The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu Read Free Book Online

paper cutouts would dance and leap like the veiled dancers on a tiny stage when you rubbed the glass rod in the ceiling with a silk cloth; magic calculators from Haan—wooden mazes with tiny doors at every branch that flipped as marbles rolled through them, and a skilled operator could use them to compute sums; iron puppets from Rima—intricate mechanical men and animals that walked down an inclined slope on their own power; and so on.
    But Kuni paid the most attention to the food: He loved the fried lamb strips native to the Xana home islands, especially the hot and spicy variety from Dasu. He found the delicate raw fish served by the merchants from Wolf’s Paw delightful—it went especially well with mango liquor and a dash of hot mustard grown in Faça’s tiny spice estates nestled in the deep shades of the Shinané Mountains. He salivated so much as he admired the snacks on display from the various vendors that he had to swallow a few times.
    He had a grand total of two copper pieces in his pocket, not even enough for a string of sugar-coated crabapples.
    â€œWell, I really should be watching my weight anyway,” he said to himself, and sadly patted his beer belly. He wasn’t getting much exercise these days, what with all the partying and drinking.
    He sighed and was just about to leave the market to find a quiet spot for a nap when a loud argument attracted his attention.
    â€œSir, please don’t take him,” an old woman dressed in the traditional garb of the Xana peasant—full of knotted tassels and the color­ful, geometric patches that were supposed to be symbols for good luck and prosperity, though the only people who wore them had neither—begged an Imperial soldier. “He’s only fifteen, and he’s my youngest son. My eldest is already working at the Mausoleum. The laws say that the last child can stay with me.”
    The complexion of the old woman and her son was paler than most of the people in Cocru, but this didn’t mean much by itself. Though people from the various parts of Dara differed in their physical features, there had always been some steady migration and mixing of peoples, a process accelerated after the Unification. And the people of the various Tiro states had always cared much more about cultural and linguistic differences than mere appearance. Still, given the woman’s Xana garb and accent, it was clear she was not a native of Cocru.
    She was a long way from home, Kuni thought. Probably the widow of a Xana soldier stranded here after the Unification. Since the kite rider’s assassination attempt seven years ago, Zudi had remained heavily garrisoned—the emperor’s men never managed to find the rider, but they did imprison and execute many of Zudi’s citizens on flimsy evidence and continued to rule Zudi with an extra level of harshness. At least the emperor’s agents administered the laws without any favoritism. The poor from Xana were treated just like the poor of the conquered states.
    â€œI’ve asked you for the birth certificates for the two boys, and you’ve produced nothing.” The soldier brushed away the woman’s pleading fingers impatiently. His accent indicated that he was from Xana as well. The man was bloated and flabby, a bureaucrat more than a fighting man, and he stared at the youth standing next to the old woman with a cold smirk, daring the young man to do something rash.
    Kuni knew his kind well. The man had probably dodged out of having to fight during the Unification Wars and then bribed his way into a commission in the Xana army as soon as peace had been declared so that he could get assigned to one of the conquered terri­tories as a corvée administrator. It was his job to raise up the local quota of able-bodied men to work on one of the emperor’s grand infrastructure projects. It was a position with a little bit of power but a lot of room for abuse. It was