The Grace of Kings (70 page)

Mata came into the palace in Toaza, which he had taken from Mocri and made into his temporary quarters.

The courtiers whispered among one another, but none dared to approach him.

Mata frowned. “What is it?”

One of them timidly lifted a hand and pointed toward the women's quarter.

Furiously, Mata walked over. One of Mocri's wives must have made a nuisance of herself, perhaps slandering him. He had left the women's quarter untouched when he marched into the palace, but often, he had found out, kindness was repaid unkindly.

As they saw him approach, the women of the palace pointed in the direction he should go and then scattered like frightened rabbits, and so Mata had to open the doors barring his way himself.

Finally, he threw open the door to one of the suites and stopped in the doorway.

Mira was sitting by the wall, embroidering.

It had been months since they had spoken to each other. The courtiers and ladies-in-waiting had not known what to do, uncertain if she had lost his favor. When he left for Wolf's Paw, he had left her behind in Çaruza.

She looked up at him and examined his look of surprise. A smile broke out on her face.

“I see they decided to tell you nothing and let you find out for yourself. Ah, courtiers. They are uncertain if you'll be happy or not to see me, and so this is their clever solution.”

Her cheerfulness soothed Mata. She acted as though they had never stopped talking.

“Don't just stand there,” she said. “You're blocking the light. Sit down, please. I've come to tell you a few things.”

Something has changed in her,
he realized.
She has made a decision
.

“Are you leaving me?” he blurted out.

As soon as he said it, the question struck him as ridiculous: Why should he care? He had countless women to pick from, and many were far younger and more beautiful. Yet he wanted
her
to like him, to come to his bed of her own free will, to apologize for her impudence and ignorance, and to acknowledge what a great man he was, how lasting a mark he would leave in the world.

The fact of it was that ever since that day, when she had told him what she thought of his glorious deeds, he had been unable to see himself except through her eyes: cruel, unnecessary, inelegant, and trivial.

“No, not at all.”

Relieved, he sat down on the cushion next to her.

“The first thing is about my brother,” she said.

He waited.

“I used to suffer nightmares where my brother would speak to me, asking about whether you have succeeded in fulfilling the vision that he believed.”

Mata's face twitched.

“But lately, the dreams have stopped. Thinking that perhaps his spirit lacked sustenance, I asked a merchant traveling to Pan to burn some incense and make an offering at Mado's grave. He came back and told me that the tablet in front of my brother's grave is the largest in the whole graveyard and that you had ordered the garrison to place fresh chrysanthemums before his altar every day. In fact, you've ordered the same at all the graves of any of the Eight Hundred who had followed you out of Tunoa and died fighting. It's a generous thing you've done.”

Mata said nothing.

She put down her hoop. “The second thing is this.” She got up, walked to a small traveling trunk in the corner, and came back with a bundle wrapped in cloth.

“What is it?”

She said nothing.

He unwrapped it and stared at the bone dagger that was revealed. He had seen it once before, when it lay next to his uncle's dead body lying in state. Thufi had gravely explained to him that Princess Kikomi, Kindo Marana's lover and assassin, had killed Phin with it.

“Your enemies want to use me to get to you.”

Mata stared at her. He did not know how to feel. Was betrayal to be a constant in his life?

“But I am tired of being treated as a tool,” she said. “I want to live for myself.”

He dropped the dagger on the ground and stumbled out.

Mira continued her embroidery.

Her style grew ever more abstract, more consumed with energy and suggestion than representation of reality. A few bold threads, barely a shadow of an outline, was all she stitched for the figure of Mata against a field of broken lines and chaotic colors, the world that he had put together so carefully falling apart. She stitched radiating starbursts around him—equal parts twirling swords and blooming chrysanthemums. He felt as if he himself were fading in her hands, becoming more legend than reality.

He had each of her embroidered kerchiefs carefully framed and handed them out as rewards for those who pleased him or achieved some deed of merit. His commanders and advisers fought to get a piece of Mira's embroidery, the symbol of the hegemon's esteem. Mira herself seemed amused by this and paid no attention to what happened to her work after she was done.

One day, Mata came back from another bloody day on the battlefield, exhausted with the sight of pain and slaughter and the effort of hacking through bone and sinew. Still dirty with the stench of death, he went directly to Mira's rooms.

Calm as ever, she asked him if he wanted to stay and dine with her. “I'll have my maid draw you a bath. I was thinking of steaming the carp I bought at the market. It's been a while since you've had Tunoa food, hasn't it?”

She did not ask him in a way that was submissive and seductive. She did not ask about his day's exploits on the battlefield or express admiration at his valor or strength. Always, she simply offered him simple things that they might share.

She treated him as a friend, he realized. Not as the Hegemon of the Islands of Dara.

He strode up to her and pulled her to his lips. He could feel her heart fluttering against him like a surprised bird. Her hands, which had been holding the needle and the hoop, dropped to her sides. After a moment, she returned the kiss.

He pulled back and stared into her eyes. She stared back steadily. Other than Kuni Garu, she was the only person who seemed to have no trouble looking into his double pupils.

“I understand you now,” she said. “I now know why I could never stitch a proper portrait of you.”

“Tell me.”

“You are frightened. You are frightened by the legends that have grown up around you, by this shadow of yourself that lives in people's heads. Everyone around you is afraid of you, and so you begin to believe you should be feared. Everyone around you flatters you, and so you begin to believe you should be flattered. Everyone around you betrays you, and so you begin to believe you deserve betrayal. You are cruel not because you want to be, but because you think people expect you to be. You do the things you do, not because you want to, but because you believe the
idea
of Mata Zyndu would want to do them.”

Mata shook his head. “You are not making any sense.”

“You think the world should be a certain way, and you're disappointed that it does not live up to your vision. But you're also a part of this world, and you fear that your mortal flesh cannot live up to this vision of yourself. So you have constructed for yourself a new image, an image that you think is easier to live up to, an image of cruelty and bloodlust, of death and revenge and injured pride and stained honor. You have erased yourself and replaced
you
with these words, these words copied from old and dead books.”

Mata kissed her again. “I don't know what you are talking about.”

“But you are not a bad man. You do not have to be afraid. There is passion and compassion in you, but you have locked them away as though they are signs of weakness, of your similarity to other, lesser men. Why do you do this? So what if you leave no mark on the world? What if your work falls apart after your death?

“I was once uncertain whether it was right to love you, when the whole world seemed to quake in fear of you, and a thousand voices told me what was the
right
thing to do. But Mado was right: In all things that matter, faith in the heart is the only measure. But our mortal hearts are small; they are limited in what they can contain. What joy did it give me to hear that a thousand men lived to glory, when my heart grieved only for the loss of my brother? What does it matter if ten thousand men think the man I care for a tyrant, as long as I see him in a different light? Our lives are too brief to worry about the judgment of others, let alone that of history.

“You think my embroidery trivial, and yet all the works of men must be trivial in the fullness of time. There is no need for either of us to be afraid.”

And she kissed him back and pulled him into her, and Mata found that he
was
no longer afraid.

A male voice, hard as obsidian and strident as sword striking against shield.

My brother, it was clever to try to copy the trick of Kindo Marana, but you seem to have done no better. Cruben's Thorn will not taste the blood of another Zyndu.

Another male voice, filled with the rage of storms.

The mortals are unreliable as ever.

A female voice, rasping, distorted, like the air shimmering over lava.

Stop this nonsense, Kiji. You should be working with me and Fithowéo against the real enemy. Do you really want to see that trickster, the thief of the Immaculate City, win?

May both their houses fall.

Gin Mazoti contemplated the wide expanse of the Liru, and her frustration grew daily.

Constructing a navy would take too long; she needed some way to cross the river, quickly.

Word spread along the Liru that the marshal was offering rich rewards for shipowners in Cocru to defy the hegemon and sail their ships to the northern shore of the river. A few daring merchants took the gamble, but their trading vessels were completely unprepared against airships. Burning wreckage, dead bodies, and the goods the ships had carried—chests of cloth, jars of oil, barrels of food, wine, flour—drifted down the river, bobbing along the surface like so many warnings against others who might think of betraying the hegemon.