Four guards followed Tsansong up the back of the pyre. While he had been accorded the dignity of walking to his execution, his wrists were now locked to a chain at his waist. Another chain trailed behind him, where it was controlled by two of the executioners. Anyone who faced burning might be expected to seek a cleaner death by fighting his guards—but Tsansong’s composed dignity made Hong-la suspect either that he had been promised a garroting if he behaved or that he was determined to preserve as much face, dignity, and honor as possible.
The executioners backed him against the upright post and encircled him, winding the chain about his torso six times before securing it at the back. The prince bore it proudly, his eyes raised to the balcony upon which Hong-la and the imperial family stood. From the hushed tension in the crowd, the way they stood pressed together, their hands upraised to cushion their bodies from those of their neighbors, Hong-la guessed that it must have appeared from below as if Tsansong were staring at his brother. But Hong-la had the better vantage and could read more accurately the angle of Tsansong’s gaze.
He was staring at the empress, his wife.
The executioners withdrew. They had not been unnecessarily rough, and one placed a hand on Tsansong’s shoulder before he walked down the steps. A shaman passed them, ascending, the bells trimming his raiment shimmering with every movement. Hong-la swallowed to ease a dry throat, blinked to ease eyes dry with exhaustion. He might as well have dragged handfuls of sand across the tissues. It seemed there would be no mercy granted Tsansong after all.
The shaman blessed the prince; the prince did not acknowledge him, or the six small white stones daubed with red that he placed around the prince’s feet. Or the joss sticks—trailing banners of scent that Hong-la could only detect at this distance because of those selfsame powers of suggestion so often useful to the manipulations of wizards—that he thrust into the bundled wood between them. That seemed an unwarranted cruelty to Hong-la—smoke in anticipation of the smoke to come—but this was not his tribe, and these were not his customs.
There was a moment when Tsansong might have spoken. He seemed from the lift of his shoulders to take a breath, though the distance was too great to be sure. Those same four executioners came forward with torches. They stood at attention, their stations each corner of the pyramidal pyre.
With a glance at Empress Yangchen, Emperor Songtsan raised his hand. The empress did not seem to notice his regard. She had eyes only for her younger husband, who stood like a blade in the spiral of his chains. Her hands tightened on the balcony railing, though her face smoothed—as expressionless as it had earlier failed to remain.
The emperor’s hand fell.
As did the torches.
As did … a shadow, blurring from the height of mountaintops with the speed of a stooping falcon.
The pyre must have been soaked in a flammable fluid, because the flames caught instantly and leapt upward, whooshing over the surfaces in a reverse cataract. The blaze roared toward its apex—and then was knocked flat by the snapped-open downbeat of enormous wings, as something vast and dark filled the square below as if it had apparated in. The buffet of wind knocked Hong-la back a step. He had a confused perception of feathers, of a human-seeming figure entirely clothed in white except for an indigo head wrap perched between gigantic pinions, of the wave of sharply heated air that blew the petaled skirts of his black wizard’s coat between his legs.
The feathers snapped down again and the bird was gone, lofted on heaving wingbeats. The flames of the pyre rebounded, higher and brighter, slamming closed over the space where the stake to which Tsansong was chained had stood and stood no more.
Faintly, Hong-la thought he heard a rising sound, blown away by the wind and the cries of the crowd—only now reacting. A sound that could have been laughter, or could have been a scream.
* * *
The snatch was as unexpected and deft as the twins could have wished, the rukh striking from above and lifting the stake—and the chained prince—clear of the flames in a fortuitous instant. Now he dangled by his shackles from the pole in the rukh’s talons, the great bird laboring not at all. She could carry off an elephant—and her killing stoop could snap the spine of an Indrik-zver. The weight of two moderately sized people was nothing to her.
The rukh’s wingtips brushed tile roofs; its long neck strained and bobbed like that of a rising goose. Its musculature surged beneath the saddle. The twins raised the third rein, urging the rukh into its steepest ascent. Saadet sang encouragement, aware of her brother’s amusement that she would so cosset and chivvy a thing that had no choice but to serve. But would not even a slave work harder for a kind master?