It was Shen Liu, his so-clever adviser, who had pointed this out, not long after Zhou had been appointed to succeed the one called (privately) the Spider. Some men simply had to be dealt with, Liu had said, if one were to properly discharge the duties of office and establish the proper tone as first minister.
If one were new, and relatively young—and Wen Zhou was both—weakness might be anticipated, and probed, by some within the court, the wider empire, or abroad. Any such misconception on their part needed to be swiftly addressed.
A measure of effectively employed terror, Liu had suggested, was almost always useful.
One might argue, he’d added, that it was imperative in challenging times. Kitai might be wealthy beyond description, but that could make it more vulnerable to destructive ambition, more in need of loyal men to have narrow eyes and suspicious hearts. To be cold and vigilant while others played at polo games, wrote poems, danced to foreign music, ate golden peaches brought from far corners of the world, built lakes in private gardens, or used extravagantly expensive sandalwood for the panels of pavilions.
Polo was Wen Zhou’s favoured sport. Sandalwood, he happened to believe, was entirely proper for a display of wealth. He had it in the walls of his bedchamber. And the man-made lake behind his mansion had jade and ivory rocks on the island built within it. When he had guests for a party, courtesans hired from the best houses would play music from that isle, dressed like creatures from legend. Once they’d worn kingfisher feathers, rarer, more expensive than jade.
But the new first minister had taken Liu’s central point: a firm hand was needed for the Ta-Ming Palace and the civil service and the army. Perhaps especially the army. Chin Hai, fearing the aristocrats in his own early days, had gradually placed barbarian generals in many of the military governorships. It had made him safer (what could an illiterate foreigner, who owed him everything, aspire to be, or do?), but there were consequences. All the more so since the celestial emperor (may he live a thousand years!) was older now, distracted, less firmly attentive to imperial matters, month by month, day over day.
Night after night.
It was widely known that Roshan had sent the emperor an alchemist’s potion shortly after Taizu had summoned his very young Precious Consort to the palace and installed her there. Shortly before the illustrious empress was gently persuaded to take up her new residence at a Temple of the Path outside Xinan.
Wen Zhou wished—he so dearly wished—he’d thought of sending that potion himself. Firmness. You could make a joke about firmness.
He didn’t feel amused or amusing. Not tonight. The city palace just given as a gift this evening (another gift!) to the pustulent barbarian toad was Chin Hai’s own mansion, conspicuously uninhabited in the nine months since he’d died.
What did it mean that it had now gone, in its unrivalled splendour and notoriety (tales of interrogation chambers underground, walls made proof against screaming), to the military governor of three districts and their hard, trained armies in the northeast? A man who was scarcely ever in Xinan to even make use of the mansion? Did the emperor, did Zhou’s empty-headed cousin, did no one realize what sort of message this sent?
Or, rather more frightening, did they realize it?
The ward guards recognized them, of course. There was a shout and a signal from atop the wall. Men began hastily unbarring the gates as the first minister and his men approached, angling across the imperial way. Not the best ward security, perhaps, but mildly gratifying, the alacrity—and fear—with which they responded to his presence.
He should be used to it by now, perhaps, but why did becoming accustomed to something have to render its pleasures stale? Could one of the philosophers answer him that? He still enjoyed saffron wine, and being serviced by women, did he not?
Passing through, he asked casually, addressing the night, not deigning to look anywhere near an actual person, who else had come through after curfew. He always asked them that.
Someone answered. Two names. Neither one, for different reasons, brought Zhou any of the pleasure he’d just been thinking about. He rode on, heard orders behind him, the gates creaking closed, the heavy bar sliding.
Even here, within the ward, the main east-west street running between the gates at each end was sixty-five paces wide. Long expanses of wall on either side, lanterns at intervals, shade trees planted by mansion owners. The walls were interrupted on the north side of the street by the massive doors of homes that were better described as palaces. To his right there were only occasional servant-doorways: back-garden exits from someone’s property. All front doors faced south, of course.
He saw the second of the men who had come through earlier, waiting in a sedan chair with the curtains back so he could be seen and known under the lanterns hanging by the doors of Zhou’s own home.
He hadn’t intended, or desired, to see this man tonight, and his principal adviser would have known that. Which meant that if Liu was here, something had happened. Something even more than the disturbing news they’d heard this evening, of the gift given to Roshan.
Roshan himself was the other man who’d passed through after nightfall. Come, undoubtedly, to boastfully luxuriate in his newest extravagant possession: a city palace larger, and more potently symbol-laden, than any other in Xinan.
Perhaps, Zhou thought, he could ride over there himself, suggest a drink by way of celebration, poison the wine.
Roshan drank very little. He had the sugar sickness. Zhou wished it would kill him already. He suddenly wondered who the governor’s personal physician was. It was a thought …
Chin Hai’s former mansion was only a short distance on horseback, two streets over and one north from here. The property was gigantic, even by the standards of an aristocratic neighbourhood: it stretched all the way to the northern wall of the ward—the southern border of the fifty-third. There were rumours that a tunnel went beneath the wall into the fifty-third.
The mansion’s servants had been kept on, he knew, paid by the court, even with no one living there. The pavilions and rooms and furnishings, the courtyards, gardens, banquet halls, women’s quarters, all would have been impeccably maintained, awaiting whoever might be honoured—exalted!—at the whim of the emperor with the dead prime minister’s home.
Well, now they knew.
Zhou swung down from his horse, tossed the reins to one of the servants who hurried up, bowing. The doors were open, wide enough for a carriage and horses. The first courtyard was brightly lit, welcoming. His own was an entirely magnificent home. It just wasn’t …
Seeing the first minister dismount, Liu stepped out of his sedan chair. There was mud in the roadway from rain the night before. His adviser placed his feet carefully, a fastidious man. Zhou found it amusing. The prime minister, booted, accustomed to polo and hunting, utterly unfazed by dirt and mud, strode over to him.
“He came through the gates just before you,” he said. There was no need to say the name.
Shen Liu nodded. “I know. I asked.”
“I thought of riding over to welcome him to his new home. Bring poisoned wine.”
Liu’s face took on a pained expression, as if his stomach were ailing him, one of the few ways he revealed himself. His adviser carefully restrained himself from glancing around to see who among the guards or servants might have heard. Zhou didn’t care. Let the gross barbarian know what the first minister of Kitai thought of him and his too-obvious designs.
As if Roshan didn’t know already.
“What are you doing here?” he asked. “I said you were to come in the morning.”
“I received tidings,” Liu murmured. “Or, I was advised of tidings that have come to the palace.”
“And I needed to know this tonight?”
Liu shrugged. Obviously, was the import of the gesture.
He was an irritating man, and disturbingly close to indispensable. Wen Zhou turned and strode through his open doors into the courtyard, splashing through a puddle. He crossed
and entered the first reception hall and then the private room beside it. Servants sprang to action. An interval passed in which boots became slippers, court garb turned into a silk robe for a night at home, and cypress-leaf wine was warmed on a brazier. Liu waited in the adjacent chamber.
There was music from a pavilion across another small courtyard, a more intimate reception room with a bedchamber attached. Spring Rain was playing her pipa for him, having awaited his arrival as she always did. She would be adorned with jewellery, he knew, her hair exquisitely pinned, her face painted. Waiting for him. His.
Her name was Lin Chang now, a change made on his own order once he’d brought her here. It was far more suited to her status as a concubine of the first minister of Kitai. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking of her by the North District name yet. Not that it mattered.
She belonged to him, and would wait. It was her role. Although, looked at another way, he was going to have to wait until whatever Liu had on his mind tonight was shared.
The prime minister decided that he was likely to remain in a troubled mood. He walked back into the reception chamber, was handed the wine. He sipped. Threw the cup down. It bounced and rolled against a wall.
The servant, cringing and bowing, almost to the floor, mumbling desperate apologies, scurried to the brazier and added coal to the flame below. He crawled over and picked up the discarded cup. His hands were shaking. There were stains on the carpeting.
The first minister had made extremely clear by now his preference as to the temperature of his wine at night (which was not the same as in the morning or at midday). Servants were required to know these things or accept consequences. Consequences, in at least one case, had left a man crippled and dismissed. He begged in the street now, behind the mansion. Someone had told Zhou that.
The pipa music continued from across the small courtyard. The sliding doors were open, window shutters were folded back on a mild night. The silk-paper windows did little to keep out sound. He thought about silencing the instrument, but the music was beautiful—and promised a mood very different from this one, once he’d dealt with Liu.
He gestured, Shen Liu took one side of the platform. Zhou sat opposite, cross-legged. A breeze, music, late night. The two men waited. The servant, bowing three full times, eyes never leaving the floor, brought the wine again and extended it with both hands. Wen Zhou tasted.
He didn’t nod, he didn’t need to. Keeping the cup was sufficient. The servant poured for Liu, backed up, bowing all the way to the edge of the room. He was expecting to be beaten later. The wine had been too cool. Zhou looked at his adviser, and nodded permission to speak.
“What do you think happens,” Liu asked, his round face placid, as usual, “when we make jests about killing him?”
He hadn’t expected that as a start. “We don’t,” Wen Zhou said coldly. “I do. Unless you have become a humorist when I am not present?”
Liu shook his head.
“I thought not. What happens,” the prime minister went on, his mood congealing further, “is that I amuse myself.”
“Of course, my lord,” said Liu.
He said nothing more. He’d made his accursed point: sometimes you weren’t allowed to amuse yourself.
Zhou was inclined to disagree. If he wanted a woman or a horse, they were his until he grew tired of them. If he wanted a man dead he could have him killed. Why else be what he was? This came with his power, defined it.
“Why are you here?” he growled. He gestured, the servant scurried forward with more wine. Liu declined a second drink. The first minister had long intended to see his adviser drunk; it hadn’t happened yet.
From across the courtyard the pipa music had stopped.
She’d have been told that her lord was engaged with his principal adviser. Rain—Lin Chang—was impeccably trained, and intelligent. She’d not wish to distract them, he knew.
His adviser waited until the servant had withdrawn to the far wall again. He said, “Word came tonight, a military courier from the west. From Iron Gate Fortress.”
“Well, that is west,” said the prime minister, amusing himself slightly.
Liu did not smile. He said, “You know that my … my brother has been at Kuala Nor? You asked about my family last year and I told you?”
He did remember asking. It was before he’d taken office. He remembered this piece of information very well. And the man. He hadn’t liked Master Shen Tai. Hadn’t known him at all, but that didn’t matter.
The first minister nodded, more carefully. His mood had changed, he didn’t want it noticed.
“Burying bones,” he said indifferently. A flick of one hand. “A foolish thing, with all respect to your father. What of it?”
“He’s left the lake. He is coming back to Xinan. They made him a member of the Second Military District army to shorten his mourning time, permit him to return.”
The two men in this room had done the same thing not long after Shen Gao had died, to allow Liu to come back to the palace—to assist the ambitious cousin of the woman the emperor favoured above all others.
The first minister considered this a moment. Still carefully, he said, “I wonder why? We know this from Iron Gate?”
Liu nodded. “He passed through for one night. He sent a message ahead to the Ta-Ming, along with the fortress commander’s formal report.”
One night meant he wasn’t lingering as he travelled. Wen Zhou affected a yawn. “And why would the movements of your brother—diverting as the topic might be for you, personally—be of interest to me, or of importance to the empire?” He thought he’d said that well enough.
Liu looked discomfited. An extreme rarity. He shifted position. A rider could look like that after too long in the saddle. It was interesting. The prime minister kept his gaze on him.
“Well?” he added.
Liu drew a breath. “He … my brother reports first that an assassin was slain at Kuala Nor, having been sent there to kill him.”
“I see,” said Zhou, keeping his voice level. “That is first. Of little importance to us, as far as I can see. What else?”
His adviser cleared his throat. “It seems … it seems that the White Jade Princess, in Rygyal … Cheng-wan, our, our own princess …”
“I know who she is, Liu.”
Another throat clearing. Liu was unsettled. That, in itself, was disturbing. “She’s given him a gift,” Liu said. “To honour what he was doing by the lake. With the dead.”
“How pleasant for your brother,” Wen Zhou murmured. “But I fail to see—”
“Two hundred and fifty Sardian horses.”
Like that. A hammer.
Zhou felt his mouth go dry. He swallowed, with difficulty. “He is … your brother is riding from the border with two hundred and fifty Heavenly Horses?”
It was impossible, he thought.
In a way, it was. “No,” said Liu. “He has arranged to have them held by the Tagurans. He must go back and claim them himself, only he can do it, after it is decided what is to be done with them. He writes that he is coming to Xinan to inform the celestial emperor. And others.”
And others.
Now he understood why this was information he needed to know.
He also understood something else, abruptly. He struggled to keep this from showing in his face. Liu’s unpleasant younger brother had told the soldiers at Iron Gate Fort, and written a letter, about an assassin sent after him. He was a figure of significance now, with those horses. There would almost certainly be an inquiry, where there might never have been one before.
Which meant …
It meant that someone in Xinan had to be dealt with. Tonight, in fact, before word of Shen Tai’s journey and his gift—likely racing through the palace and the Purple Myrtle Court even now—spread too widely, and reached the man in question.
It was unfortunate. The person he was now thinking about had his uses. But he also knew too much, given these sudden tidings, for the first minist
er’s comfort.
It was still possible, for certain reasons, that the extremely irritating Shen Tai might not reach Xinan, but everything was changed with this information.
“What does that mean, he has to claim the horses himself? Did you read the letters?”
“I did.” The prime minister didn’t ask how Liu had achieved that. “If he does not go back for them himself the gift is revoked. It is a gift from the princess to him. There was … there is a third letter, from a Taguran officer, making this clear.”
Inwardly, with great intensity, the prime minister of Kitai began shaping the foulest oaths he could imagine. He felt a droplet of sweat slide down his side.
It was worse than he’d imagined. Because now if Shen Tai died on the road—if he’d already died—his death cost the empire those horses.
Two hundred and fifty was an absurd, a stupefying number. The man was coming back as a hero, with immediate access to the court. It was about as bad as it could get.
And someone needed to be killed, quickly.
The silence continued. No pipa music across the way. Liu was very still, waiting for him, clearly shaken himself. You might have thought it a good thing for him, for his family, but not if you knew these brothers—and something else that had been done.
Zhou said it aloud, with the thought. “Your sister is beyond the Long Wall, Liu. He can’t do anything about her.”
Liu’s eyes wouldn’t meet his gaze. This was rare, told him he’d hit upon the concern—or one of them—in his adviser’s mind. “You are,” he added tartly, “the eldest son, aren’t you? Head of the family. This was within your rights, and I approved it and proposed it at court. It brings you honour, all of you.”
It had also put Liu even more in his debt.
His adviser nodded, though with something less than his customary crispness.
“What else do I need to know?” the prime minister asked. Relations within the Shen family were not his most compelling problem. He needed to dismiss his adviser. He had someone else to summon tonight. “Who will know of this?”
Liu lifted his eyes. “Who will know? Everyone,” he said. “Tonight, or by mid-morning. It was a military dispatch, two copies, one to the Grand Secretariat, one to the Ministry of War, and nothing in the Ta-Ming stays secret.”