by S. C. Emmett
Nothing else would soothe the hollow ache inside her where more sons would have been, if only he had loved her.
SECOND FATHER
This is like being peeled alive,” Takshin muttered, motioning for more sohju.
The greatest banquet hall in Zhaon was built with immense timbers from the Lonely Mountain’s shadowed slopes, festooned with the black of fresh-turned earth and the green of new rai, and hung with sheets bearing characters of increase, luck, and happiness written with brushes the size of brooms.
“And you would know?” Mrong Banh, his topknot only slightly off-center and his dark, somewhat sumptuous robes—new for the occasion, and he had been embarrassed to receive them from the Emperor’s messenger that afternoon—too heavy for the stuffy Great Hall, poured the Third Prince the last measure of the jug. It was just like Takshin to bring the astrologer to his table.
Perhaps he thought the older man needed a chaperone, or he disliked pouring his own drinks.
“More than you’d think.” Takshin tapped his eating-sticks upon the side of his bowl for luck and glanced mistrustfully at the server bending to set more sweating clay jugs of sohju amid the platters, dishes, and cups. Unglazed or only half-glazed ware was traditional at the Knee-High, “rustic” as the lords of Zhaon played at country living.
None of Tamuron’s sons had ever gone hungry, except perhaps Zakkar Kai. Sometimes, lately, Mrong Banh had found himself thinking perhaps it would have been better if they had.
Kurin, for example, leaning upon an embroidered bolster while Court Lady Hanak—the eldest of that clutch of daughters, a tender offshoot of war-ravaged House Hurekano—poured him another measure of sohju and gave a perhaps slightly forced smile. She was a round-faced, round-hipped beauty, promised to Lord Sahei’s middle son; if they produced heirs, the two Houses might merge. And yet the Second Prince had issued her an invitation to his table for the Knee-High, as if he had designs upon her. Hurekano could not afford to anger a prince by refusing the invitation, but it was unlikely Kurin had anything in mind other than vengeance for some petty slight the eldest Sahei boy might have given him.
Hunger might have taught Kurin some kindness, or Sensheo some restraint. The Fifth Prince, having both his sisters at his table, was sulking, no doubt from something the elder girl had said. He tapped his fine horn thumb-ring against the table to irritate First Princess Sabwone. The girl had her hair piled high and asymmetric to please her mother, and next to plump, beringed, beribboned Gamnae she appeared certainly older, slightly more serious—but not more beautiful. She lacked Gamnae’s shining good nature—and Concubine Luswone’s serenity.
Mrong Banh thought it quite likely Luswone, from a threadbare house used to marrying money to stay alive every time they spawned a profligate, had known enough hunger to learn circumspection. It was a pity she had not passed the lesson on to her daughter.
And Gamnae? Well, the youngest of Garan Tamuron’s brood was spoiled, and so was Prince Jin. Though they had different mothers, the two were akin, a sweetness in their temperaments that might have been given some edge by a day or two without a meal.
“Kai’s lucky,” Takshin continued. “He gets to avoid this.”
The astrologer refilled their cups. On the high dais, the Emperor sat flanked by his wives. The smaller dais to his right held Concubine Luswone’s table, full of bright fluttering court ladies with sienna-stained fingertips and asymmetrical hairstyles, all dressed in deep purple to accentuate their patroness’s pale rosy silk like the heart of a fruit. No doubt the First Queen was writhing with jealousy.
The Second Concubine, of course, was absent.
“Your father required my presence.” Mrong Banh knew he was drinking too quickly, and if he continued, he eventually might not care about the discomfort of his new robes or the pace of his imbibing. “And yours.” But not the General’s. Zakkar Kai was free tonight, and had intimated that he had plans for special company during the festival.
“He wants another horoscope.” Takshin’s mouth twisted, a crooked but genuine smile.
Oh dear. Banh gulped, though there was no sohju in his mouth. “Does he?”
“I don’t know.” Takshin waved the subject aside. “Probably not, Banh. Don’t fret, it will spoil your looks.”
Mrong Banh snorted, and hid a smile behind his sleeve.
Then there was Fourth Prince Makar, who had already been approached thrice by favor-seekers. He allowed each to sit at his table with the invited scholars, listening to their requests with a soft, bemused expression that almost hid the quick intelligence in his dark eyes. Quietly building a network of gratitude, if it could be called that. Perhaps Makar would have learned that a show of sobriety and modesty could be hubris as well, if he had been an ordinary scholar’s son studying to take the civil examinations. Prince Jin would have a table next year, but for tonight he was at Makar’s, sitting bolt-upright and looking miserable among the dark robes and peaked caps.
No doubt the conversation, entirely lacking military subjects or the rough jokes of those who practiced the warlike arts, was not to his taste.
A few days of hunger would do Jin nothing but good, and use his excess vigor for more than mischief. The boy was over the palace walls at the slightest opportunity, and his “friends” among the Golden were of the quality that enjoyed a free drink but might not hesitate to leave their patron in a sink or two. Banh clicked his tongue, and Takshin’s low, knife-edged laugh was a warning.
“You are more than fretting.” The Third Prince lifted his bowl, unpolished rai and strips of pickled turo—a peasant dish, and good luck besides—decorated with a slice of boiled fantail egg. “You are outright brooding. What ails you, Second Father?”
Of course Takshin would be the one to call him that. Banh wrinkled his nose and made a shushing motion. His own scholar’s cap lay upon the table; he didn’t want to wear it with such luminaries as To Kheon and Harung Bei in the room. He was only an astrologer, not a sailor of the classical sea, and lately the stars had been… unkind, hiding their meanings behind layers of anxiety. “It is unwise to call me that,” he said, finally. “I was thinking upon hunger, Takshin.” Precious few could address the Third Prince thus, and each time he did, Mrong Banh wondered if it would be the time Takshin would take offense.
This time, however, the young man simply gave him a piercing, sideways glance. “A subject you know much about?”
“I was not always astrologer to the Emperor.” Banh was not nearly drunk enough to think about his early years. Sometimes, he heard the dishes clanking in his dreams, and felt the shame spread hot over every part of him… but that was in the past, and little good came of thinking upon it.
Takshin aped surprise. He had a very mobile face, when he was not sneering. The boy he had been before Shan sometimes peeked through the mask of this scarred, spiked man, and was always a welcome sight. “Were you not?”
Banh poured himself another measure. If the dreams were coming again tonight, he would have to swallow much sohju to fend them off. “Did you think me eternal?”
“Him, once.” It was clear who Takshin meant. At least he did not thrust his chin in his august father’s direction. “You? Maybe. When I was very young.”
On the smaller dais directly below the Emperor’s, the Crown Prince sat in state with his new Khir wife and her pale eyes. She had dressed beautifully simply as well, and that was perhaps another reason for the First Queen to dislike her. Not that Gamwone needed reason to hate; it seemed to be her preferred state.
Outside the semicircle of princely tables, the Court proper made another horseshoe, and the temporary stage at the mouth of the bottle was a bustle of activity. Acrobats with long poles took their places, and the Court applauded—some politely, like the head of Hanweo, others loudly like Lord Daebo Tualih, both already flushed with sohju and merriment.
“The dance of the flowered rai!” a leather-lunged steward called, and the acrobats—masked, their bodies swathed in green cotton—b
egan their contortions. Poles thudded against wood, and the musicians in the screened balconies set up a long, quavering melody.
“Perhaps you could let the past fade a bit.” The astrologer picked up his own bowl. Unpolished rai packed a man’s bowels closer than the slum theaters upon farce nights, but it was tradition. Some of the old women said it was even good for you.
Takshin stiffened and set his eating-sticks down. His hand crept for the sohju jug, and Banh hurried to finish his mouthful and pour more. The prince’s cup didn’t need it; it was full, and sohju splashed.
“I am clumsy, my lord.” The traditional words of a servant’s apology escaped Mrong Banh, a reminder of patrons in a common inn and a much younger Banh shuffling between tables with his head full of stars and his back sore from blows.
Takshin said nothing. His hand closed about his wet cup instead of the jug, and his eyebrows drew together slightly. Prince Kurin leaned closer to Court Lady Hanak, and if his fingertips settled upon the back of her wrist none remarked except Banh and perhaps the Emperor, whose smile had faded a whit.
The music intensified, poles providing rhythm as they pounded, performers braced between their spines or balancing against smooth shafts, sweat beginning to darken green cloth at the armpits. To be wrapped in fabric, unable to breathe freely, to wear a mask while sweating—Heaven was indeed kind, in that it had not made Mrong Banh an acrobat.
“Prince Takshin?” Banh downed his own brimming cup of sohju. Why bother to remain even close to sober? If the Emperor called upon him, it would no doubt be for amusement. He could always say the stars required a clear head, and that his was not. It was far less worrisome than the truth. “Come, drink and be wise. It is the Knee-High, after all.”
Tchuk. One acrobat twisted upon a pole, his grip slipping, and the Court gasped. A scrape of wood, a knee hooked around the pole’s slim stalk, a twist of a cloth-wrapped wrist, and there was a gleam atop the pole that should not have been there.
The acrobat landed upon slippered feet, bending knee and twisting, the pole breaking neatly along a sawed split. Takshin erupted into motion, his boots smashing plates and cups as he leapt atop the table and flung himself into the missile’s path. His right hand whipped forward, sohju splattering and deflecting the acrobat’s aim for a critical moment, and the flung spear flashed through space, landing with another solid sound between the Crown Prince and his new wife. It stood almost upright, quivering, for a long moment before falling. The Crown Prince grabbed the spear, wrenching himself upright, and his wife’s hands were at her mouth, perhaps catching a small cry.
Shouts. Screaming. Prince Jin’s battle-cry, his young voice breaking in the middle. It was Prince Takshin who reached the stage first, going over tables with the unconscious grace of a long-legged Tabrak racing hound, scattering unpolished rai, vegetables, sohju, platters of roasted fowl, and other hearty fare in every direction. He unfolded into another leap and landed upon the temporary stage, slapping aside the remainder of the assassin-acrobat’s pole with a contemptuous motion.
“Takshin!” the Crown Prince yelled. “Takshin!”
Some thought the eldest of Garan Tamuron’s sons had cried out his brother’s name to stop the Third Prince from killing the assassin. Others whispered perhaps it was an accusation, a suspicion that the Third Prince and his foreign ways from Shan had brought ill-luck—or worse, malice—to the festival.
But Mrong Banh knew Takyeo’s cry was fear for his younger brother, and fury that the Crown Prince had not been the one to see the danger in time.
ENTICING INVITATION
It was kind of you to come.” Second Concubine Kanbina clasped Yala’s hands. Her fingers were cold but her cheeks were rosy with excitement, and her dress was stitched with tiny fanbird tails in crimson thread against deep yellow silk. “I did not think you would.”
“How could I not?” Yala’s shoulders eased. This sky-blue dress was new, low-waisted in the Khir fashion but with shorter Zhaon sleeves that did not cover her fingertips, only her knuckles. Though not yet embroidered since she had not found thread to match or contrast, its cut and fineness made it equal to the occasion. “I long to hear you play the sathron again.”
Lady Kanbina’s flush deepened and her dark eyes sparkled. “Oh, shuh, such compliments will inflate my chest and I shall become a box-bird. This is your first Knee-High?”
“In Khir it is held when the rai reaches the oxen’s knees, and we call it the Low Belly since it comes before foaling.” It came after the Green-Yeoyan festival, the lowlands rejoicing and their lords in the spine-mountains above accepting the last draft of winter-storehouse grain to clear the way for new.
“Here we eat unpolished rai and drink, though I have never liked sohju. And there? What do they drink in Khir?” As full of questions as a child, and no guile in any of them.
Or at least, none apparent.
“They drink kharis in Khir, Mother.” Zakkar Kai appeared in the rounded doorway at the end of the hall, his own festival robe brown silk and cotton with fine thread at the cuffs shaping ceduan combs, belted with wide leather. His bow lacked nothing in respect or polish, and his topknot was caged in carved wood with a dull silver pin. “Lady Komor. It is kind of you to come.”
“Your invitation was enticing.” Yala could not help but smile; Kanbina beamed fondly at the man. “Sometimes we drink konha in Khir, too. And yes, eat unpolished rai.” The peasant’s staple filled the belly, true, but Yala did not like its texture, or its effect upon her digestion.
“I am glad my brushwork passes inspection.” He stepped forward to offer Kanbina his arm, and the Second Concubine leaned upon it just as any mother with an adoring son. “It means the Emperor will not scold me.”
“Your brushwork is very handsome.” Yala touched her sleeves; her under-robe was not quite settled correctly. Dressing in a hurry never ended well; she should not have put off opening Zakkar Kai’s missive. She had also dawdled over her reply to the First Queen’s letter as if writing pained her, taking care to touch the brush-handle to her lips once or twice to denote some difficulty with Zhaon. The messenger, a stolid, nervous man with the Second Prince’s crushflower and honorific character worked onto the shoulder of his robe in pale thread, had shifted from foot to foot, obviously willing her to hurry, and she had only grown more obdurate. Now she produced a small weight from her left sleeve, its wrapping of raw burlap set off by a knot of crimson silk to match the theme of rustic luxury. “I brought a small token of—”
“Keep it.” Zakkar Kai smiled, though the word was imperative, cut short. “It is ill-luck to give anything but rai at this festival.”
“Oh.” At least Yala had not already offered it with both hands. She tucked the lump back into her sleeve, and half-bowed to express her regret. “It will give me a reason to return, then.”
“Do not be a general to my guest, Kai.” Kanbina clicked her tongue and hurried them along, her robe’s hem just barely touching freshly washed wood. “Come, the table is set. We shall have dinner, and watch the early fireflowers from my garden. It is long since I have had guests for the festival. My health…” A cough caught at her throat; she lifted her sleeve to trap it. Her heavily padded house-slippers with their rounded tips faltered.
“The Emperor allows my mother to dine privately.” Zakkar Kai finished, smoothly, folding his free hand over hers, a steadying motion. “A custom of long standing.”
“I do not like banquets either.” Yala decided it was an acceptable untruth and glanced away, admiring a scroll upon the wall to give her hostess time to recover. A long-legged bird with rough black feathers regarded her sideways from the scroll’s surface, its long curved beak a single fluid stroke. Fine work, though unsigned. “The noise, the confusion… I am glad the Crown Princess did not require my attendance. So, there is to be no sathron playing tonight, Second Concubine?”
“Please. Call me Auntie.” Kanbina, her cheeks scarlet, indicated a small kidney-shaped table draped with raw cotton cloth.
Half-glazed ware, each piece slightly but charmingly flawed, gathered like eggfowl with their chicks. “The Emperor sent dishes tonight, the same as his own table. He is very kind.”
Yala did not know enough to measure Garan Tamuron’s kindness. Still, he did not force Kanbina to appear at banquet. In Khir she would have been compared to a skittish horse, one requiring head-wrapping before it could work and useless for hunting unless its bloodline, strength, or speed was exceptional and likely to breed true.
“Who could not be kind to you, Auntie?” she murmured. It was meant to be a compliment, but Zakkar Kai’s eyelids dropped a fraction and his mouth firmed.
Kanbina, however, spread her free hand and laughed, a thin but merry sound. “Oh, my dear, here at the heart of Zhaon, there is unkindness aplenty. But we need not brood upon it. Come, sit.”
Yala arranged herself upon the square gold-and-blue cushion pointed out to her, and found to her relief that she was to face Zakkar Kai instead of sitting next to him. Kanbina clapped her hands, the servants hurried in from doors on either side, and for Komor Yala, the Knee-High Festival began.
AN ATTENTIVE SON
A great display of flame-flowers still throbbed and trembled in the sky, stars hiding behind acrid smoke and transient light-blossoms. Two kaburei in the sunny midsummer yellow of Kanbina’s house held beehive lamps of waxed paper upon long sticks, careful not to let them sway too roughly.
“She was kind to me from the beginning.” Zakkar Kai clasped his hands behind his back. He had taken only enough sohju to render him warm, but not enough to dull him. Or at least, so he hoped. “One of the few.”