“But I trusted Master Jaks, had done so for more years than I care to consider. And Master Jaks says you are a king, so here we are.” He shrugged, admitting he didn’t understand what had gone on while they had belonged to different camps, but that he was willing to take some things—even outlandish things like a skinny pearl diver being a long-lost king—on faith from the right person.
Llesho turned thoughtfully to Master Jaks, who returned his level gaze from across the table. Master Jaks was his teacher, and he had trusted the man just as Stipes had. But Llesho had grown wary since the poison arrow had felled him. Master Jaks had served Lord Chin-shi, who was dead, under the direction of Overseer Markko, who now sought to capture or kill Llesho. Master Jaks had followed Llesho to Farshore, but now took into his escort Stipes, who was Lord Yueh’s man, or had been until his lordship’s timely death. Most damning, Jaks was an assassin; Llesho’s eyes returned again to the six rings tattooed on Jaks’ upper arm. Why was an assassin so interested in an exiled prince of Thebin?
Master Jaks followed the gaze. “They trouble you?” he asked, nodding his chin at the rings on his arm.
Llesho waited, while the assassin returned his study, looking for a crack in the stone of Llesho’s eyes and finding none. With a little shrug, a tiny smile that Llesho did not understand, Master Jaks rested his arm on the table, palm up, the gesture of surrender. “If my arm offends you,” he said, “cut it off.”
Not what Llesho had expected. He turned to Habiba for an explanation, or advice, but the witch said nothing, merely gestured to a guard who raised his unsheathed sword and set it lightly across the muscle, just above the first, and oldest, ring.
“Why?” Llesho asked.
“I wasn’t always an assassin,” Master Jaks answered, and gave the rings on his own arm a look of such loathing and hunger that Llesho would have drawn his own Thebin knife had a guard not already held the man in check with a sword resting on flesh. “A long time ago, I served Thebin as a hired defender.”
“A mercenary,” Llesho corrected. He had seen the device on Master Jaks’ wrist guards long ago, that time with blood splashed on them from the Harn. Mercenaries, yes, but his guard had died like a Thebin to protect a young prince.
“A mercenary.” Master Jaks accepted the correction. “My clan is poor; her sons serve others for pay. The less skilled take contracts as foot troops in the border wars of strangers. Those of breeding and skill hold positions in the great houses of the wealthy. My own squad served the Royal House of Kungol. My brother swore his life to the protection of the young prince, but could not save him.”
He met Llesho’s stony gaze with fire in his eyes—grim, grim fire. “I was, myself, sworn to the young prince’s mother. I lay as the dead on the floor of her temple while the men of Harn tormented her and dragged her away. To my shame, I did not die of my wounds that day.”
“You loved my mother.”
It wasn’t in the words but in the longing when Master Jaks said them, and in the despair that crossed the landscape behind his eyes when he spoke of her torment.
“Everyone loved her. How could they not?”
Llesho saw in the rueful smile that Master Jaks had never overstepped his place at the foot of his mistress: no dishonor to the queen or her husband had ever been contemplated. The self-loathing at his failure would have been the greater for his feelings, however. Llesho understood about failure and regret. He didn’t understand how one could honor the holy queen of Thebin with the rings of an assassin on his arm, and he said so.
“You prove your love of that holy woman of peace with the taking of lives for pay, as an assassin?”
Master Jaks flinched, as even the sword resting on his arm had not made him do. “There are few professions open to a member of the elite guard who has failed so disastrously in his charge. But I have kept myself alive, when I could wish only to join my brother in death, for the day when I might restore honor to my family and my clan, If I have dishonored my quest, I offer my death. Let my blood wash away the stain upon her pure honor that I served. You would be doing me a favor, one I have wished for many years. If you want to win in the coming battle, however, I can offer my service. With two arms or with one, I pledge my life, and the lives of those men who follow me, to restore her house to its rightful place, and for my brother’s honor to protect her son in all things.”
“You will do with one arm what you could not manage nine cycles ago with two?”
A glint behind the fire, a deepening of the lines around Master Jaks’ eyes, told more than the words: “I know more now.” He hadn’t been a paid assassin then. With rueful, dangerous humor, Master Jaks followed the length of the sword with his eyes. He’d abased himself enough with his confession. Llesho wasn’t ready to fight this war on his own, and he thought maybe the boy even knew it. “Better with two, of course.”
Llesho gave the slightest flick of dismissal with his fingers, and the sword lifted. No emotion broke the impassive obedience of the guard, but the man’s whole body eased. So it hadn’t been just for show. Some, though. And it wasn’t over yet.
“By the laws of Shan, I cannot take your pledge, “ Llesho pointed out with ice in his tone. “I am a slave.”
He had his manumission papers in his tunic, of course, but, until his seventeenth birthday, her ladyship could free him only by adopting him. When offered the opportunity, she had declined. Now, having recognized his lineage, any such act on the part of Thousand Lakes Province must appear as a first move in a political game neither her ladyship nor her father could afford. Shan itself would move against the province. And Llesho would be no closer to freeing his brothers than when he was diving for pearls off Pearl Island.
Too much had happened. Llesho knew, in his head, that he had come a long way in more than physical distance from the bay where the spirit of Lleck, his teacher, had appeared to him and sent him to free his home. But he was no wizard-king, and in his heart, he felt only the weight of his losses. Given his track record on this quest, he doubted he’d live long enough to see Kungol and his beloved mountains again.
“His lordship the governor has interpreted the manumission status of a young royal under the law that governs the succession to the governorship.” Habiba reached out a hand and a secretary set a sheaf of papers into it. “If a governor should die before his orphaned heir reaches the legal age of majority, the law allows for the appointment of a regent.
“His lordship did not wish to be seen as motivated by political ambitions in the appointment of the young prince’s regent. Accordingly, he has charged me to invite your own recommendations for the role of your adviser.”
No one stirred at the table. The silence was so complete that Llesho could imagine no one stirred in the whole camp. He studied the faces of his companions, but each kept his eyes downcast and his counsel to himself. He could have wished for Kwan-ti then, or Mara, or Master Den, or Lleck—any one of the people he had grown to depend on for their wisdom who had died or disappeared from his life, leaving him storm-tossed without an anchor. He sorely needed their advice now; if any one of them had been at the conference table, he would have landed the regency in their laps and been done with it. But they weren’t—even Lleck the bear had not followed him to this camp—and Habiba, while clever and deep, was too much her ladyship’s creature. And Master Jaks. Master Jaks, with the six rings tattooed on his upper arm, one for each paid murder he’d committed, would be no fit regent for the spiritual leader of the Thebin people, even if Llesho never had another spiritual thought in his life. Stipes was a fighter, not a thinker, and he was Yueh’s anyway, or Bixei’s, if he had his choice. The rest of them were no older than he was, or not by much, and no smarter.
The more he thought about it, though, the more he rejected the notion of anyone making his decisions for him, law or no law. It was his quest, his country he had promised to free. The decision was easy after all.
“Adar,” he said. “My brother.”
Habiba smi
led and handed him the papers. “Her ladyship thought you would decide as much. She persuaded her father to complete the appropriate forms appointing Adar as your regent in absentia.”
Adar. Llesho brushed the sheaf of papers with his fingertips. He needed to find his brother, to prove to himself that he was on the true path to the liberation of his people and not on a fool’s journey. The papers appointing his brother regent until succession should be decided at Kungol reminded Llesho of Farshore’s own problems.
“His lordship the governor left no heir, did he?”
“He did not,” Habiba answered. “His family line having failed, the emperor will appoint a new governor in his place. Lord Yueh would have petitioned for the post if he had lived, I am sure.”
Llesho nodded, thinking. The emperor, far away in Shan and with only the word of easily bribed advisers to guide him, had awarded Lord Yueh the governorship of Pearl Island. Yueh had received clear title to all the holdings that belonged to the island, including the dying oyster beds of Pearl Bay, in payment of debts left owing after the death of Lord Chin-shi. With Lord Chin-shi’s overseer Markko as his adviser, Lord Yueh had attacked Farshore. Now Lord Yueh was dead, and Markko had turned back after his defeat at the jaws of the dragon on Golden Dragon River. Llesho didn’t think the deaths of three governors were coincidence.
“Lord Yueh had a young son, did he not?”
“Still does,” Stipes confirmed. “At least, the son still lives, though just a babe.”
“Will the Emperor name his mother regent?” Llesho directed his question to Habiba. As the adviser to a murdered governor himself, the witch would know better than any of them what would happen next in the matter of continued government.
“I doubt it.” Habiba considered his answer. “Her ladyship of Farshore produced no heir for the governor. If Markko acts true to form, he will lay a claim against Farshore in the name of Lord Yueh’s young son, and petition to be named regent under the guidance of the boy’s mother. Everyone knows that Lady Yueh was much younger than her husband, and that she was a quiet, shy creature. Markko’s deference to her wishes will be seen for what it is: an opportunity offered the mother to visit her child upon state occasions. She will have no say in his upbringing, and certainly none in the rule of Farshore, which Markko will want to consolidate with Pearl Island in his own name.”
“And how long will the boy live?”
“At least a year,” Master Jaks suggested. “It will take Markko that long to marry the widow and get her with child. Then Yueh’s child will die, and Markko will petition to claim the post in his own name, for the son his wife carries.”
Between them Habiba and Master Jaks had outlined Llesho’s own conclusions. It left one question unanswered, however. “What does he want with me?”
“The trade routes through the passes above Kungol?” Master Jaks guessed.
Llesho shrugged a shoulder. “Then he’d do better attacking the Harn. I couldn’t give him Kungol if I wanted to.”
“He may wish to control your power of persuasion with the goddess,” Habiba suggested.
Llesho snorted an unpretty laugh. “He’d have done better to wait a day to attack Farshore if that’s what he wanted. The goddess didn’t come. I didn’t see her. I’d rather believe that the attack came before I had a chance to finish the ritual than that the goddess did not choose me. If she was able to find me at all so far from home, however, it’s more likely the goddess found me wanting and rejected me. No special influence there.”
Habiba looked at him strangely, but didn’t say anything. There seemed little left to say. Llesho had his own quest, but Thebin seemed very far away and his enemies formidable. He wasn’t smart enough to defeat Markko, wasn’t strong enough, and his so-called “mys tical powers” weren’t going to impress the magician. Aside from having a ghost tell him what to do and a dragon eat his healer, he didn’t have any magic. And like his luck, it seemed that if it weren’t for bad magic, he’d have none at all.
He did know that he was too tired to think about it now. He rose from his chair, but when he turned to bow politely to Habiba, he found the witch on one knee before him again, along with Master Jaks and the secretaries and Stipes. Bixei had moved to stand next to Kaydu, and together with Hmishi and Lling the four companions stood to attention, his personal guard awaiting his next order.
“I need to rest.” He was also hungry, he realized, and in no condition to make more difficult decisions. Given his current temper, he was lucky Master Jaks still had two arms.
Habiba took that as permission to rise, as did his companions. “Kaydu can show you to your tent,” he said. It was accepted that his companions, who once again included Bixei, would not leave his side, and equally clearly understood that no other company was welcome at this time. Except for one person, who wasn’t available.
“I wish Master Den were here,” Llesho said.
“Who is Master Den?” Lling wanted to know. Before Llesho could answer, Bixei volunteered the information, “He is here. Don’t know why he didn’t attend the meeting just now, but you can probably find him in the laundry after you’ve had something to eat.”
“The laundry? Here?”
Bixei laughed. “He brought two huge cauldrons with him on a supply wagon, and he’s had Gryphon Squad hauling water from the river all morning. By now he’s probably knee-deep in soap suds!”
A darkness at the edge of vision that Llesho hadn’t even noticed until now suddenly lifted. He smiled: a real, full smile, for the first time in so long he couldn’t even remember when it had last happened. Den was here. Maybe he had a chance after all.
Chapter Twenty-five
“THEY’VE assigned us one of the large command tents.” Kaydu led them through the bivouac lines. When the smells of food warned them that they were passing close by the cook tent, Bixei left the group with a murmured promise to bring something to eat for them.
“Something hot,” Llesho requested absently. He felt cold from the inside out, the chill escaping in fine tremors that shook him in waves, like a fever. He followed Kaydu along a row of round felt tents.
Men and women in the leather and brass of fighters stopped in their mending and polishing to stare as they passed. Kaydu glared, sending them back to their tasks with unanswered questions still lurking in their eyes, but no great desire for answers. Llesho was just as glad; what few answers he had satisfied no one, least of all himself. He wasn’t up to sharing them, but turned his thoughts inward, fighting the cold that crept over his heart. Mara was dead in his place, though Habiba seemed to think she had survived the dragon’s poison tooth and fiery gullet somehow. The other deaths, and Kwan-ti’s disappearance, he could blame on events that flowed around him but were not themselves a part of his own story. Local politics, far from the eye of Thebin and no fight of Llesho’s, took their toll, and he could do little more than survive them. But Mara had called up a dragon to rescue him, and then had offered her life to the creature in exchange for his own. He should have—
“Stop it.” Lling punched him in the arm, and he realized that she’d been talking to him, and he hadn’t heard a word.
“It wasn’t your fault.” She called him on his guilt-ridden brooding, angry at him for it. “According to Habiba, she isn’t dead anyway.”
“He said she’d be back, not that she wasn’t dead.” Llesho emphasized the distinction. “Lleck is back, too. Does that mean he didn’t die of the fever on Pearl Island?”
“Where is Lleck?” Hmishi thought to ask just then. “I didn’t see him cross the bridge . . . Or . . . Dragon . . . Something.”
“He clearly had better sense than to cross a rushing river on the back of a legend,” Llesho suggested.
“I didn’t think kings had temper tantrums,” Lling snapped.
Llesho looked at her, too tired for any of this. He wanted to escape, to dig a deep, deep hole, and crawl in and hide. But they weren’t going to leave him alone; Master Jaks had made sure of that. “Th
ey probably don’t,” he agreed, thinking about his father, who had often laughed, and sometimes cried, and in court would stroke his beard in thought before handing down a wise and balanced ruling. “But since I will never be a king, I don’t see your point.”
“But Jaks said—”
“A thousand li of Harn grassland, filled with Harn raiders, stand between me and a crown,” he pointed out. “And somewhere between here and there, I have six brothers, each of them older than I am and more suited to the throne. So I am still just a minor prince in exile, as I told you before.”
“You are the seventh son of the king of Thebin, though,” Hmishi pressed him.
“Favored of the gods,” Llesho quoted. “Is that how it seems to you?”
“Well.” Lling put an arm through his, and Hmishi took the other. Together they leaned into him. “You’ve got us. I’d say that counts as blessed.” She grinned at him, daring him to contradict her.
He tried to laugh but could only manage a tight smile, until the smell of soap bubbles hit his nose.
“This is it,” Kaydu said, tugging him toward a command tent, red like the others, but bigger, and tall enough to stand up in.
“Later.” Llesho followed the sound and the smell he had grown to love because they reminded him of Master Den.
He found the washerman, loins bound up and knee-deep in a steaming vat of soapy water. The traveling washtub was made of knee-high oaken staves bound in a circle as wide across as a spear, with an oaken floor in sections set clinker-style, one board overlapping another to make the whole watertight, on the grass. Long strips of bandages hung from lines that festooned the fruit trees, and bright red tent cloths lay spread upon the grass to dry. Llesho stood beneath a cherry tree, letting the smell and the sound ease into his soul and loosen the rock-hard tension in his muscles. He realized suddenly that it didn’t hurt to smile and let his lips have their way, skinning back in a toothy grin he’d forgotten was ever a part of him.
“Kick your sandals off and get in here, boy, or have you forgotten all I’ve taught you?” Den set his fists atop his broad hips and huffed a steamy breath for emphasis.
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