The Grass King’s Concubine (13 page)

Aude said, “Are you all right?”

He had forgotten how good air could taste. He did not want to lose concentration by speaking. By thinking through what she had asked. He was alive. His flesh was plump with moisture, curved warm and comforting about him. He shut his eyes, to feel it better.

She said, “It wanted something, that…that whatever-it-was. It wanted the water.”

Warriors in the Wind

A
LL AROUND THE STONE HOUSE, the land lay cracked and dulled. No grass had grown there for five times ten handfuls of years or more. The ground was too hard, compacted by drought and cold to the texture of rock. It had been even more handfuls of years since any human had set foot here. Any human, or, for that matter, anyone else. The twins had rather abandoned outside. “It tastes bad,” said Julana, spitting.

“It hurts our paws,” said Yelena.

The door to the Stone House stood shut, its foot buried in a drift of dust. Tidemarks of soil bespattered it, as high as a man’s shoulder. The windows had turned sepia. They let in sour underground light. Not that the twins cared; their bright beady eyes were adapted to dim light. “Hunting light,” said Julana, whiskers twitching.

“Best for us,” agreed Yelena.

When the wind increased, at first they paid it no heed. Like the earth and the sky, the wind just was. It was not in their nature to ponder such things. The wind chased the clouds and scrubbed the ground; it thumped the windows and poked chill fronds into the walls. Curled together, the twins slept soundly. Draughts tried to tease them: They fluffed up their fur or twitched sideways. They were, and it was, and that was that.

On the big wood table, the book sat waiting. They liked
to curve about it, to sleep on its covers. The edges of its binding told the tale of their love in piecrust toothmarks. “But nobody comes,” mourned Julana.

“They will,” Yelena said. “Marcellan said so. Words are forever.”

“Forever and unchanging.”

“Like us.”

“Like us. But…” and Julana stiffened, “we move; we do things. We bite things. Will the words move, too?”

Yelena did not know. She eyed the book, tense with suspicion. The pages sat stolid. She said, “Marcellan didn’t say so.”

“He said…” Memory was oblique to the twins. Their life was a fable, secured by retelling. Julana twitched her whiskers in distress. “Tell me what he said. I don’t know it.”

“He said,” said Yelena, and her tail bushed, triumphant, “he said words hold things down. Like a stone on cloth.”

“Like a stone.” Julana bounced. “Stone words in a Stone House.”

“Stone words.”

They did not note the slow retreat of the waters from the rice paddies and the irrigation channels and the river. They did not note the lessening of the rains. Wet season or dry, flood or drought, all were outside their concerns. They kept their door as bidden, and they watched their book, and they chased one another through the dark corridors and chill rooms. They groomed and they slept, and they barely knew that they were waiting.

On a day with ice in the air, the wind changed its nature. At first, the twins did not notice that, either. The change began softly, a faint twist in direction, a haze on a horizon already clouded by distance. Not a whisker stirred as the haze grew stronger. The dominant blast shuddered, struggled to hold its place and was forced aside by a steady blow from the southwest. Stroked by its fingers, the dry earth seemed blacker, rising up feather-shaped to tumble back like chippings. Pressed about the book, one twin stirred, then the other. Small nostrils widened; ears rose. “Old trees,” said Julana, lifting her head.

“Damp,” said Yelena. “I can taste it.”

“We played in the leaves,” Julana said. “The trees dropped them everywhere. They crunched when we caught them.”

“They broke.”

“Bits in our whiskers.”

“Small things lived in the roots and the branches.”

“Dormice. Squirrels. Rabbits.”

“We
like
rabbits.”

Sharp teeth gleamed in the low light. Then they were afoot and scrambling, tumbling from the tabletop to dash helter-skelter across the stone floor. Julana’s teeth snipped at her sister’s tail. Hooping in midair, Yelena twisted. Her claws snatched in Julana’s fur as she landed, and they rolled, locked about each other, over and over, tails lashing and teeth locked, until they came to a halt against a wall. Using her sister as her springboard, Julana leaped for a windowsill. Her front feet snagged its edge to hang in sudden slow time. Yelena jumped for her tail, and Julana dug in her claws. One effort of shoulders, and she was up, out of reach.

Her nose bumped the window. Wind blew, shaking the frame. The dust shifted, and she stopped. Her fur bristled. Her tail stiffened.

“Bannermen,” she said. The bannermen guarded the palace and realm of the Grass King, watching the gates and walls and all those weak places where his lands touched on those of other powers and beings. They were bodyguards and warriors and upholders of the law rolled into one.

Yelena scrambled up beside her. “We haven’t done anything.”

“Anything new.”

The new wind blew rich with shadows. It tracked toward the Stone House; within it, shapes wove, on the fringe of visibility. “Perhaps it’s just a dust storm,” Yelena said, but her voice was doubtful. The twins knew about weather. They knew, too, what did not belong. This dark wind was one such thing.

Outside the Stone House, the shadows grew stronger, stepping in to land. Dust devils slowed, steadied, shook out into human shape. They wore calf-length robes of spring green over loose trousers of brown, and soft boots. Their heads were swathed in scarves against the dust, hiding all features save the eyes. Each bore a short sword, sheathed in leather, hanging from a belt. Two carried recurve bows, slung over a shoulder and accompanied by cornets of arrows. One had a bandeau of knives. Another held a second, longer, sword. At wrist and throat, their robes were embroidered in bronze, ears of corn mingled with leaves.

“Not just bannermen,” Yelena said. “Cadre.” The bannermen were divided into five sections, each headed by a senior, always the most skilled and deadly among them, known as the Cadre. If the twins were wary of bannermen, they feared the Cadre, whose abilities were considerable and whose tempers were often short.

“How many?” The twins were not good at counting. “Some? All?”

Yelena’s whiskers bristled in concentration. “As many as my feet, but not with yours as well.” She looked at her sister. “Is that all of them?”

Julana considered, listing the Cadre in her head. Her fur puffed out: The twins did not like to think about the Cadre. One never knew if it might draw their attention. She said, doubtfully, “Maybe…”

Outside, the warriors had grouped, backs to each other. Two watched the Stone House, two the land around it. If they spoke, their scarves hid it. They did not blink in the dust, nor did the wind disturb their robes. “What do they want?” Julana said.

“Not the book,” said Yelena. “They can’t have the book.” She bared her teeth. “We won’t let them take it. We didn’t let them take Marcellan. Not for ages.”

“We guarded him then. We’ll guard his book now.”

“We’ll scratch and we’ll tear.”

“We’ll claw and we’ll bite.”

“We’re very sharp.”

“And anyway,” and Julana brightened, “they can’t come in.”

“The Grass King said so. Said we would stay here all alone. No one to join us or watch us. No courtiers. No bannermen. No Cadre.”

“Just us, by ourselves.”

“We make it ours.”

“And no one can come in unless we let them.”

One of the warriors stooped and scraped up a handful of dirt. It sieved through the gloved fingers. The veiled faces tilted together, then one, the largest, shook its head. Another went to the corner of the Stone House, out of the twins’ sight. After a few moments, it returned, also with a shake of the head. The smallest gestured toward the Stone House. Julana, startled, spat.

Yelena repeated, “They can’t come in.”

“We won’t let them.”

The largest one gestured, and the small one shrugged and turned away. The southwest wind began to increase; at last, the robes of the warriors shifted, beginning to loose definition.

“There,” said Yelena, “they’re leaving.”

“We made them leave,” Julana said. She hesitated. “Did we make them leave?”

“The Stone House is ours,” said Yelena. “They knew that.”

Jehan and the Wind

H
IS SKIN ITCHED. Nothing Jehan did could shift the memory of that cloud of decay and desiccation enveloping him. His feet stumbled him from the kitchen, out through the sagging main door, and down the steps to the compound. He had left his outer gloves on the shelf where he had found the jar. His fingers fumbled over the fastenings of his coat, snagged in the thick outer scarf as he tore them open and let them drop. It was all over him, the flakes and fragments of death, caught in fabric, clinging to his face, filling—oh, gods—filling his mouth and throat. He spat, rubbed his mouth with the sleeve of his undercoat, spat again. It was inside him, and he would never be free of it.

“Jehan?” Aude had followed him out. She set the carbine down against the steps and held out a hand.

He stepped backward. “Don’t. Don’t touch me. We don’t know what that was. What it might do.”

“Jehan, it’s gone. It was just a…a shell. Like…like a shed skin.”

“It was a
man
.” He shook himself, turned into the wind, let its cold grasp scour flesh and cloth. “We have to get out of here.” He spoke louder than he intended; one of the ponies, disturbed, flung up its head.

She unhooked a canteen from one of the saddles and handed it to him. Over her scarf, her eyes were warm and
loving. “Here.” He took a small mouthful, rinsed his mouth, hesitated. He hated to waste any of their precious water. He did not want to swallow.

He wanted a bath and fresh clothing and clean sheets, far away from this place of wind and death. He could have none of it, not now, not for days. He spat and took another mouthful, making himself swallow this time. Aude fished a cleanish kerchief from one of her inner pockets and rubbed it over the mouth of the canteen, picking up a faint film of moisture. She touched his cheek with her gloved fingertips, wiped the cloth over the exposed flesh of his face. She said, “You should put your coat back on. You’ll freeze.” She patted his cheek again, then moved in to drop a light kiss on his lips. “It can’t hurt you, whatever it was. It was only interested in the water. And now it’s gone.”

“There could be more.” But the house behind them was silent, save for the creak and moan of the wind through its bamboo fibers.

“If you’re worried, I’ll go and check.”

She would, too. Her ridiculous confidence knew no bounds. He held up a hand, said, “Wait.” And then, stooping to gather his coat, “If you must, then I’m coming with you.” He shook the garment hard, downwind, let its mantle of dirt blow away on the wind. She was quite right. If he did not put it back on, he’d freeze. He’d be no good to her dead. He shrugged back into the jacket. The sooner she realized this place was empty, the sooner they could start the journey back to safety and habitation.

They searched through each of the few rooms of the Woven House, seeking threats and finding only dirt and desiccation and emptiness. Dust hung in the air of the largest room, turning in the cold light, powdering the scant furnishings: A low stool, gray with age, and a flat loom, its strings hanging down in weeping hanks. A small office was cluttered with document rolls, spilled askew across the floor from a collapsed bookcase. In one corner a desk stood, with an account book open atop it, marred by a trail of flaking ink. Behind the office, completing the circuit
back toward the kitchen, was a bedchamber. Its door hung loose, the upper part wrenched free of its leather hinges. The chamber smelled musty and sour; the floor was stained and foul, littered with shards of pottery and flakes of skin. In the center of the bed lay a dark, crusty, body-shaped stain. Jehan turned away with a low gasp, too late to block Aude’s entry. The hand he reached out to her shook. She took it, and her fingers were cool. She said, “We won’t sleep on that cover, I think.”