Master Den followed him out of the passage and the servant closed the heavy red-lacquered door after them with another impatient gesture to hurry. He led them just a little way down the elegant hall to a recessed alcove flanked by stiff-backed Imperial Guards. Elaborate panels carved with fantastic animals lined the alcove. The servant pressed on the head of a carved dragon, and a gilt panel slid aside, revealing a bedroom larger than Lord Chin-shi's room on Pearl Island, and decorated with more riches as well.
Again, the servant gestured without words that Llesho should enter. Leaving him to his own devices with a brief bow, the servant slid the panel shut after him. Llesho heard two sets of footsteps move down the hall, then another door slid on its runner. Master Den was nearby at least.
Alone, Llesho had a choice of only two occupations: he could think, or he could explore. His bladder made that decision for him: explore. Quickly. He passed over the lacquered cabinets and the tall standing chest, and ignored the bed big enough to hold his entire squad without crowding them. The room was lavishly draped with silken wall hangings covering greased-paper windows, paneled walls almost as sumptuous as the hangings that covered them. Some of those panels had to be doors: he'd come through one which had blended back into the decorative gilt and carving so that he could no more find his way out again than he could find the other doors that must be present in the room. When he had begun to despair of ever finding what he needed, however, he discovered the secret of the moving panels, and behind them, the door leading to the correct chamber.
More comfortable after a brief visit to the personal room, he explored more systematically. Besides the panel by which he'd entered and the door he had just used, Llesho found only one other functioning exit, and that was locked and bolted from the other side. He noted that the mysterious door had no locking mechanism on his side, and the absence of his personal guards suddenly took on a more ominous meaning. Assassins could come through that door any time they wanted to kill him in his sleep. Good thing he wasn't tired.
On a second round of exploring his bedchamber, Llesho opened the chest and the cabinets, noted items of Thebin apparel and others in the style of the Shan Empire, all in his size. Laid out among the elegant decoration of the palace chamber, the contents of his pack rested on the shelves of the standing chest. Displayed lovingly, like the votive objects of a shrine, he found the ancient spear that her ladyship had given him and the jade cup. Touching them sent a chill down his spine. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to make him comfortable, had even recognized the value of the objects in his pack as relics rather than the tools of a soldier. The care they had taken hardly seemed necessary if they planned to have him killed immediately. He decided to take that as a good sign.
Even in daylight he wouldn't be able to see through the greased paper windows, but he stopped for a moment in his explorations of his bedchamber, struck by the silence. He could hear nothing of the life of the empire's largest and most powerful city, and the contrast with his father's palace struck him like a dagger in the heart.
Even in the darkest hours of night Kungol had hummed with lifeâgroaning camels and bleating lambs, drunken caravan drovers brawling in the streetâlike the pulse of a living creature whose health a king might measure by the beat of it as he slept. How could an emperor know his empire when he could not even hear the cries of his city? Why did Habiba and Master Den think that such an Emperor would stoop to help the deposed prince of a conquered land a thousand li to the west, when he gave so little notice to the life just paces from his celestial throne? He would receive no help here; Llesho threw himself on the bed, determined to make his own way at dawn.
But the bed was comfortable, and he had been on the march for a long time. Despite his determination, he fell asleep and awoke only when the smell of breakfast pulled him out of his dreams. A bustling servant poured out his tea and opened the lacquered chest with a thoughtful frown. When Llesho returned from relieving himself, he found that the servant had laid out a set of ornate robes suitable to an imperial official. Llesho glared at the clothing, which looked too complicated for him to manage on his own and too uncomfortable for him to want to manage. The servant had already gone, so he ignored the clothing and focused on his breakfast.
While he was still nibbling a cake full of cinnamon, nuts, and honey, a man he identified from his medallion of office as a protocol officer knocked on his door and entered without an invitation. After a minimal bow, to show Llesho how little respect he was owed, the protocol officer stiffly recited his message: “The emperor is otherwise engaged. You may petition for an audience, but he is very busy. If he finds the time to see you, you will have two or three minutes to state your case in a public audience, and none at all alone. Be prepared with an inscribed memorial laying out your case and the outcome for which you petition: the Celestial Emperor does not suffer fools to live.”
Llesho was tempted to comment that the continued existence of the protocol officer proved otherwise, but he kept his mouth shut.
Don't attract attention,
he warned himself. When the official had gone, Llesho wiped his hands on the silk napkin and prepared to dress. He ignored the Shannish robes laid out for him, and dug in the chest for something less noticeable to wear. The Thebin day wear tempted him, but it would draw far too much attention here on the eastern edge of the trade routes. Instead, he pulled on a pair of plain breeches and a silk shirt with a minimum of decoration, and found a pair of shoes more suited to walking than either his Thebin boots or the fragile slippers the servant had chosen.
When he was dressed, he left his room. The guards at his door did not surprise him, but neither did they follow when he turned down the hall, nor did they stop him when he tried to slide open the panel to the next room down the corridor. He was disappointed but not surprised when it didn't open. About thirty paces farther on he came to a staircase more modest than the one he'd taken the night before. Descending cautiously, he found himself in a small, octagonal chamber with a doorway in each wall. Two imperial soldiers stood guard at rigid attention, but they made no move to stop Llesho when he opened the first door.
“Just exploring,” he explained.
The soldiers said nothing, so he peeked inside and found a small room with a few scattered chairs bearing no decoration, and a table with a large urn of hot water, a teapot, and a scattering of cups on it. Two of the chairs were occupied by soldiers, apparently waiting for their turn at guard duty or coming off the shift before and warming themselves with some tea before moving on. They stared at him, and Llesho smiled uncomfortably.
“As you were,” he said, and closed the door again.
The next door opened into another small room, this one more carefully furnished, but still with none of the richness one expected of an imperial palace. Llesho guessed that the officers of the guard might take their rest or give their orders here.
The third door led into a long dark passageway that plunged deep into the palace. At the far end, Llesho could just make out by the light of a single lamp an iron staircase spiraling up to the level from which he had just come, and leading down into what must be an underground passage or chamber. The passage left him with the vague impression of dried and crusted blood, though he had seen nothing to support the terror that he felt just thinking about it. He stored the location for later, but closed the door on the passage with as much speed as he could muster with any kind of dignity.
When he opened the fourth door, he actually smiled. Here was another passageway, but one with natural light filtering in from slots cut high overhead. The passage followed the line of the palace wall, and Llesho guessed that there might be a hidden exit at the end of it. The soldiers did not stop him, so he entered the passage and closed the door behind him, leaving it ajar just enough so it would not latch and lock him in if he did not find another way out.
He needn't have worried. The passage led him through what must have been the palace's east wall, because the morning sun fell like bars of gold across his path. After he had gone more than two hundred paces, the passage opened out into a rough chamber that ended in a tunnel cutting into the ground beneath the palace wall. From this tunnel Llesho felt no air of death or decay, and he followed it. He was surprised to discover lighted torches all along the wayâfor all its apparent secrecy, it must be a well used route, a shortcut of some kind. The tunnel branched. Llesho considered for a moment, before taking the path with fewer torches burning down its length.
He didn't know what he was looking for, but it didn't take him long to find it: a door with a large iron lock with the key still left in it. Clearly an invitation, but to what? Llesho turned the key and pushed open the door. Nothing he had ever seen before had prepared him for the scale and the magnificence of his surroundings. He was outside the palace, the pink sandstone wall at his back rising to more than twice his height. On his left, the wall joined to a temple of many levels with seven curved roofs ascending like a ladder to heaven. The marks of the seven gods the temple served appeared in red paint above the heavy lintel.
Of course, the Emperor was himself a god, so his palace must be the greatest temple in the imperial city. The practical nature of the Shan people was well known, however, and Llesho had heard jokes even on Pearl Island that in the imperial city money itself was worshiped as a god. He didn't quite believe it, but looking up at the symbols of the deities worshiped here in the shadow of the palace, he was shocked to discover how many of the beloved gods of Shan were bureaucrats and money counters.
The goddess,
he thought,
would not bend her gaze upon such a city.
But one might buy the freedom of a brother here, where even the gods were worshiped for pay.
On his right stretched a massive building also made of pink sandstone. The building bore no marking to indicate its purpose, but the wide stone steps in front of it were filled with the bustle of official looking men and women in robes of state with elaborate buttons of office on their hats. The buildings, together with the palace wall, formed three sides of a square in which the paving stones had been arranged according to the zodiac, with many signs of good luck and blessings worked into their surfaces. Llesho thought that ten thousand soldiers might fit into that square with room to hold a corps of drummers as well.
He stood in the shadows under the wall, trying to decide what to do. The city was alien to him, oppressive and cold and large beyond the scale men could comprehend. The few people in the square seemed busy and importantâmore likely to call out the guard than assist him if he asked for directions. Llesho hesitated to step out into the sunlight at all for fear that someone would notice he didn't belong there and sound a warning.
Although there were far fewer people around the temple than gathered on the steps of the offices of state, they seemed more varied both in dress and in their looks; a Thebin might not seem so out of place on those steps. Staying in the shadows, he worked his way around the palace wall and across the front of the temple, not stepping into the light until he had ascended the temple steps. From there he allowed himself to survey the city, which faded into a jumble of roofs around a square of green. A garden. Llesho turned toward that spot of comfort with purpose in his stride.
The Imperial Water Garden was very beautiful, restful and green with just the occasional hint of weathered cedar where little bridges arched over ponds and man-made streams. A few scattered willows drew the eye upward, but most of the water-loving plants huddled closer to the ground. Cattails and swamp grasses, water lilies and lotus, gave texture to the garden but drew the eye earthward to contemplate the stillness of a pond here, the gentle ripple of a stream moving over artfully placed stones in their path. At the center of the garden, a natural spring fed a waterwheel that spilled over a tumble of rocks to create a splashing waterfall which, in turn, sped the streamlets through the park. Under the waterfall sat a small stone altar with the symbol of ChiChu, the god of laughter and tears marked on its side.
Llesho considered offering a petition to the god, but thought better of it. Of the seven mortal gods, only ChiChu had used trickery to gain a place in heaven. When the six had demanded their unworthy brother be cast out, the goddess had chastised them for pride, and set the trickster among them as a reminder of their humanity. ChiChu often granted the requests that came to him, but he was likely to do so in ways both unlooked for and unwelcome to the supplicant.
Llesho found a bench nearby and sat. The park was peaceful, and it was easy to forget his worries when the gentle breeze shifted the grasses in hypnotic patterns. He found it difficult to reconcile this refuge with the trading of cash-filled envelopes for heavenly favors on the temple steps. What was this city, where human lives and the favors of tax collector gods might be bought and sold, where tiny altars to the Seven might be hidden among the reeds of a public garden? Who were these people, who worshiped an emperor, yet turned their backs when the favored of the goddess fell to the invading Harn?
A shadow falling over him shattered his reverie. Almost as if it had a will of its own, Llesho's hand reached for the knife hidden under his shirt.
“I thought I might find you here.” General Shou moved around the bench so that Llesho could see him. He wore robes of brilliant blue beneath a red silk coat. A crane embroidered in gold thread on each sleeve and a cap with a button of office completed his dress. The sleeves of his coat gave fleeting glimpses of copper wrist guards on each arm, the only clue that Shou was more than the merchant he appeared to be. The general's face settled into the petulant lines of a harried trader. If he had not spoken before he showed himself, Llesho wasn't sure he would have recognized him at all.