It is both art and skill, fighting:

the body a shaped tool,

waiting for the first note

of the dance.

Li positions his men,

pulls two blankets from the bed,

spreads them in an inner corner.

King Xau, watching him,

raises his eyebrows,

but says nothing.

They have traveled

this road before.

Li spent twenty years

forming himself into a weapon,

his body lethal with sword,

staff, arrow, knife, naked.

But this new art,

the art of protecting another,

he has yet to master.

Sometimes the music begins

before the dancer is ready.

The king bows to each guard

and last to Li,

then lies down in the corner.

Li takes his place

on the floor by the door,

relaxes his muscles, breathes.

It is necessary that he sleep.

He cannot sleep.

A long road.

Son of a fisherman,

but the town soldiers chose him—

he alone of all the boys his age—

to be their cook, apprentice,

then, later, comrade, captain,

promoted to the city,

the capital, the palace.

He opens his eyes,

sees the king

staring back at him.

A year ago, this country

was at war with King Xau.

Many here still hate the king.

Breathe. He must sleep.

A long road,

and he has been back only once.

The king told him to return

when his mother was ill.

Li refused.

The king announced

he was traveling to Qingzi himself.

It is not easy to fight

both your king and your heart.

He saw his mother

before she died.

Li watches the king

until the younger man

settles into sleep.

Li closes his eyes,

breathes,

and, at length,

sleeps.

BEFORE KINGS

Queen Fian knelt on the cliff top,

head pressed to the stone toes

of an ancient rock figure, twice her height,

that peered down at a plunging waterfall.

“Ean-the-Watcher, I offer you power.”

She unstoppered the vial

she carried next to her skin,

let one black drop fall.

She spoke in the old language,

a language almost forgotten,

passed down to Fian by her mother

and her mother’s mother.

The wind rose,

flapping the shirts of Fian’s guards

who waited, motionless, expressionless,

fifty feet back.

“Two kings will come soon:

one who is my enemy,

one who is my husband.

I offer you their lives.”

Beneath Fian’s fingers,

a flare of sudden heat.

Wind whipped her pale hair

as she stood up.

She leaned far out over the cliff,

held up by rushing air, the gods.

“I swear that if I come to power,

your worship will be revived.”

She stared down at the tumbling water,

the wooden overlook

where the two kings would be,

the river far below.

Her mother’s mother

had told her of the time before kings,

before men claimed ownership

over hill and river, forest and wolf.

No man should own a hill,

or a river, or the wind.

Fian laughed then,

and went to her guards.

“You were never here,” said Fian.

The guards nodded, blank-faced.

“You took me to the bluebell woods.