Under Heaven

summoned his very young Precious Consort to the palace and installed her there. Shortly before the illustrious empress was gently persuaded to take up her new residence at a Temple of the Path outside Xinan.

Wen Zhou wished—he so dearly wished—he’d thought of sending that potion himself. Firmness. You could make a joke about firmness.

He didn’t feel amused or amusing. Not tonight. The city palace just given as a gift this evening (another gift!) to the pustulent barbarian toad was Chin Hai’s own mansion, conspicuously uninhabited in the nine months since he’d died.

What did it mean that it had now gone, in its unrivalled splendour and notoriety (tales of interrogation chambers underground, walls made proof against screaming), to the military governor of three districts and their hard, trained armies in the northeast? A man who was scarcely ever in Xinan to even make use of the mansion? Did the emperor, did Zhou’s empty-headed cousin, did no one realize what sort of message this sent?

Or, rather more frightening, did they realize it?

The ward guards recognized them, of course. There was a shout and a signal from atop the wall. Men began hastily unbarring the gates as the first minister and his men approached, angling across the imperial way. Not the best ward security, perhaps, but mildly gratifying, the alacrity—and fear—with which they responded to his presence.

He should be used to it by now, perhaps, but why did becoming accustomed to something have to render its pleasures stale? Could one of the philosophers answer him that? He still enjoyed saffron wine, and being serviced by women, did he not?

Passing through, he asked casually, addressing the night, not deigning to look anywhere near an actual person, who else had come through after curfew. He always asked them that.

Someone answered. Two names. Neither one, for different reasons, brought Zhou any of the pleasure he’d just been thinking about. He rode on, heard orders behind him, the gates creaking closed, the heavy bar sliding.

Even here, within the ward, the main east-west street running between the gates at each end was sixty- five paces wide. Long expanses of wall on either side, lanterns at intervals, shade trees planted by mansion owners. The walls were interrupted on the north side of the street by the massive doors of homes that were better described as palaces. To his right there were only occasional servant-doorways: back-garden exits from someone’s property. All front doors faced south, of course.

He saw the second of the men who had come through earlier, waiting in a sedan chair with the curtains back so he could be seen and known under the lanterns hanging by the doors of Zhou’s own home.

He hadn’t intended, or desired, to see this man tonight, and his principal adviser would have known that. Which meant that if Liu was here, something had happened. Something even more than the disturbing news they’d heard this evening, of the gift given to Roshan.

Roshan himself was the other man who’d passed through after nightfall. Come, undoubtedly, to boastfully luxuriate in his newest extravagant possession: a city palace larger, and more potently symbol-laden, than any other in Xinan.

Perhaps, Zhou thought, he could ride over there himself, suggest a drink by way of celebration, poison the wine.

Roshan drank very little. He had the sugar sickness. Zhou wished it would kill him already. He suddenly wondered who the governor’s personal physician was. It was a thought …

Chin Hai’s former mansion was only a short distance on horseback, two streets over and one north from here. The property was gigantic, even by the standards of an aristocratic neighbourhood: it stretched all the way to the northern wall of the ward—the southern border of the fifty-third. There were rumours that a tunnel went beneath the wall into the fifty-third.

The mansion’s servants had been kept on, he knew, paid by the court, even with no one living there. The pavilions and rooms and furnishings, the courtyards, gardens, banquet halls, women’s quarters, all would have been impeccably maintained, awaiting whoever might be honoured—exalted!—at the whim of the emperor with the dead prime minister’s home.

Well, now they knew.

Zhou swung down from his horse, tossed the reins to one of the servants who hurried up, bowing. The doors were open, wide enough for a carriage and horses. The first courtyard was brightly lit, welcoming. His own was an entirely magnificent home. It just wasn’t …

Seeing the first minister dismount, Liu stepped out of his sedan chair. There was mud in the roadway from rain the night before. His adviser placed his feet carefully, a fastidious man. Zhou found it amusing. The prime minister, booted, accustomed to polo and hunting, utterly unfazed by dirt and mud, strode over to him.

“He came through the gates just before you,” he said. There was no need to say the name.

Shen Liu nodded. “I know. I asked.”

“I thought of riding over to welcome him to his new home. Bring poisoned wine.”

Liu’s face took on a pained expression, as if his stomach were ailing him, one of the few ways he revealed himself. His adviser carefully restrained himself from glancing around to see who among the guards or servants might have heard. Zhou didn’t care. Let the gross barbarian know what the first minister of Kitai thought of him and his too-obvious designs.

As if Roshan didn’t know already.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. “I said you were to come in the morning.”

“I received tidings,” Liu murmured. “Or, I was advised of tidings that have come to the palace.”

“And I needed to know this tonight?”

Liu shrugged. Obviously, was the import of the gesture.

He was an irritating man, and disturbingly close to indispensable. Wen Zhou turned and strode through his open doors into the courtyard, splashing through a puddle. He crossed and entered the first reception hall and then the private room beside it. Servants sprang to action. An interval passed in which boots became slippers, court garb turned into a silk robe for a night at home, and cypress-leaf wine was warmed on a brazier. Liu waited in the adjacent chamber.

There was music from a pavilion across another small courtyard, a more intimate reception room with a bedchamber attached. Spring Rain was playing her pipa for him, having awaited his arrival as she always did. She would be adorned with jewellery, he knew, her hair exquisitely pinned, her face painted. Waiting for him. His.

Her name was Lin Chang now, a change made on his own order once he’d brought her here. It was far more suited to her status as a concubine of the first minister of Kitai. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking of her by the North District name yet. Not that it mattered.

She belonged to him, and would wait. It was her role. Although, looked at another way, he was going to have to wait until whatever Liu had on his mind tonight was shared.

The prime minister decided that he was likely to remain in a troubled mood. He walked back into the reception chamber, was handed the wine. He sipped. Threw the cup down. It bounced and rolled against a wall.

The servant, cringing and bowing, almost to the floor, mumbling desperate apologies, scurried to the brazier and added coal to the flame below. He crawled over and picked up the discarded cup. His hands were shaking. There were stains on the carpeting.

The first minister had made extremely clear by now his preference as to the temperature of his wine at night (which was not the same as in the morning or at midday). Servants were required to know these things or accept consequences. Consequences, in at least one case, had left a man crippled and dismissed. He begged in the street now, behind the mansion. Someone had told Zhou that.

The pipa music continued from across the small courtyard. The sliding doors were open, window shutters were folded back on a mild night. The silk-paper windows did little to keep out sound. He thought about silencing the instrument, but the music was beautiful—and promised a mood very different from this one, once he’d dealt with Liu.