Dragon and Phoenix (41 page)

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Authors: Joanne Bertin

BOOK: Dragon and Phoenix
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“He does,” said Shima boldly.
I hope.
 
“Your litter is ready, Favored One,” Murohshei said.
“At last,” Shei-Luin snapped. She clapped a hand to her belly as the baby inside her kicked.
“A strong one,” Tsiaa said approvingly. “That’s well.”
Shei-Luin slanted a dark look from under lowered lids at her maid. But Tsiaa only laughed gently at her and helped her up from her chair.
“I know, I know,” the maid said as she smoothed Shei-Luin’s robe. “You hate this part of a pregnancy. True, it’s uncomfortable, but it will soon be over, my lady, and you shall have another fine son.”
They walked the short way down the hall to the courtyard of the concubines’ quarters. Waiting by an ornate litter were eight eunuch bearers; they bowed when they saw her.
Shei-Luin leaned heavily upon Tsiaa’s arm as they crossed the smooth stone paving. Just as they reached the litter, the gate to the courtyard swung open and another litter and its bearers entered. Shei-Luin stopped and stared in surprise, for the closed curtains of the new litter bore the crest of Lord Jhanun.
“Wait,” Shei-Luin said when Murohshei drew back the curtain of her own litter, and Tsiaa made to help her in. “I would see what passes here.”
She thought furiously. Lord Jhanun was a widower, she knew. Likely his wife found death a blessing after living with that prig, Shei-Luin thought. They had had no children, so this couldn’t be a daughter of the house.
The bearers set the litter down. One drew back the curtain and offered a hand to the occupant. A moment later, a young woman—pretty enough, Shei-Luin thought, in a demure way—emerged. Her scarlet and blue gowns were rich with embroidery; Shei-Luin caught a glimpse of a tiny slipper dotted with seed pearls. There was wealth behind this woman, and Shei-Luin knew whose.
So what plan did Lord Jhanun hatch now?
The woman started across the pavement at the urging of the lead bearer. Shei-Luin looked over her shoulder. As she thought—one of the harem eunuchs now came to meet this new denizen. Shei-Luin turned back; her gaze met the new concubine’s, and she almost forgot to breathe. She had never seen such emptiness in another’s eyes; it was as if this woman’s soul had fled. Even as Shei-Luin wondered if this was no human woman but a fox-ghost come to trick
Xiane, the other woman stared up at the palace, and all-too-human despair filled her face.
Shei-Luin watched her disappear into the palace before getting into her own litter. As Tsiaa settled in beside her, Shei-Luin said to Murohshei, “Find out who she is.”
“I will, Favored One, and then join you at the Phoenix Pavilion,” Murohshei said. He bowed, then untied the cord that held the curtain back.
As the interior of the litter went suddenly dim, and the world shrank to four panels of silk brocade, Shei-Luin heard Murohshei clap sharply. Instantly the litter rose up and up, until it came to rest on eight sturdy shoulders.
Then they set off for the Phoenix Pavilion to await the birth of the next Phoenix heir.
 
“Psst! Hodai!”
Hodai turned from Haoro’s sickbed. He tilted his head in question at Tsiru.
The acolyte looked embarrassed. One hand rested on his lower belly. “Um, ah—I don’t think I should have eaten that fish.” A look of pain flashed across his face. “Would you watch—”
Hodai flapped his hands at him.
Go! Go!
“Thanks. I’ll remember this,” Tsiru said even as he hurried for the door. The
thwap! thwap!
of straw sandals against stone floor retreated down the hall.
Hodai went back to studying the hated face, looking for signs of—what? Death? Awakening? Hodai knew what he hoped for, what he feared—and they were one and the same.
Time passed. Hodai listened to the regular breathing, loud in the stillness of the paneled chamber. He fidgeted, shifted from foot to foot, tugged at his robe, all the while wondering when Tsiru would return.
Then he realized that Tsiru hadn’t lit the evening incense before leaving in such haste. Sighing in annoyance, Hodai went to the room’s altar and, with flint and steel, struck a shower of sparks onto the bed of dried sweet grass that held the disk of incense. The grass caught; tongues of flame sprang up in a mad dance of red and yellow, only to die down almost as quickly. But the smoldering embers were enough to set the incense alight. A wisp of fragrant white smoke rose in the still air of the room.
He returned to the bedside. Once more he studied the hated face. No change; none at—
The eyes opened. Haoro smiled up at him with a skull’s evil grin. “Hello, Hodai.” The voice was hoarse with disuse, and weak, but it held all the old cruelty, all the terror in it. “Come to see how I’m faring? I’m touched.”
Strangled screams caught in Hodai’s throat, threatening to choke him, as he fell back from the bed. His hands beat uselessly against the air.
Haoro laughed a thin, terrible laugh.
 
 
Don’t
even think
of telling the emperor what happened.
Nama sat unmoving as Zuia fussed around her, readying her for the emperor’s summons.
I am empty inside, she
thought.
There’s nothing left to feel with.
She retreated into the place in her mind where nothing touched her. It was a place she’d found during the living nightmare she’d endured. Let Zuia do what she would … .
A hissing in her ear brought Nama back to herself. She jumped a little, startled, and looked to Zuia. “What is it?”
The look of angry frustration on the maid’s face puzzled Nama at first. Then she understood. Of course; Zuia dared not slap or pinch her lest she leave a mark that the emperor might see. Seeing Zuia so confounded lightened Nama’s despair, if only by the weight of a grain of millet. Little enough, true, but Nama clung to any victory she had nowadays.
Zuia thrust her fan at her. “Don’t forget this,” the maid snarled. “And don’t forget what is hidden in it.”
Ah, yes; the tiny blade with which she was to cut herself slightly, so that she would bleed as a virgin would. Nama took the loathesome thing from Zuia’s hand, handling it as gingerly as she could.
“Above all,” Zuia went on, “don’t forget to use it. The emperor has bedded virgins before; he knows what to expect.”
Somewhere deep inside a spark of rebellion leaped up. “And if I tell the emperor what was done to me?”
Zuia laughed at her, a cruel, cold laugh. “My lord will deny everything. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time that a girl who’d played the whore and found herself with child claimed she’d been raped. And even if you were believed, it was your duty to kill yourself when your family’s honor was so besmirched. You didn’t. So you would be cast out as a ruined woman. Perhaps you could find a brothel to take you in—one that caters to those with … exotic tastes. Some men, I’ve heard, find pregnant women exciting. Or perhaps you would just starve on the street.
“And if that’s not enough for you, remember this: if all comes to naught because of you, your family dies. So keep your mouth shut, and play the game my lord Jhanun has set you to. Succeed, and you will be richly rewarded.”
Nama shut her eyes in pain. Zuia was right; there was no way out for her. It was even too late to die. Phoenix help her, she was so cold and empty inside … .
The little maid in charge of airing out the bed silks appeared in the doorway of the sleeping chamber and bowed. Her eyes were huge. “Lady Nama,” she said breathlessly, “the emperor’s eunuch is here to take you to the Phoenix Lord.” She stared at Nama in awe.
For a moment Nama thought she would faint. Only the thought of her family sustained her. “Tell him I’m coming,” she managed to say.
The girl disappeared on her errand.
Refusing Zuia’s hand, Nama stood, smoothing her elaborate robes. She looked down at the fan in her hand for a long moment.
She could “forget” it here. Or drop it on the way. Then it would soon be all over … .
“Come,” ordered Zuia as she left the sleeping chamber.
The fan now tucked securely into the sleeve of her inner robe, Nama followed.
 
Shima stood by the banks of the Moth, the little river that flowed from the Vale. In its course, it would join two other small rivers, the Yellow Dog and the Crying Woman, to become the Red Horses, which would become the Tiensha when it reached the land of the Jehangli.
Dusk was turning into night, and the air grew colder. But the scent of spring drifted on the breezes at last. Shima wrapped his
jelah
closer, shutting out the cold, shutting out the memories of the day. They haunted him anyway.
What of this matter of the ship coming early? What if it never came again? There weren’t enough mulberry trees yet in the Vale. All the hard work of his people would go for nothing.
Then there was his own problem, petty as it might be in comparison to the possible disaster facing the Vale. The attacks of the Feeling were getting stronger and, worse yet, coming more frequently—much more frequently—of late. Despite Zhantse’s reassurance, Shima still wondered if he were going mad.
This was not a thing to bear alone. So he called into the night, “Miune! Miune Kihn! Can you hear me?”
The night breeze teased through his long hair, tugged the fringe of his boots. At his feet, the Moth flowed on.
Somewhere a little desert owl hooted. He watched the river intently, but the water was dark, and hid its secret well.
It was his ears rather than his eyes that gave him the first warning. The sound of the placid rippling changed ever so slightly. Had he not been listening, he would have missed it.
Then the waters at his feet swirled. Bubbles appeared, and suddenly a head many times the size of his own broke the surface, stretching up and up on a long neck and body. Water streamed from the lacy, weedlike fringes that surrounded the head, and two large, round eyes regarded him. From each side of a long snout sprang a feeler the length of a man’s arm. One reached for him.
Shima put out a hand and caught the feeler. It curled around his fingers. He sighed in relief. “I’m glad you were close by, Miune.”
*As am I, my friend. I feel that thee are troubled—what is it?*
Shima sat on the bank and told his friend of all that had happened that day.
 
 
They entered the imperial chambers at long last. Nama was so frightened that she had passed beyond it into a kind of numbness. So she barely noticed the room around her; later she would remember only an impression
of gold.
Sheets of hammered gold in the image of the Phoenix on every wall, gold silk against dark woods, the golden sashes of the eunuchs who descended upon her, cooing over her like a flock of doves.
The only thing that pierced the fog she walked in was the sight of Zuia being forced into a corner as the eunuchs crowded around. It brought a tiny smile to her lips.
“Ah! How pretty,” the oldest eunuch said, clapping his hands in pleasure. “Lips like the petals of a rose! The emperor will be pleased.”
It seemed that she passed their inspection, for most fell back from her. Only the three senior eunuchs stayed.
Then the eldest took her hand and led her into the emperor’s sleeping chamber. The others followed at her heels like well-trained dogs.
The room was huge, filled with exquisite treasures, but all she saw was the bed in the shadows. It seemed to fill the chamber. Her knees turned to water at the sight of it, and she trembled.
The eunuchs, thinking hers were the fears of a maiden, spoke softly to her, patted her cheeks with smooth, gentle hands. They whispered little encouragements as they slipped the heavy outer robe from her shoulders and bore it away. The door shut behind them.
A man stepped from deep shadows beyond the bed; he came forward slowly. Nama almost screamed at the sight of him. Her uncle’s agents had done their work well; the Demon might be twin to this man who stretched out a hand, who ran a finger down her cheek, down her neck, and into the front opening of her robe. Who teased that robe slightly open and traced the curve of her breast … .
Was she truly in the emperor’s bed chamber, or back in the house of nightmares?
The other hand joined the first, parted her robe, and, with its brother, cupped her breasts.
She could not go through with this. She couldn’t! There was no Zuia to keep her from striking this time. She would scratch his eyes out, she would—
She thought of her family and did nothing.
The hands withdrew. “You’re very pretty,” the emperor said, his voice soft. “Just as your uncle said. Don’t be afraid, little butterfly. I know this is your first time, so I will be gentle.”
She knelt before him, accepting all that was to come, her heart a lump of ice within her breast. Her fingers closed upon the fan in her sleeve, and she retreated to the haven within her mind.

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