Nevertheless he waved his written authority under the noses of the guards and ushers and finally heard the great doors close behind him. The sun was halfway down: a shaft from the windows above the door cut across to the rectangular wall facing him, hanging in the air a beam of dancing motes whose end seemed to rest on the patch of brilliant light head-high in the contrasting darkness of the empty wall before him.
Han Im’s remembered voice said: “Turn to your right, walk ten paces and face to the North.” The voice seemed to come from the left, where Ah Lai knew that the Emperor would sit, as Emperors had always sat, their backs to the high lands of the border tribes, their faces to the warmer country of the black-haired people of the hundred surnames.
When Ah Lai had obediently done this, he saw that he was not alone, for beside him, cross-legged on the tiled floor, a Taoist priest sat. The long, coarse pin through his untidy hair, and the shapeless, brown robes of his order seemed in strange, undeliberate contrast with the shining buckles and glinting weapons of the guards, with the tall sacrificial tripods against the Eastern wall, and the four peacock-feather screens which moved, ever so slightly, in front of the throne before him. Only the base of the throne was visible: Ah Lai subconsciously wondered how such a throne had been found here in Cheng-tu, where no Emperor or king had sat since the dim days of the later Han dynasty. The peacock-feather screens seemed to have been brought from some dusty store: they bore no resemblance to the twice seventy-eight which, at Chang-an, drew colours from the air in a shifting spectrum of green and blue.
Nobody spoke. The bearers of the four fans lowered them towards the door. The Emperor was coming. Ah Lai, amused, saw the moving feet below the fans. Then the four fans were lifted and their bearers returned to their places by the two walls. The Emperor sat, revealed, upon his throne. A faint point of light played on the gold nail-covers of his left hand. The rest, seen through the sunbeam across the hall, was dark, was magnificence not visible. The Emperor spoke, broodingly.
“We have published an edict, recognising the poverty of Our virtue, regretting the ills of Our country, admitting that Our choice of officers was not wise, authorising the Heir to the Throne to undertake attacks upon Our enemies, and proclaiming an amnesty for prisoners. Our sorrow is great.”
Again there was silence: the motes danced, unheeding, in the sunbeam.
Han Im, near the throne, suddenly remembered his duty and intoned: “The Emperor has spoken.”
Then the priest, still sitting cross-legged, said: “To state the truth, when the truth is plain, is riot enough. To favour the Way of Tao, to transcribe in a new edition the works of our Master and to publish a commentary on the Classic of Filial Piety, are not enough. To seek for the Elixir of Life is not enough, though you have done all these things. It is the heart which matters.”
Ah Lai felt that he was more a spectator than ever in his life. Two thoughts strove for mastery in the darkened halclass="underline" he watched their strife.
The Emperor went on: “It is easy to silence for ever voices such as that.”
The priest replied: “The voice may be silenced, but the truth remains.”
Suddenly, horribly, laughter came from the Emperor. He cried in a loud voice: “We simulate here all. Our old ceremony, and a priest sits cross-legged, listening without being impressed. Should We be happier, were We that priest?” Again he laughed. “We do not dare, because We dare not understand. We do not understand, because We dare not dare.”
Han Im said: “Sorrow rides your Majesty hard.”
The Emperor replied: “It is not sorrow. It is frustration. Here We must plan, and issue edicts and send messengers. There, outside this hall, the people of the hundred surnames suffer. Of what avail is it to them that We should hold Our throne?”
The priest said: “You trust no one.”
The Bright Emperor answered: “We trust no one. Whom should We trust?”
Han Im reminded him: “Sire, there is the matter of the safety of the city of Sui-yang. Your Majesty was considering it.”
Irritably, the Emperor said: “Well? Must I sorrow and plan together?”
Then the priest rose to his feet. He appeared tall in the gloom. He said: “To put ‘I’ for ‘We’ is a beginning. Whom did you wish to send to Sui-yang?”
“What is it like not to fear me?” the Emperor asked.
The priest replied: “It is like listening to a sick child. Yet even Confucius told us that if we hear the Way of Tao in the morning, it matters little if we should die at night. Perhaps he did not mean the Way of Tao, but his own Way. But you should not fear death, you of all men, for to you above all others is granted the continuity of family, of succession, of a tended tomb. We are they whom history passes by.”
Han Im observed again: “Sui-yang, Your Majesty?”
“Tell the boy,” the Emperor answered.
Han Im said: “His Imperial Majesty has decreed that to you, Ah Lai, should be given the honour of a mission. Instructions and authority are written here, on this paper. Guard them with your life.”
Ah Lai stepped forward and walked up the interminable floor. In front of the throne he kotowed. But before his forehead had reached the floor for the second time, the Emperor said with a kindly note in his voice: “Stop. Rise. You helped me once. Do not imagine that I forget so easily.”
The priest had moved up noiselessly beside Ah Lai.
“Does the lad desire to undertake this mission?” he asked. “Why did he help you before? Was it for your own sake, or for another’s? Do not in one breath thank him and ask for more favours. He may not want to go on this mission.”
Han Im asked, scandalised: “Shall he be removed?”
The Emperor shook his head. A gem in his headdress turned from green to red, then apricot, as he moved. “The priest is right,” he said. “I talk much of the sorrow of my people, but I have not yet learned to consider their desires. I am old to learn. Boy, do you wish to do me this service?”
Ah Lai answered: “If I must be honest, as this priest is honesty I must say that, when I served before in taking the Lady Yang to Ma Wei with General Tung’s orders for the reception of his troops, I did so because I wanted adventure. Further, there was a girl who was better left alone for a space. So I went to Ma Wei. But now to travel to Sui-yang, for whatever cause, seems to be but to place a greater distance between myself and this girl.”
Han Im said: “She would wish you to go. Further, if you write a letter, it can be carried by another, through the lines of the enemy. You must serve your Emperor.”
The priest said: “Must? All the ills of the world lie in that word. Even Confucius said he would have no ‘must’ in his ideal State.”
The Emperor rose to his feet, impatiently waving aside the bearers of the fans. “The whole of my Empire is bathed in blood because men give orders and other men obey them,” he cried. “And now the loyalty of Sui-yang is to stand as a bastion against the enemy’s forces, and again there will be blood everywhere. I will issue no more orders. Han Im, come.”
The priest and Ah Lai were left alone in the great hall. The fan-bearers vanished through another door. The sunbeam was more level now, but the motes still danced.
Ah Lai said: “I thought that to oppose the Bright Emperor, or even to query an order, was to die. But you are not dead. I am not dead. Life is strange now. Before, we knew what to expect.”
The priest replied: “He is whimsical. Also he is sad because of the Lady Yang, whose family have ruined the State, if ever there were any so simple first cause. Come, let us go to your lodgings. Read the orders which you were given. Maybe they fit with your own desires. It is always easier to take the line of least resistance.”