by S. C. Emmett
“I could go to the Emperor and tell him what I know. Or to the Head General.” The pockmarked man’s avid dark eyes gleamed. Lattice-light fell across his face in dim diamond shapes. “Even a word to my square-leader would do.”
“True.” The nobleman laid his gloves in his lap, and the pockmarked man tensed.
“Bring your paws where I can see them, my lord.”
“My what?” A slow, amused word, as if the rich man did not understand.
“I said, bring your hands up to the table, my lord.” The Golden Guard did not reach for a hilt, but his right-hand fingers twitched. “I am a nervous man today.”
“Are you.” The nobleman placed his hands upon the table, with a token hesitation at the greasiness of the wood. “And what, precisely, would you tell the Emperor or your square-leader?”
“You think I don’t know who you are?” The pockmarked guard scoffed, and took a deep draft of his tea, his gaze never leaving the nobleman’s. “Money must soften your brain, my lord.”
“Mh.” The nobleman reached—slowly, slowly—to take the teapot, and poured himself a healthy dollop. He lifted the cup—hot, but not steaming—to his shrouded mouth, and sniffed, deeply. “Cheap tea.”
“I don’t have the coin to pay for better.” The pockmarked guard grinned. “Yet.”
“True.” The corners of the nobleman’s eyes crinkled. “Were you waiting long for my arrival?”
“It doesn’t matter.” He took another swallow, set his cup down with a grimace. “Four ingots, my fine lord. Two before I begin the work, the others to be left for me at a place I’ll…” He paused, his nose wrinkling. “Ugh.”
“This is a cheap place, indeed.” The nobleman set his untasted cup down with a soft, decided noise. “Which means the servers are quite amenable to earning a few extra slivers by adding some little tincture to a tea, to sharpen its flavor.” His eyes narrowed, their corners bunching as if he smiled, and the pockmarked man’s broad, callused hands flew to his throat. “You arrived early, my friend, but others were earlier.” Such were the words spoken by a villain in a play currently most popular in the smaller theaters instead of the more refined great high-roofed temples to educational entertainment.
When the pockmarked guard’s choking ceased, the nobleman stood, brushing the rancid cushion’s impress from the back of his robe with gloved hands. The sharp stink of death-loosened sphincters rose, and the nobleman’s nose wrinkled. Still, he bent to his work, stripping the guard of identification and any loose coin, finally tugging a short curved knife from the guard’s back-belt and sinking it into the corpse’s throat.
It was always best to be sure, and anyone discovering this fellow would assume he had simply chosen the wrong drinking companion. The nobleman tugged at his gloves and left the knife standing in the guard’s throat. None of the kitchen staff would breathe a word of poison; the consequences for killing one of the Emperor’s Golden were severe.
He left a few slivers upon the table to pay for the mess, and left the room quietly as he had entered.
PRACTICALLY KISSES
My lady?” A whisper at the bars. “My lady Yala?”
Ugh. Yala stretched, pushing at her hair. The quilted padding was better to sleep upon than filthy dungeon straw—she was seeing a depressing quantity of floor-scatterings, lately. She blinked, moving the thick blanket aside, and found Anh’s face in the dimness, pale and strained. “Anh.” She rubbed at her eyes. What I would not give for a bath.
While she was wishing, she might as well ask for a fast horse, a good hawk, and an endless flask, as the tale went.
“My lady.” Anh clasped the bars, white-knuckled. Yet another bundle rested at her slippered feet. “’Tis morning.”
Her dinner dishes were stacked neatly near the bars, too, though Yala had not had much appetite. And the girl’s expression bode little good. Weak mirrorlight sifted down; this was a luxurious cell, to have such an amenity. “So it is. What ails you, Anh?”
“My lady… they… oh, the guard says they will come for you soon.” Anh’s eyes glittered, though whether with anger or salt water was difficult to tell. “It is very early, and they will not let me run to the Jonwa to tell the Crown Prince.”
“Ah.” Yala pushed the blanket even farther aside. Sleeping in her clothes, especially her ruined sash, was uncomfortable at best. At least Anh had been able to bring a comb, the bedding, and various small things, including a sealed jug of water. “Will they at least let you attend me before the festivities?”
“I can ask.” She brightened at the thought of a task, this worthy girl.
You are a treasure, Anh. “Do so, then.”
The girl vanished, her leather-wrapped braids bouncing. Yala extended her hands and watched them shake. So, the Emperor was determined to have her whipped for showing her yue in the palace. And, without it, she was helpless, and could not even open her own throat to avoid the dishonor.
Afterward, though, she could find a way… and there were stories of maidens who bit through their own tongues and bled to death, when robbed of their yue. Yala tested her teeth, lightly, against her tongue. Where did you bite? Perhaps she could do so before the whip touched her? Or would she need the pain of the first strike to give her the will?
Movement in the hallway. She stood, hurriedly, pushing her hair back and settling her clothes, lifting her chin.
The guard, a slab-faced peasant uncomfortable in his golden half-armor, shook his head as he rattled the keys. “I shouldn’t be doing this,” he said, darkly. “Orders, you know.”
“But she has nobody to help her,” Anh said, cajoling. “I must help my lady comb her hair.”
“She has hands, don’t she?” But he put the key in the lock and twisted it, and the door-bars in a heavy metal frame swung wide. “No tricks, now.”
“Psh. Lock me in, if you must, silly man.” Anh hurried to Yala’s side. “My lady. Come, let us set you to rights. Where is the bedpan?”
She held the blanket so Yala could relieve herself without the guard’s scrutiny and change her under-robe. Then Anh folded the bedding smartly, settling her lady upon it and beginning her work with comb, ribbon, and hairpin. In short order Yala’s hair was dressed, her sliced sash folded and artfully arranged, her hands and feet chafed into suppleness, and her face brushed softly with a damp cloth. “I was coming to see what you wished for breakfast,” Anh said in an undertone. “The Jonwa is full of lamentation. The Crown Princess is weeping in her room, the Crown Prince is full of thunder, Lady Kue is snappish, and the Third Prince did not sleep for pacing. General Zakkar spent the night in the Kaeje attempting to see the Emperor, and was closeted with the Crown Prince when I left. Normally, the… well, normally, this happens in the afternoon. The Emperor must be wroth.”
“Or someone else must be.” Yala closed her eyes. “No zhu powder, Anh. There is no use.”
“But…” The kaburei changed to a softer, dry cloth. “Yes, my lady. You are so calm. It is simply awful, you should not be punished for what you did.”
“Perhaps the Emperor has his reasons.” Knowing them would not bring her any comfort at this point, but she still wondered. It had occurred to her, as she settled for last night’s attempt at sleep, that it could very well be the Emperor himself who wished Mahara dishonored, to free his eldest son for marrying another princess. Such a thought made her head hurt. “I am surprised he is involved so deeply in my case.”
“Well, it was an attack upon the Crown Prince.” Anh’s touch against her hair was familiar, and deeply comforting.
Was it? “I see.” She did not at all, but her servant’s next words dispelled much of the mystery.
“I hear it is the First Queen,” Anh whispered. “Her uncle is a grand councilor now, and at the Emperor’s ear saying that no matter what service you rendered, carrying a concealed weapon inside the palace deserves death. A whipping is a lesser punishment. Because you are a noblewoman.”
“Is that so.” Yala straightened her
back, tested her teeth against her tongue again. How hard, exactly, did one have to bite? Did Zhaon noblewomen not feel the shame of being whipped like a traitor? This was a strange land, indeed.
More footsteps. Yala’s eyes flew open; the color drained from Anh’s face. The girl swallowed, hard, and if she started weeping now, Yala might find her own composure cracking. “Hush,” she said, gently enough, and took Anh’s hands in hers. “Help me rise, Anh. You are a treasure.” She had not even finished the girl’s festival dress yet; the cut pieces were waiting in the cloth-basket in her quarters.
“Oh… my lady…” Anh’s chin trembled and her jaw worked. “Perhaps they will take me instead, and let me… I have asked the guard, but…”
“Certainly not.” A noblewoman could not allow such a thing. Yala took stock. She could walk, she supposed. And keep her composure; she had a lifetime of practice, and now was when her true worth as a daughter of Komori would show itself. “Watch over my princess, Anh. I consign her to your care.”
Anh clutched at her hands. “My lady…”
“My lady Komoroh?” The Zhaon could not say her name properly, at all. A Golden sergeant, his plumed helmet under one arm, halted at the open cell door. “Ah. I see you are awake, good. It is time. If you would come with us?”
How strange, he said it as if she had any choice. Yala lifted her chin and gently pushed Anh aside. The kaburei girl buried her face in her hands, and sank onto the straw.
It was a hot dry morning, and six Golden were far too many to shepherd one small Khir lady-in-waiting to a small stone semicircle, freshly swept and sprinkled. At least there was no filth here, and no windows pierced the bare frowning walls. Her shame would not be witnessed.
Yala’s heart beat thinly in her throat. A lean man in a red cotton robe with the Emperor’s seal upon its chest stood to one side, a long flexible leather coil clasped in his paired hands. He bowed as she passed, and she wondered if he liked his work. There was the post, clanking iron manacles depending from a length of chain, and that was Yala’s only refusal.
“No,” she said, quietly. “I will not be bound. I shall not seek to escape, but I will not be bound.”
“My lady…” The sergeant had paled too. “It, er, may be necessary. If you faint.”
“Then the whip may land as it pleases.” I am a noblewoman of Khir. If she was to be treated thus, she would not accord them the luxury of thinking her resistant or afraid. “But I will not be bound like a common criminal, sergeant.”
He glanced at the lean scarlet-clad man, who shrugged. “It is only two hands’ worth. Practically kisses.” Still, the whipmaster looked rather green.
Ten. Well, I shall endure. There was little in the Hundreds about the proper way to suffer such a thing; she was left to her own devices.
“Thank you, whipmaster.” She could be as sarcastic as she wished, but Zhaon was not the language for it. “I shall forgive you, since you are merely performing your duty to your lord.” Yala raised her chin again and glided forward. The guards tensed, but she simply walked to the post and studied it. A semicircle of iron sheathed its front, and she touched the warm metal, wincing slightly. When the sun cleared the lower walls of this place, it would be fierce, and perhaps a morning session was better than having to clasp a scorching post at the end of a long southron afternoon.
She turned her head slightly. “I am ready,” she said. “Proceed.” If she put her tongue to the right, and began to bite when the whip descended, perhaps the pain would give her strength?
The sergeant cleared his throat. “I should read the charges.“
“If you like,” the whipmaster weighed in. A slithering sound—the whip, uncoiled. “May be best to simply get this over with. Imagine, whipping a lady.”
So the Zhaon did not whip noblewomen after all? Perhaps only foreign ones. They would dishonor what they could not break, if she let them.
But only if she let them.
“Mh.” A restive motion, the sergeant’s boots creaking. “Are you sure you don’t want the post, my lady?”
Yala, her tongue held firmly between her molars—it made her cheek bulge in a most unladylike fashion—shook her head. Perhaps her hairpin would fall out. That would be embarrassing.
The sergeant exhaled sharply. There was a crackle of rai-paper—the scroll detailing her offense, of course. He began to read, slowly.
More slithering, smacking sounds. She tried not to flinch, and shut her eyes. Was he testing the whip?
Crack.
She did not cower, though it was difficult to keep her shoulders straight and her knees locked. No pain—he had simply been assuring himself of a clear strike. The sergeant droned on.
Yala bit down, testing her tongue’s resilience. Was it possible, or simply a story? She was about to find out. The world went away, blood pounding a gallop in her ears. She clasped her fingers against cool metal, waiting. The sergeant’s drone halted, and a deep hush fell over the world.
Then came a rushing sound, like wind over water.
Crack.
It still did not hurt. A collective gasp echoed in the small stone enclosure. Her heart’s hooves pounded so hard her head seemed to swell.
“Your Highness…” The sergeant, sounding as if he had been struck in the stomach.
“Hm.” A familiar voice, amused and sharp, the scrape of a soldier’s boot-heel against stone. “Rather early in the day for this, is it not?”
So. He had come to watch, or for some other reason?
“Your Highness.” Again, the sergeant, with barely enough breath to form the words. “I must respectfully—”
“Shut your mouth. And you. Whipmaster. If you must, you may strike again.”
“But… but you…” Slight, pale words. The whipmaster did not sound nearly so bored now.
“Indeed.” The new arrival, grimly amused, moved with a rustle. “Refresh my memory. What is the penalty for attacking a prince?”
“Your Highness…” The sergeant could not find other words, apparently.
Yala could not help herself. She turned, slowly, every joint creaking as an old woman’s. The slight brushing of her skirt must have told him she had moved, for he spoke again.
“This farce has gone far enough.” Garan Takshin, Third Prince of Zhaon, stood with his back to her. His topknot was caged in gold today, and instead of his Shan costume he wore a noble’s robe, gold embroidery chasing hau characters along his shoulders and the wide black silk cuffs. A ragged slice tore through the fabric over his broad back, a terrible diagonal slash from shoulder to hip. Silk moved, touched by a stray breeze, and blood crept out, freed into open air. “If my honored father wishes to have someone scourged, he may send his guards for me. I should warn you—and him—though, that I will not stay my hand. It is disgraceful for an Emperor to strike an innocent woman because a cockroach whistles in his ear.”
Takshin turned upon his heel, and his lazy half-smile belied his glittering dark gaze. His scarred lip did not twitch, and high color stood in his cheeks. That terrible gaze lingered on her face, and Yala realized she was still biting her tongue. Her hands felt too large for her wrists, her feet were leaden, and a scalding flush had risen to her own face.
How had he moved so quickly? What manner of man would place himself under a whip-strike?
“It is a very good thing you were not harmed, Komor Yala.” He offered his arm, as if he had not just been struck across the back. “Or I would cut off the hand that performed such a deed.”
Dreaming-slow, she took a half-step forward. Her hand crept to the crook of his elbow. “Third Prince,” she managed, through dry lips. “I am very happy to see you.”
“I should hope so.” He did not so much as glance at the sergeant, the half-dozen golden-gleaming guards, the scarlet-clad whipmaster whose leather snake lay discarded at his feet as he clasped both hands, wrapped with linen to wick away the sweat of hard work, to his mouth like a child. “Come, Yala. I shall take you home.”
&nbs
p; THE WRONG NOTE TO STRIKE
The deep, painful itching all over Garan Tamuron’s torso, spreading down his legs, was not half as irritating as the feeling of being slightly outplayed. “He did what?”
Kai folded his arms. “Third Prince Takshin took Lady Komor from the whipping-post, my lord.” He kept the words as neutral as possible. “He was struck, once, by the whipmaster.”
“Clumsy of him.” Whether the Emperor meant Takshin or the hapless whip-wielder was an open question, and he did not add more to dispel the mystery. By Heaven, he longed to slide his hands under his morning-robe and scratch at the suppurations. This morning he had snapped at Dho Anha again, too, whitening her face and causing her to withdraw as soon as possible. “So, he defied me.”
Not that it was a surprise, but still… Takshin had been quicker off the mark than he anticipated. Tamuron had thought the boy would need prompting.
He could have hoped Kai would take less prompting at the moment, but the general forged ahead, an edge to each word. “And saved you from the shame of whipping an innocent woman.”
I deserved that. His rage had cooled, and the consciousness of having committed a misstep irritated him, just as the itching did, and the tingling ache in fingers and toes, not to mention the creeping headache and the recurrent clumsiness. Physician Kihon was concerned about the royal urine taking on a purple tint, as well. The malady had raised its banners and was far past his border posts. “Shamed Gamwone and their clan in the bargain, too. And saved Takyeo from appearing weak, since most will suspect he sent Takshin to perform this deed.”
“I take it your temper has abated somewhat.” Kai arched an eyebrow. He did not move closer, staying at the distance etiquette required, and that was new.
“Hardly.” Come now, adoptive-son. Understand me. “Now all the palace women will carry knives.” It was disconcerting to piss in a different color, and it had occurred so suddenly. The body, like a horse run too hard in its youth, failed quickly once the course approached its end.