Holding Xau so the king

could piss into a pot.

Holding him so he could vomit

into a different pot.

Night after day after night,

until Li had no stories left,

neither his own,

nor the folk tales

his mother once told him.

Li shouted at Leong for saying,

ten days in,

that the king had no strength left,

that perhaps the time had come

to offer an easier death.

Li quit the king’s room

and fetched Xau’s firstborn son,

Keng, a boy just ten years old.

Li positioned the boy

on a stool by his father,

and watched Xau battle

to give his hand

and a dozen words

to his son.

And Keng,

valiant as any soldier,

smiled as if all were well,

as if the weight of the kingdom

were not crashing upon him,

and told his father

about his lessons,

his sisters and brother,

his horse and the new cook.

Li kept Keng there five hours,

until the boy was hoarse

and the king unable

to mask his pain.

So low had Li fallen

that he was considering fetching

the king’s younger children,

but Xau, spent, slid into sleep,

the first untroubled rest he’d had.

Twelve hours later, fever broken,

the king woke, saw Li, frowned:

“Li, go get some rest.

You look terrible.”

“As do you, Your Majesty.”

Li laid his hand

on the king’s arm briefly,

bowed and left.

PARTNERS

Hana hears him before she sees him,

the gentleness in his voice a puzzle

until she sees the child on his lap.

Xau inhales her before he sees her:

the sweat of her mixed with grass

and the smells of horses.

He is too thin, too pale.

Sitting, propped up,

in his sickbed.

She is dusty, dirty,

her long braids coming undone,

bow and arrows gone.

She kneels on the floor beside him

(the little girl buries her head

against her father’s chest).

He is afraid to breathe,

afraid she is a figment

of his longing.

Ignoring the guards, advisors, steward

who have followed her in,

she says, “I would be your queen.”

“Are you certain?” He gestures

at the guards, advisors, steward.

“This is how it will be.

Staff, soldiers, ambassadors.

And war likely coming.”

“I am certain.”

He looks at his steward.

“Fetch a magistrate.

We will be married this hour.”

One arm about his daughter,

he clasps Hana’s fingers

in his free hand.

He is less than his legend:

mortal, frangible, worn. Good.

She could not love a legend.

UNSAID

Morning. Hana pulls the covers off,

looks at Xau’s gaunt body slatted by light

from the window shutters.

Xau inhales her before he sees her,

the smell of her faintly mixed

with leather, grass, horses.

She fingers the stark jut of his ribs,

but doesn’t voice that he looks

too weak to ride to war.

When he touches her,

he is not the king,

he is as nervous as a boy.

When he touches her,

she feels the pull of him,

the reason men follow him.