Chapter 2

Another one already? Toru thinks. There have been tens of bodies in the past three months alone. A belly split open like a pomegranate. A jaw snapped off from a skull. A leg torn off below the knee, a sandal still dangling like a ligament. The border guards have not been able to track the beast; four have come back in urns.

“I’ll be there shortly,” Toru tells the messenger boy.

His hand is numb from clutching a spear all morning. He deposits it in the weapons box before turning to Master Vihana, waiting for her permission to leave. He has stopped asking her how he can improve, because her answer is always the same: I don’t see how you can.

Flavours of the same question are pelted at Stuvan: Did a god visit you when he was a baby to bless him? Did you cleanse yourself through many days of fasting? Did you walk to the summits of the mountains to show your devotion? Stuvan always answers with an enigmatic smile.

Every time the annual tournament is held, more and more people show up, to get a glimpse of Toru. They are tangentially willing to the line the city’s pockets in exchange for painted jars spilling over with mead, jewel-encrusted jewellery boxes, butter-soft woollen shawls and Bishinya’s famous woodwork. Stuvan has taken advantage of the increased interest in the region, throwing lavish feasts for foreign dignitaries, constructing gilded temples, and building great roads connecting Bishinya’s most important cities.

Grass prickles beneath Toru’s soles. The sky is the colour of teeth.

His master looks tired. She gestures with her chin in a way that says, Well, get out of here, then.

Toru bows and thanks her, before calling one of the apprentices to help him remove his armour. He pays a quick visit to the baths and gets dressed, tying back his hair, binding a sash across his torso, and wrapping it around his waist. It is a dated fashion, but he has a fondness for the old Bishinyan ways, and he likes to imagine himself as one of the warriors who existed at the threshold of when Bishinya began to expand its territories. When he was a child he would refuse to even put on his boots, because those warriors had gone barefoot, refusing to oil their lives with comfort. (He only stopped when he was informed that not all of them did that.)

In the hall of audience he takes his place on the throne’s right side, and allows himself to study the pattern of inlaid stones on the ceiling while waiting for Stuvan. Here there are no doors, but pillars and archways hewn of pale stone overlooking a courtyard, and he is pelted with the jewel-tinker of the fountains, the bob and drift of the great white lilies on the waterways, the sweet-spicy waft of the night-blooming jasmines. Suhasini once called the setting morbid, since you’re forced to hear awful things in the court, and why would you want to look at something beautiful then? But Toru thinks it offers breathing room, like his thoughts can float away into the sky instead of being trapped along with a throng of sweating, anxious bodies.

The crisp smokiness of winter is already in the air, and soon the fountains will be emptied and left to dry – it will not be long before they retreat indoors for all their hearings.

The guards announce the king’s presence, and Stuvan takes his seat on the throne, and begins to speak. “Winter draws closer and our people are left at the mercy of a demon. Our soldiers are well trained to dispose of it, but amassing an army is not required; we will ensure the safety of every last Bishinyan.” Demon is not the correct word, though it is acceptable for effect; its ancestors were once companions of the gods, and some scattered peoples still place offerings in its mouldering temples. The scriptures say that the Vitara is free of evil, but becomes corrupted if its mother is killed by human hands while it is still a whelp. And then its wrath is controlled, focused, terrible.

“Some villagers must have done it,” Stuvan had said a few days ago, out of earshot from the hunting party they had taken into the forest. His hands never faltered as he stripped the skin off the deer. Toru still hates skinning and gutting; even now he only just manages to avoid looking away, and as a small boy he would start crying. “The fools. They see something move and they shoot it. I will find them and see them executed, so their souls can be purged.”

Toru’s face is naturally sombre, and everyone thinks he is always paying attention, but he dreams, happily, more often than he admits. He should not dream when Stuvan is addressing the court, but Stuvan’s words blur in and out, and the embroidery on Suhasini’s shawl is very rich, and shards of light are playing on the carpets.

The world slides back into focus when Toru hears his name.

“ – an example of Bishinyan excellence and fortitude,” Stuvan is saying, and Toru notices only now the weight of the court’s eyes on him, and he has to stop himself from standing taller; that would reveal that he had slouched, ever so slightly. Stuvan’s arms reach towards Toru.

“Come here, Tarulatha.”

The last time Stuvan had called Toru that, seven years ago, Toru was being inaugurated into the army. He steps towards the throne and kneels, his heart jackhammering, his eyes open but unseeing.

“Let it be known before the court and the honourable priests that I charge Tarulatha with the holy task of defeating the Vitara that is terrorising our people. He will brave the winter and prove to the world that the great land of Bishinya has lost none of its burnish.”

A shower of cheers. Hammering on tabletops. Two-fingered whistles. Vaguely, Toru understands that he should be afraid, like a man, and cutting through that fear, like a warrior. Instead, the hall fades into white feather-fuzz. He knows his task is swinging close to his throat, but he cannot feel it.

“Rise, Tarulatha, and take your king’s hand.”

Toru does as told, and Stuvan takes Toru’s face in his cold dry hands and kisses his cheeks.

The roar of the applause is a distant, foamy backdrop against Stuvan’s smile.