The Bloody Throne, page 11
“No sign of them yet,” Zan Fein said softly, his draught of umu perfume somewhat ameliorated by open air. He balanced upon one of the wide covered stairs ascending to the porch, his jatajatas granting him a few fingerwidths’ more height; sometimes even laborers wore the sandals with the wooden bars upon their soles to avoid deep muck. Highborn women used them to keep their hems free of mire, and the sway of their skirts—or a eunuch’s robe—while walking with the particular mincing gait required was the subject of much allusion and theatrical punning. “Some cavalry scouts have crossed into Shan; we do not know if Suon Kiron survives.”
“If he does not, Shan will need a new king.” Kurin considered the notion. It would certainly irritate Takshin to be pressed into that service, though it would please their mother roundly. Perhaps he could even send Mother south for retirement in a balmier climate, turning her into his little brother’s problem. “If Shan is brought closer to Zhaon, so much the better.” His thumb caressed a large carved scentwood bead, tapping it against his hurai before he moved on to the next.
“No doubt.” Zan Fein allowed as much, his fan opening. The serpent painted upon its side, in the style of Hua Luong’s illustrations, twitched its shoulders. “Yet the Tabrak must retreat before we may even think of such things.”
“They always have before.” Now Kurin understood why Father had always carried kombin. Stroking prayer-beads was soothing even if one was a modern man and somewhat irreligious, and helped the head-meat remain systematic and nimble at once.
“They have never attacked Shan first before. Generally they come through the Westron Wastes and strike the fields north of Zhaon-An. And besieging Suon’s capital…” Zan Fein’s fan flicked. The serpent was a masterpiece of subtle scale-shading, a creature well known for its power and wisdom.
Irritation scraped under Kurin’s liver, turning his skin into a mass of prickles. A few barbarians with mourning-colored skin were nothing, and he cared little for Shan’s troubles as long as they did not become Zhaon’s. But the filthy things had killed his sister—when questioned, their “envoy” only laughed and repeated a pretty bird thought she could fly in terribly accented, guttural tones.
Sabwone had always loved the story of Hae Jinwone during the Blood Years. It was entirely like her to throw herself from some battlements.
Where was Suon Kiron? If he was too weak to hold his country or keep Kurin’s sister safe, perhaps Zhaon should take Shan under a protective wing once the Pale Horde had vanished again.
“And none of our agents have sent a word?” That was troubling. Kurin did not put it past the chief court eunuch to keep some tidbits to himself—a man was only as powerful as the secrets he kept.
Yet it would not be wise of chief court eunuch to keep such things from an Emperor. Not at all.
“No. Which is quite concerning as well.” The fan moved lazily, Zan Fein’s eyes half-lidded as usual while he contemplated some question of policy. His network of informers—some official, others definitely the opposite—was robust in the South. There were few traders averse to making even more profit by sending along information, whether they owed allegiance to one country or the other.
A susurration of activity along one of the garden paths drew Kurin’s attention. Ah. “Little brother has appeared,” he murmured, and counted off a few more kombin beads while layers of guards and ministerial protocol were navigated by a royal family member.
The arriving son of Garan Tamuron had not slept well last night, judging by the dark shadows under his eyes. He strode along a well-swept flagstone path from one of the Kaeje’s smaller doors, halted at the foot of the stairs, and bowed—the salute of a younger brother to an elder. Then he caught himself, visibly, and added the depth and polish expected when the person you were saluting was the Emperor and not merely a family member.
“Good morning, Jin.” Kurin hoped his greeting was warm enough; he beckoned Jin onto the porch. “Are you well? And Third Mother? I hope the unpleasantness last night did not cause her any upset.”
“She slept through it.” Jin had taken some care with dressing; his robe was almost sober enough to be one of Makar’s and his topknot-cage bore no ornamentation. He straightened, casting a guilty glance at the chief eunuch, and did not take the invitation to ascend into shade. “Honorable Zan Fein.”
“My lord Sixth Prince.” Zan Fein’s own bow was a marvel of accuracy, pausing just long enough to denote deep respect as well as kindliness, his fan closed and held well aside. “Your mother is in my daily prayers; if aught may soothe or comfort her from my household, it is already being wrapped.”
The proverb quoted was kindness itself, and Kurin thought it quite possible the crafty fellow even meant it. The chief court eunuch had his own counting-frame for power, and yet another one for prestige.
The two were not nearly synonymous.
“You went over the walls again last night, my little longtail.” Kurin would have liked to broach the subject gently, but he had much to accomplish today. The hem of his scarlet-and-gold robe moved slightly on a hot breeze, breath-moist from the water garden. “Really, that is not princely behavior.”
Jin’s chin set; he scowled like a much younger boy. Father had been too busy to pay much attention to his antics, but Kurin would have thought Second Concubine Luswone would have taught the boy some restraint or propriety.
Still, he was young.
“What else can I do?” the Sixth Prince burst out. “Sabi’s gone, my mother is crying, and Ah-Yeo…” He halted; a deep flush worked up his neck, stained his cheeks, and died. A water-clock clip-clopped in the near distance, providing brief emphasis.
Kurin watched the expressions crossing his youngest brother’s face. “Eldest Brother is gone,” he said, overlooking the ill-luck of naming the dead even obliquely. Of course a sibling would grieve, and Jin had been in the sickroom with the gutsplit stink. It was rather a bad show to put on at the end, in Kurin’s opinion, wanting all your brothers and remaining sister to see you suffer nobly without a thought for how it might turn their stomachs. Misguided virtue was worse than none at all. “So is Father. You’ve had much to bear, little brother. But honestly, you cannot leap the walls at night anymore. It isn’t safe.”
“Well, if I hadn’t, I never would have…” Again the boy halted, and he tucked his hands in his sleeves. It was odd to see him out of practice-armor at this hour; he was usually at the drillyard with Golden and soldiers. They said he had a gift for weaponry, which would bear watching—but every royal family needed a general or two.
It would certainly be more to Kurin’s taste than depending upon Zakkar Kai’s continued loyalty. Even if adopted, even if allowed to keep a princely hurai, there were reasons to be wary of foundlings.
“Never would have found the assassin on the roof.” The kombin coiled neatly into his palm; Kurin reached into his capacious crimson sleeve with his free hand, bringing out a sadly abused topknot-cage instead. “You left this behind. Be more careful next time, or they will start sending better.”
“They?” Jin’s dark gaze, very much like his mother’s, was nonetheless hot and direct as the First Concubine’s would never be. “Who are they?”
Kurin could not remember hearing Garan Daebo-a Luswone ever speak above a well-bred murmur, or even deploying a sharp glance. “We are the sons of Garan Tamuron.” The morning sunlight was very heavy, and very warm. Kurin studied his youngest brother, an unwelcome prickle at his lower back. Normally he did not sweat, but robes of state were a burden in more ways than one. “There are many who fear our family.” He contented himself with that observation, proffering the topknot-cage upon his open palm. His other hand cupped the kombin, and he was annoyed at the tension in his own fingers. “You are old enough to know that other noble clans might think themselves fit for the throne.”
Jin’s mouth opened slightly. He studied Kurin in return, and the faint reddening of morning shaving upon his cheeks was unnecessary. Still, what boy did not long to be a man?
Finally, Garan Jin climbed three steps and took the battered leather topknot-cage with both hands as etiquette dictated, bowing as deeply as he ever had to Father. “The Emperor’s kindness,” he muttered, and if there was some childish sarcasm in the phrase, Kurin decided it was allowable in this instance.
But only this once.
“Jin.” He tried for the paternal, kindly tone he had practiced so often lately. “It would grieve me, were you or Third Mother to suffer harm. Be more careful. Please.”
It was, he dared say, even diplomatic of him, and no doubt Zan Fein was taking note.
“I will, Your Majesty.” Jin must have been thinking of Sabi, because it was a perfect impression of their eldest sister’s icy formality when she considered someone undeserving of any politesse and wished to be exquisitely clear it was deployed only because she was noble. No doubt the imitation was lent strength by the long Daebo nose both of them had gained from the First Concubine.
Still, it was downright uncanny, and a cool finger touched Kurin’s nape. Even a man who did not believe in angry shades might well feel a qualm.
Yet there was nothing for Sabi to be angry with him over. Father had married her off, and Kurin could hardly be blamed for the Tabrak. He had been scrupulously filial, attending to her pyre and even ordering her head be given a jointed doll’s body to carry into whatever heaven awaited a princess. Besides, even her shade must know she had been, so far as he could have one among his siblings, his favorite.
Beautiful, clawing, intelligent, merry—if only she had been a court lady, not his sister. Already his ministers were pressing him to show a preference among their daughters or nieces. He had no intention of accumulating wives or granting any noble clan the pride of that consideration just yet; giving any clan the chance of a pliable infant heir to profess some loyalty to would upset the current delicate balance.
Even the courtesans in the Theater District he had called upon as a prince had never been granted any sign of overweening favor; he had visited the most attractive or expensive precisely as much as was required of a man in his station and no more. Any who showed signs of swelling or ambition would have to be dealt with in one fashion or another.
He preferred his pleasures to be transitory for at least another winter or two, until he could prune certain noble branches of their heaviest fruit.
“See that you do,” Kurin added, and made an affectionate brushing gesture, dismissing a younger sibling. “Comfort Third Mother, little brother. I do not wish her troubled.”
“The Emperor speaks.” Jin bowed again, and took the prescribed steps backward as if he were a courtier instead of a royal brother. Kurin waited for him to add a tremulous grin or even a longtail’s scrunch-face, but neither came.
Instead, his youngest brother regarded him somberly, with a quite unwonted flatness to his dark gaze, before retreating from the royal presence with almost unprincely speed. The ministers parted before him, avid glances seeking to discern if the Sixth Prince had lost any royal favor. Daebo was not represented at court; though Luswone had kin among several minor clans, her own had made the mistake of refusing to submit to Garan Tamuron.
Submission had not been Sabwone’s strong suit, either, though she had in the end accepted her marriage. Had Suon Kiron treated her well?
Zan Fein said nothing, his gaze turned across the garden as if lost in aesthetic appreciation of its balance between clipped, manicured green and the rioting flowers; his fan reopened and commenced lazy motion. A jaelo-scented breeze touched Kurin’s cheeks.
He had many things to do today, yet he lingered upon the porch, kombin beads slipping through his fingers. Zan Fein still said nothing. Had Father ever been irritated by this man’s silence?
“He is a boy,” Kurin finally murmured. “I wonder that Third Mother did not teach him better manners.”
“Grief has many a strange effect.” The eunuch’s fan did not halt its steady motion. A draught of umu scent reached Kurin, who could not now wrinkle his nose at it. Those positioned so far above all did not mention the stink of middens. “The Emperor’s Third Mother is prostrate. The Second Mother refuses all visitors…”
And my own mother alternately rages and weeps; I cannot keep the gossip contained much longer. Kurin tucked the kombin away and produced his own fan, more to push away the umu scent than for any vestige of coolness. He half-turned, as if absorbing a fractionally different garden vista.
“And a certain bath-girl is sick with grief too.” Zan Fein’s words were hardly audible.
Kurin’s fan did not halt. The quotation brushed upon its span was a scholarly exhortation to judicious patience, and he had selected it this morning with half a thought that the very quality it named would be called upon in great measure this afternoon.
In fact, the test had arrived sooner, as such tests often did.
“Dho Anha is ill?” Kurin did not lower his voice. If a courtier was hiding in the shrubbery, let them hear he knew the name of the bath-girl his father had shown such marked preference to in his last few moon-cycles of life. “It is a shame, she made my father’s last days endurable. We shall send the best court physician to her aid.”
“To a bath-girl’s aid?” Zan Fein’s eyebrow arched, but he was not remarking upon the impropriety of such a gesture.
No, the chief court eunuch was hinting, very delicately, that it would have to be a physician of surpassing renown if Kurin wished to avoid being seen as the author of the poor girl’s misfortune. Of course, a prince would have no reason to ill-wish such a lowly creature.
But his mother… ah, Garan Yulehi-a Gamwone the First Mother of the Emperor, who gossip painted as the author of a certain concubine’s miscarriage and barrenness, who had been named upon that concubine’s deathbed where the words of the dying carried weight, whose own physician—rumored to know more than a little about the entire affair—had become inconvenient and died of a belly-gripe?
He had warned her to avoid such displays. A sour taste filled Kurin’s mouth. He loved his mother as a filial son ought; he had also advised her, in the clearest possible terms, such behavior would not be tolerated. And over a silly bath-girl, too.
“She made my father’s last days bearable,” he repeated. “Send the two best court physicians to her, Zan Fein. And let us be about the rest of the morning’s business. There is a visit I must make this afternoon.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” the eunuch replied, inclining his top half as even the highest-ranked must when the Emperor gave a command.
SILLY GIRL
The stink was massive—roasting, ash, rot, middenheaps, dung and other detritus. A haze hung over the piercetowered capital of Shan, and the marks upon this wooded hill showed where another group of horsemen had used it recently, probably because it commanded such a fine view of Shan’s liver and head-meat.
Tabrak’s Pale Horde had melted into the northern hills not long before, possibly sensing his return with bloodriders and what other forces he had hurriedly gathered; a swathe of trampled devastation showed their passage much like the silvery trail of a greasebug or spiral-shell in a garden. From here, the breached gate could not be seen, but a gout of black smoke lifting from the palace hill showed even that hard kernel had been cracked.
And the king of Shan had not managed to meet the enemy at all. Oh, he had found their trail, but precious time had been lost since they were not behaving as they should.
Of course, they were barbarians. And yet.
The man upon the shuddering horse before his king had lost a great deal of weight, and was not smiling as was his usual wont. A smoke-stained bandage wrapped about his head, another around his right shoulder stained with old, crusted blood, and he stared at the hooves of the king’s mount, too exhausted to blush with shame. His left arm was locked across his midsection, and it was quite possible there was another wound there, not to mention the tatters in the leather half-armor clinging to his muscled legs.
In short, Lord Buwon had nothing to be ashamed of, the shame lay entirely elsewhere, and Suon Kiron wished one of his oldest friends and bloodriders would cease hanging his head.
“She did not wait,” Buwon repeated, heavily. “The moment the gates were forced, she… my king, she…”
“She jumped.” The exhausted woman upon a stubby-legged pony at Buwon’s side had hacked at her hair in an excess of grief, or perhaps there had been some dishonor. Ragged tendrils of red-black brushed her thin shoulders. The soot clinging to her dress did not hide the fact that it had been of high quality though sober cloth and cut, and no hairpin clung to the mess of her shorn hair. “I could not halt her. She… her dress tore, you see.” She opened a bruised hand, blisters showing where reins had cut cruelly into a noblewoman’s palm. A scrap of silk clung to the wounds, so dyed with old blood and sweat the color could not be distinguished. Great dark circles lingered under the woman’s eyes, and her words were tinted with the softness of Zhaon. “My lord… Great King…” She swung between Zhaon and the Shan dialect, obviously at a loss to decide how to address him.
Kiron remembered her name with a harsh mental effort. “Lady Daebo Nijera.” He hoped he sounded kind, but there was something sharp in his throat, like the crushed rocks pounded into roadways by peasants during corvée labor. “No more need be said.”
“It was not my lord Buwon’s fault,” she continued, as if she had not heard him—or did not credit his words. Or as if she had repeated her news so many times it had burned into her tongue, as in certain stories of grief and lamentation. “It was not, the… I failed, you see. I tried to catch her. If not for Lord Buwon…”
His mother would have ordered the woman’s tongue ripped out by the roots, perhaps. Or hot lead run down her throat. When the Mad Queen wished for silence, not even the pinchnose rodents dared squeak.
An uneasy susurration went through his assembled bloodriders. Half the raiding party he had taken to find the Tabrak and convince them to leave his country alone was even now riding along the trail of devastation, moving in screen to find where the horde had gone. Messages were flying through Shan in every direction, provincial nobles called to bring their complements of riders and infantry.
