The Grass King’s Concubine

by Kari Sperring

They would know if he was dead. Something would have told them, somehow. Neither of them could have explained how they came to be sure of that, but sure they were. Marcellan was theirs: They had claimed him in front of the Grass King. Therefore…

  They came to the courtyard where he had been imprisoned. It was as still and silent as everywhere else. The door to Marcellan’s room stood closed. No bannermen—remains of bannermen—were stationed outside it. The twins came to a halt a few feet from it. Julana’s whiskers swept forward. “Can’t smell…No smell of him.”

  “The door is closed.” But there was no conviction in Yelena’s voice. The twins’ scent range went far beyond the impediment of a door.

  “Perhaps he’s bathing,” Julana ventured.

  “Perhaps.” But there was no scent of water, either, no mist of soap and warm skin. Inch by inch, they crept toward the door, ears pitched to the front. Silence. Everywhere silence, broken only by the soft click of their claws on the tiles, the quick sweep of their breathing. No scratch of a pen on paper flittered out to them, no clack of shuttle across the loom. “Perhaps he’s asleep?” said Yelena, but they could hear no other breath. They stopped again right in front of the door and sniffed at it. Wood. Dust. The faintest trace of their musk, left there long ago. The filaments of decay.

  They did not want to go farther. They did not want to know. Julana sat back on her haunches. “You go.”

  “Why?” Yelena bared her teeth. “Why me?”

  Julana had no reason other than her own reluctance. She said, “Why not?”

  “Why not you?”

  “I don’t want to.” The twins snarled at each other, nose to nose, backs arching.

  Yelena said, “Someone has to.” She sank down. “Look together. It’s better that way.”

  For a heartbeat, Julana hesitated. She could make her sister go; she could spit and claw. The hair along her spine flattened. She said, “It’s scary.”

  “Yes.” Yelena touched her nose to her twin’s, then wiggled into the gap in the skirting. Julana followed her, close enough still to touch. The space between the walls felt wrong, desiccated. They shot out into the room beyond, shaking dust from their coats. Julana rolled on a rug, trying to remove the stain of loss. The room was still and dim and empty.

  Empty. No papers on the table. No loom, no pens or tray of food and drink. No bedding on the divan. The air held only mold and damp. No memory of Marcellan clung to it, no memory of the twins themselves, where once their musk had hung comforting and heavy. Yelena sniffed at a cushion, then said, slowly, “Did we forget something? Remember wrong?”

  “I don’t think so.” Julana finished rolling and came to join her sister. “I think this is the room.”

  “This room…” The route into it had been right. The lattice on the tallest window still showed traces of their teeth. She sagged again. “No Marcellan.”

  “Too late.” All the strength, all the long determination drained from Julana. She curled up into herself, nose to belly. “Gone.” She shivered again. “Dead?”

  Something bumped against one of the windows. Yelena looked up. The shadow of a bee zigged and zagged behind the lattice. Slowly, Yelena said, “Not dead.” They would know. She was sure they would know.

  Why was she so sure? She sank on her haunches, thinking. “We’d know. We’d know because…” They had claimed Marcellan, but it was more than that. The Grass King had glared at them and growled and forbade them to defy him. He had denied their claim, and yet…Softly, slowly, the memory returned to her, the Grass King’s hand stretched out against them, against Marcellan. Herself, naked before him in her silly human form, Marcellan behind her. Man is ours.

  Say rather, said Liyan, eyes not on the Grass King but on Sujien, say rather that they are the man’s. Taste them, Sire. Smell them. His blood runs in their veins now, and theirs in his.

  Marcellan was a part of them, had been from the instant they chose to change for him. And when Julana had bitten him, she had only woven that bond tighter. The Grass King could punish them, he could exile and reshape them, but he could not destroy them entirely. Earth returned to earth. But it might not destroy itself. And thus…“Not dead,” Yelena repeated, and her head rose. “Not dead. He shares our blood. While we live, he lives. And we live.” She nosed her sister. “Not dead. Just…just somewhere else.”

  Julana uncurled, slowly. She said, “Sure?”

  “Sure,” Yelena said, and nipped her ear lovingly. “Come. We have to find him.”

  Qiaqia was in a hurry. Burdened as he was with the woman thing, who seemed to get heavier with every step, Jehan struggled to keep up. She took him through gloomy undecorated corridors, clearly the domain of servants, quickening her pace whenever they came to a more open area, a kitchen, a hall, a courtyard. Amber light slipped through lattices, played over gravel and tile, but the two of them—three of them—traversed only and always through shadows. She kept close to the walls, hissing at him when he stumbled close to the garden edge of an arcade they were rushing through. Though the place seemed deserted, she was on the alert, looking about her constantly.

  If she was furtive, that implied that there was something she wished to avoid, someone whose attention she did not wish to draw. The Grass King himself? Jehan had no way of knowing. If there was to be trouble, there was little he could do to defend himself, encumbered as he was. There seemed to be no one around, though here and there stone figures stood guard outside doors, or piles of garments lay abandoned in the middle of the floor. He could not account for her carefulness. That did not, of course, mean that he would be wise to discount it.

  The passage they were following came out into a long, pillared chamber. Qiaqia stopped, looked around, and raised her hands. She said, “Stay close and be as silent as you can.” He moved nearer. She gestured, and something began to wind itself about her fingers. Shadows…from beneath pillars, from alcoves and distant corners, patches and strands and shreds of darkness spun themselves, gathered to her and wrapped around them all. Jehan gasped, and she frowned at him. Another turn of her hands and another, and they were cloaked from head to toe in shadow. Swiftly—even more swiftly than before—she hustled him across the hall, out onto a stepped terrace, and into a wide paved yard, with a deep trench bisecting it and a squat tower at its center. The air here smelled sour, an acrid bite of ash and rust. On his shoulder, the woman thing stirred again, and he stumbled.

  Qiaqia grabbed his arm. He cried out. From where she touched him, a thick harsh tingling spread out, cramping and biting into his flesh even more than the cold that already bound it. She loosened her grip but did not release him, towing him across the yard and into a workshop that bounded one side. She slammed its doors shut behind them with her other hand and let him go. He sank to his knees, gasping, pressing the clamoring arm to his side. The woman thing slid from his shoulder in a slither of blanket and hair. He could feel nothing but the pain of Qiaqia’s touch. Everywhere else, he was numb. When he lifted his other hand to rub at the burning arm, his fingers did not feel as if they belonged to him at all, thick and clumsy and slow to obey.

  “I’m sorry,” Qiaqia said. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. It’ll wear off in a while.” Something in her voice had changed. He looked up. She had removed her scarves and outer robe. Now she smiled at him. “We’re safe. Sujien finds it hard to see in here.”

  Sujien. The twins had mentioned that name. Another of the Cadre. Jehan did not have the energy to rise. From where he knelt, then, he asked, “Why are we hiding?”

  “He makes things complicated. It isn’t helpful.”

  At his side, the woman thing once again lay unmoving. He looked at her, said, “What about…?”

  “There will do. Or you could put her on a bench, if you prefer.”

  He did not have the energy for that either. He looked around, while Qiaqia went to the back of the room and began to open cupboards. It was a large space, part forge, part workshop, more elaborately and thoroughly equipped than any of
its kin in the Brass City. But the forge was cold and the tools dusty; partly finished projects littered the benches. Here as elsewhere, the Rice Palace was deserted. Qiaqia came back, carrying a jug and a platter, which she placed on the table. She said, “There’s bread, and some cheese, and beer. Is that suitable? Liyan doesn’t bother much about food.”

  The bite of her touch was beginning to fade, as she had promised, but the numbness remained. The heat from the fragment of the Stone House had died away to a faint trace. He clambered to his feet and made his way to the bench. She had pulled a stool out from under it. He sat. Qiaqia added a couple of cups, a plate and a knife, before sitting down opposite him. She poured beer and pushed one of the cups across to him. It smelled good, rich and sharp. He sipped it slowly and felt some of the tension ease from his neck. He said, “Thank you.”

  She had begun to cut the bread. She stacked two slices onto the plate with a hunk of cheese and pushed that over to him also. It would be easy to let her distract him, to eat, to relax. Instead, he took a final mouthful of beer and sat back. He said, “What do you want?”

  She considered him in silence for long moments over the rim of her own cup. Then, setting it down on the bench, she said, “The domain needs healing.”

  “I’m not a doctor. Or an architect.” Or whatever else it was that was required to heal a place like this.

  “No. But you’re human. You came here. You found that—” and she nodded toward the woman thing “—and brought it here.”

  “You took my wife.”

  “It was decided to do that.”

  Hiding from Sujien. It was decided. There were factions, here. Almost, he smiled at that. So few of them, yet they still found causes for rivalry and disagreements. Perhaps this place was less different than it appeared.

  It was, after all, a palace, a court, a place inhabited by thinking beings. He had never heard tell of any such, from the great halls of the regent of the two cities to the imperial complex of the emperor of Tarnaroq, from the guild houses of the Brass City to the market hall in his own small home town, that did not have its feuds and fractures. Not human. Perhaps not. But some things were the same everywhere.

  He said, “What happened?”

  “Many things. A stranger came. Things were built. Things changed. Tsai…” Qiaqia broke off and shook her head. “We began to fade. To fail.”

  Stone guards…Lumps and shards of crystal in the first courtyard, oddly reminiscent in their shapes of bones. Piles of clothing, lying, it seemed, where they had been shed. He said, “The people here…they…” He hunted for a word. “They turned back? I mean, they became stone?” She nodded. He propped his elbows on the table. Warmth was slowly beginning to work its way back into his upper body. Steepling his fingers, he said, “It’s like the steppe. You lost your water.” Dead leaves. The dried vines in the first courtyard. The empty water channel in this one. Dry fountains, glimpsed as they hastened through the palace. The river, shrunk to a single braid in its bed.

  The woman thing from the forest, with her desperate desire for water. He said, “It’s a mirror. What happens here has happened there as well.” He began to laugh raggedly. He said, “It won’t be that simple.”

  “It isn’t,” Qiaqia said. “But your kind interfere.”

  Marcellan’s book, with its patterns and descriptions. Its endplates with the escaping birds. He reached for his inner scarf, remembered that he had left it as a token tied to the wreckage of the Woven House. His hand closed instead on the locket. Aude and her scrolls and the fragments of words that had rained down on him from the wreckage of the Woven House. Bad witch bargain. Water and wealth: the factory masters of the Brass City who controlled the public wells and cut the rations of their workers and tenants to feed the wheels of their mills. Aude looking about her on the empty plain and saying, “There should be rice.”

  He said, “I came for my wife. What must I do to get her back?”

  She smiled at him. She said, “You must mend us. Put back what was broken.”

  “What sort of thing? I’m not an engineer. Or a smith.”

  “No. That’s Liyan’s work. But a human started it. And it seems we don’t know how to solve it. Not quite.”

  “And Aude?” This, then, was to be the price. He was to solve their riddle for them in return for her safety. Unless, of course, he could find her and get them both away from here first. “Let me guess: I get to see her when I’ve done what you want.”

  “No.” The voice came from the back of the workshop, making him jump. It was male, this voice, and rough. The speaker came forward. Another of the Cadre, this one slight and thin faced, hair drawn back in a queue. His eyes flickered from Jehan to the jug on the bench, to Qiaqia and back again. He halted next to her. “Mo-Qia, you left the palace without telling me.”

  “And I returned.”

  “I couldn’t find you.” His hand strayed to her shoulder, picking up her braid and winding it about his fingers. “I couldn’t feel you.”

  “I’m here now, Liyan-kai.”

  Jehan picked up his cup and drank more beer, uncomfortable. More of the chill bled from his flesh as he swallowed. He was tired. He set the cup back down and turned his attention to the bread. It was dry, a little stale, but the cheese was strong and sharp. He had eaten worse on maneuvers. He could use the energy.

  Something brushed the back of his neck. He flinched, looked round. A faint low hum, a flash of color…He checked the woman thing, found her lying as she was. The touch came again. He turned. A bee hovered a few inches from his face. He did not realize he had been holding his breath until it released itself in a long rush. Just a bee…

  Nothing here but the Cadre and the drying, dying plants. He looked again. A second bee had joined the first. Several more hovered over the bench or flew about Liyan. Jehan set his bread and cheese down. He said, “Where did those come from? Everything’s dead here.”

  “Almost.” But Qiaqia leaned forward as she spoke and her eyes were bright.

  “They like it here.” Liyan put out a hand, and one of the bees landed on it. “They like the warmth.”

  “But what do they live on?” Jehan was hazy on the eating habits of bees, but he had an idea that it involved fresh flowers. All the blooms he had seem here were dry and fading.

  “They just are.” Liyan sat on the edge of the table. “Mo-Qia, why did you bring another man here? We don’t need him.”

  “He brought himself.” The light was still in Qiaqia’s eyes. “He followed the woman. And he brought something with him.”

  “A book?” Liyan leaned toward Jehan. His breath was hot.

  “Look.” Qiaqia pointed.

  Liyan frowned. “Rags…” But he slid off the bench and walked around it to look more closely. The bees did not follow him. “Not rags.” He drew a knife from his belt and crouched down beside the woman thing. Jehan’s hand drifted toward his own sword. The woman thing was no responsibility of his. She had followed him, battened on him, sought to harm him and Clairet. And yet…He did not know what she was. But he had, as Qiaqia had said, brought her here.

  Liyan flicked a fold of the blanket aside. About the bench, the bees wove loud, darting patterns. Jehan’s hand tightened on his sword hilt. If the creature woke…Liyan said, softly, staring down at the creature’s face, “Not possible…That can’t be possible.” He looked up, and his face was drawn, lost. “Mo-Qia…”

  She rose, scattering the cloud of bees. Jehan slipped off his stool, just in case. Bees danced all around him. Qiaqia put her hands on Liyan’s shoulders. She said, “Hush.”

  “But…” Liyan said. And then, “Tsai. It looks like Tsai.”

  From somewhere deep in the palace, a woman’s voice screamed.

  Jehan drew his sword. “That’s Aude.”

  32

  “Man Is Ours.”

  THE WALLS WERE SHAKING. Every fiber in Julana’s being urged flight, escape from the trap that the room could become. She clawed at the door, jumped
atop the window ledges to chew the lattices, skittered to and fro as if her worry could somehow open up an exit. Woken by her alarm, Marcellan unwound himself from the divan, stretching and shaking his head. He said, “What is it?” And then, “Where’s Yelena?”

  Julana could not believe he could not sense the terror in the building. She rattled again at a window, then turned and leaped from its ledge to his lap. He caressed her gently, and the fur along her spine lifted. He said, “I’m here. I’m sure she’ll come back soon.”

  Not that. Another tremor ran through the walls. She stared up at him and saw on his face nothing more than sleepy concern.

  She wanted to bite him. She must not, not again. She set her teeth in his sleeve and tugged. He said, “Hey,” and made to stroke her again. She pulled back, and jumped to the floor. It thrummed beneath her feet, tickling up through her toes to set her heart racing even faster. She shook herself, snapped irritably at nothing, and changed shape. The floor was quieter through her thick, clumsy human feet, the distress in the palace muted. If anything, that made it worse. She glared at Marcellan and said, “You don’t feel it.”

  “Should I feel something? I’m sorry.” Marcellan reached for his shirt and passed it to her. She wriggled into it irritably. She could not think how to explain it to him.

  She had to make him understand. She said, “Not safe. The palace is shaking. The palace is afraid.” He said nothing, watching her. She tugged at her wiry human hair. This body—these bodies—were so thick, their senses were so dull, wrapped in layers of stupidity. She said again, “It’s not safe.” And then, “We have to be outside. No walls.”

  Marcellan looked at her for long moments, his face serious. Then he looked past her, at the loom. His brows drew in. Julana twisted to follow his gaze. The long thread of weft and warp vibrated, light and low. She looked back at Marcellan, and he nodded. “An earth tremor.”

  It would be more than that. Could be, if the Grass King’s anger peaked. Julana said, “Guards are gone. No key. We have to leave.”