Under Heaven

“Gracious lord, they did not. Your servant only heard them crying in the night, from the time the sun went down until it rose again.”

“Crying. In anger, or in sorrow, son of Shen Gao?”

Tai looked at the floor. “Both, exalted lord. When … when … when bones were laid to rest, that ghost would cease to cry.”

There was a silence. He glanced at Jian out of the corner of his eye. She stood by a window, late sunlight in her hair.

“We are well pleased,” said the emperor of Kitai. “You have done us honour, and your father. It is noted.”

Tai knelt again. “Great lord, your servant is not worthy of such words.”

There came a chuckle from behind the curtain. “Do you mean that I am wrong in what I have said?”

Tai pressed his forehead to the floor, speechless. He heard Jian’s laughter. She murmured, “Dearest love, that is unkind. You terrify the man.”

Dearest love.

The Emperor Taizu, unseen, but also laughing, said, “A man who lived two years among the dead? I hope it is not so.”

Tai didn’t move, didn’t speak.

“You have permission to stand,” Wen Jian said again, and this time there was exasperation in her voice.

Tai stood.

He heard a rustling of the curtain—but it was on the other side, away from him. A moment passed, then the rustling again.

The emperor said, “We will formally receive you when such matters have been arranged. We wished to express our approval, privately. We always have need of brave men in the Ta-Ming Palace. It is good that you are here.”

“Your servant thanks you, great lord,” Tai murmured. He was perspiring now.

The emperor, in a quieter voice, said, “Honour falls into three parts, son of Shen Gao. One part restraint. One part right-thinking. One part honouring ancestors. We will leave you.”

He didn’t care what the woman had told him three times now: Tai fell to his knees again and put his head to the floor. He heard the soldiers moving, a creak as the chair was lifted, then the floorboards as they carried it back through the hidden doors.

He was thinking of those last words, trying without success to remember if he’d ever heard or studied them. Then, wrongly, entirely wrongly, the thought came to him that the unseen man who’d spoken them had taken his young son’s young bride for his own concubine, was pursuing forbidden immortality with hidden alchemies, and was also building himself a tomb that dwarfed his father’s and all those of his line.

One’s own thoughts could be terrifying.

He heard the tread of the other soldiers, again almost running across the room. After a moment, he looked up.

Jian was by the double doors, alone, smiling at him.

“That was well enough done,” she said. “I will confess, for my own part, that I find restraint to be over- praised. Do you not agree, Shen Tai?”

It was too much. Too many different directions for a man to be pulled in one day. Tai simply stared at her. He had no idea what to say.

She could see it in his face, obviously. She laughed, not unkindly.

“You are excused from my banquet tonight,” she said.

He flushed. “I have offended you, illustrious lady?”

She shook her head. “Not so. There are gifts from the Phoenix Throne on the bed. These are the emperor’s, not mine. My gift is your freedom tonight. The little Kanlin, so fierce in your service, is waiting outside this room with nine other Warriors. You will need guards when you go to Xinan tonight.”

“I am going to Xinan?”

“And had best leave soon. Darkness will find you on the road.”

“I … what am I …?”

“My cousin,” said Jian, with a smile that could undo a man’s control over his limbs, “is here with me tonight, and with others tomorrow morning, in discussions about Roshan.”

“I see,” said Tai, although he didn’t.

“She has been told you are coming,” said Wen Jian.

Tai swallowed. Found that he could say nothing at all.

“This is my gift. Your Kanlin knows where your horse is stabled. And you have a steward now, for the city home the emperor has just presented you. You will need a steward.”

“A steward?” Tai repeated, stupidly.

“He was mine this morning. I have reconsidered a decision taken. He owes you his life. I expect he will serve you well.”

The smile deepened. There was no woman on earth, Tai thought, who looked the way this one did.

But there was another woman, in Xinan, with golden hair. Who had put her life at risk for him, who had warned him, more than once, of what might happen if he went away.

She had also told him, Tai remembered, that he was going to need to be much more subtle, if he had the smallest hope of surviving in the world of the court.

“They will send word when you are summoned,” said Wen Jian. “There will be an audience, and then, of course, you will need to go back west to bring your horses.”

“Of course, gracious lady,” said Tai.

“You have promised me ten of them,” she reminded him.

“I have,” he said. “For dancing?”

“For dancing,” she agreed. “One more gift.” She turned and laid something down on the bed and then went out through the doors in the wall. Someone closed them. The room was as it had been. It was still light outside.

On the bed lay a heavy key. Beside it was a ring, set with an emerald larger than any Tai had ever seen in his life.

There was a third object as well, he saw.

A lychee, not yet peeled.

He took the fruit, he took the key—it would be for the house in Xinan. He placed them in a pocket of his robe. He took the ring and put it on the ring finger of his left hand. He looked at it there for a moment, thinking of his father and mother. Then he took it off and placed it in his pocket, as well.

He drew a strained breath, let it out. For no good reason he removed his hat.

He crossed to the door and opened it.

“I am happy to see you,” he said to Wei Song. She stood there, straight, small, unsmiling, fierce as a grassland wolf.

She made a face. Said nothing. Did incline her head, mind you. Behind her were, as promised, other Kanlins, black-clad.

Beside Song, kneeling, was the steward from this morning at the inn. The man who’d been ordered by Jian to kill himself when they reached Ma-wai. I have reconsidered a decision.

“Please stand,” said Tai. The steward stood up. There were, embarrassingly, tears on his cheeks. Tai pretended not to see them. He took out the key. “I will assume you have been told which gateway, which house in Xinan, this will unlock?”

“I have, gracious lord,” said the steward. “It is in the fifty-seventh ward, the very best. A handsome property. It is even close to the mansion of the first minister!” He looked proud, saying this.

Tai blinked. He could almost hear Jian’s laughter.

He said, “I wish you to take horse or carriage, whichever is easier for you, and prepare this house for me tonight. There will be servants there?”