Under Heaven

by Guy Gavriel Kay

  Wen Zhou’s voice was firm. “I have warned the exalted emperor repeatedly. I warned the Censorate, the Treasury, and the ministers, including those supervising the army. I warned my lovely cousin. Had you expressed the least interest in these affairs before today, my lord prince, I would have warned you! You are, my lord, being unjust. Cousin, I have spoken to all of you about Roshan.”

  “But he,” said Jian, smiling gently, “also warned us about you. Where does that leave the Son of Heaven, cousin?”

  “He … An Li has spoken to you about me?”

  “You think him a fool, cousin?”

  “Of course not. He’d not be a danger if he was.”

  “That is not always so,” said the prince. “Folly can be dangerous.”

  Tai was being forced, moment by moment, word by word, to change everything he’d ever thought he knew about Shinzu.

  “Cousin,” said Jian, “until lately, the danger has seemed to be from each of you to the other, not to the empire. But if Kitai is placed in peril because two men hate each other …”

  She left the thought unfinished.

  “You arrested two of his advisers this spring. For consulting astrologers.” The prince’s eyebrows were level.

  Tai’s brother said quickly, “The inquiry established it was true, my lord prince.”

  “Did the inquiry also establish it mattered very much?” the prince said, just as swiftly. “Or was this simply provocation? Do tell me, adviser to the first minister.”

  Zhou lifted a hand, a small enough gesture, to forestall Liu’s reply.

  Wen Zhou bowed then, to the prince, to Jian. With dignity he said, “It is possible I have erred. No servant of the emperor should regard himself as infallible. I desire only to serve Kitai and the throne to the best of my abilities. I am prepared to be counselled.”

  “Good,” said Jian.

  “Indeed, good,” said Shinzu. “And surely no more need be said about this on a lovely afternoon in Ma-wai. But before we turn to our diversions, will you tell me, first minister, where I may find one of your guards? Feng is his name, I am told.”

  “What?” said Zhou. “The honourable … the prince is asking after one of my household?”

  “I am,” said the prince affably. He had reclaimed his wine cup. He held it out to be refilled. “I sent some of my own men to your compound to bring him to the Ta-Ming. He appears to have left Xinan. Where might the fellow be?”

  Tai looked at his brother. Instinct, again. Liu’s face showed perplexity. Whatever this was about, Liu didn’t know it.

  Wen Zhou said, “My guardsman? You want to speak with one of my guards?”

  “I did say that,” the prince murmured. “I also said he seems to have disappeared.”

  “Not at all,” said Zhou. “He’s been sent to my family. My parents are at greater risk with all these instabilities, and I thought they should have an experienced guard supervising their household retainers.”

  “Instabilities,” the prince repeated. “So he’ll be there now?”

  “Still on his way, he departed only a few days ago.”

  “Actually, no, he’s here in Ma-wai,” said Jian.

  Her voice was gentle. The room turned to her. “Perhaps I ought to have informed you both, cousin, my lord prince. I had the man followed and brought back, after receiving certain information.”

  “You knew he’d left?” The prince’s expression was admiring.

  “It seemed a reasonable expectation he would do that.”

  “You stopped my man on his journey?” Zhou’s voice was odd.

  “Greatly esteemed lady, please, what … information?” It was Liu.

  Tai didn’t know whether to be amused by his brother’s confusion, or to pity it. Liu hated, even more than Tai did, not understanding what was unfolding, anywhere, any time.

  “We received a suggestion,” said Jian, still gently, “that the man might have committed a murder before leaving. Dear cousin, this will all be new to you, of course.”

  It wouldn’t be, of course. Tai reminded himself: he was among the dancers, and he didn’t know the music.

  “Of course it is new!” the first minister exclaimed. “Murder? Who alleges such a thing?”

  “The Gold Bird Guards have submitted an account of something they say happened a few nights past. They were alerted that an act of violence might take place and some of them were there when it did. They made no arrest, seeking counsel from the palace first. You will appreciate why they did this: the murderer was your guardsman.”

  “I am shocked! Who alerted them to this terrible thing?”

  The prime minister did not, Tai noted, ask who had been killed.

  Zhou’s demeanour, under the circumstances, was remarkable. Aristocratic breeding did make a difference, Tai thought. The Wen families of the south were not among the very wealthiest in this dynasty, but they had a lineage that went back a long way.

  That was, of course, how Jian had become a lesser prince’s wife, before rising beyond that.

  “Who alerted us? Roshan did, as it happens,” said Prince Shinzu.

  Liu asked the question: “What man is he alleged to have slain?”

  “A minor civil servant,” said the prince. “I am told he was a drinking companion of your own brother. His name was Xin. Xin Lun, I am told.”

  “And … you say An Li told the Gold Bird Guards that this might be about to happen …?” Liu was struggling.

  “Well,” said Jian, sounding regretful, “the fellow, Master Xin, seems to have feared he might be in danger after certain tidings reached the Ta-Ming from the west. He wrote Roshan asking for protection.”

  Tai was watching the first minister. Zhou was impressive in that moment, showing nothing of what would have to be extreme agitation.

  “And Governor An …?” Liu asked.

  “… alerted the Gold Bird Guards, quite properly. They arrived too late, it seems, to prevent a death. It is,” said Jian, “an unfortunate business.”

  “Most unfortunate,” the first minister murmured.

  “I can imagine how it distresses you, cousin, to have been sending such a violent man to guard your dear parents. My own uncle and aunt. The spirits shield them!” said Jian. “We will, of course, learn more when this Feng is questioned.”

  “This … has not yet happened?” Wen Zhou’s voice was a little strained. Tai was suddenly enjoying himself.

  That didn’t last long.

  “We were waiting for Master Shen Tai,” said Jian, matter-of-factly. “To learn what he might add to the story. I spoke with him earlier, myself.”

  “With … you spoke with my brother?” said Liu.

  “I did, since this seems to have to do with him.” Jian looked at her cousin, and she wasn’t smiling. “I think I like him. I decided he should have a chance to listen before speaking himself.”

  It was Liu who figured it out.

  He looked at the two screens, from one to the other. His face was unreadable. Almost. If you knew him well, there were clues. Jian glanced over, as if casually, to where Tai was hidden.

  And that was, Tai thought, as clear a signal to join the dance as he was ever going to get.

  He stood up, straightened his clothes. Then he stepped around the screen, brushing the rich sandalwood of the wall, and came out to be seen. There was a degree of astonishment that—he supposed—the Precious Consort might find enjoyable. He didn’t.

  He had no idea what he was expected to do. He bowed to the heir, to Jian. Not to the first minister or his older brother. Both would have been proper, of course. He managed a brief smile for Sima Zian. The poet was grinning, clearly delighted by this theatre.

  Tai cleared his throat. A roomful of high-ranking figures was staring at him. “Thank you, exalted lady,” he said. “I admit I was unhappy about concealing myself, but your servant defers to your greater wisdom.”

  She laughed. “Oh, dear. You make me sound ancient! Greater wisdom? I just wanted to see their fac
es when you came out!”

  Which wasn’t the truth, and he knew it. All of them knew it. But this was a part of how Jian danced at this court, Tai was realizing. How she made others dance. This lay beneath the silk and scent. You didn’t have to be with her long to see it.

  Now that he was among them, the fact that he and she were wearing similar colours was unmistakable. Tai had wondered if it was deliberate. Of course it was.

  He’d made a decision before, he reminded himself. If he could not weave subtle intentions towards a known design, he would have to do things differently. There wasn’t really a choice, was there? Either he was a puppet, or a piece of wood in a river in spate, or he had some control over what was happening.

  And he could do that here only one way.

  He turned to Wen Zhou. “How did you know I was at Kuala Nor?”

  He ought to have phrased it with courtesy, prefaced by bows and a deferential greeting. He ought not to have asked it at all.

  Zhou stared bleakly at him. Said nothing.

  “Second Brother,” said Liu, a little too loudly. “Be welcome back among us! You have brought great honour to our family.” Liu bowed, and not just the minimal salute of courtesy.

  There was no way forward here, Tai thought, but straight.

  “And you have shamed our father’s memory, Eldest Brother. Did you never think how he would have felt about Li-Mei being sent north to barbarians?”

  “But of course!” cried Prince Shinzu. “I had forgotten that our newest princess was of this family! How interesting!”

  Tai doubted he’d forgotten it at all. Liu did not answer him. That could come later.

  He turned back to Zhou. “You haven’t responded, first minister.” He could only be direct here. Or accept being a wood chip in rapids.

  “I am unaware,” said Wen Zhou coldly, “of any protocol in any dynasty that would require a prime minister to respond to a question phrased that way. A beating with the rod is possibly in order.”

  Tai saw Zian signalling with his eyes, urging caution. He declined. He was here. Li-Mei was gone. Yan was dead by a cold lake. And his father was dead, lying under a stone Tai hadn’t even seen.

  He said, “I see. Roshan suggested you might avoid the question.”

  Zhou blinked. “You spoke with him?”

  Tai’s turn to ignore a question. “A beating with the rod, you said? How many? People die under the rod, first minister. That could cost the empire two hundred and fifty Sardian horses.”

  If he was doing this, Tai thought, he was going to do it. There was exhilaration in having the chance, to be out from concealment, standing before this man and saying this. “Protocol might be amended, don’t you think, when murder is involved? I ask again, how did you know I was at Kuala Nor?”

  “Murder? You seem healthy enough. Are you a ghost yourself, then, Shen Tai?”

  It was upon them, Tai thought. The poet had stopped trying to get his attention. The prince moved forward from the wall again. Only Jian seemed composed, sitting (the only person sitting) on her platform in the midst of all of them.

  Tai said, “No, first minister. I am not dead yet. But the scholar Chou Yan is, at the hands of the assassin sent after me. Admissions have been made. By that false Kanlin who killed my friend. By two other assassins who confessed their purpose to Governor Xu in Chenyao.” He paused, to let that name register. “Those two were also seen by my friend Sima Zian, and the governor’s own daughter brought us the name the killers offered up. So there are others who can speak to this. And then, first minister, Roshan presented me with a copy of the letter sent him by Xin Lun, saying he feared he would be killed, since he knew too much.”

  “A copy of a letter? From Roshan? He cannot even read!” Zhou actually managed a laugh. “After all we’ve heard this afternoon—some of us skulking behind a screen—about his designs? You don’t think that would be an obvious forgery meant to damage me? The only one openly resisting him? Surely you are not so entirely—”

  “It is not a forgery,” Tai said. “Lun died that night. Exactly as he feared he would. And the Gold Bird Guards saw who did it.”

  He turned to his brother, as if ignoring Zhou. As if there was nothing left to say to him at all. He looked at Liu. His heart was pounding.

  “Someone tried to kill you at Kuala Nor?” Liu asked. He said it quietly. Assembling information—or that was how it sounded.

  “And at Chenyao.”

  “I see. Well. I did know where you were,” said Liu.

  “You did.”

  It was strange, speaking to his brother again, looking at him, trying to read his thoughts. Tai reminded himself that Liu was easily skilled enough to dissemble here.

  “I tried to persuade you not to go, remember?”

  “You did,” said Tai again. “Did you tell the first minister where I was?”

  The question he’d been waiting to ask since leaving the lake and the mountains.

  Liu nodded his head. “I think I did, in conversation.” As simple as that, no hesitation. Someone else could be direct, or appear to be. “I would have to check my records. I have records of everything.”

  “Everything?” Tai asked.

  “Yes,” his brother said.

  It was probably true.

  Liu’s face, carefully schooled from childhood, gave nothing away, and the room was much too public for what Tai really wanted to say again, face to face this time, a hand bunching Liu’s robe tightly at the collar: that his brother had shamed their father’s memory with what he’d done to Li-Mei.

  This wasn’t the time or place. He wondered if there would ever be a time or place. And he also realized that, for reasons that went far beyond his own story, this encounter could not turn into anything decisive about murder attempts. There were issues too much larger.

  His thought was mirrored, anticipated. There was a dancer here. “Perhaps we should wait for my cousin’s guardsman to answer some questions,” said Jian. “Perhaps we can talk of other matters? I don’t find this as amusing as I thought I might.”

  An order to desist, if ever there was one.

  Tai looked at her. She was icily imperious. He drew a breath. “Forgive me, illustrious lady. A dear friend was killed in a place beyond borders. He died trying to tell me about my sister. My sorrow has made me behave unpardonably. Your servant begs indulgence.”

  “And you have it!” she said promptly. “You must know you will have it—from everyone in the Ta-Ming—for the honour you have done us.”

  “And for the horses!” said Shinzu cheerfully. He lifted a cup towards Tai. “Whatever questions or troubles any of us might have, surely our task now is to amuse our hostess. What sort of civilized men could we call ourselves, otherwise?”

  A servant appeared at Tai’s elbow, with wine. He took the cup. He drank. It was pepper wine, exquisite. Of course it was.

  “I asked for a poem,” Jian said plaintively. “Half a lifetime ago! My cousin declined, our wandering poet declined. Is there no man who can please a woman here?”

  Sima Zian stepped forward. “Gracious and exalted lady,” he murmured, “beauty of our bright age, might your servant make a suggestion?”

  “Of course,” said Jian. “It might even earn you forgiveness, if it is a good one.”

  “I live only in that hope,” said Zian. “I propose that someone present a twinned pair of subjects and our two brothers, the sons of Shen Gao, each offer you a poem.”

  Tai winced. Jian clapped her hands in delight. “How very clever of you! Of course that is what we will do! And who better to offer the subjects than our Banished Immortal? I insist upon it! You choose, General Shen’s sons improvise for us. I am happy again! Does everyone have wine?”

  His brother, Tai knew, had passed the imperial examinations in the top three of his year. He had been preparing for them all his life. His poetry was immaculate, precise, accomplished. It always had been.

  Tai had spent two years at Kuala Nor trying to make hims
elf a poet in a solitary cabin at night, with little success, in his own estimation.

  He told himself that this was just an entertainment, an afternoon’s diversion at Ma-wai where they liked to play, not a competition that signified anything. He felt like cursing the poet. What was Zian doing to him?

  He saw Liu bow to Jian, grave, unsmiling. He never smiles, she’d said in the sedan chair. Tai also bowed, and managed a wry smile. It probably looked apprehensive, he thought.

  Sima Zian said, “Xinan, and this night’s moon. Any verse format you choose.”

  The prince chuckled. “Master Sima, did we even have to wonder? Do you always choose the moon?”

  Zian grinned, in great good humour. “Often enough, my lord. I have followed it all my days. I expect to die by moonlight.”

  “Many years from now, we hope,” said the prince, graciously.

  Tai was wondering, amid all else, how everyone had been so wrong about this man. He did have an answer, or part of one: it had been fatally dangerous through the years for an imperial heir to show signs of ambition, and those signs might all too easily be thought to include competence, intelligence, perception. It was safer to drink a great deal, and enjoy the company of women.

  Which did raise a different question: what was Shinzu doing now?

  Zian murmured, “Do you know … well, no, you can’t possibly know, since I have never told anyone … but I have sometimes dreamed of a second moon to write about. Wouldn’t that be a gift?”

  “I’d like a gift like that,” said the Beloved Companion, quietly. She was, Tai remembered (it needed remembering sometimes), very young. She was younger than his sister.

  Jian turned to look at him, and then at Liu. “The First Son must surely go first, whatever other protocols we are abandoning.”

  Wen Zhou had stepped back as this new game began. He smiled thinly at this, however. Tai felt as if his senses had become unnaturally sharp, as if he was seeing and hearing more than he ever had. Was this what life at court was like? What the dance involved?

  Liu folded his hands carefully in his full black sleeves. He had been doing this all his life, Tai knew, preparing for such moments as this. Xinan, and tonight’s moon, he reminded himself. It was customary in such contests to pair two images.