“Stop fussing, or I shall tell the physician you have a cough.” His hand felt strange without the greenstone hurei denoting princely status, returned to its owner by Zakkar Kai with a lack of comment and tucked carefully in the sleeve-pocket of whatever robe Takyeo wore. Even after dropping the ring upon the floor of the throne room and stalking away, Takyeo could not quite slip the traces of responsibility.
Gossip said the Crown Prince had flung the heavy greenstone band with its deep sharp seal-carving at his lordly father; gossip was wrong, and yet for once in his life Garan Takyeo wished it was not.
“He won’t believe it; I am generally held to be too sour to take ill in summer.” Takshin turned his back upon the study, staring at the shelves again. “He sent another letter this morning, Ah-Yeo.” The childhood nickname, born of lisping younger siblings’ half-swallowed attempts to honorably name their elder, brushed along paper and leather spines, touched the carved ends of neatly stacked scrollcases of segmented babu.
“Mh.” Takyeo left the Green Book where it lay. After lunch, he would try again. It was merely a question of will, was it not? Like everything else. “Of course it was not a Red Letter.” Those imperial missives, with their giant scarlet cartouches, could not be turned away. The Crown Prince’s orders to his steward Keh were very specific— nothing from the Emperor but a Red Letter could be brought into Takyeo’s presence.
Inside the Jonwa, he was the ruler— at least until his father ordered succession differently. There was no point in even hoping for such a change, since it would not alter the underlying battlefield.
Nothing would.
“Of course.” Takshin ran a callused fingertip, scraped from near daily, always punishing practice with weighted wooden sword and blunted knife, along a shelf of classics, his head cocked slightly. “He expects you to submit, regardless.”
“He does.” Takyeo had submitted all his life. Be princely, their father always said. You are my heir, and must behave as such.
It was unexpectedly easy to refuse. Or, if not quite refuse, then to drag his half-lame heels and parry the expectations hung upon him from the cradle. Sometimes Takyeo wondered what his long-dead mother would say of all this, but the painting of her in the ever-lit shrine Garan Tamuron attended daily— as well as the portrait enclosed in his eldest son’s own household shrine— merely smiled emptily.
The age of miracles, of painted mothers finding their voices to chide husbands and errant descendants, was long over, if it had ever existed outside of tales told to gullible children. No intercession could be expected, especially when Garan Tamuron, Emperor of Zhaon and Heaven-blessed father of many sons, had decided upon a certain course.
Takyeo paid his respects to his mother’s portrait in the Jonwa’s shrine daily too, like any good son. Since the wedding, his foreign wife had too. She has a kind face, his wife had said of his long-dead, barely remembered mother, and added her own shy smile.
An entire morning spent seeking to avoid thinking upon his grief was wasted now, and the strange buzzing inside his bones mounted another notch. He was no closer to discovering the source of that maddening, unsteady feeling. There was nothing about it in any of the medical treatises he had read in the course of a princely education, and he did not think Kihon Jiao would consider it a symptom.
Takshin half-turned, not quite glancing aside to regard his eldest brother. It was an unexpected mercy; either of them could say what they wished, not having to scrutinize the other’s face for a reaction. “I am glad you will not,” he said, finally, in a level tone stripped of his usual sharp sarcasm. “’Tis high time he learned what it is to be balked, and by you, no less.”
“It is not disobedience.” Takyeo found his leg was not overly stiff; the silver-headed cane propped against his desk took his weight admirably. “Merely disinterest.”
“So I have pointed out, but I do not think he takes it as comfort.” Takshin’s smile was not gentle at all. He had been a prickly but soft-hearted child before his first trip to Shan, prone to flinging himself into battle to right every perceived wrong. Now he made no move to aid his eldest brother, a welcome change from everyone else’s flitting and fussing.
Takyeo suspected any attempt to thank his younger sibling for such forbearance would be met with either indifference or a snarl, so he made none. “He probably suspects you enjoy my recalcitrance.”
“He suspects correctly. I only wonder it took you this long.” But speaking of their august father was not Takshin’s sole purpose, and nor was baiting his brother to lunch, the gleam in his eye said. “Your housekeeper is beside herself. You have given some orders she does not think are quite wise.”
Lady Kue was not given to gossip, but she could hardly keep such preliminary arrangements from the notice of another member of the household. Takyeo took a tentative step, found his balance and leg both held, and wondered how long the mercy would last. “I doubt she says as much.”
“You are correct. Still, there is a proverb in Shan about a master’s foolish wishes, and I would wager she is muttering it today.” Takshin’s chin almost touched his shoulder, keeping his brother in peripheral vision. Still, he did not turn, his broad back exposed. It was, like all his poses, only partly disdain, and wholly a message. And now Takshin, choosing his own course as usual, arrived at the heart of his business with his eldest brother. “Do you truly intend to withdraw to the countryside?”
Perhaps he was the only one who could— or would— ask in such a manner. Even Kai did not mention the rumors, though he was patently aware and had probably guessed Takyeo’s departure date as well, though such information lingered only in the secret cavern of the Crown Prince’s head-meat as of yet. “My household has undergone some changes of late, Taktak.” Takyeo made certain his robe fell in its usual folds. Pale silk, both bleached and unbleached, strict mourning, though he could have chosen regular cloth and an armband three days after the pyre. A wife was not a parent, and yet he wished to mark the fact of her absence even more profoundly. “Surely you have noticed.”
“Very well, we shall retreat to a country villa to lick our wounds.” Takshin took no offense. His slight, ironclad smile stayed just the same, not stretching or diminishing by any fraction. “I’m certain Lady Yala could use a change of scenery as well.”
“No doubt.” Takyeo was equally certain that consideration weighed heavily in his brother’s scales. It was not quite clear whether Takshin was simply fond of the Khir lady-in-waiting, or if he harbored other designs. If it was the latter, it would be the first time he’d evinced any real interest in a court lady, and it was just like Takshin to choose a foreign one. “I have not asked her plans or preferences. When her mourning is done, perhaps we shall find an accommodation for her.”
It was, after all, the least a Crown Prince could do. His wife would have wished her friend safely placed.
“Perhaps.” Takshin did not rise to the bait, unwilling as always to show his true feelings— and have them used against him. But he did turn to face his eldest brother fully, and that was an encouraging sign. “Well, are you ready to hobble to table, Eldest Brother? If we wait much longer I shall begin chewing your shelves.”