The Grass King’s Concubine (23 page)

“We brought you.”

“Yes. But why?”

“The earth heard you coming, felt your steps and told Shirai. The air studied you and brought word to Sujien. They smelled you; they tasted you and knew you to be the one we sought. So Sujien called you, and finally you came.”

Her shining place. Her dreams. Aude said, “But why me?”

“You taste of the one who stole from the Grass King. We brought you to WorldBelow to restore to us what belongs here.”

“But I don’t have anything,” Aude said, and stopped.
Why does one man have a great deal and another man nothing? Why does my family have wealth and rank and land?
Those questions had lured her from her comfort, her rich cocoon in the Silver City, down the long stairway to the Brass City. They had stained her fingers with the ink of pamphlets and books, fueled her questions, her explorations. They had brought her to Jehan, to the Eschappés and their yearnings. They had broken her free from her uncle and his requirements and propelled her out into the world, by sea and by land, to the desiccated plain and the Woven House. They had brought her, at the last, here.

Why do I have riches? Where did it begin?

Why?

And where, oh, where is Jehan?

The Twins and Marcellan

T
HE HUMAN—JEHAN—SLEPT AT THE TABLE, his head pillowed on his arms, hair hanging into his face. Beside him, Marcellan’s book stood open, its pages yellow and brittle, the magic of his words pinning down and shaping the world. Yelena crouched at Jehan’s elbow, ferret-formed and sharp, whiskers curved out, sensing the sweat smell of him, his fatigue, his anger and fear. He had read out loud, voice tripping over the archaic language, frown lines drawn deep between his brows, irritation and frustration shivering from him, until his energy wore out and his speech grew sore and ragged. The syllables, the long sweet words with their crafted meanings dropped from his lips, scurrying across the floor, rustling into corners, shaking windows, echoing down corridors and rattling off doors. The Stone House stood filled with them, expectant, its ancient walls remembering. Yelena’s fur crackled, charged with that memory and the power it held. Outside, the wind shied away, slid off walls that were no longer quite there. In the corner, Clairet dozed, nose dropped low. Julana, in woman shape, hunkered beside her, arm about the pony’s neck, hands knotted into her thick mane, listening to her breath, matching it with her own.

The walls were wakening out of their long sleep, memory out of stone time, slow and thick, resonant with lost flood and forgotten frost, layered with the little deaths of
forgotten creatures. Through them, upward, outward, downward, words—Jehan’s voice, Marcellan’s words—expanded, unlocked. They had been built for this, these walls, placed stone upon stone to hold down the words, to contain their power and sever WorldAbove from WorldBelow. The words lapped against them, seeped into fissures, insinuated long strong fingers into cracks, explored the gaps between blocks, turning back the bindings, the bolts and bars and prohibitions that had held down the gate. The twins shivered with it, skin bristling, prickling, drawn back to their beginnings in the bright dusk and rich fields and soft air of the Grass King’s realm.

“House hears,” Yelena said, swaying, weaving.

“House remembers.”

“We remember.”

“Marcellan.” Julana’s pointed face softened. “Marcellan walked the lands from side to side.”

“Watching.”

“Learning.”

“Asking questions.” Yelena rose onto her haunches. “Marcellan saw men. Saw beasts. Saw the things of the domains and their ways.”

“Human people feared us. Shaped us. Twisted us.”

“Nightmares out of rock. Lovers out of waves.”

“We remember.”

“Marcellan saw the shaping, saw its birth in fear and need and expectation.”

“Marcellan,” said Julana, and her voice was bright, light, loving, “Marcellan made words.”

“Words to hold things down.”

“Shaping words.”

“Making words.”

“Words to set the bounds.”

“Ignorance causes danger,” Yelena said. “Knowledge brings calm.”

“Marcellan told us.”

“Marcellan,” said Yelena, triumphant, “gave us human shape.”

There was a silence. Yelena dropped back to all fours, whiskers caressing the book. Her head buzzed, old words, old things recalling themselves, tumbling over and over. Marcellan had crossed the lands of men from coast to coast and remembered what he saw. Marcellan had seen the gaps, the interstices in knowledge and understanding that dragged loss and danger and dispossession in their wake. He had tugged and burrowed out the secrets, the mysteries, the guarded privileges that divided man from man, man from land and air and sea and fire. And he had written them down, where anyone might find them.

Anyone with the skill to read them, men had said to him, then. Not everyone can read. And Marcellan had turned to them and answered: Anyone can listen. It only takes one person to read aloud. One person to teach another the skill of words, passing it from hand to mouth to hand, back across the lands his steps had measured. And, hand by mouth by step, his words had spread and dragged his learning with them into huts and tents, caves and shacks, halls and longhouses and crofts. And in the other places, in the swirling inchoate heart of fire and stone, air and water and death, the domains had heard those human words, spilling into them willy-nilly, making order out of entropy, describing the domains into hard life. It had long been so, since humans first began to make stories to explain their world. The Grass King in WorldBelow, golden and fertile. The Emperor of Air with his palace of wind and cloud and hierarchy, watching and dancing and hovering. The Fire Witch in her hidden caves, lambent, bright beyond bearing, turning rock to gold and crystal, blessing men with the skills of iron. The Lady of Shoals and Shores in her swirling violent world, benefactor and executioner. And the Masters of Darkness, whose shape was already set by the fears of men, calm and patient in their stronghold. The questions of humans laid the first layer of their foundation and shape. Marcellan’s words had built a layer above. His books had set them, shaped them, somehow. Or so the twins had been told.

“Marcellan,” Julana said, leaning into Clairet. “Wanderer.”

“Printer.” Yelena nipped the corner of the book, another love bite amid the many already set there. “Shaper.”

“Domain lords feared him.”

“He angered them.”

“Changed them.”

“Grass King lured him.”

“Songs in the earth, in leaf and flower. Promises of newness, of things to be learned.”

“He came to the gate. Before we were sent to the Stone House. Along the length of Lefmay, to the weakness in the land.”

“Came to the domain, to WorldBelow.”

“To the Grass King.”

“To us.”

The twins traded glances, bodies trading memory. Marcellan had come alone through the gate that divided WorldAbove from WorldBelow and walked across the twilight paddy fields and amber orchards, through the tall golden wheat and under the shade of the great woods, following the Lefmay as it tracked its course beneath WorldAbove to the bounds of the Rice Palace, where the bannermen stood guard at the great green gate, and the courtiers and officials wove busily through the courtyards and corridors.

“Marcellan came to the Inner Hall,” Yelena said, “to the foot of the rice throne.”

“We heard his steps, walking.”

“We followed him.”

“Watched from the wainscoting.”

“We wriggled, we squeezed.”

“We came under the throne.”

“Watched and waited.”

“Waited and watched and listened.” Julana leaned forward. “I see us. I hear us. Cold under the throne, hard tiles.” Her eyes widened, staring into the wall and beyond. “The throne is made of oak and ash and woven bamboo.”

“Cushioned in silk,” Yelena said, “gilded with gold sung from the soil.”

“We are there.”

Memory danced down synapses, shivered skin, teased nerves, hovered before retinas. The Inner Hall smelled of good earth, of the richness of growth, the heady thick lushness of spring. Green scents shook from the hems of the courtiers as they gathered, murmuring low, whispering their curiosity behind hands and into sleeves. The firmer tread of bannermen counterpointed it, striding earth-sure, hidden and unreadable behind their veils. And in their midst the stranger, his body an animal tang in the air, his garments coarse and plain and shameful in the filigree hall. The twins crouched under the throne, bellies to the floor, easing forward toward the Grass King’s hem. Swathes of brocade blocked their view, hanging down from above. “What’s in the way?” Julana whispered, whisker-speech in her sister’s ear.

“Big cloth,” Yelena said. “Thick. Heavy. Smells of camphor. Smells of wood.”

“Bite it,” Julana said. “Claw our way through.”

“Grass King won’t like it.”

“Wriggle, then. Push ourselves forward.” Flank to flank, the twins eased onward. On their noses, the brocade was chill and heady. Julana started, caught by the smell, and her sister nipped her gently on an ear. They pressed together and pushed, oozed under the first layer and the next to where the Grass King’s feet stood, firm in their embroidered slippers. The twins halted, careful of whiskers on sensitive ankles, then separated, sliding one to each side. They slunk under the front of his clothes and stopped again, muzzles barely protruding.

The human stood before the throne, arms folded, shoulders square. The Cadre boxed him from three sides, not quite touching, eyes bright, swords in hand. He showed no awareness of them, staring at the Grass King, bold as the twins.

“I can smell him,” Yelena said. “Rain. Old road dust. WorldAbove metal. Lots of traveling, not too much washing.”

“New smells. Good smells.”

“I can see their pictures. Big sky staring, big ground. Lots of rabbits and rats in their burrows.”

“Chase and pounce. Bite and kill,” said Julana. “Do we like WorldAbove?”

“We like rabbits.”

“The man is interesting, but rabbits would be better.” Julana paused and considered. “The Cadre never bring rabbits.”

“The Cadre didn’t bring him.” Yelena said. “He came by himself. Stonebourne just said so. Hush and listen.” Shirai was speaking, his voice low and clear. The twins twitched their ears forward, inventing fur-touch questions, waiting for answers from words and smells. Shirai spoke of the rice plain and the steppe, the long grass and the gate at the heart of the Lefmay River. “The human came through the water,” Yelena said.

“Clean and cold. I smell it.”

“He came to the first fields. Walked them.”

“Grass seeds in his boots, leaf touch on his sleeves.”

“He met with the bannermen.” From above, the Grass King spoke, and his domain fell silent. His words ran through the palace, shaped and caressed by walls and floor and growing things. The twins shivered, voluptuous. The courtiers swayed.

The man spoke into the hush, on the word-tail of the Grass King, and the twins looked at one another. “His voice…” said Yelena.

“His voice tickles,” said Julana. “Like fingers in my fur. He’s teasing my whiskers.”

“Touching…” Yelena yearned forward, nose to the floor. “We need to taste him.”

“Bite him. Learn him.”

“Voice like wind. Exploring and seeking. He wants to know things.”

“Hunts for them.”

“Burrows and questions. Never stops asking.”

“Like we do.”

“Like we do. He wants to know about this place.”

“Our place.”

“The Grass King’s place. He’s looking around him.”

“Dark corners. Cold, hard tiles. Wood things to claw and climb. Dust in the corners. Old woven hangings. Feet always…”

“He’s looking. Looking at the Grass King’s hem. He’s seen us.” Yelena quivered.

“I can see him,” said Julana, slithering close to her sister. “He’s smiling…”

Yelena said, “We like that he’s smiling.”

The man spoke, and his words filled the room of the rice throne, wove about pillars, sank into tiles, slid fingers of doubt under the robes of the courtiers, ruffled veils, blew out through the window lattices. Out across the Grass King’s domain, over palace roofs and walls, along ditches and rivers they flowed, shaking the tall ears of corn, soaking down into the roots of rice plants. Overhead, the twilight stars shimmered, light refracted by the human voice. In fields and villages, the inhabitants of the domain, man shape, animal shape, stone shape, stopped to listen. The earth shook itself, stretched into a new wakefulness.

“So,” said the Grass King. The man paused and looked at him. If the human spoke with the wind, this new voice was the root that fed the land. The Grass King raised his hand, and the buds on the thousand thousand trees of his orchards turned toward him. “Shaping,” said the Grass King, “is not permanence.”

“Shape defines,” the man said.

“Or dictates.” In their serried rows, the courtiers shifted, and words tumbled from the folds of their clothes. “It is not necessary,” said the Grass King, “to be always one thing, to sail always one course. To learn is to build walls and set boundaries.”