten turned to go, then glanced back to Datang. “I apologize for my secrecy,” he said. “Sincerely. I will do what I can to promote more equal participation in the inquiry.”
“And I will do what I can to force the issue,” said Datang.
Netten chuckled and made for the Orchid Palace. Datang spent a few moments in thought. When she returned to herself, she realized he had left the remnants of their picnic. She gathered them up, thinking black thoughts about rosemary and jasmine.
The Palace of General Enlightenment straddled the intersection of the Chrysanthemum Path and the Street of Colors in West Rassha, and the arched corridors of its construction often shelved the homeless on rainy nights. Datang entered it, as she had made an irregular habit of doing these several weeks when her patrol was done, to stroll the stacks in search of some book, scroll, or pamphlet that might improve the sophistication of a vintner’s daughter from the Plums. That afternoon she consulted the librarian on the great forbidden loves, and spent some time dredging through the ancient adventures of a Green Morning brother and a scullery maid, separated by death early in their romance but persevering in spite of it all. When the words swam on the page, Datang quit the Palace of General Enlightenment and made her way toward the Resting Place Between Heaven and Earth Pavilion, to a modest but competent noodle shop Lin Yongten had shown her some days before. It was in West Rassha, but close enough to the Orchid Palace that Ceruleans and Versicolors were usually there in equal numbers.
That was true enough that night, but it was crowded, and Datang was in no mood to rub elbows with strangers and bare acquaintances. Neither, it seemed, was the woman seated in the corner at a table barely large enough for a single noodle bowl and a little jug of wine. Datang shouldered through a knot of Ceruleans, nodding to one or two she recognized, and sat with her.
“Taken,” the woman said, not looking up from her book—Boshai’s Heresies of Strategy, a classic of the fence.
“It is now,” said Datang. She called for wine and beef noodles. “Perhaps we may discuss your reading material at some later time.”
Her tablemate closed the book and looked up. “The Ape’s Left Hand?” Her expression softened; she even smiled, which was a strange thing for Datang to think, barely knowing her; but the smile looked foreign on her. Rather, it looked childish, as though she had not learned to smile like a woman.
“It seems for the nonce that I must submit to that style,” said Datang. “May I ask your name?”
“Hariti. It is an honor.” She was in fighter’s clothes—or rather, Datang realized, a rich girl’s impression of fighter’s clothes, a handsome blue jacket with cream trim and matching pants in silks too well-matched and valuable for their intended use. But Datang had seen the calluses on her hands when she made the seated abasement to an honored equal; if she was a rich girl, she trained hard enough, at least.
Datang’s wine and beef noodles came, and she fell to with a thirst. Hariti let her reach a stopping point. “What brings you here alone? I thought Envied of Snakes squired you at all times.”
“Who told you that?”
“Envied of Snakes.”
“Does he strike you as a man preoccupied with accuracy?”
“The opposite,” said Hariti, smiling. “But I wanted to see what you did when I said it.”
“Well? And what did I do?”
“The right thing, I judge. Envied of Snakes wants spanking.”
“He has told me this very thing.”
“Hast not obliged him?”
Datang shoveled another chopsticked nest of noodles in her mouth and washed it down with wine. “The moon is on me,” she said. “As it has been for seven weeks now? Perhaps eight. Envied of Snakes is content to wait. He is as solicitous, in his way, as he is egregious.”
Hariti laughed. “Would’t not be simpler to deny him directly? Fighting-men are prone to bouts of petulance, to be sure, but you are accounted a master of the Crane’s Migration Step—you can hardly fear the petulance of such a man.”
Datang made a politic gesture of dismissal. “I am a student of the Crane’s Migration Step. Feats like that of the Gracious Regent at the Wind Horse Gate are beyond me.”
“Come, they say you leapt the Bat Gate.”
Datang smiled. “The Bat Gate penetrates the wall at two-thirds its height. To leap from the Silver Road to the parapets above the Wind Horse Gate is something else again.”
“Well, the Gracious Regent’s shadow darkens all mortal deeds,” said Hariti, and there was a darkness in her voice as well. “Come, let us speak of other things. How is it for a woman in the Guard?”
“Frustrating,” said Datang. “Most men see no dishonor in refusing satisfaction to a woman, in consequence of which I have not killed nearly as many of my detractors as I would prefer.”
“But you have killed some?” said Hariti, enthralled.
“The Crescent, if they speak of my vault of the Bat Gate, I hope they speak with it of the Colonel Lamto I killed. That was a charity to all mankind.”
“I had heard the rumor, but hesitated to invoke it,” said Hariti, “as it is also rumored that he was murdered by the Iron Eunuch’s snipers, and I would not wish to link you to murder.”
“It was not murder, though I would not name it the steel polemic either. It was self-defense, nothing less or more. But, come, I wish to know how it is for a woman fencer not of the guard.”
“Frustrating,” said Hariti, “for different reasons, which will become clear when I invite a third to our table. Come here, Thoto, and sit down.”
Datang turned to sight a man in dark blue fighter’s clothes, much like Hariti’s but in linen rather than silk, carrying a straight sword of military issue. She made the seated abasement to an equal. He pulled a chair through the crowd, but did not respond in kind. She bristled inwardly at his discourtesy, but her thoughts on how to respond were preempted by two recognitions quick as the jabs of Gyodol the Serpent Fist Boxer. The first recognition was of Thoto’s versicolor armband; the second—of his burn-scarred face. “Tell me, Thoto,” she said, “how goes the patrol on the Hall of Bats and Orchids?”
“Oh,” said Hariti, “you misunderstand. Thoto is in the Lama’s corps, not the Demon Guards. His duties do not take him to the inner palace.”
Thoto leaned back and examined Datang—but not as a foe in the fence, nor yet a guilty man in search of escape. “No, my rain,” he said to Hariti at last, “betimes they do.”
Hariti frowned. “Why?”
Thoto looked to Datang as though he expected her to supply the answer. Datang shrugged, her eyes saying I want to hear you tell the tale as eloquently as she could make them.
By way of riposte, Thoto unlaced a pouch from his sword-belt and hefted it. It was heavy, and not, Datang suspected, with copper. “Because needs must, and the Lama pays cash for services.” He looked steadily at Datang. “I was not the only one in that hall without cause.”
Datang looked to Hariti, then to Thoto. Hariti was confused and worried; Thoto seemed braced for war. She addressed Thoto. “It was impolite of me to raise the topic. We may let it lie, or we may explain it to our mutual friend. Since I imposed the subject, I leave its disposition to you. I love your corps no more than you love mine, but I do not seek your personal enmity.”
“That is kind,” said Thoto, “both the sentiment and the sincerity of its expression.” He turned to Hariti. “Kedzeten and I were importuned to undertake a small mission for outsize compensation. We were told to obtrude with naked swords into the offices of one Five Prosperities Benba, who works in the Hall of Bats and Orchids, and there to inform him that the unfortunate death of a subordinate known as the Cold Water Salmo
n would be amply investigated by other agencies, and that his own efforts in the same vein would be unproductive.”
Hariti’s face had become very grave. “The Green Morning brother found this dawn?”
“I have not heard his name,” said Thoto. “Yet it seems the most likely possibility.” He looked at Hariti with pain and worry in his eyes. “My rain, I swear, the gold was for the message only. I would never have murdered for hire.”
“Of course not,” said Datang. “We have a guild of accredited assassins; why hire a Versicolor over a professional?”
Thoto glared at Datang, visibly nettled. “And yet, why retain the guild, when the Cerulean Guard dispenses murder at deep discounts? Perhaps the Cold Water Salmon merely had the misfortune to seek lunch on the Street of Dogs.”
“An intriguing proposition,” said Datang. “Perhaps we should repair to the street, where you may more freely demonstrate your evidence?”
“I assure you,” said Thoto, “I find nothing so stimulating as a lively exchange of syllogisms—”
“Perhaps one thing,” Hariti put in quietly.
There was a brief silence, in which Datang fumed and Thoto reddened. “Now is not the time, my rain—”
“Nor ever will it be, if you and the Ape’s Left Hand depart for the street. In the first place, because I will leave you if you kill her, and in the second—” and here she looked at Datang with eyes that were, to the fencer’s shock and ill-ease, full of fear—“because I do not know if you can.”
Thoto looked from Hariti to Datang, torn and angry; Datang held up her hand, palm out. “Peace, the both of you. I have no stomach for sundering love this night—nor, strangely, for gutting men over little slights.”
Thoto shifted his weight in his seat. “Nor I, strangely, for giving lessons in rhetoric.”
“On the topic of who, in your scenario, would be the student, and who the teacher, I think we may peaceably disagree.” Datang essayed a grin.
“And I,” said Thoto, allowing some relief to show. Hariti, too, leaned back in her chair and took a long pull on her bowl of wine. “But another matter beckons, and I hope it will not break our hard-won armistice. I made a regrettable comment regarding Envied of Snakes—”
“An accurate comment,” said Datang.
“Be that as it may, he is not the friend of yours most closely linked to the Cold Water Salmon’s murder.”
Datang thought back to her meeting with Netten, but said nothing. “Who, then?”
“There are not many in Rassha who fight in the Archipelago fashion.”
“An absurdity.” Datang blinked. “The Eager Edge was sporting with the barmaids of the Jugged Dragon when the Salmon died. In any case, he and the Salmon were friends.”
“Take two pairs of Green Morning brothers,” said Hariti. “Which are the more likely to kill one another: The friends, or the strangers?”
“The Crescent,” Datang said, “that is just. Yet the Eager Edge has an alibi.”
“The Jugged Dragon is frequented by Ceruleans,” said Thoto. “Any alibi from them will hold no weight.”
“The truth is not so light as all that,” Datang said with some asperity.
“To be sure; yet falsehoods, too, can be made heavy.”
“Especially in the courts.” Hariti grimaced.
Thoto looked to her. “My rain, I long to continue this colloquy, but we should take our leave. There are plans to make.”
Hariti looked at him a moment, then turned to Datang. “In truth,” she said, “there are. I had not anticipated my love’s windfall.”
Datang sensed an evasion, but did not begrudge it. She felt as though she and Hariti were great friends, but she knew that was the wine, in no small measure—they had barely met. “Of course,” she said, perhaps too expansively. “A fighting-man’s greatest crime is to interfere with logistics. What are your plans?”
“It pains me to say it,” said Hariti, “for I have enjoyed your company and will treasure its memory—but we are quitting Rassha. One insurgency was trial enough; we are not disposed to endure a second.”
Datang did feel a true pang at that, not just (at least she thought) the wine. “The city will wither a bit without you, I feel certain,” she said to Hariti; then, to Thoto, “and you as well, for not many men can retain their strength of character under the yoke of the Versicolor brassard.”
“And not many women can retain their wit under the Cerulean.” Thoto stood; Hariti followed suit. “I have enjoyed your company, Ape’s Left Hand. Should you ever menace the borders of any small village in Degyen province, ask after Thoto and Hariti, and perhaps we will drink together again. I wish you the best of luck exonerating your friend.”
Datang stood and made the standing abasement to an honored equal, which the couple returned. “Travel safely,” she said, “and much luck to you in your life together. I will stay to finish my food and drink.”
Thoto and Hariti left. Datang stayed a while, picking at cold beef noodles and mulling over the untimely destruction of the Cold Water Salmon.
The Kings’ Archive
he next morning found Tenshing in the Kings’ Archive, a cramped chamber to which lamas and historians of all ranks and reputations sent their royal biographies and histories. In truth, the archive had once been a rather generously sized library for such a specialized subject, but the number of submissions had exploded with the advent of print during the reign of the King’s great-great-grandfather, Silverhand Tenshing Caturtha. Stacked volumes and flimsy freestanding scroll-racks partitioned the rooms into tiny subdivisions, and the air therein was choked with incense, ostensibly to deter such pests as preyed on books. Tenshing privately suspected that the incense’s true purpose was to deter would-be readers, though to his mind, the heavy locks on the scrollwork doors and the constant presence of two heavily armed Demon Guards performed that service admirably enough. It was thus a small shock for him to hear the pad of footsteps in the vestibule, and to see, over the low wall of unauthorized biographies of Cold Tenshing Panchama, the cropped hair and inverted-teardrop face of Lin Tong.
“What news from the Green Morning?” he called over the wall of books.
Tong started, detected Tenshing, and smoothly abased herself. “The Green Morning is interested in your offer to parlay with the head lumberjack,” she said, “and there is a thriving pool on whether the Rough-Hewn Torch will take it. Odds are against.”
“What do you think?”
“I have a source in the camp that suggests he will.” She rounded the wall. Tenshing could not but admire, as he always had, the body beneath her loose fencer’s greens: compact but powerful, skin sun-browned and clear—an instrument ill-fitted for the straight lines of courtiers’ robes, to say nothing of the confinement of women’s fashions. She saw his gaze and threw it back at him. “Have you an urge to satisfy, Your Grace? I shall avert my eyes, if I may.”
“That is a tart thing to say to a King,” said Tenshing.
“I seem to recall uttering my share of assertions at least as tart,” said Tong, “to no objection. And that was when you were King.”
Tenshing raised an eyebrow and spoke with exaggerated mildness. “How, am I not?”
“To see you at your studies, one would not think so,” said Tong.
“Not many see me at my studies,” said Tenshing. “Talking of which, how did you gain ingress? I will not be pleased to find my guards dead, or the locks broken.”
“And it is right for a King to expect the best, from staff and material surroundings both. But then we return to the essential question—”
“Do not voice it again,” Tenshing said, more sharply than he meant. Tong smirked. Tenshing diverted his eyes back to his reading. “I owe my subjects the truth. If I cannot vanquish the Priestkiller Worm—”
“You cannot vanquish the Priestkiller Worm.”
He raised his eyes again. “The Lotus, Tong, this rhetorical tactic of yours has grown beyond stale and passed well into decompo
sition—”
“Blunt truth is no tactic. You cannot vanquish the Worm. You know as well as I do that you have not mastered the Reflecting Pool Mind.” Tong took the long step to the edge of Tenshing’s desk, hooked her finger under the cover of the volume he had been perusing, and flipped it closed with a soft thump. “And you will never master it in here.” He met her eyes and felt something pass between them, of a sort he had not felt since Mother-of-Daughters had announced she knew of the affair. “To verify a claim whose precise form is not known to you—how many hours could one waste in a library, searching for information that might pertain?”
“My practice does not suffer. Dawn has not even touched the peaks of the Cradle.”
“To the contrary—the Cradle and the dawn are passionately embraced, to the embarrassment of all who lay eyes on the sunrise. The line of petitioners already reaches the fifth lightpost, and the Master waiting in the Dawn Courtyard is not the Master of the Reflecting Pool Mind. If I were your subject, I would fear my King had lost his resolve to save my life from the Worm’s rapacity.”
“You are my subject.”
She shrugged. “Or perhaps you side with the eccentrics who claim that the Worm’s name is to be taken seriously, that its only prey are the monks and lamas of the White Way? But monks and lamas are your subjects too, even so.”
There was something strange behind Tong’s eyes as she made the suggestion—a scrutiny that gave the lie to her easy dismissal. But even the Eye of Ten Thousand Apprehensions could not place what it was. “The King takes seriously all his charges. It is the royal prerogative to choose the means by which he fulfills them. No amount of practice with the Reflecting Pool Mind can save my subjects if I am not the man to slay the Worm.”
“And no amount of genealogical research can save them if you are, but you ignore your training.” Tong hooked her fingers over the edge of the desk and, with seeming gentleness, shoved it smoothly to the side, collapsing a wall of heaped sheet music written in praise, commemoration, and criticism of the royal line since White Tenshing. She stepped where the desk had been, her knees almost touching the King’s, his eye level just below her breasts. He looked up; she met his gaze. “You made a suggestion in the throne room some days ago. I rejected it, for we both agreed that our affair is done. And it is done. But, if you pledge to leave this room when we are finished and do not return, if you square on your shoulders the yoke you seem so keen to transfer—then you may have me here.”