The Courtesy of Kings | ☑ Queenkiller, Kingmaker #2

12.1

The graves were small. Six tiny mounds with six tiny headstones. The children inside had never reached past the age of six; half never even had time to be given names.

'These are all the Emperor's children?' whispered Isla.

Beside her, Eshe stood as still as the white fringetrees. 'From his first wife, yes. That's her over there.'

Isla looked to where she nodded. A larger mound stood guard behind its young babes, its headstone longer and thicker. Thirty years ago she died, sharing the date with her youngest child. 'How terrible.'

'The story goes Emperor Gyoseong was so heartbroken, he did not leave his residence for years—though he was not yet Emperor then. They say he would never have wed again, did he not need to provide an heir for the throne.'

Imagine having children just because you have to. Now the fruits of his obligation were busy laying incense and flowers for their half-siblings. There were four in total, though only three were present. The oldest—Hanjou Fukuse—was only a year younger than Tam Mai, and Hanjou Jeuna was youngest at five.

There would have been five siblings, but the Emperor's second-born had died in his early childhood.

A malady that afflicts the Divine Gyok, the merchants aboard Isla's bhatara had said. Is this what they had spoken of?

Looking at his living children now, they all seemed in perfect health. His fourth-born, Hanjeon Kamei, had a small cleft on his lip that gave him a slight lisp when he talked, while Jeuna was at her age still silent as a mouse—but Isla saw nothing she would consider a malady.

As though to confirm his fitness, Kamei leapt over a mound. Fukuse yelled at him and twisted his ear. Isla chuckled. 'I hope the Emperor pays you to be his child minder on top of his mind-healer. Three children must be a handful. And I don't imagine those guards ever help.'

Enough men escorted them to have a caretaker for each of the Emperor's children, but they only remained at a watchful distance. Even when Kamei pushed his younger sister to the ground and she started to wail, they acted as though it was nothing but an evening breeze.

Eshe pulled the little hanjou to her feet, dusted her grassy knees. 'It is not so bad; I am only asked to take them to pay their monthly respects. The Empress cannot take them herself. This place is too much for her to bear, especially in her condition.'

'Her condition?'

'She is with child.'

'Oh.' It was certainly no place for a pregnant woman. Bringing budding life to a place of the dead was considered ill luck among the Surikh, and Isla was sure the Tsun held similar beliefs.

They were in the Divine Gyok burial grounds; a small plot just east of the temple, from which they had come. A high stone fence separated the two facilities, Tam Mai waiting by its gates. She, too, did not take to the graveyard.