The ease with which she said such things didn’t escape me. “Rumours you didn’t believe, else you wouldn’t have risked coming here at all.”
“I thought, seeing you that night you arrived…” She pressed her hands together and regarded me with the look of a cat about to pounce on its prey. “Standing there with your guard drenched in rain, hopeful that we would offer you shelter after five other houses, including Governor Zheshan’s, had turned you away…”
“Another mistake,” I said. “It was not hopefulness, but irritation, masked by the glow of the dreariness you people call pleasant weather.”
She gave me a knowing look. “So it was,” she said, in a voice that clearly indicated she didn’t believe a word I said. “My apologies, Beloved Queen.”
~~~
I was subdued for the rest of my preparations that afternoon. Biala’s words carried a distinct message: the people of Ziri-nar-Orxiaro did not take Jin-Sayeng authority as seriously as we thought they did. At the very least, they didn’t find much in the idea of me as the figurehead.
I thought about this as I stared at myself in the mirror while Kora pleated my hair, brushed and oiled for the meeting. I had thought that maybe, here in the Zarojo Empire, they would respond to my reputation in the same way the Jinseins did and that I could go in and out of this meeting with as little fuss as possible. It revealed clear naivete for my part: far from respecting me, the Zarojo found me amusing.
It was appalling enough that I could just hear my father rolling in his grave, if he had one. He could at least start clawing at the walls of his urn.
It also made me wonder how they saw Rayyel. Deputy Qun’s choice of words made it clear that this Governor Zheshan not only accepted Rai’s claims of a pact, but welcomed him into his household with open arms. I found it hard to believe that Rai used his charm to pull off such a feat—the man was about as charismatic as the bottom of a chamber pot. There were other forces at work here, one that saw Rai as the true leader of Jin-Sayeng instead of his ferocious queen. Did he see it? Did he care? Rai had never been the ambitious sort.
Kora finished with her work. I donned my dress, which I promptly hid under an inconspicuous grey cloak. I felt about as elegant as a sack of rice. I left the bedchamber and met Nor in the hallway. She gave me an approving glance. “We’ve mapped out this restaurant—Magister Arro is on his way as we speak. The guards are staggered along the road. Only I will accompany you closely if we’re to maintain our disguise. Does this suit you, my queen?”
I nodded. She bowed, allowing me to lead the way. We stepped out into the grounds, past the curious eyes of Deputy Qun’s servants, and finally out on the street. The gates closed behind us.
“Good riddance, I can almost hear them say,” I grumbled.
“My queen?”
“I believe that we are nothing more than mere entertainment to them.” I tightened the cloak around my throat and this time, didn’t bother to wait for a reply.
I busied myself with the sights while we walked. Anzhao City was a port city at the western edge of the empire, a hub for trade with ships coming in as far as Gaspar and Dageis. It was far from the biggest city, a fact I found difficult to believe while walking through its bustling, cobblestone streets, which were teeming with vendors. They sold everything from pottery to clockwork dolls to rice coffee, toasted in earthenware pots and sweetened with honeyed milk. There was also food of all sorts: sweet cakes with mung beans and egg filling, fried pork dumplings drizzled with plum sauce, and barbequed eels, served with pickles over a bed of hot rice. The smell made my stomach tighten, and I remembered that breakfast had been hours ago. But I wasn’t about to risk getting my dress dirty and willed my hunger to go away.
I forced my attention to a different sort of hunger beginning to build inside of me. It started at the first sight of the drainage canals when we turned at a street corner, right after nearly getting run over by a harassed-looking rickshaw driver. They were running full after the noontime rains, but what I found fascinating was the shadow of a carp, quite easily length size of my arm, swimming along the bottom. It stirred the clear water with every effortless sweep of its strong tail. I paused at the edge of the street and noticed other fishes of all shapes and sizes: pink fish, grey fish, orange fish with black stripes, black fish with enormous mouths and spiny tails that hung like icicles from the sides. There was even a ray with brown and purple spots drifting under the carp.
“These gutters don’t drain fully,” I said. “Not like back home.”
Nor nodded. “I was told people catch and eat the fish from it.”
That explained the cleanliness. People were less likely to sully a potential food source. Or perhaps it was the other way around—the water was naturally clean and somewhere along the way people just started catching food from it. Not far from us, a group of gangly boys were trying to catch the carp with makeshift nets. One boy, dressed in loose trousers and a light vest that showed off most of his tanned skin, decided to jump in, spear in hand. Raucous laughter followed him.
The canals grew even wider as we continued down the street, giving way to green-tinged water big enough to hold boats. Here, houses built right at the edge of the canal had balconies overlooking it, wrapped in rails of wrought iron in various patterns. In one of them, I saw a lady sprawled on a comfortable chair, her servants hovering over her with trays of delicacies and giant paper fans. In another, two lovers had their arms looped together while they stared contently out at the water as if in a world entirely their own. A man standing on a barge, drawn by a pair of six-horned, oxen-like beasts the Zarojo called the rok haize whistled to them, and the lovers waved back.
Signs of Anzhao City’s prosperity went beyond the canals. The tall, stately buildings, with the same red clay rooftops as Qun’s house, were well-maintained, showing only signs of natural aging and the pleasant growth of moss. I struggled to find a broken window or bent rails. There were street lamps, bearing banners in bright colours of red and green. I struggled to read the Zirano script, which bore only a slight resemblance to Jinan, and was able to gather something about a festival of lights three days from now. There was also the mention of a contest.
Envy was not an emotion I was prepared to experience during that trip.
I have been told, more times than I care to remember, that Jin-Sayeng used to be a prosperous nation. Nobody has been able to agree when exactly that was. Was it back when there were only a handful of royal clans and the warlords all kept to their own estates? Was it when we had dragons? The city of Sutan and Oren-yaro, the books say, were thriving, with good planning gleaned from scholars from both Ziri-nar-Orxiaro and that proud nation to the north, Gaspar. Sutan ruled in aesthetics—I could imagine that it might have looked a little like Anzhao City in the days before the Zarojo sacking, the one Qun was so adamant they had nothing to do with.
Oren-yaro, on the other hand, had the dragon-towers. Tall, glorious spires that rose to the heavens and were connected by bridges that spanned along their lengths, they served two purposes: as landing platforms and holding cages for dragons, and to direct dragon-fire underground, providing a source of energy to the city. While the other cities had dragon-towers, too, Oren-yaro had the most. From a distance, they gave the appearance of castles in the sky.
Most of the dragon-towers in Oren-yaro have crumbled. The majority of the city, as it had been, we call Old Oren-yaro now, to distinguish itself from the settlements we built around the new farmlands uphill. Since we no longer have dragons, it made no sense to stay in those decaying buildings, tainted by war and demon magic. For almost three decades, we have steadily pushed our people back to more practical industries: rice farming (though Oren-yaro rice is grainier than the sought-after fragrant variety grown in the Sougen region) and the keeping of livestock, mostly goats and chickens. Even the warlord’s palace was new, built at the edge of Oka Shto Mountain overlooking the terraced fields—our ancestral keep was beyond repair and contained too many painful m
emories for my father. Cities like Anzhao had become little more than myths to entertain children before they went to bed.
But my heart trembled at the thought of what had been for my nation. What it could yet be, if we stopped worrying about whose rump deserved to sit on the throne, or which warlord insulted another, or whether the worship of one deity invalidated one’s own beliefs. Jin-Sayeng’s progress continued to be derailed by conflict, some of which seemed to come from thin air. One time, over half of my warlords refused to attend a summit because I had failed to properly address them by the decorative titles my father had doled out like candy after the war: Minister of Horses, Master of Archery, Commissioner of Arts. Titles that had no weight in the council, because to be part of the council one actually needed to do some work. The warlords didn’t even have the decency to inform me they felt slighted. If I had known they would throw such massive sulks beforehand, I would’ve gone and made up extra titles just to please them. I’ve always wanted to use Secretary of the Dung Heap.
A child came up to me. He was shaggy-haired, ruddy-faced, and filthy only as a child who played outside all day could get. Even though he had chubby arms and looked well-fed, my hand moved to my purse by instinct, but the only thing he did was look up at me with twinkling eyes and say, “You’re not from here.”
“I’m not,” I said. “I’m from Jin-Sayeng.”
His eyes widened. I expected an insult. He reached out to touch my arm, unaware that such an action might’ve cost him his head, and drew back, delighted. “I touched a Jin-Sayeng princess,” he said, giggling as he returned to his playmates. I thought of my son, with his own bright eyes and that silly smile he reserved only for me, and felt homesick.
I received less warmth from the adults. As we passed by two men that I recognized as part of my guard, a scholar—bearing a scholar hat, and with books in his arms—stopped to look at me. His face contorted. Before I could react, he spat.
Spittle landed on my shoulder. One of my guards grabbed him by the arm, forcing him to drop his books.
“I’ll call the city watch,” the scholar hissed. “They ought to know there’s Jins walking around in broad daylight. They…”
“Fucking Xiarans,” my guard replied, using the derogatory term for the Zarojo people, the way Jin was for us. “You’re half a century too late, old man. Do you know who you just insulted?”
“Let him go,” Nor ordered.
The man blanched. “But Captain…”
“Let him go. We’re not here to cause trouble.”
The guard kicked the scholar up and patted his robe. He picked up the books and returned them to him, one by one. “Count yourself lucky you’re not in Jin-Sayeng, or your head will be in the river by now."
The scholar scurried away.
“So much for maintaining our disguise,” I said in a low voice. My guards turned at the sound of it and dropped their heads in a bow.
“Our apologies,” one guard murmured.
“We’ll keep moving,” Nor said, drawing me away.
I took a handkerchief and wiped the spit off. I wondered if I had ever actually taken someone’s head off before tossing it into a body of water somewhere. You would think I would remember such a momentous event. It wasn’t the first time I’ve heard my men use it as a threat, and it wouldn’t be the last.
I have killed a warlord’s messenger right after that summit, the one so many of them thought had been optional. I wouldn’t have, but he was insolent and made gestures one ought not to in the presence of a queen. His various body parts were later mailed to the offenders with a message that strongly implied more to come. The next meeting, not counting Rai, had full attendance.
If I did not have their friendship, I at least had their fear.
Chapter Three
The Con Artist and the Queen
We reached the far end of the canal, where I noticed a crowd gathered in a small square. People were throwing angry glances and harsh whispers at each other. A couple of young workers, evident by the dust and sweat on their shirtless bodies, ran past me, chattering excitedly. I caught the word prisoner and found myself looking around in interest.
On a raised platform overlooking the canal, I caught sight of a handful of guards clad in the imperial regiment uniform: bronze-plated armour inlaid with a pattern signifying the rolling sea—both the colour and the pattern symbols of the Zarojo Empire’s dominance in the continent of Lier. Rounded pauldrons that resembled horned turtle shells, and elaborate helmets with a tuft of horsehair plume, dyed red, completed the regalia. They were carrying glaives with hooked ends, the handles of which were wrapped in what appeared to be alternating strips of leather and silk.
The guards were gathered around a man bound to a wooden post. The man’s face was stricken with filth and tears, his clothes little more than strips. Bleeding gashes adorned his body. He looked liked he had gone running through a field of thorns.
I felt Nor place her hand on my shoulder. “We should go, my queen,” she murmured. “This isn’t something you need to watch.”
I turned to her and started to nod. But a long, drawn-out wail from the crowd caught my attention. A woman rushed towards the platform, weeping as she attempted to climb it. A guard grabbed her.
“My husband!” she blubbered.
The prisoner didn’t respond.
The city official, marked by the colour of his robes and the same, square hat that Qun wore, didn’t even look up from the scroll he was reading. He adjusted the clasp of his hat around his braided beard and cleared his throat before continuing. “For allowing his associates to murder one of his master’s housemaids, a cut on the right arm.”
A guard, standing over the prisoner with sword drawn, obliged. The prisoner gave a strangled cry. I could smell the blood in the air, mixed with the scent of the sweat of the surrounding people.
“For driving the sword that killed his master’s stableman, a cut on the cheek.”
The sword gleamed before it struck him again.
The woman gave a shrill cry as she heaved herself over the platform. The guard pulled her back.
“He doesn’t have a wife,” somebody in the crowd murmured.
“For raping his master’s daughter…”
I didn’t catch the rest of his words, but I heard an anguished prayer, uttered repeatedly, like a chant. When the guard stepped away, the prisoner’s ear had been ripped off. Blood was pouring from the side of his head like a waterfall.
I glanced at the stricken faces around me. It was clear why my sudden arrival in the streets of Anzhao City did not shake the officials one bit. Instead of running for the hills at the mention of my name, they shooed my guards; one even laughed at Nor’s face, showing no embarrassment at flashing his smelly yellow teeth at the Captain of the Queen’s Guard. The household who did eventually take us in did it out of pity. Why would they find any reason to be impressed with my reputation when they were capable of just as much, if not more?
I didn’t catch the official’s next words, but this one warranted the man’s other ear. I flinched.
“My queen,” Nor whispered.
“The horse thief,” I said. “The one who tried to steal my stallion a few years ago.”
I saw her eyes flicker as she recalled. “He was caught red-handed, my queen. He deserved it.”
“Tell me it wasn’t this bad.”
“The practice of t’che is not for the offender’s comfort. The purpose is two-fold. First, it provides justice to the offended, that they may retain faith that the higher authorities have their best interests at heart. Second, it creates a warning to the people: stray, and you, too, will meet the same fate.” Her eyes hardened. “We Jinseins picked up the practice from the Zarojo. The Ikessars had it abolished when they came into power as such harshness offends their Kibouri philosophy and Nameless God, but your father knew what he was doing when he reinstated it. Our people needed it, then. They still do.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
/>
She glanced away. I could no longer hear the man screaming, which means he had either passed out or was dead. But the official was still speaking to the crowd, still laying out the man’s sins. “If it makes you feel any better, my queen,” Nor murmured. “We killed the horse thief before we flayed him with our swords. He was not alive when this happened.”
I swallowed, not knowing whether to believe her or not. I had heard otherwise; I had heard that the man called out to the skies for justice, for the Jinseins’ lost honour, the way the one I killed in my garden had cried for his mother. Perhaps the common folk had added embellishments to the whole event, and perhaps that was the point. If warning the populace had been the goal, then it did the job well enough because people didn’t stop talking about it.
They didn’t stop talking about anything.
I turned back to the scene before me. The prisoner was slumped to the ground in a pool of blood. The woman was still screaming. She threw herself at the guard, hysterical, and managed to unhinge his helmet. It clattered along the ground, disappearing into the crowd.
I wasn’t sure what happened after that. The guard tried to grab his helmet, the woman clinging desperately to him like a monkey, and then I heard someone call out that the prisoner—the dead prisoner, now—was innocent, and then chaos erupted. I saw the guards react like Kag sheepdogs, confronted by an unruly herd. People pushed, unsure of whether to fight or flee.
I snapped out of my shock long enough to respond to a voice at my ear, speaking in Jinan. “To the alley, Beloved Queen.” It was male, likely one of my guards. I glimpsed the narrow gap between two buildings and began to run, nearly stepping over a dead body on the way.
Everything became a blur. The clatter of my boots on hard stone. The wind rushing through my ears. The acrid scent of the alley, of urine and dead things, a far cry from the Anzhao City I had envied less than an hour ago. Silence.
The Wolf of Oren-yaro Page 4