The Emperors Knife

CHAPTER Three



Summoned to the Petal Throne, Eyul came, and waited. The Blue Shields on either side of the royal doors stared ahead without acknowledging him, and the gods carved into the wood looked only at one another, from right to left and back again. It was always so; Eyul did the work that nobody wished to see, not even the gods.

So it came as a surprise when Donato, the Grand Master of the Treasury, approached in his curl-toed slippers and raised his pale gaze to meet Eyul’s, and even more of a surprise when he spoke in a polite, questioning tone. “Are you waiting to see the emperor, heaven bless him?”

Eyul nodded.

This clearly presented a dilemma for Donato, who pursed his lips and glanced towards the doors. He’d reached the highest position possible for a man of tribute, yet their respective rankings remained unclear. Eyul, plucked from the dark alleys of the Maze and given to a life of blood, might yet outrank a slave of scale or quill, as long as he had the emperor’s favor.

The doors swung open, the wooden gods turning to smile upon the throne. Eyul did not have the emperor’s favor, would never have it, but nevertheless took a quick step forwards, solving Donato’s problem with his feet. He had no desire to wait through a presentation of coin; the throne weighed heavy on his mind, even more so since last night’s attack. He needed to see the emperor himself, to know whether Beyon’s mind was still his own. Eyul walked towards the dais, his soft shoes quiet on the mosaic tile that sparkled in the lantern light.

He took care not to let his feet sully the purple runner, a silk road laid to return the emperor from the hunt to the throne. Eyul, a hunter himself, let his eyes follow the emperor’s tracks, writ large in the regular bunching of the silk and the scatter of sand from the folds of his tunic. He was reminded of the old proverb, The Cerani emperor brings the desert with him. It held true; Emperor Beyon kept the vast room dry and empty. Eyul remembered the cushions that once had been scattered over the cold floor and the wine that had flowed for every visitor, and felt a twinge for the court of Emperor Tahal. He’d been a young man then, and Beyon just a happy boy playing with his brothers. The palace had been lively, full of courtiers and lords from the provinces. These days, the halls held only a scattering of slaves, wives, and soldiers, and everyone spoke in whispers.

Beyon, Son of Heaven, waited on the dais in his hunting clothes, a skinning dagger tucked in his belt. He saw Eyul and widened his stance, squaring his shoulders. The throne loomed behind him, its metal roses gleaming in the morning light. Eyul drew close, avoiding the emperor’s glare; he dreaded Beyon’s eyes, wide and dark, like those of his young brothers. Tuvaini stood at the emperor’s shoulder, his pose relaxed, no warning on his face.

At either side, bodyguards waited. Their hachirahs would take long seconds to draw; their formal high, stiff boots hindered movement. If the pattern claimed Beyon, his body-guards could not protect him from Eyul’s Knife. He hoped it would not come to that.

A slave hurried past Eyul, his arms full of fresh silk. The sandy mess was whisked away and a new path set. At its start, where the fringe brushed up against the steps of the dais, Eyul made his obeisance.

The emperor let him wait. Eyul stared at these intricate tiles a few minutes longer each time he came. His knees weren’t what they once had been, and his leg smarted from last night’s wound, but he held his position.

“I’d like to see Donato first,” Beyon said to the vizier.

Eyul cursed himself. Now he would listen to the presentation of coin after all, with his faced turned to the stone. He waited through a long silence, ended by the whisper of silk as Donato fell to his own obeisance. “Rise, Donato, and tell me,” Beyon said, “about my tomb.”

His tomb. Eyul felt a cramp tighten in his leg and willed himself to remain still. Did the emperor make ready for his death? Building a tomb at twentysix would only encourage the rumours that fluttered along the hallways at night. The vizier needed time to groom the younger brother to the throne, time he wouldn’t have if Beyon exposed himself.

And yet Eyul felt comforted. He hopes to die, rather than become a Carrier. His mind remained his own, so far. Perhaps he would call upon the Knife before the pattern changed him—perhaps by then Beyon would welcome it. There would be no struggle, no betrayal.

Donato spoke of marble, tesserae, and gold. Beyon asked questions, his voice low and friendly. His tomb would join with that of Satreth the Reclaimer, the last emperor to reign before the pattern-marks came to the city of Nooria. Side by side the emperors would take their eternal sleep, one who never saw the marks, and one whom the marks had taken.

Eyul’s hands felt cold upon the floor. It seemed the end of something.

“The emperor is now ready to receive you, Eyul.” Tuvaini’s voice fell soft against his ears, cool comfort.

Eyul stood and bowed, head lowered.

“Dead bodies by the fountain, Eyul.” The emperor sounded amused. “I thought you liked to kill with a bit more ceremony.” The reference burned, even as it reassured. As long as Beyon kept the same hatreds, the same resentments, he had not been taken.

Eyul waited a moment before answering. He raised his eyes to the emperor’s face, careful not to glance towards the neck or wide sleeves of his tunic, where the pattern-marks might be glimpsed. Something in him didn’t want to see the future written on the emperor’s skin. “Circumstances demanded that I protect the vizier, Your Majesty. We were attacked—”

“You did well.”

Eyul had no choice but to pretend he didn’t hear the mocking tone. “One did get away, Your Majesty.”

The emperor pivoted to face the vizier. Though the two were of a height, Tuvaini looked small as he met the emperor’s gaze. Beyon’s shoulders crowded Tuvaini, his arms twice as thick. Tuvaini dipped his head, calm and measured, while Beyon rocked forwards on his feet.

Beyon took a step closer. “How did they get into the fountain room, Tuvaini?”

“I don’t know,” Tuvaini said with a frown.

Between the streets and the fountain stood dozens of guards who would need to be bribed or killed in order for three Carriers to pass so deep into the palace. Eyul knew the guards. He overheard their conversations as he passed unnoticed through the halls. He knew their ailments and complaints, their gambling debts and smoking habits. They could be bribed, but not by Carriers. And yet there had been no deaths. Something was missing.

Eyul felt the emperor’s gaze on him and met it with his own.

The emperor said, “What do you think, Eyul?”

Eyul bowed. “I apologise, Your Majesty; I would call it magic if I could.”

“Did you see, at least, where they came from?”

“One from either side of me and another through the fountain. I expect they were hiding behind the tapestries. How they got there—” Eyul’s shoulders drooped at the memory of being taken off guard.

“Waiting for you.” Beyon stopped, and stood for a moment without speaking. “Someone attacked the royal vizier,” he said at last. “Many will die for this. Start with the Red Hall guards. See what they have to say before their throats are cut.” His shadow flickered as he moved towards the steps. The royal bodyguards turned, weapons rattling, to follow him off the back of the dais.

Eyul straightened and fingered the hilt of his Knife. The decision should not surprise him; Eyul had taught the emperor himself, that brutal morning, the value of killing. He wished daily that it could have been a different lesson.

Tuvaini stood alone beside Beyon’s great chair, twisting the ring on his finger. “All of them, Your Magnificence?”

“What?” Beyon turned to look at Tuvaini, the fresh silk twisting under his boot. A slave inched forwards, a new runner in his hands.

“All of the Red Hall guards, Your Magnificence, or just the ones on duty that night?” Tuvaini’s face held no particular expression.

“Find who’s responsible, Tuvaini.” The emperor turned to Eyul, standing so close now that Eyul could have cut his throat with the sacred Knife before the bodyguards had time to run between them. His lips were pressed tight, his eyes shining.

“It’s been too long since you last fed your Knife well, hasn’t it, assassin? How many guards in the Red Room? Six? Twelve? That should keep you for some time.”

Eyul cleared his throat. “There will be a great deal of blood, Your Majesty.”

“Your Majesty,” Tuvaini interjected, “I don’t think the guards—none of them is marked—”

The emperor swung about as his bodyguards elbowed Eyul out of the way.

Eyul was shocked by Tuvaini’s audacity in mentioning the marks. He couldn’t see the emperor’s expression, but the stiffness of his stance, the way he balled his hands into fists over and again, told him that the next words would be sharp.

“If you know something, then come out with it.”

Tuvaini lowered his chin. “We will question the guards, Your Majesty.”

Eyul crumpled into his obeisance as the emperor turned towards the doorway. A second later Tuvaini’s forehead banged against the dais. So he did scare you, Vizier. Eyul held his position for twenty breaths. The emperor was light on his feet; only the rustling of the slaves, busy placing another runner, finally signalled to Eyul that he might rise.

Tuvaini knelt beside the throne. “I will take care of the guards.”

“But the emperor—”

“Told me to deal with it. He only assumed I’d use you. I need you to go to the Cliffs of Sight.”

“The hermit.” Eyul shook out his cramped leg.

“We must learn more about the Carriers.” Tuvaini stood and brushed sand from the sleeve of his robe. Rubbing the grains between his fingers with a disgusted look, he said, “My cousin is marked. Go to the hermit. Ask him.”

Distant cousin. Eyul held his tongue on that point. “Shall I ask the hermit how to fight the sickness?”

“Have you been paying no attention, fool?” Tuvaini came down the steps and walked towards Eyul. He smelled of coffee and black cardamom. His face was narrow where Beyon’s was wide, his lips thinner, his eyes surrounded by more lines. Still, the family resemblance was there, and the look on the vizier’s face sent a shiver down Eyul’s spine.

“Fool,” Tuvaini repeated. “Ask him what it means for the curse to gain an emperor.” The vizier placed a hand over Eyul’s Knife. He spoke the rest in a voice so low that Eyul had to lean close to hear him, close enough to feel the heat of Tuvaini’s breath against his cheek. “If he has an answer, learn it; then kill him.”

Let them chase me! Mesema knew her steed, better than she knew any human, man or woman, kith or kin. Tumble didn’t have the height of the Rider horses, but he had their stamina, and more besides. He could turn in an arm-span. In the gullies where the Hair Streams cut through the high grass she could lose even the best of her father’s Riders, no matter how many he sent.

Mesema watched the horseman crest the ridge and ride down the windward slope. At first her anger blinded her: anger at her father, at the Cerani, at their damned prince who couldn’t take a bride from among his own people, anger at the fact they’d sent only one Rider to catch her. But she wiped it from her eyes and looked more closely. She knew few outside the Felt would see it, but this was no Rider; the man and the horse moved separately.

“Dung!” Mesema spat into the wind. She cursed her father’s cleverness.

Banreh couldn’t ride as a Felt. He couldn’t talk to the horse as a man should; his shattered leg left him dumb. To outride Banreh held no honour. To leave him struggling in the gullies would only shame her.

Mesema rode to the West Ridge. She kept Tumble to a walk, allowing Banreh to close the gap. Even so she reached the ridge before him.

From the crest Mesema could see a vast swathe of her father’s lands. From mountain to distant mountain the grasslands rolled, green and empty.

Banreh came alongside her, slow and easy, as if they were inspecting the herd.

“From the West Ridge your grandfather’s grandfather would watch the grass in the season of winds,” Banreh said. “The Hidden God would show him pictures in the ripples.”

“I know this.” Mesema directed her anger at him, but trying to be angry with Banreh was like trying to light wet kindling. Even so, she kept her eyes from him and studied the grass.

“What do you see there? What does the wind paint for you?”

Mesema narrowed her eyes. “Ripples chasing ripples.” That’s all there had ever been for her. She turned from the vista and faced him.

Banreh looked pale, blond hair coiled in sweat-darkened ringlets above his brow. The chase, such as it was, had taken its toll on him.

A momentary guilt clutched at Mesema’s heart, but she remembered the Cerani prince and thrust all concern for Banreh aside. “There’s nothing to see but grass. No mysteries, no magic. Just like this marriage. There’ll be no Rider racing to my longhouse in the moon-dark. It’s just salt and silver, trade deals.”

“Look again,” Banreh said.

Mesema looked. She always found it hard to deny Banreh. His eyes held a promise and a trust.

“What do you see?” he asked.

“I… I don’t know.” The wind blew harder, and Mesema felt suddenly cold. “A—A strange patterning. Now waves, huge waves with a man riding across them. A cliff. A prison. I don’t know! Nothing.”

“You see more than you know,” Banreh said. He brought his horse around to stand before Tumble. Though he’d never be a Rider, her father gave his voice-and-hands a fine steed; it helped Banreh keep alongside him during hunts and ride-outs. But the Chief spared Banreh now to bring back the Cerani’s prize.

Mesema was meant to leave with Arigu at autumn’s turning. She remembered how Arigu had stood at the edge of the horse-pen, watching her ride away. His expressions were unfamiliar to her, his language incomprehensible. She might as well step off the edge of the world as go to Nooria.

“Why didn’t the prince take Dirini?” The question burst from Mesema without permission. “She’s proven. She has her children to speak for her.”

“The Cerani have strange ways,” Banreh said. “Dirini’s children would always be considered a danger.”

“Are they mad?”

“Different.” Banreh rubbed at the golden stubble on his chin and looked out over the grass. “The prince has no younger brothers—they were all killed when the eldest took the throne. Why he was spared, I don’t know. The Cerani general has reasons, but he doesn’t tell me the truth.”

“I should ride away from here,” Mesema said. “I should ride and join the clanless. Chasing deer on the brown-land would be better than going to Cerana.” Banreh started to reply, but she spoke over him. “Don’t talk to me of duty. The Felt won’t suffer if one daughter rides away.”

Banreh shrugged. “When the horse fell on me I thought my life was over. I heard my leg break and I knew all my dreams broke with it.”

Mesema watched him. He had a faraway look. His eyes held the green of the spring.

“I would have made a middling Rider,” Banreh said. “I was never a natural, not like your father or your brother. I would have got by, but I’d always have been third-best in any group of four. Maybe I’d be dead by now, killed last summer when we fought the Red Hooves.

“Instead I found a new world, a world of strange tongues and the stories they conceal. I found writing, and in it a trail to a dozen lands beyond our own—whole new worlds, Mesema, places no Felt has ever been. Places your father could never conquer though he had ten times the Riders.”

“What are you saying?” Mesema asked. “That this Cerani prince is my broken leg?”

Banreh turned to face her. “Your horse has fallen. How you get up again is a matter for you.”

“Don’t think to instruct me, Banreh.” Mesema found her anger again. “I am not a child and you are no Elder.” She met his gaze and challenged it. “Is there nothing you regret, not being a real man?”

Banreh met the challenge. “Had I been a Rider, I would have ridden to your longhouse and set my spear. But I am not, and even if I had been, the Cerani prince would still have beaten me to your bower. We are the Felt, Mesema. We carry on.”

Banreh turned his horse and rode slowly towards the camp. Mesema looked once more towards the setting of the sun and the distant marches of the clanless, then she too began the ride back.

We are the Felt. We carry on.

Tuvaini passed through the royal corridors. On his right, a recess held a mosaic, bright in purple and white. He had hidden there as a young boy, hoping his uncle wouldn’t find him and force him back into his lessons. He recalled the feel of the cool agate against his bare legs, the way he had held his breath, sure that the slightest sound would betray him. He is lazy, he prayed they would say. A poor student. Not promising. Then they would send him home to the seaside. That desire faded once he came to know Emperor Tahal.

Tuvaini passed under the carving of the god Keleb. Here, just outside the imperial suite, he used to place the Robes of Office around the shoulders of the late emperor. They had walked to the throne room together, Tahal and Tuvaini, thousands of times. Tahal had spent more time with him than with his own sons. He had known all save one would die.

All save two, as it turned out.

Tuvaini turned a corner and left the royal chambers behind. Here lay the doors to the treasuries and scriptoria. In between them all, handsome tapestries concealed plain tiled walls. The officers of the quill and coin were mere men of tribute, chosen from the villages and farms of vassal lands and trained for a lifetime of shifting papers. It was better to fill such rooms with men of limited ambitions, men like Donato who took joy in building monuments to failures.

Tuvaini walked on. As he neared the servants’ chambers, he yawned. Sometimes Lapella made him sleepy. It wasn’t her fault; she relaxed him. He found her door and turned the key in the lock. Whenever he entered her quarters, he had the sensation of stepping into his home province. He hadn’t been there in more than ten years, but Lapella held for him all the voices and scents that he missed. He even, somehow, smelled the sea about her.

Tuvaini used to wake to the calls of the fishmongers and seabirds, the ringing of the ships’ bells and the sound of waves cresting upon the rocky shore. The gardens under his window bloomed jasmine and rose, and his mother used to trim them as she sang.

She had been the granddaughter of Satreth II, known as the Drunk, the laughing stock of the empire in his day. Still, cut off from Nooria by mountains and a desert, huddled against the shore of the gulf, they were almost as deities through his blood. The shipbuilders and merchants knew little of palace gossip; to them, blood was everything. Little did they know how thin it ran. Tuvaini’s people were unlikely ever to rise to the Petal Throne. A female connection was near to meaningless when it came to the succession.

Tuvaini put the sting of that aside. “Lapella,” he called softly, dangling the key from one finger. He found her prostrate before her altar, offering incense to Mirra. Her fingers showed white against the soapstone base; she held hard to her prayers. Lapella never tired of Mirra. Perhaps she dreamed that one day Mirra would remove the scars from her pox-sickness, even fix her ruined womb. Tuvaini’s belief was that no god should improve the lot of humans. Only the Mogyrk god had ever promised that, leaving his Yrkmen followers to practise vengeance and cruelty in his stead. The invaders burned through the empire, even raping and plundering their way through the palace itself. When Satreth the Reclaimer fell upon them at last, they learned the weakness of their god.

Tuvaini didn’t interrupt Lapella; he liked indulging her sometimes. He took a seat by the window and studied the moon. He’d paid off three Red Hall guards and set them running. He had to show them how their actions were a form of loyalty, show them the wider tapestry. He was good at explaining such things. With any luck, they could make it to his home province in five days. They could work for his family there, in obscurity. Nobody would ever learn they’d allowed the Carriers to pass through the secret ways to the fountain, and by his order.

The others, who knew nothing, would be questioned and killed. Backwards as it was to reward the treacherous guards and kill the honest ones, Beyon had left him no choice. The emperor had, quite unexpectedly, advanced from cutting throats to asking questions—and then cutting throats.

Tuvaini felt some regret for the deaths. The guards had served him well, on the whole.

Lapella stood now and straightened her robes. She looked at him in her shy way, chin tucked in. “Are you thinking about the emperor?” Her meekness stirred him. Once, she had been bold, the tigress of the province by the sea.

He smiled. “Not any more.” She came closer.

He looked at her amber eyes, the pocked scars on her cheeks.

“Are you sorry you let them use you?” she asked.

“A little.” Tuvaini had seen Eyul’s hair turning steel-grey, had noticed his stiffness going in and out of obeisances, but he hadn’t expected the assassin to get hurt. Eyul still had his uses.

Lapella stood before him now, chasing his regrets away. “But you got what you wanted?”

“I will.” He smiled again and opened his arms. She leaned into him, rose-scented and soft.

“What did you do today?” he asked.

“The same.” Not much of an answer. He had no idea how she spent her days. She insisted a servant’s life was better than living in the women’s halls. Back home, noblewomen moved about more freely. Here, they depended on the double luck of having sons and outliving their husbands, as Empire Mother Nessaket had.

Nessaket had nearly the freedom of a man, and more cunning. He’d seen her today in the royal gardens. Not one to linger over blossoms, she’d used the flower walk to hurry from the east wing to the west. Tuvaini stood by the yellow roses and watched her disappear through the Sunset Arch, her silken train shimmering behind her. His mind filled with images of Nessaket. In every one of them, pride sculpted her features. She stood, or sat, or lay clothed in wisps, but always distant as mountain ice.

I will see her sweat and cry, see that perfect hair tangled, wild, watch those pale limbs strain.

“I see you’re ready for me,” commented Lapella, stroking him through his robe. He’d nearly forgotten about her, but she didn’t mind. She didn’t mind anything. She was his now. Before the pox-sickness came, it was said that only an emperor deserved Lapella, and only an emperor could master her. After it came, her family couldn’t marry her to anyone at all. They were relieved when Tuvaini paid a small sum for her permanent service, and they didn’t ask why. When he came to claim her, her spirit was still strong; her acid tongue had burned him. But he was honest and kind, and that broke her.

Tahal had taught him that one does not rule well by force alone.

Tuvaini pulled her robes from her shoulders and let them fall.

She smiled, happy for any attention he could give her. With Lapella, there was never a complaint or an unexpected demand.

Tuvaini loved certainty, hated uncertainty. Prince Sarmin’s madness vexed him, and this female from the Wastes would only complicate his plans. And yet, Tuvaini had his training to fall back on; of all the men in the palace, only he had sat at the feet of the great Tahal. Only he knew when to submit, when to charm and when to break a person like an egg.

Like Lapella. He laid her across the bed and spread her legs with his knees. “You are very precious to me,” he whispered.

“So you say,” she said with a chuckle. A hint of her old sense of humour, but she went no further with it. Next, she would apologise. And she did. “I’m sorry I’m so ugly for you.”

He could have said that the scars had faded so much that one could still see her old beauty. That her body was as firm and plump as it had ever been. These statements would have been true, but they would not serve him. Instead he said, “I don’t love you for your looks.” That, too, was true.

She made a little sound as he entered her. All conversation had ended. It was all right if he thought of Nessaket instead, as he pinned Lapella’s arms against the cushions. Lapella didn’t mind anything he did. It was a certainty.