Takyeo’s grimace was good-natured, and only partly pained. “You travel upon your stomach like a merchant.” A bird called in one of the Jonwa’s gardens, a high sharp piercing trill, and he wondered, before he could stop himself, if his wife had heard the sound.
Did her shade linger? You were not supposed to hope for such a thing. It generally meant there were matters left unaddressed and a spirit could not rest. Such diaphanous presences rarely stayed beneficent.
“Or an army.” Takshin’s smile was that rare beast, a sliver of genuine amusement from the Shan-adopted prince. That barbarous land with its mad, now-dead queen had taken his bristling, heart-soft younger brother and returned this fellow, who showed only infrequent flashes of his former self. “Come.”
For all that, Takshin could be relied upon, and not merely because his adoption removed him from the line of succession. Even if Zhaon’s throne were offered him with both palms, Taktak might refuse with a sneer and a sword-cut, especially if the offer was made in a manner he considered impolite, pitying, or even merely jesting.
The Crown Prince took another experimental step. His leg held. Perhaps after lunch Takyeo could summon his wife’s lone Khir lady-in-waiting and they could desultorily speak upon the classics. Discussing the Hundreds in fits and starts, Lady Komor visibly and audibly searching for safe subjects to converse upon, the occasional silences between them restful instead of pained…somehow, it helped.
Perhaps because Yala’s clear grey Khir eyes were very much like Mahara’s.
There. He had thought her name, too, and the unbidden image of his foreign wife’s round, pretty, wistful face almost caused him to stagger.
Takshin pretended not to notice. He was proving to have far more discretion than Takyeo thought him ever capable of. That realization should have been a comfort, but in reality, there was none to be found.
Not with his lovely, decorous warrior-wife half crushed under a horse, her leg pinned to its side by a barbarous, heavy iron arrowhead.
HEAVEN WILLS
The Emperor was not upon the low, silver-padded Throne of Five Winds, nor at the business of rule elsewhere in his vermilion-pillared Great Hall with eunuchs and ministers shuffling, murmuring their assent, or broaching soft questions. He was not pausing before one of the Kaeje’s gardens to admire the view, his fingers busy with satin-smooth kombin beads, or seated before a chessboard on the Scholar’s Porch across from Zakkar Kai, Fourth Prince Makar, or any other— courtier, Golden, or eunuch— who wished to play.
Instead, the nerve-center of Zhaon’s ancient and now united power reclined upon a wide bed in a hexagonal room bright with mirrorlight, its blank stone walls hung with tapestries. The Second Queen’s fine needlework showed upon more than one of the hangings, and so did First Concubine Luswone’s. The First Queen’s wifely contribution was heavy, healthful ji-hao incense in great brass burners set upon the wide, balustraded porch looking over one of the Kaeje’s two state gardens, the wide, curiosity-stuffed green spaces meant to awe visitors and comfort the captain of the country’s wallowing ship. Two stone-lipped fountains played a counterpoint to the murmur of the crowded room, and a babu water-clock chop-clicked each daylight span into fractions.
Black-clad eunuchs and bright-plumaged courtiers pressed close, avidly eyeing the wide, crimson-caparisoned royal bed. The body upon it was still strong, many years’ hard campaigning training bone, muscle, and sinew to resistance of luxury and illness both, but Garan Tamuron’s cheeks had thinned alarmingly and his robe was too high-necked for comfort upon such a bright summer’s day. His red-black topknot, though scantier now and holding visible grey, was caged with fine gold filigree and a sharp golden pin; though he was propped upon many square pillows his dark eyes were just as piercing as ever.
That fierce gaze softened as it bent upon a slight woman in dove-grey silk with a mourning armband upon her thin arm and a wide pinkish sash high at her narrow waist. Her wan, not-quite-pretty face was now visible because she had tucked her veil aside, her hairpin holding a shivering fall of fine, thin wooden segments mimicking the fall of a hau tree’s branches from a nest of thin but neatly arranged braids. Her fine-boned hands were clasped tightly in her lap, and the dress, though the colors were perfectly appropriate, was far too heavy for summer.
No doubt she wore thick cloth in lieu of armor, for Second Concubine Kanbina rarely, if ever, left her bower in the Iejo, that palace built for noble consorts not possessing wifely status. The lady was held to be somewhat…delicate. Of course, the last concubine was either the most favored or the least liked, sometimes both at once. The First Queen often snapped her fan and remarked, a creeping little mouse, nibbling in the house; the Second Queen and First Concubine did not speak of her beyond platitudes, and they did not visit. Still, every holiday and festival, small, well-chosen gifts left her half of the Iejo, and likewise appropriate, tasteful gifts or replies arrived from the Second Queen and First Concubine. The First Queen did not lower herself to such niceties with a concubine who had not, after all, given her husband even a girl-child.
It was a wonder First Queen Gamwone did not choke on poison whenever she bit her tongue, and though a scullery maid might be able to mutter such a thing, the Emperor was wise to refrain from remarking as much. “It is good to see you,” Garan Tamuron said instead, softly, and offered his hand.
Kanbina’s veil would have reached below her waist had she not gathered it aside; she leaned forward and clasped his hand in both of hers, covering the great greenstone-and-silver ring upon his first finger. “I beg pardon for interrupting your business, husband.” The words were scarcely audible, and a flush mounted from her neck, struggling up her thin cheeks. Her ear-drops were likewise restrained, thin hoops of beaten silver with tiny red stones caught inside the arc on rays of fine silken thread. Their ribbons were short, holding them close to her head, and they did not sway as much as another court lady’s might. “I was not…” She glanced at Tamuron’s expression, and finding nothing there but mild interest took heart to continue once more. “I was not certain you would wish to see me.”
“And why not?” With another he would attempt bluff heartiness, but such a tactic would overwhelm this sensitive instrument. And it was, he could admit to himself, a relief to have a moment of relative quiet amid the bustle of the morning’s cargo of decisions to be made, weighed, or deferred. “You are a much prettier visitor than these ministers.”
“Hardly.” But the lady of lost Wurei looked pleased nonetheless, and her flush halted. Her mouth relaxed, and the shadow of the soft-cheeked, bright-voiced girl she had been peered through an older woman’s pale moon-waning face. “You are always so kind.”
“Hardly, indeed.” Tamuron gestured, a peremptory flicker, and the courtiers pressed farther back, spilling onto the wide wooden porch amid streams of incense. Some few were gog-eyed at a creature they had never, after all, seen— Kanbina did not leave her small corner of the Iejo for theater or market, or even to visit the Artisan’s Home within the palace complex. The Head Court Eunuch, Zan Fein, opened his fan and made a short gesture to push the rest of his dark-robed brethren away; it was he who had bowed most deeply upon her arrival, forcing all those lower in rank to do the same.