The expression in his eyes turned bleak. “So we can leave?”
“Yes,” she said. “Tomorrow, perhaps.”
He looked away; she saw the muscles in his jaw work.
She went to him, and he opened his cloak. She stepped inside the shelter he offered, and wrapped her arms around him. He held her close. Laying her head upon his shoulder, she said, “I don’t want to leave, either, Linden. But—”
“Yes?”
“I just want to get it over with. I can’t stand having this thing hanging over us any longer.” To her dismay, her eyes burned. I won’t cry, she told herself fiercely. Tears will do nothing!
He pulled her tighter. They stood together, letting the last of the storm sweep around them.
It was all they could do, Maurynna thought.
For a time, it seemed he wandered in a fog; sometimes it cleared, and Haoro knew what happened about him. Other times, his surroundings made no sense, and the voices talking over his head spoke gibberish. Worse, he was trapped inside his head, unable to speak, unable to tell the ones who washed him, dressed him, and fed him, what he wanted.
But each day the fog receded a little more. Each day, the periods of lucidity lengthened. Soon, he told himself, soon the fog would be gone for good. Soon he would move against Pah-Ko.
Linden was awakened the next morning by the sound of an Assantikkan curse scorching the air like lightning. Alarmed, he threw the covers back and jumped out of the bed.
“What the—” he started, then saw Maurynna, clad only in a tunic, leaning precariously out of the tavern window.
She pulled back inside and turned a face so full of fury on him that Linden stepped back, hastily wondering what he’d done to deserve this.
“It’s the bloody, bedamned wind,” she snarled as she stalked off to retrieve her breeches from the foot of the bed.
Oh, by the gods—were they now becalmed? No, now that he listened, he could hear the wind blowing, and blowing constantly by the sound of it. Baffled, Linden peered out of the window; sure enough, the branches of the almond tree in the courtyard swayed to and fro. “But it’s blowing, and steadily, too,” he said, unable to understand what the problem was.
“Just so,” Maurynna snapped. “As you say, it’s blowing, and steadily. But it’s blowing the wrong way!”
“The wrong way?”
“Yes, the wrong way! It’s blowing straight into the harbor. We’re trapped here just as surely as if someone built a wall across the harbor mouth.”
He sat down on the bed as the full meaning of her words struck him. “How long will it last?” he asked.
She stood before him, her breeches still clutched in one hand. “That’s just it. There’s no way of telling. It could end tomorrow. Or it could go on for days, even tendays! And there’s not a damned thing we can do about it, either.”
Just, Linden thought bitterly, what we do not need—another delay. He knew Maurynna was close to breaking with the need to get this over with. How much longer could she bear it?
Thirty-three
The Phoenix help her, the pain was unbearable. Shei-Luin clenched her teeth on the strip of silk Tsiaa had slipped into her mouth when the birth pangs had begun in earnest. She wrapped her hands tighter in the loops of silk rope tied to the bedposts at the head of the bed.
She hated this. Hated the pain, the stink of her own sweat-soaked body, the feeling of her waters bursting, flooding the silken sheets with bloody liquid. She glared up at her maid.
Tsiaa clucked sympathetically. With a cloth wrung out in cool, jasmine-scented water, the older woman wiped the sweat from Shei-Luin’s face. Their gazes locked; as ever Tsiaa’s eyes held only serenity. Shei-Luin clung to the peace she saw there. It was her only reassurance that all was well. The baby was coming too early. She should have gone at least another two spans of days.
Outside, the thunder of an early summer storm rolled yet again. Rain hammered furiously at the shuttered windows. The junior maids huddled together, twittering in fear at the fury of the storms outside and in.
Useless idiots. She would have them all flogged.
Only Tsiaa remained a bastion of calm. Sweet Tsiaa; I will reward her richly when this is over.
The ominous rumble had hardly died away before another spasm wracked Shei-Luin’s already tormented body. She arched against it, fighting to keep control, but an animal cry of pain and fear escaped her.
She was being torn in two! Pain lanced through her again. She shook her head, dazed now. What was happening? Xahnu’s birth had been so easy! “Like spitting a melon seed” had been Tsiaa’s description. It had made her laugh.
Damn it! Wasn’t the second supposed to be easier? Her head swam as her senses faded in and out.
As if from far away she heard Tsiaa say, “You! Ill-omened one! Go see what delays the midwife. She should have been here long ago!”
Yes. Where is the midwife? Shei-Luin’s battered mind echoed. I will die without her.
Fear tried to claim her. But Pain had her first and would not let go. If she could have, Shei-Luin would have laughed.
Instead she screamed as yet another contraction threatened to tear her apart. A woman wailed in panic; dimly Shei-Luin heard Tsiaa driving someone from the room with kicks, blows, and curses. Then the maid was bending over her again, crooning encouragement.
Contraction after contraction ripped through Shei-Luin, in rhythm with the storm outside. Time ceased to have any meaning. She wandered through a forest of pain illuminated by the savage lightning, and pushed at the babe caught in her womb. Pushed and pushed yet again. Nothing happened. She fell back against the sweat-soaked sheets in exhausted despair.
She was dying. She knew it. She was dying and the child with her.
Forgive me, my son.
Running footsteps wove a path through the fog engulfing her mind. Thank the Phoenix—the midwife at last! Hope returned. Shei-Luin pulled herself back from the brink of darkness and forced herself to look to the door.
But no. This was not the sturdy, competent woman who had attended her only yesterday. This was a frightened girl, one of the kitchen maids by her clothes, sent with a message to the one place where no male—not even a eunuch—might go: an imperial birthing chamber.
The girl babbled something, panting between the words. At first Shei-Luin could hardly make out her barbarous country accent. Then she understood, and only exhaustion kept her from crying out her fear.
“Th’ bridge—washed out!”
Shei-Luin resigned herself to death. The Phoenix Pavilion stood on an island in the center of a lake. The only access was the bridge that stretched from the shore to the pretty pebbled beach that ringed the island.
Since the birth had not seemed imminent, the midwife had retired last evening to the village on the mainland, where all but a small, select group of servants went each night. Shei-Luin cursed the tradition that ordained the practice.
The bridge was gone. And no little cockleshell of a boat could survive this storm. There would be no help for her.
As if to underscore her abandonment, the skies roared once more. The maids screamed in terror. Then the floor undulated like a snake.
“The Phoenix is angry!” someone shrieked. “Run! Run before the building falls upon us!”
A bolt of lightning illuminated the room even through the closed shutters. Shei-Luin saw the maids trample each other in their panic to get outside. A moment later, only she and Tsiaa were left.
Once again Shei-Luin fastened her eyes on her senior maid. She spat the shredded strip of silk from her mouth. “Tsiaa,” she begged. Her voice was but a ragged whisper. It was all she could do. “Help me.”
“Lady,” Tsiaa said. “I will do my best.”
Nira Pah-Ko sat on his throne in the hall of the Iron Temple, receiving the adulation of the pilgrims who had made the hard and dangerous journey to Mount Kajhenral. The pilgrims—mostly men, but with a few women among them—knelt in a line before him as they chante
d the Thousand Praises of the Guardian, touching their foreheads to the floor between each verse.
“Holy One, you are the rock of the Empire. We praise you.”
Pah-Ko shifted slightly on the golden throne, a smaller version of the great Phoenix Throne that only the emperor might use upon pain of death. As always, Hodai, mostly recovered now, sat at his feet. He’d collapsed the day Haoro came out of his long illness; Pah-Ko thought that the shock of seeing one who’d been considered lost return to life had been too much for the boy.
Hodai was better now, but the boy was still too pale, tired too easily. Pah-Ko fretted as he glanced down at the back of the sleek black head bowing in weariness, and wished the pilgrims would hurry.
“Holy One, you are the strength of Jehanglan. We—”
The chant broke off as Hodai’s head snapped up, and his hands clawed at the air.
“Aiieeaahhhhhhh!” he wailed like a soul in torment. “Aiieeaahhhhhhh!” again and again and again.
It was the voice of the Phoenix.
The agony stretched on forever. Dimly Shei-Luin heard Tsiaa call to her, encourage her, curse her for giving up. It was all that kept Shei-Luin tied to this world. She clung to the voice, hardly understanding the words.
Now and again, the ground shook. It seemed the Phoenix was still angry. Yet the walls did not fall upon her, crushing her for her sacrilege.
Shei-Luin took what heart she could from that. Then she heard, “Just a little more. A little more! One more push, my brave lady—I can see the head!”
Shei-Luin drew a deep, painful breath and bore down with her last shreds of strength. It would be the last time. She could do no more.
The pilgrims cast themselves facedown on the floor, covering their heads with their hands and wailing in panic. The temple guards jumped forward. “Silence! Silence, you dogs!” they yelled as they lashed out with their staffs of golden bamboo. One by one the pilgrims’ cries died out into whimpers of pain.
“What is this?” Pah-Ko cried. “Hodai, what—” He knelt by his Oracle and seized the slave boy’s shoulders.
It was plain that the child was in the grip of a prophecy. But such a prophecy! Pah-Ko had never seen anything like it. His heart hammered in his chest with fear.
For there were no words to this prophecy that held Hodai in such a grip; only scream after scream of mixed fear and crazed longing. But the true horror was that it was the voice of the Phoenix, the beautiful, golden tones twisted and perverted. Even the temple guards, stalwart as they were, grew ashen-faced as they listened.
Then, all at once, it stopped. Hodai fell to the floor. The silence rang in Pah-Ko’s ears.
Unbearable pressure, intolerable pain—then, release!
A thin cry split the air. Shei-Luin slumped back against the pillows, spent. Her heart fluttered in her breast like a hummingbird’s wings. She mouthed, “What sex?”
Tsiaa held the child aloft in triumph. Its blood-slick body glistened in the light of the single oil lamp. “A boy, lady! Another heir for the Phoenix Throne!”
Shei-Luin closed her eyes in relief. Another son! Now nothing could stand between her and the empress’s throne. Knowing that Tsiaa would see to the child, she drifted on a sea of happy scheming.
Until she heard Tsiaa’s gasp.
Shei-Luin’s eyes flew open once more. Her gaze fastened on Tsiaa’s stricken face as the maid stared down at the child she held in her arms.
Shei-Luin’s heart froze. “What?” she whispered. “What is it?”
Phoenix, don’t let there be anything wrong, she prayed. Please, let my baby be whole.
The priests would kill even the emperor’s own child, were it deformed.
Trembling hands held the infant out to her. “L-look at his leg,” Tsiaa said.
Shei-Luin looked down at the infant in her arms—and moaned. There, for all the world to see, was the proof of her infidelity; proof of her treason.
For her newborn son bore on the side of his thigh the same kind of birthmark that his father did: a darker patch of skin as if someone had splashed brown ink on the child while still in her womb. It was small, no larger than a silver coin, but it held her death warrant.
Xiane, of course, had no such blemish. But one look at “his” newborn son, and even that besotted fool would know who the father was.
For once Shei-Luin’s agile mind refused to work. She could only stare beseechingly at the only woman she had ever named “friend.”
“Tsiaa,” she whispered. “What shall I do?”
The ground shuddered once more.
The maid’s expression hardened. “There’s only one thing, lady. Give him to me.”
Wondering, Shei-Luin did as she was bidden. Tsiaa gathered the child to her breast, crooning to him, her eyes filled with adoration. Then Tsiaa turned away, head bent over the infant in her arms, and crossed the room to the window. She threw open the shutters. Then she went to the brazier and knelt before it.
Shei-Luin nearly choked. She suddenly understood what Tsiaa meant to do. Emotions warred within her; every instinct she had as a mother screamed for her to protect her child from harm. Yet to save him—and herself—from death, she must let Tsiaa do this thing.
Tsiaa looked over her shoulder. Her iron calm broke at last. “Lady, do not let them torture …” The sentence died in a sob.
“I won’t. I promise, Tsiaa; it will be quick.”
The maid nodded. One hand stretched out, trembled, clenched for the space of three heartbeats. Only when that hand was steady did it continue its journey to pick up the small tongs. Then Tsiaa selected a coal from the brazier. Carefully, so carefully, she pressed the glowing coal against the betraying birthmark and held it there for long moments.
The baby screamed. A whimper she couldn’t contain escaped Shei-Luin.
Tongs and coal fell back into the brazier with a sound like an executioner’s sword striking home.
“Lady,” Tsiaa said tonelessly. She stood. Her face was grey; she crossed the room like a sleepwalker and handed the wailing baby to his mother. From outside came a distant rumble of thunder. “Lady, I regret my clumsiness. I was merely trying to relight the lamp that had gone out when the shutter blew open. But the ground shook and I stumbled, and—Raise him, Lady.” A tender hand caressed the down-covered head. “Raise him to be a good man, a strong shield for his brother’s back.” She sank to the floor, eyes closed, kneeling with her hands folded quietly in her lap.
“I will. Thank you,” Shei-Luin said softly. “Thank you, my friend.” She gathered her son to her breast. She—and he—were safe.
A final surge of lightning lit Tsiaa’s face. Already it was the face of a corpse.
Somehow, despite his aching bones, Pah-Ko reached Hodai before anyone else. He cradled the young Oracle’s head in his hands. “Hodai,” he called gently. “Hodai.”
The boy’s eyes fluttered open, but their gaze was unfocused. Hodai was still in the grip of prophecy. Words faint as the beating of a butterfly’s wings breathed past his lips; it was the voice of the Phoenix, but never had Pah-Ko heard it so faint, so subdued.
“The way is open. Follow it.” The eyes shut once more as Hodai slid down into sleep.
Pah-Ko wrinkled his brow. What way? he thought, puzzled.
Then his eyes grew wide. Of course! The Way!
And it was the Word of the Phoenix.
It was always the same in the Garden of Eternal Spring, Yesuin thought. Flowers might bloom and fade, green leaves might turn brown and fall to the earth, but never did it happen all at once, never was the garden sere and brown in the grip of winter. Always there were fresh buds to take the place of those just past. Far off in the distance he heard a storm raging, but not here. The skies above the Garden were as blue as ever.
He gazed out from the pavilion where he sat with Xiane over a game of ulim-choi. A pair of tiger butterflies fluttered past, dancing from flower to flower. From somewhere deeper in the garden he heard a wren singing merrily.
Every time he was in the garden, he saw and heard the same, or something very like. It depressed him. Nothing changed.
Especially Shei-Luin. He wondered if she would ever forgive him for encouraging Xiane to follow the Way. Maybe if he tried after she returned, she would finally relent and unlock the secret door to her chamber … .
Stop telling yourself lies. A woman who would sacrifice a country to save her children, will sacrifice you as well.
Yesuin sighed and turned his attention back to the game.
Xiane was scowling fiercely at the circular game board as he considered his next move. Yesuin saw his dark gaze dart here and there, seeking opportunities, weighing moves.
“Hah!” the emperor said at last. He beamed and clapped his hands in glee. “See if you can best this, cousin! I—What is it? I left word that I was not to be disturbed.”
The last was snapped at a young man carrying the brown horsetail whip of a junior cavalry officer in one hand. In the other was a sealed message.
Shaken, Yesuin dragged his thoughts from the grey mire they wallowed in of late. Phoenix! He should have noticed the man long before this! What if he’d been an assassin?
The young officer paled. He stopped and bowed, then came on as if every step might be his last. “I apologize, Phoenix Lord,” he said as he entered the pavilion, “and the eunuchs tried to stop me, but you once left word to bring you any messages from General V’houn. If this unfortunate person has offended, Imperial Majesty, then let my blood wash away that offense.”
With that, the officer fell to his knees and, letting the whip dangle by its cord from his wrist, offered the letter to Xiane in both hands. Yesuin stared at the whip as it swayed, the long rough, red-brown hairs hissing softly as they rubbed against each other, remembering with sudden, overwhelming clarity the horsetail banners of the Zharmatians.
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