Who should she obey? Her brother was the man of the house, yes, but Mother was sitting right there. Gamnae hesitated, trying to decide which obedience would hurt less. Mother could punish her today, of course.
But Kurin…he would wait.
“Please,” she managed, a dry croak masquerading as politeness. “I don’t feel well. I should go to my room.”
“Certainly. But”— Kurin raised an admonishing finger, his princely greenstone hurai glinting—“you will also visit the Jonwa regularly, and you will call upon that Khir girl Takshin’s so careful of. You’re going to be her very good friend. Do you understand me?”
Oh, no. “Lady Komor? But she’s only a lady-in-waiting, and…” Objections died in her desert-dry throat when Kurin’s chin swiveled in her direction. If he fixed her with that paralyzing glare, she might shame herself by vomiting. Or worse. “Elder Brother…”
“I expect to hear gossip about your kindness to such an undeserving creature, Gamnae. Now you are excused.” Kurin turned his attention back to Mother, and Gamnae’s legs were soft as gluey, pounded rai.
“To your own mother,” Mother began, in a small, deadly whisper.
Kurin did not heft the tureen. Instead, his free hand flickered again with a warrior’s speed, snatching up a plate of candied pearlfruit. It went sailing across the room and Gamnae flinched, letting out a hopeless, mouselike squeak lost in the sound of breakage.
Neither Mother nor her eldest brother paid attention. The Second Princess found her footing and swayed for the partition, her house-slippers shushing against piled rugs; if she tripped someone would turn upon her for clumsiness, and they were both in a mood to cause some significant harm. Were there shadows listening behind the sliding, painted door? She did not care, if she could reach that uncertain harbor in time to escape more of this.
Whatever this was. The boat was foundering, and Gamnae did not know how to right it. She had never known.
“Yes, Mother.” Kurin now sounded utterly bored instead of vengeful, and it was now he who was most dangerous. “How else will I make you listen? I am your son, not your soldier or your kaburei, and I am the head of the clan.”
Gamnae’s feet were numb. She halted only to arrange her skirts, hoping neither would notice such a necessary operation performed with trembling hands.
Mother hated being interrupted, and her tone was terrifyingly quiet as well. “Your uncle—”
“Lord Yulehi knows who holds his leash. I am head of this household now.” Kurin glanced in his sister’s general direction. “Didn’t I tell you to leave?”
Gamnae fled. There was nobody beyond the partition; perhaps the servants sensed something changing in this part of the Kaeje. It wasn’t until she reached her own familiar quarters that Garan Gamnae realized she had brought her cup along in her free hand, hot jaelo-fragrant tea slopping against thick glazed pottery.
Father was sick, Sabwone was gone to be married to the king of Shan, and now Kurin was making it very clear Mother was no longer the household god requiring greatest propitiation. Everything had twisted into a new shape overnight like Murong Cao’s story of the fishes, and Gamnae’s stomach revolved inside her, trying to catch up.
She did not drop her cup yet she heard, in the far distance upon the battlefield she had left, something else break with a musical tinkle. The halls were empty, another change. Even her own pale, whispering close-servant Mai was nowhere in evidence, probably in the kitchens swallowing a hurried first meal.
Gamnae decided not to call for a second breakfast, though her stomach was an empty knot. Instead, she locked the door to her sleeping chamber, peeled away her morning-robe, and crawled back into her wide, comfortable bed, setting the cup upon her night-table to cool. Expensive hangings all chosen by Mother and full of exhortations to maidenly obedience watched her from the walls, but at least the floor was cool and bare, and if she drew the thin curtains meant to keep stinging insects from her nightly rest she could imagine they didn’t see her.
If she pulled the covers over her head, perhaps the world would cease moving like clay in fast water, too.
Huddled in her shift under a light cotton sheet— it was too hot for anything heavier— she trembled, and wondered just what Kurin wanted with the Khir lady-in-waiting. It didn’t matter nearly as much as staying out of his way for a good long while, and Mother’s too.
That, Gamnae decided, was her safest course.
FAIRLY ENOUGH
Bathed, his cheeks scraped clean and a few cups of hot sweet soldier’s tea behind his breastbone, Zakkar Kai stepped into the Emperor’s presence; a murmuring ran through courtier and eunuch alike. The head general of Zhaon’s mighty armies paid little attention, pausing only to accept Zan Fein’s bow with a slight inclination of his upper body and scan the open slat-doors to a porch choked with the robed, topknotted, and hopeful as well as those with actual business.
Before, during, and after every battle, it was crucial to view the terrain.
“There he is, my general.” Garan Tamuron still had some muscle-bulk to his frame, and his dark gaze was still sharp. The hollowness of his carefully shaven cheeks was new, though, and so was the set of his mouth, tight with pain as it had rarely been even after the worst battles of Zhaon’s most recent unification. His knuckles were slightly swollen, too, and though he sat upon the edge of his bed he was not dressed. His robe was rich, golden longbills worked with tiny stitches onto crimson silk, but it was an invalid’s wrapper.
All this Kai took in within seconds. Each time he saw the man who had rescued him from childhood tragedy there was some new damage to account for, like bad news during a fighting retreat.
“Have you eaten?” Tamuron continued in a ringing tone, perhaps to make certain everyone present could mark Kai’s position as unchanged. “Come, fruit and tea for my head general, and withdraw to your own meals. Sit with me, Kai. There is much to discuss.”
Kai made the prescribed bow, restraining the urge to stamp as if he was booted and helmed, entering an army tent during heavy rain and knocking mud free upon a wooden clot-mat. It would be ridiculous in the slippers he was forced to wear for both cleanliness’s and propriety’s sake within the palace, since Zhaon was not at war and a man wearing a greenstone hurai was forced to better manners than most. “You are most hospitable, Your Majesty, but I have already eaten.”
“Lies.” Tamuron’s grin was a shadow of its former self, but at least it was genuine. A kaburei close-servant with leather-wrapped braids hurried forward to offer a brawny arm, but the Emperor waved him away, determined to stride to the small ebonwood table, with its inlaid top, without aid. Perhaps he wished to remind the court he was not quite ascended to Heaven yet, merely watching the door he would exit by. “You were at early drill and have had nothing but soldier-tea, if I know you.”
The general acknowledged his emperor’s astuteness with a wry smile. “Drill keeps the blade sharp and the body fit, my lord, and one cannot perform if one is over-busy digesting.” At least his lord’s mind was still sharp and his senses just as keen, but Tamuron did not mention Kai’s daily visits to the new tombs. “Have you not remarked as much several times?”