Guy Gavriel Kay - Under Heaven

“Three weapons,” Wei Song said. She pulled one of her hairpins out and laid it down. It rested, gleaming, on the platform. “And escape is considered preferable, but is not expected with certain assignments.”

“I know that,” said Tai.

He was watching the commander, and he saw a change.

It was as if the man settled into himself, accepted that he had done what he could, would be able to absorb and deflect whatever criticism came from superiors. This was beyond him, larger by far than a border fortress. The court had been invoked.

Lin Fong sipped his tea, calmly poured more from the dark-green ceramic pot on the lacquered tray at his side. Tai did the same thing from his own. He looked at the woman. The hairpin rested in front of her, long as a knife. The head of it was silver, in the shape of a phoenix.

“You will, at least, attend upon Xu Bihai, the governor, in Chenyao?”

Lin Fong’s expression was earnest. This was a request, no more. On the other hand, the commander did not suggest he visit the prefect in Chenyao. Army against civil service, endlessly. Some things never changed, year over year, season after season.

There was no need to comment. And if he also went to see the prefect, that was his own affair. Tai said simply, “Of course I will, if Governor Xu is gracious enough to receive me. I know that he knew my father. I will hope to receive counsel from him.”

The commander nodded. “I will send my own letter. As to counsel…you have been much removed, have you not?”

“Very much,” said Tai.

Moons above a mountain bowl, waxing and waning, silver light upon a cold lake. Snow and ice, wildflowers, thunderstorms. The voices of the dead on the wind.

Lin Fong looked unhappy again. Tai found himself beginning to like the man, unexpectedly. “We live in difficult days, Shen Tai. The borders are peaceful, the empire is expanding, Xinan is the glory of the world. But sometimes such glory…”

The woman remained very still, listening.

“My father used to say that times are always difficult,” Tai murmured, “for those living through them.”

The commander considered this. “There are degrees, polarities. The stars find alignments, or they do not.” This was rote, from a Third Dynasty text. Tai had studied it for the examinations. Lin Fong hesitated. “For one thing, the first thing, the honoured empress is no longer in the Ta-Ming Palace. She has withdrawn to a temple west of Xinan.”

Tai drew a breath. It was important news, though not unexpected.

“And the lady Wen Jian?” he asked softly.

“She has been proclaimed as Precious Consort, and installed in the empress’s wing of the palace.”

“I see,” said Tai. And then, because it was important to him, “And the ladies attending upon the empress? What of them?”

The commander shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. I’d assume they went with her, at least some of them.”

Tai’s sister had gone to Xinan three years before, to serve the empress as a lady-in-attendance. A privilege granted to Shen Gao’s daughter. He needed to find out what had happened to Li-Mei. His older brother would know.

His older brother was an issue.

“That is indeed a change, as you said. What else must I know?”

Lin Fong reached for his tea cup, put it down. He said, gravely, “You named the prime minister. That was an error. Alas, First Minister Chin Hai died last autumn.”

Tai blinked, shaken. He hadn’t been ready for this, at all. It felt for a moment as if the world rocked, as if some tree of colossal size had fallen and the fort was shaking with the reverberation.

Wei Song spoke up. “It is generally believed, though we have heard it suggested otherwise, that he died of an illness contracted with an autumn chill.”

The commander looked narrowly at her.

We have heard it suggested otherwise.

These could be called words of treason.

Commander Lin said nothing, however. It could never have been said that the army held any love for Emperor Taizu’s brilliant, allcontrolling first minister.

Chin Hai, tall, thin-bearded, thin-shouldered, famously suspicious, had governed under the emperor through a quarter-century of growing Kitan wealth and fabulous expansion. Autocratic, ferociously loyal to Taizu and the Celestial Throne, he’d had spies everywhere, could exile—or execute—a man for saying something too loudly in a wine shop, overheard by the wrong person.

A man hated and terribly feared, and possibly indispensable.

Tai waited, looking at the commander. Another name was coming now. Had to be coming.

Commander Lin sipped from his tea. He said, “The new first minister, appointed by the emperor in his wisdom, is Wen Zhou, of…of distinguished lineage.” The pause was deliberate, of course. “Is his a name you might know?”

It was. Of course it was. Wen Zhou was the Precious Consort’s cousin.

But that wasn’t the thing. Tai closed his eyes. He was remembering a scent, green eyes, yellow hair, a voice.

“And if someone should ask me…should propose to make me his personal courtesan, or even a concubine?”

He opened his eyes. They were both looking at him curiously.

“I know the man,” he said.

Commander Lin Fong of Iron Gate Fortress would not have named himself a philosopher. He was a career soldier, and had made that choice early in life, following older brothers into the army.

Still, over the years, he had come to realize (with proper humility) that he was more inclined to certain ways of thinking, and perhaps to an appreciation of beauty that went deeper in him than in most of his fellow soldiers—and then fellow officers—as he rose (somewhat) through the ranks from humble beginnings.

He enjoyed, among other things, civilized conversation so much. Sipping wine alone in his chamber late at night, Lin Fong acknowledged that a disturbing measure of what had to be called excitement was keeping him awake.

Shen Tai, the son of the late General Shen, was the sort of person Lin Fong would have wished to keep at Iron Gate for days or even weeks, such was the spark of the man’s thinking and the unusual pattern of his life.

Their conversation over dinner had forced him to acknowledge, ruefully, how impoverished his daily routines and company were here.

He’d asked the man an obvious (to him) question. “You have now gone twice beyond the borders for extended periods. The ancient masters teach that danger to the soul lies in doing that.” He had offered a smile, to take any sting or offence from the words.

“Some teach that. Not all.”

“That is so,” Lin Fong had murmured, gesturing to a servant to pour more wine. He was a little out of his depth when it came to variant teachings of the ancient masters. A soldier did not have time to learn these things.

Shen Tai had looked thoughtful, however, the oddly deep-set eyes revealing a mind working on the question. Courteously, he’d said, “The first time, commander, I was a very young officer. I went north among the Bogü because I was ordered there, that’s all. I doubt, respectfully, you would have chosen to come to Iron Gate, had your wishes been considered.”

So he had noticed! Fong had laughed a little self-consciously. “It is an honourable posting,” he’d protested.

“Of course it is.”

After a short silence, Fong had said, “I take your point, of course. Still, having been beyond the empire once without any choice of your own, the second time…?”

Unhurried, unruffled, a man of obvious breeding: “The second time I was honouring my father. That is why I went to Kuala Nor.”

“There were no other ways to honour him?”

“I’m sure there were,” was all Shen Tai said.