The Emperors Knife

CHAPTER Six

Mesema folded her wedding dress, careful not to snag any of the quartz beads dangling from its heavy skirt. The alterations from Dirini’s size were hardly visible; the tiny darts and shortened hems had taken only a week to complete. She’d spent those days by the fire, the murmurs from the sewing circle flowing around her like a stream. The waters whispered war, but Mesema was unmoved. The summer had already wound its way towards harvest time. Her father had clearly chosen the path of peace, and she was one of his two emissaries. The Windreaders would be expected to defend the empire, just as the Red Hooves had before finding their strange god. But the empire was not at war.

She hadn’t tried to run again. Every afternoon, Banreh left her father’s side to teach her the language of the Cerani Empire. She hoped that perhaps she would find a new way of thinking inside those rough words, some new way of considering herself a princess; but her understanding was too limited.

Not like Banreh’s.

Mesema turned and placed the dress inside her wooden trunk. She covered it with a layer of felt before reaching for her quilt, a wedding gift from her mother. It was made from the finest wool, and boasted shining threads of copper, more tiny beads, and even some pearls, bartered from the traders-who-walked. The quilt caught the sunlight as she lifted it and ran her hands along the edge. Tiny bells rang, soft as ladysong. She put it on top of her dress and folded the felt over it.

The box held all she would bring from her home, besides Tumble. She didn’t want to close it; not yet. When she opened it in Nooria, perhaps her husband would run his hands along those bells, pull the wedding dress from its wrapping. She imagined him: dark hair and flat cheekbones, black eyes full of want. Would he dig through, heedlessly breaking beads and threads with rough hands?

A shift in the tent flap, the sound of wool brushing wool. Her mother approached down the centre of the longhouse to where Mesema’s bed lay along the wall. Mesema didn’t turn, or speak. She wasn’t ready yet.

“I have something for you.” A creak of ropes as her mother sat down on the bed.

“I have until midday,” Mesema said, but more to herself than to her mother.

“Ah, but we won’t have another chance to speak privately.” Mesema felt her mother pull on her skirts. “Sit down, daughter.” Mesema sat and folded her hands in her lap. She pressed her lips together to control the trembling. She would say goodbye like a woman.

Her mother held a small pine box in her hands. She put it down on her knees and opened it, revealing an oiled bundle tied at both ends. “They will want a son from you almost before you get there,” she said, undoing the ties and pulling away the fabric. Inside was a stinking grey-brown resin.

“Your husband will come to you every night and day until it takes—your father was the same way. But it is your duty to choose the right stars for your child. You must make them wait.”

“Why—? How?” It was bad enough that Mesema had no plains-children. Now she must pretend to be barren?

“Mesema, daughter, listen. The Cerani are strange and unholy creatures. Everything must be auspicious—for us.” She put emphasis on the final words as she pinched off a bit of resin the size of a thumb. “Work this between your fingers until it’s soft, then put it inside. It tricks his babies so they won’t take root in you. In the morning, pull it out and burn it. When the Bright One is over the moon, burn it all and make your child. Do you understand me, daughter?”

“This doesn’t offend the Hidden God? He chooses the stars for every child.”

“The Hidden God doesn’t live in Nooria. Outside His dominion, you do what you can.” Mesema’s mother rolled the resin back up in its fabric and retied the ends. “I will hide this at the bottom of your trunk.” She paused. “Keep it out of the sunlight. Listen to me: if you have a son, I will send you more. Listen. You must have only one son.”

“Mamma! I should have many sons—”

“Not in Nooria you shouldn’t.”

A Rider stuck his head through the door flap. “Chief wants Mesema,” he shouted.

“I’ve done nothing wrong!” Mesema put one hand over the pine box.

Her mother drew in her breath. “Perhaps you will learn to hold your tongue among the Cerani,” she said. “But never mind that. Go on.”

Mesema kept her back straight as she walked out of the rear of the longhouse. Fabric rustled as her mother hid the resin inside the wedding trunk behind her.

Outside, the breeze carried the scents of late summer: apples, manure, and the fresh blooms of sheepseye, heaven-breath, and mountain beauty. The sun shone over the crest of the hill and warmed her skin. She took a deep breath. Her new home would not smell this way—even the flowers and the breeze would be different there.

The Riders ran through their manoeuvres in the field, riding hard, slashing their swords through the tall grass, throwing their spears into the soil. New Cerani breastplates sparkled in the sun. Once it was harvest time, they wouldn’t have any more days left for their manly games. And after the harvest, the peace of winter would be upon them.

Her father waited by the horse-pen, his shadow long and thin. His hair travelled two brown roads down his white tunic.

“Mesema,” he said in the affectionate tone, opening his arms.

But she held back and looked to Banreh, who stood by his side as always, golden and small.

“Mesema,” her father continued more formally, “I have a gift for you: a teacher. He will guide you in the language of your new people. After your wedding, he will return to us.”

Banreh’s eyes softened as she stared at him; did he pity her? A teacher to hound and scold her all the way to Nooria! Probably one of the captives from the Red Hoof Wars, someone not yet sold to the Cerani or to the traders-who-walked. The Red Hooves lived further south; they knew the harsh language of the empire. But such a man would despise her as the daughter of the clan chief who had enslaved him.

“Who, Father?” she asked, her eyes wandering to the horse-pen, where Tumble cropped the grass.

“Right here,” he said, motioning towards Banreh.

His voice-and-hands. The tears came to her eyes before she could stop them.

“Daughter,” said the chief, returning to the affectionate tone, “the son you will bear is going to seal our destiny at last. You honour us.”

“Thank you, Father.” Mesema stood a little straighter. A compliment from the chief was rare. But just as she smiled towards the sun, a shadow fell across it.

“I give you the greatest gift I can muster, but it must be for a short time only. I cannot spare him that long. Before the snows arrive…” Her father looked over his shoulder at the Riders.

So the women had spoken true over their needles. The Riders did not practise their skills for play. The wind felt cold against her wet cheeks. “Arigu will come back before the snows close the paths,” she said. So he was planning a new attack on the Red Hoof tribe that lay between them both. Banreh would come home, to speak the words of war for everyone.

In the chief ’s voice he replied, “Our clan’s future is too vast for one person to see. Do not concern yourself; you have your own duties. Become a mother, and soon. And learn what Banreh has to teach you.”

“Yes, Father.” She wiped her eyes and looked at his boots. So hard, such strong leather.

He took her hand, and dropped it. It seemed almost an accident. Then he turned and made his way through the mud to his Riders.

Banreh’s eyes met hers with their usual composure, and he raised both hands to his chest, a sign of service. Clever hands. But those and his tongue were the two edges of a sword, concealed behind a patient expression. As terrible as a weapon could be, she knew it was nothing more than a tool for a strong man. She turned away from him and took three steps towards her longhouse.

“Mesema,” he called out, his voice a croak, “are you unhappy?” She stalked back to him, her hands on her hips.

“Do you not remember the Red Hoof Wars, Lame Banreh?”

His cheeks grew red at the name. “I remember them.”

“Do you remember my brother died that year? Stuck through the heart with a spear?” When he nodded, she went on, “Do you remember when some Redders got into our village and took Hola’s daughter against her will? She was too little to have that baby, and she died trying to give it life. Do you remember that?”

Banreh nodded again. She could see from his eyes that he understood now, but she didn’t stop.

“When you convinced me not to run, when you convinced me to turn back that day—you knew the war depended on it, and yet you said nothing to me.”

“It is not for you to concern yourself—”

“Not for me? Don’t make me laugh. You are barely more than a woman yourself, and my father uses you the same way.” As soon as the words left Mesema’s mouth, horror crept over her.

Banreh sucked in his breath, but his next words were mild.

“At midday, then.”

“Banreh—” Mesema said, but he turned away.

“Tame your mouth before you meet your Cerani royal.” He limped past the horse-pen, pulling his bad leg through the mud.

The first chill wind of autumn swept over her. Mesema looked down at her feet, still in their summer slippers with no linings. She wouldn’t need to put the linings in this year. She would be warm. She would give birth to a prince in the summery sands. Or an emperor: a Windreader emperor, who might bring the two people, Felt and Cerani, together. Would that not bring a longer peace, over time?

Perhaps Banreh had been right.

“Greetings, Your Majesty,” she said in Cerantic. “Yes, Your Majesty.” The words felt sharp and unmanageable. But she would learn them.

She turned towards the fields, breathing in the scents of home. A sharp wind came, bending the grass, and Mesema’s hair blew across her face in a dun storm. The grass thrashed, furious before the squall, and in the waving tumult she saw something, or thought she did. She shook her hair out so it streamed behind her and climbed the fence of the horse-pen for a better vantage point. A Red Hoof thrall, shovelling manure, gave her a look, halfsmirk, half-sneer. She turned her gaze away from him.

In the rippling grass, ephemeral amid the seething green, gone and there again, a pattern lay, writ wide from West Ridge to East. Mesema gasped and blinked away the wind-tears. This was different from what she had seen before. Moons, half-circles and pointed shapes spread from one hill to the next, a pattern repeating and expanding in intricate themes, reaching out in all directions. The lines and underscores around the alien signs reminded her of Banreh’s scratchings.

The wind cracked and Mesema fought for balance on the round logs of the horse-pen. A hare ran across the shadowed lines as if they held his path, binding him to a labyrinth. He turned wildly, this way and that, as if beneath the very talons of the eagle, drawing always closer. His brownish fur faded into the darker green. She could hear the rustling of his feet, but could no longer tell where in the pattern he ran.

Though she didn’t understand it, she murmured a prayer to the Hidden God to thank Him for the message. The wind shook her once more, and fell still. Each blade of grass raised its head towards the sun, as if there had never been any message at all.