The Grass King’s Concubine (59 page)

Worse than the last time, when the Grass King’s rage had brought the first palace tumbling. Worse, perhaps, than the war he had pursued, long ago, against the Lady of Shores and Shoals. Worse than anything the twins had ever known or imagined. Julana crouched low. This could not be faced down or tricked or bitten. This was too big for them.
Run
, her feet urged her.
Run now, run and hide.
Their urgency communicated itself to Yelena, and she crouched in turn. She said, “If we go…” Both of them looked down at Marcellan. She said, slowly, “We could fetch someone. Fetch Liyan.”

“Liyan started this.”

“Fetch the guard,” Yelena said. “Marcellan is the Grass King’s prisoner. They mustn’t let him be harmed.”

“The guard,” Julana echoed. She jumped down from the bed and scuttled to the door. Flattening herself to the floor, she listened. No voices. No footsteps. Against the shuddering alarm in the walls, it was hard to pick out the guards’ breathing or their heartbeats. She said, “I don’t know. They might have gone. Might not be in the courtyard.”

“Then go outside,” Yelena said. “Fetch them.” She had moved to sit on Marcellan’s chest. “I’ll watch Marcellan.” Julana hesitated. Yelena said,
“Go.”
Julana retreated from the door and squeezed herself through the hole behind the tiring chest that led under the floor and up through a crack in the side tiles of one of the basins in the courtyard outside. She slipped along the side of the basin, keeping low. Out here, the air was even colder than inside. The first threads of frost wove themselves over the grass and across the leaves of the trees. The tiles were chill under her paws, and she hurried, jumping up into the shelter of the arcade.

There were no guards. She blinked, looked again. It would be like the Darkness Banner to make themselves hard to see. Still nothing. She edged forward and sniffed. Orange and lime and rosemary, packed earth and the snap of cold. Nothing that told of bannermen. She came right up to the gate that led out of the courtyard. Nothing moved, nothing challenged her or tried to grab her. There was no one there.

She could not think what that meant. Had the bannermen fled already, before the Grass King’s anger broke over them? Had they all been summoned to him, to march on his orders against whatever—whoever—had angered him? She cocked her head and listened hard. Fear in the walls and floors and the rocks beneath them. Anger in the wintry air. And from the slow play of water around the fountain at the center of the courtyard came a new emotion.

Loss.

Julana did not understand. Was Tsai lost, or had she misplaced something? Was that what had enraged the Grass King? The Grass King liked Tsai. The twins sometimes suspected he might like Tsai even more than he liked them,
and they had neglected him lately. Perhaps he had noticed that they were absent and had told Tsai, and that was why she was broadcasting loss. If that were the case, if they presented themselves, all would be well again. The Grass King would be pleased. He might be so pleased that he would unlock the gate and let Marcellan once more go wherever he wished within the Rice Palace. That would be good. Of course, he might let Marcellan go entirely, and that was less good. Julana did not know if she wanted to go to WorldAbove, even with Marcellan. But all the same…She turned, about to rush back and tell Yelena.

The fountain stopped. It took her a moment or two to realize what had happened. The sound of fountains was so much a part of the texture of the palace that most of the time she barely registered it at all. It was only because she had been focusing on it that she noticed now. She peered across the courtyard. The fountain stood as it always had, a slim pillar surmounted by a statue of a young man kneeling, holding a pitcher from which water flowed. Now, the pitcher appeared to have a stopper. Carefully, slowly, Julana sneaked closer. Leaves and grass cracked under her feet, stiff now with frost. Putting her front paws on the edge of the basin, she eyed the fountain suspiciously. No water scent, only a deep cold.

The pitcher was filled with ice. Julana leaped backward. Wrong and wrong and wrong. Such things belonged to the domain of the Emperor of Air, not to WorldBelow. She quivered. The realm was out of joint, out of sense with itself. Liyan should prevent this, Liyan who warmed the air with his breath and melted metal with his hands. If Liyan had allowed this…

She turned and ran back to the door. Pressing her nose to its base, she called to Yelena, high-pitched noises of terror. “Gone, they’re gone, they’re gone.”

“Who?” But Yelena had picked up her twin’s fear. Her voice quivered.

“Guards are gone. Water has gone. Ice. Ice everywhere.”

“Ice?” Yelena gulped audibly. There was a pause. Then she said, “The gate. Is the gate locked?”

Of course the gate was locked. Julana said so, glad to have a reason to snap. Yelena said, “Try it.”

To try the gate, Julana would have to shift her shape. It was too cold out here to lose her fur. She shuffled, said, “You try.”

Yelena hissed and muttered. But a few moments later the door to Marcellan’s room opened, and she came out in her human shape. Crossing the courtyard, she tried the handle of the gate. Nothing. She twisted it again, shook it. It remained stubbornly closed. There was another pause, then Yelena said, “Fetch Liyan.”

Julana swallowed. “Can’t. The ice…Something has happened…happened to Liyan.”

“Oh.” This time the silence went on and on. Julana huddled against the wall, seeking comfort from its solidity and finding only more of the fear that thrummed through it. Finally, Yelena said, “Then Shirai. Fetch Shirai.”

“No!” Julana had had enough. The terror that quaked through the palace was inside her, now, ruffling her fur and drying her mouth. She shook with it, fighting the need to run. She said, “You go. I won’t. I won’t.” She ran for the open door to Marcellan’s room. The earth shook below her, filled with danger. Skidding, Yelena ran after her. Julana said, “Bad out there. Dangerous.” She scrambled onto the divan and hunkered down low beside Marcellan, where it was warm. His breathing was deep and calm and regular. She pressed herself against him and closed her eyes. Safe. Safer, anyway. She felt Yelena bend to touch her, and she curled tighter.

“All right,” Yelena said, and she sounded uncertain. “I’ll go. But you have to stay. Promise me. Whatever happens, you won’t leave Marcellan. You won’t run.” Julana burrowed into his side and said nothing. Yelena prodded her shoulder. “Promise. On him.”

“Promise,” Julana muttered into his skin.

Beyond Marcellan’s courtyard, the Rice Palace was in chaos. Servants clustered in open space, their tasks abandoned, clinging to one another. Women wailed from behind lattices or huddled in corners weeping. Bannermen were everywhere, striding down corridors and searching chambers, weapons drawn and crackling with energy. And everywhere the earth muttered, and the air grew ever colder. Shirai could be anywhere; even back in her ferret shape, Yelena could not sense him over the volume of panic. She could not ask the palace for its help. It would never heed her, not now. She avoided the wall channels and skirting boards, though her skin prickled with being so exposed. Better the risk of being seen than that of being trapped should the palace begin to fall.

No one paid any attention to her. She was just one creature among many hastening their way to whatever sanctuary they might find. She hurried from shadow to shadow, always searching for a whiff of Shirai in the trembling tiles of the palace. Here and there she glimpsed Stone Bannermen, guarding the doors to inner offices or marching purposefully to some destination. They smelled of control and purpose. Yelena crept after them, comforted. They took her through the tithing halls and countinghouses, into the outer offices, and along the border wall until, at the last, they came to Liyan’s yard and workshop, with the squat tower of the water clock and the square heavy mass of the printing press.

Papers were strewn everywhere, scattered across the packed earth, soaking in the water channels that fed the clock, flapping and cracking and floating, some plain, some printed, many torn and ragged. Puddles of melted metal clung to the workshop steps, steaming in the cold air. The frame of the printing press was warped, its bed hanging precariously. The workshop doors stood open, revealing more destruction within. Benches had been overturned, scattering tools and projects willy-nilly; shelves had been
cast down to add their contents to the mess on the floor. The great forge stood gray and empty, its fire no more than a handful of gray ash.

The clock began to sound the half hour, and Yelena jumped. She had come to a halt at the side of the yard while the bannermen strode on, toward the stables. The clock whirred and clattered, doors opening to allow the jerky march of the bell-jacks. She watched it as it clunked and groaned, creaked and burped and came to a juddering stop. The endmost jack teetered, toppled, dropping its tiny cymbal to the floor far below. The clock groaned again, and its whole frame shuddered. She could hear the gears grinding and straining somewhere inside. The low slosh of water slowed and fell silent. Yelena crept forward, every whisker alert. The clock moaned and clanked again, and she jumped as jack fragments cascaded down. She could smell old fire and cracked metal and ice.

In the deep drain that fed the clock, the waters had frozen. A skein of icicles reached up, binding the lowest water scoop into place. From within the clock, the gears struggled on a few moments longer, then came to a rumbling, painful halt. For an instant, all was still.

Darkness flowed down one of its sides. Yelena squeaked, realizing there was no cover. The darkness pooled at the base of the clock, thickening into human form. Qiaqia. Qiaqia hunting. Terror got the better of Yelena, and she sprinted for the wall, sharp nails catching in its surface as she sought to scale it. Behind her, Qiaqia laughed, low and strange. Yelena lost her grip and slid backward.

Qiaqia said, “I’ve no need to harm you.” Yelena leaped again and found better purchase. A scrabble and a twist and she was atop the lowest part of the wall, fur all at odds. She needed light, as much of it as possible, and soon. She was filled with fear, her own fear and the fear of the Rice Palace. It thundered through her veins, drove heart and lungs and limbs.

She reached the place where the wall joined the side of the workshop before thought caught up with her. She had
been looking for Shirai, for one of the Cadre, to help Marcellan, to save Marcellan. Qiaqia was Cadre. Yelena told herself to slow down, to stop, to look back, and her front feet obeyed her. Her back feet, closer to the source of her alarm, continued on despite her, bundling her into the side of the workshop. She wobbled and dropped, legs splayed, down onto the terrace.

She landed square and lay for a moment gasping. The stone did not welcome her, bound up as it was in its own fears. She gulped for breath, tongue out, tasting chill and metal dust. Her body complained at the abuse. She took another breath, and another, then pulled her refractory back legs under her and struggled to her feet. Her fur was still disordered; she shook herself, snapped at a clump that had formed on her shoulder. Then she turned and glared at Qiaqia.

Qiaqia had sat down on the topmost step, elbows on her knees. She was unarmored, dressed in casual robes, and her hair hung loose. No trace of her hunting clung to her; she was as composed and still as ever. She said, “Panic over?”

The twins were never sure how well the Cadre understood them. It was almost impossible to know; even Shirai was sparing with what he gave away. Yelena took a few more moments to reorder her pelt, while her heartbeat slowed and her breath calmed itself. Then she looked up at Qiaqia and said, “Marcellan.” Qiaqia gave no sign of having understood, her face smooth. Yelena nibbled at another knot, then tried again. “Man. Captive. The gate to his courtyard is locked.”

“The Grass King is not amused,” Qiaqia said. She gazed past Yelena, into some misty distance. “It was the books. The written things. They were getting out, you see, and the Grass King found out. He saw it from the windows in his Tower.” She began to braid her hair, separating it into long tails with quick fingers. “It did not please him. Not at all. Such things belong to the human world, and that world is no business of ours. But Liyan
must
make things, and then he must share them. He had ordered his banner to take the
books out into WorldAbove, to place them in the hands of humans. That is not part of his role. And then, he
must
ask questions.” She paused in the plaiting, looked briefly at Yelena. “Answering them wasn’t sensible. But the captive wasn’t to know that.” Her gaze flicked back to the courtyard. “But I don’t think it matters too much. Not really. The Grass King’s anger will pass.”

How quickly?
asked Yelena of herself. It was easy for Qiaqia to ride out the storms of the Grass King’s temper. Qiaqia was already dead. But earth and stone and flesh were more vulnerable by far, more apt to be bent and strained and broken. She bared her teeth. Qiaqia continued, “It’s forgivable, I think. But the clock…” She paused to tie off the braid with a thong taken from her sleeve. “The clock is another matter.” She rose and stretched, long arms sweeping skyward. Then she gestured at the yard. “Sujien did a lot of damage, I think.” Another silky stretch, then she began to walk down the steps. At their base, she paused and glanced over her shoulder. “If you want to save your man, you should go to the Great Hall of Judgment. It’s too late for anything else.” And then, flicking her braid over the same shoulder, she was gone across the courtyard and into the shadows of the palace beyond.