by Devin Madson
“I respect you and I respect your people, and I will be honest with you now in the hope you will be honest with me in turn. We are in danger here. The men who hold the city this castle stands in are not our friends. The man whose castle this was is marching an army this way. He is loyal to your Gideon e’Torin, so if I understand the relationships correctly, he may be as unkind to you and your people as he will be to me and mine. So I ask if you will fight with me. Against Gideon. Or if not against him at least to protect this castle and your people currently taking refuge here when Gideon’s army comes to reclaim it.”
Another long silence while Ezma stared down into the dark tea in her bowl, no longer steaming. “You have already spoken to Rah.”
“Yes, but not about this. I travelled with him and was glad to see him well.”
Still staring into her untouched tea, the whisperer set a hand upon the table and tapped a rhythm with her fingertips. Four beats. Short short short long. Short short short long. Short short short long. In the naval code of the Bahains it meant danger beneath the water.
She looked up. “Do you know what a horse whisperer is?”
“Not really.”
Short short short long. Short short short long. Short short short long.
“The Levanti do not have kings and queens, or emperors and empresses, nor even lords as you do, as all the city states surrounding our plains do. We value leadership that is earned. Our herd masters and matriarchs are always old and wise and strong and chosen, not born. Same with our Swords. They may challenge one another, and spats of honour are common, but one does not get to be Made as a Sword of the Levanti without earning it.”
For the first time since she had started speaking my language, Tor moved. It was but a shift of his weight as though one of his legs had gone to sleep, but it drew a fleeting glance all too like pity from the whisperer before she went on.
“And when a Levanti is wise beyond their years, when they show an innate ability to understand the needs of our horses, when they prove themselves the best of all our people, they are sometimes chosen to be trained as horse whisperers. No longer to travel with a herd but to live alone, serving as healer and guide and judge to all Levanti who come to them regardless of herd. We are part of all herds and of none, and our word is law through which the will of the gods is done. If I tell them to fight they will fight, but if I tell them to lay down their swords they will lay down their swords no matter what Rah e’Torin may say about it.”
I stared at her, at her proudly lifted chin and her tightly pressed lips, and saw something of myself in her aging face. Someone intent on being respected for what and who they were, no matter what they came up against. Or how far they were from home.
“And do you intend to tell them to fight? Or not to?”
“That depends. Were I to help you, would you honour the debt when it came due?”
“As far as I am able, yes.”
She looked at Tor, who appeared intent on staring at his undrunk tea rather than meet her gaze. Was there more to his discomfort than her pretence at not knowing our language? I wished I could ask, but even if he didn’t trust her, I had to. We needed the Levanti.
“I cannot fight this battle,” she said. “But if Rah e’Torin chooses to lead my people against this thrall of Gideon who comes for us, I will not stand in the way, however little anyone should risk putting their faith in such a man.”
She flicked another look at Tor, but smiled at me. “And no doubt there will soon come a moment when I need something in return.”
“Indeed. I am sure it will be a fair trade.”
“Naturally.” The horse whisperer rose on the word. “If there is nothing else, I will leave you now. There is always much to be done with the horses after prolonged travelling, and I do not like to leave the task solely to my apprentice, as much as I value his work.”
“Of course. Thank you for your time, Whisperer.”
With a nod to me and another glance at Tor, she turned proudly upon her heel and strode toward the archway, the bones in her crown clicking.
Once she was out of sight, I let out a long breath. Tor didn’t move, was staring at his knees like a scolded child.
“You didn’t know she could speak Kisian?”
Without looking up, he shook his head.
“If she has been here ten years, I suppose it is hardly surprising.”
When he made no answer, I heaved another sigh and slid a plate of skewered fruit across the table to him. “Have something to eat. And I think we could both do with a stronger drink after that.”
He didn’t answer, and my heart sank. “I know you and I did not get along well the last time we were thrown together,” I said. “I was wary and angry, I think justifiably after the fall of my city, but even so I did not treat you with a proper degree of respect, and I’m sorry. I owe Rah more than I can ever repay for staying with me and for saving Minister Manshin, and whatever ill your horse whisperer thinks of him, I will be proud to fight alongside him.”
“She is just angry people look to Rah for leadership.”
“She dislikes him so much?”
A crease appeared between his dark brows. “As a person she doesn’t know him. As competition, she’s tried to get rid of him once already.” At last he looked up. “All she said about horse whisperers ought to be true, but she is leading these people like a herd master and has been allowed to do so because they have no other strong leader. Until Rah arrived and—”
He broke off, perhaps realising how much he was telling me.
I nudged the fruit platter closer. “So if he did challenge her, do you still think he would only get half of them?”
“Probably. She’s still a horse whisperer, but he would have to divide us to do it, and no Levanti does that lightly.”
“Even when she is not doing right by her position?”
“It takes a full conclave of other horse whisperers to exile one. At first I assumed she had been caught up in the same… difficult times we were, but to have been here ten years…” Tor closed his eyes and lifted his face to the cavernous ceiling, covered in its stone spikes like an upside-down mountain range. For a moment he seemed to be praying, but tears leaked from the corners of his eyes and he looked altogether younger and more vulnerable than the sneering young man I had first met at the cursed woodcutter’s hut.
He blinked fast to stem his tears, and I took up the teapot to refill my bowl rather than embarrass him with my stare. “If Rah challenged her on her exile, she would throw it back at him,” he said, a throaty note to his voice he sought to clear with a cough. “He is an exiled exile. Though such things have little meaning now we are so divided. Why heed who is exiled on Gideon’s orders if we do not follow Gideon? We have no… no… history, no… example…”
“Precedent?” I said.
“Is that the right word?” He turned a ferocious gaze on me. “Precedent then. Yes. It has never happened before. No Levanti has travelled this far south. No Levanti has been forced to break with their herd. No Levanti has claimed themselves an emperor. No Levanti has… has knelt in a castle having tea with an empress, being spoken to like an equal.” He looked away again, his shaking hand lowering his bowl with a clatter. “I don’t know who we are anymore. Who I am.”
It seemed for a moment he might say more, but instead he picked up a slice of plum and chewed it like it had offended him, all brooding scowl. Not unlike the look my brother might have worn. And for the first time I wondered how old he was. The lack of hair made all the other Levanti appear older, but Tor, like Ezma, had hair so long it looked like it had rarely been cut. Although unlike Ezma, Tor wore his tied back and tangled and seemed to hate it. I had asked before and received no answer, but perhaps now…
“Please forgive my ignorance,” I said, dropping the mantle of the empress completely. “But I am unaware of your customs and would like to know at what age you will cut off your hair as the others do? Or is that not something to do with—”
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“Sixteen cycles,” he said, and perhaps feeling he had interrupted rudely, added, “Your Majesty. That’s when we are Made as Swords.”
“Made?”
“Branded before the gods, giving our lives in service.”
“And you?” I knew I was pushing it. He had sneered at me for such questions before, but sitting alone with the tea cooling in its bowls and the waves crashing against the cliff was different to that rainswept road where General Kitado lay dying. “When will you be branded?”
He didn’t answer. If I wanted him to speak, I would have to speak first. Tanaka had been the same, stubborn and proud.
I slid my hands down my thighs, smoothing fabric. “Did you know I was never meant to be the empress?” I said. “Kisia has never had a woman sit on the throne before. It ought to have gone to my brother. I loved him, so that was all right, up until it wasn’t.” Tor looked up, that deep crease between his brows again. “Until I realised I had just been telling myself it was all right, that I didn’t really want it, that he deserved it more, when deep down I knew none of it was true. I was not less worthy. I was not less qualified. It was all right to want it, to yearn for it, to feel… incomplete without it.” When he didn’t speak, I shrugged. “We all have our—”
“Two years ago.” He barked the words, forcing them out. “I should have been Made two years ago. I have lived almost nineteen cycles and still I am not Made. Gideon…” He took a breath and let it go in a rush. “Gideon gave me to the Chiltaens instead so I could learn to speak their language. Knowing how to speak it has kept me alive because I’m valuable, but I would give that up in a heartbeat to be a real member of my herd. Or I would have. Once.”
“But you are!”
“No, I’m not,” he said, rising so quickly he knocked the table, sending the dishes clinking. “I… I thank you for the tea and the… the kindness, Your Majesty, but I really must get back to my people.”
There was nothing I could say. For whatever the gods said about belonging coming from inside one’s own heart, I had the same need, the same drive, the same yearning to be acknowledged. To sit on the throne and be properly crowned as empress of a united Kisian Empire in my own right. What wouldn’t I give to have it so? What hadn’t I already?
We knelt around the small table, Minister Manshin, General Ryoji, General Moto, and me, the size of our forces clear in the size of our meeting. Had we not been attacked taking the ships, I would have had twice the number, but we had been and now I didn’t—the past not a place worth walking.
“At least we need not fear an attack from the sea,” Moto said. “Any ships that didn’t escape with us surely burned.”
Solemn nods agreed. Manshin had chosen a small, out of the way chamber for our meeting, and while there was tea and food there were no servants to pour or clear away. There were not even guards, only a pair of braziers fighting back the castle’s pervasive chill. Manshin, it seemed, was taking no risks.
“It is a small consolation,” he said, “when we are so precariously positioned.”
“I could wish for more soldiers,” Moto agreed. “But this castle is more fortress than palace. Almost as impenetrable as Koi.”
“And look what happened there.”
“Well yes, Excellency, but that was thanks to a traitor. We do not—”
“Don’t we?” Manshin looked around the table. “This castle has been held by the Bahains for sixteen years, and they have not been hated masters. Whatever his loyalties, Bahain is a fine warrior and tactician, and he, like his predecessor Lord Toi, defended this city from roaming pirates with his own sweat and blood. We have been here a day and you think there is no one here willing to open the castle gates to him as Governor Koali will open the gates to the city?”
I thought of all the servants who bowed to me in the passages, who made up my sleeping mat and filled the braziers, who brought me food and tea and warm washing water. Somewhere amongst so many there had to be one whose loyalty to the Bahains outweighed all sense of self-preservation. There was always one.
It had started raining again as the evening wore on, and now as the drops pattered upon the jutting stone windowsill, the same thoughts seemed to pass through each of my companions’ minds.
“Is there any way we can avoid a siege?” I said. “The harbour is full of ships.”
“Ships with captains loyal to the Bahains and Governor Koali, Your Majesty,” Manshin said. “At best they will do nothing. At worst they will block all attempts to resupply the castle.”
“You mean at worst we have walked into a trap,” I said, panic thumping like a drum in my ears. “Governor Koali will make sure the city does not fight for me. The servants may betray me. And we cannot even be sure of our supply line. It sounds like a siege is unwise. The horse whisperer says the Levanti may fight for us. Would meeting Bahain in the field be the best course of action?”
Manshin and Moto looked at one another, while General Ryoji stared at the table. “Even with the number of Levanti here, assuming they all fight, we are still well outnumbered by all reports,” he said. “We can hold a siege; it would just be difficult and may last some time.”
“Time in which Gideon e’Torin tightens his hold on my empire and the Chiltaens can regroup.”
“Yes, Your Majesty, and with winter on its way we will soon be stuck for the season.”
“During the best time to push the Levanti emperor, whose warriors have never had to deal with snow.”
Outside, the rain went on pouring. Seconds passed, coals clinking in their braziers.
“We could retreat, Your Majesty,” General Moto said, his gaze flitting to Manshin. “We could leave a token force so it appears we are manning the castle and slip away during the night.”
Retreat. I had known the suggestion was coming yet it was still a punch, and I sat winded. This ought to have been a great success, taking Bahain’s castle from beneath his feet, drawing him away so the rest of my army could follow and crush him against his own gates. It had seemed so clever. So sneaky. And now retreat was all they could counsel. They were right; I just couldn’t bring myself to say so, to believe it had all been for nothing.
A loud knock shook the door. Ryoji reached for his blade, but Minister Manshin waved him down and rose. The knock came again as he crossed the floor on wary steps to rest his hand upon the pocked metal latch. “Who is it? I gave orders we were not to be disturbed.”
No answer came. More bad news perhaps. Or an assassin. Wouldn’t that be a way to go out, stabbed at my council meeting before the battle even started.
Manshin leaned closer to the door.
“I am Rah e’Torin,” came the muffled voice from outside, followed by the distinct sound of a whisper. “I have a… plan for… the council.”
Manshin looked my way, his face deceptively neutral. “Majesty?”
“Let him in. At this point I think we can all agree we need any help we can get.”
“Are you sure we can trust him, Your Majesty?” Moto’s words were quick and urgent. “His countrymen are allies of the false emperor and—”
“And so are some of ours, General. This war ceased to be straightforward quite some time ago, and Rah e’Torin put himself at great risk to protect me at a time when no one else, not even my own countrymen”—I nodded at Moto himself—“would. I trust him as much as I trust any of you.” I lifted my chin and dared not look at Minister Manshin. “Let him in.”
Silenced, Moto made no more complaint, but the look on his face was far from welcoming when the minister pulled open the door and there on the threshold stood Rah. He had shaved his stubble and head since that morning, and wore a fresh set of clothes, but discoloured bruises still traced lines of pain across his face.
All eyes fixed upon him as he walked in, Tor in his wake. He glanced at each of the men in turn, but it was at me he stared and said in his awkward, halting Kisian, “Your Majesty, you must ambush.”
A beat of disbelief, then Minister Manshin
and General Moto exclaimed in unison, “Ambush? Bahain’s army is as good as upon us. We have no time.”
“No time. And such a risk as cannot be thought of.”
“Not enough soldiers.”
“If we had twice the number.”
“Or more time.”
I let them go on exchanging their complaints back and forth while Rah watched them, Tor hissing translations in his ear. When at last the two older men had talked themselves out, all eyes turned to me. Except for Tor, who seemed intent upon the chisel marks in the ceiling. “Perhaps,” I said, “we should hear the rest of the plan before we so loudly condemn it. Do join us, Captain e’Torin.”
Rah glanced in confusion at Tor, but after a brief exchange Rah sat upon a spare cushion while Tor remained standing behind him.
“An ambush,” I said to the Levanti I had kissed who was now sitting at my council table. Even Mother would have laughed at how twisted these knots were getting. “How? Where? Grace Bahain has many men.”
Tor relayed my question, his gaze determinedly fixed upon the window. Rah nodded and spoke slow enough for Tor to translate as he went. “Ambush in the night. Tomorrow night. You say he will be here the day after tomorrow. He marches fast. But no commander takes unrested soldiers into battle unless they must. They will camp. They will be tired. They will not make fortifications or expect attack when they know, as you do”—Rah gestured here to the two men who had spent the last few minutes listing everything wrong with such a plan—“that to attack would be foolish when you have big, strong walls you can hide behind.”
My advisors bristled at the word hide, but they let the Levanti keep talking. Tor spoke my language, but it was at Rah I stared, watching the energy and passion in his every expression.
“On the plains we have a form of night attack we use against raiders from the city states, called ekkafo; it means—” Rah waved a hand as he sought words to explain it and eventually looked to Tor for help. The young man who had stopped translating to wait shrugged and said, “It means something like ‘night song,’ but it involves a lot more stabbing and blood than singing, so don’t get the wrong idea. We’ve…” He paused, swallowed. “Swords have been able to decimate large bands of Korune and Tempachi with relatively small numbers. It would not be possible to teach you the song or the precision of navigation required in so short a time, but as long as your soldiers are willing to follow a Levanti leader, Rah believes he can adapt the strategy effectively to use small groups rather than a hundred-odd individuals.”