Under Heaven

deceived in thinking there was anything but ice in his eyes.

It was, in most instances of this sort, customary for one of the figures behind the principals to speak first, addressing the Kanlins, formally requesting them to begin transcribing. This did not happen.

Instead, General Xu said, “I have a personal proposal for you, An Li.” No title. Of course, no title.

“I await it with eagerness!” said the other man.

His voice was unexpectedly high if you were hearing it for the first time. A slight accent, even after so many years.

“Why don’t you and I settle this conflict with a single combat right here, after the fashion of ancient days?” said Xu Bihai.

All those gathered, where sunlight did not penetrate, seemed to grow still, to breathe more shallowly. Roshan stared at the other man. His creased eyes widened, and then he began to shake—his prodigious belly, his shoulders, the folds of face and chin. High-pitched laughter, wheezy and urgent, echoed in the narrow pass. A startled bird flew up and away.

Xu Bihai, eyes still hard, allowed his own smile to grow wider. One is always pleased when a jest, however barbed, encounters an enthusiastic response.

Gasping, quivering, Roshan lifted an unsteady hand, as if pleading for mercy. Eventually he regained control of himself. He wiped at his small, streaming eyes with a sleeve of his liao silk robe. He coughed. He wiped his face again. He said, “A fight for poets that would be! You’d kick me to death with one leg or I’d sit on you! Crush the life out of you!”

“Right out of me,” agreed the other man. His thinness, the lean, austere appearance, seemed shaped by a mocking deity to provide as vivid a contrast as possible to An Li. His smile faded. “I could fight your son?” The son, bulky and fit, stood beside his father’s chair.

The man in the chair was no longer laughing. His eyes, nearly lost in the folds of his moon-face, became as cold as Xu Bihai’s.

“He would kill you,” he said. “You know it. The Ta-Ming would not allow it, or honour it. We are not children. These are not the ancient days. You asked for a meeting. The black-robes are writing. Say what you have come to say and then leave my presence.”

Blunt, heavy, harsh. All of these things, and deliberately so.

The standing man’s turn to be amused, or pretend to be. “Ah, well. You would have to leave my presence, wouldn’t you? Since it is my army that holds this pass. Why don’t you attack, Roshan? Or do you like camping on the hot plain out there? Is it soothing for your afflictions?”

“I hold the Grand Canal,” An Li said, grimly.

“You hold the northern ports of it. But have you not heard? The weather has been glorious in the southwest. We have great hopes for that harvest. And have you not also heard? The Twelfth Army is on its way here even as we enjoy a morning together. And the Five Families are restless behind you, or so our tidings tell.”

Roshan smiled. “Ah. The Five Families. Do your tidings also tell of the fate of Cao Chin and his family … behind me, as you say? Or has that news not yet reached the Ta-Ming? Be the first to know! His castle has been burned down. His wives and daughters taken by my soldiers. Granddaughters too, I believe. The men did need some diversion, after all. Cao Chin hangs naked, castrated, meat for carrion birds, from a hook on a pillar outside the ruins of his home.”

When it grew quiet, as it did now, you became more aware there was no wind. It was clear to anyone watching that Xu Bihai had not known this, and equally clear that he believed what he was being told.

“That was a great name,” he said softly. “It brings even more shame upon you.”

Roshan shrugged vast shoulders. “He was a traitor to the Tenth Dynasty. The Families needed to learn there are consequences to the elegant exchanges of missives, and musings over wine discussing which way to turn, when an army is among them. I doubt the northeast is as restless now as you might think.”

Xu Bihai stared. “Time and the winter will tell, whether you can feed the army that keeps them quiet. You are trapped here and you know it. Perhaps you would prefer to withdraw to Yenling? I enjoy siege warfare, myself. When autumn comes without an eastern harvest, you are done, Roshan.”

Birds calling. No breeze in the pass.

“May I tell you something?” the man in the chair said. “I don’t like you. I never have. I will enjoy killing you. I will begin by hacking off your crippled leg and showing it to you, then dripping your own blood in your open mouth.”

It was, even for such a setting as this, savage enough to elicit another silence.

“I tremble,” said Xu Bihai finally. “Before I commence to babble like a terrified child, hear the words of the emperor of Kitai. You are declared accursed of men and the gods. Your life is forfeit, and your sons’—”

“He killed my son,” said An Li.

“One of them. A hostage to your own conduct. He was executed when that conduct became treacherous. Wherein lies your grievance? Tell me!”

There was something magnificent about the lean, thin-bearded man standing there with his heavy stick.

“He was no hostage! Do not shape lies that are being written down. He was an officer in the Flying Dragon Army, and a member of the court. He was killed by a fool in an act of fear. Will you pretend you approved?”

“I was in Chenyao,” said Xu Bihai.

It was an admission of sorts.

“Nothing near to an answer! But I know your answer. However much you hate me, Governor Xu, I will wager the lives of my remaining sons against your daughters’ that you despise Wen Zhou as much!”

There was no reply.

Roshan went on, his voice a hammer now, “You were afraid to challenge him, all this time! You stayed west and let a vain polo player, whose only claim to rank was a cousin in the emperor’s bed, turn Kitai into his own fiefdom, while Taizu drank potions to straighten his male member and drank others to live forever!”

He glared at the other man. “Was yours, Governor Xu, the conduct of someone mindful of his duty to the state? Do you accept the fool whose cause you are serving here? I require Wen Zhou at my feet, blinded, and begging for death.”

“Why? Are you the first man to lose a battle for power?”

“He is worth nothing!”

“Then neither are you the first to lose to a lesser man! Will you kill so many, destroy an empire, for it?”

“Why not?” said An Li.

The words, unadorned, hung in the air.

“Because you cannot blame Wen Zhou for this. You rose against the throne, your son died for it. You had to know it could happen. And sons die every day in the world.”

“So,” said Roshan, “do daughters.”

Xu Bihai shook his head. Gravely now, he said, “Ministers of the empire come and are gone, leaving memories, or only tracks in sand. The Phoenix Throne is more than the man who sits it, or those who serve him, well or badly. I have my views on the first minister. I have no inclination to share them with a foul and accursed rebel.”

“I am neither, if I win,” said Roshan.

“You are both, now and until you die, and the words will cling to your name forever, wherever your body lies.” Xu Bihai stopped, then he said, “Hear my offer.”

“I am listening,” said An Li.

“You and your eldest son have forfeited your lives. You will be graciously permitted to commit suicide and be buried, though not with monuments. I have the names of five of your commanders who must also accept their deaths. All others in your army, here or in the northeast or in Yenling, are offered pardon in the name of the Glorious Emperor Taizu, an offer to be recorded now by the Kanlins, and with my own name and honour behind it.”

His voice grew quiet. “You are dying. You know it. All men who look at you know it. With your life, already