The Prince of Shadow (57 page)

Little Brother was the first to notice that Llesho and General Shou had entered through the secret passage. He dropped his banana and began to hop up and down and screech the alarm. Suddenly, the companions were on their feet, reaching for weapons they did not have. Even Lling roused from her sleep and half rose from her couch.

“Lord General!” Habiba bowed low when Shou stepped from behind a long, floating banner. “Or should I say, Lord Merchant?”

When Llesho followed, his guards shouted his name—”Llesho!“—together. All but Lling ran to greet him, and she grinned smugly from her couch.

“So you found him,” Habiba remarked. “Did retrieving him cost you much?”

“Not yet, but I expect it will cost me a tael or two before we are done,” the general confirmed with a sigh. He took a chair and waited while the companions reassured themselves that Llesho was indeed safe and sound.

“Where were you?” Kaydu demanded, and Bixei exclaimed angrily, “We have been looking for you since noonday! We thought you'd been kidnapped.”

Hmishi just shook his head. “He wandered off. I told you he wandered off.”

“And I told you he would turn up in his own time,” Lling reminded them.

Hmishi pressed her to lie down again, but she resisted. “Habiba says you need rest,” he scolded.

“What's the matter with Lling?” Llesho interrupted the welcome with his own question, directed at Habiba. He sat down in the chair between Bixei and Kaydu and tugged on Kaydu's tunic, urging her to sit back down as well.

Lling answered the question tartly for herself. “Lling's wound became infected. It is now well on its way to healing and no cause for alarm.”

The look that passed between Hmishi and the witch told a different tale. Habiba shrugged. “She needs to keep the wound clean and the arm still, or she risks losing it.”

“Have you alerted the emperor's physician?” Shou asked.

“I don't want a fuss made over a stupid cut on my arm!” Lling snapped. The skin above and below the bandage was pink. Llesho guessed it was hot to the touch, but it was not unduly swollen. He looked for the telltale red streaks that would indicate the infection had invaded her blood, and was relieved to find none.

Habiba graced her with a sour grimace. “That won't be necessary, Lord General. But if you could recommend a good locksmith? I am beginning to fear that nothing short of restraints will ensure the cure is taken.”

Llesho smothered his laughter. Lling glared at him, but she did permit Hmishi to help her lie down again on the couch.

“Tell me about your trip,” Llesho asked his companions when the greetings were over. “Did you run into any trouble on the road?”

“Since Markko traveled with you,” Kaydu pointed out, “we didn't expect much trouble for ourselves.”

“We tried to catch up with you.” Lling spoke up from her couch. “But you were traveling too fast for the horses to follow, and we didn't want to leave them behind.”

Llesho winced. It was his fault she was in danger from her wound, because she had neglected her own care to protect him.

Kaydu nodded, glaring at him. Well he should wince, she seemed to say

“Our troubles began when we arrived at the palace,” Bixei said, “and found that the emperor was away, our charge had disappeared, Master Markko had likewise vanished, and no one could find General Shou. Oh, and Master Den had gone out to see if he could find any one of the missing people.”

“We thought that Markko must have taken you,” Kaydu added. “We were trying to figure out where he might have gone when the general materialized through a solid wall with you in tow. He has our thanks, but I'd still like to know where you were.”

“I'd like to know that myself.” Master Den, with his usual good timing, chose that moment to open their door. He glowered at them all with a sweeping flash of his eyes. Once he made sure the door was securely closed behind him, he settled the disfavor of his frown on Llesho.

“Markko takes his ease in an unpleasant eating establishment in the city,” he said. “The place has a bad reputation for serving the Harnish slavers who frequent the market, and Markko does not dine alone. The traders who attend him have a Harnish look about them, and they seem to be on familiar terms.

“I expect he will be returning soon, and some of us should be in our rooms on the other side of the palace when he does. Before we go our separate ways, however, we'd all like to know what Llesho has been up to.”

Llesho stared down at the table, as if the grain of the wood had mesmerized him. Now that it came to telling them, he hesitated, as if speaking about it aloud could somehow put him back in the slave pens. But it had to be done.

“We went to the slave market.”

Three of his companions went very still. Kaydu, who had been born free in Thousand Lakes Province, had never seen the slave block or the pens, but she had seen the products of them and she respected the silence of her friends. Little Brother, with the sensitivity of his monkey kind, edged closer to Llesho. The monkey chittered softly, and reached to touch Llesho's hair in a gesture of comfort. Llesho took the monkey's hand and smiled at the distraction.

“I think we have found Adar, my brother,” he said.

“You ‘think'?” Habiba pressed him. “You do not know him?”

Llesho stared at the witch, trembling suddenly; the afternoon became confused in his mind with his experience as a child on the slave block, and he could not speak.

General Shou watched him with concern while offering an explanation in his place. “Llesho posed as a slave, and I as a merchant with a taste for Thebins and a wish for a Thebin healer to tend my small collection.” His smile was thin and dangerous. “They have such a one on their books, and have agreed to broker a sale with the current owner for me.”

Kaydu looked from Llesho to her father, balancing the need for secrecy with Llesho's need for reassurance, but her father gave her no signal on which to base a judgment. Finally, she decided that Llesho ought to know. “We brought five hundred soldiers with us in case we had to fight to get you out of here, but we left them outside the city wall until we had scouted out the situation.”

“And how long have you told them to wait until they are to attack the palace and rescue you?” General Shou asked. His voice was harder than Llesho had ever heard it, and the man's piercing gaze made him quail.

“Until midnight, tonight,” Kaydu answered. She sounded sure of herself, but her eyes grew dark and calculating. She didn't breathe while she waited to hear the general's response.

“Then perhaps you should send them a message.” General Shou spoke very softly, but the steel of a blade rang in his voice.

Kaydu nodded. “Of course. The question is, what message to send. Will we need them tomorrow to secure Llesho's brother?”

“I think a few bits of gold will work better than a foreign army,” General Shou answered her. “As an officer in the Imperial Guard, I can tell you that if your soldiers enter the city, the emperor will have no choice but to consider it an invasion by a hostile force. Why set friend against friend when I have gold enough to spare and a willing broker for the bargaining?”

“You have a plan, I see.” Master Den took a couch by the wall nearest where General Shou and Llesho had entered. Llesho figured that was no coincidence; he wondered how much Den knew about the palace. Did his teacher know the emperor himself?

“Part of one,” Shou admitted. “I should be able to buy Adar with little trouble, and there are officials enough in the palace to prepare the manumission papers. But there is the problem of Master Markko.”

“He may be working with the emperor against us,” Bixei suggested.

General Shou shook his head. “The emperor is not so easily fooled or frightened as Master Markko may believe.”

“But Llesho must still petition the emperor for help to cross the Harn lands and free Thebin,” Kaydu insisted.

She hadn't included herself in that goal, and Llesho wondered if, beyond Shan, he would be traveling alone. Well, not alone if they succeeded tomorrow. Adar would be with him.

“I believe the emperor may sympathize with Llesho's petition,” the general confirmed, only to dash their hopes again: “It may not be in the best interest of the Shan Empire—or Thebin—to announce an alliance, however.”

“Then what was the point of our mad dash to the capital?” Llesho demanded, frustrated.

General Shou looked at him as if he'd gone quite mad, and even Habiba had the grace to look embarrassed for him.

“A hypothetical problem in strategy, Llesho,” the general explained as if to a particularly dim child. “In the name of the governor of Thousand Lakes Province, for the honor of his daughter, the widow of the murdered governor of Farshore Province, a witch marches at the head of his master's troops. In his train he bears a boy whom all know to be the exiled son of the murdered King Khorgan of Thebin.

“In pursuit come the armies of Farshore Province, led by the magician who has murdered that province's governor in the name of Lord Yueh, the usurper. This murderer proclaims himself regent of a child who may or may not be born to the usurper's widow. If the child exists at all, it may be the usurper's own child, born out of the union of husband and wife and blessed by the goddess, or it may be the murderer's child, forced upon the grieving widow. Or it may be the product of a secret union plotted by the widow and her magician lover, to replace her husband with his murderer.

“Regardless, the magician who has murdered three lords of the empire finds himself within the city of Shan, as does the witch who serves the widow of a fourth lord, also dead.”

“Her ladyship fled Farshore in defense of her honor, to escape Master Markko,” Llesho pointed out. “When you lay out all these murders in a row, keep in mind that she is sinned upon and injured no one.”

General Shou nodded in agreement. “Which may be a ruse, but is likely not to be, or she would not have entrusted her father's troops to her dead husband's chief steward and witch. Unless—” he gave Habiba a thin smile,“—that witch is himself the widow's lover.”

Habiba bowed in acknowledgment of the point, but his eyes held a dangerous glint. “I would not have the lady's honor doubted, even in the name of a lesson,” he answered mildly.

“To do so, one must assume that all the ladies in the East have fallen under the sway of the overseers to their respective husbands' properties, since Lady Yueh and Lady Chin-shi likewise find themselves widowed.” Master Den harrumphed, as if he found the game they played too tedious for words. “And, like her ladyship, they now find their husbands' lands and possessions in the hands of Master Markko.”

“Why, then, does Master Habiba march on Shan?” General Shou asked. “And why carrying the heir to a vanquished kingship in his train? And why fight a bloody battle in the shadow of the emperor's throne and bring his troops to the very walls of the empire's chief city? An emperor must suspect that such a one wishes, perhaps, to seize the throne for himself, or for the foreign princeling he dangles on a string.”

“Perhaps,” Llesho said, taking his time to formulate his answer.

His companions waited, watching him intently. They were all familiar with lessons, and realized that more hung in the balance with this examination than a cuff on the ear for inattention.

“Perhaps,” Llesho began again, “her ladyship's father, the appointed governor of Thousand Lakes Province, wished his emperor to know of the terrible destruction that has overtaken his neighbors and threatens his own province, and the very empire itself. With such danger all around him, he could not risk a simple messenger, but must send a delegation of sufficient stature to persuade Shan of the threat all the provinces of the empire now face.”

Habiba gave Llesho a bow, and an ironic smile. “Perhaps,” the witch began, matching the diffidence of Llesho's own answer, “her ladyship concluded that she could not protect a young prince, beset as she was by the enemies of her husband, enemies who wished to acquire the boy for their own mysterious ends. She might then choose to deliver the boy to the emperor, who might, in his wisdom, have a better idea of what to do with a young and propertyless king.”

“None of it makes any sense.” Llesho threw himself back into his chair. “Even if Markko could somehow put me on the throne of Thebin, he must know I would never act as his figurehead. He can kill me, but he cannot make me obey.”

“He wants your power,” Habiba insisted, “the divine power that is your gift from the goddess—”

“I have no such power!” Llesho insisted, and blushed that he had raised his voice. “Excuse me, I did not mean disrespect. But if that's what Markko wanted, he should have waited until after I had completed the vigil of my sixteenth summer.”

“Your power as a symbol of kingship will do if that is all he can reach,” Habiba conceded, “though her ladyship has conveyed to me her certainty that your vigil did, in fact, succeed in wooing the goddess.”

“Then she is more in the confidence of the goddess than the professed bridegroom. But what does
any
of this have to do with the emperor's decision not to grant us an audience or accept our petition?”

“If the emperor had any doubts about you at all, Llesho, you would be quartered here with your friends and enemies alike, and not in the private quarters where you pose a threat to the emperor himself,” General Shou pointed out practically. “But if he acknowledges the validity of your claim, he must at the same time reject Master Markko's opposing petition that you belong to him by right of property in Farshore.”