Above the gate a camera swivelled, focusing on him. Two guards, clutching lantern guns and wearing the emerald green of the Empress's own force, stepped back, waving him through, their bowed heads acknowledging his status, yet from here on his high rank meant nothing. Within these walls, Pei Rung's word alone was law.
He crossed the enclosed courtyard then stepped inside, into the comparative darkness of the West Corridor. Halfway along, where a smaller corridor intersected it, stood Pei K'ung's Private Secretary, Ming Ai, waiting between two torch-bearers, his five assistants at his back like shaven-headed gargoyles.
The sight of them made Heng Yu's stomach tighten with a mixture of aversion and apprehension. Eunuchs, they were, with all the spite and petty jealousy of their kind; all the suppressed anger and resentment. It had been Pei K'ung's idea to resurrect the ancient practice, and it had not been long before Ming Ai and his shadows had secured their icy grip upon the Empress's Court. Just as Heng Yu was within Li Yuan's palace, so Ming Ai was here. But whereas he could roam the empire as he wished, Ming Ai was confined within these walls, imprisoned, as it were; a half-man, ruling only the microcosm of an empire. Such certain knowledge of one's limitations could and surely did warp a man's soul. It was with that thought in mind that Heng Yu stopped before Pei K'ung's Secretary and, bowing his head, greeted him.
"Ming Ai . . ."
"Master Heng," Ming answered, no tone in his surprisingly deep voice, no warmth to his expression. "My Mistress is awaiting you."
As Ming Ai turned, so his assistants parted before him, forming up behind Heng Yu as they made their way down the corridor that led to the Great Hall, the flickering torchlight on their jet black cloaks, the sickly-sweet stench of their perfume making Heng Yu feel as if he was within some dark and nasty dream.
How many have come this way in fear of their lives? he wondered, forcing himself to ignore the nausea he felt, keeping his eyes directed straight ahead lest he glimpse one of them smirking at him.
It was a place of shadows. Both within and without.
Ahead, a locked double door barred their way. Stepping up to it, Ming Ai took a thick black iron rod from within his cloak and hammered on the upper panel. From inside a female voice - distinct and clear - answered.
"Enter!"
As the doors eased back, Heng Yu knelt and lowered his head, touching his brow to the floor three times. He crawled forward into the doorway and repeated the ritual, then walked across the stone floor of the massive room, bent almost double, until he was before the massive desk. There he prostrated himself again, completing the k'ou t'ou. Behind him, Ming Ai and his shadows remained on their feet, unbowed before their Mistress.
A mistake, he thought, not for the first time, for to exempt such scoundrels from showing their respect surely gives them a sense of self-importance they ought not to possess. And from such tiny seeds grow great oaks of ambition. All should bow low or none. It is the only way.
As Heng Yu straightened, he glanced at the Empress where she sat behind the desk, ink brush in hand, writing busily. She had aged this past year. What had been plain in her had now grown ugly. Her long nose had thickened coarsely; her mouth, once pleasant, was now thin-lipped and drawn, and her chin, never the most pleasing of her features, now seemed absurdly angular, as if something forged of iron moved beneath that thin covering of flesh.
Ugly, yes, but that outward show was not the worst of it, for she had grown mean and vindictive these past twelve months. She had grown old not in wisdom, as the sages supposedly did, but in bitterness. That was not to say she was a stupid woman; far from it, for if a single person could be said to have held the Empire together these past ten years it was Pei K'ung. But what had once been political virtues - her stubbornness, her ruthlessness, her desire to succeed at any cost - had, in the last few months, become liabilities. In short, she had become a monster.
What was worse, she had come to despise her husband; to consider him a weak man, incapable of action. Not that she said as much - not openly, anyway, for who could tell what might get back to Li Yuan - but Heng could read between the lines of what was said. She thought this new society a sham, the promises Li Yuan had made to Ebert after the war unnecessary compromises. She thought they had given too much away; that they were pampering their citizens. What she wanted was the return of the old ways; the old certainties of levels and hierarchies. Indeed, if the truth were told, she was driven by a far greater desire: the desire to take back what was lost - to reunite Chung Kuo under a single ruler. This, he was certain, was her life's goal, the very pinnacle of her ambitions.
A monster.
Heng lowered his eyes, lest she look up suddenly and read his thoughts there in the wrinkled tablet of his face. The question was, did she know? Had she the slightest inkling of what she had become?
No, he answered silently. For true monsters do not analyse themselves. What self-knowledge his Mistress had once possessed had slowly atrophied, like an unused limb, and now it hung, limp and ignored, against her back.
Behind him Ming Ai cleared his throat.
Yes, Heng thought, and there's another sign. For those who rule are not like other men and women. One should judge them not by their own actions but by the actions of those that surround them - those whom they choose to carry out their will.
Men like Ming Ai and I Ye and the odious Chu Po.
He shuddered inwardly at the thought. That, at least, was a small mercy - that Pei K'ung's favourite was not here this morning. Only last week he had felt like striking the young rogue for his impertinence. Why Pei K'ung allowed him such free rein with his tongue the gods only knew, for she had many other lovers beside him. Or maybe that was Chu's role - to be a goad to such as he.
"Well, Heng?" Pei K'ung asked, setting down her pen and looking across at him, her eyes like dark beads in her long pale face. "Have we found him yet?"
Heng Yu remained kneeling, knowing he had not been told to stand. "Not yet, Mistress. But Colonel I is scouring the city for him. His men will stay on shift until they have located the man."
If his own man did not find him first. . .
"Ah . . ." Pei K'ung stood and came round from behind her desk, standing over him, the flowing folds of her dark green, almost black, silk robes whispering against the stone flags of the floor. Her voice, so unyielding before, now softened. "And the other matter?"
Heng Yu swallowed. "Forgive me, Mistress, but the bastard has fucked up!"
Unexpectedly she laughed.
He looked up at her, astonished. "Mistress?"
She stared back at him, her long, heavily-lined face giving nothing away, then gestured for him to rise. He stood, wrong-footed and confused by her lack of anger, watching as she crossed the room to a table where a number of scrolls were laid out.
"Come here, Master Heng," she said, studying one of the scrolls. "I think you'll find this interesting."
As he came close, she turned and handed him the scroll. Her eyes were strangely amused.
Bowing low, he took the scroll and unfolded it.
"I wondered how you would break the news, Master Heng."
He nodded distractedly, then looked up, startled. "But this is . . ."
"Jia Shu's confession." She said tonelessly, taking it back from him.
"But if you knew . . ."
Her smile faded like winter sunlight. "A little test, that's all."
He lowered his head, chilled by the abrupt change in her mood. She was not normally so volatile.
Pei K'ung stared at the scroll thoughtfully, then looked to Heng once more. "So what are we to do?"