River of Stars. Guy Gavriel Kay

understand, my lord.”

      “And went to present the book to him?”

      “Perhaps also to introduce his daughter.”

      Reminded, Wenzong looked again at the letter. “Extraordinary,” he said. He looked up. “Of course, it isn’t proper for a woman to write like this.”

      “No, my lord. Of course not. It is, as you say, extraordinary. I believe the father taught her himself, then arranged for tutors.” (Xi Wengao’s letter had reported as much.)

      “Indeed? Does that make him a subversive man?”

      Unexpected. One needed to be alert, always. There were so many dangers here.

      “It might, my lord. I rather think it makes him an attentive father.”

      “He ought to have looked to marrying her, then.”

      “She is wed, my lord. To Qi Wai, of the imperial clan. Sixth degree. Xi Wengao states as much.”

      An alert look. Emperors were attentive when the imperial clan was mentioned. “An honourable marriage.”

      “Of course, my lord.”

      Another pause. One still heard the gardener breathing raggedly. Dejin half wished the man were gone, but he knew he would be useful, any moment now.

      The emperor said, “We find this appeal filial and persuasive, with evocative brush strokes.”

      “Yes, celestial lord.”

      “Why would our adviser send a simple man like this to Lingzhou Isle?”

      It was as if he were biting into a plum through taut, firm skin, so vivid and sweet was the taste.

      “Again, alas, I cannot answer. I am ashamed. I knew nothing of this until these letters this morning. I permitted Minister Kai to take command of dealing with remaining conservative faction members. He petitioned for that responsibility, and I was too kind-hearted to deny him. I confess it might have been an error.”

      “But Lingzhou? For visiting someone whose garden he had described in a book? We are told … we understand it is a harsh place, Lingzhou Isle.”

      “I also understand as much, my lord.”

      Even as he said this, a thought came to Dejin. And then another, more profound, in its wake.

      Before he could be cautious and stop himself, he spoke the first thought, “It might be regarded as a gesture of the celebrated imperial compassion if the poet Lu Chen were now permitted to leave the isle, august lord. He has been there some time.”

      Wenzong looked at him. “That is where he is? Lu Chen?”

      It was entirely possible the emperor had forgotten.

      “It is, celestial lord.”

      “He was a leader of that faction. With Xi Wengao. You exiled him yourself, did you not?”

      He answered promptly. “I did the first time, yes. South of the Great River. But when his political poems continued to be written and circulated he was ordered farther away. He is … a challenging man.”

      “Poets can be difficult,” said the emperor in a musing tone. He was pleased with his own observation. Dejin could hear it.

      “I did not order him to Lingzhou, my lord. Across the mountains was what I suggested. Sending him to the isle was Councillor Kai’s decision. He also ordered his writings gathered and destroyed.”

      “And yet you have some in your bedchamber.” The emperor smiled.

      A careful pause. A rueful smile. “I do, my lord.”

      “We do, as well. Perhaps,” said the emperor of Kitai, smiling even more, “we must be exiled, ourselves.”

      One of the imperial guards would later remember that.

      Wenzong added, “We recall his lines. Wise men fill the emperor’s court, so why do things get worse? / I’d have been better off dying, as bride to the river god. Do you know the poem?”

      “I do, revered lord.” Of course he knew it. It had been an attack on him.

      “That was during a flood of the Golden River, wasn’t it?”

      “It was.”

      “We sent relief, did we not?”

      “You did, my lord. Very generously.”

      The emperor nodded.

      They heard a sound. Dejin found it interesting how his hearing seemed to have improved as his eyesight failed. He turned. The figure of Kai Zhen could be seen approaching, on foot along the path from the palace gate. He was able to see the man hesitate as he took in Dejin’s presence and someone lying face down on the path before the emperor.

      Only the briefest hesitation, however, barely a checked stride, you could miss it if you weren’t watching for it. The deputy prime minister was as smooth, as polished, as green jade made by the finest craftsmen in Kitai, masters of their trade, in a tradition going back a thousand years.

      AFTERWARDS, BEING CARRIED back to the palace, Prime Minister Hang would take careful thought concerning what had just taken place. In his working room again, surrounded by papers and scrolls, with many lamps lit to make it easier for him to see, he would speak with his son and make arrangements for someone to be protected, and for the gardener to be found and executed.

      The man had heard far too much, lying on the ground throughout the exchanges before and after Kai Zhen arrived at the pavilion. He would be uneducated but he wasn’t a mute, and the times were dangerous.

      Some days later he would learn that the man had not been found. He wasn’t, evidently, a fool. It had proved extremely difficult even to establish his identity. None of them there that morning had asked his name, of course, and there were, Prime Minister Hang was informed, four thousand, six hundred men employed in the emperor’s garden.

      Eventually they would determine, through the Genyue supervisors’ records, who he was—a man from the north. Guards sent to his residence would find it empty, with signs of a hasty departure. Well, they knew it had been a hasty departure. The gardener was gone, his wife and a child were gone. None of the neighbours knew where. He hadn’t been a talkative man. Northerners tended not to be.

      There was a grown son living in a house outside the walls. He was interrogated. He did not know where his parents and young sister had gone, or so he would maintain right up until he died under questioning.

      It was disappointing.

      Holding high office (for so many years) meant that you had done, and would have to continue doing, unpleasant things at times. Actions inconsistent with philosophic ideals. It was necessary, at such moments, to remember that one’s duty was to the empire, that weakness in power could undermine peace and order.

      Difficult as it was for a virtuous man to have someone killed merely for overhearing a conversation, it was even more difficult to discover that the order, once given, had not been carried out.

      He would also give thought to the imperial guards who had been standing by that morning. They were trusted favourites of the emperor, always with him, not men one could order executed. Not without consequences. He had them promoted in rank, instead.

      You did what you could.

      CHAPTER V

      “Deputy Kai,” the emperor of Kitai had said in his garden that morning, “we are displeased.”

      Kai Zhen, standing below him on the brushed path, inclined his head in sorrow. “My lord, I live to amend anything that causes this, any errors your servants have committed. Only tell me!”

      Wenzong’s face remained chilly. “We believe it is the deputy prime minister’s errors that