Sign of the Dragonfly: Chapter III

Rupa knelt outside her mistress’s bedchamber, listening to the sound of the emperor making love. It had been months since the Most High had visited the Third Consort, and still longer between that visit and the one before. Rupa didn’t know what had brought him flying through the palace halls to leap atop her mistress; one moment Sima had been her usual anxious self, calling for her soothsayer for the dozenth time that week, and then a scant hour later, the sound of running footsteps swelled from a pattering stream to a mighty river as eunuchs of the Inner Court came swarming to open doors, light incense, chivvy lesser servants out of sight, and make sure the emperor had people bowing to him and murmuring his praises before he so much as entered the wing. Not long after them came five knights of the Scorpion Guard in their segmented armor of leather, bamboo, and blackened steel, their helms made to resemble grinning scorpion devils, their swords and daggers greased with a venom it was said left its victims writhing in agony for days before death. Leading them, and much more fearsome, was the head of the emperor’s household, his great aunt Parwana, a bony old woman of nearly seventy whose vile temper was the stuff of legend. The palace was a kingdom unto itself, and Parwana, not her grand-nephew, ruled it with an iron fist.

Now the old woman stood not far from where Rupa knelt, her wrinkled lips pursed in displeasure, arms crossed, one finger tap-tap-tapping against a skinny bicep. Rupa wondered if she always listened to the emperor’s love play, if she spent her nights racing ahead of him through the vast labyrinth of the palace so that she could stand with that sour look on her face while her brother’s grandson did his duty. At least the emperor’s sounds were not embarrassing. Some grunting, as was to be expected, but with a nice, deep resonance to it, like a buffalo dragging a plough through soft earth. The Scorpion Guard, flanking the door to the Third Consort’s gardens and the door to the Blue Tile Concourse and the apartments of the emperor’s other wives and concubines, showed no sign that they heard anything at all.

I suppose that’s what life in the palace is, if you boil it right down, thought Rupa. She adjusted the fall of her sleeves as the emperor’s grunting picked up speed. Her knees were beginning to ache from kneeling. Sitting in rooms, pretending things aren’t happening.

One final grunt, a prolonged sigh from behind the carved teak door, and then a minute later the Most High of Amnh emerged, a wet spot on the front of his leggings, trying to straighten his robes. Rupa prostrated herself. The eunuchs of the Inner Court bowed with elaborate flourishes, murmuring, “Most High, Most High,” and “Oh Radiant One,” and whatever else came to mind in a similarly reverent register. From the corner of her eye Rupa watched as Parwana met her nephew at the base of the steps leading up to the Third Consort’s bedchamber and set about composing his regalia. With the ease and efficiency of long practice she untangled his belt from the hilts of his swords, resettled his crescent moon cap on his brow, and matched the gold clasps of his black sherwani, which he had fastened incorrectly. The emperor laughed good-naturedly.

“What would I do without you, you old witch?” he chuckled, pausing before one of Sima’s silver mirrors and twisting the ends of his mustache between his thumbs and forefingers.

“The Most High is too kind,” said Parwana, her tone carefully neutral. “I am but a poor housekeeper, and unworthy of his praise.”

They moved out of earshot in short order, the tide of their guards, servants, and functionaries ebbing after them. As soon as she was sure no one was watching, Rupa rose and hurried in to her mistress, who lay curled on her side in the big, beautiful bed of black mangrove wood, dim lantern light glinting in her huge, dark eyes and outlining the inky banners of her hair, veined here and there with early gray, thrown wild across the pillows. Rupa didn’t understand why Sima coveted another child so dearly. From what she could see, her mistress’s daughter brought her no pleasure, and Sima had never shown any sign of longing for a man’s touch. Even now she looked as though she had just finished an arduous task, her face slack, her eyes vacant. A little life returned to her at the sight of Rupa coming toward her bed.

“I’ve done it,” said Sima, sitting up and pulling the sheets into her lap. She smiled, the first time Rupa had seen her do so in months, though it was a haggard smile, the look of someone who had fled for their life and come to a sanctuary they hadn’t expected to reach. She reached for Rupa’s hand and squeezed it tight, tears welling in the corners of her eyes. “We’ll leave tomorrow for the pilgrimage. You’ll see to all the preparations, won’t you, Rupa?”

“Of course, mistress,” said Rupa. “But if you truly are with child, perhaps we should wait before—”

“No,” said Sima, and there was steel in her voice. Her grip tightened on Rupa’s hand. “We leave tomorrow. Every woman of the Aryin bloodline has consecrated her pregnancy to Humada at the Danh Dang shrine. I will not break this tradition.”

“Yes, mistress.” Questions did no good when Sima got herself excited. Perhaps she’s finally gone mad, thought Rupa, feeling sad at the fire in the Third Consort’s eyes. All those years trying to conceive again, and now she’s snapped. She can’t know whether or not the emperor’s seed has quickened yet. Not even a sorcerer could know that.

Sima let go of Rupa’s hand, her wild expression fading into one of pure exhaustion. “Go and tell the slaves to fan my rooms. The heat is making me sick, I think.”

“Yes, mistress,” said Rup. She had reports to make, but they would have to wait for morning. “I’ll see to it at once. Shall I fix your hair before I go?”

Sima nodded, and Rupa moved to kneel behind her, gathering the Third Consort’s long black tresses in her hand. She took a plain bone comb from her own hair and began to brush the tangles from her mistress’s, offering little inanities about Parwana and her staff, the way the eunuchs had groveled, the looks the Scorpion Guards had exchanged. Sometimes she almost convinced herself, the performance ran so deep. The gossiping handmaiden, daughter of some minor satrap, who sometimes shirked her duties, who smoked too much, but never enough to draw a real reprimand. Sometimes she forgot the bitter cold of Gray Heron Peak, the sting of her master’s callused palm, the hornet buzz of arrows loosed at her from all directions.

“There,” she pinned Sima’s hair and settled back onto her haunches, letting thoughts of steel and bloodshed fall away. “Sleep, mistress. I’ll attend to everything.”

Rupa met the Second Consort before dawn in the arcade overlooking Scorpion Field. Below, two dozen trainee guardsmen moved through their regimen in the dull gray light, the breeze off the ocean keeping the worst of the humidity at bay. A Scorpion in full armor walked up and down between their ranks, correcting form here, delivering stinging blows with the flat of his flexible steel training sword there for more serious errors. 

Second Consort Sulala Kama Rai was almost forty, her childbearing years nearly behind her, but neither time nor her many pregnancies had managed to dim her beauty. Her hair, which had gone white all at once in her early twenties, cascaded down her back in rolling waves. A pair of fine silver chains joined her nose ring to her earring. She was fat in the precise way most prized in Chanian women of high birth, thick through the middle with big, muscular arms and legs and modest breasts, her long neck softly creased, her fingers small and dainty. In her gown of peacock-blue silk and shimmering emerald shawl, her silver collar and sweetly chiming bracelets, she looked like a goddess incarnate, raw power sheathed in flesh.

“Stay close to her,” Sulala said. She spoke softly, too low for the passing eunuchs and palace servants to catch. Doubtless there were others listening; that was the way of life at court, spies upon spies upon spies, all surveilling all. “The road to Danh Dang is treacherous. Bandits have been known to raid along it.”

“I worry for her,” Rupa ventured, hoping to feel out the Second Consort’s motives. She had reported to the woman for nearly seven years, but had no sense of what drove Sulala, of what she cared for or hated, what ambitions she nursed. It made her uneasy. “She does not seem herself. Even before this night with the Most High, she could not sleep, could not eat, spent day and night begging that soothsayer to read her omens. I fear she has a fever of the brain.”

Sulala stepped closer to the railing, gaze fixed on the Scorpions drilling below. Fists punched the air. Legs rose, circled, came down swift as flashing blades. “If anyone should try to take her from your charge,” Sulala said quietly, ignoring Rupa’s question, “no matter how well you may know them, no matter what they say, I want you to break every bone in their body and send them to Hell.”

Rupa bowed, resigning herself to riding into the unknown. “Your will.”

Sulala looked at her sidelong, a smile curving her generous mouth. “And Lady Yuga’s.”