The First and Fourth Armies were kept where they were, along the northwestern and western borders. Calamity would result if Kitai lost control of the Silk Road fortresses and the corridors there, and it was considered unwise to withdraw from the Tagurans at any time.
From the south would come three other armies, but messengers had a long way to go just to summon them and those forces would be some time in coming.
Wen Zhou predicted a short campaign.
Others were less certain. Roshan had command of the Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth, and had merged them. These soldiers were the most battle-hardened in Kitai, and since General An had
Roshan had also been the Imperial Stable-master for years, and had assigned to his own cavalry the best of the horses obtained from the Bogu at the river’s loop each spring.
In hindsight, not the wisest power to have given him, either.
Beyond all of this (as if this were not enough to make a civil servant panic), appeasing the northeast had always been a delicate matter for this dynasty. That region was the home of powerful families with intermarrying lineages that they claimed (truthfully or not) went back a thousand years, to the First Dynasty itself. There were many in the northeast who saw the Ninth Dynasty as ill-bred interlopers. Xinan’s measures to reform taxation and land ownership to the benefit of the farmers had not been well received in the northeast. The aristocracy there called themselves the Five Families, and their response to rebellion could not be known with certainty.
It was entirely possible that they might see a gross, illiterate general in precarious health as an improvement for their own purposes, because he would surely be transitory, and easily manipulated. Once change was set in motion, clever men could very well shape where it went.
And, as it happened, both Chin Hai, the first minister who had instituted the loathed reforms, and Wen Zhou, now, were from southern families, and therefore rivals.
It could matter, something like that.
Another element might also be important, someone pointed out in the Ta-Ming (it was the imperial heir who said this). Given the size of the empire, the vast distances that had to be dealt with for communication, and the always critical importance of cavalry, two hundred and fifty Sardian horses were suddenly even more important than before.
The second son of General Shen Gao was summoned to the palace.
The message from the court came at the end of two weeks of intense frustration, even before news of rebellion began to run through Xinan.
Tai had heard stories of how slowly the wheels of the Ta-Ming turned in matters such as audiences granted and decisions made within the multitude of layers in the civil service. There were one hundred and forty thousand mandarins in Xinan, through the nine degrees. Speed was not a strength.
He’d never had anything near the importance that would have caused him to experience this directly. Had never been someone who might expect a summons to court, in anticipation or apprehension.
That had changed. He wore the emperor’s ring. He hadn’t wanted to, hadn’t even wanted to keep it, thinking it more important for Rain to have. A secret access to funds for her in the event of …
Of what? And had he entirely lost his bearings in the world, to think she couldn’t find jewellery to sell if she needed to? In that compound? Concubine to the first minister? How else, he thought ruefully, had she managed to hire a Kanlin Warrior in the first place?
He’d asked Wei Song about that. Predictably, she’d given him a scornful glance. As if, as
She wasn’t the one who’d made him wear the ring, though she’d brought it back to him in the street the night they climbed the wall, two weeks ago. He hadn’t seen Rain since then. Hadn’t seen many people at all. And the summons to the palace had not come.
His Kanlins had told him he could not go to the North District. Too dangerous, they’d said, the lanes and alleys after dark. He knew those alleys extremely well.
“No one can attack me now!” Tai had snapped angrily. “The horses are my protection, remember?”
“Only from a known assassin,” the Kanlin leader had replied calmly. His name was Lu Chen. “Not if it is unknown who attacks you, if they escape.”
“How do you plan to stop me from going?” Tai had demanded.
Song had been present that evening, behind her leader, head lowered, hair neatly pinned, hands in the sleeves of her robe. He’d suddenly remembered the first time he’d seen her, coming across the courtyard at Iron Gate Fortress, just risen from sleep, her hair unbound. It wasn’t so long ago, he thought. He knew her well enough by now to read her posture. For a Kanlin, she didn’t hide her feelings well. She was angry. He could see it.
“We can’t stop you, Master Shen,” Lu Chen said quietly. “But our assigned task, from the Precious Consort and the Imperial Heir, is to guard you, and Xinan is an uncertain place. You understand that if harm comes to you, all of us forfeit our lives.”
Song looked up then. He could see fury in her eyes.
“That’s … that’s not fair,” Tai said.
Lu Chen blinked, as if this was an observation that had no immediately obvious meaning.
Tai didn’t go to the North District. He didn’t try to see his brother, either, though the thought crossed his mind several times a day that he might as well just go to Liu’s house and confront him.
He knew Liu spent many nights at the Ta-Ming in the Purple Myrtle Court of the mandarins, but it was easy enough to have a servant track his movements. He had servants now, and a steward who seemed effective, and alarmingly dedicated. He had a city mansion. He could ride out, or even be carried out in a sedan chair, and confront Liu.
Such a false-sounding word. Confront, to say what? That what Liu had done to their sister was a disgrace to their father’s name? He’d already said that at Ma-wai. Liu would simply disagree again, smoothly. And the bitter truth was that most men—and women—at higher levels of the court would agree with Adviser Liu, the first minister’s trusted counsellor, and not with his inexperienced younger brother.
How could it possibly be wrong to have a sister elevated to the imperial family? How could that
The offence, the nature of the wrong, was unique to their family: to their father, and how he’d seen the world. And perhaps, in truth, only to General Shen as he’d become later in life. After Kuala Nor.
On the other hand, Tai could accuse his brother of trying to have him killed. He could do that. The conversation there was even more predictable. And he wasn’t sure, in any case, about this. If he ever
Late one night, struggling with a poem, he looked out the window at the stars and an almost-full moon shining, and realized it was likely he never would be ready to do that. Someone might call it a weakness.
Wen Zhou he avoided. Easy enough. One didn’t encounter the prime minister in the marketplace or riding outside the walls.
Sima Zian visited often, sharing wine and talk and not-quite-sober good humour. He urged patience or careless indifference in the waiting period, depending on his own mood.
Tai made sure the poet had chambers in his new mansion, ink and good paper, spiced wine kept warm, and whatever else he might want. Zian came and went. Spent some nights with Tai, others abroad.
Tai rode Dynlal in Long Lake Park. The vast green space in the southwest of the city was open to all, and much loved. He took the track around the lake, under plum blossom trees.
There were memories here, as if in ambush. Gatherings with friends three years ago, less than that. Rain and other girls—allowed out from the Pavilion of Moonlight three days each month, and at festivals. Tai even had images of Xin Lun from that time when they were all students together, dreaming of what might be. Lun, who was playful and brilliant, in the general view likeliest of them all to pass the examinations with honours, rise to rank and distinction in the Purple Myrtle Court.
The general view hadn’t been especially reliable, Tai found himself thinking as he rode.
