Min La felt like he’d been struck hard in the chest. His vision darkened and he struggled against the urge to flee from the inn and never look back.
But then he remembered So Ga upstairs in his room, secure under the promise of Min La’s protection.
Slowly — so as to hide how he trembled — he pulled away from Lin Jenin, whose small, beady eyes gleamed in the corridor’s heavy darkness. His words echoed in his mind like a great brass bell.
You are Nŭnon.
Nŭnon.
He said nothing to Lin Jenin and turned away from him to climb the stairs. As he did, he emitted a sound like a scoff, an attempt to show the merchant that he found his speculation absurd. But Lin Jenin, Min La feared, would not be so easily convinced.
The merchant said nothing more, but let him go. His hateful smile disappeared as he dipped his chin into his chest and watched the skinny young man mount the steps. Min La’s breath caught in his throat until he felt he might vomit there upon the stairs. His brother’s medallion felt hot as burning coal under his clothes. Perhaps it glowed. Perhaps he did. His feet climbed a hundred more steps. The stairs seemed never to end. It felt like hours passed before he reached the top.
When he did, he stopped short. There, standing in the shadowy corridor was So Ga. He looked at Min La with a strange face. His thin, pale lips were set in a firm line, his brow furrowed, his eyes narrowed, but shining. He had heard, Min La thought.
And then: He could not have heard. Lin Jenin had been whispering; they had been at the bottom of the stair. He had not heard. And anyway, who would believe it?
Min La said, “I have forgotten your meal.” And turned to go back downstairs to the hall.
“Never mind,” So Ga answered, stopping him. “I’m not hungry. I will eat in the morning.” Then he nodded over Min La’s shoulder.
When he turned, he saw that Lin Jenin was still at the foot of the stairs gazing up at them, a strangely solemn expression on his shaded face. Min La took So Ga by the elbow and pulled him down the corridor toward their room.
“What was that about?” So Ga asked when they were inside and the door was closed fast. Min La put his finger to his lips. He didn’t answer, but listened through the door for signs that they had been followed. After a moment, So Ga took a shaking breath and said, “Answer me. Are we discovered?”
Min La turned and looked at the young prince’s grimacing face without seeing it. His mind and his heart still raced.
In that moment, listening to the silence on the other side of their door and remembering the hot, nauseating panic that had swallowed him as soon as Lin Jenin had whispered his terrible observation, a memory returned to him. A memory he hadn’t thought of in many, many years.
It had been a blind old man who had saved Min La’s life all those years ago. A child of eleven, both legs broken, several ribs broken, both eyes swollen shut, fingers broken on both hands — though in one he still clutched his brother’s medallion. The man had remarked that there was startling symmetry to his injuries.
“You will be balanced, in any case,” he had said with a laugh as his rough hands set the bones. “Everything is easier in balance, wouldn’t you say?”
The blind man’s kindness had saved his life, but his left leg had healed more slowly than the right and gave him pain for much longer. The old man had remarked, with a compassionate smile, “perhaps we should break the other again, even you out.” And then he had laughed merrily and Min La had found his misery softened.
Several weeks later, when he was finally able to speak again, Min La asked him, “Why did you save me?”
The old man explained that he had been surprised to hear a faint heartbeat among all the dead bodies. Though it had taken him a while to find the source of it. He’d had time, though. No one was left to bury the dead.
“No one but me, I suppose. Except you’re not dead, my boy.”
“You know who I am. Why would you save me?”
“Should I not have saved you?”
“I’m not anyone. It’s better to die with my House.”
“Are you not someone’s son?”
“I don’t have any parents anymore.”
“So you are a pitiful son. It will be hard for you, now, going forward. One funny leg and no family. You’ll be all out of balance. But never forget this: as long as you are living, so too is your House.”
“Min La?” So Ga asked, his voice pulling him back to the present.
He took a steadying breath and let go of his brother’s medallion, which he had been holding through his golt. He said, “Lin Jenin has guessed that we are Houseless.”
So Ga looked unblinking into Min La’s face. “I assumed as much,” he said. “And so?”
“I think we should not stay with his caravan any longer. If he is not satisfied with his speculation he will dig further.”
“Is that what you think we should do? Leave the caravan?”
Min La nodded once. As he did so, he wondered: if he chose to leave the merchant caravan because he feared Lin Jenin, who had guessed his secret, did that put the prince in more danger? Was a decision made to save himself, needlessly risking So Ga’s life?
It occurred to him that if Lin Jenin believed that he was Nŭnon, he would assume So Ga was as well. Min La would only be able to save him from the repercussions of such an accusation by revealing the truth. Which was just as dangerous.
Looking at it that way, the only solution truly was to leave the caravan. But he could not help but think that his identity was the root of the problem. His very name was making it difficult to protect the prince.
Another thought occurred to him, then. Would So Ga continue to trust him if he knew the truth? If he did discover Min La’s identity, what would happen when they returned to the Palace? The prince would probably not let a member of Nŭnon leave with his life, not when Nŭnon had been found guilty of murdering his family. In that case, Min La wondered how far he could really take him. If So Ga learned the truth and then revealed it to his father’s men at Osa Gate, Min La would not leave the fort alive, he knew that.
Not for the last time, he wondered if he should abandon this entire, doomed undertaking.
That was, of course, assuming that the prince learned the truth.
So Ga said, interrupting his thoughts, “What will we do instead?”
Min La answered immediately, “We will hire a carriage to take us to the next inn.” It was their only option, after all. And until he absolutely had to, he saw no reason to abandon the prince.
He added, “But we will not have swords.”
“We have you.”
He scoffed. “I am not a sword.”
“What if we hired swords?”
“It would take a long time to find Houseless mercenaries of our own.”
“But what if we hire the swords of some other House? I am the crown prince after all—”
“No, my lord.”
“Why not?”
Min La took a breath. Stepping away from the door, he went to the little fireplace and fed it a few sticks before sitting on one of the cushions. Eventually, So Ga joined him.
Min La poured both of them water and said, “You should sleep, we have another long day ahead of us.”
“I cannot sleep now. You should tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
So Ga asked, then, about his time among the other travelers in the main hall. Min La was surprised once again by the prince’s sharp mind. It seemed that he had intuited Min La’s purpose in going among the others in the inn.
And so he told the prince what had transpired in the hall. It was a relief to speak of matters unrelated to Lin Jenin. He told So Ga of the two young travelers they had seen at the riverside and described how they had been as suspicious of the young impostor as they were. He explained how he suspected there was more to Nŏl Ŏklo’s interest in the mysterious young man, but he didn’t think it would come to involve them.
“He is Ŏklo,” So Ga observed. “Perhaps it has something to do with his House.”
“I suspect it does. But it has nothing to do with us.”
“Ŏklo is powerful. It’s one of the Fourteen Ancient Houses. And it’s out of favor.”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you know of the silver mines in the Osa Len Mountains?”
Min La nodded once. He’d heard of them. They were the property of the Sona Royal House and provided most of the silver used to mint the silver coins in Sona Gen. The Sona House had assigned control of the mines to other Houses over the years. Such a fortunate House was permitted use of some of the royal silver. A decade ago the Hinok1 House had controlled the Osa Len mines and had acquired so much wealth that they were said to rival the Lăsoth. However, when they came to the defense of the condemned Nŭnon House, they quickly fell out of favor and the mines had had to be granted to another.
“It was down to the Ŏklo House or the Koda House,” So Ga explained. “The rest of the court assumed they would go to Ŏklo, as one of the Fourteen. Koda is impressive, but young and untried. But in the end my father chose Koda.”
“Why not Ŏklo?”
“Two reasons, I think. For one thing, Ŏklo is already powerful, as one of the Fourteen Ancient Houses. Giving them the mines would have, potentially, made them too powerful.”
Min La nodded once. “They are greedy, the Ŏklo.”
“The eastern Ŏklo are, yes. I don’t know much about the western branch.”
“Why did he choose Koda? There are many other Houses in Sona Gen who are older and who have proven their loyalty to Sona. Why Koda?”
“Koda is growing very quickly. They are growing and they are very highly respected. It is believed that within a decade they might surpass Lăsoth.”
Min La nodded with a smile. “Your father wanted to limit them.”
So Ga seemed surprised to find that Min La understood. He smiled quietly, his solemn face tinted orange in the firelight. “Given Ŏklo’s nature, they would constantly seek to counter Koda here in Sona Gen. Withstanding Ŏklo would take up an enormous amount of Koda’s resources and energy. So their growth would be arrested. Besides which, their prestige would be linked to their loyalty to the throne. So he limited them and bound them to Sona. While appearing to reward them.”
Min La thought about this and about the false Íso Lin. “You believe our impostor is some kind of spy, perhaps? Or that Ŏklo is looking for one?”
So Ga moved his shoulders. “Perhaps. But as you said, it doesn’t really have anything to do with a pair of Houseless brothers.” And he smiled warmly. Then, “Did you learn of anything else?”
After some hesitation, Min La told him about the Ăvan swords he had met. He related what they had said about the fire in the Palace being an accident, but did not tell the prince the rumor that the fire might have started in the queen consort’s residence. But he did tell him what they had relayed about the Grand Steward. This information in particular seemed to trouble So Ga, but he made an effort to conceal it. Min La wondered if he had had much interaction with Grand Steward Lŭ Lin Ăvan.
“She will be executed, then?” he asked thoughtfully, holding his small clay cup with the very tips of his fingers. He focused intently on Min La’s face, reading him more deeply than he thought the sheltered little prince should have been capable of doing.
In that moment, as he had relayed these fragmented pieces of news to the young prince, another thought had occurred to Min La. It was indeed likely that the Grand Steward was responsible for what had occurred in the Palace.
But now was not the time for such thoughts. And Min La had no right nor any reason to be thinking them. That was a Palace matter. It had nothing to do with him.
He said finally, avoiding So Ga’s intense gaze, “As I understand it, the Grand Steward has managed to save herself.”
“How?”
“They told me that she did so in the old way.”
“The old way? What is that?”
Min La stared at him, a little surprised. After all, this was his own House’s history. But perhaps his father — or his tutors — had endeavored to protect him from the bloodier chapters of the Sona House’s history.
“It has not been done since Ĕnlen2 was on the throne. At least not that I’ve heard of.”
So Ga looked lost in thought. Then he held out his hand and counted. “My great grandfather,” he said at last.
Min La went on, “In those days the king, Ĕnlen, was nearly killed when his horse went lame and collapsed, pinning the king beneath him. The animal, a favorite of the king, had to be killed and the king had a broken leg. After the bone was set he called for the royal stable master and asked him to explain what had befallen his horse. The truth was that the horse had simply taken an errant step and snapped his ankle. It was an accident that could not have been predicted, or prevented.
“But the stable master fell on his knees before the king and admitted that his negligence was unforgivable. The king agreed and asked what the stable master would give to pay for his error if not his life. And so the stable master offered his right hand. The king’s bodysword gave the man his blade and he cut off his own hand there and then. The matter was considered resolved. The stable master survived and returned to his post and it was never spoken of again.” He paused, and then added, “Over the next several decades this happened a few more times. It was never said that the Sona king called for it, but it was understood that he would accept it when someone wished to pay this price to save their life. Very few have had it in them to actually swing the blade, however. It was said that your House used this method to determine if a man had the conviction to right himself. It fell off, however, some time before your father took the throne.”
So Ga, who had watched Min La intently while he spoke, frowned deeply. “Do you mean that the Grand Steward cut off her own hand?”
“I would assume so, yes.”
The prince blinked at last and looked for a moment at the contents of his cup. “Not to prove herself,” he said, “Lŭ Lin Ăvan would not cut off her hand just to save herself. But she would do it to show her loyalty. That is why it saves them, because it proves their loyalty.”
Min La said nothing.
“Did it save her?”
“That depends.” He took a heavy breath. “If the king really does mean to keep the attack a secret — which it seems that he does — then he will have to let the court and the people continue believing that what occurred was an accident that resulted in no harm to the Palace or its occupants. For this, her punishment is sufficient. If the king were to have her executed, that would arouse suspicion that something more had actually happened.”
“Again, he will do nothing,” So Ga murmured thoughtfully.
“Though the Ăvan House might fall out of favor for a time.”
“He can’t keep it a secret forever.”
Min La nodded. “Perhaps not. But he is the king.”
“Dozens of people saw what was happening. Can they keep the secret? If it becomes known that the Four Little Palaces were attacked, the court will become restless unless they see the living heir with their own eyes.”
“You will be back in the Palace before then.”
“Is Osa Gate really the only way?”
“My lord,” Min La said, his patience thinning. “You can return to the Palace quickly and dead or slowly and living. The choice is yours.”
Min La left their room briefly, using a trip to the inn’s privies as an excuse to clear his head in the cold night air. On his way back, he took a careful route behind the inn, observing the stillness in the darkened depths of the surrounding forest. Several of the guarding monks were patrolling the inn’s grounds, which he was glad to see. But he was even more relieved by the absence of Lin Jenin.
So Ga was sound asleep by the time Min La returned. He was sprawled like a child on his back across the width of the narrow bed. Min La attempted to close the screens but his feet were in the way. With a soft sigh, he lifted So Ga’s ankles — surprised to find him even lighter than his thin frame had suggested — and turned him about, so his head was properly upon the little flat pillow. Then he covered him with the faded orange quilt. As he did so, So Ga rolled onto his side, gathering himself into a tight ball. The motion pulled his thin linen golt off his left shoulder exposing the thick, braided red flesh of a deep scar. Min La was stunned to see such a wound on a prince, until he remembered the assassination attempt he had survived nine years ago. The assassination attempt for which his own House had been condemned. As far as the sleeping prince knew, Nŭnon had put that scar there.
He wondered if this was the injury that had so weakened his constitution and his lungs. Min La pulled the quilt up to So Ga’s chin, covering the scar. It disturbed him to see it and to think of it. After enough years hearing that his House had been responsible for it, there were days when Min La felt a kind of accidental guilt for the attack on the Palace nine years ago. And this guilt felt like a betrayal of his innocent House. And then the cycle of thought would arrive at last at the point of hopelessness. What did it matter if Nŭnon was innocent or guilty, if they were all dead?
The words of the blind man echoed through his crowded mind: “As long as you are living, so too is your House.”
Guilt or innocence, Min La thought, it was too much weight for one man. An entire House was too much weight for one man.
With a sigh, Min La closed the bed’s screens and unrolled the thin linen mattress the monks had provided for him. He drew it close to the fire where the heat and the light could keep him awake.
Thinking of Lin Jenin and the difficult day that awaited them tomorrow when they would be forced to face the Prince Road alone, he was again overcome with the sense of his own inability. He was going to get the prince killed. It was a certainty as sure as his own name. His brother’s voice in the back of his mind whispered, “That is a coward’s certainty.” But there was a horrible, undeniable predestination to that certainty; in the end, because of him, it would actually be true that Nŭnon had killed the prince.
To distract himself he drew out the gold that he had hidden upon his person inside the deep inner pocket of his golt.
This was Sona Gen, and all the copper, gold, and silver in circulation in Sona Gen bore the face of His Majesty Mŭ So Hin-Sona, the king of Láokoth. And the father of the boy who was sleeping so soundly inside the closed bed on the other side of the room.
He examined the tiny stamped face on the crisp, new gold. King Mŭ So had taken this royal name upon his coronation, which was before Min La had even been born. This likeness of him had been cast at that time. He appeared no older than thirty-five, with long, straight hair and no beard. A thin mustache made a line in the gold above his mouth, which was strong and neither smiling nor frowning. His eyes were thin and severe. His hair was long, in the style of the tolibins and worn loose as they did in Brenigev. He was the second tolibin king of Láokoth, his father having been the first.
When his father had taken the throne, his tolbinism had been a matter of some controversy in both the court and among the population. The tolibin ways, after all, came from Brenigev. And outside influence in matters of the Láokoth court had never been tolerated, especially the influence of the Brenigev Empire. In time, however, Mŭ So’s father had proven himself to have only the interests of his own people in mind. He showed this to his court with especial forcefulness in his dealings with a small network of female spies loyal to Brenigev who had been discovered in several powerful Houses. By his order all the women had been executed. And the court was satisfied that he did not serve Brenigev.
When his son, Mŭ So, had taken the throne, few had batted an eye at this new king’s tolbinism. Indeed, many considered that it might even indicate that the son would be very like his father. In time, however, the people of Láokoth, and the ruling Houses of the loyal princedoms, learned to expect little from this new king. He was weak when he should have been strong, rash when he should have been prudent, forgiving when he should have been ruthless, and vengeful when he should have been merciful. He was unpredictable but never frightening. Imposing but never intimidating. Min La’s Housemaster, the prince of Hin Dan, had once said of King Mŭ So that he lacked the imagination to rule. He had wondered what that meant, and had even asked his brother-in-law — his sister’s husband — who was being carefully groomed to take his aged father’s place as their prince’s chief strategist.
“His ideas are never his own,” he had said. “He might recognize the problem but he never knows of any way to solve it and so relies too heavily on his court. That makes him look weak. And if he looks weak, he is weak. Even if he is not.”
Min La, then still a child, had considered that carefully. “It is difficult to be the king.”
His brother-in-law had laughed lightly. “It is impossible to be king. I would not curse my worst enemy with such a fate.”
Min La, sitting with his back against the inn’s white wall while his legs were warmed by the low fire, glanced over at the closed bed and the young prince within. He was so eager to return to the Palace, eager to ready himself for a responsibility that would rest upon his shoulders like a weight heavier than this entire inn. A sickly, weak young man who could barely walk a mile without tiring would one day be king of all Láokoth.
Standing, he went to the window and pushed open the heavy white curtains. The small, square panes of glass had been made liquid in the dense night. A swollen, yellow moon shone against the thick velvet sky. The night was still early and so the great golden disc sat nestled in the trees, bleeding through the branches like spilled honey. The trees were utterly still. In the distance, storm clouds smeared silver against the clear blue firmament.
If they were lucky, they would reach the mountain road before the storm hit them. But Min La very much doubted they would have luck on their side for this journey. He glanced back at the closed bed and thought how it seemed Osa Gate might as well be on the other side of the So Rimkí3 Sea.
Perhaps they would make the mountain road before the storm.
Perhaps they would reach Osa Gate safely before the first snow.
Perhaps So Ga would never learn Min La’s true identity.
Or perhaps they were both just pitiful sons.
Or, if you’d prefer to leave a small one-time token of support, you could:
HIH-nohk
EE-yehn-len
Soh-RIM-kiy
Such an interesting dynamic you built. Him being of the house enemy to his friend. I just know this will get in the way somehow