by S. C. Emmett
At least, so Makar hoped.
They would reach the main road soon, turning into the heart of Zhaon, and the best inn in each town would be emptied for them. A few aristocratic families along the route would offer accommodation, but the honor of a visit from the Crown Prince’s intended might cause unwarranted pride. The nobles were restless enough, under the new taxation and the restriction of the privilege of extracting corvée labor from the kaburei.
“Your Khir is very good.” Magnanimous and well-bred, the princess handled her reins very prettily. Her hat, fringed with a cobweb-fine veil, bobbed. Altogether, she made a very pretty scroll-illustration.
“You are too kind.” He pronounced the consonants as well as he could, carefully, speaking at a measured walk. The long ribbon of the Zhaon retinue snaked over the hill before them and the one behind, pikes glittering as they marched, horses with proud-arched necks bearing a few squares of the Emperor’s personal Golden, the red pennants snap-fluttering to announce this was a guest of the Emperor himself.
Makar was, of course, relieved he had thought to arrange for a proper amount of ceremony. He simply wished the First Queen had not outmaneuvered him at the start—but that could be turned to advantage, at the right moment.
There was always a right moment, and it was rarely now.
The one Khir lady-in-waiting, a straight-backed girl in a dark blue, low-waisted Khir dress, measured Makar with pale eyes. It was to her the princess looked when he was introduced, and it was she who inspected the princess’s horse and saddle. Her dress could have been an illustration of Khir history, very long sleeves and a graceful high-necked cut; her sober hairpin’s shell ornament glittered in a nest of braids whenever she moved. Her hat was not as full, and held no veil.
At least the best of the horses he’d brought—matched black mares, deep-chested and easy-gaited—were fine enough. He had expected several ladies in the retinue. Why only one? Khir had been strangled for years; perhaps this was a signal of their final capitulation.
Zhaon could only hope. In any case, Khir itself was the girl’s dowry, and with that dagger at Zhaon’s service instead of pressed to the artery of the Ch’han overland trade, everyone could breathe more easily.
“So, you are the Fourth Prince. Your father is blessed.” It was the second time Princess Mahara had said it, and she seemed somewhat at a loss for other conversational topics. “How many brothers have you?”
Did she truly not know? He cleared his throat, a little awkwardly, and help arrived from an unexpected quarter.
“There are six princes, my princess.” Soft and decorous, the lady-in-waiting spoke, the Khir word for royal daughter accented at the front, trailing into a swallowed iah. Her family name was Komori, a very old noble name if Makar remembered his Cao Zheun correctly. “And two princesses, if I am not mistaken?”
“Yes.” It would be the height of rudeness to inquire of the Khir princess’s own brothers. They were all dead, except one of Ashani Zlorih’s byblows. “They are all eager to make your acquaintance. The Crown Prince is practicing his poetry.”
“Oh.” The princess blinked, soft confusion very becoming. Her gloves were embroidered with the wheel-like calendar symbol of the Khir royal family at the cuffs, small delicate stitches most likely her own work. “Should I be composing my own?”
“He would be most honored, should you care to.” The thought of Takyeo reading a love letter from anyone was amusing for any number of reasons, but Makar hoped his expression would be seen as merely a polite smile. “Do you like poetry, then, Princess? The journey is long, we shall seek diversions for you.”
“I like riding, and plays.” The princess ducked her head, shyly, perhaps aware of her own childishness, and her veil fluttered. “Lady Yala is the scholar, but she rides well too.”
“My princess does me much honor.” Lady Komor smiled. Blind-eyed, they called the Khir, but sharp-eared, hearing the hawk on the wing. They had withdrawn into their land during the Second Dynasty, nobility mingling only with their own, and their irises had paled in consequence. The color did not run outside their borders; a Zhaon with less than half noble Khir parentage had muddy eyes, or dark ones. It was disconcerting to see the leaching of a human gaze, and doubly so to see how it vanished within a generation.
“My father kept to the old ways,” Lady Yala said. Her gloved hands, innocent of rings just as her wrists were bare of bangles, rested upon the reins with grace just as fine as the princess’s. “To trace the classics, even with a child’s hand, is to learn wisdom.”
Now that was surprising, and Makar had just been thinking of that very scholar. “Cao Zheun,” he said, studying the lady’s profile, too sharp for real beauty but perhaps piquant to a collector of faces. It was now his turn to provide a bit of prose. “Even a child’s brush may show the shape of the world.”
“Nao Sinlao.” She nodded, musingly. “Unless the land is a flat dish upon a tortoise’s back.”
That particular line was from the Anonymous Fool’s Song, ribald and esoteric by turns. Startled, Makar laughed; Lady Komor did not, but she smiled again. Birds rose from the trees upon either side, disturbed by their passage, crying warning to their fellows.
Princess Mahara made a short, aggravated noise. “Ai, you two are quoting dusty old books that make my head hurt. Yala! Race me!” The Khir princess touched her heels to her mare’s sides; the mare, startled, lunged forward. Makar had a sudden vision of her flung from the saddle or trampled, and his own mount shied, sensing unease.
Lady Yala, though, let out a high piercing cry, and her horse shot forward as well. The princess veered from the road into an untilled field, sticking to her saddle like a burr to rough wool, and Makar began to bark sharp orders for the guards to spread out.
The princess cried aloud, a sharp joyous sound, and Makar’s knees clamped home, telling the beast the order of the world had not changed and the human upon its back was still its master.
Long afterward, he was to think of that afternoon, the field of spring flowers, a smell of crushed green, and the two Khir women on horseback, their route a curving shuh character, shod hooves throwing clods of dirt and grass aside. He would remember the veil flying from Princess Ashan Mahara’s hat, knocked askew by the wind, and Lady Komor Yala melding with the horse, obviously more skilled than her princess but gracefully restraining her mount just a touch, just enough. It took much talent and practice to lose so neatly and nearly, and when the women rejoined the long snake of the retinue waiting patiently for them, the princess flushed and happy, it was Lady Yala who scolded her gently for giving the Fourth Prince so much trouble.
The princess did not bridle, but took the almost-rebuke with good grace and offered a half-bow of apology, her cheeks flushed and her moonlike beauty turned solar for a brief moment. Makar ventured the opinion that it was only natural to wish to ride upon a spring morning, and of course he was pleased to see such a fine example of horsemanship.
“Next time, he shall race with me, and you shall call the route,” Lady Komor said, a neat solution, and Makar politely agreed.
It seemed that if the Khir had sent only one lady with their princess, they had chosen the best for the task. She would bear careful watching, this court lady.
He was almost looking forward to it.
A SINGLE BLADE
For a moment, waking to the faint whisper of metal drawn from a well-greased sheath, Kai thought he was with the Northern Army still and wondered why the fourth watch had not been called. Some part of him was always sleepless, listening for the rhythm of patrol and return, the hiss of torches, the mud and sour smell of leather, metal, and male effort.
Then he was rolling off his low bed, foot flicking to catch the wrapped figure’s midriff, Kai’s light woolen blanket parting as a blackened blade sliced its top layer. Kai landed with a crunch upon his shoulder, a spike of pain down his neck, continuing the motion to bring himself up into a crouch on the stone floor and kicking a subtly patterned Anwei-wov
en rug away—he needed good footing, and sliding on a cushion would not help.
The assassin staggered, spun, and dropped into a crouch as well, blade carving a solid semicircle. Kai leaned back, bare toes splaying to grip cold stone, another Anwei rug slipping under his front foot. The breeze of a sharp edge passing just touched his chin, so he took the only possible way out, falling again and rolling aside, shoulders hitting the floor bruising-hard. Then he was up, the laces of his sleeping-tunic torn free, its front ripping. He peeled it loose, wrapping the cloth around his left arm, and the assassin paused, visibly reconsidering, an inquisitive angle to the fully wrapped head.
Kai’s knees bent, weight dropping into the answering stance for knifeplay. He was awake now, on his feet, on familiar ground, and the next step was taking the blade from this stupid fellow and questioning him thoroughly.
Thin window-hangings rustled and the scroll depicting two tigers hunting the same fat bronzefish scraped against the wall, pushed by night air and a new, feral current. Kai’s pupils, night-wide, drank in every available gleam, and he knew he had been dreaming of war again.
A feint, the short, straight assassin’s jadak14 whispering again as its edge clove resistant air. The assassin’s wrist floated to the side, but Kai did not take the bait. Instead, he retreated once more, shuffling, kicking aside the rug again with his back foot. The wall drew closer, and with it a small highly carved table with a thin, highly carved soppah-stone bowl full of water and lilies. Kanbina’s gift—you keep your quarters too spare, my son.
This slash wasn’t a feint; he knew it as soon as the masked man’s other hand dropped. The bastard was quick, knee bending and the soot-blackened blade serpent-darting. Left arm up, Kai’s sleeping-tunic tearing as it deflected the blade a critical fraction, and Kai grabbed the stone bowl, swinging it as his hip hit the table. It hit with a crack, but the assassin had moved, so it was a shoulder instead of the man’s head taking the force of the blow. Water splashed, lilies falling in a cascade, and Kai was upon him, twisting the knife-hand savagely. Bone creak-snapped, and the man’s sour exhalation of ginhai,15 garlic, bad teeth, and indifferent bathing folded around him.
“Who sent you?” A soft demand; Kai didn’t have the breath for more. Locking the injured wrist, his knee grinding into the floor, using his body weight to immobilize. “Tell me, and you will live.”
Frantic bucking. The body under him understood it was trapped, and grew desperate. Again he twisted serpent-supple; the man was skilled in grappling, but a broken wrist and a wary opponent made all the difference. Kai’s fingers wormed in; he worked the knife free and bore down upon the wrist again, grating broken edges together and ignoring the man’s flopping legs.
“Who?” he demanded again. “Who?” Now that he was awake and had the man’s measure, he didn’t really expect an answer. The assassin worked his unwounded arm free, short broken fingernails digging into Kai’s chin, trying to reach his throat to force him away. Another heave, the assassin finally understanding he would not escape, and the confused tangle of motion ended with Kai on his back, a sagging body clasped in his arms and the stink of death filling mouth, nose, ears, and every part of him again. A sweetish exhalation was the poison tooth, bitten to guard the secrets of whoever had sent this unfortunate failure.
One more dealer of death would not be paid his promised balance.
Nerve-death twitched through the corpse, and Kai shoved it aside. Stopped, his ears pricked and the oil-sweat of death’s brush painting every inch of him. Nothing, not even the whisper of another’s breath, the faint unsound of a living creature waiting to attack while the target was possibly wounded or distracted.
Who would send a single blade to deal with him? The wide, wood-shuttered window, worked open with a thin metal tongue to provide access, filled the cup of the room with a soft spring breeze. His palace quarters had been aired thoroughly upon his return, but this close to the floor he could smell the disuse.
Zakkar Kai sat upon smooth stone, his breath coming in silent, heaving gasps, his eyes half-closed. The body’s twitches faded, and when he was ready, the general would rise and pace to the door to call for guards. Next would come hurrying feet, shouts, questions, the examination of a body.
But for the moment, he simply stayed where he was, his limbs prickling with the knowledge that once again, he had survived.
Mrong Banh, First Astrologer of the Court of Emperor Garan Tamuron, held a citron-scented cloth over his mouth and nostrils. Awakened roughly, his topknot was a mess; that was, in any case, its usual state. “Only one?” His broad forehead glistened despite the chill in this lower room, and his black hair held early grey at the temples. His scholar’s robe was hastily mistied; his shoes did not match. For all that, his glance was bright and keen, and he surveyed the body upon the wooden slab with a great deal of nauseated interest.
“Insulting, isn’t it.” Kai gestured, and the young, extremely disgusted royal guard on this disagreeable duty peeled back dark cloth over the assassin’s face. The body was still pliable, and much could be read upon it if they were careful, and quick to examine before anyone else had a chance to mar fresh ink, so to speak.
Banh clicked his tongue, a habit of deep thought. “Who would only send one?”
The back of Kai’s neck itched. His shoulders ached, bruises rising like bronzefish slow and sleepy after winter rest. “Exactly.” Candles guttered against the dark in this stone rectangle; he lifted his own taper and peered at the assassin’s unwrapped face. An older man, cheeks pitted with pinprick burns, teeth blackened by donjba.16 No wonder he had been alone. There was only one clan of darkwalkers who pricked their cheeks with heated needles after a kill and rubbed ash into the bleeding marks. They were expensive, and one was generally enough for most targets. “Though it salves my pride somewhat to see it is a Son of the Needle.”
“A bad omen.” The astrologer shook his head, pressing the cloth even more firmly against his nose and mouth. More lanterns were being brought. The windows were mere strips along the tops of the walls; mirrors hung with none of the sun’s reflected fire to fill them were shuttered eyes. Come morning, the mirrors would wake and this cave would hold a pitiless glare.
Zakkar Kai’s lip curled slightly. “’Tis not an omen, but an assassin, Banh.” I was lucky. Had he not been accustomed to sleeping lightly, had he not been ill at ease in this familiar warren of stone and luxury, had he not been still raw from skirmish and battle both… well.
“A thing may be twain or thrain at once, my student.” Another tongue-click, but of the softness that meant Banh was amused while he thought. At least the astrologer was not fussing; he had already examined Kai for wounds.
The young guard turned his head aside, his throat-stone bobbing as he fought bile. Kai let it pass—sooner or later, the boy would see worse. He propped the corpse’s mouth open with the hilt of the blackened blade, probing carefully. “Ah. Look, he had two poison teeth.”
“Really?” Banh leaned close, shouldering the young guard. A ghost of incense clung to the sober dark brown of his scholar’s robe. “How interesting.”
A shadow in the doorway swelled, and a slippered foot landed soundlessly upon stone. “What is this?” The bright-bleached, sumptuous robe of a successful physician, the tiered hat of the Court, a topknot caged in silver—it was Tian Ha, the First Queen’s Head Physician. “A death in the Palace, how unlucky. Are you casting a corpse’s horoscope, Mrong?”
The astrologer straightened, the perfumed cloth puffing over his mouth. It would hide the grimace he usually made when Tian deigned to speak to him. “And you, Tian, come to check a corpse’s pulse? He cannot pay your fee.”
Kai moved about his examination. The body’s hands were hardened in the old fashion, calluses made supple with iao oil, feet and calves with the peculiar musculature that came from practicing the lightstep—an assassin without the discipline to learn wall-walking and rooftop dancing did not last long. The dead man was well past his youth,
and the marks of childhood deprivation showed around his mouth and nose. Slack in death, his face held all a kaburei’s resignation.
No doubt he had been sold to the Sons during a famine, probably in the dead of night when the plump childcatchers went door to door. The Sons did not take children past seven winters high, holding the elders too difficult to train properly, but they paid well for those they did take, and business was brisk in the warring provinces before Tamuron’s reunification of Zhaon territory. Where armies moved, hunger often followed, and younger sons were more precious than daughters drowned in their swaddling.
“General Zakkar.” Tian flowed down the stairs, his expression unchanging. Oiled hair and swaying prayer-beads, a show of piety and sobriety, and the well-concealed sneer completed the scroll-illustration of a man who had found a high patron and was determined to make the most of it. “I am relieved to find you well.”
“I am sorry to disturb your slumber.” Kai glanced at the physician, one eyebrow slightly raised. Mrong Banh’s own expressive eyes were asking the same question, and the physician well knew it, for his explanation was quick in coming.
“Second Princess Gamnae is awake; I was attending to the making of a tonic to ease her humors.” Tian reached the bottom of the stairs, their stone treads worn to deceptively soft curves. “I heard some commotion.”
No doubt you came running to gather gossip, like an eggbird after grain. “Merely an assassin.” Kai untied the corpse’s shirtlaces—fine strong cotton, a padded outer tunic providing some measure of protection and a great deal of mobility.