Guy Kay - Under Heaven

“She is right, my lord,” said Lu Chen.

“Master Sima would agree with me,” Song repeated.

Tai glared at her. “Master Sima has never in his life held any position at—”

“I know,” she interrupted, though gently. “But he would still agree with me. Shen Tai, take the horses north, then beg him to let you go home as your reward.”

“And if he refuses?”

She bit her lip. Looked young again, suddenly.

“I don’t know. But I know I’m right,” she said defiantly.

HE HAD CALLED for a writing table, paper and ink, brushes, lamps for his room.

The storm had passed. His window faced south, which meant good fortune; his was the best room, at the end of the long hallway upstairs. He’d pushed the shutters back. The air was sweet and mild, the heat broken by the rain. Tai heard the sound of water dripping from the projecting eaves. The sun was almost down when he began writing.

It was a difficult letter. He started with a full salutation, impeccably formal, summoning everything he’d learned about this while studying for the examinations. First missive to a new emperor, explaining why he was not coming back as instructed. Because his small Kanlin guard wasn’t the only defiant person at this inn.

He employed every imperial title he could remember. He used his most careful calligraphy. This was a letter that could decide his life.

Because of that, he even invoked Li-Mei, thanking the imperial family, the Ninth Dynasty, for the great honour done his father’s only daughter. Of course, that expression of gratitude was also a reminder that the Shen family was linked to the dynasty, and could surely be considered loyal.

He didn’t mention his brother. Liu had died honourably, bravely, but it was wisest not to raise any connection to Wen Zhou.

He did hint, also obliquely, that his mother and his father’s much-loved concubine were living alone with only a still-maturing young son in the household, and had been doing so for a long time.

He mentioned that he himself had not yet seen his honourable father’s headstone and the inscription on that stone. Had not been able to kneel before it, or pour his ancestral libation. He’d been at Kuala Nor. Sardian horses were coming to the emperor because of that, had already arrived, if Shinzu was reading this letter.

All but ten of the Heavenly Horses (he was keeping ten, because he had people to honour and reward for their help) were humbly offered by Shen Tai to the exalted Emperor Shinzu, to use as the Son of Heaven and his advisers saw fit. It was a matter of great pride to the glorious emperor’s most unworthy servant, Shen Tai, son of Shen Gao, that he could assist Kitai in this way. He used all of his father’s offices and titles at that point in the letter.

He wrote of his own devotion to the Ninth Dynasty and to the emperor himself, since he who now held the Phoenix Throne (and would rise like the phoenix from the ashes of war!) had helped Tai himself, deigning to intercede one day at Ma-wai, and another time in the palace, against the murderous intrigues of a man whose disgraced name Tai would not even write.

He’d thought about that part for some time, as the night darkened outside, but it was surely right to make it clear that Wen Zhou had wanted Tai dead.

He hesitated again, sipping wine, reading over what he’d written, then he mentioned the rings the august and illustrious emperor and father-emperor, may the gods in all nine heavens defend them and grant them peace, had each given the unworthy but devoted Shen Tai, by their own hands.

He was looking at that part, and wondering about it, if it could possibly be read as a thought that the father, not the son, should be on the throne, when he heard the door to the room open.

He didn’t turn around, remained on the mat before the writing table, facing the open window. There was a breeze, and stars now, but the three lamps lit the room too much for them to be clearly seen.

“If I were someone who wanted you dead, you would be by now,” she said.

Tai laid down his brush. “That was one of the first things you ever said to me, at Iron Gate.”

“I remember,” she said. “How did you know it was me?”

He shook his head impatiently, looking out. “Who else would it be?”

“Really? Not an assassin from Tagur, perhaps? Trying at the last minute to stop their horses from crossing the border?”

“I have Kanlin guards,” Tai said. “He wouldn’t have gotten near this room. I recognized your footfall, Song. I do know it by now.”

“Oh,” she said.

“I thought I barred the door this time.”

“You did. This is an old inn. The wood shifts, too much space between door and wall. A sword can be used to lift the bar.”

He was still looking out the window. “Shouldn’t I have heard it?”

“Probably,” she said, “though someone trained can do it quietly. This is why you need guards.”

He was tired, but also amused. “Really? Why would an assassin bother with me? I am apparently of no use to anyone, in wartime.”

She was silent a moment. “I was angry. I didn’t mean that.”

“It is true, however. Once the emperor has the horses.”

“I don’t … I don’t think it is true, myself. I was trying to be persuasive.”

Her footfall, moving into the room.

A moment later one of the lamps was blown out. The one closest to him, illuminating his writing table. And because she’d come nearer he caught the scent of perfume. She never wore perfume.

He turned.

She had already crossed to the second lamp. She bent and blew that one out as well, leaving only the one by the bed. She turned to him.

“I’m still trying to be persuasive,” Wei Song said, and let her tunic slip from her shoulders to the floor.

Tai stood up quickly. He looked away a moment, then his eyes were pulled back to her. The lithe form. She had a long, shallow gash across the ribs on one side. He knew how she’d received that wound.

“Please forgive my shyness with the lights,” she murmured.

“Shyness?” Tai managed to say.

The single lamp beside her lit one breast more than the other, and the left side of her face. Slowly, she lifted both her hands and began unpinning her hair.

“Song, what … this is to persuade me to go north? You do not have to—”

“It isn’t,” she said, hands lifted, exposing her body to his gaze. “That wasn’t true, about persuading. It just sounded like a clever thing to say. A pleasure district remark? They are clever there, I know. And beautiful.”

She set one long pin on the table by the bed, and then removed and set down another, moving slowly, the light falling upon her. “This is a goodbye,” she said. “We may not meet again, since you will not come north.”

Tai was mesmerized by her movements. She had killed for him, he had seen her do it at Chenyao, in a garden. She was barefoot now, wore only thin Kanlin trousers, nothing down to the waist.

The last hairpin slipped free and she shook out her hair.

“Goodbye?” Tai said. “You were hired for ten years! You are mine until then!” He was trying to be ironic.

“Only if we live,” she said. She looked away, he saw her bite her lip. “I am willing to be yours,” she said.

“What are you saying?”

She looked back at him, and did not answer. But her wide-set eyes were on his, unwavering, and he thought, yet again, of how much courage she had.

And then, for the second time that day, Tai realized that within himself something had already happened, perhaps some time ago, and that he was only, in this lamplit, after-thunder moment, coming to know it. He shook his head in wonder.

“I can leave now,” she said, “and be gone before morning, to collect the horses.”