Chapter 261: Deception, Rumours and Opportunity

Isaac and I stood ready by the corner, daggers and sheers in hand, ready to make a crimson mess of this immaculate garden, when Nizam halted us. It was a motion so brief and subtle, we would’ve ordinarily never seen it had we not been glued to his every action.

My brother stood up, and was now grinning. Talking animatedly, as though he was addressing a pair of long lost friends. The two, both of average height but with a prominent hooked nose and the other with a vertical scar across his forehead, even clapped him on the shoulder with fond smiles. Isaac and I were truly baffled, as we empowered our ears as subtly as we could to catch glimpses of the conversation.

Yet all we caught were the concluding dregs of the apparently very brief conversation.

"...Are we glad you’ve finally come. We were about to go searching for you lot had we not seen you in the next half hour or so." The man with the long hooked nose said in audible relief.

"Well the others have begun work just around the corner, let me go and get them, so we can get going." My brother then replied, immediately beginning to turn and lightly jog in our direction.

"Right you are lad. The sooner we finish the better. This place gives me the creeps these days." The hooked nosed man finished in a gradually quieting voice till it was barely more than a whisper, while brushing off a quick and light shudder.

"What happened?" I asked, the moment he rounded the corner, his breath still ragged from the surge of excitement rather than anything else.

"They thought I was part of the help! Apparently they’re absolutely swamped with work! Have been for days now, and they’ve been petitioning, practically begging their superiors for aid from their Outer Court counterparts." He explained, his face a glow with the excitement of stupendous luck.

Both Isaac and I were astounded by such a stroke of luck, but we could not remain so, as we quickly shrugged off our frivolous wonder, especially so deep in enemy ground, and returned our focus to the matter at hand.

"If they are expecting the arrival of help today, then wouldn’t that mean that the true ones are on their way?" Isaac asked him in a hushed whisper.

"Deal with them Isaac." I ordered, straightening my clothes and expression towards that of a meek man of humble attitude and origins and said. "Let’s not keep them waiting."

"Yes brother." He whispered in response, rounding the corner once more, as Isaac vanished from our sides.

"Only two? Is that all?" The scarred asked with his rough voice.

"No, another one of us is on the way, he was just delayed with other tasks." I answered them quickly, providing proper cover for when Isaac returns.

"So three! After all we did, that bastard still only sent us three?!" The man with the hooked nose roared out in rage and exasperation. His face as red as the scarlet flowers around us.

The scarred man then sighed a long breath of air, before he then put his hand over the shoulder of his still raging friend. "Calm down Wei. We never held much hope in the first place, so actually getting three more pairs of hands is better than we hoped originally. Now come on. We better hurry up or old man Qiang will have our ears bleeding from his shouting. You two as well, come along now. We don’t have all day."

"What has you so rushed?" I asked, as we fell into step behind them.

"They haven’t told you?!" The scarred man asked us back in surprise.

"Those damn bureaucrats!" The hooked nosed man, who I now knew to be called Wei, spat.

"It’s for the wedding. That’s why we needed your help. Can’t get it done fast enough, at least that’s what steward Zhang keeps hollering at us whenever he sees us." The scarred man’s face scrunched as though he’d smelled something foul, causing his already large scar to grow more pronounced.

"Wedding?" Nizam parroted in confusion.

"You don’t know that Mouchen!" Wei admonished the scarred man then. "You shouldn’t swap rumours like some common market wife. Your neck can not the handle consequences if you get caught again." He finished with a pointed glance at his marred forehead.

"Execution? For simply talking?!" I asked in utter disbelief and horror, as though I hadn’t done far worse for far less.

"Let’s just say the higherups have been a bit too eager for blood these days." Mouchen replied. His friend’s earlier words seemingly having shaken him.

"The war couldn’t have helped." Wei shrugged a moment later.

"But if it is indeed a wedding, the who’s is it? The crown prince’s?" I asked, unwilling to let them clam up all of a sudden.

"No, it’s the princess’ they say. Though I don’t know who she’s supposed to be marrying when her declared fiancée is all the way in the..." The scarred man began almost instinctively, his mouth moving before any thought seemed to surface. A situation Wei appeared all too familiar with, as he suddenly interrupted him.

"Enough Mouchen!" He shouted, roughly sealing his mouth with his palm. "And you! Stop asking unless you want both of you to suffer from a sudden separation of skull and shoulders, understand you green-horned brat?!"

"...Perfectly." I replied with clenched fists, halting myself from rendering this man’s tongue a feast for worms and maggots.

Mouchen snorted half in defiance, half in feigned contempt once Wei’s hands were off him, and he muttered back to me. "Well, that’s what the rumours say anyway."

"Marriage?" Nizam muttered in a mirthless voice next to me in a whisper only I could hear.

"Calm yourself brother." I replied. "As he said, it is no more than a rumour in this rancid place of conspiracies. Only the Gods know what manner of madness could’ve led to these words to become widespread among the staff."

My words visibly calmed him down, as light and colour returned to features, but as he did so, we found ourselves before a horde of around a hundred men and women, crouched low over bushes and flowers. Sheers held high across overgrown tree branches. Hands smeared with brown and green, as they worked meticulously over them.

"Old man! We’re back." Wei hollered over the crowd.

"About damn time!" A sun kissed man with pure white head of thinning hair and a waist long beard, wearing the official green robes of the Palace gardeners and a wide sun hat shouted back in reply. "Are these the runts from the Outer Court?" He asked looking at us.

"Yes. Though there is one more." Mouchen clarified.

"And where is that late bastard?" The old man yelled, drawing closer to us.

"On the way." I said, my temper nearly getting the better of me.

I was not meant for such subtle methods.

"He better." The old man grunted. "Now come, we have much to do, and little time to do it!"

He led us four then into one corner, where the the grass grew yellow and the flowers wilted in their beds.

"The morons who cared for this place before planted the flora with half-hearted hands. Your job is to salvage what you can. Prune what needs pruning. Cull what needs culling. And finally replace everything after you’re done. This place must become without flaw within the hour, understand?!" The old man quickly spoke, as though there was a time limit to it.

"What!?" Wei yelled out once he was done.

"You want us to finish all this within an hour?!" Mouchen argued with horror across his face.

"Shut it!" His fist connected with Mouchen’s head. "Get to work, and you better finish when I come back, or you four will have triple the shifts for a month!" He growled with a final turn of the head, as he went back to his own section to work.

"That damn old man!" Mouchen hissed as he rubbed his head. "I swear he gets meaner every year!"

"Just leave it. He’s just under a lost of pressure." Wei said, as he brough his hooked nose closer to the dying vegetation, before he recoiled back. "This all needs to go."

"Is he generally like this?" I asked, finding myself silently appreciating the old tyrant of the garden.

"No... Well..." Wei awkwardly paused.

"Yes!" Mouchen nodded. "I’m going to get a permanent dent in my skull soon enough!"

"As I said, he’s just under a great deal of pressure from those damn bureaucrats. It’s pushing the pricklier aspects of his character to the forefront." Wei added. "Now let’s get to it already."

"This damn wedding will be the death of us!" Mouchen wailed once more, as he looked around what we needed to do again, while Wei beat him again to shut him up.

Though I had little interest in gardening, our cover was more vital than my likes and dislikes, so there I was, emperor of the Eclipse Empire, Master of the South, Holder of the Black Throne, the one they fear as the Ruinous Dragon, kneeling in the dirt of dead plants, working in the blazing sun, as I yanked at the roots in the earth.

’This must be the Gods’ most indulgent joke.’ I thought.

But I was not alone in finding the humour in all this, for so did another. The evidence of which being the occasional giggles my shadow seemed incapable of hiding.

Yet I had little time to focus on my gleeful shadow, as the one we wanted most to meet came to us on her own two legs.

"We greet the princess!" The entire yard boomed as soon as she appeared.

Nizam rose the instant after, his intentions as clear as they were foolish and spurred on by his befuddled mind after what he’d heard and dreaded over for nearly a month now.

My hand shot forth with the speed of a striking viper, catching the hem of his robes and yanking him back down next to me, before he could make a mess of things.

"Brother...!" He nearly shouted as I roughly shoved his head into the dirt.

"You want to lose your head boy? Keep it down!" Old man Zhang whisper yelled back at us.

"Patience brother." I whispered to him. "Now is not the time."

"...Yes brother." He said reluctantly, though he no longer struggled, regaining his wits, as we stayed in our kneeling forms.