1
The queen of a murdered city stood over the cooling body of her enemy and tried to think what to do.
This was not Sayeh Rajni’s land. These were not Sayeh Rajni’s people. There was an army here within the walls and it was not Sayeh Rajni’s army.
Neither did the army without the walls belong to her. And yet here she was, more or less in charge of that land, those people, and both of the armies.
The army inside the walls of Sarathai-tia had been commanded by Anuraja, the ambitious old narcissist whose corpse she was washing with more respect than he had ever accorded to anyone. The army outside owed allegiance to Mrithuri, the young queen he had married against her will, whose city this was. Who now lay unconscious in her bed, protected by an armed guard.
Beyond the windows, dawn was falling, but any texture of the fading light was erased by clouds and curtains of rain. Within, Sayeh’s hands guided a cloth redolent of sandalwood and soap over the body. It was not the first corpse she had washed in her life.
It was by far the most satisfying.
She was already looking forward to the next one.
This is an elegant pickle I’ve gotten myself into. Sayeh stood with a crutch propped into her armpit, taking the strain off her healing leg. She was standing on it, however, and that was another victory. One almost as satisfying as the death of Anuraja.
She’d beaten one enemy. But the other still held her son Drupada hostage, having claimed Drupada as his own heir. Sayeh had improved her position and gathered resources. She was no longer captive herself. She was reliant on the goodwill of Mrithuri, who was now—after a fashion—the Dowager Empress of Sarathai-tia and Sarathai-lae.
Dowager Empress of United Sarath, Sayeh supposed—a thing that had not existed in a long time.
That was to say that Mrithuri was Dowager Empress … if Sayeh’s cousin survived her current illness, which had been brought on by the overuse of the poisonous stimulant in the venom of certain magical serpents.
If not … well, that left two of the Lotus Kingdoms without a ruler, and a third—Sayeh’s home of Ansh-Sahal—destroyed utterly. And that would inevitably mean a continuation of the war. Not that a young widow was the sort of leader the martial men of Sahal-Sarat would flock to, so there might be a war even if Mrithuri survived.
Meanwhile, somewhere to the north was their kidnapping cousin Himadra. Another war in waiting, Daughter’s piss!
Sayeh kept her face over the bucket of clean water and scent in order to attenuate the reek of Anuraja’s body. The stench of death was no worse than that of the suppurating abscess he had suffered from. At least there was clean water. Anuraja had caused his pet sorceress to clean Sarathai-tia’s fouled cisterns before he died. That was just as well, because once he had died, she’d apported out and left them to their fate.
The water might be clean, but the rage inside Sayeh still bubbled filthily. And being a rajni, she could not show its fury.
Her rage had to be a thing of silence and smiles and coquettish glances, because she was dependent upon those around her. She was dependent on her hold over Anuraja’s soldiers—and that power relied on them seeing her as a gracious and divinely chosen authority. Between that and their duty to Mrithuri as Anuraja’s widow … it might be about enough to keep them from going rogue and pillaging the city they’d been left in occupation of, as long as authority were established quickly.
Which meant two things. One, they were going to have to find some way to pay those soldiers. And two, they needed Mrithuri to wake up.
Soon.
* * *
The Dead Man waited beside his rajni’s bed, trying to keep out of the way of the physicians. There were only three of them, and they worked well together—but in his current state of anxiety, helplessness, and dismay, three seemed like a roomful.
There was Ata Akhimah, the strong-limbed Wizard from Aezin, whose glowing dark complexion stood out by contrast to the white of her sleeveless blouse. There was Tsering-la, Sayeh Rajni’s Rasan Wizard, a small man with amber skin and epicanthic folds. He wore a black six-petaled coat that hung as though he had lost weight since it was tailored. And there was Hnarisha, Mrithuri Rajni’s secretary, whose holistic skills were not, he insisted, Wizardry—but something else entirely.
The Dead Man heard the plainchant of the nuns cloistered within the palace walls, full of echoes as if it came from far away. Mrithuri had traded them something for help and intervention. He did not know what she had traded. He was, he realized, desperately afraid that she had chosen to sacrifice her life. If she had promised herself to the demon or angel she considered her goddess in return for her people’s salvation … what then could keep her with him?
The Dead Man steadied himself and told the knots in his stomach that Wizards knew a lot about healing, and these Wizards did not seem too terribly concerned.
He was concerned enough for all of them. And it was not his place to show that concern.
His place was to appear stoic and impassive. His place was to keep them all safe. From outside threats, since he could not defend Mrithuri from the treachery of her own body. His veil was a blessing: it hid his expression and concealed his emotions. Even when he made the mistake of looking over at the rajni while her people ministered to her.
She looked so frail.
He knew, intimately, how bony her arms were and how thin her face had become. Somehow, though, the projecting cheekbones and the architecture of her hipbones seemed more pathetic without the fidgety energy that usually animated her. Now she merely seemed emaciated.
Shiny dots of scar marked the skin below her collarbones, over the stark ribs, along the inside of her arms. It seemed newly evident how many of them were fresh and pink, or capped with a pinprick of scab. She had not been healing well.
Against the wall, Mrithuri’s enormous bhaluukutta, Syama, lay with her bearlike head on her doglike paws and moaned her distress and helplessness. The Dead Man knew how she felt.
He watched without watching as the woman who was secretly his lover—even more secretly, his wife—was ministered to. As she was cleaned and dressed and fed milky honey tea by spoonfuls trickled into her mouth. As Hnarisha laid his hands upon her brow and breastbone and bathed her in what healing energies he could command.
The Dead Man watched, and he tried not to think of another ruler lying nearby, body just as slack but soon to be stiffening. Of that other ruler, also being bathed, being dressed in his personal colors of orange and blue. That king was being dressed for a pyre: the local heathen replacement for a decent burial. The Dead Man watched and tried not to think how close Mrithuri might be to that other, more final purification.
He was a soldier. His place was to deal with whatever problem lay before his hand and not to worry about the larger picture.
It is what it is. The refrain of those who fight and die on another’s behalf, at another’s command.
It is what it is.
But he was not just a soldier in this place, at this time. Not just a retainer. He was a leader, a tactician. And, with Mrithuri incapacitated—temporarily, of course it could only be temporarily—and her general exiled for the time being beyond the city walls, it was his place to worry. About her health, about the precarious politics. About the enemy army in possession of the palace, the city, and the land outside.
* * *
The Dead Man might rely on his veil to hide his expression, but it could not hide his startled jump and the flicker of his hand toward his pistol when the door slid aside. Embarrassment heated his belly. No matter how old you were, it seemed like there was always something to make you feel callow and unprepared.
Currently, that thing wore the gentle demeanor of the Lady Golbahar. She stood framed in the portal, one hand still resting on the edge of the door she had slid aside. She had noticed his agitation: that was evident from the smile lines beside her hazel eyes and the tilt of her head within her veil.
“Are you free?” she asked him. “We have some things to talk about.”
“I cannot leave the rajni,” he said.
“I propose that there is very little that Syama and all these Wizards cannot protect her from. Except the future.”
“I’m not a Wizard,” Hnarisha said over his shoulder. “Go, Dead Man. We’ll keep her safe.”
With reluctance, the Dead Man followed Golbahar, managing to avoid a backward glance only because he was already so flustered by how he had revealed himself. It wasn’t much, true—but the inculcation to stoicism ran deep.
Golbahar did not bring him far. Merely down the hall, and into the company of most of the people the Dead Man would have sought out for himself if he had been thinking clearly. There was Druja, the caravan master and … the polite term would probably be information broker … his quiet brother Prasana, the assassin, who wore servant’s garb. There was Yavashuri, Mrithuri’s maid of honor. The Dead Man thought she was also the spymaster to whom Druja and others reported. Nearby stood Ritu, the endlessly useful matriarch of the tribe of martial acrobats that Druja had accidentally collected along the way.
Sayeh Rajni stood braced on a crutch, a motley-feathered phoenix on her shoulder. Her retainers stood with her. Vidhya, the guard captain, was still disguised as a civilian in the foppish clothes of a courtier. Nazia, Tsering-la’s apprentice, wore short hair that stood out around her head like a halo of petals, like the rays of the Lion Sun of Messaline. The elderly poetess Ümmühan—a woman of his homeland, her face disconcertingly bare—seemed to have the straightest spine of anyone in the room.
The undead Godmade Nizhvashiti stood against the wall between the windows, a motionless dark-skinned scarecrow in faded dark robes, easy to mistake for some article of furniture. A coatrack, perhaps.
To complete the set: the Dead Man and Golbahar.
The Dead Man paused inside the door. “Am I called before the tribunal?”
“Indeed you are not,” Yavashuri said, with the air of one conducting matters. “Well, I think that’s everyone. Shall we have seats?”
They dispersed themselves. The floor was heaped with rugs, and the rugs were scattered with bolsters and cushions. Some were soft; some were stuffed with aromatic sawdust. The Dead Man settled on one that exhaled rosewood when his bottom made contact.
Sayeh levered herself down with her crutch, balancing the great bird on her shoulder. The tendons in her forearms striated, but she gave no appearance of distress.
The Dead Man said, “This looks like a council of war.”
Vidhya and Druja exchanged glances. Now, there was an interesting alliance, the Dead Man thought. “Maybe a council to avoid war,” Vidhya drawled, when no one interceded. “We need options to present to Mrithuri when she awakes.”
No one said if she awakes. The Dead Man felt silently grateful that he was not the only superstitious one. “Who is Anuraja’s general?”
He looked at Vidhya as he asked, but it was Sayeh who answered. “His lieutenant commander’s name is Zirha. I haven’t met him. I think Anuraja arranged on purpose to keep us separated.” She hitched her scarf up her shoulder when it slithered down. “Anuraja didn’t seem to rely on generals much. I’ll say this one thing for the filthy bastard: he led from the front.”
Yavashuri rocked on her cushion as if trying to settle her old bones into place. The Dead Man rolled his eyes at himself even as he thought it: she couldn’t be much older than he was.
“I’m not reassured by Zirha’s reputation in that case,” she said. “Would you say he is a weak leader?”
Ümmühan cleared her throat and looked at Nazia, the old encouraging the young. Nazia looked at her hands but spoke. “I would not say he is a strong one.”
“Ysmat’s beads,” the Dead Man muttered. “Just what we need.”
Sayeh snorted. “A strong leader could be worse, or better, depending on his ambition.”
Yavashuri said, “It seems like we’ve all independently come to the same conclusion: that our most immediate problem is the unhelmed army in our midst.”
“Most immediate,” said Nizhvashiti. “But not most severe. That would be—” It groped for words of sufficient enormity, which was not a failing the Dead Man associated with the Godmade.
He said, “The predatory necromancers and whomever they serve?”
Nizhvashiti nodded, expressionless. The Dead Man was not sure if its lack of affect was due to mummification, or due to feeling his offering was inadequate to the gravity of the circumstances and being too polite to say so.
Copyright © 2022 by Sarah Wishnevsky Lynch
