Chapter Twenty-nine
HABIBA'S sergeant at arms would have put Llesho on a war steed taller at the shoulder than Llesho's head, but he refused, choosing instead the short and sturdy horse, so like the beasts native to Thebin, that had carried him from Farshore. His guard had likewise rejected the more impressive mounts for their old companions of the trail. Like warriors stepping through a crack in time, they stood at the right hand of the magician, Habiba.
Master Den complained about mounting any horse at all, but was finally persuaded onto the back of a fat and complacent mare who took his weight with a single snort of indignation before sidling up to Habiba's left. The honor guard, twenty of Habiba's soldiers in the livery of her ladyship and Farshore Province, fell in behind the leaders.
“An auspicious number to honor a visiting prince,” Habiba explained to Llesho, “but not so many that Ambassador Huang HoLun might consider our purpose a threat.”
That was certainly true. Habiba's scouts had reported that the emperor's guard, a force in excess of five thousand men, waited in readiness not more than a li distant, camped in a wheat field left fallow for the season. The witch had accepted the information with a little shrug. “We are seeking the Celestial Emperor's help, not contesting his rule in his own province. If he decides against her ladyship's petition, we have lost before we have begun.”
The thought did little to comfort Llesho.
The party of petitioners crossed the field on which their own army camped. Too soon, the forest that marked the boundary between Thousand Lakes and Shan Province was before them. Two by two, the party entered the wood, following a narrow but well-marked path that wound between tall trees whose thick branches blotted out the sun. Llesho shivered as his horse stepped into the shadows. The forest was too still, and he wondered what had startled the birds and crickets into silence. Perhaps the emperor's ambassador had decided to resolve the puzzle of a deposed prince with an anonymous arrow from behind a tree or from hiding in the brush that crowded close against the path.
Kaydu rode ahead with Bixei to scout the way, and Habiba followed, riding at Llesho's side, offering themselves unprotected at the head of the party as a sign of trust and good will. Llesho recognized the message his own place in the order of march sent the ambassador waiting up ahead. Habiba recognized Llesho's rank as superior to his own and equal to the lady's in whose name he traveled. Her ladyship's witch did not speak, but watched the forest to right and to left with dark and vigilant eyes. Llesho found himself darting quick glances to either side as well, wondering whether Markko had survived the recent battle unscathed, and where he had gone to regroup his forces. Master Den rode after them, alone, with Lling and Hmishi behind. The twenty men of Habiba's guard followed last.
Llesho held himself a little straighter. The short spear her ladyship had returned to him remained hidden in his pack, but he displayed his Thebin sword in its saddle scabbard near his knee. Habiba had said nothing about the knife he carried beneath his shirt. To Llesho, the Thebin knife even more than the coronet signaled his rank. So he reached under his collar for the cord around his neck and removed it, clasping the scabbard to the belt that wrapped his Thebin coat.
Now
he felt like a prince of the House of Thebin, beloved of the goddess and successor to his father's throne. Without giving it any thought, his head came up, and the hesitation cleared from his eyes.
“Your Highness,” Habiba addressed him with a smile. “I am happy to see that you have joined us at last.”
Llesho responded with a level, almost threatening stare. “I know what they think of us in Shan. To them, we are barbarians, seduced by the riches of the West and brought to our downfall because we grew weaker than our savage neighbors.”
Habiba looked surprised at Llesho's description of how imperial eyes must see Thebin. He was about to be more surprised.
“They're wrong,” Llesho finished. “We are barbarians, perhaps, but captivity has made us stronger.”
“Thebin was once known for its cunning.” Habiba seemed to approve.
“I know nothing of that,” Llesho answered with a sardonic twist to the words.
“I'm sure you don't.”
They had reached the edge of the forest, and Habiba gave his attention to the open field before them. Llesho did the same. Waves of low grasses filled in the faint reminders of plowed rows. Now, however, the fallow ground sprouted silk pavilions like bright yellow mushrooms in the sunshine. Three men on horseback waited for them at the side of the forest trail. The central figure, dressed in the heavy coat of an imperial marshal at arms, moved forward to greet them. His two attendants, in the uniforms of the imperial horse battalion, waited with their hands on the hilts of their swords.
“Huang HoLun, Ambassador of the Celestial Emperor the Great God of Shan, sends his greetings to Habiba, servant of her ladyship of Farshore Province,” the marshal pronounced, “and bids him come forward to offer tribute and receive the blessings of the emperor's house upon him.” He said nothing of Llesho, but his eyes did not leave the Thebin prince until Habiba drew his sword in the ritual of allegiance.
First Habiba kissed the blade. Then, reversing his hold on the weapon, he extended the hilt to the emperor's marshal. “Her ladyship extends her worshipful prayer that the emperor's ambassador will accept her humble servant as his own, and lend an ear to her piteous plea. The emperor's governor of Farshore Province lies murdered, his state and all his holdings seized by enemies who press even now to lay waste to her father's realm.”
“Ambassador Huang will speak to you on these and other matters,” the marshal agreed. He did not add any kind wishes of the ambassador's that might have assured them of a favorable hearing, but turned his horse and, with a last backward glance at Llesho, headed for the largest of the bright yellow tents waiting for them on a small rise in the field.
“He knows who I am, but he didn't say anything about me being here,” Llesho frowned after the departing marshal, wondering what he was to make of the greeting that ignored him officially while giving him all the attention of the man's stare.
“He knows who you
say
you are, surely,” Habiba corrected him. He kicked his horse into motion, setting his small party to follow the marshal before adding, “Your dress and your bearing have made that clear. And he showed great interest in you, but no surprise.”
“You're not the only one with spies,” Llesho suggested.
“No, I'm not.” Habiba narrowed his eyes, as if he could see through the yellow silk and into the heart of the delegate. He hadn't expected so guarded a reception, and Llesho didn't like the idea that something had taken the witch by surprise. After a moment of tense thought, Habiba shifted into a waiting mode with a little shrug. “We will know soon enough what the ambassador makes of us.”
There was something brewing beneath Habiba's impassive exterior. Llesho couldn't figure out exactly what it was, but he figured that, if the witch was suspicious, he was well advised to stay on the defensive. He let his hand drift to the hilt of his knife.
“Five thousand to our twenty.” Habiba did not turn to look at him, but offered the reminder as if to the wind. Llesho took the hintâa dead prince was no use to his peopleâand let his hand drop once again to the reins. It was as well that he did so, for they had arrived in front of the yellow silk tent, and soldiers poured out on every side to surround them. Llesho slid from his saddle, leaving his sword where it lay. When one of the imperial guard would have taken his knife, however, he reached it faster, not unsheathing it, but holding it tight to his side with the flat of his open hand.
“It is a symbol of rank,” Habiba explained, and the soldiers backed off, letting one of authority among them come forward.
“No one may approach the emperor's ambassador while armed,” the sergeant of the guard instructed.
Habiba waved a careless hand. “He is but a boy, the knife a mere trinket, but important as a symbol. You understand?” he lied.
The sergeant turned to examine the Thebin prince, who looked younger than he was because of his short stature. Llesho smiled back at the sergeant with his most vacuous grin.
I'm harmless,
he thought at the man.
Quick as a striking snake, the sergeant made a grab for Llesho's throat. Just as quickly, Llesho had the knife out. If the sergeant had not anticipated the move, he would have been dead, but he clasped Llesho's wrist in both of his hands and managed to stop the knife with just the tip bloodied. The wounded soldier exerted pressure on the nerves that ran close to the surface of Llesho's knobby wristbone, but the knife did not fall. “Give.” the soldier said. “Give!”
They stayed like that, frozen for an endless second, until Llesho's eyes cleared, and he realized that he was standing in the center of a shocked and silent circle, his hand still wrapped around his knife, while a bleeding soldier clung to his wrist as if his life depended on it. Slowly, Llesho realized that it probably did.
“I'm sorry,” he whispered, horrified at what he had done. But he did not drop the knife, even now that he was aware of the painful pressure the sergeant was exerting on the nerves in his wrist.
“Please let me go!” he cried. “I'm not going to hurt you.”
The sergeant snorted indignantly. “Let go of the knife first, then we'll see.”
Llesho stared with growing horror from the knife in his frozen hand to the sergeant. “I can't,” he said.
The soldier frowned, and glanced away to call for aid from the men who surrounded them. Habiba stepped forward, however, with both hands out to show that he carried no weapon.
Moving slowly so that he startled neither Llesho nor the tense guards who awaited only the command of their sergeant to cut down the Thebin prince, he slipped one hand over that of the soldier holding Llesho's wrist. “Let go, very slowly.” He pinned the man with a hypnotic stare, and the soldier's hand relaxed. Llesho pulled away, but he could not escape Habiba's hold, which had replaced that of the damaged soldier.
“Now, give me the knife, Llesho. You can trust me . . .” Gradually, Llesho felt the soft, low words lulling him into a warm sense of security. Relieved, he turned his bloodied palm up, offering the knife. With no outward show of urgency Habiba took it.
“I hope that whatever you learned was worth the cost,” he said to the sergeant, holding the knife out to him. The sergeant looked from the witch to Llesho and back again, his face set in hard lines. He didn't have to say anything. It was obvious to everyone who had seen it that the man had learned exactly what he wanted to know from the exercise, and that he treated that knowledge with deadly seriousness.
“I truly am sorry.” Llesho sighed, certain that they had just lost something more important than his Thebin knife, but not sure what it could be. They
wanted
the ambassador to believe that Llesho was a true prince of Thebin. If the sergeant knew enough about the raising of young princes on the high plateau to test him with the knife, he had only learned what they wanted the emperor to know anyway.
Whatever it was, Habiba had his “making the best of a plan gone awry” face on when he held out a cloth to the bleeding sergeant. “Bind that up; you are dripping on your uniform,” he said when the sergeant had thrust Llesho's knife into his own belt. “And watch that bladeâit's sharp.”
The sergeant gave him a dark look, but accepted the cloth. When he had wrapped it around the wound in his arm, he directed his soldiers to surround Habiba's party.
“Hold their guards here,” he ordered the greater number of his men, and marked out half a dozen to accompany Llesho and Habiba. “These two, come with me.”
“These three.” Master Den gave the sergeant a respectful bow marred only by the quirk of an eyebrow.
The sergeant laughed. “Master Den! Ill met as always! I should have realized you would be a part of this!”
“Not by choice, my lad, not by choice.” Master Den shook his head mournfully, but he was smiling as he did so. “I'll keep an eye on things for you.”
“Go,” the sergeant concluded. “Before I change my mind and have you clapped in chains for the last time we met.”
“A man shouldn't wager what he can't afford to lose,” Den suggested with another deep rumble of a laugh. He fell in next to Llesho before the sergeant could respond.
When the imperial guard had the party sorted out, the sergeant held aside the tent flap and announced their arrival to the house guards standing at attention just inside. The first gave a deep bow and scurried away. He quickly returned, and gave the newcomers low and humble bows before gesturing for them to come forward.
The ambassador was a tall man, so old that his thin gray mustache hung down almost to his belt, and so slender that one could almost count the bones in his upraised hand. He had a mean and narrow face that gave him the look of a miser in spite of the sumptuous robes of rustling silk he wore. Llesho felt his heart sink as he took in the measure of Huang HoLun.
He will not help us,
he thought.
This Ambassador Huang will send us away with our story unheard, and the emperor will learn nothing of our plight.
If his first examination of the ambassador sank his hopes in his chest, he soon had greater cause for fear.
“That is the boy. He belongs to Farshore Province. And Farshore belongs to me.” Master Markko stepped out from behind the ambassador's chair and rested a triumphant smile first on Habiba and then on Llesho. He did not seem to look at Master Den at all, but his next words proved that he had recognized the third man: “As for this one, I did not know that it was customary for the emperor's ambassador to meet with washermen, but I can save you the trouble with this one. He belongs to Pearl Island which, as we all know, belongs to me by right of Lord Yueh's last wishes.”