“—I would be married to one of his friends, and perhaps widowed as well.” Now Komor Yala, the only surviving child of General Hai Komori Dasho, moved too, a slight swaying as if she wished to turn and halted just in time. “Please, Daoyan.” The habit of long friendship made it not only possible but necessary to address him so informally. “Not before my Elder Brother.”
“Yala…” Perhaps Dao’s half-armor, black chased with yellow, was not adequate for this particular encounter. The boy she had known, full of sparkstick4 pride and fierce silence when that pride was balked, had ridden to war; this young man returned in his place.
Did he regret being dragged from the field to preserve a dynasty while so many others stood and died honorably? She could not ask, merely suspect, so Yala shook her head. Her own words were white clouds, chosen carefully and given to the frigid morning. “Who will care for my princess, if I do not?”
“You cannot waste your life that way.” A slight sound—gauntlets creaking. Daoyan still clenched his fists. She should warn him against so open a display of emotion, but perhaps in a man it did not matter so much.
“And yet.” There is no other option, her tone replied, plainly. Not one I am willing to entertain. “I will take great care with your royal sister, Your Highness.”
Of course he could not leave the battlefield thus, a draw achieved but no victory in sight. “I will offer for you.”
“You already would have, if you thought your honored father would allow it.” She bowed, a graceful supple bending with her skirts brushing fresh-swept stone. “Please, Daoyan.” Her palms met, and her head dropped even farther when she straightened, the attitude of a filial daughter from a scroll’s illustrations.
Even a prince dared not interrupt prayers begun before a relative’s tomb. Daoyan turned, finally, boots ringing through thin snow to pavers she had not attended to with her small broom, and left the pailai with long, swinging strides.
Yala slipped her hands deeper inside her sleeves and regarded the memorial stone. Bai, of course, would have sniffed at the prospect of his little sister marrying a man with an honorless mother, no matter if he had proven himself in war and the Great Rider had legitimized him. Bai would also have forbidden her to accompany Mahara. He was not the clan-head, but since he came of age their father had let him take heavier duties and listened to his counsel. Bai’s refusal would have carried weight, and Yala could have bowed her head to accept it instead of insisting upon her duty as a noble daughter must before a distinguished parent.
Perhaps that would have been best. Was the cringing, creeping relief she would have felt cowardice? The other noble families were scurrying to keep their daughters from Mahara’s retinue, marriages contracted or health problems discovered with unseemly haste. The Great Rider, weakened as he was by the defeat at Three Rivers and the slow strangling of Khir’s southron trade, could not force noble daughters to accompany his own, he could only… request.
Other clans and families could treat it as a request, but Komori held to the ancient codes. It was a high honor to attend the princess of Khir, and Yala had done so since childhood. To cease in adversity was unworthy of a Komor daughter.
Burning incense sent lazy curls of scented smoke heavenward. If her brother was watching, he would have been fuming like the sticks themselves. A slow smolder and a hidden fire, that was Hai Komori Baiyan. She could only hope she was the same, and the conquering Zhaon would not smother her and her princess.
First things first. You are to pay your respects here, and then to comfort your father.
As if there could be any comfort to a Khir nobleman whose only son was dead. Hai Komori Dasho would be gladdened to be rid of a daughter and the need to find a dowry, that much was certain. Even if he was not, he would act as if he were, because that was the correct way to regard this situation.
The Komori, especially the clan heads, were known for their probity.
Her fingertips worried at her knuckles, and she sighed. “Oh, damoi,5 my much-blessed Bai,” she whispered. It was not quite meet to pronounce the name of the dead, but she could be forgiven a single use of such a precious item. “How I wish you were here.”
She bent before her brother’s grave one last time, and her fingers found a sharp-edged, triangular pebble among the flat pavers, blasted grass, and iron-cold dirt. They could not plow quite yet, but the monjok6 and yeoyan blossoms were out. Spring would come early this year, but she would not see the swallows returning. The care of the pailai would fall to more distant kin from a junior branch of the clan.
Yala tucked the pebble in a sleeve-pocket, carefully. She could wrap it with red silken thread, decorate a hairstick with falling beads, and wear a part of both Bai and her homeland daily. A small piece of grit in the conqueror’s court, hopefully accreting nacre instead of dishonor.
There were none left to care for her father in his aging. Perhaps he would marry again. If Bai were still alive…
“Stop,” she murmured, and since there were none to see her, Yala’s face could contort under a lash of pain, a horse shying at the whip. “He is not.”
Khir had ridden to face Zhaon’s great general at Three Rivers, and the eldest son of a proud Second Family would not be left behind. The battle had made Daoyan a hero and Bai a corpse, but it was useless to Khir. The conquerors had dictated their terms; war took its measure, reaping a rich harvest, and Zhaon was the scythe.
Khir would rise again, certainly, but not soon enough to save a pair of women. Even a cursory study of history showed that a farm could change hands, and he who reaped yesterday might be fertilizer for the next scythe-swinger. There was little comfort in the observation, even if it was meant to ease the pain of the defeated.
For the last time, Yala bowed before her brother’s stone. If she walked slowly upon her return, the evidence of tears would be erased by the time she reached the foot of the pailai’s smooth-worn stairs and the single maidservant waiting, holding her mistress’s horse and bundled against the cold as Yala disdained to be.
A noblewoman suffered ice without a murmur. Inside, and out.
Hai Komori’s blackened bulk rested within the walls of the Old City. It frowned in the old style, stone walls and sharply pitched slate-tiled roof; its great hall was high and gloomy. The longtable, crowded with retainers at dinners twice every tenday, was a blackened piece of old wood; it stood empty now, with the lord’s low chair upon the dais watching its oiled, gleaming surface. Mirrorlight drifted, brought through holes in the roof and bounced between polished discs, crisscrossing the high space.
Dusty cloth rustled overhead, standards and pennons taken in battle. There were many, and their sibilance was the song of a Second Family. The men rode to war, the women to hunt, and between them the whole world was ordered. Or so the classics, both the canonical Hundreds and supplements, said. Strong hunters made strong sons, and Yala had sometimes wondered why her mother, who could whisper a hawk out of the sky, had not given her father more than two. Bai the eldest was ash upon the wind and a name upon a tablet; the second son had not even reached his naming-day.
And Komor Madwha, a daughter of the Jehng family and high in the regard of the Great Rider and her husband as well, died shortly after her only daughter’s birth.
Komori Dasho was here instead of in his study. Straight-backed, only a few thin threads of frost woven into his topknot, a vigorous man almost into the status of elder sat upon the dais steps, gazing at the table and the great hearth. When a side door opened and blue silk made its subtle sweet sound, he closed his eyes.