The Empress of Hokkaro sends for a singing girl.
She’s done this before. Eight years is a long time to sleep in an empty bed. Yes, as much as she loves Shefali—and she loves her beyond measure—she has shared herself with others. Not often, and never the same girl twice. But it has happened nonetheless.
Here is how it went: The Empress would send one of her servants to the brothel, and they’d return with someone tall and dark and silent. O-Shizuka would ask her name. That was the extent of the conversation the two of them would have. In the morning, she’d pay her handsomely and send her on her way and that was that.
O-Shizuka’s heart is stitched together with the hope that she’ll see Shefali again. Sometimes she needed to add a bit more thread. That was all.
But this time is different. This time, she sends her servant out with specific instructions.
“Find the brothel with the stables out front,” she says. “The one run by a woman from Shiseiki Province. Enter it, and return with the madam, or do not return at all. No other will do. I don’t care how beautiful they are or what charms they possess—I seek only the madam.”
She knows the name of this particular pleasure house, of course. Everyone does. The Imperial Gardens. It is a gesture of Shizuka’s magnanimity that she allows it to exist when it so clearly insults her.
Her servant swallows. The madam is notorious throughout Hokkaro. If Shizuka represents divinity, then the madam represents the underworld. She is in every plume of Sister’s Gift; she is in every dark alley. She is an unexpected knife to the gut; she is your most precious secret spoken on the lips of a stranger.
Yes—Shizuka has dealt with her before. But never like this.
And then she waits.
And so the thoughts come.
She’s seen the place before. It’s not far from the palace. Oh, not too close, of course. But as close as they could conceivably get. Courtiers and warriors alike favor it; they say it’s the only brothel in Fujino where you and your horse can both get a good rubdown.
O-Shizuka chuckles, alone, at the joke. It distracts her from the fires of jealousy for a fleeting moment. Then the thoughts return.
Madam Ren held Shefali. Madam Ren comforted her. The queen of the Hokkaran underworld, the woman who rules all the things Shizuka cannot be seen to touch—she is the one who comforted Shefali in her darkest moment. The thought of it—a common singing girl laid hands on the love of O-Shizuka’s life! The thought of it—
Nearly infuriates her, but not quite.
She tries to get angry. She tries to fume and throw her silent fit over it, but so many years have passed since then, and O-Shizuka herself is no storied saint. Shefali kept emphasizing they never went to bed.
No, it’s not worth getting upset about. That’s what O-Shizuka tells herself as she waits. Somehow, it doesn’t get rid of the acrid taste in the back of her mouth.
But she waits, regardless, for her servant to return. It’s Seventh Bell when she does.
“Your Imperial Majesty, I’ve returned with the … ah … businesswoman you requested.”
That was a polite way of saying it. Sometimes, thought the Empress, she did not hate her servants.
“She may enter.”
And so she does.
The woman prostrates herself. She wears a lilac-colored robe, with a scandalous red one visible underneath. As much as O-Shizuka hates to admit it, she is lovely—lustrous dark hair tucked expertly into a flowering shape; painted pink lips and striking cheekbones. She has the look of a woman who knows something private about you, something that at once amuses her and makes you close friends.
The sight of her is so appealing, in fact, that it at once sours O-Shizuka’s mood.
“You are called Ren,” she says, her tone turning a simple statement into an interrogation. She circles the woman but does not bid her to rise.
“I am,” the older woman says. “I am honored by your presence, O Phoenix Queen.” Her voice is throaty and rich, like unsweetened tea.
O-Shizuka sniffs. “You will tell me all you know of Barsalyya Shefali.”
Ren does not respond as fast as O-Shizuka would like. More reason to dislike her. O-Shizuka cannot shake the feeling that when the woman does open her mouth, she’ll spout some nonsense poetry. As if Barsalyya Shefali can be contained within nonsense poetry! No. No one knows her the way O-Shizuka does.
But then Ren speaks. “Barsalai Shefali does not speak much, but every word that leaves her is worth eighty pages of poetry,” she says. “A starry sky of heroes await her, for she is as brave, honest, and as kind a woman as I have ever met. She is handsome as a carving, with warm skin that aches to be touched; she is tall, and her legs bow under the weight of the false accusations she carries with her.”
O-Shizuka clears her throat. She said Barsalai, did she?
She tells herself that she has grown past challenging people to duels, and she thinks now of the boy who will forever bear the weight of losing to her. O-Shizuka thinks that she is beyond jealousy, but only because she would not want Shefali to be furious with her. Jealousy. The more she thinks on it, the guiltier O-Shizuka feels. How dare she be so hypocritical? How dare she be jealous of Shefali, when she’s done far worse herself?
“You speak as if you know her well,” O-Shizuka says. “Did she share your bed, Ren? This great and mighty hero, did you ply your trade with her? Perhaps you do not know her as well as you think.”
Ren touches her forehead to the ground again. “Regrettably, I did not,” Ren says. “Barsalai Shefali’s heart is stolen by another, whom she loves as purely as moonlight. In another life, I think. In another life, I would be honored to—”
“Stop,” O-Shizuka almost shouts. She raises one hand to cut Ren off and pinches her nose with the other. “I cannot listen to this anymore.”
Purely as moonlight. Yes, that was right, wasn’t it? Shefali’s love for her was the purest in the Empire, and here was Shizuka …
“My sincere apologies, Imperial Majesty,” says Ren. And damn it all, she does sound sympathetic. “I knew her lover was a noble, but I had no idea it was the Empress.”
“I was not Empress at the time,” says O-Shizuka. Tantamount to blasphemy, if anyone else heard. Shizuka is too tired to care about that. The Empress is always the Empress, from the moment she is born. When she takes the throne, she simply assumes the title. “But, yes, I am Barsalyya’s great love. And you were intimate with her, though you did not share a bed.”
It is some time before Ren next speaks. She does not rise, does not level her eyes with the Empress’s, does not so much as raise her forehead from the floor. Yet when she speaks, each word is a caress, each syllable a touch, each delicate sound the hush of bodies moving beneath silk.
“Your Majesty,” she says. “You should know how Barsalai spoke of you. On all other subjects, she was a lake, but when I asked about you in the smallest way, she became a river. I may have been intimate with her for that moment, Your Majesty, I may have helped her through a dark time—but you have always been her light. She would never dream of casting you aside.”
These words are wind beneath O-Shizuka’s heart. The image is clear to her: There is Shefali, huddled in some brothel, dimples showing on her cheeks. In her quiet voice, she speaks of the time Shizuka stared at two Qorin mid coitus, of the blush that flushed royal cheeks. Flickering lantern lights ring green eyes with orange; she’s smiling so hard, it makes Shizuka’s jaw hurt in sympathy.
O-Shizuka touches her chest.
She knows this is just an image. From what Shefali wrote, she knows there were probably tears trailing down her love’s face, snot dribbling from her nose, black veins on her eyes.
But she clings to the idea that Shefali was happy, for she has so few happy memories left.
Will she still be so happy, Shizuka wonders, when she returns? When she realizes?
She licks her lips. “Ren,” she says, “I called you here because of a letter Barsalai wrote to me. When she was so far gone—when I could not reach her—she found comfort with you.”
A pause. These words taste so bitter on her tongue, and they have not yet been birthed. Yet she must speak them.
She must slay the jealous girl inside herself. She must slay her own guilt.
“I do not know if you are aware,” she says, “but Barsalyya thought of ending her life. Your intervention saved her. And so I must thank you. You may rise.”
Ren does. She is careful to keep her gaze on O-Shizuka’s feet, but she rises quickly and with pride, as one would expect from a woman of her position.
O-Shizuka reaches for a sealed letter on her desk. She hands it to the madam. Ren places it in her lap without opening it. Good. She knows how disrespectful it would be to open it without O-Shizuka’s consent.
“A year and a half ago, one of my least favorite courtiers ceased pestering me,” she says. “He was never fool enough to say anything obvious, but I believe he doubted me. Even after Shiseiki, he doubted me. And one day, he just—”
She holds up her hands, makes a gesture like sprinkling water on plants.
“I was curious about this, and so I sent my spymaster to investigate. The man moved to the countryside in Fuyutsuki Province. He lives as a beggar now, in a hovel near the rice paddies. No one knows his name. I wondered what impoverished him so. My spymaster informed me.
“It seems the man had a taste for singing girls,” continues O-Shizuka. “A specific taste. He liked women who bore childbirth scars. And when he summoned them, he would cut them along their lower bellies and stick his fingers in the wound, and he would send them back with triple pay.”
Ren flinches.
O-Shizuka does not. “The last brothel he visited was yours. Only hours later, he left Fujino in the dark of night, with nothing save what he could carry on his back.”
Now Ren’s eyes flicker up toward the Empress’s.
O-Shizuka offers her a small smile. “I do not know how you did it. I do not want to know. But it was admirable all the same,” she says. “You are a woman who deals in flesh and secrets, in more ways than one. Do not think the Phoenix Throne is blind to this.”
“Your Majesty,” says Ren, her voice suddenly unsure. “Are you asking me to cease business?”
“No,” says O-Shizuka. “In your hands is an Imperial Writ of Pardon. Whatever business you are conducting—whatever secrets you trade in, whatever lives you take in the night—is yours to deal with. You have done well to make it to Fujino, but if the time comes when you find you’ve made a false step, that pardon will free you from prosecution. You need only produce it.”
Ren stares back at her. “You do not want a cut?”
“I am not requiring one,” O-Shizuka says. “If you want to negotiate, that is a separate thing. But this is a gift, from me to you. From one woman to another.”
And the singing girl touches her forehead to the floor before rising again, clutching the red envelope in shaking hands. “Your Imperial Majesty,” she says, “I do not think I’ve ever received a more thoughtful gift.”
At this, O-Shizuka laughs. “You are an excellent liar! Was the return of your father’s war mask less thoughtful?” O-Shizuka says. She waves. “This is paper and ink. Only my position makes it powerful; only my position makes it thoughtful. Anyone could make you a forgery of it. But that war mask was the only one of its kind, and I can tell you Barsalai kept it with her when she left. Do not flatter me.”
The madam clears her throat, a vain attempt to hide a blushing smile. Did she not know that Shefali kept the mask? “Be that as it may,” she says, “this one is genuine.”
“It is,” agrees O-Shizuka. Strange. Something’s changed in the woman before her. She is still as warm and inviting as morning tea, but … it’s as if someone slipped poison into it. Not that Ren is hostile. No. But she is more dangerous now.
“Your Imperial Majesty,” Ren says. “If you would like to arrange for either of my services again—”
O-Shizuka raises a hand. “I am interested only in your spies, and I am not interested in discussing them at present. I summoned you here to thank you. This I have done. You may now return to your home. In two days’ time, then you may return—when I have finished Barsalai’s letter. But not a moment before then.”
And Ren touches her forehead to the floor. “Thank you, Your Majesty,” she says. “May the Eight return Barsalai to you in two days.”
When Ren leaves, she is grinning.
It must be the pardon. O-Shizuka wonders if she’s made a mistake, doing that. But Shefali spoke so highly of her, and Shefali has always been an excellent judge of character.
She returns to her reading.