The Prince of Shadow (11 page)

Llesho laughed along, but he soon abandoned the group, slipping away to find his own bunk. Grateful as he was that no one had reminded him of his blunder on the practice field, he could not shake the sense of disaster that had hung over his head since he had seen Tsu-tan enter the overseer's cottage. He had plans to lay if he hoped to warn Kwan-ti in time. But the day had been long, and too fraught with emotion for Llesho to think about strategy. He soon fell asleep, where evil dreams pursued him, of Kwan-ti burning and Tsu-tan leering at the fire. Sometimes, Llesho was at the center of the dream fire, and Markko stood in the doorway of the stone cottage with a beaker of poison in one hand and a leash in the other, a hell-hound with Tsu-tan's face lying at his feet. Llesho rested little, and woke with a start at dawn.

After prayer forms and breakfast, Llesho made his way to the laundry where Den greeted him with a sour pucker of his lips.

“I don't suppose anyone ever taught you how to wash shirts?” he asked.

Llesho shrugged. “I've washed my own shirt every rest-day since I was seven,” he said, “But the water came from what I could save out of my drinking ration over the week. I don't suppose that was what you had in mind.”

“Not exactly.” Den introduced him to the pump handle and showed how, when he worked it up and down, hot water from an underground spring gushed out of a curved spout, bubbling and steaming as it filled the vat. Mesmerized by the waves that lapped away from the point where the water fell, Llesho's thoughts drifted back to the pearl beds and the longhouse. The hiss and roar of the tide as it rose and fell with the crossing of the moons had underscored his every move, every thought since coming to Pearl Island. Now the sound, in small, reminded him of Kwan-ti, and the death of Minister Lleck.

Lleck had trusted Kwan-ti, had known the healer would protect his secrets and the boy in his care. He wondered if he could do the same. Could he trust Master Den with this secret, that he knew who Tsu-tan, the witch-finder, sought? When he realized that he was hesitating not out of concern for Kwan-ti, but for fear that he would draw Markko's attention to himself, Llesho knew what he had to do.

As if reading his mind, Master Den dropped a heavy hand on Llesho's shoulder. “I have broad shoulders, if you need help with that burden,” Den said, and Llesho understood that the washerman did not refer to the sacks of laundry waiting to be tumbled into the washing vats.

“I have to get outside the palisade.” Llesho sat on the edge of the washing vat, his brow drawn down in a worried crease. “I have to warn—someone—that they are in danger.”

“From the witch-finder?” Den asked. He sat heavily next to Llesho and nodded for emphasis. “Tsu-tan has been creeping around again; I wondered if you had seen him, or knew what he was about.”

“I have to warn her,” Llesho insisted, “I owe a debt of trust.”

“Have you considered, Llesho, that the charge against your friend may be true?” Den seemed to be looking for more than he said in the question, but Llesho had enough of puzzles and secrets of his own.

“She is no witch,” he said. “I have known her for all my seasons on Pearl Island.”

The washerman did not remind him that his seasons measured very few in the schemes of witches and spirit demons, but pointed out what must be obvious to a pearl diver:

“Think, Llesho. If she is guilty of witchcraft, her magic puts her beyond the power of the likes of Tsu-tan and Master Markko. But if she is innocent, she is trapped already: there is no way off Pearl Island without Lord Chin-shi's blessing—or his boats.”

It hurt to realize Den was right. He would risk everything—his life, even his kingdom—in a pointless display of misplaced chivalry that could have no good outcome. It hurt even more to know he was going to do it, or die trying, anyway. Master Den saw the decision harden the expression in Llesho's eyes, and seemed himself to come to a decision.

“I have a message for the healer, Kwan-ti,” Den said, and pulled himself upright. He left the washroom for a moment and returned with a small parchment, tightly rolled and tied with a ribbon and seal. “Show the seal at the gates, it will give you safe passage. But come back as soon as the message is delivered. No dawdling.”

“Thank you, Master Den.” Llesho bowed low in gratitude, and Den sighed.

“In the long run, it may comfort you to know that you did your best to help your friend. But learn this lesson well: only a warrior who suffers failure with fortitude can accept the accolades of success with grace and humility.”

“Yes, Master.” Llesho bowed again, but in his heart he admitted no possibility of failure. Then he turned and ran, through the laundry and the leather works, across the practice yard, and to the first gate, where the guard looked at him with suspicion and inspected the rolled parchment from every angle to assure himself that the seal was authentic and had not been tampered with.

The outer gate was easier. Madon was on duty, and waved Llesho through with a cursory glance at the seal. Madon was no fool, and if he had any suspicions about the message, he kept them to himself. He merely pointed to a less worn path leading away from the compound, suggesting, “You could take the long run, but this is a shortcut to the bay.”

The shortcut required greater concentration, since it was less well tended and air roots and trailing vines frequently snaked across the path to trip up the unwary. Llesho had to make a few incautious leaps to avoid a twisted ankle, but he reached the longhouse in short order, and unseen. To his dismay, however, he could not find Kwan-ti. His own quarter-shift mates were at work in the bay, but he asked the divers on quarter-rest, and the old men who fished and the old women who gathered fruits and vegetables to flavor the grain food Lord Chin-shi supplied for the cookhouse. No one had seen Kwan-ti since the night before. All the boats were accounted for, so she could not have left the island, but still, no one could find her.

Finally, taking his courage in his hands, Llesho approached the witch-finder, who curled in a brooding huddle beneath his palm tree.

“I have a message from Master Den for the healer,” he said, pretending not to know of Tsu-tan's nocturnal visits to Master Markko. “Did you see where she went?”

“I did not,” Tsu-tan snapped. “And if you don't want to roast on a spit yourself, you will mind your own business, pig food.”

Llesho thought the witch-finder's voice shook a little. If Tsu-tan was afraid, so much the better. But Llesho refused to believe what he heard whispered in the longhouse: the witch had gone, called a dragon from the sea to take her away from the Island and the witch-finder and his virtuous Lord, Chin-shi. Once, a water dragon had rescued Llesho, convincing him without words to cling to life and to his faith. The creature had laughed her joy with him, a human sound, with the voice of the healer. He could believe no evil of Kwan-ti, but he could not deny that she was gone, and by her own power, not spirited away to await death at the hands of the witch-finder and his employers. How or why, he refused to think, for fear of where his own evidence would take him.

Still carrying Master Den's message, Llesho returned to the compound. Madon still guarded the gate and waved him in with a smile. A new man sat at the inner turnstile, however, someone he knew by sight, who delivered a message of his own.

“Overseer Markko wants to see you as soon as you return.”

Llesho nodded to acknowledge the order, but his heart froze. What did the overseer know of his errand, and what would he do about it?

“I have done nothing wrong,” Llesho reminded himself, “I only acted as a messenger, as befits my station, to deliver Den's message—” He would be lying to himself as well as the overseer, he realized: was this what Den had meant about suffering failure? He knocked on the door to the stone cottage, determined to answer truthfully any question the overseer asked of him.

Master Markko was at his desk, as usual, with Bixei standing at attention while the overseer sprinkled sand on his writing and tapped it clean. He rolled and sealed it, and handed it to Bixei, who left them with a last cold glare at Llesho. Llesho ignored the animosity of the other boy; Markko was looking up at him with false concern oiling his frown.

“Let me see it, boy.” Markko held out his hand. “You had a message from Master Den for the witch. I want to see it.”

In a cold sweat, Llesho wondered if he could withhold the parchment roll. Kwan-ti was lost to him, but perhaps he could save Master Den from the stake if he took responsibility for his actions. “It was my fault,” he said, “I wanted to see Kwan-ti. Master Den tried to persuade me not to go, but I persisted, and so he made it possible for me to visit the longhouse.”

“And did you see the witch?”

“I have never seen a witch,” Llesho answered with precise honesty. No one had ever identified themselves to him as a witch. If required, he might have guessed the woman who had watched him that first afternoon in the weapons room practiced the evil arts. He would have offered his own life, however, as surety that Kwan-ti had no evil in her.

“I see.” Master Markko considered him thoughtfully. “But I would still like to see the message Master Den gave you for the woman.”

“Yes, Master.” Shivering, though the day was warm, Llesho held out the parchment. He paled when Markko took a small knife and carefully lifted the seal. Unrolled, the parchment revealed only a request for a simple poultice. Markko frowned at it, then he lit the candle on his desk and held the parchment over it. The edges began to curl and smoke, but still no words appeared on the parchment. Flicking the false message at Llesho, he asked, “What do you make of this?”

“I don't understand.” Which was true, except that Llesho thought he might be figuring it out, though he wished he had Lleck at his side to guide him through the twists of what began to take on the outlines of a game of Go played by masters. He knew he wasn't up to the mettle of the players, but he suspected it would prove no easier to be a stone.

The overseer carefully brushed the burned edges off the parchment and rolled it again. Markko picked up the seal, which he had lifted whole with his knife, and held it over the candle.

“If you feel ill again, come to me,” Markko said as he watched the wax of the seal soften. “You are too valuable to our lord—as a gladiator in training, you understand?—to rely on superstitious old women for your care.”

A scent like illness, but with more of death in it, clung to the air in the overseer's cottage. It tickled a warning at the back of his nose, and Llesho determined he would have to remain very healthy from now on. He nodded, willing to agree to anything if it would get him out of the cottage.

“Just so we understand each other.” The overseer pressed the seal back into place over the ribbon on the roll of parchment and handed it back to Llesho. “You never stopped here,” he instructed, “and I never saw this.”

Shaking, Llesho took the scroll. “But, honored sir, Bixei has seen me. Won't he tell the others?”

“You needn't worry about Bixei. At least,” Markko added with a sly smile, “in the matter of my secrets.” Dismissed, Llesho bowed and made his escape to the practice yard. With a deep breath to settle the trembling that had started in his whole body, he tried to set his mind to the promise he had made to the ghost of Thebin's minister, Lleck.

As the youngest prince of Thebin, Llesho knew he'd been born a stone in a game whose board spanned whole kingdoms. He'd been swept from the board once already, and he didn't relish the idea that he'd been put into play again without knowing if he was cast as the white or the black. He wished, badly, to rest his fears and questions and promises on those broad shoulders Master Den had offered. Even a stone in a game he does not understand wishes to survive, he figured, but the people Llesho trusted were disappearing at a rate that did not bode well for any new advisers he might adopt. For now he would keep what secrets he possessed.

When he put the scroll into Den's hands, therefore, he told him only that no one had seen Kwan-ti, and did not mention his audience with Overseer Markko. Master Den did not speak of his errand, or what the healer's absence must mean. He returned the scroll to its place among the clean shirts without looking at it, and picked up a rake that looked very much like the muck rake that Llesho had used in the pearl beds. This one had smoother, rounded ends to the tines. “You use this to agitate the water and stir up the shirts,” Master Den explained. “Not too energetically, or you will tear the fabric, but enough to keep the cloth moving, so the dirt doesn't settle back again.”

The technique was easy to pick up after seasons in the oyster beds, and gradually, Llesho relaxed into the work. Almost, he could believe that the interview with the overseer had not happened. Almost, he could believe that Kwan-ti the healer was not a witch.