The Grass King’s Concubine (27 page)

Her nose wrinkled, eyes screwing up in irritation. But she came around to his side and put her small hands to the plank. Her nails were thick and curved, striking sparks from the stone. From somewhere he could hear a whirring, a low burring to counterpoint the swish-hiss of mossy waves.

“They’re coming,” Yelena said. “They’ve noticed us. Move, now.”

He pulled harder, and the bar came free with a splintering crack. He staggered, feet slipping, stumbling into the moss. It caught at his ankles, soft and clinging. Yelena was peering up the strand, toward the distant cavern wall. The buzzing had grown louder. He asked, “What
is
that?”

“Watchers.” Her voice quivered. “Too much noise. Too many stops. They sensed us.” A shiver of dark fur snaked down her spine. If she changed now…

He heaved the plank around to rest diagonally against
the prow. Julana came underneath it, peering up at him. The drop into the boat was maybe two feet. Could Clairet negotiate it safely? He looked over his shoulder into the gloom. Something out there…a rattle of stone on stone, a whirr, a shimmer of different darkness. His carbine was in the bottom of the boat with the saddlebags. Behind him, Clairet whickered. Julana rose to her hind legs and chattered. Hard on her heels, Yelena murmured something soft, low, between her teeth. Clairet pulled her head up and began to climb the ramp. He stepped back; her flank brushed him as she reached the top and then stepped, neatly, into the boat. The moss received her, steadying, rebalancing. Her ears flickered at him, back and forth, a pony wink.

“Push now,” Yelena said, snapping his attention back to her. Her hands were now wrapped around one side of the boat, shoving at it. He copied her, feet sliding for grip in the moss. The plank dropped free and sank silently into the moss. The rattling was ever louder, building to a roar, like roof tiles clattering groundward in a storm. He gritted his teeth, pushed harder, felt his feet sink deeper into the moss. Tendrils crawled up his boots, reaching cool fingers down inside them. Wind pushed at him; he shivered under it, pushing and pushing as the twilight dimmed into darkness and the rattling became a thunder of wings. He looked up, and his hands dropped to his sides.

From the cavern wall swept a chaos of iridescent hard shapes, in green and dark red and yellow. Jehan reached for his sword. Around his feet, the moss slopped and shifted, clogging. Yeasty air caught in his throat, making him cough. He began to turn, and his feet slid from under him. He dropped to hands and knees, the partly drawn sword hitting him in the midriff. The clatter of wings deepened, driving shadow over them.

Yelena hauled at his arms. He wallowed in the moss, hands sinking. Her fingers dug in, and she heaved him to his knees. “Up. Up!” He could find no way to rise. There was nothing to push against. He tried to draw his knees farther under him and felt himself slip deeper. He had to get out of
this. He had to find Aude. He’d be no use to her drowned, if a man could drown in this stuff. Yelena jerked at him. If he could get a hand to the boat…He wrenched the left one free. The creatures came closer. He groped for the boat, felt his fingertips brush its side. A little farther…Moss caked his legs to midthigh. Floundering, he kicked out, and his hand closed on the boat rail. He hauled and felt its solidity pull him forward. Yelena shoved him, and he rushed forward, lifted by a wave of moss to tumble headfirst into the bottom of the boat. Overhead, wings thrummed and rattled. He struggled to sit, felt the boat shudder under him, and pitched forward. The boat lifted, and he grabbed for the side, banging his hip. The stone chip dug into him, through the fabric of his trousers, and he steadied himself.

Yelena landed beside him, eyes bright and feral, feet light and quick on the surface of the internal moss. It held her, neat and light. The boat slid outward, prow moving from under the shadow. Around it, outside it, moss lifted, rocked. The boat juddered and picked up speed. He looked back. The watchers, whatever they were, hung dark and low over the shore. Not a wingtip, not an antenna extended out over the sea of moss. He exhaled and let his shoulders slump. His sword bumped his hip. He said, “Those things…”

“They belong to the rock. This isn’t their domain.”

“And now?”

Yelena sank cross-legged onto the moss and grinned her sharp grin. “The boat takes us. Sleep now, man thing. Time to rest.”

WorldBelow

T
HREE DAYS PASSED. In the Court of the Fallows, Marcellan worked at the loom or wandered the small garden, watching the birds that passed overhead or roosted on the peaked roofs. The twins tumbled at his ankles, pouncing on fallen leaves, chasing imaginary prey across the flower beds, or curled on his lap to watch him weave. He talked to them as he worked, told them stories of the busy human lands of WorldAbove, of great cities built in stone or mud brick or wood, of great flotillas of boats, of humans quarreling, playing, learning. The twins listened, sleepy eyed. Humans wanted such odd things, did such odd things. “Shiny stones are fun to play with,” Julana said, “but you can’t eat them.”

Shirai arrived early on the fourth morning, square and neat in his court uniform. The twins exchanged glances. Shirai was first among the Cadre, deepest in the Grass King’s counsels. The Grass King chose him to bear all the most important orders. That could be bad. On the other hand, Shirai, of all the Cadre, was the kindest. He said, “The Grass King has made his decision. You’re summoned to his presence.”

“Ah.” Marcellan rose to his feet. “Let me wash, and I’m ready.” He was still dressed in the worn clothing in which he had arrived. Now, he splashed water on his face, ran a hand over his hair, and turned. “There.”

A royal summons would have created a flurry of preparation in the quarters of any courtier or senior official. Servants would have been sent running for perfumes; the finest robes would have been lifted from their silk-lined chests; hair would have been oiled and styled, faces painted, fingers and arms, ankles and ears hung with jewels. Acolytes would have loitered in corners, offering advice or seeking favors. The summoned would progress by the most public route, head high, courting the admiration of everyone they passed. Marcellan seemed unaware of any of that. In his rough human garb, he smiled and nodded to servants polishing floors and carrying message trays, stopped to ask questions of horrified passing clerks and lingered in each courtyard they passed to smell flowers and admire foliage. “How far does the Rice Palace extend?” he asked Shirai as they left the Great Court of the Pear Blossoms and began the long walk down the winding Corridor of Bronze Tiles. Two members of Shirai’s Stone Banner fell in step behind him. The twins scurried in their wake, galloping and tumbling from corner to corner, diving between the ankles of maids carrying piles of linen, pausing here and there to chew on the edge of a hanging, the fringe of a robe. Marcellan smiled at them from time to time. The courtiers and bannermen and servants, long used to the twins, hissed or cursed or ignored them, according to their own nature.

Bannermen—this time belonging to the Fire Banner—guarded the entrance to the Autumn Afternoon Receiving Room. They stood to attention and saluted Shirai as he passed. It was a long pale chamber, plastered in pale green and corn gold, its flags overlaid here and there with green patterned rugs. The great lattices that made up its south wall stood ajar, letting in the scents of orange and frangipani from the gardens beyond. The Grass King sat cross-legged on a low cushioned bench, studying a roll of parchment that a chamberlain had laid before him. His intimates—the Master of Renders, the Great Officer of the Granaries, the Fourth Lord of the Western Loams—knelt at their lesser tables. As Shirai’s small procession
entered, the Grass King looked up and smiled. Shirai stepped forward and bowed.

It was a good smile. The twins let out a breath they did not know they were holding. The Grass King gestured to the chamberlain to roll up and take away the scroll.

He said, “I have thought over your presence.”

Marcellan had neither bowed nor kneeled. He stood, face impassive, watching the Grass King’s face. The courtiers to either side looked sidelong at one another or raised their sleeve to hide their expressions.

The Grass King continued, “My lands do not protest your presence. My rocks and soils are not pained by your passage. Therefore,” and he clapped his hands. The chamberlain drew a small bamboo tally stick from a sleeve and handed it to him. “I have decided to grant you freedom of movement within my palace.”

“Thank you.” Now, Marcellan bowed, a small movement from his neck.

“There are conditions.” The Grass King turned the tally stick over in his fingers. “One of the Cadre, or three bannermen chosen by them will accompany you at all times, and if they forbid a place to you, you will not question that, nor will you try at a later time to gain access to it. You will respect the requests of my courtiers and officers for privacy, as and when they make them. My personal suites and those of my concubines are closed to you. You may walk or ride in the palace fields and woodlands but not beyond them. If you do not wish to respect these conditions, then you may remain, but you will not be permitted to pass outside the boundaries of the Court of the Fallows.”

He spoke softly, calmly. Yet under his words the voice of the earthquake shivered in its sleep. Julana squeezed closer to her sister, fur prickling. “Grass King could get angry. Man must not make him angry.”

“Man is not stupid. Hush.” Yelena nipped at her ear.

Marcellan bowed again, deeper this time. He said, “I’m honored by your trust. I will abide by your rules. My word on it.”

“So be it.” The Grass King tossed the tally stick to Marcellan, who caught it one-handed. “Mo-Shirai!”

“Sire?” Shirai had stood with his head bowed; now he looked up.

“I leave it to you to make arrangements for escorts. That’s all.”

“Yes, Sire.”

The Grass King waved his hand, and the chamberlain once more unrolled the scroll before him. Shirai bowed again and gestured to Marcellan to follow him from the room.

“Grass King didn’t see us.” But Julana was not sure. The Grass King saw everything. “Didn’t choose to see us.”

“No.” Yelena’s voice was thoughtful as she hurried after Marcellan.

“So? Grass King is happy with us?”

“Maybe.” Yelena stopped and looked back down the corridor. “I don’t know.”

“He isn’t angry.” That was easy to tell. The whole palace quivered when the Grass King was displeased.

“I don’t know,” Yelena repeated. “Grass King is…waiting? Watching? Maybe he wants us to watch the man for him.”

“We can do that.” Julana nuzzled at her sister. “We like doing that.”

“Yes.” But even as they galloped to catch up with Shirai and Marcellan, some instinct of discomfort shivered through Yelena’s skin.

There had been a time, some misty distance ago, when the twins had not lived in the Rice Palace. It was an old, old memory, made up of earthy hollows and the raw scent of tree bark, of ice chill and summer heat, the hot taste of rabbit blood and the thrill of pursuit, the fear of fox musk and the lure of dusty cornfields. The Grass King had been there, in the scent of loam and rice plants, the solid feel of rock under paws, the howl and boom of wind around ridges and
down valleys, the taste of grain and flesh and water. They did not remember the birth of the Rice Palace. That was a matter for the man-shaped creatures of WorldBelow. They knew only that somehow, somewhen, tree hollows and earth scrapes had given way to great warm granaries, full of rice to chew and mice to catch, then granaries to kitchens and pantries and huge wooden tables laden with already caught treats. The Rice Palace was their territory and their treasure, its lofts and corridors, halls and chambers and courtyards were theirs to explore and plunder as they wished, safe in the Grass King’s indulgence. For they were indulged, from the first moment he coaxed them out from behind a skirting board with a platter of shredded fowl. Courtiers and servants learned to curse quietly, when the twins gnawed a hole in a precious garment or stole and hid a pen, a jewel, a comb. The Grass King laughed when they tripped the footmen and bit through the harness of the bannermen, smiled when they raided his table, let them sleep on his cushions and under his chair. Others in the palace had duties and roles to fulfill. That meant nothing to the twins, except insofar as there was fresh bread to steal and inkpots to spill.