The Grass King’s Concubine (57 page)

They came to rest with a soft thump. Gulping, Aude opened an eye to find them both safe and sound on a wide terrace. Sujien released her and stepped back, folding his arms. She swayed, and he smiled. She said, “But…”

The smile widened. “I am
not
human.” And then, “Come on. There are things to do.”

She did not trust him. She was alone with him. She had no idea where within the Rice Palace she might be. All around her its roofs and courtyards stretched away, a mosaic of warm tile, drooping trees and burnished walls. On the terrace itself dusty low seats stood about an empty table. A line of dead plants marked the balcony rail; the bones of a creeper clung to the walls. She swallowed hard and said, “You could have warned me.”

“Why?” Sujien opened one of a pair of veranda doors. “There was no danger.”

I thought you were going to kill me
. She would look ridiculous if she said that. She held her tongue and stalked after him through the door, reaching for the shreds of her dignity. The suite of rooms beyond was surprisingly simple, far plainer than her quarters in the Courtyard of the Concubine. Sujien led her to a small bathing chamber and pointed. “You won’t do like this. Wash yourself.” She glared at him, and he made a grab for the lapels of her robe. “I have no interest in your body. Wash.”

“Turn your back.” Aude held her ground. She was trapped here; she was alone with no hope of help. But she would not cave in so easily. If he wanted something from her, let him work for it. She held his gaze. “Well.”

He shook his head, but he turned and stood, back pointedly to her, in the doorway. The room was small. The copper bath stood in its center: Washcloths, towels, and other essentials ranged tidily on a shelf against one wall. When she turned on the faucet, the water was a cool, rusty trickle. She wandered about the room as it filled, sniffing the contents of jars: sandalwood and citrus and pine, the sorts of scents favored by conservative courtiers and merchants in the two cities. Shedding the outsize gown and undoing the bandages on her feet, she stepped into the bath when it was a little less than ankle deep and washed quickly, rinsing by tipping cupfuls of water over herself and trying not to shiver. Her skin was crisscrossed with thin cuts and welts from the attack in the room with the bones. The weave of the washcloth snagged in some of them, making her hiss. She set her teeth against that. They would heal. There was nothing she could do about them other than wait for that.

There was no replacement for the bloodied gown and bandages; she wrapped herself tightly in the largest towel she could find, draping another over her hair. Thankfully, her feet had stopped bleeding. The dagger she tucked into one of the folds of one of the towels. She said, “I’m washed.” She kept her voice as flat as she could.

Sujien did not trouble to turn. He said simply, “Good. Now come.” He led her into a dressing room filled with tall dark wood wardrobes. He opened doors and began to rummage through them, muttering to himself as he did so. Different odors—musk and jasmine, lily and resin, orange and cinnamon—wafted out. Aude, abandoned in the center of the room, glanced stealthily around for a way out. Without looking around, he said, “There’s nowhere you can go from here without me. The doors won’t permit it.”

She stared at the wall. Ten or more minutes passed. At last, he reemerged from the end closet, his arms filled with garments in blues and greens. He flung them at her. “Put these on.” She said nothing. He shook his head and once again turned his back. She bent to sort through the heap at her feet. Silk, all of it, light and fine: a shift in a curious light muddy green and loose trousers to match. A pair of soft silk slippers. A knee-length tunic in a yellowy blue and a longer overrobe with slit sides in a slightly greener shade. She climbed into them quickly. They were a little loose, a little long, like the clothes from the chests in her own room, but there were deep pockets in the side on the undertunic, into which she started to slide her knife. Sujien shook his head. “That you no longer need.” She clutched it, stepped back, and he smiled. Once again, he made that strange winding movement with his hands, and the knife dropped from her fingers. It hit the floor and spun away. She could not reach it. She gulped, and he said, “Peace. I will not harm you. Now come here.” Her feet obeyed before she could prevent them. He patted her shoulder and fastened the final button of her overrobe.

The clothes must have belonged to the Concubine, to Tsai. That meant something. She did not like that at all. She could not find the words to say so.

Sujien stepped back and looked her up and down.
Not impressed
, his face said. Aloud, he said, “Do something about your hair.” There were combs and a hand mirror on a shelf. Aude tugged one through her wet locks and shook them back. He clicked his tongue on his teeth and grabbed
a scarf from the nearest cupboard. “Here. You look like a scullery maid.”

What did he expect? This was not her place; these were not her clothes. But she bit her tongue and tied the scarf over her hair. Its long ends drifted down her back, like the hair in her waking dream.

Tsai’s hair. That was more than likely.

He looked her up and down, a frown etched between his brows. “You still look like a servant.” She said nothing, looked down at her feet. He said, “Wait,” went to one of the closets. A drawer opened, and she heard him rummaging about. She made a rapid grab for her knife while his back was turned, tucking it securely into her pocket.

Sujien said, “There,” and came back to her. “Look up.”

She looked. He stood in front of her, closer than she liked, something bright in his hand. He held it out to her. An earring. Not the mate for the one Liyan had fixed in her ear, but another one, larger and far more valuable. A single dark blue pearl hung from a fine white gold chain. The mistress of the duke of the Southern Reaches, back in the Silver City, had a necklace of blue pearls, but hers were small and uneven. This one was the size of a walnut. Sujien reached for her face, and she flinched. “Stand still. I won’t hurt you.” He reached again, and this time she stepped back.

He said, “Don’t be ridiculous.”

She did not want him to touch her. She said, “I can do it myself.”

“Ah.” Something flickered across his face, something knowing and sly. “Very well, then,” he said, and handed her the earring.

The pearl was cool and silky under her fingers. She fastened it in her earlobe and said, “There.” And then, “I’m thirsty.”

“You should have remembered that in the bathroom.” But he let her return there and drink the tepid water while he paced and muttered. She lingered, letting the water slip between her fingers, pretending to be more thirsty than she
really was. His impatience could not bode well for her. If she dragged her feet, fumbled, lingered…Perhaps Shirai might come in search of them, or Qiaqia. Liyan, even. He had given her the knife.

The earring was still in her lobe. She touched it, and it rang, a faint sweet note. She looked up and found Sujien watching her, his eyes wide. Water trickled from her palm, dripping into the bath. Clear water…Aude gasped. The flow from the tap was still rusty. For the water to have changed…Crossing the room, Sujien knelt by the bath and held his fingers in the running water. Then he touched their wet tips to her lips. She flinched, and he smiled at her.

Not that cool knowing smile, not this time. This smile was open and awed and—yes—kind. He said, “I knew it…I
was
right. I was.” He dried his hand on his sleeve, then held it out to her, like a beau with his lady. He said, “Please, come with me.”

She stood, ignoring the hand. He raised his brows at that, but dropped the hand in silence. He opened a door off the dressing room and ushered her through into a shady bedroom with green-washed walls and a curved, timbered ceiling. It held little, save a great bed, laden with rich brocades. Aude swallowed, reaching for the knife.

Sujien said, “Lie down.”

She drew the knife and held it out before her, edging away from him. “No.”

“I told you: I’m not interested in that. Now lie down.”

Once again, he was between her and the door, and the windows were all closed. She said, “Why should I believe you?”

“Why not?” His puzzlement sounded genuine.

“You kidnapped me, you assaulted me, you locked me up, you kept on abusing me and blaming me…”

Sujien shook his head. “You’re a captive. That’s appropriate for a captive. Other matters…” He hesitated. “Other matters are not.”

He was embarrassed, she realized. Somehow, her fear of rape had embarrassed him. A giggle began to rise up her throat, and she battened it down, hard. If she started to
laugh now, she might never stop. She said, instead, “I’ll sit on the bed. Will that do?”

He looked at his feet. “Perhaps.”

“Well, then.” Eyes fixed on him, she moved toward the bed.

“The other side!”

She blinked. Sujien cleared his throat, said, “It needs to be the other side. Away from the lamp.”

“As you wish.” The words were dry. She perched on the very edge of the bed and eyed him, ready for him to try to push her, to take the knife and hold her down. “There.”

He did nothing, only stood and watched her. The brocade coverlet was stiff and cold though her silks, even slightly damp. She put her empty hand down on it, fingers spread. Yes, damp, despite the dryness of the air. Her confusion must have shown, for Sujien said, “She hasn’t gone, not completely. She greets you.”

She!
Aude jumped to her feet, rubbing the hand on her side. She had been sitting on someone. In someone. A shudder worked its way up her back. Like the bed in her rooms in the Courtyard of the Concubine, this one held a fragment, a shadow. She said, “That’s disgusting.” The cramp in her gut tightened, and she set her teeth against it.

Sujien said, “Why?”

Not human
. She glared at him and said, “Because it is. Can I go now?”

“Yes. We’re done here.”

There was a great door set into the wall of the suite’s central room, made of black wood and bound in tarnished brass. She looked at it, and Sujien shook his head at her. “Not even I can open that door. Not at present. You can check it, if you like.”

He was not to be relied on. He had some plan that she could not unravel. She tried the door with her free hand and found it immovable. She looked around for another exit. Perhaps behind one of the wall hangings or concealed in the plasterwork. He stood in the center of the room,
watching her and once again smiling. He said, “We leave the way we came.”

“But…” Aude said, and caught herself. “Let me guess: It’s the only way?”

“Yes. Come.”

They went back out onto the terrace. Aude looked around once again, searching for any landmark. The roofs and occasional towers were all too alike—her courtyard could be anywhere. Away to her left was a dark squat smudge that might perhaps be the water clock. She went to the edge of the terrace and looked over. At least three stories up. She did not like her chances of climbing down safely. She put up her chin and turned to Sujien.

He said, “Put your arms around my neck.”

She did not want to touch him. She did not want to relinquish her grip on her knife. Her sole alternative would be, it appeared, to stay here. She bit her lip and tucked the dagger into her sash. “If I must.” She put her arms around him, cautiously, standing as far away as she could. He laughed and swung her up into his arms. And then…

He exhaled. Perhaps that was it. Something changed about him—he thinned out or grew lighter or…She did not know. She knew that he began to rise, taking her with him, and the air held them as he walked on it.
Not human
. She had known that from the beginning. She had not really grasped what that meant until now. He might have been on a stairway, treading on nothingness with complete unconcern, step by downward step. The air around them was still, as if it traveled with them, held them, perhaps. She asked, “How?” and fell silent. Perhaps he needed to concentrate, to do this. Perhaps it was dangerous to distract him.

“I lead the Air Banner.” The tone was matter-of-fact. “It’s what we do. Indeed…” And he smiled at her again, that warm, real smile, “It’s what I am.” As he spoke, he began to fade, skin and hair and garments growing pale, turning translucent.

She found herself in midair, still moving, all alone. She
gulped. A trick, that was all, she would not panic, she would not scream. She could, she told herself firmly, still feel his arms supporting her. It was all right, he was still there…

The arms vanished. Resolutions forgotten, Aude shrieked and shut her eyes. This time she really would fall. He had tricked her, yes, but to her death and…She could hear laughter. She opened her eyes and found him once more solidly there, holding on to her. She said, “Don’t do that,” and realized that she sounded like a petulant child.

He brought them to land in one corner of a great square. Long arcades bounded two of its sides, and the third was closed by a wall and a tall gate. Along the fourth, a wide stairway led to a dais and a deep, pillared hall. The stone shapes of guardsmen were everywhere, standing in pairs in the arcades, at the gate, on each step. Heaps of fabric lay crumpled across the court and along the dais. Bright glimpses of bones peered out from amid them here and there. The air was heavy, filthy with the stench of yeast. Aude coughed, burying her face in Sujien’s shoulder, but he pushed her away from him, setting her on her feet on the broken pavement.

She pressed her sleeve to her face, breathing as shallowly as she could. The air clogged her lungs, dragged at her, pulled and tugged and oppressed her with every breath, as if it sought to reshape her from within. Her eyes stung. She coughed again, and the strength of that brought her to her knees. Sujien grabbed her arm and pulled her upright; she sagged against him, too choked to do more. Into her ear, he murmured, “Not much longer.” She fumbled for her dagger, found her fingers too stiff, too clumsy to hold onto it. Step by step, Sujien towed her across the court, and her feet tripped and stumbled in his wake. Her lungs cried for air, yet no breath she took provided it. Around her, the world swam, out of focus, out of all sense and understanding. They reached the foot of the stair, and her feet failed her, too starved of air to obey. She fell again and lay there, sprawled across the first five or so steps. They were cool and hard
against her cheek, the air down here perhaps a fraction cleaner. She closed her eyes, savoring the solidity, the certainty of stone. Above her, somewhere in the murk and acridity, Sujien said, “It has to be so. Do you see?” She did not see anything, nor understand. She wanted only to go on lying there, where all was solid and unchanging.