The Eighth King (The White Umbrella Testament Book 1) Read online

  The noise of Datang’s descent down the front stairs seemed to jolt both Netten and Hariti back to themselves. “What brings you here?” Netten said across the threshold.

  Hariti gestured over his shoulder at Datang. “I have business with the Ape’s Left Hand. It concerns a conversation of last night. I did not know you roomed with her.” When Hariti looked at Datang, her eyes seemed to have frosted over.

  Netten stepped aside and invited Hariti in with a sweeping gesture. “If your business is with her, then, by all means, be about it. I am reading in my chambers; I believe the Eager Edge is at work in the study, but the kitchen is pleasant today, and quite vacant.”

  Hariti stepped inside; Netten straightened back up. As she approached the stairs, he touched her shoulder; she looked suspiciously at him. Datang noticed she had flinched at his touch.

  It was, indeed, pleasant in the kitchen that day; spring was enough in the air that the thick curtain could be pulled, with only the thin curtain for privacy and the reduction of breezes. Datang invited Hariti to sit, then accompanied her. “I will not ask about your association with Netten,” she said, “nor volunteer any aspect of mine unless you wish to know it.”

  “He says you share his bed,” said Hariti coldly.

  Datang flushed. “That is a lie,” she said, not quietly. “I do not know what game he—”

  “Hush, sister,” said Hariti, a look of apology on her face. “In truth, he said the opposite. But now I can believe it.”

  Datang leaned back in her chair, almost dazed by the sudden heat and cold of her emotions. “I do not have a sister, Hariti, but I do not think it is a sisterly act to make one feel as whiplashed as a stoat in a terrier’s jaws.”

  “Well, that is proof you do not have a sister.” Hariti smiled. “I am sorry. But…” She grimaced. “I am not sure I wish to divulge the nature of my relationship with—what is it you call him?”

  “Netten.”

  “The very man. Suffice it to say that I have had difficult relationships with his paramours in the past.”

  Lin Gyat ambled into the kitchen. “The Red and White,” he said, “a third! This is a great opportunity, Left Hand; tell me the moon has loosed its talons at last.”

  “My friend is otherwise engaged, Envied,” said Datang.

  “The Python of Degyen pays no heed to human covenants,” said Lin Gyat.

  “What is the Python of Degyen?” Hariti asked Datang.

  “A minor serpent,” Datang said, “casting about for a burrow.”

  Hariti looked perplexed. “I have never been a friend to snakes.”

  “The Python of Degyen is a friend to all women,” said Lin Gyat, turning to rummage through the pantry. “Do you know,” he said, “I quite like this phrase that Netten has innovated. It is pleasing to speak of oneself in the third person, via some totemic metonymy.”

  Hariti gave Datang a puzzled look; Datang motioned her to sit. “Do not trouble yourself. Envied of Snakes’ meanings are obscure at best; at worst, they are crystal clear. But to what do we owe the pleasure of your society?”

  Hariti breathed a sigh and leaned her forearms on the table, squaring her shoulders. “The sentiment against the Eager Edge is mounting, at least among the Versicolor Guard. Five Prosperities is beating his chest in mourning over the loss of the Cold Water Salmon, whom he names Prince Among Spies, and exhorting all practitioners of Archipelago monomachy to surrender their swords to the King’s Lama for a course of sorcerous forensics.”

  “Prince Among Spies?” Datang said, outraged. “The man disavowed the Salmon’s very existence to your own paramour!”

  “Be that as it may,” said Hariti, “he now advances a case of some gravity. The murder was done on the palace grounds, where few may go; and with an Archipelago broadsword of the kind the Eager Edge prefers; and his history with Eager is rumored to be…” Hariti shrugged. “Freighted with emotion.”

  “How, freighted?” said Datang. “The Eager Edge is carved from ice; ‘freight’ slides from his shoulders as though ushered by meltwater.”

  Hariti nearly seemed to laugh, then paused to craft an answer in sobriety. “Still waters are said to run deep; how much deeper, then, a river of ice? What he feels, he must feel keenly.”

  “Ox-cart or glacier,” said Lin Gyat, “Eager is exonerated, with this Five Penuries to thank. We need merely submit the Archipelago broadsword to the occult lubrications of the forensicists, and the greathorns will bleat Eager’s innocence from peak to peak.”

  “An ingenious stratagem,” said Hariti, “if we could trust the procedure. But it is the divinations of the King’s Lama that will determine guilt or innocence here. If his wish is to obfuscate the reasons for the Salmon’s murder, Eager’s blade will be made to yield convenient results.”

  “Not as much as he might think,” said Netten, entering the kitchen.

  Hariti turned to him; her face was full of fury but her eyes were scared. “You said you would not intrude.”

  “Events have forced me to break promises before this,” said Netten, “as you know. It is still Thoto, then?” Hariti did nothing. “Well, that gratifies me. I had not thought much of your liaison, but no tally of apprehensions makes one all-seeing, it appears.” At the word liaison, Hariti blushed; Netten smiled. “You were not as circumspect about it as you might have been.”

  “Why needed I be circumspect?” said Hariti haughtily. “I am a free woman—”

  “I was not chastising you for your circumspection,” said Netten, “nor anything else. You are leaving; I have no belly for harsh words. I only thank the Colors that I was able to see you before you go.”

  “Well, you will not see me long; I must be off.”

  Datang felt a piercing fury at Netten for this, for she was sure Hariti would have stayed a few moments longer had he not forced the issue. But that fury soon receded as she watched them look at each other. There was love in those eyes, and pain, and more of both in Hariti’s than Netten’s.

  Lin Gyat belched. Not a long belch, but at the end of it, without appearing to have occupied the intervening distance, Netten was before Hariti. The portrait of the two of them was seared somehow on Datang’s mind—the rich swordswoman, richly dressed, and the wild-haired enigma all in black. They were the same height. He cradled the back of her head and kissed her cheek. She slapped him. There was the scent of burning hair. When the violence was done, Netten’s hand was on her wrist—he had not been quick enough to block her. “Well done.” He touched his red cheek with his other hand.

  “Let me go,” said Hariti.

  “The Crescent,” murmured Lin Gyat, “what will they do if I fart?”

  “I need not, you know,” said Netten.

  “You have never stinted to before,” said Hariti.

  “Your speech is the farting of your lungs,” Datang hissed to Lin Gyat, “with stench to match. Be silent.”

  The ears on which this admonition fell were the very opposite of deaf, and so Lin Gyat made no reply; but Netten had no rejoinder to Hariti’s accusation, whereupon the joined pair stared again at one another in what would have been silence but for Datang’s hiss. The air of the room became heavy with discomfort. Netten, his face a mask of sadness, dropped Hariti’s wrist. “Nor do I do so now. Travel safely, I beg you.” He looked at Datang. “The Road of Bulls seems not to be too war-beset.”

  “That was some weeks ago,” said Datang, “and I was beset by the Glib Ape himself before the end of it.”

  “The Glib Ape,” murmured Hariti, her dispute momentarily forgotten. “The Crescent, Left Hand, will you make me miss that story too?”

  “If you will not stay to hear it,” said Datang, “then go and make your own. The gallant fraternity is generous to stories of women’s victories.”

  “Much as the sorority of busybody spinsters is to those of harlotry and feud,” said Hariti sourly. “But I grant the point. You will hear of me, Datang.”

  “I wait with bated breath.” They embrace
d and kissed as sisters. When they disengaged, only Lin Gyat remained in the kitchen. He gazed at the two of them with a nearly entomological absorption, then issued a half-dreaming smile, his teeth full of splintered chicken flesh.

  Datang saw Hariti to the door. When she turned to return to the kitchen, Netten was waiting by the stairs. Datang shook her head in bemusement. “Will you explain this to me, Netten?”

  “Did Hariti explain it, when you spoke with her?”

  “I think you know she did not.”

  “So I do,” Netten said. “I can leave her that much, at least.”

  “A legacy of secrecy and silence?” said Datang.

  “Well, one offers what one can,” said Netten; and Datang regretted her words, for the roughness in his voice scraped at her very heart. But she sensed he did not wish for an apology. “Let us find the Eager Edge and repair to the kitchen before Envied of Snakes eats the last scraps of that guinea hen. We must plan.”

  It was the work of moments to recount the case against Lin Yongten, who seemed unworried by the revelation. “You know it was not me, dui-bu-dui?”

  Netten and Datang vigorously assented; Lin Gyat yawned and said, “Another notch on the Eager Edge’s belt can hardly move me.”

  Lin Yongten shrugged. “With my friends behind me, all else recedes.” He allowed himself a small smile. “I know a smith who owes me a favor. Let us fashion a replica of my broadsword, which we may then submit to the sorcerous procedure. If I am accused, I will produce the genuine article, and the sham will be exposed; if not, I will as well, to show my good faith.”

  “That is a well-wrought scheme,” said Netten. “Yet, consider the foe. The King’s Lama is a puissant sorcerer, widely beloved, with a standing army even we four stalwarts could not face all at once and live. A man may catch a tiger with nothing but some guile and enterprise; to survive the encounter, though, he needs a bit of steel.”

  “Well, what would you?” said Lin Yongten. “I have no sorcerous recourse. If I am that man, and he is that tiger, I would sooner die having ridden him for all to see.”

  “I only say that catching out the King’s Lama will not exonerate you,” said Netten. “We must plan for a trial. Witnesses must be sought, a narrative crafted. The King’s Lama may stipulate the Salmon’s blood on your sword, but he cannot prove you did the deed. I know legalists who can turn that tiny gap into a chasm—”

  “Why?” said Datang.

  Netten stared at her. “Surely my purpose cannot be obscure. I wish to save our friend.”

  “The King’s Lama is a puissant sorcerer, you said, with the public’s love and a standing army. Why should the courts be beyond his influence?”

  “No one can oppose the King’s Lama in divination,” said Netten. “A consummate legal mind is not so rare, and may be bought for favors or hard specie. Besides, the truth is with us.”

  “Let us concede your analysis. The Eager Edge will be arraigned, he will be tried, and justice will take the day. Then what? Back to patrolling the Resting Place between Heaven and Earth Pavilion?”

  “You did not deem it such a meager post when you arrived here,” said Netten.

  “Nor do I now,” said Datang. “But, Netten, what is afoot in Therku?”

  The comrades ruminated in silence for a moment.

  “You would have us find out, then?” said Netten.

  “No formal case has been brought against the Eager Edge,” said Datang. “If he disappears, the King’s Lama will have his scapegoat without ever needing to invoke the legalities. Unless he has some enmity against the Eager Edge in particular, our flight will serve his purpose. The thought rankles, but betimes a battle must be lost to save the war. Thus—we may save the Eager Edge’s reputation in Rassha by preempting his arraignment; we will certainly save his freedom, and perhaps his life; and we will gather a piece of intelligence thought inimical by an enemy, incidentally exposing ourselves to various opportunities to cover ourselves in glory. Perhaps you, Netten,” she said with a grin, “will at last collect the style due you.”

  “An army stands between us and the Khodon Pass,” said Lin Yongten.

  “That, or a mountain range,” said Lin Gyat. “But the north edge of the Cradle is impassable, and passing by the south or east would set us weeks behind.”

  “Nimble horses can be had in eastern Gyachun,” said Netten. “And, to a band of four, the army may be less an impediment than it might seem. Give me the night to think on it, and to set my affairs in order.”

  “You are for it, then?” said Datang—with no little joy; for she had thought his liaison in the fabric market might dull his appetite for travel.

  “I have long wished to visit the King’s hometown,” said Netten. “That is near the border; perhaps we may stop there first.”

  “It sounds a pleasant enough diversion,” said Lin Gyat. “I have heard the women of the north are as hairy as they are eager.”

  “That is the snakes,” said Datang. “The women are as fierce as they are virtuous.”

  “Well, then,” said Lin Gyat, “I shall find a docile one.” And he closed his eyes with all the appearance of great contentment.

  Once Netten had proposed the northern expedition, there was no question of delay. Netten agreed to make the petition to their captain, which he was confident would be accepted, but insisted he should not be the one to pick up their letters of marque for post and hostel from the Logistics Bureau—indeed, it emerged that he had stipulated that all four sealed letters should be bound together and released only to Datang, a condition to which the captain had agreed. When she protested at being made to do such lowly work, Netten simply shrugged and said there was no changing it now, then receded to the study. “It is the right decision,” said Lin Yongten, but when Datang asked why, he did not answer.

  She had one shift before her obligation at the Logistics Bureau. As she knew the Bureau operated through the night, she took a short time after her shift to mount the parapets surrounding the Resting Place Between Heaven and Earth Pavilion and gaze out on the city. It was twilight; lamps throughout the city were beginning to ignite. The Silver Dragon snaked from the Great Culvert over which the Pavilion and Orchid Palace were built, and through the city, dividing East from West Rassha, then out the Chusrin Gate and onto the Great South Plain. There the Iron Eunuch’s army waited, its campfires concentrated to the east, where it could threaten the Wind Horse Gate. That menacing beauty added a spice of danger and discontent that Datang could practically smell in the air—that and the prospect of a northern journey, under an authorization that was surely questionable even if technically legal, and on a mission to uncover a truth that they did not understand, but which must surely be dire if the King’s Lama so badly wanted the King to remain ignorant of it. It was a cool night, with just enough of an edge to make one restless. Before, in her youth, she had viewed battle as a fine means of dissipating her energy, had even rousted her brother from bed on just such cool nights to spar—but that was when battle had meant sparring, before that cockerel Lamto had come at her with half her skill and a suit of armor and nearly bled her white.

  So absorbed was she in contemplation that the brachiating figure swinging up over the parapet on ape-long arms seemed exquisitely in place, a natural part of the mise-en-scène. Thus, Datang was able to react with unnatural aplomb. “The Glib Ape,” she said, not even moving her eyes to look at him. “Are you here to instruct me in the error of my ways?”

  “‘Twould seem redundant.” He settled next to her in an identical posture, great hairy arms crossed under his chest. “You are a quicker study than I am a teacher. In any case, you cannot have failed to notice that I delight in error.”

  “What, then?” said Datang. “Are we invaded?”

  “Well, not yet,” said the Ape. “After I complete my spying, I wager you will be.”

  “The stakes?”

  “Come, you know the stakes; you are standing on them. Need we sully the excitement of life with the ta
wdriness of gambling? Conspiracy,” he added. “Spying and conspiracy is my business in Rassha.”

  “So this encounter is a happy coincidence?”

  “Nothing of the kind; I have been hankering after it since last we parted. Your lover taught me an exemplary lesson, but he did not make it stick.”

  “I refuse to satisfy your ill-hidden curiosity about my so-called lover,” said Datang. “Why did you wish to speak with me?”

  “There are two reasons,” he said. “First, to persuade you to leave the city.”

  “Why? Because you are invading?”

  “Yes,” he said in great seriousness. “We will breach these walls and tear the heart out of this city. I vowed this to my master, and the Glib Ape’s vows are iron-girt and diamond-edged.”

  “Iron for iron. That is poetic enough—but I know a stronger metal.”

  The Glib Ape shrugged. “I did not think you would relent. I will do my best not to see you killed, Left Hand, but there are things even I cannot guarantee.”

  Datang stood straight and turned to the Glib Ape. “And what if I said yes? Where would I go?”

  “I would see you safely out of the Great South Plain if you wished to go back to your father’s vineyard, or anywhere else.” He looked at her with great solemnity. “But I would invite you to my own camp. And, yes, my bed. Why stint at stating my intentions? We could ride through Rassha’s broken gates together. Better, you could stay in bed, and I could join you after it is done, and then we could move on to some finer thing.”

  “And has it been long since you have done that ‘finer thing’?”

  “That is cheap.”

  “Some revel in error, some in cheapness.”

  “I meant a finer life. I am not a campaigner by nature, you know.”

  “And what are you, Glib Ape, by nature?”

  He twitched a one-sided grin as a cat might its whiskers. “Will you join me?”

  “No,” she said. “But I will leave the city.”

  He looked at her, suspicious. “Will you?”

  “If you give me and three companions safe passage to the mouth of the Great South Plain, I will.”