Psychopomp Magazine Fall 2015 | Page 36

36 | Psychopomp Magazine

say anything interesting in front of him. I dismiss him, then turn to the young man. "You should not speak about the Emperor's tasks so casually.”

He shrugs. "What will he do to me? Send me back to the village, where I can pull fish from the sea to feed the people?" He shakes his head. "The one thing he won't do for such talk is the only thing I fear: make me into one of you senseless clerks, bowing and scraping for pointless favors."

He means to offend me, but he voices my own mind. Still, I am curious: "If you think the work so meaningless, why does it anger you that Ani takes credit for what you have done?" He hesitates, and so I press my advantage. "Good work has its rewards. I have a space in which to think and take my tea away from the prying eyes of others." I gesture at my tiny office, smaller than many courtesans' wardrobes. Yet I know my own disingenuousness: I was happier when I worked in the garden and exhaustion made my sleep dreamless, but I keep that to myself.

He bows and I invite him to take tea with me. I watch him as he drinks: heavy shoulders, strong arms, delicate hands. He is powerfully inquisitive and looks around the office with the keen eyes of a little bird. I admire him, his unsullied, guileless power, and resolve not to sully it myself.

The next morning, I give the award to simpering Ani, who accepts it tearfully. I overhear her giving a speech in the longhouse that night about the value of hard work. I see Ons slip out from the longhouse into the shadows, his shoulders slumped. I tell myself that I could not have avoided wronging him, but his sadness weighs on me.

I resolve to get even with the madman in the palace.

That night, I knock on the door of the seaside silversmith who oversees the bellmaking children. He opens his door bleary-eyed and confused, but I see on his face the same mask of disdain and disaffectedness that I wear, and I know immediately that he will help me.

Sundown, sunup, planning and planning. The foolish Emperor hides none of his fears, so we play upon them. He fears that the brown bird in a cage near his bed will escape into the woods, taking its powerful song with it. And so we design.