He advanced to the front of the dais with an air of menace. ‘We mislike your words, poet. Change them!’
‘Sire, I write as the spirits call to me. I cannot desecrate their words.’ The voice was old and quavering but there was a pathetic strength behind it.
‘Do you question us?’ the Emperor roared. ‘No man defies the Dragon Throne.’
Ts’ao Fu stood his ground, remaining respectful but mute. It was moral courage on a scale that Nicander doubted he could ever find in himself.
In the icy stillness of the hall long moments passed.
Then the Emperor turned abruptly and ascended his throne once more. He addressed the poet, his voice silky with menace. ‘You sit under the old pagoda tree in the Bronze Sparrow Park for inspiration, do you not?’
‘I do, Great Emperor. I humbly listen to the seven worthies of the bamboo grove that-’
‘Yes, yes. Well, we know what to do about that. Imperial Guard!’
An officer jerked to attention and knelt before him.
‘Take our poet out to his pagoda tree where he got the inspiration for this dross. Then strike off his head as a warning to his seven worthies to do better next time!’
In a chill of horror Nicander watched the old man led away.
The Emperor settled back and beamed. ‘Well, why all the long faces? Music! Dancing! Strike up there!’
It was now clear they were walking a tightrope. Sooner or later this rabid despot would turn on them. Nicander whispered to Marius. ‘Just to say, m’ friend, I’m with you now. I want to get out of this madhouse situation as fast as we can.’
But they had long discovered that the palace was impossible to escape from. And even if they made it to the open country, what then? Two foreign devils on the run would not last out the day.
There was movement outside their room. It was Yi, who gave way to another. ‘Chief Scribe Wang, you bastards.’
A young man with the calm of a scholar bowed to them. ‘The Grand Chamberlain wishes to see you, should you be free.’
‘Go!’ commanded Yi.
Kuo’s modest lodgings spoke of higher and deeper reaches of the mind. In the first chamber were striking hangings of Chinese characters in many styles and exquisite watercolours of bamboo and flowers.
Beyond, was a neat room with solid, carved furniture; a single incense stick sent up a tiny spiral into the dark rafters of the ceiling.
Kuo met them with disarming courtesy. ‘Do forgive the untidiness. I now live alone and cannot be trusted with the civilities.’ Nicander tried to avoid staring at the Grand Chamberlain’s face with its empty eye sockets.
There were no chairs; Wang noiselessly led them to a low raised platform, inset with carnelian stone.
‘I shall not detain you long, gentlemen. I’ve asked you to me, more to indulge my own conscience than anything of consequence,’ Kuo continued. ‘The younger one. May I know your name?’
‘Sir. It is Nicander of Leptis Magna.’
Kuo faced him and tried to say the syllables. ‘Your grasp of our language is better than my foreign babbling, I fear. We’ll have to find you a Chinese name.’
He hesitated. ‘I believe you to be a man of intelligence, probably of some learning. That is why I asked you here, sir. I confess I feel it heavy on my spirit that you have, through no fault of your own, been deflected from your sacred purpose. To survive, you must suffer the indignity of actors, playing the simpleton for the common mirth.’
He paused, considering his words. ‘I wish to say to you that such sacrifice in two learned gentlemen – without repine – has won my most sincere admiration.’
‘That is most kind of you.’
‘At the same time I would have you know that the Chinese character is not one that is readily perceptible in the confines of a court. Rather it may be found in the company of scholars, men of discernment and delicacy in the arts of the gentleman. As the Master Wang Hsueh Che here.’
Wang flushed with embarrassment, protesting his unworthiness, which Kuo politely ignored.
‘I wish to say to you, that what you witnessed today was… in the way of a prince perhaps not yet fully enlightened in the tao of rulership under heaven. His youth as a warrior has made him impatient with the gentler and more demanding imperatives of an ethical ruler. I simply ask that you do not judge our civilisation by the hasty acts of one such.’
‘We shall reflect on your words, Lord Kuo,’ Nicander responded carefully.
‘And… and I’m obliged to say it, that if heaven wills it, the future may well be more blessed than the present.’
‘Sir?’
The Grand Chamberlain gave a slow smile. ‘How I wish… but you are bound men and cannot choose your path. In the fullness of time, perhaps…’
‘It makes no difference,’ Nicander said later after relaying the conversation to Marius. ‘There’s nothing here for us except what we saw today. We have to get away!’
Yi was consumed with curiosity at this second meeting with the Grand Chamberlain and demanded to know what had taken his slaves to his residence.
Nicander saw no reason not to tell him and detailed the meeting.
‘What did he mean by, “if heaven wills it, the future may well be more blessed”?’
‘Oh, that’s plain enough. The whole country hopes the bastard will drink himself to death, then Crown Prince Kao Yeh will succeed. He’s a sot and an idiot but hasn’t a grain o’ spite in him. We’ll then all breathe easy, believe me.’
They supped on delicacies from the royal kitchens but Nicander had little appetite.
Yi ate greedily then sat back. ‘We really ought to tighten up the paying taxes act. How do you feel about moving to levels?’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Chinese levels. They love ’em. Let’s find you an example. Ah – here at the palace, Historian Shih. Now he was originally a Uighur – that’s a barbarian from the far borderlands. His name was some awful thing like Scythian. They had to give him a name they could get their tongue around so they gave him “Shih Toyun” which sounds like it to the Chinese. That’s the first level of meaning.
‘Now that makes him Mr Shih, but the whole three character thing means “One who holds up the clouds”. This is clever, because he’s taller than your ordinary Chinese. That’s the second level.’
‘At the third level we have that anyone who tries to hold up the clouds is ambitious to succeed, reaches for the highest, one to admire. Then the final level is that Shih sounds the same as Shih meaning “scholar of history”, which o’ course is what he does. See?’
‘You mean anything that’s said can have all these levels at once?’
‘Yes. Especially poems and stuff written down.’
Nicander frowned. His was a language of precision and logic, he was proud of its accuracy of meaning and definition. How could a language so loose compare to it?
‘You’d have to be very careful how you addressed the ladies, I’d guess.’
‘Ha! This is why I think we can do a lot with it. Hang a pause until they get it, let the brighter ones start the others off.’
They set to work but were interrupted by a gong somewhere beginning a regular boom.
Yi froze. ‘I don’t like it. That’s the general signal to attend the Emperor. Never done except at sacrifice time or…’
He pulled himself together. ‘Means all of us. At the Hall of Eternal Peace.’
It was the biggest of the palace halls, able to easily take the half thousand that were assembling. A vast, polished, black stone floor reflected the richness of the gowns and robes, the jewelled ceremonial headgear and peacock feathers.
Raised up on a dais at the far end was a colossal throne with extravagant carving glittering with gold leaf. It was set before an even more elaborately ornamented screen. On each side soaring dusky-red columns displayed tall yellow panels with giant characters in black.
The nobles and ladies assumed their places at the front, lesser mortals behind. From the back Nicander took in the sweep of majesty that was the Celestial Throne.