The Grass King’s Concubine

by Kari Sperring

  “Water rights.” I told you so, said Sujien’s voice. He smiled at her, thin and alarming. He spread out his hands. “Water rights. I was right, Shirai-kai. She’s the one.”

  Aude felt for her dagger, tucked into the sleeve of her gown. Sujien was still talking, his words tripping over each other. The air in the room grew thicker, warmer, as he spoke, bringing with it ever greater wafts of the smell of yeast. He had begun to pace again. Shirai, still seated, was watching him. Carefully, she began to ease herself from her divan. They were both between her and the door, but if she was cautious…

  Sujien said, “Where are you going?”

  “Nowhere. I was stretching.” Aude wriggled her shoulders, as if they were stiff. Even to herself, she did not sound convincing.

  “There’s nowhere you can go,” Sujien said. “This place knows you. It will always tell me where you are.”

  There was nothing she could say to that. She curled her fingers around the knife hilt, staring at him. He said, “You still don’t understand, do you? You still won’t understand.”

  “You think I’m responsible for all your problems. I’ve got that.” Scorn tinged her voice. “Even though you’re the ones with all the magic powers and so on, and I’m just a human thing.”

  Sujien took a step toward her, his hands clenching. Aude held his gaze, chin up. If she could push him enough, if he tried to harm her, then Shirai would surely step in, and she could escape while they were both distracted. She made herself smile and went on, “And, of course, I have no idea what you expect me to do about it.”

  “Spilled blood seldom offends.”

  The comment came from the doorway. Qiaqia stood in it, leaning against the frame, her eyes amused. As Aude and her two comrades turned to look at her, she added, “I’d thought to find a welcoming committee. But I see you had other matters to attend to. Shirai-kai, I have need of you. If you please.” Her voice was as amused as her eyes.

  Shirai rose. He said, “There was an incident in the Great Room of Reception.”

  “Ah.” Qiaqia tilted her head. “And Jien-kai is offended. So now it’s back to normal?”

  Sujien made a low noise in his throat. Aude began again to slip to her feet. Of course, Qiaqia was in the door, but if Sujien grew angry with her instead, then she might perhaps have to enter the room, and then…She began to rise, watching Qiaqia.

  Something shoved her back down on to the divan and held her there, pressing hard against her chest. None of the Cadre had moved; indeed, none of them seemed to be paying attention to her at all, talking among themselves in low tones. The pressure was steady and firm, restricting her to quick shallow breaths. She swallowed and tried to wiggle sideways. The pressure remained, centered, stable. She bit her lip, and Sujien turned to face her, a thin smile on his face.

  You’re the ones with all the magic powers. He said nothing: He did not need to say anything. It was all there on his face, the difference between them. She had thought to use that difference to anger him, and it had misfired. This was not the Silver City. It wasn’t even the Brass City. She did not think Jehan would have forgotten that, or confused these creatures with human opponents.

  She did not think Jehan would have got himself into this situation at all. He would have found a way out of the Rice Palace by now. He would have found some way to make the Cadre talk sense about what they wanted. He knew far more than she did about how hierarchies worked and grew and might be handled. About everything. She lowered her eyes to study the brocade that covered the divan. Long necked birds flew over a landscape of reeds and lakes. If she could fly…She had not seen a bee since she had left her prison courtyard, nor heard one since…When? She could not remember. Had she simply trapped herself further by trying to trace the source of the water?

  Sujien had put that idea into her head. Sujien, who now—she was sure of it—held her pinned in place while he listened to Qiaqia and nodded and—yes—glanced back over his left shoulder to smile at her. Triumph and pride haunted that smile, and all the confidence of the overseers she had seen driving their workforce in the Brass City.

  She had wanted answers, she had wanted understanding, she had wanted to know what it was that kept her in comfort while the sisters and cousins of her maids labored over looms for chips of copper. And it had brought her to this: to water rights and captivity and Sujien’s smile. It was so because some people had more than others—more power, more property, more influence—and for no other reason than chance or greed. She closed her eyes and let her head droop. She had run away from all her comfort and safety willingly, and dragged Jehan with her. And now he was lost somewhere on the great steppe, and she was trapped here. The Cadre would do with her as they chose, and she had no way to prevent them.

  The voices fell silent, and two sets of footsteps faded away into the distance. Aude swallowed. Two. Scant hope that it would be any other than Sujien who remained. It had been him all along, dragging her here, first locking the doors against her and then opening them again.

  She looked up, and he stood before her, winding a thin strand of something around his fingers. The smile had gone, and his face was smooth and serene. He said, “It’s time. Come.” He held out a hand, and despite the pounding in her heart and her ears, Aude found she unfolded from the divan and rose. With his free hand, he took one of hers. She wanted to deny him. Her fingers would not obey her. His palm was dry and cool. He said, “But we need to prepare you; you’re nowhere near fit enough as you are.” He drew her hand through his arm and led her, not to the door, but to a section of the wall. He pressed the center of one of the tiles, and it slid backward.

  A concealed low door opened before them, leading to a narrow, dim staircase with a rope banister. “Few have ever come this way,” he said. “None, to my knowledge, of your kind. You’re privileged.” She did not feel privileged. The bandages on her feet made her clumsy; the brocade gown chafed her injured skin. Her stomach throbbed. The stair was dark and its steps high: Sujien conceded nothing to her for her unfamiliarity and her hurts. Rather, he pushed her up before him at marching pace, jerking her upright when she stumbled. The stair curved before her, up and up, and its windows were few and narrow. No chance here to escape him, if such a thing was even possible. He was between her and the way down. Upward…toward wherever it was he intended her to go.

  The stair ended in a short hallway and a single dark wood door. Sujien released her and drew a small amber key from his sleeve. He slid it into the lock and simultaneously spoke a word like a sudden gust of wind down a chimney pot. Aude shivered. The room beyond it was circular and small, its walls and furnishings plain—a table, some cushions, a chest, nothing more. The long windows were shuttered, miserly with the light they admitted. The thick smell of yeast slipped inside with the light, mingled unpleasantly with dust and neglect.

  It was not at all what she had expected. She stopped in the doorway, confused. Sujien gave her a push, and she stumbled forward, falling on her knees beside one of the cushions. If he meant to kill her…She fumbled for her knife, found it hard and reassuring in her sleeve. He looked down at her and said, “This is the Grass King’s Tower of Meditation. Its roots are deeper than the highest mountain in your WorldAbove, and its windows open on any place the Grass King desires. Here he can listen to his domain and weave it to his liking.” He smiled, again with that cool triumph. “I can show you your home, if I wish.” He gestured to a window. “I can show you anything.”

  The way out of here. But her lips would not shape the words. Instead, dry mouthed, she whispered, “Jehan…My husband.”

  “Ah.” Sujien’s smile widened. “One man. That, alas, I can’t do. I’m not the Grass King. And your husband doesn’t belong to this realm. I can only show you…” He walked to the nearest window and undid its latch. “This.”

  Gray sky and iron earth, an ocean of dry grass and emptiness. The steppe. Aude swallowed. Somewhere out there, perhaps, Jehan still wandered, searching for her. She climbed to her kne
es, craning toward the view. Dirt and ice wind and the shells of irrigation channels. Her eyes tracked them, out and out, until she was tripped by a change in the landscape. There…Yes, a slight rise and on it a pile of wreckage, panels and timbers and long trails of paper.

  The Woven House…Even as she recognized it, the window brought it closer. Broken bamboo littered the compound, mixed with the parchment fragments and…

  No.

  She wanted to rub her eyes, to close them, to deny what she saw. She could not. There in the heart of the destruction was a knot of spoiling meat and bones, shrouded in scraps and rags of clothing and harness, flesh shredded by the storm that had rocked the house and led to her captivity. As she stared, the wind shuffled through it, kicking up the torn arm of a shirtsleeve. One of Jehan’s.

  There was no guarantee it was the one he had been wearing, Aude told herself sternly. They had both carried a couple of spares, against their rare chances for a bath and laundry. There was nothing there to prove that his bones were among those the dirt was scouring clean. Sujien had told her he could not show her Jehan. The wind stirred again, and a rag flapped, patterned with birds.

  Jehan’s inner scarf. He had been wearing that when he rode out in search of water; she remembered seeing him tug its ends inside his jerkin. She bit her lip, hard, and tears filled her eyes.

  No rescue. No hope. No more strong arms to hold her against the dark and her own loneliness. No Jehan to speak to her and teach her and guard her against her own foolishness. She gulped down a sob and dropped her head into her arms. Wood creaked as Sujien closed the lattice, and the room passed once more into near darkness. And then…

  An arm around her, cool and heavy. Not Jehan’s: never again would it be Jehan’s. But an arm, all the same. Aude turned her face into it and leaned into the support. The scent of yeast clung to Sujien, but thinned out, warmed almost to the comforting familiarity of her family bakehouse. Yeast and stone dust and something else, some alien thing she could not name. His breath was in her hair, and that too was cold, but his hands were firm and strong, broader than Jehan’s on her shoulders. Whatever she had expected when he dragged her here, it was not this. She looked up at him, her tears on her lips, and he lowered his face to kiss her.

  Aude came back to herself with a start. Hand against his chest, she tried to push herself away from him. His grip tightened, his fingertips digging into her flesh through her borrowed robe. Teeth set, he said, “Don’t you get it yet? You have to replace her. You have to.” He was stronger than she was; however she braced herself against him, he was able to pull her back to him. She ducked her head. Into her hair, he said, “I can make you. I can make you do anything.” She clenched her fists, struggled to find some way to harm him through his lacquered breastplate. There was no space to reach for the knife. She had not chosen to be born to the life she had. She had not chosen to be descended as she was. But this…She would fight this while she still breathed.

  He let her go. She fell backward, cracking one shoulder against the tiles. She cried out with the surprise of it. Sujien loomed over her, and his face was blank. Then he said, “Get up. We’ve done what we must here.” She stared up at him, breath rough in her throat. He muttered something she did not catch, then bent, dragging her roughly upright. “This isn’t about you. You don’t matter. All that matters is what you mean.” His hands were hard around her wrists. “I just wanted to make it easier on you.”

  She tugged against his hold, found it unshakable. He began to pull her across the room, not to the door but rather toward the longest of the windows. She dug her feet against the floor, leaned back with all her might, and still he moved her. Give no help, Jehan had told her once, in one of the dodgy inns they had stayed in. Limp bodies are harder to move. She let her weight go dead in Sujien’s grasp. He smiled again and jerked her suddenly inward. She fell against him, knocked breathless by the surprise, and he closed hard arms against her, locking her to him. And then…

  He spoke another word of wind and cold, and the window swung open. Gripping Aude to him, he stepped backward out into the air.

  He meant to kill them both. Aude had no breath to scream. Wind filled her ears, tugged at her robe, slammed cold hands into her. Her flesh cringed; her eyes squeezed tight, every part of her knotted against the anticipated impact with the ground. Down and down and down…

  They came to rest with a soft thump. Gulping, Aude opened an eye to find them both safe and sound on a wide terrace. Sujien released her and stepped back, folding his arms. She swayed, and he smiled. She said, “But…”

  The smile widened. “I am not human.” And then, “Come on. There are things to do.”

  She did not trust him. She was alone with him. She had no idea where within the Rice Palace she might be. All around her its roofs and courtyards stretched away, a mosaic of warm tile, drooping trees and burnished walls. On the terrace itself dusty low seats stood about an empty table. A line of dead plants marked the balcony rail; the bones of a creeper clung to the walls. She swallowed hard and said, “You could have warned me.”

  “Why?” Sujien opened one of a pair of veranda doors. “There was no danger.”

  I thought you were going to kill me. She would look ridiculous if she said that. She held her tongue and stalked after him through the door, reaching for the shreds of her dignity. The suite of rooms beyond was surprisingly simple, far plainer than her quarters in the Courtyard of the Concubine. Sujien led her to a small bathing chamber and pointed. “You won’t do like this. Wash yourself.” She glared at him, and he made a grab for the lapels of her robe. “I have no interest in your body. Wash.”

  “Turn your back.” Aude held her ground. She was trapped here; she was alone with no hope of help. But she would not cave in so easily. If he wanted something from her, let him work for it. She held his gaze. “Well.”

  He shook his head, but he turned and stood, back pointedly to her, in the doorway. The room was small. The copper bath stood in its center: Washcloths, towels, and other essentials ranged tidily on a shelf against one wall. When she turned on the faucet, the water was a cool, rusty trickle. She wandered about the room as it filled, sniffing the contents of jars: sandalwood and citrus and pine, the sorts of scents favored by conservative courtiers and merchants in the two cities. Shedding the outsize gown and undoing the bandages on her feet, she stepped into the bath when it was a little less than ankle deep and washed quickly, rinsing by tipping cupfuls of water over herself and trying not to shiver. Her skin was crisscrossed with thin cuts and welts from the attack in the room with the bones. The weave of the washcloth snagged in some of them, making her hiss. She set her teeth against that. They would heal. There was nothing she could do about them other than wait for that.

  There was no replacement for the bloodied gown and bandages; she wrapped herself tightly in the largest towel she could find, draping another over her hair. Thankfully, her feet had stopped bleeding. The dagger she tucked into one of the folds of one of the towels. She said, “I’m washed.” She kept her voice as flat as she could.

  Sujien did not trouble to turn. He said simply, “Good. Now come.” He led her into a dressing room filled with tall dark wood wardrobes. He opened doors and began to rummage through them, muttering to himself as he did so. Different odors—musk and jasmine, lily and resin, orange and cinnamon—wafted out. Aude, abandoned in the center of the room, glanced stealthily around for a way out. Without looking around, he said, “There’s nowhere you can go from here without me. The doors won’t permit it.”

  She stared at the wall. Ten or more minutes passed. At last, he reemerged from the end closet, his arms filled with garments in blues and greens. He flung them at her. “Put these on.” She said nothing. He shook his head and once again turned his back. She bent to sort through the heap at her feet. Silk, all of it, light and fine: a shift in a curious light muddy green and loose trousers to match. A pair of soft silk slippers. A knee-length tunic in a yellowy blue and a longer overrob
e with slit sides in a slightly greener shade. She climbed into them quickly. They were a little loose, a little long, like the clothes from the chests in her own room, but there were deep pockets in the side on the undertunic, into which she started to slide her knife. Sujien shook his head. “That you no longer need.” She clutched it, stepped back, and he smiled. Once again, he made that strange winding movement with his hands, and the knife dropped from her fingers. It hit the floor and spun away. She could not reach it. She gulped, and he said, “Peace. I will not harm you. Now come here.” Her feet obeyed before she could prevent them. He patted her shoulder and fastened the final button of her overrobe.

  The clothes must have belonged to the Concubine, to Tsai. That meant something. She did not like that at all. She could not find the words to say so.

  Sujien stepped back and looked her up and down. Not impressed, his face said. Aloud, he said, “Do something about your hair.” There were combs and a hand mirror on a shelf. Aude tugged one through her wet locks and shook them back. He clicked his tongue on his teeth and grabbed a scarf from the nearest cupboard. “Here. You look like a scullery maid.”

  What did he expect? This was not her place; these were not her clothes. But she bit her tongue and tied the scarf over her hair. Its long ends drifted down her back, like the hair in her waking dream.

  Tsai’s hair. That was more than likely.

  He looked her up and down, a frown etched between his brows. “You still look like a servant.” She said nothing, looked down at her feet. He said, “Wait,” went to one of the closets. A drawer opened, and she heard him rummaging about. She made a rapid grab for her knife while his back was turned, tucking it securely into her pocket.

  Sujien said, “There,” and came back to her. “Look up.”