The Grass King’s Concubine (35 page)

“The water is good,” Julana said, from behind him. He had not heard her approach. Yelena was perched on her shoulder: Clairet followed them, trailing the strap of her halter.

He said, “Good as in you’re pleased we found it, or good as in safe to drink?”

“Safe.” She said down beside him. “Sand makes clean.” Yelena jumped to the ground with a thump and skittered down the bank. Julana said, “We drink now.”

He had to trust her. He had trusted them this far, and they had yet to be caught in a lie. He scooped up another handful and drank. Beside him, Clairet lowered her nose into the stream. The water slipped over his tongue, ran cool down his throat. He closed his eyes, let himself sink down on his heels. Enough water. He wanted, abruptly, to shout, to sing, but squashed the impulse. There was a sufficiency of craziness already, in the twins. Water dashed into his face, and he opened his eyes again, blinking

Julana knelt in the stream, once more naked, gathering up handfuls of water and throwing it, over herself, over her twin in the shallows, over him. He said, “Hey,” and she turned toward him, dripping and wicked and, yes, laughing. He filled both hands, throwing it over her, and she made a sudden lunge, grabbing his forearms and pulling him down. Off balance, he toppled and landed facedown in the stream. Water welcomed him, wrapped torso and limbs, teased and tugged and tickled. He hauled himself up, spluttering. He said, “Stop that.” Did ferrets like water? He had not thought so, and, indeed, Yelena had retreated back onto the shore, her fur standing in disapproving spikes.

Julana said, “Why? Human shape likes to do this.”

Jehan left that one, dodging as she splashed him again. He tugged off his boots and waded out. Water cloaked him, waking skin from its long slumber under chill and grime. He ducked under the surface, let the stream soak into him,
before scrubbing with his hands at hair and arms and such other parts that he could reach without stripping off. Julana shrieked and splashed and bounced, while her sister huddled on the bank, shaking her damp pelt. In the end, he was not clean, but he was less dirty, and that was a good deal. Back on shore, he rummaged out a dry—if grimy—spare shirt to change into. Yelena crept into the pile of his discarded outer garments to dry herself.

He ate a few mouthfuls of the remaining food, while Clairet dozed. Julana had tired at last of her sport and clambered out of the stream, drying herself on the ragged shift before putting it back on. He kept his eyes averted from her. Yelena climbed onto his knees and sat there, eyes half-closed. Absently, he rubbed her throat, and she looked around at him, nose twitching. He offered her a corner of his jerky. She sniffed at it and turned away.

He could not blame her. It was stiff and tasteless. It would do until he found better. The promised water had appeared; he must take heart from that and believe that food would follow.

Julana said, “We go on now.”

“All right.” Jehan reached for his boots, pulling them back on before retying the saddlebags and filling both the canteens to the brim. Strapping the bags back onto Clairet’s saddle, he hesitated. She had dragged him to the Stone House, followed him into this underworld, negotiated the boat. Reaching around, he unbuckled the straps of her halter and slipped it over her head.

He looked back at the twins. “Which way?”

“We go along the stream.” Julana stooped to pick up her twin. “Come.” Her bare feet left no traces on the sand as she walked. He followed her. Clairet kept pace with him. The stream led them into the dunes, carving a curving route between their crests, sloping back and up. Tufts of grass dotted the sides of the dunes. Clairet nosed one and pulled back, whickering. Jehan reached out to touch a clump; the tall leaves were stiff and straight and sharp sided. When he pushed at a tip, it shattered under his finger. Not vegetation
at all, but rock crystal, growing up through the sand. Wherever it was that food would be found, it was not here. He picked his way carefully, not wanting to fall and slice a hand or arm. The first dunes gave way to taller ones, bristling with their stony growths. The stream shimmered and chattered. Despite his best efforts, Jehan’s skin was soon etched with thin scratches. Beside him, Clairet nudged and pushed, providing support, which only he seemed to need. Julana was tireless and sure-footed, brushing past the grass as it if were not there. At the top of yet another rise, he dropped to his knees, gasping, and she stopped.

She said, “Not time to rest. Not yet.”

He let his head hang, getting his breath. Then he said, “Why? More guardians?”

“No.” She hunkered down beside him, and her twin hopped from her shoulder to the ground.

“Then we can stop.”

“Place is empty.” She drew patterns in the sand with a fingertip. “Not interesting. Not…not fruitful.”

“Is that dangerous?”

“No, but…” She shook her head. “Better not to be here too long. It might get bigger.”

It was another of her oblique pronouncements. Whatever she meant by it was not apparent to him. For all he knew, it might not even matter. Nevertheless, he hauled himself back upright, leaning on patient Clairet. “Come on, then.” Yelena jumped onto his foot and he picked her up, settling her on the saddle.

“Good.” Julana hesitated, looking at him. “Better to rest later. Man will see.”

“I have a name.”

“So?” She turned, began again to walk. “Names are.”

“I thought you might wish to use it.”

She looked at him again and her brows drew down. “Why?”

He did not know why. He said, “Instead of calling me ‘man.’ I mean, I don’t call you ‘ferret.’”

She stopped, looked at her twin. Yelena’s ears flickered.
Julana said, “Names don’t matter. Men think they do. Names just are.” Another silent exchange. Then Julana said, “Marcellan said…Marcellan said that names hold on. Descriptions change. Julana is Julana. Yelena is Yelena. That just is.”

“Well,” Jehan said, “I’m Jehan. And I prefer that to being called man.”

Julana scowled, scuffling her feet in the sand. She said, “Complicated. We don’t like complicated.” She put a hand out to her sister.

Yelena bit her. She jumped back, spitting. She said, “
I
don’t like complicated.”

There was a scrabble, a thud. Yelena leaped to the ground on the other side of Clairet from Jehan. Sand puffed and slid. Then she stood, in woman shape and also scowling. She said, “Names hold. And holding matters.”

“Man can hold himself.” Julana stared at her toes, evading her sister’s gaze.

“Man can hold himself in WorldAbove,” Yelena said. “Not always in WorldBelow.”

“Marcellan holds.”

“Marcellan is Marcellan. Jehan is Jehan.” Yelena cocked her head and turned to Jehan. “Jehan is right for him.”

“Not my business,” Julana said, but her voice was low.

He had spoken lightly. He had not expected this. He looked from one twin to the other and said, “I don’t want to cause a quarrel…”

“No quarrel.” Yelena said. “Laziness.”

He did not want to pursue it. He did not know where it would lead. He said, “Shall we get on?”

The twins were silent a moment. Then Julana shook herself and shrank down into her ferret form. She crouched on the sand, back arched; when Yelena reached for the tunic, she pattered away to sit underneath Clairet.

Jehan hesitated, then reached down to her. She bared her teeth at him; as he began to pull back, she latched on to his sleeve, scrambled her way up his arm to his shoulder. He stood, and she jumped, to land on the saddlebags with a
thump, where she curled up with her back pointedly to both him and Yelena.

He said, “Should we…?”

Yelena’s nose was in the air. He looked from twin to twin. Clairet nosed him and began to walk carefully down the side of the dune. He followed. A moment later, Yelena joined him. He did not know what to say to her. He did not want to go on being called simply “man.”

Aude would take it as her right to be addressed precisely as she chose. Aude would probably insist on “Madame.” His lips quirked at the vision of the twins calling him “Lieutenant.” Having resigned, he retained the right to the title. His uncle, back at home, had insisted most strongly upon his own “Captain.” Jehan had never thought himself likely to do likewise. And now, of course…Assuming he found Aude and that together they escaped this place and were able to return to the Silver and Brass Cities—and assuming that
her
uncle had not found a way to have their marriage overset—he was likely to spend the rest of his days being known as “Aude Pèlerin des Puiz’s mésalliance.”

Yelena said, “It has a meaning, this name Jehan?”

“Not that I know of. I was called for my mother’s grandfather.”

“That is meaning.” Yelena frowned. “Names make bonds.”

They had told him theirs with no demur. Did that mean that they considered themselves bound to him? That was not a prospect he could welcome. He said, “I didn’t intend…”

She scuffed her feet. “Accident can be worse than intention.”

“It’s the custom where I come from.” And that was only thinly true. Where he came from, rank and respect were the dominant modes of address. “It makes things…” What? More proper? Easier? “It makes things less confusing.”

“There is no other man here.”

“There are two of you.”

She looked at him, and then she smiled. It was feral, that
smile, sharp-toothed and unreliable. She said, “Julana likes simple. Names are not simple.”

“Why not?” Watch, listen, learn: That had served him well in the Brass City. It was his best defense still.

“Names force knowing. Sharing. Bonding.”

It was said that the undarii, the secretive priests of the empire that ruled the Silver and Brass Cities through their regent, held names to be a source of power and were sparing with their own. It was also said that they lived for four lifetimes and killed with scents. Jehan had long chosen to take such tales with a pinch of salt. The empire of Tarnaroq was old and corrupt and its powers uncertain. He said, “You mean that if you know someone’s name, you’re responsible for them in some way?”

“Re-spon-sib-le.” Yelena tasted the word. Then she shivered. “Too long. Too tangling.”

He said, “Where are we going?”

For a moment she was silent. Then she shook her head and pointed along the stream. “We follow. It leads. Come.”

“Is it far?”

“I know not. We didn’t come this way.”

If there was another way …He asked, “Is this a shortcut?”

“No. No shortcuts. Just the river. Before…” She was uncomfortable.” We didn’t come. We were taken. Bannermen took us.”

Like Aude. Jehan said nothing and kept walking.

They walked for hours, although how he could tell Jehan did not know. The sepia light, the star-laden sky did not change. The dunes gradually flattened out into a low plain of black sand and stone grass, like a two-color etching of the great steppe. As above, so below? He did not know. Perhaps Marcellan’s book would have some view on that. He should look, when they stopped to rest. On Clairet’s back, Julana slept, nose rammed fiercely into her paws, snoring. Yelena pattered beside him, silent and angular.
Nothing moved, in all the landscape, save for themselves: no birds, no insects, not even a breeze. This place was even more barren than the steppe. If that meant something, he did not know what it was. The dunes were far behind them when at last he made out something new on the horizon. A dark smudge, low and soft, running right to left. Not another cavern edge, surely—it lacked the height. A settlement? If so, it was a large one. “What’s that?” he asked, nodding toward it.

“Forest.” Yelena said.

At home, a forest meant timber and shade, forage for pigs, trees that bore nuts or edible fruits, maybe a chance of small game. Here, that was less certain. He could hope for anything he chose, but it would be safer to expect none of it. He said, “Is it big?”

“Big enough.”

And that was precious little help. “What about inhabitants? Is there a village? Is Aude here?”

“No.”

“What, then? Animals? More guardians?”

“Perhaps. Sometimes.” Yelena tilted her head. “It depends on the Grass King.”

A royal forest, then. He said, “Tell me about the Grass King.”

She glanced across at him, and her face was surprised. “The Grass King is the Grass King.”

“Yes, but…We don’t hear about him, where I come from.”

“Marcellan tells, in his books.”

Few people read those these days. Jehan did not say it. Instead he said, “He has a court and courtiers. How big is it? What do people do there?” Perhaps people was the wrong word. Who was he to know what kind of creatures attended the throne of a mythical king?

“Officials do official things. Cooks cook. Sweepers sweep.” Yelena seemed puzzled by the question. “Bannermen guard.”

“And you and your sister?”

“We are.” She was silent so long that he thought that that must be her entire answer. But then, “We are not told to be a job. We are told to be us. The Grass King likes us that way.” She drooped. “Liked us that way. Before Marcellan.”

“How did he come there?” The same route along which the twins had led him?

“He came. He did not tell how.” Yelena was once again uncomfortable.