Mazarkis Williams: The Emperor's knife

“Father,” she called, “you sent for me?” She fought to stay in the same spot as men twice her size moved around her.

“Ah, yes.” He beckoned her closer and motioned to Lame Banreh at his right. “Banreh, tell this general that this is my unproven daughter.” Next to Banreh sat a man with black hair and a metal breastplate. She recognised the crest: the Cerani had sold the same armour to the Red Hooves last year.

Banreh nodded and leaned towards the stranger. His lips moved and strange staccato noises came forth.

Years ago, Banreh had fallen off his horse and shattered his leg. Useless for work or war, he’d learned how to make pictures with ink and to speak some of the trade languages. Instead of scorning Banreh as her grandfather would have done, Mesema’s father kept him at his side. They were as one, the chief and his voice-and-hands. Banreh communicated with visitors from other lands and scratched their agreements on dried lambskin. He was especially good with Cerani.

The stranger’s black eyes veered Mesema’s way. He murmured something to Lame Banreh.

Banreh avoided Mesema’s gaze as he spoke. “He says she looks pretty, but she’s too fat. Her posterior…’

Mesema’s cheeks grew hot, but her father only laughed and slapped the Cerani’s shoulder. “This man is indeed a fool,” he said to Banreh. “Tell him this is the only daughter I have who is untouched by a man. If he doesn’t like her, tell him again that Dirini is a strong mother with good hips.” As the men around him began to laugh, he added, “I’m only trying to help.”

Banreh spoke to the Cerani man once more, punching the air in a downwards motion. Mesema could tell he wasn’t translating her father’s exact words. Instead, he was revealing why all the Felting women had big behinds.

“Papa,” she said, using the affectionate tone, “why do you bring me here while the men are drinking?”

“Because,” her father said, taking a swig from his skin, “you’ve not proven to be a good breeder.”

The heat from the fire burned her cheeks. “I haven’t failed! I have one more season before I am even tried.”

“I know.” Her father laughed again.

The merriment escaped her. “Please let me go, Father.”

At that moment Banreh looked up and said, “Mesema-wait.” His kind expression and tone soothed her. But then he turned to her father, and with eleven words took her world apart.

“Chief, General Arigu agrees to take Mesema as the royal bride.”

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.