by Zoe Marriott
Did the merchant quarters have hotels or inns – or rooms for rent? Reflexively, I reached for the money-purse on my belt.
It was missing.
Twenty-two
slipped back into the military compound only a little after curfew lifted at dawn. I was exhausted, sore and aching from head to toe, and still had bits of leaves and bark stuck in my hair and clothes. Although I was invoking the names of the last five generations of my ancestors that no one would notice my return, of course the instant I entered the large octagon-shaped courtyard that occupied the centre of the barracks building, I heard Sergeant Sui’s voice call out to me from across the dusty, echoing space.
“My word, Hua Zhi! You’ve been out the whole night?”
I refused to let my shoulders slump, but it was a struggle. All sergeants had penetrating voices, and the empty courtyard seemed to amplify each word until they put last night’s booming curfew drums to shame. After taking a moment to compose my illusion – the face underneath was a lost cause – I turned smartly and saluted.
“Only inadvertently, sir. I’m afraid I misjudged the time and ended up trapped in the merchant quarter.”
I had an innocent-sounding explanation for that, but it was clear Sui wasn’t listening. His eyes widened as they travelled over my dishevelled appearance. “I see you found that woman and her peaches.”
“No, Sergeant, as I said, I—”
A door behind me opened, releasing a babble of voices and footsteps that fell abruptly silent.
“Hua Zhi?”
I let my eyes squeeze closed for an instant, then turned my head to see a group of privates from east barracks … and Yang Jie. All staring at me with various expressions of awed respect, amusement, envy and, in Yang Jie’s case, a coldness that I hoped hid shock rather than anger.
There was obviously no point in trying to explain this away – no one was going to believe a word I said. And technically the Young General’s orders had only been for the privates, so I hadn’t done anything wrong. I looked back at the sergeant with the blandest expression I could manage. “If you’ll excuse me, sir, I think I should clean up before going on duty.”
“By all means,” he said, smirking.
I pivoted smartly on one heel and marched past the group of gawping men without looking at them. I didn’t want to offer up any more grist for the gossip mill. And I didn’t dare try to meet Yang Jie’s eyes.
A half hour later, I was clean and so was my armour. I’d skipped today’s use of the tincture – my supply was getting low, and I thought my voice would pass for another day – gulped down a hasty breakfast, and was back in my room, listlessly organizing papers and wishing with all my might that a nap was possible. But the Young General had given me no directions on when or if he would need me today – so it clearly behoved me to stay alert, and not curl up on the narrow bed, no matter how inviting it might look…
A sharp knock on the door brought me to my feet. Before I could call out, the door opened, revealing the errant general himself. As usual, his appearance was immaculate – but less usually when he was looking at me, his expression was stern. Damn you and your big mouth, Sergeant.
“Good morning, General,” I ventured as I saluted, endeavouring not to let the words become a question.
“Is it, indeed?” he replied, voice giving away nothing.
I gulped. “Do you have orders for me, sir?”
“Yes, but first I want to know the truth of this tale about you, your harem of fancy women, and how you came stumbling in roaring drunk, waking up half the barracks singing bawdy songs about peaches at the crack of dawn.”
I nearly fell over. “What?”
Wu Jiang closed the door firmly behind him, and instantly began to snort with laughter, stern expression dissolving. “Your face! You poor girl – don’t worry, I don’t believe a word of it, but I’m expected to come and read you a lecture, so here I am. What really happened?”
“I … I’m afraid I was out all night, sir.”
The laughter disappeared just as suddenly as it had arrived. “What? In this city? Alone?”
“Well, most of the time. There was this girl…”
His eyes bugged out. I couldn’t help it – now it was my turn to start giggling. I swiped at my watering eyes and tried to calm down, but a glance at his slack jaw set me off again. My common sense was mortified. This was not the way to behave before a senior officer. Clearly the lack of sleep was doing odd things to my self-control. I had to put both hands over my face and take several deep breaths before I could look at him again.
Wu Jiang seemed to have relaxed a little at my laughter, but still looked uncharacteristically off balance. “Is this your idea of a joke?”
“No, sir – I’m sorry. Let me start again. I met a young girl in the city, barely older than my little sister. She had been taken advantage of and needed help. At least – well, I think she did. But she also robbed me of my money-purse, so perhaps I’m just a naive country boy, after all, who can’t tell an innocent from a cunning thief.”
I didn’t really believe that. But General Wu had not met the girl. He couldn’t possibly understand, and something in me resisted trying to express her intense vulnerability, grace and resilience in words. It was … private. “In any case, I ended up trapped in the merchant quarter and spent the night hiding up a tree to avoid the vagrant patrols.”
“No fancy women, then? No peaches?” he asked, smiling again.
“And no wine or bawdy songs,” I confirmed.
“I am relieved,” he said softly. Then his face changed, taking on its familiar look of official stoniness, and I fell quickly into parade rest, drawing my hands behind my back as I waited to hear my orders.
“Corporal, this morning I am summoned to a meeting with the emperor and the most senior generals of the war cabinet. As my aide you will accompany me, but neither of us will be permitted to make any written notes: what will be discussed is of the highest level of official secrecy. Instead you must commit the details of everything that is said and done to memory in order to help prompt my own memory later. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.” I nodded sharply, although internally I quailed. My memory was good, but not perfect.
“Since you’ll be required to stay at my side observing throughout the entire meeting, you will need a junior aide who can run any errands I’d normally ask you to do. Depending on what my aunt asks of me next, the position may become permanent, as yours is.”
I blinked, my attention snagging on that last part. I was to be part of General Wu’s staff permanently? I realized I hadn’t given any real thought to what would happen to me once we arrived back here, but of course all the privates and officers I had trained with would be assigned to new posts in the army proper now. They would be split up, some of them sent away to other cities or military outposts. Wu Jiang had made it clear he wanted to keep me with him. Adding me to his entourage was the only way to ensure that.
My war, my fight for the future of the empire – in a very real way, it was over. Over before it had even really begun.
And I might never see Yang Jie again.
I was so stricken by this knowledge that I almost failed to attend to what Wu said next – but my attention snapped back to him when he went on: “Is there someone among the men that you trust, someone you feel has the traits suitable for such an important post?”
I knew the answer immediately. Despair transformed into a rush of excitement and satisfaction. I trusted many of the men I had trained with, but there was only one who had the intelligence and discretion for this job. And this was a chance for me to help him, to use my own good fortune to elevate someone who truly deserved it. His family would have to respect him if he earned such a post. What was more, it meant he might be able to stay here, in the city, where we could see each other, instead of being sent potentially hundreds of miles away.
But… I hesitated. Was it what he would want? He had seemed pleased for me when
I gained this position, and yet he had taken the trouble to warn me, too…
“If you can’t think of a man of sufficient quality…” the Young General began.
I shook my head. “I have someone I believe would be eminently suitable, sir. Yang Jie, of east company. He’s quick, resourceful and clever, and he knows how to keep a secret.”
“Then I’ll send a messenger to fetch him and explain what he’ll be asked to do.”
I frowned, puzzled. “Couldn’t we collect him on the way, sir?”
“No time – you and I must go ahead, and he can meet us at the palace once he’s briefed.” He paused, cleared his throat. “My aunt wants to see me before the meeting in a personal capacity. I… Of course I haven’t said anything to her yet. About you. Or your circumstances. But I – want you there.”
I managed to hold the curse word behind my lips. But only just.
A visit to the sacred portals of the Imperial Palace was not for the weak.
Wu Jiang and I rode from the barracks through the first three ceremonial gates of the Centre of the Universe’s grounds, but once we reached the terraces – endless layers of steps, each step faced with a different kind of glittering marble, red, gold, blue, green – we were forced to dismount. Reluctantly, I handed over Yulong to the palace grooms, resisting the urge to cling to him as if he were my childhood poppet. From there we went on foot.
General Wu walked the towering shadows of the halls of the Centre of the Universe at a rapid yet dignified march. I scurried in his wake. Servants, dignitaries and palace officials variously scattered out of his way, stared in interest, or nodded indifferently. The Young General didn’t speak to me, and I was content to let the silence rest, trying, once again, not to gawp too obviously. My stomach churned with apprehension, but underneath the fear was a spark of exhilaration.
This was the Centre of the Universe. I had read about it, heard tales about it, listened to my father speak of it, but now I was seeing it with my own eyes. I never thought I would. The girl I had been wouldn’t have. She would have died still dreaming of what I now beheld. I could hardly believe I was really here.
Heavy army boots thudding on the shining floors, we wove between massive pillars of ivory and precious scented wood inlaid with mother-of-pearl and gold, brushed by walls of tapestries worked so that the tales they told – a celestial dragon’s blessing of the Red Emperor; a monkey stealing peaches from the gods; the Battle of the Field of Three Rivers – seemed to quiver with animation. Priceless artefacts glinted from every lacquered alcove. I had never seen so much … so much.
These were the halls where the emperor received government ministers and entertained state visitors. They were designed to bewilder – to awe and intimidate. And it worked. My eyes began to swim and my head echo hollowly, as if I were in a fever dream.
My leg muscles were burning before, at last, we came to a halt at the edge of an enormous courtyard garden. It was at least a mile long, rectangular and filled with beautiful things – white sand paths edged with flowering plants, trees trimmed into fantastic shapes, ornamental ponds and half-moon bridges. The Young General’s principal servant, Shu Yuen, awaited us there, resplendent in jade-green silk. He bowed as he came towards us. “My prince – you are awaited in the Pavilion of Luminous Beauty.”
“Thank you, Shu Yuen. Please attend me,” the general said. Then, to me: “Buck up. Nearly there.”
I followed him, Shu Yuen at my heels, as he skirted the edge of this glorious garden until we reached a tiny white-and-gold pavilion entirely surrounded by a gently murmuring stream. Music echoed faintly from within. We crossed a white bridge that reminded me of a decoration for some elaborate dessert and then…
Then I laid eyes on the emperor for the first time.
I banged my knee in my haste to fall down into my deepest obeisance. That didn’t stop me from ogling with all my might. After all, no one was looking at me.
Wu Fen. Daughter of Heaven. Emperor of the Land of Dragons. Just the memory of her still brings an ache to my breast – something like that exquisite, melancholy longing one experiences staring at distant mountains in the rising sun. For many years afterwards whenever I was asked to describe her, I simply refused. Even now, I feel that no words could possibly be adequate.
I can talk about what she wore. That’s easy enough. It was with some surprise that I realized she was dressed in a very feminine and flattering version of male riding attire – slim trousers of scarlet, embroidered with gold, beneath a golden robe that fastened, not under the bust as women’s clothes usually did, but at the waist, with a wide sash of vivid blues and greens, edged in gold thread. The sash was designed to match the exquisite headdress of iridescent kingfisher feathers and black pearls that was woven into her masses of bound-up hair.
I can tell you what she was doing. She knelt on a cushion, a zither before her. The air shivered with the last notes of her song, her deep, husky voice:
“Torn and tangled with my longing for you,
My lord, if you doubt my constancy, or my tears,
Open my chest and observe,
The pomegranate red of my heart…”
But what struck me most of all was the comfortable informality of the setting. Fat cushions and thick rugs were strewn about, scattered with piles of beautifully bound books and children’s puzzles of carved ivory, coral and jade. A golden nightingale twittered fitfully in a silver cage hanging from the ceiling. Where were the servants, the attendants, the advisors, ministers, guards? This was no formal audience chamber. This was a family room – the emperor’s family room. I could not believe I had been offered a glimpse of it.
Other than those things, the one significant feature of the emperor’s that I can and will describe are her eyes. They were of no unusual colour, simply a deep, velvety brown. But they were large, and smiling, and full of light and power, and of such astounding loveliness that even though she did not look at me, I felt myself wobble and almost had to put a hand down on the cool tiled floor to support myself.
“Cousin! Cousin!” A slight, pale-faced little boy of around nine or ten sprang up from where he had been hiding under a mound of cushions – knocking over a large bowl of lychees with a clatter – and flung himself at the Young General. “You’re back!”
Wu Jiang laughed, a carefree, boyish sound, and bent just in time to catch the child, lifting him up with an exaggerated grunt of effort.
“Li Xian? Can this be Li Xian? I almost didn’t recognize you – you must have grown four inches at least!”
Li Xian? I gulped, unable to lower my eyes as I knew I ought to. This was the crown prince. The heir to the Dragon Throne. And he was giggling and play-wrestling my commanding officer.
“I’ll soon be taller than you!” the boy cried eagerly, thin face alight.
“But then how will you ride on my shoulders?” Wu Jiang asked in mock dismay.
“Silly!” the little boy scolded. “You shall ride on mine!”
“Greetings, nephew,” the emperor interrupted gently. “Welcome home. It’s very good to see you. I trust you are well?”
The Young General carefully set the crown prince down, easing the boy’s pout with a pat on the shoulder, and then went to his knee before the emperor, bowing his head. “Honoured and virtuous aunt, I am very well. It is my great pleasure to see you, too. I hope you and my little cousin are both in good health?”
“I am not little!” the crown prince protested, stamping his foot and causing his layers of silken robes to swirl in something perilously close to a flounce.
“We are, thank you. Your father visited recently – he asked me to send his regards as always, and to convey that your siblings and mother are all prospering. Wu Jun in particular is making everyone proud with his martial prowess. He promises one day to beat you, and says you must take care to come home soon and let him prove it.”
The emperor’s eyes crinkled with fine smile lines that only made them more lovely – but I was distracted by
the minute wince that General Wu could not quite suppress at the word “mother”. I thought I understood. His father’s wife might be a kind and virtuous lady, and a fine parent to his half-siblings, but she was not – would never be – his mother.
Then Li Xian interrupted again, noticing me on the step behind the general, and Shu Yuen to my left, apparently for the first time.
“Who are these persons? Why have you brought low-born grubs here? I don’t like it!”
A grimace of fond exasperation crossed Wu Jiang’s face, but before he could speak the emperor did. “My son, that man is a member of our Imperial Forces, who has no doubt fought bravely at your cousin’s side.” She reached out one hand, summoning Li Xian to her, where she smoothed his cheek tenderly. “He deserves our respect, does he not?”
“My prince, let me introduce Hua Zhi,” General Wu said, sending me a sidelong look and a small smile. “He is my aide, and the son of the great Hua Zhou who served your own father with such distinction. Aside from acting as my aide, he has also saved my life at least three times. And he is my friend.”
Wu Fen’s smile turned on me fully for the first time. I felt a flush of immense warmth, as if I had suddenly plunged into a hot spring. “Indeed? Then you are truly welcome here, Hua Zhi.”
I dipped my head lower, shaken and glad that no response seemed expected.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Shu Yuen’s lips press tightly together, and realized General Wu had not spoken to defend him, and neither had the emperor – tacitly giving Li Xian’s words validation. Given Shu Yuen’s excellent and devoted service, that seemed harsh indeed. I caught his eye for a second, but he stared through me blankly. Perhaps, if he dealt with the Imperial Family frequently, he was used to such unthinking slights. Perhaps they no longer hurt him.
Perhaps.
There was a short pause as the emperor’s eyes shifted back to General Wu – and, insensibly, I felt something change. The glowing, almost uncomfortable warmth which had permeated the pavilion slowly chilled. The air shifted, as with the rumble of an encroaching storm. It was the emperor’s mood, I realized, as Wu Jiang tensed beside me, and Shu Yuen took a small, discreet step backwards. The songbird in the cage fell silent, and even the crown prince fixed his eyes on the ground, suddenly grave. Such was her power.
