Under Heaven

tragedy, one embraced by both the common people and the artists of Kitai—and this, too, surely played a role in the shaping of official records.

When the desire of the court and the tales of the people meld with the vision of great artists, how should any prudent chronicler of the past set himself to resist?

THE FIRST MINISTER, showing no sign of unease, stopped at the front of the porch, above the three steps leading to the yard.

It left him, Tai thought, looking disdainfully down on the dui commander and the soldiers. Wen Zhou had had no real choice but to come out, but this encounter needed care, and part of that, surely, was to make clear the gulf, wider than the Great River in flood, between himself and those below.

Tall and magnificent, Zhou looked out into the sunlight of the yard. He was dressed for riding: no court silk, but perfectly fitted cloth and leather. Boots. No hat. He often disdained a hat, Tai remembered, from days in Long Lake Park, seeing him at a distance.

A much greater distance than this.

Zhou extended an arm and swept it, one finger extended, in a slow, wide arc across the inn yard. He said, his voice imperious, “Each man here has forfeited his life for what has just been done. The officers must be executed first.”

“No,” murmured Sima Zian, under his breath. “Not that way.”

Wen Zhou went on, “But our infinitely merciful emperor, mindful that these are difficult times for ordinary men to understand, has elected to let this moment pass, as if it were the troublesome behaviour of small children. Put away your weapons, form ranks. No punishment will be visited upon any of you. Await orders when we come out. You will be needed in defending Kitai.”

And he turned, amazingly, to go back inside without waiting to see what they did, as if it were inconceivable that anything other than immediate compliance could take place.

“No,” said the dui commander.

Tai could see that it cost him a great deal to say that single word. The man was perspiring in the sunlight, though the morning was mild.

Wen Zhou turned. “What did you say?” he asked. His voice and manner, Tai thought, could freeze a soul.

“I think you heard me,” the officer said. Two others came to stand with him. An archer and one of his officers of ten.

“I heard treason,” said Wen Zhou.

“No,” said one of the archers. “We have learned of treason just now!”

“Why was the army ordered out of Teng Pass?” cried the grey-bearded commander, and Tai heard pain in his voice.

“What?” snapped Zhou. “Will the heavens crack above us? The sun fall? Are common soldiers asking questions of the Ta-Ming now?”

“They didn’t have to fight!” cried the dui commander. “Everyone knows it!”

“And you are fleeing from Xinan, leaving it to Roshan!” shouted the archer, a small, fierce figure. “Why was any of this done?”

“They say you gave those orders directly!” the officer of ten said.

First hesitation in Wen Zhou, Tai saw. His mouth was dry again. He didn’t move. He couldn’t move.

Zhou drew himself up. “Who says such a thing?”

“Those who rode with you have told us!” cried the archer. “Your own guards heard it on the ride!”

Tai turned to Sima Zian. The poet’s face was stricken. Tai wondered how he looked himself. He heard Wen Zhou again. “This encounter is over. Soldiers! Take custody of these three men. Your dui commander is relieved of his post. Bind them and hold them for execution when we come out. Kitai will fall if such chaos is permitted! Soldiers of the Second Army, do as you are ordered.”

No man moved in the inn yard.

A flurry of wind stirring the dust. Birdsong again, and always.

“No. You must answer us,” said the archer. His voice had altered. Tai heard Song draw a breath behind him. He saw Wen Zhou look down into the inn yard with the withering, lifelong contempt a man such as he would have for those below. He turned, to go back inside.

And so the arrow that killed him struck from behind.

Sima Zian, the Banished Immortal, master poet of the age, who was there that day at the Ma-wai posting inn, never wrote a word about that morning.

A thousand other poets, over centuries, did take those events as a subject, beginning with the death of Wen Zhou. Poets, like historians, have many reasons for varying or amending what might have taken place. Often they simply do not know the truth.

Before the prime minister fell, there were five arrows in him.

The bowmen of the Second Army would not let one of their number carry the burden of this deed alone.

By the time the poems of lament were in full spate, like a river, some versifiers had twenty-five arrows (with night-black feathers) protruding from the first minister’s back as he lay in his red blood upon the porch: poets straining for pathos and power, oblivious to the excesses of their images.

Tai stepped forward. His swords remained sheathed. His hands were shaking.

“No, my lord!” cried Song. “Shen Tai, please. Hold!”

And, “Hold!” echoed the dui commander below, eyeing him narrowly, visibly afraid. Frightened men were dangerous.

Tai saw that the man’s hands were also trembling. The commander stood alone now, exposed in the dusty inn yard. The archer was no longer beside him, nor his officer. They had withdrawn, blending back in with their fellows. Tai was quite sure he could recognize the archer, the man who’d fired first.

The bowmen in the yard all had arrows to string. So, he saw, glancing back, did Song and the other Kanlins. They stepped forward to surround him. They would be killed before he was.

“This must stop!” he cried, a little desperately.

He pushed forward, past Song. He looked down at the dui commander. “You know, surely you know it must stop.”

“You know what he did,” said the commander. His voice was harsh with strain. “He sent all those men—an army!—to their deaths, left Xinan open to ruin, and only because he feared for himself if the officers in the pass decided he’d caused this rebellion.”

“We can’t know that!” cried Tai. He felt weary and sick. And afraid. There was a dead man beside him, and the emperor was inside.

“There was no reason for our army to leave the pass! That one there sent the order in the middle of the night, with the half-seal. He gave it himself! Ask those who escorted you here.”

“How do you know this?” cried Tai. “How would they know?”

And the officer in the inn yard below, not a young man, said then, quietly, “Ask the prince you came here with.”

Tai closed his eyes, hearing that. He felt suddenly as if he might fall. Because it fit. It made a terrible, bitter kind of sense. The prince would be readying himself to take command now, with a full-fledged war upon them and his father so frail. And if the prime minister was the one who had created this sudden nightmare …

They had seen Shinzu ride ahead in the darkness on the road, to join the escort from the Second Army, speak with them.

A man’s actions could have unexpected consequences, sometimes; they could come back to haunt you, even if you were a prime minister of Kitai. Also, perhaps, if you were a prince of Kitai.

Tai opened his eyes, found himself unable to speak just then. And so, instead, he heard, in that bright, clear morning light near Ma-wai and its blue lake, another man do so, from among the gathered soldiers, lifting his voice. “One more must die now, or we will all be killed.”

Tai didn’t understand, not at first. His immediate thought was, You are all going to die, in any