Chapter 33

Once safely back in the study, I urged Liam to take a seat and called for tea. He interrupted and asked Zusa to instead bring him a bottle of rice liquor. I shared a look with Zusa and asked her to also bring something to eat. She bowed and hurried off and I slid the door closed before turning to face Liam.

I yanked the wig off and took off the tinted spectacles, tossing them on a cabinet by the door and then I changed into a light robe, glad to be rid of the scratchy guard’s uniform. I returned and looked at Liam, seeing that his fists were clenched tightly in his lap. Instead of returning to my seat, I went and stood behind him and gently began massaging his shoulders.

After a few more minutes, Zusa returned with trays of food and drink. I gave her a thankful smile and she left as quietly as she had come once she’d placed everything on the table.

I massaged Liam’s shoulders for several more minutes until he reached up and took my hand in his, pulling at it, urging me to come around to his side. I knelt next to him, still holding his hand.

“Closer.”

I wiggled forward several inches.

“Closer.”

The corners of my lips curved up into a soft smile and I wiggled forward again until my knees were pressed against his thigh.

Liam let out a deep sigh and then laid his head against my shoulder. I laid one hand against his cheek and with the other hand, I began running my fingers through his hair soothingly.

We sat like that for a long time until he finally sat up and gave his neck a hard stretch. “I have a crick now, wife.”

“That’s what happens when a giant man leans on someone who is nearly a foot shorter than him.” I teased as I rose and went to my seat.

I picked up my chopsticks and grabbed Liam’s plate, piling food on it.

“I wanted to tear his head off right then and there.”

I set the plate heaped high with food in front of him. “I know, my love. I wanted to kill him myself. I’d suspected it when some of the women started showing bruises after he became the quartermaster two years ago, but I had no proof and it wasn’t as if any of them were going to confide in the ‘hideous foreign freak’.”

Liam growled deep in the back of his throat and then closed his eyes in an obvious effort to calm himself.

When he’d regained a modicum of control, he reached for the rice liquor and poured some into the two tiny cups that matched the bottle, all of a lovely porcelain in pale blue with painted cranes flying amongst swirling clouds.

He handed one of the cups to me and I sniffed at it cautiously for I’d never drank spirits before, though I’d often seen the adults of my tribe partake of spirits during festivities and the like. It smelled foul to me and I wrinkled my nose in distaste as I set the cup down without drinking, pushing it back toward Liam with the tips of my fingers.

Liam laughed softly. “It doesn’t suit you?”

“It smells awful.”

He laughed again. “You don’t drink spirits for the smell, beloved. You drink it to help you relax and forget your worries for a little while.”

Picking up the cup I’d pushed away, he extended it to me and lifted his own cup. “Come, at least try it once.”

Begrudgingly, I took the cup from him, which, incidentally, looked ludicrously tiny in his enormous hand.

Clinking the edge of his cup gently against mine, he said, “Cheers,” and downed the contents of his cup in one go.

Following his example, I tilted my head back and gulped down the drink and almost choked on the fumes that filled my mouth and nostrils as the alcohol left behind a trail of fire as it went down my throat. Flapping a hand in front of my mouth, I gasped out, “What does that mean?”

“Cheers? Oh, well, it’s sort of wishing each other good health and happiness.”

Still feeling the fire, now in my belly as well, I shook my head. “Why are you wishing for good health when you drink that awful brew?”

He shrugged, a boyish grin lighting up his handsome face. “I have absolutely no idea, wife. Like most traditions, the origins are lost in the mists of time.”

He poured a splash of the whitish liquid into both cups, once more picking up my cup and trying to hand it to me. I shook my head vehemently and threw my hands up as if to avoid touching the little porcelain cup.

With a laugh, Liam poked the cup at me again. “I know it tastes dreadful, but you’ll stop caring after another drink or two.”

I narrowed my eyes at him in skepticism, but two things occurred to me. The first being that the adults of my tribe always did seem to really have an enjoyable time; the second being that I’d missed out on many experiences that young adults would have had by my age.

Throwing caution to the wind, I picked up the glass, clinked it to Liam’s and downed a second cup of the liquid fire.

Liam clunked his cup down and told me I’d better put a little food in my belly or I might get a stomachache later. He picked up his chopsticks and picked up a morsel of food and fed it to me. I chewed and swallowed, but couldn’t really taste anything beyond the alcohol that clung to my mouth.

For the next little while, we ate, drank, laughed and acted like fools. Liam was right that I would stop caring about the taste. It still tasted gross but I just didn’t care anymore.

At one point, it occurred to me that we hadn’t seen Clementine in quite some time. I tapped the call orb and asked Zusa to bring the little orange kitten. Liam was delighted to see her and immediately picked her up and set her on his shoulder where she sat like a little ginger gargoyle, her purr audible as Liam gently stroked her jaw with a single finger.

Liam, as per his usual, ate a mountain of food as he regaled me with stories of palace gossip, the first time he’d ridden a horse, which was also the first time he fell off of a horse, learning how to wield a sword, stealing a bottle of wine when he was only twelve and then catching blue hell from Nanny when he vomited everywhere.

When Major Antelz tapped at the door and entered, she stopped dead in her tracks, taking in the sight before her. Her glance flicked down to the table where there were several small liquor bottles scattered about. She then looked at Liam who was baby-talking to Clementine and trying to feed a bit of chicken to her with his chopsticks while she was still perched on his shoulder. The orange ball of fluff was batting at the chicken with her tiny claws, making Liam laugh heartily.

The Major’s unruffled gaze landed on Liam’s head, which was covered in white foam where I was attempting to shave his hair, having already finished the other side before her arrival.

I chided him, “If you’re not still, I’m going to nick you.” For some reason, this made Liam laugh even harder.

To her credit, the only change to the Major’s expression was the slightest flaring of her nostrils.

Liam set his chopsticks down and flapped a hand for the Major to sit down. “Come, sit, Major Antelz. Eat, drink, be merry.” He pointed a finger at me. “Wife, tell the Major the story about the mushroom.”

Smiling, I repeated the story I’d just told him a moment before the Major’s arrival of the time I’d been foraging and came across a peculiar mushroom I wasn’t familiar with. I had intended to pick one to take back to the tribe to see if anyone could identify it, but as I tore it from the ground, a cloud of spores had puffed out of it. I gasped in surprise, which then filled my nose and mouth with the spores. Within seconds, I was dizzy and sick to my stomach.

Afraid it was poison, I held on to the mushroom and made my way back to the tribe. By the time I made it, I was weak with fever and collapsed at the entrance to my mother’s yurt.

When I awoke three days later, I was tied up with rope and my mother explained that she’d had to restrain me because I’d been hallucinating that I was a salmon trying to get upriver to spawn and I had kept trying to jump into the river in the dead of winter.

A flicker of amusement crossed the Major’s face as Liam burst into another gale of laughter. The story wasn’t that funny, but he’d had a fair amount of liquor by this point.

The Major seated herself and Clementine jumped down from her perch, scampered across Liam’s legs and jumped into the Major’s lap, where she promptly curled into a little ball of orange fluff and fell asleep.

The Major’s eyebrows drew down slightly as she stared at the kitten in her lap, as if she didn’t know what to think about this development.

Speaking around a mouthful of food, Liam said, “Clementine likes you.”

The Major ignored this and got straight to the point of her visit. “Yes, ah, I came to report about the questioning of the female slaves, Tae Han. It is as we feared; they each confirmed that the quartermaster forced himself on them. Some were beaten into submission, while others were coerced when he threatened to reduce their food rations. Two women stated that he threatened to transfer them from their palace positions to lavatory duties if they didn’t comply.”

Liam’s hands clenched into fists and all his joviality fled in an instant. “Execution at dawn, Major.”

The Major bowed her head. “It has been arranged, Tae Han. I’ve also placed his assistant in charge temporarily. He claims he had no knowledge of what was occurring and I smelled truth on him.”

Liam waved a hand as if to say that was fine. “I want answers from the seneschal as to why this hadn’t been caught in the last two years that scum was quartermaster. Inspections are done regularly. It’s impossible that the seneschal missed those scents every single time.”

The Major’s eyebrows drew down just a fraction. “You are correct, Tae Han. I will look into it.”

Liam poured rice liquor into a cup and set it in front of the Major. “Have a drink, Major. We stopped an evil man this evening. That is something to celebrate.”

The Major picked up the cup and shot back the drink in one gulp without even flinching. Setting the cup back down, she added, “I’ve also assigned several of your staff to look into the other issues from the inspection. They will begin first thing in the morning.”

Liam raised his glass to the Major. “Thank you, Major Antelz. Your hard work is greatly appreciated.” He knocked back his drink and clunked the cup down on the table with a satisfied sigh.

The Major’s attention turned to me. “Was there anything else you noticed at the inspection?”

Folding the razor, I set it down on the table as I considered her question. “I’m curious about the slaves that seemed overweight. I’ve often wondered how Jerrek was able to maintain his girth on slave rations. If the quartermaster was withholding food from some of the slaves, is it possible he was providing additional rations in exchange for other illicit activity?”

The Major nodded her head. “Yes, that seems quite likely. I’ll look into that.”

I fretted at my lip as I considered the other questions tumbling around in my head. “There were too many people missing. There are, of course, slaves who are night attendants, as well as those who are called upon in the night to deal with urgent matters, but I don’t think there should have been so many gone at once. I have no explanation for it, but it seems suspicious to me.

“And among those missing, I know there are at least a few that have no valid reason to be gone at night because of the type of duties they have. For instance, there is a trio of women I know to be chamber attendants who are only ever called upon during late hours if there is a banquet or some such.

“If at all possible, I’d like to know where those women were at such a late hour. Is it possible to check on that?”

The Major said that it was and I gave her the names. “Morikae, Shelbi and Luzinda. I’m sorry, I don’t know their full names, but they’re almost always together when in the slave quarters, so it should be fairly easy to figure out who they are.”

Major Antelz assured me that their first names were sufficient and I noticed from the corner of my eye that she was looking at me as I brushed loose hairs from Liam’s shirt and shoulders and toweled off the remaining shaving foam.

I answered her unspoken question. “I told Liam about how Astmenai people sometimes wear their hair like this and he wished to try it.”

The Major returned her gaze to Liam, seeming to contemplate the new hairstyle he bore. Surprising me, she said, “It suits you, Tae Han. It adds a certain… fierceness to your appearance.”

Liam barked a laugh. “Ha! Well, if nothing else, it will give those priggish court ministers something new to complain about.”

One corner of the Major’s mouth twitched in the barest smile. “If there is nothing else, Tae Han, it is late and I have much to attend to in the morning.”

“Of course, Major Antelz.

The Major pulled a folded sheet of paper from her sleeve and handed it to Liam. “This is a map to show you where Twisted Pines is. I’ve taken the liberty of also indicating a spot that I’ve been told is an excellent camp site.”

Liam gave her a warm smile. “Excellent work as always, Major.”

The Major looked down at her own lap and gave Clementine a look that I could swear was apologetic, lifted the fur ball gently and held her out to me. I took the sleeping kitten and carefully placed her on one of the cushions on my side of the table as the Major rose, bowed to Liam and left, closing the door behind her.