So Ga was amazed to find himself, not an hour later, standing in the open just outside the city of Rensoth, in a graveled spot cluttered with carriages, wagons, and travelers seeking to enter the city’s gates. Despite the sun, the morning air was chilled by the violet shadow of Rensoth’s walls.
The city’s day was not yet underway; dawn had only bloomed across the sky some minutes before So Ga had woken. The gates had opened, but ingress into the city had not yet commenced. So Ga was not sure if there was a delay or if there was, perhaps, some other rule of which he was not aware. He found himself focusing intently on inconsequential details like this, one after another in rapid succession. He was nervous. Standing in the open, surrounded by people, his face bared to the world. He was nervous. And beneath the tension and anxiety there simmered another swirl of unquiet.
He had lost all his bodyswords, all those he had known to be noble and trustworthy were dead. He had seen them die. He had seen their blood and their dimmed, lifeless eyes. Standing alone on the side of the road he felt a sudden, acute sense of panic. He was on his own. Everyone he had known and trusted in his life was dead and he was on his own.
So Ga rubbed his chest and tried to calm down.
Before him stretched a merchant’s caravan. Almost a dozen large carriages and several carts laden with chests and boxes of all sizes, all fastened securely with nets of rope. The merchants were busying themselves with preparations. There was the sense that they were not setting off as early as they had hoped.
Min La was speaking with one of the merchants in the caravan, a man of about fifty with a large head and a thin beard that touched his chest. He wore blue from head to toe. So Ga was not able to hear their conversation as Min La had wrapped him tightly in the coat the monks had given him with a scarf around his head. Then he had placed him near a small group of women who were waiting for the appointed hour to open their stalls for business. These women made their living selling their goods to weary travelers, too exhausted from the road, presumably, to put up much resistance. One offered a refreshing fruit liquor made from figs and barley. Another was selling soft baskets. The one to So Ga’s left had a supply of fragrant, dried river fish on skewers. By their occasional glances at the city’s gatemen, So Ga had come to understand that they were not permitted to begin selling until a certain set hour and would probably be penalized if they did so.
So Ga understood that he was meant to behave as if these were his people. Min La was using them as camouflage. He had placed him here and then nudged him a little closer to the woman with the skewered fish. The smell had initially repulsed him. Until it occurred to him that the smell would likely repulse others as well. As would the aggressive tactics of the women at these gate stalls, which compelled many to avoid them. Not for the first time So Ga found himself marveling at the ease with which this young man — no older than he was — navigated the dangers of their situation.
He watched Min La as he spoke to the tall, blue-clad merchant. He was much shorter than the older man, his cloth obviously poorer and his figure thin and unimposing. But the man tilted his chin to his chest and considered him carefully while he spoke. He seemed, So Ga thought, to treat Min La as an equal.
The small bell of the town crier echoed from just inside the gates signaling the seventh hour of the day, the second of the morning. And the women immediately began to push their wares onto the line of travelers attempting to enter the city. One of the women offered So Ga a fish on a skewer, holding it out so its bulging black eye shone lightly in the pale morning light. But So Ga shook his head, smiling, and motioned to Min La as if to indicate that he was not permitted to make his own decisions. He wondered what Min La would have thought of that. He wondered what he himself thought of it.
As the bustle of commerce and travel expanded the volume of people crowded and hurrying around the gates of the city, So Ga, from time to time, lost sight of Min La. In those brief moments he found himself chilling in a panic, filled with a sense of terror and foreboding to which he would never become accustomed. He glanced quickly around the growing abundance of people, looking for the gray cloaks and the black suede golts of the mercenaries. Twice his breath caught in his chest when he spotted figures wrapped in gray, only for the figure to turn and reveal a colorful golt or a long, pale coat under the gray cloak. So Ga clutched his scarf tighter and tucked his face deeper behind it, wishing he could simply wrap himself from head to toe and hide here. An absurd, childish thought.
Presently, Min La returned to So Ga and told him that he had negotiated passage as paying passengers in one of the merchant carriages.
The woman came again with the fish and Min La firmly but politely pushed her hand away. It seemed that this firmness was the understood language of these street stalls. The woman abandoned her efforts to sell either of them fish and returned to offering it to the other travelers.
“I thought you said that it would be better to avoid the roads,” So Ga whispered, trying not to sound as nervous as he felt.
“This is different,” Min La answered in a low voice. “We are not trying to sneak back into the capital. We have a long journey ahead of us and this is the safest way to take any road.”
“With a caravan?”
“With a crowd. These are wealthy, experienced merchants from On Dŭn. They’re taking the Háma Tun1, the Prince Road, as far as Gimnak Bay. They have official papers. They have bodyswords and they have numbers. The men who hunt you are bold but they aren’t stupid. No one would attack this caravan without an army. And even an army would think it too much trouble.”
“How long will we be with them?”
“Until we reach the mountain road. That’s six or seven days if the weather holds. It would take weeks to walk that. And it’s going to get very cold very quickly. You likely wouldn’t make it very far.”
“This is safe, then?”
“Nothing is safe. But this is the safest option before us.”
Before he led So Ga to the carriage, Min La turned and added, “Guard yourself in their company, it is better to say and do as little as possible in view of others.”
The merchant with whom Min La had negotiated — whose name, So Ga eventually learned, was Lin Jenin — took payment in gold before showing the two young travelers to a stout square carriage near the center of the caravan. So Ga had seen drawings of the carriages that were popular on the Gimnak coast, tall wooden boxes with colorful, painted dome roofs. This was just such a carriage, the merchants had probably purchased these after their ship had docked in Gimnak Bay. He suspected such a practice lowered costs; horses, oxen, and carts would take up valuable cargo space on a merchant ship. These carriages would probably be sold before they boarded their ships, probably back to the very wainwright from whom they had been purchased.
The wooden exterior was painted yellow with a pattern of whales and seashells decorating the corners. The paint had faded and chipped in places, but the yellow was still striking against the autumn-faded landscape. The dome was sea green ribbed in black. It had been glossy when it was new, but had dulled with travel, though still was as bright as a gem glinting on the roadside. A carved wooden ornament topped the point of the dome, a young beardless man with something like billowing cloth or ocean waves under his feet, painted the same sea green. So Ga wasn’t certain, but he thought it must be Ávolendin,2 one of the High Ădol who governed and guarded the seas. This was, So Ga realized, an expensive carriage. He wondered if the merchant had chosen it when he was purchasing carriages at the Gimnak docks specifically because it would attract paying passengers. He had seen that many of the travelers who had been making their way past the caravan to the Rensoth gates had paused to admire it.
The merchant, Lin Jenin, traveled with them, along with four other paid passengers. In the next few hours So Ga learned that two were from a farming village belonging to the wealthy Sengí3 House and would travel as far as the eastern slopes of the Osa Mountains to return to their home. They were young and newly married and had journeyed to the capital to visit a particularly beautiful temple to Soranen,4 the Ădol patroness of mothers.
The young wife introduced herself as Ăna San5 and called her husband Vono.6 They traveled with a maid, not older than fifteen, So Ga guessed, who timidly occupied the bench next to her mistress, a large bag balanced on her knees. The child did not look at the rest of them or speak to them but would, from time to time, gaze upon her mistress with awe and great love.
Ăna San was a lovely woman with milky white skin that glowed pink on her round cheeks and high forehead. Her brown eyes were small but shining and her long dark hair was tied in an unadorned, but intricate interweaving of braids joined into one long, thick plait that hung past her waist. She wore layers of delicate silk of shimmering pink. Two thin dresses with long, full skirts, one atop the other, shone under her thick wool golt which was woven with a pattern of fine yellow flowers. The open skirt of her golt allowed the shimmering silk dresses to catch the light, even in the dim interior of the carriage. Her shoes were silk and she carried a brocade bag which she kept on her lap.
Her husband — a tall man with a narrow face, sharp cheekbones, and a short, trimmed black beard — wore a fine wool golt of cold gray over brown suede pants. The cuffs and hem of his golt had been embroidered with a pattern of green vines. Like most of the farmers of the Sengí House, they were wealthy, for the Sengí farms were large and ancient and fed much of western Sona Gen. But So Ga could sense that they were also frugal. These fine clothes were beautiful, but also, he could see, handmade. The slightly uneven vine pattern on Vono’s cuffs indicated that a talented, but unprofessional hand had done the embroidery. Probably his wife. She had, he suspected, made all their clothes. Even the young maid was dressed handsomely in a golt of violet that shone a little and was trimmed in white with a touch of soft white fur along the collar.
The fair Ăna San seemed to particularly enjoy the company of a bustling caravan and spoke a great deal over the course of the day’s journey. So Ga was surprised to find that her constant conversation was not at all irritating. She seemed, rather, to have taken it upon herself to bring the rest of them into some kind of traveling communion, to which end she would use conversation as her primary weapon. So Ga liked her and found the sound of her voice soothing. An hour or so after they had set out, she began to tell the rest of them about the temple she and her husband had traveled to visit.
“It is said,” Ăna San told them, her small brown eyes sparkling in the dim carriage interior, “that one of Soranen’s attendants was shown hospitality there by a poor young couple. The husband had been crippled in a riding accident and his wife was heavily pregnant but they had naught to offer the child when it arrived and did not know what they would do and so they had begun to despair. Yet still they invited the young woman into their home and cooked their last grain for her meal and gave her the last of their cured meat. She was so touched by their generosity that she secretly mended the husband’s leg while he slept and the next day he found work before the sun had even risen. Their child was born healthy and survived the four week confinement. And when he reached adulthood, he and his parents built that temple to Soranen.”
The merchant Lin Jenin squinted at his knees as he listened to this tale. “How did they know she had been an attendant of Soranen?” he asked, his words thickened by the drawl of the On Dŭn region.
“She told them herself,” Vono answered. “It was their son’s first word: ‘Soranen’.”
“I’ve never been altogether certain about these attendants,” he said grimly. “Shifty lot, if you ask me. Never can be too sure who they’re serving.”
Ăna San smiled at him gently, as if pitying his cynical lack of faith. But she said nothing.
The third traveler sharing their carriage was a young man from Binva7 on the Gimnak River. He had declined to give them his given name, instead introducing himself by the name of his House, Bin Koth.8 So Ga knew of the House, which was widely envied for its large salt mine in the mountains there and was said to be quite powerful. So Ga had also heard rumors that the Bin Koth mines were not what they had once been and, in fact, that the House was already beginning to lose wealth.
Like many from the east, he was uncommonly pale and wore his straight black hair short around his jaw. His fine young face was altered by a small scar above his lip and another along his jaw. As he adjusted himself on his bench, he nervously ran his fingers through his hair and then moved the high fur collar of his heavy coat to obscure the scarred side of his face. He spoke very little and acknowledged the rest in the carriage with wariness. In fact, he did not speak much at all, but did provide that he had been sent by his father to the capital to study there under a noted jeweler. This he said by way of explanation when Vono became disturbed by the young man’s fixation on his wife’s neck.
“I meant no offense,” the pale young Bin Koth said, his cheeks turning crimson. “I was admiring your wife’s necklace and became distracted wondering how it had been fashioned.”
At this, Ăna San smiled warmly and brought the necklace out from under her golt. The young lord from Bin Koth indeed had a sharp eye. The necklace was exceptional. Three strands of tiny, faceted stones deep blue in color sparkled like a river in moonlight. Dangling here and there along the length of each strand was a shining golden disc, eleven in number, each stamped with the image of one of the Ădol. At the center of the necklace, and no doubt the treasure around which the entire design had been crafted, was a large pendant in the shape of bird, a swan probably. Carved from white stone and inlaid with gold in the wings and obsidian in the eyes, it rested heavily in Ăna San’s hand as she held it for the young man to see.
“Is that—?” he pointed to the white swan.
“Gíth,” Vono replied. “It is, indeed.”
“I have never seen it so pure.”
And indeed the milky white stone from which the delicate bird had been carved was of extraordinary purity. As the most coveted and beloved of Láokoth’s many precious stones, pure white gíth was still difficult to find. Most of the highest quality white gíth had been used to make treasures that were now the artifacts of many princely Houses. So Ga himself had had a small gíth ring that his mother had given to him. Lost along with everything else in the Little Palace fire. Most gíth used by jewelers was webbed with pink or red. Some of these impure pieces were valued by some more highly than the milk white gíth which had come to be called princely gíth. So Ga knew, for instance, that the Housemaster of the storied Lăsoth House wore a pendant of gíth that was threaded through with deep crimson. The drawings he had seen of the ancient medallion made it look like blood swirling through milk.
As valuable as the stones and the golden discs certainly were, So Ga knew that the gíth pendant made the necklace almost priceless. He suspected it was worth more than a hundred carriages like the one in which they rode.
“It is remarkably beautiful,” the young Bin Koth said.
Ăna San nodded her thanks, her small eyes sparkling.
There was something then in the young lord’s eye that caught So Ga’s notice. A sudden flash of relief or happiness. Something, he realized with confusion, akin to greed.
“I have been learning inlay,” he added. “But I don’t think my master would ever let me touch his gíth.”
Perhaps it was as simple as that. The young man had long wished for a chance to craft jewels with gíth but had not been allowed. Still, the sheen lingered in his eyes as he tucked his chin back under his collar.
“My husband’s mother gave it to me as a wedding gift,” Ăna San said, glancing proudly at beaming Vono.
He added, “It has been in the family for many years. By tradition it is passed from mother to daughter. But I have no sisters.” He smiled at his fair wife as she tucked the necklace away.
Lin Jenin nodded with gravity and said to the pale young man from Bin Koth. “Is it true, then, that your House’s salt mines are nearly spent?”
The question brought an abrupt change to the growing air of warmth and familiarity in the carriage. Tension chilled the dim space. Ăna San frowned disapprovingly at their host but her husband’s hand on her wrist stopped her from speaking her mind.
The Bin Koth lord did not answer.
Given the way he spoke of his House and his father, So Ga guessed that this young man’s father was probably Nŭ Lí,9 Housemaster of Bin Koth whose fierce reputation was known in all Houses in Sona Gen. His only son had the hopes of his House on his shoulders and not even enough money to buy his own carriage.
Though suddenly So Ga realized that couldn’t possibly be true. If his guess was right, this young lord was the Bin Koth heir. He would have had his own carriage for his use in the capital. He also would have been sent by his father with a small household. At least one bodyservant and a bodysword, if nothing else. If only to maintain the appearance of their House’s might and wealth. Why would the young lord from such an esteemed family and House travel in this way and without even a single bodysword? He knew it could not be because he lacked money.
Ăna San draped her arms over her brocade bag and leaned forward. “Have you completed your studies, then?”
Bin Koth glanced at her, his pale cheeks still a little pink, and replied, “I have been called home. My father has taken ill.”
“Oh, I am very sorry. I do hope he recovers. But it is good that you will be by his side. Parents need their children more than they will ever admit.”
Saying this, she reached for her stomach but then quickly withdrew her hand. Min La, So Ga saw, observed her behavior with interest.
They arrived at midday at a grassy clearing on the bank of a slender river that trickled down through the Osa Len foothills before it turned west to flow into the great Kí Len10 River. Here the horses were watered and allowed to rest while the members of the caravan stretched their legs and ate the midday meal in the shade of maples and oaks. Tree branches swayed in a cool wind while the red and yellow leaves reflected the sunlight like colored glass. So Ga sat in the grass next to Min La, who had retrieved fresh water from the river and given it to him to drink. It was cool and tasted quite unlike the water he was used to from the Palace wells. He felt he could taste the Osa Len mountain stone, or the Sona Gen earth. There was something enriching about the simple act of drinking river water.
The nervous tension that had dominated his mind for the last several hours eased a bit in the open air. He noticed that Min La also seemed less on edge now that they were a bit apart from the others. He sat very still, his bag in his lap and his hands draped over it, while the mottled shadows of swaying leaves moved across his face.
So Ga brought out the food that the monks had prepared for them: wedges of roasted pumpkins, dried fish wrapped in cabbage leaves, the same eggs as they had at breakfast, stained blue by the broth in which they had been simmered. And, of course, oranges.
He set these all before them upon their paper wrappers, strangely heartened by the sight of it all. While he did so he observed that others who were not part of their caravan seemed to also be using this spot to rest their horses. A pair of young men who appeared to be traveling together walked quietly along the riverbank looking at the clusters of travelers and the various carriages and carts. They seemed almost to be searching for someone, but trying very hard not to look like they were.
Min La also noticed them and watched them closely while he drank the fresh, cool water.
“Is there something wrong about them?” So Ga asked quietly. Their meandering path was bringing them closer to the shaded place where the two of them sat and he could not help but feel a twinge of fear.
Min La sipped his water. “Perhaps. They do not worry me, however.”
“You are referring to our old friends?”
“They would not be able to do anything, even if they were here. Which they are not.” He shook his head. “No, my main concern is our traveling companions.”
So Ga looked at him, surprised. “What about them?” Then, “Do you mean the man from Bin Koth?”
“He is not from Bin Koth.”
So Ga stared at him. “How do you know?”
“The Bin Koth Housemaster’s only son died three years ago. He only has two daughters and neither is old enough to marry.”
So Ga was surprised that he did not know that. Shaking his head, he pointed out, “He never said he was the son of the Housemaster.”
“After his son died, Nŭ Lí forbade any member of Bin Koth from going to the capital for business of any kind. He feared the powerful Houses would take it as a sign of weakness. It isn’t widely known.”
“How do you know?”
He glanced at So Ga. “The homeless are not seen. So they see much.”
“He could be defying his Housemaster.”
“Also,” Min La took one of the eggs and began to peel it. “His hair is colored.”
“What?”
Min La looked at him. “I assume you know that all the members of the Bin Koth high family have that same ink black hair.”
So Ga nodded and added, “Particularly the last three generations.”
“Our friend’s hair is colored.”
“You can tell that?”
“The dye he used did not take at his temples. If you look closely, you can see it.”
So Ga thought about this for a moment. The man had claimed to be a member of Bin Koth. He had pretended, even, to be from Binva, where the Bin Koth House had its primary estate, and he had dyed his hair black. He was clearly trying to pass himself off as a member of the Bin Koth high family, yet did not know that the Housemaster’s son had died, nor that the Housemembers had been forbidden from doing business in Ŏno Soth, both of which facts would have been known to anyone from the Bin Koth House.
Finally he said, “Why would he lie?”
Min La smiled. “Same as us, perhaps. But in truth I don’t care.”
“Then why does it worry you?”
“Lin Jenin also knows he is lying. But I’m not sure if that’s because he’s perceptive or just paranoid. In either case, it could mean trouble for us.”
So Ga finally understood. He nodded, uncertain what to say. There was no solution to the problem. And it was hard to say if the problem was great enough to require a solution.
He realized, however, that this knowledge didn’t cause him any fear or anxiety. The fact that Min La was so perceptive and so vigilant filled him with a strange sense of security. If Min La wasn’t overly worried, why should he be?
He wondered again if he was trusting him too easily.
Min La began to rub his fingers, as he had done early this morning in the little house in the temple garden. He said, “Perhaps—”
But he couldn’t finish. Just then they were joined by Ăna San and her little maid. Her husband trailed a few steps behind, a blanket draped over his arm.
Ăna San said, “You have found such a beautiful spot. May we join you?”
Min La stared in dumb surprise. Such a simple question, such common conversation and it seemed to have stopped him cold. So Ga stared at him. Then he turned to the woman and gestured.
“Please,” he said. Min La looked at him, jaw clenched.
Vono set out the blanket and helped his wife sit. Her little maid carried a steaming pot.
“We’ve just made some tea on our host’s fire over there,” Ăna San pointed to Lin Jenin who had lit a small fire near the riverbank. “Would you care for some?”
So Ga glanced at Min La who seemed on the verge of rudely dismissing them. But instead he took a steadying breath and bowed his head. “We couldn’t.”
“Oh, but you must. We’ve gone to the trouble of boiling all this water. You must help us finish it before we set off again.”
Min La nodded once. “Very well. Thank you.”
Ăna San observed what remained of their modest midday meal while her maid poured tea for them. “How lovely,” she said and her eyes flitted between their faces and their simple fare. So Ga was beginning to detect an ulterior motive to Ăna San’s arrival. But Min La did not seem worried, and even drank the tea they gave him. So Ga did, as well. It tasted of roses and vanilla. He nodded his thanks.
Min La had, during the morning’s journey, presented himself with precisely the right blend of coarseness and gentility appropriate for a member of a small but wealthy fishing House on the northern coast. He had been abrupt, but polite. Respectful, but withdrawn. So Ga, remembering Min La’s instructions, had said nothing. Though, in truth, it was a relief not to have to navigate the intricacies of their disguise. It was a relief to rely upon Min La to manage that for them both.
So Ga watched while Ăna San removed a small roll of sausage from a paper wrapper tucked into the bag her husband carried. She cut paper thin slices for herself and her little maid, a slightly thicker slice for her husband. And then, with seemingly no thought at all, she cut a slice as thick as her thumb and held it out to So Ga.
He stared at it for a moment, then looked at Min La, who nodded. Then he took it and ate a small bite. Such a simple act, her kindness. He began to wonder if she had come over specifically to see to it that the two of them were properly fed. There had been a moment when she had held out the slice of sausage, the briefest flash like a flickering candle flame glinting through a distant window, when he had remembered his mother handing him an Enlo cake.
Presently, Vono Sengí turned to Min La and asked him what had compelled them to travel so far from the northern coast. This was how he phrased it, “the northern coast.”
Min La hesitated before giving his reply. The hesitation, So Ga realized, was calculated.
“His mother had heard of a physician in Ŏno Soth. She hoped he could cure him.” Another pause and he dropped his eyes. “He is her only child.”
“What ails the young man?” Vono asked, glancing at So Ga. His wife swatted his arm and hissed lightly.
“You cannot just ask,” she rebuked.
But Min La smiled and bowed slightly. “He has been weak since he was a child and a serious sickness almost took his life.”
So Ga blinked at Min La in amazement. He wondered if he had inferred this from observing him or if his lie had only coincidentally brushed up against the truth.
The others acknowledged So Ga solemnly. The little maid had been using a tiny pen knife to slice a ruby red plum into thin wedges while regarding the two of them. Abruptly, she took the stone from the uncut half of the plum and held the shining red fruit out to So Ga.
“Take it,” Ăna San said with a smile as So Ga stared at it without moving. “My husband bought several of these on our way out of Ŏno Soth. Some monks from the west were selling them. They won’t keep much longer, I’m afraid.”
Once again, without even realizing what he was doing, So Ga found himself looking at Min La. As if he trusted his new young guard’s judgment more than he did his own. Even in matters concerning fruits offered by kindly maids.
Min La nodded at him and So Ga accepted the plum with both hands and a bowed head, an indication of respect, which, until recently, had been shown to him in his Little Palace every day but which he himself had almost never had occasion to use, as all those around him were technically beneath him. The little maid seemed stunned by the simple gesture. Ăna San, too, was moved and, reaching out suddenly, touched his pale face.
“You are such a good child,” she said and her eyes were wet.
Min La flinched when the woman’s hand touched So Ga’s cheek. They all saw it. Though So Ga couldn’t quite tell if they admired his devotion or feared his protectiveness.
While he took a bite of the plum So Ga was surprised to realize that Lin Jenin was standing nearby, leaning against a tree. Min La saw him at the same time and, turning, bowed slightly.
“The Go Lán House,” Lin Jenin said thoughtfully, not returning the bow. “That is Hin Dan, is it not?”
Min La said nothing at first, but did not look away from the merchant’s sharp gaze. So Ga saw his hand on his knee clench into a fist. The others fell into a tense silence.
So Ga regarded them all with interest. After all, he had not ever left the Palace in his entire life. Due to this isolation it had never occurred to him that the murder of his family members — all but his father, the king — might have also affected the rest of Láokoth. Moreover, he had not considered the obvious reality that the condemnation of Hin Dan’s princely House, the Nŭnon House, would, in turn, affect the rest of Hin Dan as well. So Ga had never realized that the rest of Hin Dan might find itself guilty by association, at least in the eyes of some.
Finally Min La replied, “West Hin Dan. Near the Sona Gen border.”
“Quite the business, was it not, with your prince?”
To hear the assassination spoken of so openly startled So Ga in a way that he hadn’t anticipated. After all, in his Little Palace his household had always taken care to never mention the event, nor the perpetrators. He had never given them this order, but had always assumed it was Hin Lan’s doing. But with the topic brought up so freely by Lin Jenin he began to feel exposed in a strange way, as if some hidden vulnerability was now apparent to the rest of the travelers. His throat felt suddenly dry, his neck hot and his face cold.
Min La lifted his chin a little, regarding the merchant with an unmoved countenance.
“I was very young when the matter took place.”
“I’m surprised the king permits any from Hin Dan to walk in Sona Gen.”
Min La bowed his head. “The entire princedom cannot be held responsible for the crimes of one House.”
So Ga’s ears rang and his vision grayed. As if to steady himself against the hammering of his heart and the burning in his chest and throat, he turned instead and looked at Ăna San and Vono. The little maid looked stricken, staring at her lap with an ashen face. Her mistress patted her hands and then met So Ga’s gaze. She offered him a gentle smile, the warmth of which was deeply maternal. So Ga found himself feeling immediately calmer.
Lin Jenin seemed to believe the point had not been sufficiently conveyed. “Not just a House,” he said to Min La, “but the Princely House of Hin Dan. And not just a crime, my young friend. After all, your Nŭnon Prince carried out an assassination upon the royal person of the very king himself and all of his family.”
A cold wetness fell over So Ga’s hand like a glove. He saw that he had squeezed the rest of his plum into a crimson pulp in his trembling fist.
Looking at Min La, he was surprised to see that his arms were trembling slightly. But the look on his face was not one of fear, So Ga realized, but of anger.
“We are fortunate,” Min La said calmly, glancing at So Ga. “It is fortunate for us and for you as well that the king’s rage is just and does not extend to the guiltless.”
“For me?”
“Indeed,” Min La said with an inscrutable smile though his arms still trembled, “Are you not a citizen of On Dŭn?”
The merchant hesitated, confused, then said, “I am.”
“You are fortunate indeed, sir. For otherwise, when the On Dŭn ships of your Ŭn Neth House had set fire to our Gimnak docks sixteen years ago, our king might not have been satisfied with the heads of the criminals. Had he, too, shared your view that all were guilty of their Prince’s crimes, he might have gone from the execution grounds to the decks of his warships. He might have pushed his royal navy into On Dŭn’s very own Lŏhíth11 Bay. And had his navy not been enough he could have mustered the full might of his army to march from Osa Gate and they would have burned their way to your king’s palace. And then, had he survived our king’s wrath, your king would now be little more than a servant of the Sona Royal House. Indeed it is fortunate that the King of Láokoth possesses both the wisdom to distinguish the guilty from the innocent, and the restraint to stay his hand.”
Min La finished his statement with a small bow, that polite smile still fixed on his lips. So Ga stared in amazement, as did all the others who heard him. Even, he realized with surprise, the two young men who had been walking along the riverbank a moment ago.
Lin Jenin cleared his throat, his face a touch ashen. Finally he stammered out a simple, “Indeed.” And nothing else was said on the subject.
Min La excused himself and, gripping So Ga by the arm, pulled him to his feet.
As they removed themselves from the others to go to the riverside and wash their faces and hands, Ăna San looked on Lin Jenin with open disapproval.
She said, “Those boys are innocent of Nŭnon’s crimes. They are not even of the same House. How different must be the kingdom of On Dŭn where the innocent are condemned alongside the guilty.”
Her husband touched her wrist to quiet her.
Lin Jenin scoffed. It was clear to him that those two young men were not as simple as they pretended. “If they even have a House at all,” he said.
Ăna San looked as if she had been struck. “How can you say that?”
“Why? Would it not be better for them to be Houseless than to be from Hin Dan? I do not think money is the reason they could not find medicine. Nŭnon is a stink that will never wash off any from that place.”
“If that is so it is because of the likes of you.”
Her husband reminded her quietly, so Lin Jenin could not hear him, “The Nŭnon House was the Princely House of Hin Dan. A princedom bears the sins of its prince, guilty or not.”
“Yes, but since the prince of Hin Dan and his entire Nŭnon House have already been executed, the matter should be considered done. It is wrong to punish the entirety of Hin Dan for the rest of time. It is wrong to punish those boys for the crimes of a House that has never had anything at all to do with them. And with that one being so ill. Look at how the matter upset them. I loathe that Lin Jenin.”
“Hush, he will hear you.”
“He is too blockheaded to hear anything but the roaring sound of his own simple thoughts.”
Lin Jenin, meanwhile, had bowed and then taken his leave. As he did so he found himself worrying about those two young men from Hin Dan more so than he was about the young lord from Bin Koth, who was certainly not from Bin Koth. It seemed his collection of passengers this time was the wrong sort entirely. Certainly, they were rich. The two boys had their gold, the Sengí couple had that gíth, as well as the money they carried. They were rich, at least, but some of them, especially the two boys, seemed to be exactly the sort to bring about trouble. He had the sense that those two had endured a great deal already. He almost pitied them. But there was something about how they kept always to their own secretive company and yet seemed to bear no familiarity. And the way the sickly one did nothing without the other’s approval. No, these two were not who they said they were. It could be that they were Houseless, as he had originally thought. Or maybe they guarded a far more dangerous secret.
Perhaps it would be best to get rid of them before...
Yes, that would be best.
HAY-mah-tune: this name is technically borrowed from Ethadux, a holdover from when Láokoth was a vassal state of the Brenigev Empire
Ay-voh-LEN-din
SEN-giy
SOHR-ah-nen
Ee-ah-nah-SAHN
VOH-noh
BIN-vah
Bin-KOTH
Niy-uh-LIY
Kiy-LEN
LIY-yoh-hithe
Hope you get better soon♡
Excellent work portraying So Ga and Min La’s paranoia. It makes their characters very believable, given what they’ve gone through, and it also obfuscates things for the reader, making it very difficult to assess the new characters’ intentions and predict what will happen. What a clever way to develop your characters and built suspense!