by Jaida Jones
“His retainer’s gone with him,” the man with the mole added. “Loyal to the last, I say, right?” The other two men grunted in agreement, while the bullfrog-woman merely looked smug.
“Whatever the reason,” she said, taking control of the conversation once more, “the Emperor seems to think they’ll be taking the quickest route to Volstov.”
One of the men spat on the floor at the mention of Volstov, which earned a laugh from his companions. Kouje joined in too, after a moment. I couldn’t place what was so odd about the sound at first, until I realized that I had never heard Kouje laugh in such a loud and unfettered fashion before. It was nothing at all like the soft and courtly laughter he permitted himself in my company.
It made me wonder what else of Kouje I didn’t know. For the first time, I was coming to realize that, for someone whose company I’d kept through my entire life, there were great gaps in my knowledge about him.
“Why would they be heading to Volstov?” Kouje asked, his tone full of contempt for the doings of royalty and the suggestion that good decent people wouldn’t be able to fathom them.
The bullfrog-woman shrugged, and nodded toward the man with the mole.
“Shen here had trouble even getting into the village from Hojo last night,” she said, naming one of the main cities, to the south of the capital and facing the water in the direction of Tado. “They’ve set up checkpoints along all the main roads, and they’ve already reinforced the existing checkpoints between prefectures. He says it takes hours to get through now, especially if you’re traveling alone, or worse, with only one companion.”
Shen—the man with the mole—nodded, and took another slurp of his noodles. I held my hands rigidly in my lap, and willed my stomach not to give me away.
“You’d be better off if you had another woman with you, if you don’t mind my saying,” Shen pointed out, looking me up and down in a way I truly didn’t care for. “This one looks as if she’s liable to drop any minute from starvation. She’s not much for conversation either, is she?”
“It’d certainly aid the numbers problem,” said the other man, who must have been Jin. He laughed, slapping his thigh at his own little joke.
“Actually,” Kouje said, that one word so like iron that for a moment the man stopped laughing, and the bullfrog-woman raised her eyebrows in surprise. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Kouje lower his head in contrition. “What I mean to say,” he began again, his words so deferential and so scattered with interruptions that it was all I could do not to stare at him as he cleared his throat and added extra, unnecessary phrases for sheer politeness’ sake, “is that I am hoping to find someone to barter with, that I might prevent her from—as you said—dropping dead of starvation.”
I lifted my head in protest. I was already the subject of gossip in the smallest of road-stop towns. I would have something to say against being discussed like that right to my face.
Shen only laughed, and held up his hands in the sign meant to ward off bad luck. “I didn’t mean anything by it, little miss, and you’ve a pretty enough face when you hold it up that way.”
“I’m here for bartering,” Kouje said. It was a gentle enough reminder, and perhaps I was the only one who could hear the steel behind each word. It wasn’t a threat if it didn’t have to be, but it lingered in the air along with the scent of the noodles and strong, hot tea.
The bullfrog-woman sucked her lower lip in, thinking. I found myself wondering whether or not she would emit a croak, then almost immediately felt contrite.
“It all depends on what you’re looking to sell,” she said at last.
“Some garments,” Kouje told her. “Belonging to a former master of mine.”
Her eyes flashed with amusement. “Stole them, did you?”
Jin shook his head. “Don’t mind her. Old Mayu doesn’t understand that not everyone’s got a closet full of skeletons.”
“Jin, that’s a lie,” she began.
“Just last month, weren’t you trying to convince us all that the paper-hanger who works for Ketano was stealing from him?” Jin asked, laughing.
“And the year before,” Shen chimed in, “when you said that Suzu was in love with a married man one town over?”
I wanted to tell them that Kouje wasn’t the sort of man who would steal things from anyone, let alone his own master, but I was faced with the new and terrifying knowledge that it was not my place. I’d only just begun to grow comfortable with my place as a prince over my most recent birthdays, after the battles in which I’d won my braids, and now I was unlearning each lesson as Kouje had undone each braid.
The idea of having to adapt to another role was almost more than I could bear. I kept my head down.
“Well, what of it?” Old Mayu was sulking now. I could hear it in her throaty, smoke-worn voice. “Mark my words, that’s why she hung herself in the end.”
I wondered if Suzu had been the topic of all their gossip up until I’d fled from the palace. I wondered if anyone would guess at the truth of why she’d done it, or if that elusive thing—the truth—had died along with her.
There was no argument from Jin or Shen, who both seemed to sense that they’d gone too far. It wasn’t the sort of remorse that comes from genuine regret, though, but more a fear of what would happen once Old Mayu had got over sulking and decided she was angry.
“Try the potter,” Old Mayu said to the pair of us. “Down the road from here, next to the inn’s stables. He’s been prospering of late, and his wife’s the sort who’s always bothering him to dress up once in a while. He’ll be your best bet for unloading your garments, stolen or not.”
I lifted my head just in time to see her wink at Kouje.
“Of course if he isn’t interested, you two come right back here and see me. I can’t imagine what I’ll do with only these two for conversation. It’s not every day you meet someone so interesting!”
I didn’t think that Kouje had said all that much, by way of conversation. In fact, most of the conversation had been carried by Old Mayu herself. I thought that perhaps her definition of “interesting” was different from my own.
“Thank you,” Kouje said. He stood, and didn’t wait for me before starting out of the noodle house.
I knew it was just an act, but I’d been caught unawares again, and found myself rushing after him into the light of the street outside. Kouje was standing by the horse, untying the bundle of our clothes. He looked up when I came out, and though he didn’t say anything, there was a penitent look in his eyes.
“What interesting people,” I said, to see if I could make the apology fade. “I’m glad they were so helpful, aren’t you?”
“You did very well,” Kouje said. “I almost lost my temper.”
“Only once or twice,” I said, shading my eyes against the sun and looking down the street, as though that held the secret of what the potter’s house looked like.
“When she touched you…” Kouje began.
“We’d best see the potter,” I said. “Should I stay with the horse?”
Kouje looked down the street, the same as I had, but with a different purpose. My gaze had been curious, but his was challenging and defensive at once. Perhaps, if I looked hard enough, I could see things the way he saw them: most of them threats and all of them gossipmongers.
“You’d best come with me,” he said at last, taking my hand. “News has traveled fast. We can only hope the Emperor’s riders haven’t moved so quickly.”
CHAPTER FIVE
CAIUS
I was feeling sorry for Alcibiades, because that morning he’d found out that the horse Prince Mamoru and his retainer had stolen was his. Or, at least, it had been his. Now it was Prince Mamoru’s, and a lucky horse it was, riding all across the Ke-Han countryside, having adventure after adventure while Alcibiades glowered and sulked and, it was obvious, secretly missed him, the poor dear.
It was the sort of luck I felt was visited upon Alcibiades often, but the point rema
ined that he was completely unapproachable, steaming mad and muttering to himself and not being a gentleman about the matter at all. The Emperor himself had apologized to him, but instead of being fascinated by the whole affair—there was a special ceremony for it, and two of the special Ke-Han-bred racing horses had been given to him, one as compensation and one as a gift—he’d locked himself up in his room and refused to come out, or even to answer me as I spoke to him about how the talks were going that day.
“They’ve decided to set up checkpoints to look for him,” I explained, which was, I thought, a very gracious gesture. “You might have your horse back yet, my dear, if they do manage to catch him. I would have thought that right now you’d be there, leading out a Ke-Han search party yourself to find the young rascal! Then you’d be a hero of the Ke-Han people, as well as of Volstov. You’re missing out on quite the opportunity. And don’t you even want to see your new racing horses? I want to see them!”
Nothing at all emanated from the other room, though I could still hear him from where I was, my ear pressed up against the door and dreadfully bored, muttering away to himself like a madman. Eventually, the muttering stopped, but Alcibiades hadn’t yet emerged from his room, and he’d barricaded the adjoining door.
There was no question in my mind that the man needed a bit of cheering up. He was simply making it very hard for himself and me.
Inevitably, I screwed up my resolve—determined to face any obstruction that might confront me—and I managed to slide the door open. It was only halfway, but that was sufficient.
“Good afternoon!” I called, over the rolled-up sleeping mat he’d piled up as a blockade against me. He was trying so hard; I thought it quaint. “Have you had lunch yet? I’m famished!”
Nothing at all again. I fancied I could hear the sound of a quill against paper though I had to concentrate very hard to hear it.
Alcibiades was writing a letter.
I could only imagine the sort of adorable dialect he employed while penning his epistle. And to whom could the man have been writing? I was shocked, in fact, at the very idea that he could write at all. How utterly delightful! I simply had to read it.
The blockade Alcibiades had set up against me was easily scaled, and I clambered up the side of it until I could at least see over the top. I rested my chin against the top and grinned in my most alluring manner.
“Are you writing a letter, my dear? Shall I call for our lunch to be brought to our rooms?”
Alcibiades startled, nearly spilling his poor inkwell before throwing his arms over the letter and glaring in the direction of my voice.
“You look like a bloody jack-in-the-box,” he informed me.
“How jolly,” I said.
“I hate jack-in-the-boxes.”
“Mm,” I said. Not my best rejoinder, admittedly, but I was quite busy in maneuvering my way down the other side of the barricade, and I wasn’t altogether keen on losing my footing. When I reached the bottom I felt a warm satisfaction at a job well done. “Now, what do you say to some hot lunch?”
“I’m busy,” Alcibiades said. He hadn’t got up from his rather undignified position at the desk, arms crossed over the letter as if it were a state secret, and not some plain piece of paper with writing on it.
“I know, with the letter.” I nodded indulgently. Then, trying to make it seem as though I’d only just thought of it, I gasped as if with a sudden brilliant idea. “I might read it over for you, if you like!”
“No,” said Alcibiades. “You mightn’t.”
He’d propped the small desk his room had been equipped with—one which he dwarfed quite amusingly, and which no doubt would have given him an awful crick in the neck otherwise—up atop a chair, so that it was at least better suited to his size and stature. I thought that the furniture was delicate, handsomely crafted and exquisitely simple, but I had to admit that it did make Alcibiades appear a giant bear of a creature. It couldn’t have been very comfortable to work at.
On his desk were a few pieces of paper blotched with ink and a collection of old pens. Underneath the half-full inkwell, however, was the true prize: not the letter Alcibiades was currently writing but the one to which he was replying. That was my goal. Who could it be? A sweetheart back home? He didn’t seem the type. A frail and aging mother might have been more likely, or perhaps a brother; he didn’t strike me as the sort who cultivated friendships so carefully as to write letters. He wasn’t a man whose behavior encouraged you to send them.
I put my left slipper back on—it had fallen off as I scaled the barricade—and sidled closer, feigning disinterest by observing my fingernails.
“How is everyone back home?” I asked, looking at the screen set up by the far wall. His had cranes upon it, whereas mine had a splash of maple branches. “Your mother? Your father?”
“Wouldn’t know,” Alcibiades replied curtly.
I cast a quick glance at the desk, only to find that Alcibiades had put his shoulder squarely in the way, blocking my line of vision. I could see the back collar of his shirt very well, but nothing at all beyond that, not even what his handwriting looked like.
That shift, however, was his undoing. It was a fatal strategy, very inadvisable; I’d have to rebuke him for it afterward. It protected the letter he was in the midst of writing very well, of course, but it left open his entire left flank—where the letter he’d received was resting underneath the inkwell. It was very common paper, brown and heavy, and the penmanship was round and flowery, so it was almost certainly from a woman, but adorably hesitant, as though the writer didn’t often find herself in the position of having to write anything at all, much less something so long as a letter.
I would have to act quickly—and carefully, too, unless I wanted to spill all the ink.
“I say!” I exclaimed, feigning a great deal of interest. “That woman has fish spilling from her hair. Did you know that your room has a print of the sea goddess?”
Alcibiades grunted, but didn’t look up. That was good, since I couldn’t risk any change at all in his posture. Not when he’d left such a perfect opening for me. I inched closer, so pleased I’d decided to have some slippers made up in the Ke-Han style, since they were so perfect for moving silently across boarded floors.
“Mine only has a winter landscape,” I said in a desolate voice. “Do let’s switch! I think mine would suit your room much better, what with the cranes and all. I’m surprised they mixed sea and air in the same room anyway. It must have been a mistake. Will you help me to take it down, my dear?”
Alcibiades wasn’t even listening to me anymore, though he’d hunched his shoulders more tightly, as though even then he was working to create a barricade against me with his own body. His pen scratched away dutifully against the page. I almost felt sorry for him, but then, he was a soldier, and it would do him good to remember that one had to go on the offense, occasionally.
I plucked the letter nimbly from the desk and scanned it eagerly.
Alcibiades whirled around immediately, the most murderous of expressions on his face. “Put that down,” he growled, grabbing for it.
I slipped just out of reach, still reading the letter. It was the sort of thing that would have been aided by the use of two good eyes, and not the one I had to make do with. Fortunately, Alcibiades was the sort of man you didn’t need any eyes for, only a good sense of hearing, since even when he was in his own room he refused to remove his boots and he made terrible thundering noise everywhere he went.
Dear Al, the letter began. That was as far as I’d read before Alcibiades launched himself at me like an enormous beast, and I was forced to dart around behind the desk to read further.
“‘Hope you are eating well,’” I read delightedly. “‘No one cooks like your Yana,’” was that a word from country dialect? I’d have to look it up, “‘but you should eat anyway on account of your little fat belly not going away.’”
I paused, breathless with delighted laughter. Then, Alcibiades ove
rturned the desk with a tremendous crash and I was forced to wriggle out from underneath the chair to keep from being crushed.
“‘Do not allow your temper to run away with you like one hundred angry fire ants,’” I read on, pressing myself flat against the wall. It was to avoid Alcibiades’ wrath as much as it was to hold myself up while laughing. He threw the inkwell at my head and I scampered away. It shattered against the far wall, splattering ink everywhere.
“Your temper, my dear! Your temper! It says it in the letter!”
“I’m warning you, Greylace, just give the letter back and no one gets hurt.”
I had never seen Alcibiades so excited about anything in my life. His face was red, and his eyes were alive with the prospect of having me spitted and roasted over an open flame. I simply had to keep reading.
“‘Do your Volstov and your Yana proud. It is great honor to be chosen for such special journey. And feed your horse nothing but apples, apples are the chosen food for the King of Horses,’” I managed, before I choked on my own laughter. From what I’d learned of the Ke-Han court, it was appropriate to hide one’s laughter behind a sleeve or a fan, whichever one happened to have on hand at the time. However, survival instincts bid me ignore that particular rule, so that I was set to laughing quite openly in the center of the room, in a way I didn’t normally make a habit of. It was a most unseemly display, but for a very special occasion.
Alcibiades swore, and kicked at one of his crescent-shaped chairs that had fallen over in all the commotion.
“‘Wear your socks!’” I shrieked. Tears were beginning to roll down my face. This was better than a holiday, better than ten birthdays, and I found that I didn’t care at all that my face might have been as red as Alcibiades’ by that point. “‘Otherwise’! ‘Your feet get cold’!”
“It’s summer,” Alcibiades groused. “And humid as fuck here anyway. There isn’t any cold to be found. Give the damn thing back.”