He paused. His eyes lingered on me, open and shrewd.
“Now,” he went on, his gaze finally breaking from mine. “Let us remember the words of the sage and poet Sighing-Willow:
“The victory road is paved in tears,
“The golden bridge is unforgiving,
“Your blood marks the path to journey’s end,
My friend, raise a cup of wine and rest!”
We cheered, and drank, and gorged ourselves. When the servants had cleared our dishes away Voice Golden-Finch and Hand Usher bid us good night. They were followed shortly by the four magistrates of Eastern Fortress, and soon the party had diminished to only we fifteen candidates and our tutors. Koro Ha approached me and touched me lightly on the shoulder.
“We should retire for the night, young Master Wen,” he said. “You must present yourself with decorum when you receive your commission--”
“I’m not tired,” I said.
“You are,” Koro Ha assured me. “But the wine--”
His voice became a droning hum that dissolved into the buzz of conversation and music around me. I frowned down at the wine cup in my hand. I stood upon a golden path. I was close--so intoxicatingly close--to a future as Hand of the Emperor, schooled in magic, with the power to reshape the world to my will.
I at least had the good sense to stand and lead Koro Ha to the corner of the room before speaking again.
“We are at least of the same rank, now,” I said. “I am not a child to be told when he should sleep and eat and drink.”
“That is true,” Koro Ha said, straining to speak calmly. “But I think now is a time for temperance.”
I was not too drunk to feel shame, but what shame I felt quickly blazed to anger. The room spun around Koro Ha, as though he were the fulcrum of a great wheel.
“I don’t agree,” I said. “Tomorrow, I might become Hand of the Emperor. Why should I care a whit for the wisdom of a mere tutor?”
A few of the other candidates nearby quieted their voices and watched our confrontation. I slumped back to my seat at the table and uncorked another bottle of pear wine. Koro Ha watched me for a moment, then left without another word.
* * *
“Alder, you must come with us!”
Clear-River’s grin widened. He slapped me on the back. I tottered a few paces and waved an arm to keep my balance.
The main gate seemed to lurch back and forth above my head. Though the feast was over, Hu Yellow-Stone--a rotund and bombastic youth who had led a chorus of bawdy folk ballads--had invited Clear-River and I to continue our revels out in the city.
“I should go back to Mister Yat’s,” I stammered.
Yellow-Stone rolled his eyes. Clear-River clasped me by the shoulders and shook his head.
“Alder, Alder, Alder,” Clear-River said. “We will only be this young and handsome once.”
“My cousin says the singing girls in Eastern Fortress are the most beautiful in all Nayen,” Yellow-Stone said, and patted the purse at his belt. We had all been given thirty copper cash--a month of wages for a common laborer--at the end of the banquet. I had bundled mine into my left sleeve where I could hold onto it and keep it from jangling. Even drunk, I had that much sense.
They offered a temptation that my young, wine-addled mind struggled to resist. The opera singer at the banquet had stirred me with her beauty and her voice, and now Clear-River and Yellow-Stone filled my head with visions of the inner chamber, of lifted veils and robes pooling on the floor. My good sense at last collapsed beneath the weight of adolescent urges.
One of the gate guards--a noble soul, if I have ever known one--tried to convince us to wait for our palanquins. Yellow-Stone laughed and made a rude gesture, then draped one arm over Clear-River’s shoulders and the other over mine and led us out into the street.
Oil lamps threw flickering light across the cobblestones. Young men wandered in packs, meandering from drinking house to drinking house. I recognized many from the opening ceremony the day before. They joked and shouted and boasted as they indulged for a single night, nursing the wounds left by shattered dreams. It was an atmosphere both manic and dour, incensed by alcohol fumes and oily smoke.
“This way,” Yellow-Stone said, pulling Clear-River and I along. “The Butterfly House has the prettiest girls in all of Nayen!”
He led us around a bend in the road, then down a side-street. The lamps here were spaced further apart and burned dimly.
“Aren’t there any good places closer to the governor’s mansion?” Clear-River said.
“The Butterfly House is well hidden,” Yellow-Stone insisted. “It adds to the allure! Just a bit further!” He peered into an alleyway. There were no lamps, only deep shadows and piled refuse. “Or…maybe we should have gone left back there?”
“Let’s go back,” Clear-River said. He tried to pull Yellow-Stone away from the alleyway. Instead, Yellow-Stone slumped forward, like a man dead on his feet. Clear-River grunted as Yellow-Stone’s weight settled on our shoulders.
“All that wine in his belly finally rushed to his head,” Clear-River muttered. “Shit! I wasn’t paying attention. Where in the bloody city are we?”
I looked for any street sign or landmark that might help to orient me. Instead, I saw three figures crossing the street toward us. One of them passed through the halo of a lonely lamp. Something glinted in his hand.
I tried to shout, but panic had closed my throat. I pawed at Clear-River until he turned around. The figure with the knife approached us, while his companions circled to our right and left, pinning us in the mouth of the alley.
“We couldn’t help but hear that cash on your belt,” said the man with the knife, menacing Clear-River. “Hand it over, and those fine silk robes, and maybe we’ll be generous with your lives.”
The thought of facing Koro Ha after I returned naked and penniless, after all my bluster at the banquet, fanned my fear into outrage. The fingers of my left hand tightened around the mouth of my purse, compressing the copper cash inside into a heavy mass.
“Quickly now! Strip and drop your money!”
I dropped Yellow-Stone and darted forward. Three steps of the Iron Dance closed the distance between me and the man with the knife. His blade flashed out; my purse split his cheek like a cudgel. He collapsed, his nose spurting blood, as cash fountained from my torn purse.
A hand caught my right arm and wrenched it upward. I howled and pulled against my assailant, to no avail. Desperate, drunk, and hardly thinking, I reached for the only weapon I had.
A feverish heat coursed through me, burning away my drunkenness with the clarity born of magic. I conjured flame--a burst of heat and light and the stink of seared flesh filled the air. The robber shrieked and let me go. I spun toward them in time to see two figures sprinting away, one trailing tongues of fire.
Clear-River stared at me, astonished. Or horrified.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said, my voice quavering. Clear-River nodded, but his eyes lingered, full of questions. I avoided his gaze, unable to answer them.
We hauled Yellow-Stone to his feet. Somehow, he had slept through the entire robbery. A few sharp slaps to the side of his face woke him quickly enough.
“Bffwa!” he sputtered. “Ah! Where am I? Oh, yes. The singing girls! Not much further--”
“Hang you and your singing girls,” Clear-River snapped. “We’re dragging you home, you drunk.”
With Yellow-Stone's arms draped over our shoulders, we set off as quickly as we could. Every step left my stomach churning. From drink, lingering terror, and the knowledge that with a word to Hand Usher--or any one of our proctors; or anyone, really--Clear-River could divert the bright path laid before me into a prison cell, if not into the blade of an executioner's sword.
* * *
Yellow-Stone was not lucid enough to give us directions to wherever he was staying. We deposited him in the cramped room that Clear-River and his tutor shared. Clear-River offered to walk me back to Miste
r Yat’s, and I accepted. As we left the inn, I grabbed his hand and pulled him close.
“I saved your life tonight,” I said firmly. “If I hadn't been there, you and Yellow-Stone would be bleeding out in the street, or kidnapped for ransom your village could never pay. After I hit the first man the other two ran. Nothing else happened. Do you understand?”
He shook his head, feigning confusion. “Alder, you’re forgetting. One of them knocked over a hanging lantern in his panic.”
I stared at him, as though a careful examination of his face might tell me whether he truly meant to keep my secret.
“That’s how his clothes caught fire,” Clear-River went on. “Don’t you remember?”
I let go of him. “Of course.” I managed a weak grin. “Clumsy fool.”
“Lucky for Yellow-Stone and me, you were there,” Clear-River said, and my chest tightened. “How clever, to use your purse as a cudgel! They were true cowards if a half-drunk boy swinging a bag of coins was enough to scare them off.”
“Yes, cowards indeed,” I said. “Well, my tutor will be up fretting. I can find my own way home. Farewell, Clear-River. I hope your name is high on the list tomorrow.”
He dipped his head in a half-bow. “I am sure that yours will be, Alder.”
At the end of the street I glanced back. Clear-River stood in the doorway, watching me, and I felt my secret like a taut string between us.
Koro Ha had been right, of course. What a foolish thing I had done, getting drunk and venturing out into an unfamiliar city in the dead of night. He would be waiting up for me, and when he saw my dirty clothes and my missing purse he would know exactly what had happened. I expected a lecture that would last till dawn.
One of Mister Yat’s stewards met me at the gatehouse. He ushered me inside with an expression of pure relief.
“I feared something terrible had happened to you, Master Wen!” he said. “I was just about to wake your tutor.”
“Koro Ha is asleep?” I said.
“He said he was tired after a long week,” the steward said. “He asked to be roused two hours after dawn and suggested the same for you.” He glanced at the window, where the faint light of sunrise already filtered through the screen.
“That will be fine,” I said.
I did not sleep, but lay awake, listening to the house, letting my mind drift in the stillness and the quiet. Koro Ha had gone to sleep. Was that a show of trust, despite his insistence that I leave the banquet with him? Or had his interest in my safety waned, now that my education was at an end and, by extension, our relationship as teacher and student?
The steward returned to rouse me. I went to breakfast, where Koro Ha raised an eyebrow as I took my seat. Servants brought trays of steamed pork buns and fresh cut fruit. My head ached, and my stomach roiled. I asked for congee and soy milk.
“How was your night?” Koro Ha asked.
I took a bite of congee. It was bland, but inoffensive, and settled my stomach. Words bubbled up, tried to organize themselves and spill from my mouth, to tell him all that had transpired the night before. If there was a sympathetic ear in the world, it would be his. Or, at least, his ear would have been sympathetic, if I had not so coldly dismissed his advice, and in my drunkenness jeopardized all we had worked together to achieve.
“Koro Ha...” I said, and looked up from my congee.
He peered at me over the rim of his teacup. “Yes?”
I could apologize, but would that be enough to mend the rift between us? I feared the inevitable reprimand, the further deepening of that rift if he reacted with a harsh word and I lashed out in turn. Whatever I had meant to say, it splashed and faded against my teeth.
“I never want to drink that much again,” I muttered instead.
Koro Ha sipped his tea. “I suppose some lessons cannot be learned from tutors or from books,” he said, and left it at that.
Chapter Six
Results
After a dozen cups of tea as dark and thick as ink, Koro Ha and I dressed in scholar’s robes; black silk of regal cut, deep-necked over a shirt of white linen. Over his robes, Koro Ha wore the stole of his rank. It was stitched with his tetragram; four symbols arranged in a square. The first was a man kneeling over a writing desk and meant “Scholar of the Second Degree.” Many with such a rank were officials in regional government, yet Koro Ha had chosen to become a tutor.
The other three symbols were not true logograms, but arrangements of the phonetic runes used to teach children how to read. Foreign names were often written in such symbols, though most scholars with such names chose to translate them into Sienese when creating their tetragrams. Koro Ha was a rare exception.
I had never asked him about either of these abnormalities. It had always seemed impolite to pry into his past, but now I found myself wishing that I had. Once I received my commission our relationship would change. If I, too, earned the Second Degree, we would be peers--brothers in scholarship. If I exceeded him and earned the First Degree, he would be obligated to answer no matter how impolite my questions.
Considering this, I was struck for the first time with how much my life was about to change. No longer would I be “Young Master Wen,” the son of a middling merchant. I would be a scholar, a successful examinee, someone deserving of dignity and respect. If Hand Usher chose me for his apprentice, I would become one of the most important men in the Empire.
I shook my head to banish that lofty, foolish thought. Much as I longed to become Hand of the Emperor, there must have been another candidate who had done better, who had not mussed an article in the first logogram of his pedigree. Who had not, just the night before, lit a man on fire.
Stewards met us at the gate and led us to the courtyard. We were seated just as we had been for the opening ceremony. Clear-River had arrived before me. I hesitated as the steward gestured to the open seat beside him.
The line of tension between us had not faded, though I would try to put on a good face.
“Good morning, Clear-River,” I said, taking my seat. “Did you sleep well?”
He looked up with a welcoming smile. “Alder! Good morning! I slept better than Yellow-Stone, at least. The poor fool woke up panicky as a startled fawn, screaming and demanding to know who I was and where I had taken him. When he finally calmed down he sprinted out of the inn and down the street. I hope he found his way home in time to dress for the ceremony.”
“It would serve him right,” I said.
“Oh, don’t be hard-hearted,” Clear-River said. “The foolishness of youth led us all out into the streets, and only the miraculous intervention of the sages brought us home safe.”
He smiled innocently, but his words drifted too close to the truth.
“That man stumbled into a lantern, remember?” I said.
Clear-River flicked the ends of his sleeves and harrumphed. “You’re no fun, you know?”
Before I could retort we were interrupted by a clash of cymbals and the thrum of a zither. The proctors filed out from the reception hall onto the marble dais. Chrysanthemum blossoms drifted down from baskets upended on the balcony above them. Leading the procession were Voice Golden-Finch and Hand Usher. Two tetragrams decorated their stoles. On the left they wore their personal seals--the first symbol showed a hand raised in salute to the logogram for “king,” enclosed within an open mouth in Voice Golden-Finch’s case. On the right, as on their bodies, they wore the Emperor’s never-changing name. Silver light streamed from the tetragram on the governor’s forehead, and I felt the weight of his sorcery. The Emperor himself, seeing through the eyes of his voice, would witness our commissioning.
Clear-River leaned close to me and whispered. “What did you think of the pollical cat, Alder?”
Slowly, I faced him, forcing my expression into befuddlement.
“You were not the only one to hear that story,” Clear-River went on. “There were three of us, but Hand Usher will only choose one. If it comes to you and me, I think you should thank Ha
nd Usher for the honor, but politely refuse.”
“Oh?” I whispered through my teeth. “How? No one in his right mind would refuse such an offer.”
“They will discover you eventually, you know, even if I say nothing,” he continued, as though I had not spoken. “They say the Emperor knows the thoughts of his Hands. Their thoughts, and all their secrets.”
He fixed me with a long, pointed stare, smiling all the while.
“If they catch you--and they will catch you--it will be bad for the entire province,” he said. “Do you think the Empire will ever hold examinations in Nayen again if the first of our kind to become Hand of the Emperor turns out to be a traitor?”
“I am not a traitor.”
“There were no hanging lanterns on that street. You betrayed the Empire the moment you began to learn witchcraft and chose not to turn in your teacher. On the other hand, perhaps you are betraying that teacher by choosing to serve the Empire. Either way, you are betraying someone.”
My anger flared. He was right, of course. If I accepted an imperial commission, I would be setting myself against my grandmother. She had abandoned me, true enough, but I had not chosen the Sienese path because I doubted her tales of Sienese brutality and oppression, nor because I believed--as imperial doctrine would hold--that Sienese conquest was an enriching and civilizing force in the world. Not even my own tutor believed as much, if Koro Ha's subtle questions that skirted the edges of treason were any evidence.
Choosing to serve the Sienese would be to discard all that my grandmother had risked her life to teach me, treating it as no more meaningful than dust. Yet service to the Empire was the only path laid before me. Certainly the only path that led toward magic. I steeled myself against the guilt and shame Clear-River meant to stir in my heart and fixed my gaze on the dais before us.
The Hand of the Sun King Page 7