“But you listen. You watch. What did you hear in that room?”
Zian’s eyes were bright. The afternoon light streamed in. The room was large, gracious, inviting. A place to be easy, to seek tranquility. That was what Ma-wai had always been about. The poet said, “I think First Minister Wen was given a warning. I do not think it will cost him his position.”
“Even if he was plotting murder?”
Sima Zian shook his head. “No. Not even if he had achieved your killing. What, they will say, is the meaning of so much power if you can’t use it to rid yourself of someone you dislike?”
Tai looked at him, said nothing.
Zian went on, “They’d have cheerfully allowed him to have you killed—before the horses. It would have been a matter of no consequence. Whether he did it because of a woman, or to prevent you from threatening his adviser, your brother. No one here would have blinked if you’d died at Kuala Nor or on the road. The horses have changed that. But I think today was about Roshan. Your presence was that warning to Zhou. He’s at risk. They were telling him that.” He poured another cup. He smiled again. “I very much liked ‘cold stars shine on white bones.’”
“Thank you,” said Tai.
There were two pre-eminent writers among thousands in Ninth Dynasty Kitai. This man was one of them. You could go happily to your ancestors carrying praise from Sima Zian for lines you’d written.
Tai said, “You just gave me guidance, after all.”
“Treat it with caution,” said the poet. “I claim no wisdom.”
“Those who claim are those who lack,” said Tai. It was a quote, the poet would know it.
Zian hesitated. “Shen Tai, I am not a humble man. I am only being honest. I keep returning to this jade-and-gold, it draws me. Sandalwood and ivory, the murmur and scent of women. But to visit, to taste. It is no home. I need to be here, and when I come, I need to be gone. A man must see it as his home to understand the court.”
Tai opened his mouth to reply, but realized he didn’t know what he wanted to say.
Zian said, “There is more beauty in the Ta-Ming, or here at Ma-wai, than anywhere else where men have built palaces and gardens. It may be that there is more beauty here, right now, than there has ever been. Who would deny the wonder and glory of that? Or resist seeing it?”
“Or fear that it might end?” Tai asked.
“That is … one fear, yes. Sometimes I am happy I am no longer young.” Zian put his cup down. “I am awaited, friend. There are two women who promised me flute music and saffron wine when the sun went down.”
Tai smiled. “No man should keep another from that.”
“Truly. Will you come?”
Tai shook his head. “I need to think. I imagine there will be a banquet tonight? I have no idea how to conduct myself.”
“Because of Wen Zhou?”
“Yes. No. Because of my brother.”
The poet looked at him. “He should not have done what he did.”
Tai shrugged. “He is head of our family. He will say Li-Mei brings us honour, stature in the world.”
The poet looked at him. “He is correct in that.” His eyes were bright again, a trick of the light. “Still, I could understand if you killed him for it. But I am not a clever man in these ways.”
Tai said, “I’m not certain I am, either.”
Zian smiled, a wintry look. You were made to remember that he’d been a warrior in his time. “Perhaps. But you must be clever now, Tai. For a little while, or for longer than that. You have importance now.”
“The world can bring us gifts, or poison in a jewelled cup,” Tai quoted.
The poet’s expression changed. “I don’t know that. Who wrote it?”
“My brother,” said Tai quietly.
“Ah,” said Sima Zian. “I see.”
Tai was thinking of summer thunderstorms watched from a shared-bedroom window.
He was walking towards the door to open it for the poet when the knocking came. It didn’t come from the hallway outside.
Both men froze where they were. A moment later the tapping came again. Tai turned to look at the wall beyond the handsome bed.
As he watched, a door-shaped panel swung away into shadow, and then a second panel did. Double doors, hidden in the wall. No one appeared. From where Tai stood he couldn’t see within the recess. A corridor? An adjacent room?
The two men looked at each other. “This is not a time for me to be here,” said Zian quietly. The poet’s expression was grave. Close to Tai’s ear, he murmured, “Be clever, friend. Be slow to act. This will not play out in a day and night.”
He opened the door to the hallway himself. Tai’s escorts were still there, one against the windows, the other across from her. The corridor was now lit by lanterns all the way down, in anticipation of sunset.
They smiled at the two men. Zian went out. Tai closed the door behind him, turned back into the room.
Six soldiers came in quickly, almost running.
They took positions, paired, by the two windows and the door, moving past Tai, ignoring him, their expressions impassive. They had swords and helmets and leather armour. The four at the windows looked out, carefully, but did not close them. The light coming in was beautiful, this time of day.
One of the soldiers knelt and looked under the bed. He stood up and nodded towards the recessed passage.
Wen Jian entered the room.
She didn’t look at Tai, either. She walked across to the window opposite, then turned back to face the double doors, her expression sober. She was still wearing the green silk with pale-yellow phoenixes decorating it.
Tai’s heart was pounding. He was afraid now.
Through the doors in the wall came six more soldiers carrying a curtained palace chair on poles. The curtains hid the figure they were carrying. You knew, however. You knew who this was.
The chair was set down in the middle of the room.
Tai dropped to his knees, forehead to the floor, hands stretched before him. He didn’t look up. He closed his eyes for a moment, trying not to tremble. He remained that way, prostrate.
That was what you did when the Serene and Exalted Emperor of Kitai, ruling in glory through the mandate of heaven, entered a room. Any room, let alone your own bedchamber, having come to you in secrecy through a passage in the walls.
“You have permission to stand, son of Shen Gao.” It was Jian who spoke.
Tai scrambled to his feet. He bowed, three times, towards the curtained chair. And then twice to the woman by the window. She inclined her head but did not smile. The soldiers who’d carried in the chair took positions along the walls, heads high, eyes staring directly ahead.
The curtains enclosing the chair were red, decorated with yellow suns. There were nine on this side, Tai saw, and there would be nine on the opposite, for the legend. Too much brightness for mortal men. That was the meaning here.
He had seen the Emperor Taizu three times in his life, from a distance.
The emperor had stood on a high balcony of the Ta-Ming overlooking a throng in the square before the palace on three festival days. The imperial party had been so far away and so far above that one of the students had said they might easily have been people hired to pose in imperial colours, under banners, while the real court were hunting or at ease in the Deer Park beyond.
“The august shepherd of our people wishes you to answer a question,” Jian murmured.
Tai bowed to the curtains again. He was sweating. “Your servant is honoured beyond deserving,” he stammered.
From behind the red curtain a voice came, stronger than Tai had expected. “Did you truly hear the voices of the dead at Kuala Nor?”
Tai dropped to his knees again, forehead to floor.
“You have permission to stand,” said Jian a second time.
Tai stood. He had no idea what to do with his hands. He clasped them in front of his waist, then let them fall to his sides. His palms were damp.
“Your servant did, gracious and exalted lord,” he said.
“Did they speak to you?” There was vivid interest in the voice. You couldn’t miss hearing it.
Tai refrained, with an effort, from kneeling again. He was still trembling, trying to control that. He said, “Gracious lord, they did not. Your servant only heard them crying in the night, from the time the sun went down until it rose again.”
“Crying. In anger, or in sorrow, son of Shen Gao?”
Tai looked at the floor. “Both, exalted lord. When … when … when bones were laid to rest, that ghost would cease to cry.”
There was a silence. He glanced at Jian out of the corner of his eye. She stood by a window, late sunlight in her hair.
“We are well pleased,” said the emperor of Kitai. “You have done us honour, and your father. It is noted.”
Tai knelt again. “Great lord, your servant is not worthy of such words.”
There came a chuckle from behind the curtain. “Do you mean that I am wrong in what I have said?”
Tai pressed his forehead to the floor, speechless. He heard Jian’s laughter. She murmured, “Dearest love, that is unkind. You terrify the man.”
Dearest love.
The Emperor Taizu, unseen, but also laughing, said, “A man who lived two years among the dead? I hope it is not so.”
Tai didn’t move, didn’t speak.
“You have permission to stand,” Wen Jian said again, and this time there was exasperation in her voice.
Tai stood.
He heard a rustling of the curtain—but it was on the other side, away from him. A moment passed, then the rustling again.
The emperor said, “We will formally receive you when such matters have been arranged. We wished to express our approval, privately. We always have need of brave men in the Ta-Ming Palace. It is good that you are here.”
“Your servant thanks you, great lord,” Tai murmured. He was perspiring now.
The emperor, in a quieter voice, said, “Honour falls into three parts, son of Shen Gao. One part restraint. One part right-thinking. One part honouring ancestors. We will leave you.”
He didn’t care what the woman had told him three times now: Tai fell to his knees again and put his head to the floor. He heard the soldiers moving, a creak as the chair was lifted, then the floorboards as they carried it back through the hidden doors.
He was thinking of those last words, trying without success to remember if he’d ever heard or studied them. Then, wrongly, entirely wrongly, the thought came to him that the unseen man who’d spoken them had taken his young son’s young bride for his own concubine, was pursuing forbidden immortality with hidden alchemies, and was also building himself a tomb that dwarfed his father’s and all those of his line.
One’s own thoughts could be terrifying.
He heard the tread of the other soldiers, again almost running across the room. After a moment, he looked up.
Jian was by the double doors, alone, smiling at him.
“That was well enough done,” she said. “I will confess, for my own part, that I find restraint to be over-praised. Do you not agree, Shen Tai?”
It was too much. Too many different directions for a man to be pulled in one day. Tai simply stared at her. He had no idea what to say.
She could see it in his face, obviously. She laughed, not unkindly.
“You are excused from my banquet tonight,” she said.
He flushed. “I have offended you, illustrious lady?”
She shook her head. “Not so. There are gifts from the Phoenix Throne on the bed. These are the emperor’s, not mine. My gift is your freedom tonight. The little Kanlin, so fierce in your service, is waiting outside this room with nine other Warriors. You will need guards when you go to Xinan tonight.”
“I am going to Xinan?”
“And had best leave soon. Darkness will find you on the road.”
“I … what am I …?”
“My cousin,” said Jian, with a smile that could undo a man’s control over his limbs, “is here with me tonight, and with others tomorrow morning, in discussions about Roshan.”
“I see,” said Tai, although he didn’t.
“She has been told you are coming,” said Wen Jian.
Tai swallowed. Found that he could say nothing at all.
“This is my gift. Your Kanlin knows where your horse is stabled. And you have a steward now, for the city home the emperor has just presented you. You will need a steward.”
“A steward?” Tai repeated, stupidly.
“He was mine this morning. I have reconsidered a decision taken. He owes you his life. I expect he will serve you well.”
The smile deepened. There was no woman on earth, Tai thought, who looked the way this one did.
But there was another woman, in Xinan, with golden hair. Who had put her life at risk for him, who had warned him, more than once, of what might happen if he went away.
She had also told him, Tai remembered, that he was going to need to be much more subtle, if he had the smallest hope of surviving in the world of the court.
“They will send word when you are summoned,” said Wen Jian. “There will be an audience, and then, of course, you will need to go back west to bring your horses.”
“Of course, gracious lady,” said Tai.
“You have promised me ten of them,” she reminded him.
“I have,” he said. “For dancing?”
“For dancing,” she agreed. “One more gift.” She turned and laid something down on the bed and then went out through the doors in the wall. Someone closed them. The room was as it had been. It was still light outside.
On the bed lay a heavy key. Beside it was a ring, set with an emerald larger than any Tai had ever seen in his life.
There was a third object as well, he saw.
A lychee, not yet peeled.
He took the fruit, he took the key—it would be for the house in Xinan. He placed them in a pocket of his robe. He took the ring and put it on the ring finger of his left hand. He looked at it there for a moment, thinking of his father and mother. Then he took it off and placed it in his pocket, as well.
He drew a strained breath, let it out. For no good reason he removed his hat.
He crossed to the door and opened it.
“I am happy to see you,” he said to Wei Song. She stood there, straight, small, unsmiling, fierce as a grassland wolf.
She made a face. Said nothing. Did incline her head, mind you. Behind her were, as promised, other Kanlins, black-clad.
Beside Song, kneeling, was the steward from this morning at the inn. The man who’d been ordered by Jian to kill himself when they reached Ma-wai. I have reconsidered a decision.
“Please stand,” said Tai. The steward stood up. There were, embarrassingly, tears on his cheeks. Tai pretended not to see them. He took out the key. “I will assume you have been told which gateway, which house in Xinan, this will unlock?”
“I have, gracious lord,” said the steward. “It is in the fifty-seventh ward, the very best. A handsome property. It is even close to the mansion of the first minister!” He looked proud, saying this.
Tai blinked. He could almost hear Jian’s laughter.
He said, “I wish you to take horse or carriage, whichever is easier for you, and prepare this house for me tonight. There will be servants there?”
“Of course! This was a home belonging to the emperor, may he live a thousand years. They will be waiting for you, my lord. And they will be honoured and grateful, as … as I am, to serve you.”
Tai scowled. “Good,” he said. “I will see you in Xinan.”
The steward took the extended key, bowed, turned, went hurrying down the hallway. A man with a clear, shining purpose again, in a life he’d thought was over.
“His name is Ye Lao,” said Song. “You neglected to ask.”
He looked at her. The neat, calm figure in black. Her intense features. She had killed for Tai, had been wound
ed again this morning.
“Ye Lao. Thank you. Would you prefer him dead?”
She hadn’t expected that. She shook her head.
“No.” She hesitated. “This is a different world,” she said. She wasn’t as calm as she seemed, he realized.
He nodded. “It is. It will be.”
She looked up at him. He saw her smile, the wide mouth. “And you will have your thighs torn raw, my lord, if you try to ride to Xinan on a Sardian horse while wearing liao silk. Have you riding clothes?”
He looked to the window and then the wall. His two women were still there, looking fearful and proud.
“Have I riding clothes?” he asked.
They hurried (gracefully) past him into the room. He heard them opening a chest, heard rustling sounds, giggling.
He went in a moment later. He did, it seemed, have riding clothes, exactly fitted, and his own boots had been cleaned. He changed. Neither woman looked away, he noted.
He kept the ring and, for no very good reason, the lychee fruit. He went back out, joined Song and the other Kanlins assigned to him. They led him to the stables, to Dynlal and horses for all of them, and they rode out from Ma-wai near the end of the day, towards the city of dust and noise, of two million souls, where lights would be shining by the time they arrived, and would shine all through the night.
No one ever rests in Xinan, his brother Liu had just said, in a poem.
And Rain had been told he was coming.
CHAPTER XIX
There is a rosewood gazebo near the back wall of the compound. It is set among fruit trees and flower beds, a long way beyond the artificial lake and the island set within it, past the grassy space for entertaining guests, and the bamboo grove with its laid-out paths, and the open area where Wen Zhou’s guards practise swordsmanship and archery.
For Rain, the gazebo is a favourite place. She has many reasons. Rosewood is named not for its colour, but for its scent, which she loves. The wood itself is dark, with lines running through it as if trying to reach the surface, to break through. You can see that, imagine that, in daylight. Rosewood comes to Xinan from forests in the far south. It is imported overland and then along rivers and up the Great Canal, at a cost that does not bear thinking about.