He’d never had anything near the importance that would have caused him to experience this directly. Had never been someone who might expect a summons to court, in anticipation or apprehension.
That had changed. He wore the emperor’s ring. He hadn’t wanted to, hadn’t even wanted to keep it, thinking it more important for Rain to have. A secret access to funds for her in the event of …
Of what? And had he entirely lost his bearings in the world, to think she couldn’t find jewellery to sell if she needed to? In that compound? Concubine to the first minister? How else, he thought ruefully, had she managed to hire a Kanlin Warrior in the first place?
He’d asked Wei Song about that. Predictably, she’d given him a scornful glance. As if, as if a Kanlin would answer such a question.
She wasn’t the one who’d made him wear the ring, though she’d brought it back to him in the street the night they climbed the wall, two weeks ago. He hadn’t seen Rain since then. Hadn’t seen many people at all. And the summons to the palace had not come.
His Kanlins had told him he could not go to the North District. Too dangerous, they’d said, the lanes and alleys after dark. He knew those alleys extremely well.
“No one can attack me now!” Tai had snapped angrily. “The horses are my protection, remember?”
“Only from a known assassin,” the Kanlin leader had replied calmly. His name was Lu Chen. “Not if it is unknown who attacks you, if they escape.”
“How do you plan to stop me from going?” Tai had demanded.
Song had been present that evening, behind her leader, head lowered, hair neatly pinned, hands in the sleeves of her robe. He’d suddenly remembered the first time he’d seen her, coming across the courtyard at Iron Gate Fortress, just risen from sleep, her hair unbound. It wasn’t so long ago, he thought. He knew her well enough by now to read her posture. For a Kanlin, she didn’t hide her feelings well. She was angry. He could see it.
“We can’t stop you, Master Shen,” Lu Chen said quietly. “But our assigned task, from the Precious Consort and the Imperial Heir, is to guard you, and Xinan is an uncertain place. You understand that if harm comes to you, all of us forfeit our lives.”
Song looked up then. He could see fury in her eyes.
“That’s … that’s not fair,” Tai said.
Lu Chen blinked, as if this was an observation that had no immediately obvious meaning.
Tai didn’t go to the North District. He didn’t try to see his brother, either, though the thought crossed his mind several times a day that he might as well just go to Liu’s house and confront him.
He knew Liu spent many nights at the Ta-Ming in the Purple Myrtle Court of the mandarins, but it was easy enough to have a servant track his movements. He had servants now, and a steward who seemed effective, and alarmingly dedicated. He had a city mansion. He could ride out, or even be carried out in a sedan chair, and confront Liu.
Such a false-sounding word. Confront, to say what? That what Liu had done to their sister was a disgrace to their father’s name? He’d already said that at Ma-wai. Liu would simply disagree again, smoothly. And the bitter truth was that most men—and women—at higher levels of the court would agree with Adviser Liu, the first minister’s trusted counsellor, and not with his inexperienced younger brother.
How could it possibly be wrong to have a sister elevated to the imperial family? How could that not be a glorious thing for the Shen line? Did it not border upon an insult to the Phoenix Throne to even hint at less than rapture?
The offence, the nature of the wrong, was unique to their family: to their father, and how he’d seen the world. And perhaps, in truth, only to General Shen as he’d become later in life. After Kuala Nor.
On the other hand, Tai could accuse his brother of trying to have him killed. He could do that. The conversation there was even more predictable. And he wasn’t sure, in any case, about this. If he ever was certain, his proper task might be to kill his brother. He wasn’t ready to do that.
Late one night, struggling with a poem, he looked out the window at the stars and an almost-full moon shining, and realized it was likely he never would be ready to do that. Someone might call it a weakness.
Wen Zhou he avoided. Easy enough. One didn’t encounter the prime minister in the marketplace or riding outside the walls.
Sima Zian visited often, sharing wine and talk and not-quite-sober good humour. He urged patience or careless indifference in the waiting period, depending on his own mood.
Tai made sure the poet had chambers in his new mansion, ink and good paper, spiced wine kept warm, and whatever else he might want. Zian came and went. Spent some nights with Tai, others abroad.
He wasn’t forbidden the North District.
Tai rode Dynlal in Long Lake Park. The vast green space in the southwest of the city was open to all, and much loved. He took the track around the lake, under plum blossom trees.
There were memories here, as if in ambush. Gatherings with friends three years ago, less than that. Rain and other girls—allowed out from the Pavilion of Moonlight three days each month, and at festivals. Tai even had images of Xin Lun from that time when they were all students together, dreaming of what might be. Lun, who was playful and brilliant, in the general view likeliest of them all to pass the examinations with honours, rise to rank and distinction in the Purple Myrtle Court.
The general view hadn’t been especially reliable, Tai found himself thinking as he rode.
Wei Song was with him on those rides, with four of the other Kanlins. All of them poised, alert, even before word of Roshan’s rising came, and panic began.
Heads would turn to watch as they rode past. Who was this unsmiling man on a magnificent Sardian horse, guarded by the black-robed ones?
Who, indeed?
HE HAD NEVER BEEN inside the palace. Never nearer than standing in crowds at festivals to receive the emperor’s elevated blessing. Xin Lun made the same joke every time: how did they know it was Glorious Emperor Taizu up there, so far away, in white and gold?
Three hundred thousand bodies could be in the square at festivals, a crushing, dangerous press in the vast space before the Ta-Ming’s inner wall. People did die: trampled, a lack of air, sometimes knifed in a quarrel, then kept upright by the dense mass of people even after they were dead, while the murderer squeezed himself away. Nimble-fingered thieves could retire on what they stole at such times. Lun had said that, too, often.
There was no crowd this morning as Tai rode up with his Kanlins. The Gold Bird Guards were present in numbers, keeping traffic moving briskly through the square and along the streets. No one was being permitted to linger and look up at the palace. Not with a rebellion under way. Order and flow were the mandate, Tai realized, or at the very least a simulation of such things, the illusion of calm. Appearances mattered.
His own appearance was formal. His steward had been unyielding. The man showed indications of being a tyrant. Tai wore blue liao silk, two layers, two shades, a wide black belt, black shoes, a soft felt hat, also black. The pins holding it, placed carefully by the steward himself, were gold, with ivory elephants for decoration. Tai had no notion how he’d come to own gold hatpins with elephants.
He wore the emperor’s ring.
The emerald was noted, he saw, by all those in the chamber into which he was finally ushered. He had proceeded, under escort, through five enormous courtyards and then, after dismounting and leaving Dynlal with his Kanlins (who were not allowed any farther), up a prodigiously wide flight of fifty stairs, through two large chambers into this one, the ceiling supported by massive pillars of pink-and-yellow marble.
Twelve men were seated cross-legged on couch platforms, advisers standing behind them, servants in the distant corners of the room.
At the head of the gathering was Wen Zhou.
Tai made a point of meeting his gaze, and so tracked the prime minister’s glance as he approached. Approaching took time, the room was ridiculously oversiz
ed. He had to cross an arched marble bridge over a pool. There were pearls embedded in the railings of the bridge.
Because he was watching, refusing to look away, he saw when the first minister’s expression shifted from frigid to uneasy—in the moment Wen Zhou’s gaze registered the emerald ring.
Sima Zian had predicted this would happen.
It was very simple, he’d said the night before, drinking the season’s first lychee-flavoured wine. Tai had not yet been formally received. Newcomers to the court were not seen by the emperor without precise observance of protocol and priority. No one knew of the emperor’s visit through the walls at Ma-wai two weeks ago.
The ring was a signature, it was known to be Taizu’s. And tomorrow a new arrival, a man who hadn’t even taken the examinations, let alone passed them, who had no military rank that mattered, no claim by birth to favour, was going to walk into the Ta-Ming wearing the emperor’s ring.
The poet had expressed a wish that he could be there to see it.
Tai looked away from the first minister, beyond him to his brother behind Wen Zhou. For the first time in his life—and it was unsettling—he saw extreme anxiety in Liu’s face, staring back at him.
Tai stopped with his palace escort beside the platform couch opposite the first minister’s, the one evidently left for him. He bowed, turning slightly each time, to include all those here.
He saw the heir, Shinzu, halfway along one side. The prince had a cup of wine, the only one there who did. He smiled at Tai. If he noticed the ring, if it surprised him, there was no sign of it.
Tai had briefly wondered if Jian would be here, but it had been an idle thought. Women did what they did behind such scenes as this—not among a council tasked with running an empire facing an armed rebellion.
He’d known, not being a complete innocent, that the emperor would not be present. Once, he might have been. Not any more. Kitai’s glorious emperor would receive a report—or more than one—in due course. Although …
Tai looked around, trying to do so casually. There were tall room screens behind Zhou, between him and the doors at the back. If someone wanted to listen and observe, unseen, it would not be difficult. The servants would see him, or her, but servants didn’t matter.
“Be seated, Second Son of Shen Gao.” Zhou’s voice was almost casual. “We have been discussing the movements of the Sixth Army. This does not concern you. Your presence has been solicited on a small matter, by the imperial heir.”
Tai nodded, and bowed again to the prince. He gathered his robes and sat down opposite the first minister. There was something almost too direct about that. Shinzu was between them, on Tai’s right side.
Wen Zhou went on, “We saw no reason—as ever—not to accede to the illustrious prince’s wish to summon you.”
We, Tai thought. He wasn’t sure what that meant.
He inclined his head again. “I am anxious to be of any possible assistance, among such august company.”
“Well,” said Zhou airily, “I believe I have a sense of what his excellency has been thinking. In truth, the matter is already in hand.”
“Indeed? How so, first minister?”
It was Shinzu. And though he still held his wine cup at a lazy, indifferent angle, his voice wasn’t lazy at all. Instinctively, Tai glanced at his brother again: Liu’s expression was transparently unhappy.
Suddenly uneasy himself, Tai looked back at the prime minister. Zhou said, with an easy gesture, “It is the western horses, of course, my lord prince. How else could this fellow be of significance? Accordingly, I dispatched twenty men yesterday to fetch them from the Tagurans. I trust your lordship is pleased.” He smiled.
Tai stood up.
It was almost certainly barbaric, he thought, to do so at such a gathering. It might even be an offence. There were precise rules for how one spoke to power in the Ta-Ming, especially if one had no proper standing. He didn’t care.
What was astonishing was how calm he’d suddenly become. It was when you cared, he thought, that you felt at risk. He said, without any salutation, “Did you ask your adviser, my brother, before you did that? Did Liu really let you do something so foolish?”
There was a shocked silence. Wen Zhou stiffened.
“Have a care, Master Shen! You are in this room only—”
“He is in this chamber at my invitation, first minister. As you noted. What were you about to say, Master Shen, while wearing my revered father’s ring as a sign of very great honour?”
So he had noticed. The prince put down his wine.
Tai couldn’t help himself: he looked again at the room screens behind Zhou. It was impossible to tell if anyone might be behind them.
He bowed again, before answering. “I only asked a question, august lord. Perhaps my brother might be allowed to answer, if the first minister remains disinclined?”
“My advisers do not speak for me!” Wen Zhou snapped.
Shinzu nodded briskly. “A sound policy. It would undermine confidence in the first minister even further if they did. So tell us, was this done after consultation with your advisers?”
Even further. No possible way to miss that.
“The proceedings of the first ministry are hardly a matter for this council. Decisions are taken in widely varied ways. Anyone with experience of governance knows that.”
A return arrow shot at a dissolute prince.
“Perhaps,” said Shinzu. “But I must tell you, I would dismiss any adviser who had urged me to send those men.”
“Ah! The prince wishes now to discuss the staff of the first ministry?”
“Too boring in every possible way.” Shinzu smiled thinly.
Wen Zhou did not smile back. “My lord prince, this man has not yet been received by the emperor. He is placed in the list for attendance. Until he appears before the Phoenix Throne he cannot leave the city. The horses matter, as you have said yourself. Therefore I sent for them. What, my lord, do you wish to tell me is improper about that?”
It sounded impeccably reasonable. It wasn’t. Tai opened his mouth, but the prince was before him.
“I wish to tell you that those men were stopped on the imperial road last night, at the first posting station.”
This time Zhou stood up.
Protocol was taking a fearful beating here, Tai thought. His heart was racing.
“No one would dare such a thing!” Wen Zhou snapped.
“A few of us might have thought it necessary, but only one would dare. You are almost correct, first minister. Your riders were halted by soldiers of the Second Military District, who happened to still be at Ma-wai after escorting Master Shen Tai from the west.”
“What is this? How can we defend ourselves against Roshan if we—?”
“If we ignore very clear information as to the conditions under which those horses will be released! Master Shen is required by the Tagurans to collect them himself. They are his!”
Zhou shook his head. He was taut with fury. “The Sardian horses are a gift to Kitai from the exalted emperor’s own beloved daughter. The Tagurans would not embarrass themselves by denying a gift merely because a small aspect of the transfer—”
“Please!” said Tai. Zhou stopped. They all looked at him. “My lord first minister, allow your adviser to speak. For himself, not for you. Brother, did you urge this course upon him?”
Liu cleared his throat as all eyes turned to him. He was an accomplished speaker, with a real skill at pitching volume and tone to circumstances. He had worked at this all his life, from before he could grow a beard.
He was visibly uneasy now. He looked from Wen Zhou to the prince. He said, “His gracious lordship, the prince, was surely correct when he suggested we require those horses more than ever, with the need to communicate over great distances.”
“Which is why I invited your brother to join us,” said Shinzu. “The horses are an honour given to one man. If twenty soldiers simply ride up to the border and demand them we’ll be insulting T
agur by ignoring their conditions. We’d shame ourselves with our actions!”
“Who stopped my men?” Wen Zhou said, ignoring what the prince had said. There was a hard edge to his voice. A wolf cornered, Tai thought—or thinking he might be.
Tai knew by now. Zhou had to know, as well.
“Your cousin gave the orders,” said Shinzu quietly. “The Lady Wen Jian told me I might say as much, if asked.”
It would have had to be her, Tai thought. And it meant so much, that she would do this, that she was watching her cousin so closely. The empire was facing open rebellion and the two men she’d favoured, had tried to keep in balance, were at the centre of that. One in this room, one with his armies moving even now.
The prince paused, then added, even more softly, “Also, I was to tell you that she has now spoken with that man of yours, the one stopped some weeks ago, riding south.”
The one who had killed Xin Lun.
“A conversation I should enjoy learning about,” said Zhou, with genuinely impressive calm. “But this is a far more important matter!”
“My lord first minister,” Tai said, and he said it formally this time. “The august prince is surely right. We risk losing two hundred and fifty Sardian horses. The terms of a supremely generous gift, one far beyond my deserving, were conveyed. I wrote myself, so did the Tagurans, so did the commander of Iron Gate Fortress.”
“How vulgar and vainglorious to see yourself as so important, second son of Shen Gao. And do note: supremely generous gifts are in the giving of the emperor of Kitai, not tributary, subordinate nations who beg imperial daughters from us as a sign of heavenly favour.”
Tai knew what he had to do next. It was not in his nature, and he was realizing that more and more with each passing moment. This was not where he wanted to be, not now, and perhaps not ever. But he could dance a little here.
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