In his weakened state after his wounding and later, in the confusion of running from Markko and his men, Llesho had forgotten the comforting ritual of prayer forms. He bowed, in part to hide the deep wine color pulsing in his cheeks. Torn between guilt and embarrassment, he resolved to make up for his negligence, starting the very next morning. And for once, he was glad to abandon his teacher.
Chapter Twenty-six
AFTER the council held on their arrival, Llesho expected that his squad would join Habiba and Jaks at the head of the massed guard. But Habiba had wisely explained that marching on the capital of the Shan Empire with a deposed prince in their company might stir up more concern than they were prepared to face on the journey. Instead, he set them somewhat forward of the center in the order of march, an anonymous cluster of very young soldiers lost among the horse guards.
As they left the orchard behind them, Llesho turned for a last glance back at the Golden Dragon River to his left, imprinting the memory of the sun sparking off the tiny frothed peaks of the swiftly running current. He’d seen wonders on the river, but would have traded the dragon in all its glory for one more glimpse of the old healer, Mara, sound and scolding him to be still so that his wound would heal. His flesh scarcely twinged at all now, but the newer wound of Mara’s loss was a deeper, sharper hurt.
They advanced at an easy pace that maddened Llesho. He didn’t think Master Markko had given up the pursuit; the magician would find a way to cross the river, perhaps already had, and then he’d be after Llesho and his band of friends again. Llesho had an army with him now, and they had a witch of their own, of course. He wasn’t sure who practiced the stronger magic between the two, but thought perhaps Markko would hesitate before attacking if he knew Habiba had ridden against him. He had enough grudging respect for Master Markko’s skills, however, that he wanted as many li between them as possible.
Ahead lay Shan, the imperial city. Caravans from the north had brought stories of Shan to Thebin. The gods might set Kungol down in its entirety in the emperor’s gardens and have room left over for his tiger preserves. Llesho didn’t know how he was going to find Adar or their five remaining siblings when he got there, but Habiba had them going in the right direction at last. He wanted to move faster. If he had magic of his own, he would make the li disappear, and they’d be walking through the mighty gates of the capital city by nightfall. But he didn’t have magic of his own, and Habiba didn’t seem inclined to use the skills he had, or to press the company to haste.
Kaydu rode ahead of him, and Lling and Hmishi guarded his flanks. Bixei rode behind. When Llesho had reminded him that his liaison should travel with the leaders of their force, Bixei had responded that Stipes would serve as their link to Habiba and Jaks; for himself, Bixei would stand ready to ferry messages from Llesho to the commanders at the head of the column. And until there were messages to carry, he would keep his place and guard his companions’ backs.
The column had taken up a journey song. Llesho didn’t know the words, but his companions picked up at the chorus and the mournful plaint wove its lines of home and sorrow into his dark thoughts.
As I march from the home I am leaving
by the cottage door, holding our babe,
my sweetheart is quietly weeping
for the sweet boy she sends to the grave.
As I march from the home I am leaving,
by the fence post, clutching her shawl,
my mother stands quietly grieving
her sons, she has given them all.
As I march from the home I am leaving,
in the cornfield, swinging his scythe,
my father stands anxiously yearning
like his son, he would follow the fife.
But the drums and the pipes now are silent
and the tunic of red turns to rust
and the fields are now sown with the fallen
in the twilight, in blood, and in dust.
And I long for the home of my fathers,
for the smiles of my sweetheart and babe,
to bring home the sons of my mother,
let our leaders, and gods, point the way.
The mood of the song reflected his own dark thoughts, but the rhythm kept the measured pace of the march. Slowly, however, the meaning of the song found its way into his heart. He’d lost mother and father, brothers and home, and much of his own innocence when he was little more than a babe. Since he’d taken on the burden of Lleck’s oath, he’d lost comrades-in-arms. But he wasn’t alone anymore. He traveled with an army, and with the promise that his brothers were alive.
While the marching song reminded him of the grief of parting, it also reminded him of his goal: he was going home. He would rescue his brothers, and together they would free Thebin from the Harn. They would do it. He found his head tilting upward, out of his moody slump and seeking the sunshine. His shoulders drew back, as if a weight were not lifted, but had settled properly where it belonged. As the words of the song said, he would return the sons of his mother to their home. Markko was an obstacle, but he wasn’t the goal, and Llesho couldn’t let his fear of the magician take over his thinking so that he forgot what he’d set out to do. That didn’t mean he could forget the forces pursuing them, but he had to let go of the dread he’d built up of the magician over the months he’d spent as his captive. To do that he had to know more about the overseer.
He pulled his horse up slightly and fell in step next to Bixei. “Back when I first entered the gladiators’ compound on Pearl Island, you were Markko’s assistant.”
“I was not in league with him, nor did he tell me any of his secrets.” Bixei looked sideways at him, uneasiness crossing his features. “I carried messages, nothing more.”
“You were afraid that I would take your place.”
“As a messenger, I could leave the compound pretty much whenever I wanted. I’d just tell the guard at the gate that I was carrying a secret message, and they’d let me go.” Bixei looked down, and Llesho wondered if he was hiding some guilt about his actions, but Bixei’s eyes were as clear and true as they had ever been when he met Llesho’s gaze again across the necks of their horses. “I would never betray you. You annoyed the piss out of me when you first showed up. You were too short and too skinny, ridiculous for the arena, and I couldn’t imagine why Markko had accepted you for training. I thought perhaps he found you pretty, though he never seemed interested in boys before. I was afraid that, if you were his favorite, Markko would give you my place, and I’d be stuck behind the palisades again. But even then, I would not have betrayed you.”
Llesho had never thought much about how others saw him. He’d been born a prince, and had taken the devotion of his people and his large and loving family for granted. Then he’d lost it all and hadn’t cared what anyone thought of Llesho the slave—that wasn’t him, and the people whose opinions mattered weren’t there anymore. Whether he wished it or not, however, it seemed that he was about to learn as much about himself as he was about Markko. He found himself cringing at Bixei’s word-picture of him.
“But you learned fast,” Bixei continued, “like you’d been born to the forms, and sometimes, in weapons practice, especially with the sword and the knife, it was hard to tell where the weapon in your hand left off and your body began. Master Den had that skill, and sometimes Jaks. Madon, too, if sorely pressed. I thought it was odd that you didn’t practice in the yard with your born weapons more often, but I figured Jaks wanted to raise your skills in a broader range of weapons.”
Bixei shrugged. “I suppose I should have been more jealous when you proved you could hold your own in the practice yard, but Stipes said you were all right, and I didn’t envy you having Master Den breathing down your neck. And, sometimes, when you were using the knife and the sword, you would have a look on your face that . . . well, just say that I never wanted to find out what put it there. And I never wanted to be your practice partner when I saw it.”
“Master Den never let anyone but himself
practice knife with me,” Llesho admitted. “Not even Master Jaks. When Habiba took me to the governor’s compound at Farshore, I nearly killed someone in practice. That’s when Master Jaks explained that I only knew how to kill with the knife, not to wound or to hold back for a practice match, and that to try and change that would ruin me. Since then, I sometimes dream that I killed Master Den in practice. It gives me the cold sweats just thinking about it.”
“How did you get that way?”
Llesho shrugged. “Goddess knows. Master Den says I was trained to it as a child, but I have no memory of it. Lately I’ve begun remembering more. I was only seven, but I remember killing a man with my knife, so I guess Master Den is right.”
“Is that why you were sold into slavery?” Bixei asked. “I mean, you were a prince and all, but . . .”
“The man had just killed my personal bodyguard, and would have killed me if he’d seen me first. He was a Harn raider. They attacked the palace, killed my mother and father and my sister, and sold the rest of us into slavery. I don’t feel guilty about killing him, exactly, but I want to throw up when I remember how it felt to drive a Thebin war-knife between a man’s ribs.”
Bixei nodded. “You were different when you began weapons practice—”
“I’d forgotten a lot about the attack on Kungol, our capital city, until I held a war-knife again. Then it all came back.” Llesho didn’t mention that her ladyship had watched him in the weapons room that day, that she had known even then who he was.
Bixei nodded. That made sense. “By then, I realized that you weren’t interested in taking my place in the team; you had a plan of your own, and whatever it was, it worried Master Jaks.
“I don’t know why Markko treated you the way he did—he never was cruel with me, never interfered with my life or with Stipes. I knew about his workroom, of course, but other than carrying a potion to a patient now and then, I had nothing to do with that part of his business.”
They both fell silent for a few moments, listening to the song of the soldiers as they marched. Then Bixei went on. “I’m not saying that Markko was ever a decent overseer. But a lot of things changed when you showed up, Llesho. You spent years diving for pearls on the same island, but I don’t think anyone in the training compound knew you existed. And then suddenly Master Markko wants you, and you are making Master Jaks nervous, and Master Den is alternating between treating you like the village idiot and like his most prized chick.
“I never saw Master Den take weapons practice with anyone until you showed up, and suddenly he is a master at the knife and sword. I never, I mean never, saw anyone handle them like Master Den did, not even you, and until you came, I would have guessed he didn’t even know how to hold a sword.”
“I think his stories are all true,” Llesho offered. “I just don’t know how he managed to do all those things, or how he came to be the washerman in a stable of gladiators.”
“Me neither,” Bixei admitted. “But I just wanted you to know that things were different before you showed up. So part of what Master Markko has become was always in him, but part, somehow, has to do with you. And I think, I think that he sees a power in you—whatever it is that has Master Jaks and Master Den and her ladyship and Habiba in a stew.”
“It’s the prince thing.” Llesho tried to convince himself as well as Bixei that was all there was to it. “If today the Harn can take Thebin and hold the passage to the West hostage, tomorrow they may decide to take Shan and the eastern end of the trade route.”
Bixei, unfortunately, didn’t take the bait. “That might explain Master Jaks, and even her ladyship,” he agreed, “but not Habiba or Markko. Markko wanted to study you and use whatever power he saw in you, but he couldn’t figure out how to reach it. And I think it finally got to be too much for him. Chin-shi wasn’t the greatest lord in the empire, but he wasn’t the sort to let his overseer dissect the slaves for his own education. I think that’s why Master Markko made the deal with Lord Yueh.”
“There’s just one problem with that theory.” Llesho shuddered. He could too easily imagine himself spread out on the long, sturdy table in Markko’s workroom, his guts revealed to the curiosity of the poisoner. “I don’t have any power. If I did, Mara would be alive. Madon would be alive. I wouldn’t have taken an arrow in my chest, and I wouldn’t have spent weeks recovering from the fever.”
He didn’t add, We wouldn’t be in this mess if the lady goddess had found me pleasing in her sight, but said, “Master Markko has what he was looking for. With the governor murdered by Lord Yueh’s soldiers, and Lord Yueh himself now dead, Markko will hold Pearl Island and Farshore. He has all the power he can possibly want.”
“Not all,” Bixei pointed out. “And it’s not me you have to convince. Markko isn’t likely to believe you don’t have some mysterious powers, because he’s already committed everything to capture them.”
“I don’t understand.” Llesho muttered the comment to himself, but Bixei picked it up and answered: “Ask Master Den. If you can make any sense of what he says. Whatever Master Markko sees in you, Master Den saw it first.”
With that, Bixei dropped back to take the rear again, leaving Llesho with his thoughts.
Chapter Twenty-seven
IF someone had asked which of his companions Llesho expected to unsettle his thinking the least, he would have answered, “Bixei,” without a moment’s hesitation. Which just proved once again that he’d taken on this quest thing with his eyes half shut, and hadn’t opened them yet. Half the company he traveled with apparently considered him a magical talisman of some sort, while the other half—probably thought the same thing by now, except that they hadn’t yet told him so. It made him wonder if they weren’t right, and he was just too stupid to realize it. He was smart enough to know that he didn’t want Master Markko to be the one to unlock his mysteries, though.
The magician was following them, he was sure of it. Habiba had to know it, but he held their pace to a slow and steady advance, as if no danger followed them nor anything of importance awaited them ahead. Habiba wasn’t riding beside him, but Kaydu made a handy substitute, so he complained to her.
“Can’t we move any faster?” Llesho pressed when Kaydu dropped back to ride beside him.
“Not if we want the wagons to keep up,” she answered. “Father will not risk the wagon teams to an attack on an undefended rear. He doesn’t want you to greet the emperor’s ministers with anything less than the full honors of your position, and the tents and supplies are carried in the wagons.”
“I’d rather arrive without the tents, but within this lifetime,” Llesho grumped. An image flashed in his mind, of himself, in a cage lashed to the back of a wagon, with Master Markko riding beside him, gloating. He didn’t think it was his own imagination, but how had Markko got into his head?
Without thinking about it, he’d been urging his sturdy mount forward with insistent pressure from his knees. When the horse obediently picked up the pace, he tugged impatiently on the reins, holding their place in the line. The horse, which had coped patiently with Llesho’s nervous energy to this point, gave a frustrated snort and a little sidestep, bucking as if he’d been bitten by a fat green fly. Llesho sailed into the air and crashed down hard on his tailbone.
“Ouch!” he shouted, and grunted a humiliated complaint, “I can’t feel my butt!” The images of himself in chains were gone, though, pushed out by the sudden awareness of the pain in his backside, for which he was grateful at least. Now all he had to do was figure out how to manage it without falling off his horse.
Hmishi snorted, but he slid off his horse and offered a hand. “Your butt’s still there,” he assured Llesho, “though you may regret it by the time we stop for the night!”
Llesho glared at him and remounted, gritting his teeth as his nether regions renewed their acquaintance with his horse.
“More stubborn than a packhorse,” the voice of a soldier snickered behind them. His wounded expression earned Llesho
no support from his companions, however. Lling sniffed scornfully instead, and muttered, “It’s only the truth.”
Embarrassment reddened his dusky skin to the color of an aged wine. “I have to find Master Jaks,” he said, and urged his horse out of the line.
His companions surely knew he had no more business with the officers at the front now than he’d had just minutes ago, when he’d argued the pace with Kaydu. But it gave him an excuse to escape their knowing glances, and his horse needed to work off some of the nerves it shared with its rider.
Master Jaks was not to be found, and Habiba, riding at the head of the line of soldiers with Stipes at his flank, greeted him with a polite nod, and a sympathetic smile that for some reason made Llesho even angrier than he was already. Muttering some courtesy he did not mean and forgot as soon as he’d finished saying it, Llesho turned his horse and headed back down the line. Without quite realizing it, he found himself moving toward the rear where Master Den followed with the wagons, willing to trade the watchful attention of his guard for the curious glances of the men of the line. He had not gone far, however, when Stipes caught up with him, a wrathful glare on his face, and a sharp word on his tongue.
“Your guard is responsible for your safety,” he began. “They can’t protect you if you insist on running off like an irresponsible child.”
“There are a thousand troopers on this march, Stipes. If the whole of Habiba’s forces cannot keep one man from snatching me away, I don’t think the five of you will make much difference.”
“And you don’t want to see us dead like your bodyguard in Kungol Palace,” Stipes snapped back at him. “But Lling and Hmishi would die to save you from nicking your finger on your dinner knife, and Kaydu and Bixei aren’t far behind, for their honor if not for love of you.”
It hurt to hear the words said aloud. He hadn’t understood it as a child—his people falling dead by the wayside so that he would live. Now he carried the guilt as a warning as well as a memory.
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