on my back and I wasn’t about to turn over just to bow.
“It seems as though I’ll be needing the practice,” I said instead, wondering a bit too late whether or not the humor would translate.
Emperor Iseul stretched his lips in a humorless smile. “Indeed, you do.”
He turned and walked off the yard to where his servants were waiting, muttering to themselves in a language I still didn’t understand, though I thought I caught one or two words that were starting to sound familiar to me. Maybe one was the Ke-Han word for “Volstov,” or “little blond shit-stirrer who dresses like a woman.”
As it didn’t look like anyone was going to rush over and help me up anytime soon, I got up myself. I brushed the white dust from the gravel off my trousers and rolled my shoulder a couple of times, stretching out my bad arm gingerly. With my luck, it’d stiffen over the course of the day and get worse overnight. Either way, there was no doubt in my mind it’d be sore as hell in the morning.
Emperor Iseul’s servants were busy dressing him, tying on the colorful robes that hid his private mourning, and all of them silent as the grave before Iseul started barking orders and they began to talk among themselves, hesitantly at first. Who knew what they were saying? Maybe they didn’t like the way I’d been manhandling their Emperor, but if I could’ve spoken the language, I would’ve assured them that it was me who needed the fussing over, and not Iseul. I’d been the one flattened—and my pride felt it too, just the same as my back and arm.
One of them shuffled over to take the sword back, which I handed over gladly. I’d had enough of real weapons for the time being.
“Are you all right?” Josette had finally broken away from the wall to ascertain my well-being—after having waited a properly diplomatic interval, I was sure. “That last looked quite… forceful.”
I shrugged, regretting it when my arm started to tingle after the movement. “It was good exercise. And that’s the whole point. Force.”
“Well,” she said, looking between Emperor Iseul and me, “think of the story this will make, though. Fiacre will never believe it. One of our own, sparring with the Emperor of the Ke-Han!”
All at once her face changed, got all excited and flushed the way Caius’s did when he contemplated some new fabric or a particularly beautiful formation in his tea leaves. At least she didn’t sound so thrilled by the fact that I’d almost had my neck sliced in two. Maybe she didn’t realize it.
“I have to go and tell him,” Josette continued. “I’m sorry, but if I’m not the first to break the news, I’ll be sorely disappointed. I’ll see you at breakfast, though! And Alcibiades… perhaps you’d better bathe first.”
I followed Josette back to the wall, where Lord Temur was standing uncertainly in the middle distance between Caius and the Emperor, looking rather unsure of himself for the first time.
I still couldn’t shake the sneaking suspicion that Lord Temur had saved my life by recalling the Emperor to his surroundings the way he had. I guessed that meant I had to be grateful to him. What surprised me was that I didn’t really mind.
“Lord Temur,” Josette said suddenly, as if she’d just had a brilliant idea. “Would you like to accompany me back to the palace?”
Temur blinked, and I thought I saw a hint of a smile in his eyes. Maybe the Ke-Han had expressions after all, and you only had to know where to look for them. Or maybe it was just the remnants of the fight still in him. Either way, he held out his arm, and this time, Caius didn’t dive between the pair of them to take it away.
In fact, Caius was being oddly still for someone who’d been all but doing cartwheels in the courtyard earlier. With his one good eye, he regarded the Emperor’s servants refitting his train, and he didn’t even look as excited about the clothes as he might have, nor was he tapping his cheek in fake concentration, a gesture that was rapidly becoming overly familiar.
I joined him by the wall, standing by way of blocking his view, since as far as I was concerned he’d orchestrated this whole thing in the first place. Even if it had started out as something of a favor, it’d ended up almost killing me.