Under Heaven

fell. Before the bandit could recover from where he sprawled by the portico, Master Sima was upon him, dagger to throat.

The sun appeared over a pavilion to the east.

A servant walked into the courtyard from that side, carrying a water basin. He stopped. His mouth gaped.

“Summon the governor’s men!” Song shouted. “They are in front!” She looked at Tai. “And are about as useful as they were at the White Phoenix.” She walked over and handed him his second sword. She had already sheathed her own pair.

“These came in through the water gate?”

She nodded.

The poet had the bandit’s left arm twisted high behind his back. It would crack, Tai saw, with only a little pressure. The dagger remained at the man’s throat.

“Why are you here?” Sima Zian said quietly. “You know the governor’s questioners will be merciless. Answer me, I’ll do what I can.”

“Who are you,” the man rasped, face to the earth, “to offer anything in Chenyao?”

“You’ll have to believe I can. They will be here soon. You heard her send for them. Speak!”

“You will kill me, if I do? Before they …”

Tai winced, closed his eyes for a moment.

“I swear it,” said the poet calmly. “Why are you here?”

“It was my brother they tortured last night. After the two men named him.”

“Your brother hired men to kill Shen Tai?”

“He was told a man of that name might come from the west. To watch for him. Good money if he came to Chenyao and did not leave.”

“Your brother was the one directed in this way?”

“Yes. A letter. I never saw it. He only told me.”

“Who wrote the letter?”

“I do not know.”

“Then why are you here? If it was his task?”

There came a sound from the man on the ground. “Why? They carried him back to his wife last night. Dropped his body in the street. His servant summoned me. He was naked in the mud. He had been castrated, his organ stuffed in his mouth. His eyes had been carved out and they had cut off his hands. This was my brother. Do you hear it? I was here to kill the one who caused this.”

Tai felt himself swaying where he stood, in the spreading light of day.

“The ones who caused this are not here,” said Sima Zian, gravely. It was as if he’d expected these words, Tai thought. “You must know that. They work for Governor Xu, who sought only to stop violence and murder in his city, as he must do for the Son of Heaven we all serve in Kitai. It is … it is not easy to amend a broken world.”

That last was from a poem, not his own.

They heard a jingling sound. Soldiers, half a dozen of them, entered the courtyard at a run. One of them shouted an order.

Sima Zian murmured something Tai didn’t hear.

The poet’s knife moved. The bandit, face down among earth and flowers, died instantly, before the guards arrived to claim his living body for more of what had been done to his brother in the night.

“How dare you kill him!” the lead guard rasped in fury.

Tai saw the poet about to reply. He stepped forward, lifting a quick hand. Zian, courteously, was silent, but he remained coiled now, like a snake who might still strike.

“How dare you let assassins into this inn yard!” Tai snapped. “Into a garden you were here to guard! I want your names given to my Kanlin, right now. I will wait for Governor Xu to advise me how he intends to make redress for this.”

The soldier looked, Tai decided, very like a fish extracted from his element, suddenly lacking easy access to breathing.

Xu Bihai was, it was already clear, not a man given to half measures. He’d regard this second failure by his guards as a stain upon his honour. These soldiers might well be executed, Tai thought. He wasn’t sure, at this particular moment, if that distressed him.

He took a breath. “I’m sorry your morning was disturbed,” he said to Zian.

The poet flexed his shoulders and neck, as if to loosen them. “Hardly your fault. And it isn’t as if I was asleep.”

“No?”

“Well, perhaps I’d dozed a little. But I was having my first cup. Will you join me now?”

Tai shook his head. “You must excuse me. I have to change for breakfast with the prefect. I forgot about it last night.”

“Ah!” said the poet. “We’d have been late for a dawn departure, even without this diversion.”

“We would have been.”

Tai turned to Song. She looked pale. She had cause. “You are all right?”

“They barely touched me.” It wasn’t true, he saw, there was a line of blood on her left side, showing through her slashed tunic. Her expression changed. “That was a foolish leap for someone who has not fought in two years! It was folly to even come out. What were you thinking?”

Tai stared at her, small and resolute, wounded, glaring up in fury. It was a maddening question. “What was I thinking? Who fights six men without calling for help?”

She looked away, then shrugged. “You know the Kanlin answer to that, my lord. Your servant offers apologies if you believe I erred.” She bowed.

He started another sharp retort, then stopped. He looked more closely. “Your hand is also hurt.”

She glanced at it indifferently. “I rolled over some rocks. I will get these soldiers’ names and have them taken to the governor. Is there a message?” She paused meaningfully. “For anyone else?”

Tai ignored that. “What happened to the two men in the garden last night?”

“They revived. I spoke with them. They took the river path home.”

“You were awake?”

She nodded. Hesitated. “It is why I saw when these others came up the garden.”

He thought about that. “Song, how would they know my chamber?”

“I think we will discover that someone here told them—under duress, or not. We can leave that, unless you wish otherwise, to Governor Xu’s inquiries.”

“Yes,” said Tai. “We are leaving as soon as I return from the prefect.”

“As soon as we return,” she said. She met his gaze. Her mouth was firm, her eyes resolute, indomitable.

He looked back at her. She had just fought six assassins, in silence, to keep him from coming out and possibly being killed in a fight.

He would need to ask her, though not just now, if she truly thought he was best served by being left to lie in bed to be attacked—unarmed and defenceless—in the event they killed her as she fought them alone.

“Your servant will escort you, and wait,” Song murmured. “If that is acceptable, my lord.”

She lowered her eyes, presenting a small, neat, lethal image, all deference and duty, in a black Kanlin robe.

“Yes,” he sighed. “It is acceptable.”

What was the point of saying anything else?

“Shandai is my brother!”

Li-Mei’s voice is louder than she’s intended it to be. They are alone, after all, only the wolves around them in a vast expanse, the sun just risen. But her heart is racing. “That is what you are trying to say? His name? Shen Tai?”