An instant later, aheartbeatlater, Evemer was flat on his back, staring up at a strip of starry sky framed by the buildings on either side of the alley. Sadik, small and bluish grey and waxing gibbous, still two weeks away from full, had not quite reached its zenith. Kadou stood over him, shaking out his hand. His expression had changed from attentive to cold. Again.
Evemer wasn’t quite sure what had happened. His face hurt.
“Who do you think I am?” His Highness said calmly.
“Sir?” Evemer said. He would get up in a moment. As soon as he finished taking inventory of his body. Gods, his face really hurt.
“Are you stupid? Who am I?”
“My lord,” he croaked. He put his hand to his face, but that only hurt more.
“Who?”
“Sehzade-Sultan Kadou Mahisti Hazretleri Effendi,” said Evemer, as if he were a herald announcing His Highness to the court.
“Right.” He heard Kadou pick up the wine bottle. “So are you stupid or what?”
Or what, I think,Evemer mused. He shoved himself up to a seat with one arm and—ah, the stars he’d seen in the sky followed wherever he looked. He blinked them away. “Sir?” he managed.
Kadou leaned down, hands on his knees. “People have been teaching me to kill other people since I was old enough to hold a sword,” he hissed. “But thanks for being so condescending.”
Evemer deserved that.
It had been genuinely stupid of him. He shouldn’t have assumed—His Highness had had tutors for everything else, of course he would have learned a little of this too. Evemer hauled himself to his feet, piece by piece, rubbing and flexing his jaw, trying and failing not to gawk at Kadou.
Kadou picked up his wine. “I’m going back inside,” he said in a low voice. “And you’re going to follow, and you’re not going to say anything.”
Evemer swallowed. “Yes, my liege.”
He followed His Highness as commanded, his eyes fixed on him like a sailor searching in vain to find the Navigator’s Star on a cloudy night while his compass needle swung wildly.
He didn’t make sense.
The only comfort was that Kadou didn’t try to pick any more fights—he went back in and flung himself into a seat, morosely nursing the bottle of wine, which was better than the gambling, and much better than getting himself punched. At last, and of his own volition, he led Evemer back to the carriage, the palace, safety.
Evemer didn’t stop staring at him.
Why was His Highness like this? What was wrong with him? Or perhaps simply: What was wrong? Was it Her Majesty’s punishment that was so upsetting him? Why didn’t he just make peace with it and do his duty gracefully? He was miserable wallowing like this, so why not just choose something else? The palace had three full temples and a dozen small shrines to Sannesi and Usmim; he could pray for comfort or for guidance with his trials, as he preferred.
What was thematterwith him?
There was something troubling His Highness, and as Evemer was sworn to his service, he took it upon himself to figure out how to solve it for him. Sparring seemed unlikely to help, so Evemer tried chess.
Chess was a truly excellent teacher of many essential skills—patience, attention to both small details and the big picture, movements of troops, knowing the strengths and weaknesses of your personnel so that their skills could best be deployed, long-term planning, holding many possibilities in your head at once, graciousness toward your opponent . . .
Evemer liked the game more than he liked drilling sword-forms, though he’d had to work hard to acquire skill at either of them. If things had been different, if he’d been more than just a kahya, he might have spent more time on it—lessons with well-known chess players in the city, perhaps, instead of pouring all his monthly educational stipend into the study of more practical and prosaic subjects.
But he was good enough at the game to know that you could learn things about someone by the way they played, and since Kadou didn’t make sense as a person, this was the best way Evemer knew to figure out what he was missing.
Kadou played chess in extremely strange ways. He’d sacrifice a tower to save one of his eight armsmen (Evemer found himselfentirelyunsurprised). He hoarded his two kahyalar as if they were his sultan, but he’d send his archpriests and his general out into the field as soon as he could. Over the course of a couple weeks, Evemer found that he could usually get two or three games out of him a day, and he took to dragging Kadou to the board at odd times to see how it changed things—when he just woke up from a nap, or during a break in the ongoing review of the papers from the Shipbuilder’s Guild, or while he was eating lunch, or after he’d had a glass of wine with dinner . . .
At the end of his first fortnight appointed to Kadou’s service, Evemer felt he had a general grasp of the shape of His Highness’s mind. It came down to what Kadou had called cowardice: On days when he was more fretful, his game was just as much of a wreck—he spent a long time deciding on moves, hesitating over his pieces, visibly second-guessing himself. Evemer won every last one of those games.
But in that fortnight, there were two good days. Kadou had woken early both times. Commander Eozena had arrived for breakfast and, afterward, shepherded him out into the garden for exercise and conversation, joining Evemer, who had been up and training since dawn. It had seemed only natural for the other kahyalar to join in too when they ran the more common verses of Beydamur’s progression for the sword. On one of these two days, Commander Eozena had sat on one of the benches in the shade and called dozens of forms for them one after another, at random and without a break, until they were all pouring with sweat. Melek and Tadek had fallen over from exhaustion, and it was only through sheer force of will that Evemer, shaking, had been able to keep his feet. Kadou, on the other hand, had been winded but laughing. After they’d all gotten bathed and dressed again, Evemer had immediately gone for the chessboard and all but pounced on His Highness with it.
And out ofnowhere,Kadou played a gorgeous game, and Evemer had found himself forced to stay on his toes and exert his full force of cunning to stay ahead. He’d still won, but only barely.
He’d gotten four games out of Kadou that day. Kadou hadwonthe third, and when he glanced up from the board and smiled at Evemer, he’d looked just like the shining prince on a milk-gold horse again. Evemer had to excuse himself to his room to absolutelyboilwith confusion.