by Joan He
“It was the sooths!”
“It was the Kendi’ans!”
“Our queen is right! Our king was murdered!”
“A trial! A trial! A trial!”
People knelt at her feet, praising her name. Ministers came up, offering her their guidance through the trial. Hesina’s jaw locked against a scream. She was queen of a populace united, and she’d never felt so powerless.
II
TRIAL
The king blinked at the mess sprawled upon his daughter’s bed. A pouch of millet, a wooden sword, the white jade hairpin he’d given her years ago…
What are you doing, Little Bird?
I’m running away.
Without me?
She started to pack. You wouldn’t come even if I asked. He watched her struggle to fit the sword into the satchel. You’d say your place is at the palace. But I have nothing here.
You have Lilian and Caiyan.
Sanjing’s mean when I play with them. I’d rather have no friends at all.
The king took the sword out of her grasp. Here, let me. He strapped it across her back. How about this—let’s play stone, silk, and sickle. If I win, you stay.
She frowned as she considered. You have to too. You have to promise that you’ll stay forever if I win.
He agreed to her conditions. So they played. It was a game of reflexes, which he’d had many, many years to perfect. When he saw her small hand start to form stone, he made sickle, because he wanted her to win. He wanted—as ill-advised as is twas—to make a promise he couldn’t keep.
SEVEN
WHEN THE INNER PALACE IS IN TURMOIL, SO IS THE COURT.
ONE OF THE ELEVEN ON POLYGAMY
THEY SPEND MORE TIME IN THEIR BEDS THAN ON THEIR THRONES. WHAT MAN WITH TWENTY CONCUBINES WOULDN’T DO THE SAME?
TWO OF THE ELEVEN ON POLYGAMY
Hesina couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept.
At first, it was because she saw the burned rider wherever she looked. His face was the clump of tea leaves at the bottom of her cup. His voice was the whine and creak of her mother’s carriage when it rolled out of the Eastern Gate, returning the dowager queen to the Ouyang Mountains the dawn after her daughter’s coronation.
Then, it was because she couldn’t sleep. A queen simply didn’t have enough hours in the day. If she wasn’t writing letters to Kendi’a, demanding an explanation and requesting negotiations, she was reading about the sooths, trying to understand just how much of a threat they’d be in a purely hypothetical war.
It was thankless research. Books contradicted each other or stated things she already knew: sooths were evil, not all sooths had magic, and sooths couldn’t lie about their visions without truncating their life spans. One tome, which Hesina discounted because it had more pictures than words, claimed that sooths added a year to their natural life spans for every true vision shared. Some had lived centuries by virtue of honesty.
Maybe this was why so many books on the sooths had been burned, thought Hesina dryly. Imagine the outrage if schoolchildren found a shortcut to immortality! But if being well read was, in fact, the only way to godhood, then Hesina must have been halfway there. To top off all her paperwork, her page had delivered a report on the court officials with connections to Kendi’a and hundreds of their archived memorials as handwriting samples. The stacks were huge, towering in spires on her desk. As Hesina went through them, more and more people gathered on the terraces outside the palace. Everyone was waiting for the trial to open. There was a murderer roaming the kingdom, and they wanted the person found.
Hesina did too. But she’d also found murder in her own people’s eyes, and she couldn’t help but unfold, refold, and unfold the Investigation Bureau’s memorandum, creasing it like her brow. Justice was a muscle, Xia Zhong had said, but was it strong enough to withstand the people’s rage? Was the Bureau strong enough?
Some nights, she took her questions to the throne hall. She would stride down the enamel walk of python inlay, ascend the altar-like dais of black lacquer, and sit, a reredos fitted with twelve zitan and soapstone panels rising at her back, an empty assembly ground framed with faux gateways and cinnabar pillars spreading before her. Impossibly small beneath an impossibly high caisson ceiling commissioned by the relic emperors, Hesina would ask for advice and expect no reply. Vassals needed sleep, and none of their voices came close to her father’s.
But her need for real answers grew as the trial drew closer, and the night before its start, Hesina changed her course, going to the Investigation Bureau instead. She was determined to see it for herself.
Two lines of imperial guards—more heavily armored, it appeared, than their dungeon counterparts—bowed as Hesina made for the stone doors at the end of the hall. Padlocked and chained, each door bore a mirrored carving of the mythical taotie face. Bronze charms and paper talismans hung from the beast’s protruding horns, meant to ward off the sooths.
Had they ever worked? Hesina reached for a talisman, and the guards tensed. They relaxed as she withdrew her hand, then tensed again as she placed it over the taotie’s stone snout.
The stone was cold. She wished for the power to see through it, into the room that processed every case in the imperial city.
“It doesn’t do well to forget, my queen.”
She turned to see Xia Zhong come down the hall. Light from the candelabra yellowed his skin.
“Do you remember?” He joined her side, rubbing his fingers over his beads. “Nobles used to enter and leave the Bureau as they pleased. They’d hire sooths to see the evidence and suspects in advance, and orators to manipulate both to their desired outcome in court.”
“I remember.” It was the reason why the Bureau had the level of security it did now, and why no one but the Bureau members were privy to the evidence or the suspects prior to a trial. Plaintiffs, defendants, and their representatives would learn all the information there was to learn in the court.
“Then why are you here?” asked Xia Zhong. “Do you doubt the system?”
“No!” Hesina blurted out. “No,” she repeated, quieter. “I just…I just wanted to see how it worked. To understand.” She glanced at the minister, hoping that he might provide guidance or comfort, be the ally he had been in her mother’s chambers. “There is so much I don’t understand.”
“There is only one thing you need to understand.” Xia Zhong reached into the cross folds of his hanfu and withdrew a handful of dry tea leaves. He popped them into his mouth and began to chew. “Nothing is ideal. There is better; there is worse. There is less; there is more. Was it better before, when the people believed that the king had died a natural death? Is it worse now, when you have the very trial and representative you asked for? You be the judge, my queen.”
“What do you think?” Hesina didn’t know what was better and what was worse. The clarity of her goals dimmed as they came within reach.
“A minister dares not decide for his ruler.”
“But a minister is supposed to guide and remonstrate.”
Xia Zhong turned away from the door. “If you ask me, the only thing you have less of now than you did before is faith.”
“Enough is enough,” declared Lilian, slamming a tray of salted duck eggs and braised water chestnuts onto Hesina’s desk the next morning. “You need food, sleep, and a change of clothes. Talk some sense into our queen,” she ordered Caiyan.
“The life of a queen is busy by nature—”
Lilian pinched his ear. “Sense, I said!”
“—which means you can’t manage everything by yourself.” Wincing, Caiyan tugged his ear free, before eyeing the handwriting samples stacked before Hesina’s nose. “The trial must go on, milady. The decree has been shared, the proverbial die cast. The people are waiting. Your representative is too.”
“He didn’t run?” Hesina was disappointed. She would have run, if given the chance. Away from this palace, where faith was something she could possess one day and lose the next.
“No, milady.” Caiyan offered his hand. She took it after a second, and he helped her out of her seat. “He’s dressed and ready.”
“Like you should be.” Lilian thrust out a silk-wrapped bundle. Hesina undid the ties.
A dove-gray ruqun spilled out. Crimson embroidery trellised up the length of each billowing sleeve and plumed into phoenix tails at the shoulder. The silk was luxuriously heavy, but also cold in Hesina’s hand. Its folds slithered through her fingers like eels.
She clenched it.
Caiyan and Lilian were right. She couldn’t stall forever. She would have faith, even if she had to borrow it from the two of them.
Like the throne room, the court was a vestige from the relic era, its strange design imported from some far, western land across the Jieting Sea. The imperial architects called it a double dome, but Hesina and her father had known better. Between cases, they’d sometimes catch each other’s eye and smile, because really, the court was an egg. It had a pointy top and rounded bottom. When ministers pounded their staffs and debated the fate of the realm, it was all happening inside an egg.
But today, if the court were truly an egg, it’d be cracking. Nobles crammed the balustrades ringing the upper half. Commoners in the bottom half merged into a patchwork of grays, browns, and beiges.
A suspended aisle arced between the two halves, starting at the double doors, folding into a short set of stairs, and ending at a dais flanked by witness boxes. Hesina and Lilian walked the aisle together, climbing to the imperial balcony overhanging the dais.
The imperial balcony was largely empty. As a court official, Caiyan’s place was in the upper ranks. Sanjing sat in saddles more often than chairs. The dowager queen, for all intents and purposes, lived in the Ouyang Mountains. Hesina’s father had been this balcony’s one constant, and her throat closed as she remembered all the cases she’d watched from his lap.
Now the court stood for her, sat for her. The director of the Investigation Bureau stepped onto the dais, wearing the standard malachite and black court hanfu and winged wusha cap. He bowed before the balcony. “May we begin?”
“We may,” said Hesina. She scanned the ranks, finding Caiyan. He touched two fingers to his chin; she lifted hers higher. Next she found Xia Zhong, who gave her a nod before returning his attention to the director. The stocky official had unfurled a scroll.
“Welcome to the 305th court,” he boomed. “The case in question today is that of the king’s murder. The plaintiff is our queen, Yan Hesina. For the first round, we will present the representatives, preliminary evidence, and suspect on the stand. Allow me to introduce the scholars representing both parties. The defendant’s representative: Hong Boda of the Yingchuan Province!”
The great doors opened.
The scholar assigned to defend the suspect, a young man of average build, had tried—and failed—to grow a beard. His brows, in comparison, put his facial hair to shame; they were fat like silkworms, inching up as he covered his mouth with a sleeve and yawned.
“Next, we have…” The director frowned at his scroll. “A-ke-la of the Niu Province.”
And they were already off to a bad start.
“Oh my,” whispered Lilian as Hesina cringed. “Is that how you say his name?”
“No.” There weren’t any Yan characters that could represent the exact phonemes in Akira’s name. “It’s Akira.”
“Much better.”
Hesina leaned forward in her seat as Akira entered the court. Three weeks had passed since their duel, and she scrutinized him as he ascended the dais. On the whole, he looked…almost decent. Like the defendant’s representative, he wore the black-and-white scholar’s hanfu, which was baggy enough to hide most of his sharp angles. Though his hair was an awkward length, too long to leave loose and too short for a topknot, it’d been tied back in a short, brown tail. And the cuts and bruises on his face had mostly faded. Hesina sighed in relief.
Lilian wasn’t quite as impressed. “I was expecting more.”
“More what?”
“I don’t know. Girth. Muscles?”
“Muscles would be very helpful in court.”
Lilian sniffed. “You never know what might come in handy.”
What would be handy right about now was an edible sort of insecticide to kill all the dragonflies in Hesina’s stomach. Today was just a formality, she reminded herself. The presentation of the representatives, evidence, and suspect was like the distribution of an exam, and not the exam itself. Keel over now, and she’d miss the real trial.
The director presented the preliminary evidence. The king had been poisoned; Hesina had delivered half of the sample herself. On the day of his death, no one had left the palace. No one had entered. There were other ways of coming and going, as Hesina knew best, but the passageways were a secret between father and daughter. They didn’t show up on any map that could be purchased, which reduced the likelihood of a foreign assassin. No, the suspect was someone in this kingdom.
Someone in this palace.
The dragonflies in Hesina’s stomach multiplied as the director rolled up his scroll. “Finally, allow me to present the first suspect.”
He said a title. He said a name. The title and name rang in Hesina’s ears like a misplayed note.
It couldn’t be.
It made no sense.
How could a concubine who never left the Southern Palace be suspected of killing Hesina’s father?
The great doors swung open, and everyone craned their necks, compulsively drawn to the most enigmatic member of the imperial family. Hesina couldn’t move. She couldn’t even react, astonished as she was when it wasn’t Consort Fei who came down the aisle, but her son, Rou.
Whispers percolated through the ranks as Rou ascended the dais. The director frowned. “Do you go by the title Noble Consort or the name Fei?”
“No.”
Her half brother’s squeak brought Hesina back to herself. A chill prickled over her skin as the director followed his question with, “And are you the one charged with regicide?”
No. Her confusion turned to nausea. Consort Fei. Regicide. The words sounded wrong together, like a wedding ballad at a funeral.
“No,” repeated Rou.
“Then why are you here?” demanded the director.
Rou quaked in his shell-blue hanfu, and Hesina grimaced when he struggled to project his reedy voice. “There’s been a mistake. My mother couldn’t possibly have killed my father.”
Jeers surged from both the upper and lower galleries. The director swept out his sleeve, and the rumble quieted. “Mistake or not will be up to the court to decide.”
“N-no.”
“No?”
“I—I can vouch for my mother.”
“Yes,” dismissed the director. “Any filial son would.”
“Please.” Rou spun in a shaky circle, looking to the ranks as if they were the walls of a well he had to scale. “She never left the Southern Palace that day. She—”
“An accusation is not a sentence, Prince Yan of Fei.”
Hesina’s gaze snapped to Xia Zhong. He sat among the other ministers, a dull rock against a bed of gems. But his voice wasn’t unkind when he continued, “Your mother has a representative to defend her. Let justice run its course.”
Rou didn’t appear appeased.
“Enough,” said the director. “Representatives, you now have twenty-four hours before the trial begins. You may meet with your parties to prepare your prosecution and defense. Session adjourned.”
But no one stood, because Hesina hadn’t stood. Standing was a form of leading. How could she lead if she didn’t understand what was going on anymore?
“Up you go,” grunted Lilian under her breath, helping Hesina to her feet by the elbow. The rest of the court rose, the shuffle sounding like a collective sigh, and something in Hesina’s throat unclogged. She sucked down what felt like her first real breath, then gripped Lilian by the arm.
“Meet me in Fat
her’s study. Tell my page to lead Akira to the same place. Go, now.”
Lilian pursed her lips. “Can you walk?”
“I’ll manage.” One way or another, she would make it out of this nightmare of a court.
She took the steps slowly after Lilian left and was one of the last to exit the court through the Hall of Everlasting Harmony. As fate would have it, she didn’t get very far before the person she dreaded most called for her.
“Sister!”
At first, Hesina pretended not to hear. But then Rou called again, and her conscience wouldn’t allow her to ignore him a second time. She stopped between the last pair of pillars, built of sturdy huanghuali and covered in a mother-of-pearl overlay of cranes, phoenixes, and herons in flight. She let Rou catch up.
And she regretted it when he did, because he immediately dropped to the ground and prostrated himself in koutou.
“My mother’s innocent,” he blubbered. “I swear on the Eleven.”
He couldn’t have picked a worse time. There were still courtiers behind them, watching curiously. Quickly, Hesina hauled Rou to his feet.
“Stop this,” she hissed so the others wouldn’t hear. “The situation is bad enough as is. You’re never going to clear your mother’s name if people catch you groveling.”
“I-I’m sorry.” Rou’s pupils were huge with fear, but also with hope. Hesina saw her face reflected in them. “But…does that mean you believe me?”
She took him in, this half brother of hers with ears that protruded and a sparse fall of black bangs over a pearlescent forehead. She probably saw him four or five times a year—fewer, if she could help it—and each time he was the same. Genuine. Earnest. Kind.
He made it that much harder to resent him.
“I’ll believe whatever the court finds,” she said, loudly this time, announcing it to everyone within earshot. Then she turned on her heel, cursing and walking faster when the footsteps continued to trail her.
