Shadow Magic

CHAPTER EIGHT





CAIUS

Alcibiades deserved something special, I thought. After all, he’d only just narrowly escaped being killed by the Emperor. Anyone in his position would have needed a bit of perking up, me included. And even though Alcibiades hadn’t spoken of it since, I was determined to make things up to him.

“Go on,” I said, watching his face eagerly for some reaction other than mulish brooding. “Open it.”

“It’s not snakes, is it?” he asked.

Wherever did he get those ridiculous ideas? One had to wonder about his countryside upbringing. “Is that a custom among farmers?” I asked. “Wrap snakes up in boxes and give them to their friends? I’m not entirely sure I like it. Wouldn’t it be better suited for your enemies?”

Alcibiades snorted. “So long as it’s not something alive,” he muttered ungraciously.

“Not last I checked, no,” I said, trying my best to placate him. “Come now, or we’ll be late for supper.”

“Hm,” was all Alcibiades deigned to grace me with before he tore into the wrapping paper without any ceremony. He was an awful brute sometimes, in need of far better training. Poor Yana. I sympathized with her deeply.

It had been awfully hard to come by, mostly because I’d needed to guess at Alcibiades’ measurements. I’d thought about sneaking in to his room at night with some measuring tape, but one could never trust Alcibiades to react like a normal person under the circumstances. He was as angry as fire ants.

“It’s… cloth,” Alcibiades said finally, pushing aside all the extra wrapping paper. “Red cloth.” The Ke-Han were exquisite gift-givers; the paper was thick, brocaded, shot with flashes of silver and gold. I’d gone for something particularly ostentatious, since Alcibiades was a simple man and might have been swayed by bright colors or the like.

“You’re being deliberately obtuse, my dear, and it’s making it very hard for me to be gracious,” I said. “You might try unfolding it.”

Alcibiades looked, at least momentarily, appropriately sheepish, and did as he was asked. Perhaps I might shame him into proper etiquette yet, though who could tell how long it would take to teach this old dog a few new tricks?

“It’s a coat,” Alcibiades said, unfurling it like a war banner. “A red coat.”

I didn’t think he would appreciate it if I told him how expensive the fabric was, and how delicate, and so I merely said: “Please, my dear, try not to wrinkle it. I thought you might wear it tonight.”

“But it’s red,” Alcibiades said blankly.

“Well, you insist upon wearing the color anyway,” I pointed out. “And it’s better than that dusty old thing you refuse to wash. You’re beginning to smell, and it disturbs Josette. In any case, this color will match.”

Alcibiades’ eyes instantly narrowed. “Match what?” he asked.

“Why, the outfit I’ve had made up for myself, of course!” He really was too slow. “One moment, my dear—it’ll only take a little while to change, and meanwhile you can make sure everything fits in the shoulders and around the waist. I wasn’t sure of the exact number, so I had to guess. If anything isn’t right, then we’ll send for the tailors straightaway, and they can make the alterations before dinner is even on the table.”

“Why are you doing this?” Alcibiades began to ask, but I was already closing the door on him. If he couldn’t figure out how to try the coat on properly, then he was on his own entirely and would receive no more help from me.

I’d tried to be considerate when having it made—nothing more than the simplest of cloth, and the reddest, as well. I thought that ought to please him, obdurate as he was. Perhaps I’d gone overboard with the epaulettes? Yet they offset all the red quite nicely, and were the same gold as the buttons. Besides, the collar on his old jacket looked as though it were too tight for him, especially during the talks.

And, most important, I thought he needed some reassurance. What better way to do that than to dress in his favorite color?

My own new outfit was quite different, though I’d had it in mind to match ever since I came up with the idea. We were similar in color only—according to my plan, we’d be two bright red cardinals tonight amidst a flight of bluebirds. Yet what suited Alcibiades, a proud Volstovic military coat in proud Volstovic colors, would hardly do for me. I didn’t even like red; it made me look too pale.

I compensated for it by designing the shape in purely Ke-Han style, from high Ke-Han collar to long Ke-Han hem, to layer upon layer of red sleeves, to bright red Ke-Han sash.

I looked like a bloodstain, I thought, as I caught sight of myself in the mirror and smoothed out my robes. Alcibiades would no doubt ask me what, exactly, I thought I was doing wearing a dress to dinner; I was expecting it, but I would be sorely put out nonetheless.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, my dear,” I said, sliding open the adjoining door. “I had a bit of trouble with the sash.”

Alcibiades didn’t turn for a moment—he was too busy looking at himself in the mirror. And, I was overjoyed to note, the coat fit him perfectly in the shoulders and in the back.

“Oh!” I exclaimed. “Do turn around, General, so that I may see the complete effect! Does it fit as well in the front as it does in the back?”

It was the first time I’d ever seen Alcibiades do something I’d requested willingly, although he could have stood up a bit straighter, and there was no reason for him to tug at the hem or adjust the collar as though the whole thing made him uncomfortable. It was made from the finest fabric by the finest tailors the Ke-Han had to offer, and I’d made sure it was in a style he’d like. If he’d only stop slouching and keep his hands still, he would cut a fine figure indeed.

After all, since he adored the color so ferociously, it behooved him to act more proudly while wearing it.

“Well!” I said. “Don’t you look handsome? I would never have guessed it. Those epaulettes suit you—I knew they would.”

“Why in bastion’s name are you wearing a dress?” Alcibiades asked.

I sighed. “Since I am doing you the favor of joining you in this fit of pure bravado,” I quipped, “I decided it might be prudent in some ways to dilute the effect by at least giving a nod to Ke-Han culture in some other fashion. Besides, the days are turning cold, and the wealth of fabric will help on those chillier nights. Are you satisfied with the explanation, my dear, or have you other complaints to make?”

Alcibiades was silent for a long moment, staring at me. I looked him over again in the meantime, wishing he’d thought to shave. He needed a bit of a haircut, too; his curls were growing unruly.

“You look all right,” he said finally. “I mean, for a madman.”

“Pardon?” I asked, surprised out of my examination for a brief moment. In my distraction, there was always the possibility that I’d heard him wrong; when it was something so close to a compliment, the possibility became a likelihood.

Alcibiades shrugged, looking at the epaulettes on his coat as though he liked the effect they created as he did it. “It suits you. Better than some of the others, anyway. They look like imposters. Uncomfortable imposters, besides.”

“That, my dear, is the difference between a good tailor and a bad one,” I said, feeling all over again that this idea had been one of my better ones. Why, I might even have ventured to say that it had put Alcibiades into a relatively good mood, which was more than I’d ever seen him exhibit.

He wasn’t exactly smiling, but this was certainly a step in the right direction.

“I daresay I’ll never outshine the Emperor,” I continued, venturing to stand beside Alcibiades in front of the mirror. “Oh! We make quite a striking pair, don’t you think?”

Alcibiades looked down at me as if I were a bit of grit he’d suddenly noticed on his shoulder. Or perhaps he was thinking of the Emperor, and how he’d nearly been killed, in which case I’d been terribly gauche in bringing it up. I’d only wanted to test the buoyancy of his good mood and what would cause it to sink down beneath the waves of reticence he seemed so fond of. His stubbornness made him very difficult and very easy all at once.

“We’re going to stand out,” he said at last. “That’s for sure.”

I took his arm, smiling at my reflection in the mirror. “My dear, that’s entirely the idea.”

To tell the truth, I’d been looking forward to dinner a great deal ever since Lord Temur had taken me aside after our afternoon break in the talks to inform me that a theatre company had been invited to perform that night. It was the first bit of good news I’d had all day since I’d long since begun to realize that the Emperor was using his brother’s absence as an excuse to run us all around in circles every day. He didn’t require our permission to do anything, though some saw it as a fine gesture of diplomacy. I thought it seemed more like a diversion myself, keeping us away from the meat of the treaty discussions over an issue so sensitive that even those of us who’d picked up on it felt loath to mention it.

I felt it accounted quite well for all the sour faces around the delegation room though. A play was just the thing I needed to feel refreshed and renewed.

The Emperor’s chamberlain had arranged for a new form of entertainment to be put on every night for us, and while I’d enjoyed the singing better than Alcibiades—and while the dancing had been divine—it was the coming entertainment that I’d truly been anticipating. A real Ke-Han play, one of the classics, performed exclusively by the most esteemed theatre company the Emperor could find.

“What’re you skipping for?” Alcibiades asked belligerently. “Walk like a normal person.”

I sighed, slowing my steps so that I might be more of a pace with him. “Aren’t you at all looking forward to tonight?”

Alcibiades snorted. “Looking forward to leaving the palace in order to get some real food, maybe. And I guess I’m looking forward to seeing some of those stuffed shirts at the high table fanning themselves into a fever pitch over our new gear. That’ll be real entertaining.”

It was the most I’d got out of him since the incident with the Emperor. If the coat took credit for his unusual loquaciousness, there was room for me to feel immensely pleased with myself over having found the perfect solution to our problem.

“Don’t tell me you’ve gone and forgotten the play,” I said, in tones suggesting the utmost consternation.

Alcibiades only looked at me as though I’d told him the Ke-Han were putting a permanent ban on fried-dumpling stands.

“Oh, honestly,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s our entertainment for tonight. You were lurking about when Lord Temur told me, same as Josette. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten already!”

“Huh,” Alcibiades said, in a way that I knew meant that he had, in fact, done exactly that. “Well, at least it’s not going to be singing. There isn’t singing involved in these plays, is there?”


As it happened, we were among the first to arrive to dinner. This was because I’d left enough time for Alcibiades to decide if he wanted last-minute alterations to his coat, and when he didn’t, there hadn’t been much to do but leave for the dining chamber. Normally I would have abhorred arriving early at any location—it would have been deliciously dramatic to arrive late, clad all in scarlet—but there was a certain pleasure in watching the various Ke-Han warlords enter with their servants and take their proper seats at the high table. Before the meal was served there was normally some accompanying music to set the mood, which more often than not set Alcibiades to grumbling and shifting and kicking me—he said it was by accident—like a sullen child.

It took all my strength not to invoke Yana at those times—since, like all powerful weapons, her name retained its power only if used sparingly.

“I see Lord Jiro is already here,” I noted. So far, the room was gifted with an overabundance of red—we hardly stood out at all yet—though the lord’s coloring was sadly in his face and not his clothing.

“We match him, too,” Alcibiades noted, and took a drink of his water before I could see if he’d actually cracked a smile. I would never know whether or not that had been a joke.

If it was, I was quite prepared to cede my anticipation for the play in favor of further such entertainment, the sort only Alcibiades and his peculiar nature could provide.

Lord Maidar entered next, seating himself with a space between himself and Lord Jiro, though the night before they’d sat next to one another and shared conversation quite comfortably. In Volstov, I’d followed the rise and fall of various courtiers as they all scrambled to reach the very tiptop of the Esar’s esteem. It had been a game, and a tremendously amusing one at that, until the day I’d been condemned to exile myself, after which it became a very difficult thing to keep track of, so far removed from the playing field had I been. It was somewhat more difficult keeping track of things at the Ke-Han palace, since—like anywhere—the servants held all the best gossip, and I hadn’t yet learned enough of the Ke-Han language to be able to communicate with them. I’d studied abroad—as abroad as exile could be termed in those days—but an education in the formal language was quite a different thing from knowing the ins and outs of all the common slang. I would pick up on it eventually, I was sure. I was determined, though; my time would come. Until then, I would have to settle for gossiping with my fellow countrymen.

I leaned close to Alcibiades, holding my cup out so that he might pour me some of the delightful jasmine tea we’d been enjoying with dinner. “Do you think that Lord Maidar is sitting farther away today because of their disagreement in the talks?”

Alcibiades glanced up at the high table, taking no notice of my teacup at all. “Don’t know,” he said. “Personally, I think Jiro’s right, and there isn’t much point in focusing all our resources on one lost prince who doesn’t even seem all that menacing anyway. Better to see what he’s planning and deal with it then, isn’t it? And in the meantime, we can get our talks out of the way. It’s a—what’s it, a nonissue, some kind of smoke screen. Keeps us from getting to the real issues. The Emperor probably couldn’t’ve planned it better if he’d worked the whole thing himself.”

I shrugged, tapping the delicate base of my cup against the table ever so subtly. “Don’t look now, my dear, but I do believe the good lord has taken notice of our patriotic garments.”

Alcibiades followed the direction of my glance, though whether it had anything to do with the fact that I didn’t want him to was another matter entirely.

“Let him stare,” he said, then glanced at me as though suddenly confused. “Is there a reason you’re banging your teacup against the table? Or did you just get inspired by the music?”

“Just enjoying myself, my dear,” I said, and nodded in the direction of the doorway. “The fun, I believe, is nearly about to start.”

Josette, dressed quite fetchingly in a pale shade of cerulean, was standing there; she’d seemed happy enough until she’d caught sight of the two of us. Then her expression changed completely. I was quite fond of her—and her temper. She reminded me of Alcibiades in that respect—and I was doubly pleased with her when she barely hesitated at all before charging straight toward us.

“What,” she demanded, “do you think you’re doing?”

“Eating dinner with the Ke-Han,” Alcibiades said, as though a pat of butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. His lips didn’t even twitch; he had quite a knack for deadpan delivery, and I was forced to hide my delighted laughter behind my sleeve. “Why, what’s it look like we’re doing?”

“As if fighting with the Emperor wasn’t bad enough,” Josette hissed, taking the empty seat beside Alcibiades and fixing him with a terrifying glare. “What are you trying to do—cause an international incident?”

“We won the war,” Alcibiades said, better than if I’d coached him through his lines myself. He really was a fantastic creature, my new friend. “Don’t see why we have to pretend all the time like we didn’t.”

“These matters are sensitive, General,” Josette said, though some of the anger in her eyes was becoming suffused with a sort of admiration and wonder. “As diplomats, we must… we must do what we can to make sure things progress as smoothly as possible.”

“Good thing I’m not a diplomat, then, isn’t it?” Alcibiades said. He took a cool sip of his water and sighed. “Ahh. Hits the spot. Real refreshing.”

Josette turned her accusatory glare to me. “This is your fault, isn’t it, Greylace?” I had to give her credit for seeing right through our little charade. I understood her position, of course—I’d even been in agreement with her at the beginning of our sojourn in the palace—but Alcibiades was, for all his brute strength, something of a delicate creature. All the rules were stifling him, and I was merely trying to give him a little fresh air to breathe before he went mad and did something very foolish, indeed.

“I like to show solidarity,” I said. “My dear, would you pour me a little more tea?”

“Gladly,” Alcibiades said, and obliged. “That enough?”

“Perfection,” I replied. “Perhaps Josette would also like some tea?”

“Josette most certainly would not,” Josette said, scanning the rest of the guests. Perhaps she was waiting for Fiacre to appear, in hopes that he would have the inclination and the clout to put an end to our game. Or perhaps she was on the lookout for the Emperor’s arrival, which, considering Alcibiades’ current standing in his graces, would result in something of a situation. It appeared, however, that Josette was doing her best to pointedly ignore us, so I turned my attention once more to the entranceway, just as Lord Temur arrived.

His expression revealed nothing when he saw us—the Ke-Han warlords were dreadful spoilsports—but I was delighted when he strode purposely over to us and chose his seat at my side.

“Lord Greylace,” he said, nodding in our direction. “General. Lady Josette.”

“Lovely day, isn’t it?” Alcibiades said. “Would you like some tea? Apparently it’s delicious.”

All this time, I thought, and the secret to success with Alcibiades was so simple as giving him something he wanted! People were such complicated animals, far harder to please than dogs and far harder to care for than horses. In many ways they were the most like cats—aloof yet dependent, with moods of so many shades and variations that it was impossible to tell which they’d be sporting next.

Lord Temur glanced at me, then to Alcibiades, then to Josette. Josette merely shrugged, a dainty rise and fall of her shoulders that might have been taken for anything else but was, of course, exactly what it looked like. Who knows? her expression seemed to say, and, It’s awful being even the slightest bit associated with them.

“I see you have made use of my tailor,” Lord Temur said, after a pause. “General Alcibiades did not wish also to try the Ke-Han style? It is much more comfortable when sitting cross-legged for the talks, I find.”

“I’d look pretty damn silly wearing something like that,” Alcibiades said, nodding toward me. “All due respect, of course.”

“Of course,” Lord Temur said thinly. “It suits Lord Greylace very well. He has caused quite a commotion among some of the younger lords, who think he has a poet’s aesthetic taste.”

“Do they really?” I asked. This evening was shaping up to be even better than I’d hoped. “Why, Lord Temur, I had absolutely no idea!”

“They are in quite the state,” Lord Temur said. “In particular, I believe they are enamored of the color of your hair.”

“Now, Lord Temur,” Alcibiades warned, though there was only surprising good humor in his voice, “do you think it’s such a good idea to let Caius know that? He’s so little, and if his head gets any bigger, it’ll snap his neck.”

Lord Temur looked at Alcibiades mildly—an expression I was coming to discover implied some modicum of surprise. “I think I have misunderstood something,” he said. “It is often the case when speaking your language—I understand the basic grammar well enough, but the colloquialisms, the less formal turns of phrase… I admit that I am occasionally lost.”

“That’s better than I am with your language, anyway,” Alcibiades said, on the verge of sounding amiable. “It sounds like so many hens clucking at one another, if you know what I mean.”

“You must forgive him,” I interrupted, as smoothly as I could given the circumstances. “He was raised on a farm, and apparently by wolves. What General Alcibiades meant earlier was something of an insult. He was intimating that, if you continued to compliment me or relay such praise from other sources, I would grow too proud and puff up like a peacock.”

“A red peacock,” Lord Temur said.

“The best kind of peacock there is,” Alcibiades agreed.

“The Emperor,” Josette said.

Immediately, the air in the dining chamber changed. The Emperor had a certain fearsome presence that consumed all the air in any room he entered; even when he’d stepped outside to observe Lord Temur and Alcibiades as they sparred, he’d managed to steal my breath away. Of course, I didn’t like him, not even for the barest moment. It was something about his eyes; he reminded me of a panther on the prowl, a beast of prey in the jungle, the sort that pretended to be sleeping up until the very instant before you found it at your throat. He moved with the same lazy, intentional grace. It wouldn’t have surprised me at all if he had falsely accused his younger brother; he seemed just the type. The poor little thing, I thought, out in the wild with only his loyal retainer to protect him! It must have been dreadful, as accustomed as he was to all the comforts and luxuries of palace life. I did hope he’d managed to escape.

But all that was mere speculation; the pondering of an otherwise unoccupied mind. I didn’t share my suspicions with anyone, not even Alcibiades.

Imprudence and pride had seen me banished from the Esar’s court once before. I’d suffered long, dreadful years in the countryside, with nothing more to occupy my time than counting sheep and gossiping with dreadful chatelains, or teasing their equally dreadful sons and daughters. Despite my exotic new surroundings, and despite my exotic new companions—and though I could have been the center of such grand, infamous scandals without even trying—I wished to get through my stint as a diplomat with as little incident as possible.

Perhaps, I mused, I shouldn’t have followed through with the matching red outfits.

Yet the decision had already been made, the coats exquisitely tailored, and there we were in the Ke-Han dining chamber as the Emperor made his appearance. I had, as they liked to say in the country, made my bed in the stables and had no right to complain about sleeping with the sheep.

As on all other nights, everyone assembled bowed low over the tables. Even Alcibiades was game enough to follow suit, though that might have been less because of his new coat and my unexpected showing of Volstovic nationalism, and more because he wasn’t actually drinking water but rather the clear, sweet Ke-Han wine. It was meant, as far as I could tell, for those who were too easily affected by the redder, richer draft—for children and the infirm—but Alcibiades had been knocking it back as though it were water. It was bound to be an interesting night.

I knew the exact moment when Emperor Iseul caught sight of us, like two red peas in a pod. To his credit, his expression revealed nothing—though when, of course, had I ever expected it to?

It was a dangerous little game we were playing, for I knew by then that the Emperor was prone to fits of passion despite the rigidity of Ke-Han protocol. He was fastidious and immaculate and dangerously powerful, but just like the Ke-Han wrapping paper in that he was shot with flashes of silver and gold—the colors of obsession and madness. All great men, I supposed, in positions of great power, must have been in some form or another exactly like him. How could I, little Caius Greylace, presume to know what it was like to be raised as a second-in-command, the replacement for my father should anything happen to him in battle, trained within an inch of perfection, with all my servants whispering to me since birth that I was descended from the gods themselves?

Even I’d gone mad once or twice, so the gossip said, and I was merely an Esar’s cat’s-paw. It was a tragic fact of the Greylace family that we were bred for beauty and Talent but little true function besides that. My great-aunt had been a famed beauty, and my mother, the second Lady Greylace, had been the rival of the formidable Lady Antoinette before the former’s mysterious and very private death. I myself was nothing so fancy: raised in the palace due to some lingering fondness for my mother on the part of the Esar, until one of his men had caught me practicing my Talent in the eastern wing of the palace.

I was seven at the time.

“Fernand tells me he saw you with a tiger in the eastern corridor,” the Esar had said, his beard the color of spiced wine.

“Not a real tiger,” I’d admitted, to my great disappointment. “I made him.”

Looking back, I couldn’t help but wish I’d announced the thing with more grandeur, but what does a child know of such artifice?

“Show me,” the Esar had said. “If you prove yourself useful, then you may have all the tigers you could ever want.”

Royal blood—whether you were inbred or not—was always distinctly corrupt.

I reveled in the Emperor’s aura despite that, for I had never felt such a presence in all my life, nor seen such impeccable grace firsthand. He was better than any actor, with greater stage presence, and he dwarfed us all in comparison. We were not fit to sit in a room with him. He believed this, as did most of his men, and the sheer force of that belief was beginning to convince even me.

Beside me, Lord Temur bowed lower than the rest of us, and I had to wonder what punishment he had received, outright or oblique, for being carried away with Alcibiades the other morning. At least, bless his heart, he hadn’t tried to kill the general. And Alcibiades was going to have to practice harder if he ever intended to be quick enough on his feet to present Emperor Iseul with any real challenge.

The Emperor ascended to his place on the dais at the far end of the room and lifted one hand, palm outward—the signal for us to cease formalities and commence eating. Lord Temur continued to keep his head low for a moment longer than the rest of us.

“This is the best water I’ve ever had,” Alcibiades murmured to me, in what he may have thought—poor dear—was a whisper.

“Must be from the mountains,” I said, patting him on the shoulder. “How does your new coat suit you?”

“Fits better in the shoulders,” he admitted, and less grudging than I would have thought him capable of being. “Like the epaulettes, too. A bit above my station, I think, but not too much so.”

“Are you doing it for a purpose?” Lord Temur asked, as calm as you like. He spoke our tongue better than he gave himself credit for, which I supposed was all part of his tactic to encourage us to talk more freely around him. “I do hope,” he added, without turning to look at either of us, “that you do not mistake my question for rudeness. I have a genuine curiosity when it comes to such Volstovic displays. We are each proud countries, but in a different fashion from one another.”

“Greylace here likes the color better,” Alcibiades said. He’d even stopped tugging at his collar—though I realized a moment later and to my chagrin that he’d undone the top button while I wasn’t looking.

“I like variety in my wardrobe,” I confirmed, sipping meekly at my tea. “Besides, I always find it better to wear red near autumn.”

“That way you match the leaves,” Alcibiades provided.

“Yes, my dear, that’s quite enough, thank you,” I said.

“Lord Temur,” Josette said, brown eyes keen as she reached toward Alcibiades’ setting to confiscate the clear wine and, I noted, pour a little for herself, “I believe that my two companions are what is known in Volstov as ‘characters.’”

“Ah,” Lord Temur said, though I could tell he honestly had trouble with this new and unfamiliar idiom. “Characters, you say? Perhaps… from a play?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes.” Josette set Alcibiades’ bottle down on the opposite side of her own table, so that he’d need to make a clumsy lunge for it to retrieve it, and pointedly ignored his dirty looks. “They are—somewhat over the top in the same way. Do you understand that?”

Lord Temur regarded us for a long moment. At length, he replied, “Completely.”

Alcibiades favored Josette with a look that suggested he thought her the worst of traitors, and gazed sadly at what wine was left in his cup.

I patted his hand, and used that extremely opportune moment to turn our conversation around.

“Speaking of characters, my dears, can anyone give me any more detail on this play that’s slated for our entertainment tonight?”

Josette shook her head, and Lord Temur leaned forward, his voice pitched low and careful, though whether this was because it was taboo to speak about plays before they occurred, or whether he merely did not wish to spoil the surprise for the other men and women around us, I couldn’t guess.

“It is one of the old classics,” he said, “about the princess who lives in the moon.”

“She must get very lonely,” Alcibiades whispered loudly. His eyes were wide with inebriated sincerity.

Josette clucked her tongue in disapproval. “It’s only a story, Alcibiades.”

“No, in this case the general is correct,” Lord Temur said, correcting her gently. “It is rather a sad tale, about one who has a home but can never return to it without feeling a great loss for the man she has fallen in love with.”

“Ah,” said Josette, sobering up considerably, despite her foray into the bottle of wine she’d appropriated from Alcibiades.

Lord Temur nodded. “In some sense, it is a story about homes and the loss of them. I do wonder at the choice of program; would not a comedy have been best? But likely it has no real meaning behind it. The play is one of our most popular. If at any time you are interested in learning more of our history, you will find it mentioned in all the classics.”

There was a faint shadow of an expression on Lord Temur’s face—one that I was beginning to associate with something very close to anxiety. I wondered if it were the poor second prince he was thinking of, who had certainly lost his home, though not for any love. If that was what the Emperor meant by showing us the play, then it was deviously cruel of him.

Somehow, this did not surprise me. Perhaps it was because I’d seen him fight that I felt with such certainty all the things I’d only been able to speculate upon before. I had no understanding of the way a prince of the Ke-Han was raised, of course, but when I thought of how that sweet little creature had smiled at Josette’s joke without understanding the half of it, and the careful way he’d shaped his words to sound like ours, I thought perhaps that it wasn’t the way they’d been raised at all. Some things were simply born in the blood.

“So wait,” Alcibiades said, with more interest than I’d heard him exhibit all night. “This princess. She lives on the moon?”

“That sounds lovely,” I said hurriedly. “We’ve been so looking forward to seeing a theatre performance. Why, we were nearly to the point of hiring out a carriage and going back to the theatre ourselves, weren’t we, my dear?”

“Yeah,” Alcibiades said, rather startling me with his agreement. If that was the effect clear wine was going to have on him, I would have to have a bottle sent to his room every evening; then we could take evening constitutionals, or gossip about the day’s events together. It would do wonders for our friendship. “Well, it’ll be a nice change from all the singing, no mistake about that. Caius, what in bastion’s name are you kicking me for?”

I smiled, hastily and winningly. “It was an accident, my dear.”

“The food’s coming out,” Josette said, sounding as grateful as I felt. We couldn’t have planned its timing to be more felicitous.

While I was rather enjoying this new side of Alcibiades, it was probably for the best that he find something to occupy his mouth with rather than talking. It was one thing to create a sensation just by the clothes one was wearing and quite another to be impolitic. I wasn’t entirely certain that Alcibiades was on his guard enough at the moment to catch his little slips.

I would have to catch them for him, I resolved. Even if it did mean resigning myself to kicking him under the table all night long. That was what friends were for.

Alcibiades looked up hopefully at the twin rows of servants bearing food. Each was carrying our starters, which of late had been clear soups, or small bowls of white rice. His favorite, to date, had been a broth poured over hot, flat noodles that we’d not seen replicated, but hope sprang eternal in his simple heart.

It was rather sweet, really. He was so earnest.

That night, it seemed, we were all in for rather a lovely surprise, as what the servants put down in front of each of us was a round dish with three cooked dumplings in the center. They were floating in an inch of delicious-smelling broth, and looked plump, as if they’d burst as soon as you attempted to pick one up. They weren’t fried, like the kind we’d enjoyed in the capital, but they looked just as mouthwatering. I sincerely hoped that Alcibiades would find three an ample number.

“You must be very careful with these,” Lord Temur counseled us. He had a rather pleased look about his eyes and mouth, which I supposed passed for a large and winning smile among Ke-Han warlords. He knew as well as I did that dumplings were Alcibiades’ preferred fare, at least when it came to Ke-Han delicacies. “The soup that they are filled with is quite hot, and you will burn your tongue while eating them, unless you take the proper care.”

“Armphg,” said Alcibiades, waving a hand in front of his mouth and reaching for the water pitcher like a man possessed. His cheeks were nearly so red as to match his coat.

Josette hid a laugh behind her hand and eyed her own dumplings with considerably more circumspection.

“That is most prudent advice,” I said. “Thank you.”

“You must eat them like this,” Lord Temur said, once Alcibiades had emptied two glasses of water, and his eyes were less bright, his cheeks less crimson. “If you place it on your spoon, and pierce the wrapper like so with the end of your stick, the broth inside will fill your spoon like soup, making it far easier to cool with your breath.”

There was a moment’s silence after that as Josette, Alcibiades, and I all endeavored to follow Lord Temur’s sage advice. After some demure—and not so demure, in Alcibiades’ case—slurping, we’d managed the dumplings well enough; the broth inside was nearly sweet for a tantalizing moment, before it turned spicy, and we were all pleasantly surprised.

“I have endeavored to counsel the cooks in their choices for each evening’s repast,” Lord Temur said, before he set to work on his own dumplings. “I would not want our esteemed guests to go hungry.”

“More dumplings,” Alcibiades said, with a winning smile.

Lord Temur inclined his head in recognition of the request. “I shall take it under advisement.”

“Seems odd, though,” Alcibiades went on, not entirely tactlessly; he simply sounded curious, “that a man like you would be in the position of telling cooks what to do. Isn’t that a little below your station?”

I saw Josette’s fingers twitch in her lap, but Lord Temur merely smiled his diplomat’s smile—the one that revealed nothing and which even I failed in attempting to parse. The Ke-Han warlords were impossible to read, rolled up tight as forbidden scrolls, and even more tormenting because of it.

“Since it seemed that you were having such trouble with our earlier meals, General Alcibiades, I only wished to make things easier on your stomach,” Lord Temur declared. If I hadn’t known better, I might have said he was enjoying our conversation—not because of the topic, mind, but rather because of its blunt honesty. Perhaps he needed a little more of that in his life. Perhaps we all did. “Noodles and broth and dumplings seem better suited to your tastes than some of the other, less familiar delicacies our chefs have to offer.”

“I’ve eaten some pretty awful things in my time,” Alcibiades said, “but at least it was Volstovic and awful, if you take my meaning.”

“Somehow I think I do,” Lord Temur replied dryly.

Our conversation was sadly cut short as the second course arrived, and then the third—rice and rice noodles and more fish, which Alcibiades was leery of until hunger got the better of him. Thankfully, the business of eating kept him momentarily quiet, although he did lean over and intimate to me, in the midst of a particularly tricky portion of catfish lined with countless little bones, that he missed a good tea-cake more than anything, and didn’t these Ke-Han have proper sweets?

“I don’t think you need any more sweets,” I replied, delighted to be able to tease him properly.

“I’m not that out of shape,” he grumbled, albeit good-naturedly. “Getting back into it, anyway. Any more of this Ke-Han diet and I’ll be skinnier than you are.”

“Who knows,” I said. “It might allow you to be quicker on your feet.”

“Like an emperor,” he muttered, and we both glanced toward the dais, where Emperor Iseul was eating as though neither gods nor royalty ever deigned to get hungry. Alcibiades skewered some of the fish on his plate with hands too large for his sticks and the delicate fillet was flaked to pieces by his attempts. “Do you suppose he’s ever cracked a smile?”

“I’m sure he has, my dear,” I said, though it was a flippant response, and without real thought or honesty behind it. When we were in a group like this, then we were of necessity still diplomats. I was quite skilled when it came to lying, and by my understanding, a diplomat’s sole duty was to lie through his teeth no matter what obstacles lay in his path. However, I would have preferred not to lie to Alcibiades, and so resolved to answer his question more seriously later in the evening, when we were alone and I could do so freely. I did so wish to speak of the Emperor—I did so wish to learn what Alcibiades had learned directly from the source, by fighting with him. Soldiers and warriors had instincts I barely understood.

Depending on whether or not Alcibiades succeeded in procuring more of that refreshing water or not, of course. It had worked so far very much in my favor; with its aid, I might even convince him to spend some time before bed discussing the day’s events without him calling it gossipmongering. It wasn’t gossipmongering simply to confer on occurrences of some interest to us both. But the wine was bound to make him somewhat more amenable.

After dinner there were no teacakes, but a pale, flavored gelatin that even Josette had trouble eating with her sticks. The problem was that it went all to pieces the moment you exerted any pressure on it, so that the safest way was to maneuver a soft hold. It required a control that I endeavored to mimic from Lord Temur’s example. I’d never seen the like of such desserts in Volstov, of course, and after having eaten some here, I wouldn’t precisely have called it my favorite of desserts, but it was delightfully mild and light, a palate cleanser as an end to the meal.

Dessert aside, there may have been some truth in Alcibiades’ words about losing weight on a diet of strictly Ke-Han foods. Perhaps once we got back, I would recommend it to one or two of my friends, who had little success with heavier Volstovic fare.

No one stood after our sumptuous meal was through. It was customary to wait for the Emperor to make his move first, of course, but after dessert there was to be the theatre company’s production, and though I’d imagined we might at least rearrange the chairs and clear the tables out of the way to make an empty space for the troupe to perform, no one moved.

Alcibiades stroked his stomach, his fingers feeling their way around the new buttons of his coat in a way that brought satisfaction to his face, I hoped; it was always possible his satisfaction was inspired simply by the fullness of his stomach.

“Let’s have the play, then,” he said, as if he’d taken leave of his senses completely and thought he was the Emperor. Then again, after their little encounter, I didn’t think that the Emperor was the sort of man Alcibiades would be comparing himself to anytime soon.

“I’m certain that it will be starting at any moment,” Lord Temur said, aligning his sticks neatly at the front of his bowl.

Then, as if summoned by some external force, a pair of servants went scurrying toward the front entrance to the dining hall, the way we’d all come in.

All at once the actors appeared in the doorway, and they were a curious-looking group by all accounts. The men wore their hair pushed back off their faces, and some of them kept it pinned back under skullcaps. The women wore their hair looped back in elaborate curling styles that were more fascinating than even the Ke-Han warrior braids. All had eyes lined in dark pencil, and the imperfections in their faces smoothed over with a fine patina of white stage makeup, so that each glistened more like a mask. Their clothing was dark and clung to their bodies in the style I’d seen in town—short robes and leggings. I could only assume that these were the finest actors in the capital. One couldn’t mistake their graceful posture, or the way some of the older or more muscled members swaggered down the center aisle, as though not even performing for the Emperor himself could faze them.

“They are all men,” Lord Temur narrated, in a low whisper. “Many years ago and well before my time, local authorities had… a great deal of trouble with members of the audience who grew overly excited while gazing upon such beauties.”

“Oh, how wonderful,” I said.

“Just like the prince, huh?” Alcibiades said, thankfully in a voice low enough that only I could hear it. “Maybe it’s a Ke-Han preoccupation.”

Behind the actors came their stagehands and costumers—men and women carrying cloth bundles on their backs, and large paper screens upon which were painted country landscapes at night. Their faces were entirely unremarkable to look at, and I wondered if any of them had signed on with the troupe in the hopes of being actors, only to have their poor little hopes and dreams dashed to pieces. There was all sort of hardship in the world waiting for those who were mediocre.

One or two men in our party craned their necks around with interest, as though they’d never seen so much as a common mummer’s production. Others began whispering excitedly at the utter foreignness of the group parading before us. Whatever else I could say about the Emperor, he was at least a man who knew how to entertain his guests.

The costumers opened their bags behind the night-screens, so that all we could see were the shadowy outlines of clothing being removed—what I imagined to be the finest of robes kept hidden from the audience until the performers made their appearance swathed in them. As the actors prepared, the lights were dimmed, the lantern-bearing servants rearranging themselves and spreading out to the farthest edges of the chamber.

“I do say,” I whispered, laying a hand on Alcibiades’ arm. “This is the most delightfully eerie atmosphere for a play. I thought that it was meant to be a love story!”

“Nah.” Alcibiades shook his head, but refrained from trying to shake me off as usual. “It’s a play about ghosts, isn’t it? I don’t know of any real people who could’ve lived on the moon, anyway.”

Lord Temur seemed to have overheard our conversation, as he leaned forward on his elbows, dropping his voice to a murmur. “In fact, our most traditional plays are meant to convey times past, so that in many ways they are all—just as you stated, General—about ghosts. They are simply the ghosts from and of our past, instead of those more supernatural creatures you might first imagine when you hear the word. In that sense, you are both correct. It is a love story and a ghost story both.”

Josette shivered as though she’d felt a turn in the air. “Some of them looked like supernatural creatures. The actors, I mean. If you don’t mind my saying so, Lord Temur.”

He shook his head, smiling a diplomat’s smile. I thought that if Lord Temur weren’t careful, we’d convince him to start making expressions all the time, and he’d be lost for certain among his peers. Or, at least, he would begin to make a very poor diplomat. “They are not meant to look natural. If that is what you meant, then you are paying them a compliment.”

“Oh.” Josette nodded, not looking entirely sure that she’d meant it to be one. “Right, then.”

“I wonder which one was the princess in the moon,” Alcibiades said, toying idly with one of his sticks. As seemed par for the night, he was speaking far too loudly. “I hope it was the one with his hair all dolled up in curls.” And then, as though it were the most scandalous piece of news he could have shared with us: “He winked at me, you know.”

Across the table, Josette stiffened, and I had to hide my laughter behind my sleeve once again.

“I fear the language barrier would prove too much for you, my dear,” I said, doing my best to console him. “Not to mention the difference in nationality. He is from the moon, and all.”

Alcibiades snorted. “You don’t need language for everything. Let alone worrying about a barrier. If he was a woman, I mean.”

“Oh, I see,” I said, just as Josette clucked her tongue angrily once again.

“The play’s starting,” she said.

I turned around immediately, glad for some excuse that would silence Alcibiades’ tongue, at least until I could spirit him back to his room. I was interested in this new development, but it was decidedly unhealthy as far as diplomatic relations went. At the same time, I was rather amused. One would think a stubborn old soldier like Alcibiades would hold his liquor better; it all seemed to have gone to his head in a matter of moments.

In the absence of so many lantern-bearers, the light in the dining hall was diffuse and dim. It complemented the setting before us, of a pale noblewoman clad in robes patterned with red and gold chrysanthemums. Her lips were painted a bright crimson, her hair swept up and pinned back with delicate gold ornaments that tinkled as she moved. She—he—was very beautiful. I didn’t know if the actor was the one that Alcibiades had taken an inadvertent fancy to, though.

A woman in plain dress sat at the front corner of the stage they’d set up, kneeling on a large, squat cushion. She held what I’d come to recognize as one of the traditional Ke-Han stringed instruments—with a long, slender neck, curved just at the top, and a stout, round body—and before I could think to warn Alcibiades, she’d swept the strings with her long fingernails and begun to sing.

Sure enough, I heard a grunt of displeasure at my back, though he was discreet enough to keep it subdued, at least. There was something to be thankful for.

“It is the… I am not sure what the word is in your language,” Lord Temur said, no doubt sensing this new tension. I should have liked to get to know Lord Temur a little better, but it was impossible to know where to begin with these Ke-Han men. “The storyteller? Perhaps narrator is more accurate, though it holds a double meaning in our language. She begins the story for the actors and the audience.”

“Lucky me,” Alcibiades muttered under his breath, and I leaned back nonchalantly to elbow him in the ribs.

From our table, even above the screens that the theatre troupe had set up, the Emperor’s face was visible. He looked neither entertained, nor bored, nor put out in the slightest by the music. I wondered if there were anything at all that could put an expression on Emperor Iseul’s face. Then I remembered the duel between the Emperor and General Alcibiades and felt the keen prick of interest once more.

It was at times like that when I wished our instruction had been more specialized to deal with the current Ke-Han dynasty, and not simply the various ways one was expected to bow to them. What background, for example, had these men experienced? How many years of despising us had carved their features to be so fierce and so fine in our presence? What had Emperor Iseul been like as a child? I knew he had not been timid and uncertain, but more than anything, I longed for the intimate details of daily life, not the masks we saw, like so many layers of makeup, as though the Emperor might just as well have been a princess hidden in the moon, so remote from us was he.

“It’ll be a little hard to understand what they’re saying, don’t you think?” Alcibiades hissed at me.

“It’s about the mood, my dear,” I said. “Please try to concentrate.”

Alcibiades looked disappointed—perhaps he was expecting me to agree with him on everything, once I’d demonstrated such a grand display of solidarity—but he did as he was asked. If we were lucky, the wine’s effects were wearing off, or he was doing his best to imagine himself in an indeterminate elsewhere, a simple place, undisturbed by Ke-Han song.

“Ah,” Lord Temur said. “Here are the suitors.”

They filed out one after the other, each more resplendent than the last. They held themselves with dramatic poise—an adopted nobility that in some ways echoed Emperor Iseul’s posture or Prince Mamoru’s elegance, but which were at the same time merely shadows of the real thing, reflections caught in a clouded mirror. The first suitor was dressed in scarlet—I heard Alcibiades snort with amusement at my side—the second in emerald, the third in rich blue sapphire, the fourth in silver, and the fifth in gold. Their faces were indistinct, all white with shocks of red at their lips and cheeks, their thick black brows high on their foreheads, and angled to create an imperious effect. There might have been the slightest hint of mockery in their precise motions—after all, they were mimicking the imperial class, without belonging to it—but there was such delicacy in each step, each tilt of the chin or curl of the finger, that one was caught up in the beauty as if one might suddenly drown in it.

Without so much as the slightest cue, they all removed from their opulent sashes equally opulent paper fans and unfurled them all at once, obscuring their faces.

That was when the moon princess appeared.

There was no mistaking her—or him, I supposed, but it was impossible to remember that—though she was dressed in pale grays accented with lavender, the color of a fine morning mist hung low above the grass. She was not nearly so bright as her suitors were, but her poise was positively celestial. I found myself transfixed—I would have to order robes in the Ke-Han style of fabric in exactly that color at the very next opportunity—attempting, as best I could, to study the way she crossed the makeshift stage from right to left, then right again, as though she were floating bare inches above the floor.

“Beautiful,” Josette said. I could do no more than agree with her. The only one of us who looked skeptical was Alcibiades, no doubt because he couldn’t allow himself to forget her secret. It troubled him, I surmised, that anyone should appear as anything he was not.

She moved like a cloud crossing paths with the moon, her lips and nails the same deep, blushing red. The music, as played by the “narrator,” fanned the fire in our hearts by quickening pace, though the woman who played was no longer singing. The words, I supposed, would have to be found in the princess’s every movement, one hand lifting, then the other, changes so minuscule they should not have mattered.

What an artist the actor was. I never doubted for a moment that this was a woman before me, a princess fallen from grace with the stars, who would soon learn to live without them—only to be returned to the heavens once more, without a say in the matter.

“Wait,” Alcibiades said, and I could have throttled him for the disruption. “What’s that?”

I was just reaching over to quiet him by any means necessary, even if I had to go so far as to cover his mouth with my hand, when I, too, saw what he was talking about. How Alcibiades, still half-inebriated and hardly paying proper attention to the play itself, had managed to notice the knife hidden in the moon princess’s fan, I’ll never know. All I did know was that suddenly Alcibiades had leapt to his feet, knocking our dainty table over in the process, and was suddenly part of the play in progress. Or was it that the play had suddenly become all too real?

Another woman, one of our party, gasped. Josette, whose composure was magnificent, especially for a lady of true Volstovic heritage, did not. I did, however, feel Lord Temur tense beside me, reaching for a blade that unfortunately was not strapped to his side.

But Alcibiades, bless his heart, moved more quickly than all the rest, more quickly even than the Emperor’s guards themselves. I was more proud of him than I’d ever been of anyone, which was more proud than I had any right to be.

It was all over very quickly, though the moments etched themselves like scenes from a storybook, individual woodblock prints, across my vision. Alcibiades, breaking through the group of young actors portraying the suitors, who had, I saw then, cleverly formed a blockade against the majority of the diners to obscure the moon princess’s actions; Alcibiades, grasping the moon princess’s wrist, regardless of the dagger she held; Alcibiades, throwing himself between the Emperor and, it would seem, death itself, clad all in smoky, luxurious gray, while the music ended sharply on a jarring note; Alcibiades, acting as though that was what he had always been trained to do, and not, in fact, a terribly incautious whim.

The dagger fell to the floor, and the noise seemed to wake everyone from their slumber. Although I did not blame them, for I, too, felt as though I’d been caught in a spider’s web of dreams, the food and the incense and the music a deceptive spell thrown over us all to keep us sluggish and too slow.

The Emperor’s personal guards were the first to act, forming a ring around the Emperor’s dais with provisional blades at the ready. The warlords were next, catching the brightly colored actors and musicians as they ran, presumably for their lives, now that their ruse had failed. Lord Temur leapt from his position beside me, quicker than all the rest save for my brave general, and caught one suitor by his carefully lacquered hair, and another around the throat. Josette, without so much as lifting a brow, tripped a musician as he ran past and I, in a fit of desire to contribute, finished him off with a soup bowl to the head.

It was Alcibiades, though, who had the distinct honor of presenting the would-be assassin to the Emperor, one arm twisting behind him, the beautiful fabric of his costume torn at the sleeve.

Emperor Iseul’s nostrils flared.

“I am… in your debt, General Alcibiades,” he said at length, when the commotion had died down somewhat, and all the members of the troupe had been rounded up. “You have done the empire a great service.”

“I…?” Alcibiades said, looking all around nervously, as though he’d only just realized what it was he’d done. The would-be assassin, the beautiful moon princess, struggled for a moment against his hold, then went entirely limp. Alcibiades held on to him in the same way he held on to all beautiful things—as though he were somewhat afraid of their beauty. None of us could bear to look at them, nor could we bear to look away from them. “Uh, I mean. Your Highness.” All eyes were on him, and it was as though he’d only just understood it. It was also making him quite uncomfortable.

For someone who so obviously did not like to stand out in a crowd, I noticed that Alcibiades had a curious way of going about things.

“It is your honor,” the Emperor continued, his voice ringing clear and purposeful, “to mete out adequate punishment.”

“To… mete out…?” Alcibiades began.

The penalty–I tried to mouth to him, as Josette dragged the fallen musician to his feet and held his arms behind his back—for an assassination attempt upon a member of the Ke-Han royalty is death.

Gruesome death, I added, remembering with an illicit thrill down my spine the level to which the Ke-Han had refined torture. They were even better at it than I was. As gruesome as is humanly possible.

“The penalty is death,” Emperor Iseul said, inclining his head once in Alcibiades’ direction. “It is your choice to decide how this traitor is executed. If you wish it, it is your hand that may do the honor.”

“I…” Alcibiades began. He looked toward me, then, almost as though he were a drowning man casting about for a lifeline. I was surprisingly touched, until I realized he was probably looking to me because I was the only person he knew who had ever killed a man in cold blood, and he needed someone with experience to tell him what came next.

It was very curious that he was the soldier, and I was not.

“I,” Alcibiades said again, “I think… your Highness, that is, I believe…since the attack was on your life, it would be better if you…”

“Ah,” the Emperor said, stepping past his guards, and down off the dais. All eyes were now on him, including, I noted, the actors’. Theirs, however, held not a curious gaze, but one of steady, thwarted hatred.

Emperor Iseul, on the other hand, did not appear fazed at all. From what I understood of Ke-Han emperors and princes, such attempts were quite common; Emperor Iseul might well have grown used to them before he was ever past boyhood.

“I am yet further in your debt,” the Emperor said, bowing his head more deeply. He walked calmly in a circle, starting by Alcibiades’ side before coming to stand by the moon princess. The dagger—very nearly the assassination weapon—lay on the floor beside him.

I knew already what he would do next, but I held my breath nonetheless as he bent down to pick the blade up by the hilt, letting it dangle between them like a dead thing.

Then he slit the moon princess’s throat.

One of the suitors cried out from where Lord Temur held him pinned. I could almost have imagined it to be a continued scene from the play, if I’d wished it, but this was far too remarkable to be anything but reality. My eyes went immediately to Alcibiades. That was not because I found the idea of blood distressing, but because I thought his would be the most interesting reaction. More important than that, I was feeling some modicum of concern for the poor man, who had brought himself to the Emperor’s attention twice in such a short period of time. I couldn’t even bring myself to be jealous, as I might normally have been under the circumstances.

Earning favor with royalty was one thing. Earning attention from a man who might remember your face above all others the next time he had a fit of temper was quite another. I felt rather alarmed for Alcibiades, his eyes trained carefully at nothing as the moon princess’s blood was spilled, soaking the delicate gray and lavender robes to a dark, murky red. The color palette was completely ruined, and all the attention couldn’t have been very healthy for Alcibiades.

The Emperor inclined his head toward our general one last time, before the doors at the front of the hall burst open, and the dining room was filled with fierce, blue-clad guards. The general didn’t so much as flinch, though his mouth was set in an unhappy line. Alcibiades was too honest to benefit from the Ke-Han skill of making a mask out of one’s face, I thought, and at least Emperor Iseul was too distracted to notice how uncomfortable he’d made him, still clutching the moon princess’s sleeve. At last, one of the Emperor’s bodyguards—and they must have been cursing my brave friend, for what fools he’d made them all look—lifted the moon princess’s limp body by one arm and carried her off. Josette turned her head aside as they passed in front of us, but I couldn’t help looking, myself. It was curious to see the actor’s face, registering blankness beneath the mask of makeup he wore, now stained and smeared with blood. The white makeup had been smeared just under the chin, revealing the shock of darker skin, surprisingly vulnerable.

The soldiers all moved aside for the bodyguard carrying the body, and he disappeared from the dining room. I wondered where he was taking it. I couldn’t recall what the Ke-Han did with their honored dead, let alone their assassins.

“Take them all away,” said Emperor Iseul, his voice loud but calm, as if he’d just spent the day in deep meditation. “I will dispose of them later.”

The musician moaned involuntarily with fear. Or perhaps he’d simply become aware of the bump on his head from my soup bowl. Either way, Josette tightened her hold on his arms.

Gruesome death, I thought again, and pressed the pads of my fingertips together that I might not become lost in imagining it. Perhaps I might even offer my services to the Emperor. I would have to ask Alcibiades what he thought of the idea, if he ever saw fit to come back to our table. Indeed, as the guards streamed into the room, wrestling the captives away from the warlords, and from Josette, who looked almost disappointed she wouldn’t get a chance to punish the musician herself, Alcibiades stood at attention in front of the Emperor’s dais still, a pool of blood at his feet. The ruined screens were arranged around him like fallen soldiers in a failed battle, some of them with blood sprayed across their scenes of soft, dusky evening.

Perhaps he was waiting to be dismissed, I thought. If that were the case, he’d be waiting a very long time, since the Emperor had already swept away to speak in low tones with his captain of the guard, a man with fearsome eyebrows and an even more fearsome expression.

It was up to me to collect him, then. Resolved, I picked my way carefully around the guards, as they manhandled the would-be assassins out the door and the tables that had been overturned in the ensuing frenzy. I approached from the side, so as not to chance staining my slippers with blood, and slipped my arm through the general’s, our hero of the hour.

“I do hope, my dear, that you haven’t got anything on your coat,” I murmured.

Alcibiades started, as though I’d startled him from some waking sleep. He took in the rapidly unraveling scene around us, then the puddle of blood at his feet.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” he said, and pulled me with him against the current of guards robed in blue and into the hall, where the sounds of commotion and chaos were muted, distant through the night’s tranquil silence.