This figure stands behind Zhou in the black robes (red belt, gold key hanging from the belt) of a mandarin of the highest, ninth degree.
His name is Shen Liu, and his sister, his only sister, is a great distance north by now, beyond the Long Wall, serving his needs extremely well.
He has a cultured appreciation for dancing such as this, for poetry, good wine and food, painting and calligraphy, gems and brocaded
There is also a sensual side to his nature, carefully masked. But watching this particular woman, Liu struggles to resist private imaginings. He frightens himself. The very fact that he cannot help but picture her in a room alone with him, those slender hands upraised, wide sleeves falling back to show long, smooth arms as she unpins night-black hair, makes him tremble, as if an enemy might somehow peer into the recesses of his thought and expose him on a precipice of danger.
Impassive, outwardly composed, Liu stands behind First Minister Wen, beside the chief of the palace eunuchs, watching a woman dance. A casual observer might think him bored.
He is not. He is hiding desire, and frightened by Roshan, perplexed as to what the man’s precise ambitions might be. Liu hates being unsure of anything, always has.
The first minister is also afraid, and they believe they have reason to fear. They have discussed a number of actions, including provoking Roshan into doing something reckless, then arresting him for treason—but the man controls three armies, has the emperor’s love, and Jian, who matters in this, is ambivalently positioned.
One of Roshan’s sons is here in the palace, a courtier, but also a hostage of sorts, if it comes to that. Liu is privately of the opinion that Roshan will not let that deter him from anything he decides to do. Two of the governor’s advisers were arrested in the city three weeks ago at the first minister’s instigation: charged with consulting astrologers after dark, a serious crime. They have denied the accusations. They remain incarcerated. Roshan has appeared serenely indifferent to the matter.
The discussions will continue.
There is a rustling sound. A lean cleric of the Path, an alchemist, appears beside the throne bearing a jade and jewelled cup upon a round golden tray. The emperor, his eyes never leaving the dancer, whose eyes never leave his, drinks the elixir prescribed him for this hour. She will take hers later.
He might never need his tomb. He might live with her forever, eating golden peaches in pavilions of sandalwood, surrounded by tended lacquer trees and bamboo groves, gardens of chrysanthemums beside ponds with lilies and lotus flowers floating in them, drifting amid lanterns and fireflies like memories of mortality.
Tai looked across the raised platform at the poet, and then away towards a lamp and its shadow on the wall. His eyes were open, but seeing nothing more than shapes.
Sima Zian had finished the tale, what he knew. What was, he’d said, beginning to be known among people with links to court or civil service.
It was a story that could easily have reached the scholars-in-waiting, come to the ears of Tai’s friends: two princesses to be sent as wives to the Bogu in exchange for urgently needed horses for stock breeding and the cavalry, and increased numbers of the nomads to serve for pay in the Kitan army. One of the princesses a true daughter of the imperial family, the other, in the old, sly trick …
A great deal had become clear in this softly lit reception chamber of a courtesan house, late at night in a provincial town far from the centre of power. From where Tai’s older brother, trusted confidant and principal adviser to First Minister Wen Zhou, had achieved … what people would regard as something brilliant, spectacular, a gift to their entire family, not just himself.
Tai, looking towards shadow, had a sudden image of a little girl sitting on his shoulders, reaching up to pick apricots in the—
No. He pushed that away. He could not let himself be so cheaply sentimental. Such maudlin thoughts were for slack poets improvising at a rural prefect’s banquet, for students struggling with an assigned verse on an examination.
He would conjure, instead, mornings when General Shen Gao had been home from campaigning, images of the wilful girl who had listened at a doorway—letting herself be seen or heard, so they could dismiss her if they chose—when Tai spoke of the world with their father.
Or, later, after the general had retired to his estate, to fishing in the stream, and sorrow, when Tai had been the one coming home: from the far north, from Stone Drum Mountain, or visiting at festivals from studying in Xinan.
Li-Mei was not some earnest, round-faced little girl. She had been away from home, serving the empress at court for three years, had been readying herself to be married before their father died.
Another image: northern lake, cabin aflame, fires burning. Smell of charred flesh, men doing unspeakable things to the dead, and to those not yet dead.
Memories he would have liked to have left behind by now.
He became aware that he was clenching his fists. He forced himself to stop. He hated being obvious, transparent, it rendered a man vulnerable. It was, in fact, Eldest Brother Liu who had taught him that.
He saw Sima Zian looking at him, at his hands, compassion in the other man’s face.
“I want to kill someone,” Tai said.
A pause to consider this. “I am familiar with the desire. It is sometimes effective. Not invariably.”
“My brother,
The women had withdrawn, they were alone on the platform.
The poet nodded. “This seems obvious. Will he expect you to praise him for it?”
Tai stared. “No,” he said.
“Really? He might have done so. Considering what this does for your family.”
“No,” Tai said again. He looked away. “He will have done this through the first minister. He’ll have had to.”
Sima Zian nodded. “Of course.” He poured himself more wine, gestured towards Tai’s cup.
Tai shook his head. He said, the words rushing out, “I have also learned that First Minister Wen has claimed for himself the woman I … my own favoured courtesan in the North District.”
The other man smiled. “As tightly spun as a regulated verse! He’d be another man you’ll want to kill?”
Tai flushed, aware of how banal this must seem to someone as worldly as the poet. Fighting over a courtesan now. A student and a high government official! To the death! They performed this sort of shallow tale with puppets for gaping farmers in market squares.
He was too angry, and he knew it.
He reached over and poured another cup after all. He looked around the room again. Only a dozen or so people still awake. It was very late. He’d been riding since daybreak this morning.
His sister was gone. Yan was dead by the lake. His father was dead. His brother … his brother …
“There are,” said Sima Zian gravely, “a number of people in Xinan, and elsewhere, who might wish the prime minister … to be no longer among the living. He will be taking precautions. The imperial city is murderously dangerous right now, Shen Tai.”
“I’ll fit in well then, won’t I?”
The poet didn’t smile. “I don’t think so. I think you’ll disturb people, shift balances. Someone doesn’t want you arriving, obviously.”
Obviously.
It was difficult, despite everything, to picture his brother selecting an assassin. It was painful as a blow. It was a crack, a crevasse, in the world.
Tai shook his head slowly.
“It might not have been your brother,” said the poet, as if reading his thoughts. The Kanlin woman, Wei Song, had done the same thing a few nights ago. Tai didn’t like it.
“Of course it was him!” he said harshly. There was a dark place beneath the words. “He would know how I’d feel about what he did to Li-Mei.”
“Would he expect you to kill him for it?”
