The Grace of Kings (59 page)

“You and Jia are having a hard time,” said Soto.

Kuni was working on improving Jia's workshop. Ceramic jars and glass bottles filled with preserved herbs filled every shelf, and there was barely room to move inside. He was nailing new shelves to the wall, installing ladders for her to access the higher shelves more easily, and adding a low gate to the door so that the children would not be able to get inside as they toddled and crawled.

“We've been apart for too long,” he acknowledged.

Though he still didn't know Soto very well, Kuni felt comfortable talking to her. The kids loved the serious but kind housekeeper, and she made the household function as smoothly as Cogo did Dasu. Soto didn't cower before him like some of the other servants, awed by his status as a king and the legends that had grown up around his complicated history with the hegemon. Instead, she treated him as an equal, and was sometimes even gruff and impatient, especially when he was clumsy with the children. In her presence, Kuni felt more like his old self, careless and free.

“You've both grown more used to the image of each other than the reality,” said Soto. “That's the danger with ideals. We're never as perfect as how others wish us to be.”

Kuni sighed. “You're right about that.”

“But I've always found that true happiness must take into account our imperfections. Faith is stronger when it acknowledges and embraces doubt.”

Kuni looked at Soto and made a decision. “I'm not blind, Soto. I can guess what happened. Otho has always liked Jia, and I decided long ago to trust them rather than act the part of the jealous lord of folk operas. But perhaps I have been a fool.”

“Not at all. You haven't raged or been petulant, which speaks well of you. You know that you've never been absent from Jia's heart.”

Kuni nodded. “I haven't reacted the way you might have expected because . . . I've done things while I was away too, things that I'm not proud of.”

“It is the rare man who would be as severe with himself as he is with his wife,” said Soto. “I'm glad to see I was not wrong about you. The sages and Ano Classics tell us that faith means one thing for a husband, and another for a wife, but you are clearly not a man who accepts received wisdom.”

Kuni gave a little chuckle. “I've always thought it nonsense to believe something true simply because it was written in a book long ago. Mata is the one who thinks the past was perfect, but I think we must perfect the present for the future. I believe she did what she did because she thought it necessary, and I would not act the hypocrite.”

“Great men and women are not constrained in the forms their loves may take,” said Soto. “You and Jia may love others, but in each other's estimation, you'll always be first among equals.”

“But it will never be smooth sailing and all sunshine, will it?”

“What would be the fun in that?”

“You're angry at your husband,” said Soto.

She and Jia were embroidering in the shade of the dining alcove while Kuni played with the children in the courtyard. Kuni was looking for dandelion seed clusters and helping little Toto-
tika
to blow them. Rata-
tika
, too young to participate, hung on to her father's neck and watched, crying out in delight.

“I am angry that he takes being a king more seriously than being a husband,” said Jia.

“Do you think you have been taking being a wife more seriously than anything else? I have heard your bedroom door open and close at night.”

Jia stopped her needle. She looked over at Soto. “Be careful of your words.” Her hands trembled.

But Soto continued her needlework, precise, meticulous, each stitch straight and tight, as though measured by the flight of an arrow. Her hands were steady. “You misunderstand me, Lady Jia. Do you love your husband?”

“Of course.”

“How do you reconcile your lover to this love then?”

“It's completely different.” Jia kept her voice low, but her face was flushed. “Otho was something I needed . . . for myself, to stay sane, to stay alive. I did it to feel in control again, to be able to be the Lady Jia that those around me needed me to be. I don't regret it, even if the Ano sages may frown on what I've done. And I don't consider it an act of betrayal because Kuni was never displaced from the center of my heart.”

“Do you think Kuni understands?”

“I . . . don't know. But if he's the man I think he is, he should. I never claimed to be perfect, but I have always tried to do the right thing.”

“That is my point, Jia. The heart is a complicated thing, and we're capable of many loves, though we're told that we must value one to the exclusion of others. You can be a good wife at the same time that you're a good mother, though sometimes the needs of your husband may seem to conflict with the needs of your children. You can be loyal to your husband at the same time that you take a lover for your own sake, though the poets tell us this is wrong. But why should we believe that the poets understand us better than we do ourselves? Do not retreat into conventionality because you're afraid—as you already suspect, your husband may understand you better than you think.”

“You're a strange one, Soto.”

“No more than you, Lady Jia. You're angry at Kuni because you perceive a conflict between his duty to provide a safe home for you and his desire to make Dara a better place for all. But can his heart not contain both? And can you not see how you might help him achieve both?”

Jia laughed bitterly. “Whatever I think, what can I do about it? I'm not a man, just the wife of a man trying to seek his fortune in war.”

“You cannot take refuge in toothless platitudes when it suits you, Jia. Your husband is a king, an equal of the other Tiro kings. Do you really think you're as helpless as the widows in the Cocru farmlands whose husbands were ordered to fight and die for your husband and Mata?”

“Kuni is the one who decides these things, not me.”

“Because you don't wield a sword or wear armor, you believe it absolves you of responsibility for how things turn out.”

“What is the alternative? I do not wish to be known as a woman who manipulates her husband to satisfy her hunger for power; I am not going to be called a pillow-whisperer who obtains in the bedroom what should only be won on the battlefield or through legitimate study. I've studied the Ano Classics—I know well the dangers of women meddling in the affairs of the state.”

“What of Lady Zy?”

“I would not presume to compare myself to a woman of legend.”

“Yet she was once but a woman who loved a man and who believed she could move her husband to do the right thing. No matter how diligently you study, can you ever become an official? No matter how brave you feel, can you ever charge onto a battlefield? We live in a world in which these paths are closed to you, as a woman, and yet you will not explore other paths by which you may alter your own fate and the fates of others because you fear the wagging tongues and sharp writing knives of scribes who manu­facture history for their own purposes.

“The conventional life of a ‘good wife'—as defined by the scribes of the court—is closed to you. You're the one who defied your family's wishes and married a ne'er-do-well because of a dream, who followed a bandit into the mountains, who believed in him when no one else would—”

“It's not . . . not that . . . I just want things to be safe for me and my family. . . .”

“But it's too late for that, Jia. Some believe that the world is a fate-shaken sieve where men and women are sorted out by their innate qualities; others believe that we carve out our own destinies by luck and skill. Yet, either way, those in high places have a duty to do more because they're more powerful. If you value safety so much, you should never have said yes the day Kuni asked you to yoke your fate to his.

“A marriage is a carriage with two sets of reins, and you must not let him do all the driving. Accept that you're a political wife, and perhaps you will not feel so helpless.”

When they embraced again, it was raw, awkward, like the first night they had been together.

“It's never going to be easy with you, is it?” she asked. “You'll keep on changing, as will I.”

“Would you have it any other way?” he asked. “Safety is an illusion, as is faith without temptation. We're imperfect, unlike the gods, but in that imperfection we may yet make them jealous.”

And they both felt their hearts expand, large enough to contain a multitude of loves.

Afterward, they lay in darkness, their limbs entwined.

“You must go back to Dasu,” said Jia. “And never speak of sur­render to Mata again.”

Kuni could feel his heart speeding up to match the rhythm of Jia's. “You're certain?”

“Even if you give up the little that you have, there's no guarantee that Mata will leave us in peace. But as long as you're a king, you have room to maneuver. A bandit who rose up to become a duke and who seized the emperor from an airship is never without possi­bilities.”

Kuni held her tighter. “I knew I would find what I needed from you.”

Jia kissed him. “And you must take on another wife.”

Kuni froze. “What? If this is your misguided way of ‘balancing' things—”

“Kings are supposed to have multiple consorts to ensure many heirs—”

“Since when am I supposed to be like other kings—”

“Oh, please, Kuni, stop being childish. I know my place in your heart is as secure as yours is in mine. Since I'm the mother of your firstborn, Mata will never imagine that you'd dare do anything as long as he controls me. But you also have to convince him that you're content with your lot, happy, maybe even overjoyed, to be the king of a tiny, faraway island. There is no better way to do this than to take on another wife, to show him that you're settling in like a true, greedy, lustful Tiro king, ready to make your home in your nook like a weed. If you're sufficiently convincing, he may even eventually agree to allow me to go to join you.”

“But Jia, I can't just marry another girl like some stage prop—”

“I'm not asking you to do anything of the sort—I know you can't marry someone as a cold, political act. But you'll be far from me, and I know well how loneliness eats away at affections and passions. You must marry someone you love, someone who'll be your companion and trusted adviser. You need such a voice by your side, especially in moments of doubt.”

Kuni was silent for a while. “If I do this, someday she may become your rival in the palace.”

“Or my replacement, should Mata decide that I am no longer useful alive.”

Kuni sat up. “What!? I will never permit that to happen.”

But Jia's voice remained calm. “You cannot be without an heir. Who can predict the direction of the winds for sure? What we're plotting is dangerous, and before success, we must plan for failure. When Lady Zy persuaded Lurusén to denounce Mapidéré, she knew that she might have to pay for it one day with her life.”

“I know not whether to admire you or to be afraid of you.”

Jia placed her hand on his. “I speak only from prudence. It may be that Mata will be persuaded that your affections lie with your new wife, and paradoxically, the shift will make me safer.”

“You speak of a wager of your life as though we're discussing the weather.”

“I'm not so naïve as to think it will be easy,” said Jia. “But our faith is not the kind bound by conventions. No matter who pleases your senses and takes up residence in your heart, I know you'll never be happier than when you can share your flight with me.”

Kuni kissed her. “And I know no matter who you take to your bed when I can't be around, you'll always be happiest when you soar with me as high as we did in your dream.”

“My husband is a man of truly capacious mind.”