Golden Daughter Read Free Page B

table set above the others, fanned with peacock feathers and feeding her fat monkey delicacies off gold platters. The monkey always got his first pick of any fare served at the empress’s table, and he had the pot belly to show for it.
    At a lower table, three of the emperor’s lesser wives sat in gaudy glory only slightly less magnificent than that of the empress. Princess Safiya, the emperor’s favored sister, took her place among these, nodding kindly to the pretty queens, who were sweet, if rather simple.
    Lower still were the tables of the banquet guests, various visitors to Manusbau Palace from all reaches of the Continent. None of these were important enough for the emperor himself to bother with, but were just important enough that the empress must be brought out and put on display. They were all men: aspiring politicians, stuffy princes of lesser kingdoms, and even a warlord or two of distant provinces come to negotiate terms of peace with the Emperor of Noorhitam. These last looked particularly out of place in the Butterfly Hall and handled with great trepidation the porcelain teacups served to them.
    Serving girls with flowers in their hair fluttered about as they tended to the needs of the guests. Their faces were painted moon-white with bright orange sun-spots on each cheek. Ten of these girls wore red chrysanthemums in their hair. Otherwise they were indistinguishable as they rushed about with cups and trays and platters.
    Prince Amithnal’s sweating ambassador sat between a warlord and a Dong Min councilor, saying little and eating less. Every time a serving girl offered him food or drink, he winced and his eyes lifted nervously to Princess Safiya, who ignored him. He had been instructed to eat and drink as though nothing were afoot. Despite his fondness for cheap opera, the ambassador had the acting ability of the monkey he so resembled.
    Princess Safiya sighed and looked around for her assassin. He appeared presently.
    The lion dogs started their thunderous barking again and ran skittering across the hall even as the door opened and a court herald stepped through. The dogs rushed at his feet, snarling and making all sorts of vicious threats which none of them had the courage to carry out. The herald aimed a kick at one of the dogs, which dodged him easily, then cleared his throat and announced in a loud voice that filled the hall, “Lord Dok-Kasemsan, head of the House of Dok, beloved brother of the Fan Clan.”
    Another colorful litter was borne into the hall, and when it was lowered and the curtains drawn back, Lord Dok-Kasemsan, a Pen-Chan of remarkable poise and beauty, stepped forth.
    Princess Safiya smiled inwardly at the sight of him. He was everything an assassin ought to be: striking, colorful, dignified, and important. The sort of man no one would expect to indulge in the lethal arts.
    He was his own best disguise.
    The herald led him across the room to genuflect before the bored empress. Then he was seated at a table across the hall from Ambassador Ratnavira. Not once did Kasemsan look the ambassador’s way. Not a glance, not a gesture betrayed the predatory focus on which Princess Safiya knew all his being centered.
    What mastery! What genius! His very spirit was a poison-tipped knife. Were she the sentimental sort, she would be half-inclined to love him.
    But he was doomed. And there was no point in becoming sentimental over a doomed man.
    Princess Safiya kept her head bowed, her expression as bored as that of the empress. But from beneath her long, false lashes, she watched the ten girls with the chrysanthemums in their hair. How frail they looked! How delicate and unthreatening. Yet with their black eyes they each perceived more than any five ordinary persons combined. And behind their painted smiles, their mouths were fixed in concentration that never, never relaxed.
    Except . . .
    Except what in Hulan’s name was Sairu grinning about?
    “Princess? May I beg a word?”
    Safiya frowned