The Dragon Men

“They are safe.”

“Safe? What does that mean?” Gavin asked.

Lady Orchid cocked her head. “Is he important to you, Lord Ennock?”

“I’m not a lord-”

“The blessing of dragons makes you a lord.”

“Oh. Uh, Li is important to me, yes. I want to know what happened to him and his men. Did you turn them over to Su Shun for execution?”

“Certainly not!” Lady Orchid looked horrified at the idea. “Su Shun would torture them to find out what they know, and we would be undone. At the moment, they are waiting in one of the outbuildings. The men who can read and write will be executed with honor so they cannot be forced to write what they know, and those who are illiterate will have their tongues cut out so they cannot betray us. We are merciful here.”

Phipps clearly had a hard time translating these words. Gavin looked as unhappy as Alice felt.

“No,” Alice and Gavin said together.

“I beg your pardon?”

“No,” Gavin repeated. “Li is a good man who did his duty, and his men don’t deserve any of this. If you kill or maim them in any way, I won’t help you. That’s the end of it.”

“But-”

“I won’t discuss it.” Gavin folded his arms. “I’d rather go mad from the plague.”

“I. . very well, Lord Ennock. We will keep them here until this is over.”

Gavin bowed to her in a perfect imitation of the gesture Lady Orchid had made earlier. “Thank you, Lady Orchid. You are most kind.”

His words seemed to placate her a little. “We must discuss what to do next, then.”

“You don’t know?” Phipps said. “I thought you had a plan.”

“Your pardon. I have only recently arrived in Peking with my son after fleeing Jehol for our lives. There has been little time for planning.”

“Well.” Alice sat on the bed again, and Click moved into her lap. “It seems to me that there’s only one quick, sure way to put your son on the throne, Lady Orchid.”

“And what is that?”

“We must steal the Jade Hand.”

Chapter Eleven

A faint tremble shook the table as Cixi set her teacup on it. Prince Kung paused over his own cup to glance at the ceiling, as if it were at fault.

“The war machines are stomping about,” Kung said. “I wonder if Su Shun will invade even if he does not find Lady Michaels.”

“He cannot hold the throne if he does not invade,” Cixi said. “No emperor can be so disfigured as he. This war is a distraction from his disqualification.”

“He is a warlord, and he intends to prove it to the world.” Prince Kung drained his cup. They were sitting in his chambers, again with the spy holes closed. Zaichun was squirreled away in another room, still in disguise. So far as the servants were concerned, Kung was sheltering a recently widowed cousin, a casualty of the second war over opium. “One wonders what you thought of the conversation with the foreigners.”

Cixi pursed her lips. “It is difficult to discuss anything with such people. They have no manners, and they ask direct questions that make a lady of any delicacy blush. One is forced to say things one would never normally say. It is quite shocking. No wonder they are called barbarians.”

“They say the opposite of us, you know. They claim we never say what we mean and that our faces are inscrutable.” He started to refill his cup from the pot, but Cixi quickly leaned forward to do it for him, automatically taking the role of concubine. “The philosophers remind us that everything must have its opposite. Nothing can exist by itself. Yin and yang.”

“Perhaps,” Cixi conceded. “But I do not see how philosophy is helpful.”

“And there is a seed of each thing in its opposite. We know yin has a spot of yang, and the other way around. You yourself experienced it just now.”

“This is difficult to understand.”

Prince Kung hid a smile behind his hand. “After years of living in the Imperial Court, where one must watch every word and ensure every sentence has two, three, or even four meanings, was it not the tiniest bit refreshing to speak with people who expected you to say exactly what you meant and gave you the same thing in return?”

“Hm.” Cixi toyed with a bit of fish in the bowl before her with her chopsticks and considered. He had a point. Talking to these foreigners had been shocking, but with that had also come a little daring thrill, and afterward she had to admit she found it. . interesting even if their manners were distasteful. “Perhaps a tiny bit refreshing.”

“I found it so as well, before Xianfeng sealed the borders. Another reason why our two worlds must cooperate. Everyone thinks the other side is dreadful, but once the sides begin talking to each other, we inevitably find the other side interesting and refreshing. They are more like us than we know.”

“Lady Michaels is quite devoted to Lord Ennock,” Cixi admitted. “I did not know Westerners felt that way about one another. One hears about. . depravities in their bedchambers, but nothing about deep feeling.”

“Another rumor they spread about us.” Kung shifted on the floor pillow. He still looked strange and unkempt with his hair and beard growing out. “I will need to meet them soon to talk further. Where are they now?”

“On their ship in the third stable. Lord Ennock insisted on examining it, and it seemed to me a good place to hide them. We took them out in a spider palanquin with the curtains shut so the servants wouldn’t see. They are eating. I think even you couldn’t bear to watch that, my lord.”

“I do have my limits. What do you think of Lady Michaels’s idea to take the Jade Hand?”

“It makes me nervous.” Cixi picked up an empty cup and ran her finger around the rim. Her ribs felt tight. “It would be the fastest way to unseat Su Shun.”

“The difficulty is that Su Shun has returned to the Forbidden City and spends all his time within the red walls. My spies tell me he does not leave it for fear someone will seize the throne from him.”

“Which is exactly what we are attempting to do,” Cixi mused. “Can we lure him out?”

“That’s a possibility, though he will surely be heavily guarded if he comes outside. His generals and the Dragon Men speak for him outside the Forbidden City. They are handling most of the day-to-day decisions now.”

Cixi blinked. “Dragon Men?”

“Yes. Su Shun gives them basic orders, but they carry them out in their own fashion.”

“So China is being run by Dragon Men? But they are. . it is. .”

“Yes,” Kung repeated. “They are powerful but not fit to rule. Already in the southern provinces, peasants are being ordered to tear out rice fields and plant lotus instead because Lung Min finds the lotus more aesthetic.”

“But Xianfeng was planning to expand those fields next year. This will cause food shortages!”

“It will. And Lung Chao is causing new roads to be built in characters that spell out mathematical equations. More peasant labor being taken from the fields.”

“He will drain the treasury,” Cixi said tightly. “Why is Su Shun allowing this?”

“Everything is a distraction from his weak position on the throne. And he is busy overseeing the new military. It is quite impressive, as we have already been feeling.”

“China is ruled by lunatics. We must stop this quickly.”

“And for that, we need the Jade Hand.” Kung gestured at the Ebony Chamber, which sat on one corner of the table. The gold dragons chased one another like playful flames across the black wood. “Speaking of the treasury, I have discovered that my own resources are wearing thin. As I am out of favor with the new Imperial Court, I have lost several important contracts. It has also become more expensive to maintain good spies in the Forbidden City. It did not help that we unexpectedly had to dress everyone in the household in white for the emperor’s