Tai drew a breath. He needed to decide, swiftly, how far he would take this—and how far the governor would.
He was still angry. His father had liked this man. Elements to be balanced. Inwardly, he shrugged. A princess in Rygyal had changed his life. A moment such as this was part of that change. It was unlikely to be the last.
"I have not tasted mare's teat wine in more than two years," he said. "I should be honoured to be your guest. Shall we invite the prefect to join us?"
For a moment, the governor's lean face betrayed astonishment, then he threw back his head and laughed. Tai allowed himself to smile.
"I think not," said Xu Bihai.
In the event, Tai came to understand, the governor wished to say only one thing to him, but he wanted quite urgently to say it. And to do so before anyone else spoke to the young man who now controlled enough Sardian horses to play a role in the balance of power towards the end of a long reign.
The wine was luxuriously good. It was spiced with saffron. Tai honestly couldn't remember the last time he'd tasted that.
The two young women who served them were Xu's daughters, unmarried. Each wore flawless silk, one in pale green, the other in blue, low-cut in a fashion that had evidently emerged, so to speak, since Tai had left Xinan.
Their perfume was intoxicating, each different from the other's. They both had painted moth-eyebrows, tinted blue-green, and a side-falling hairstyle with extravagant hairpins. They wore jewelled, closed-toe slippers, gold rings and jade earrings, and had amused, confident eyes.
It was, he thought, unfair.
The governor, cross-legged on a platform couch opposite, clad in doubled black robes, with a black hat and a red belt, seemed oblivious to the effect his daughters were having on his guest, but Tai was entirely certain that the wine and lamplit room, and the two exquisite, scented women had been carefully orchestrated.
Wei Song was in the courtyard with the soldiers. The two men Tai had wounded were expected to live. He'd asked, on arrival here. This was good, of course, but reminded him that his skills were not what they'd once been: he had been trying to kill.
They ate five-spice dried river-fish in three sauces, and early fruits served in ivory bowls by the daughters, not servants. They drank the saffron wine, cups steadily refilled. Talked of spring crops outside the city walls and along the river, of thunderstorms and a tail-star apparently seen in the east earlier that month, what it might presage. The two women brought water and hand cloths for them to wash and dry their fingers as they ate. Curving towards Tai, offering a lacquered bowl of scented water, the one in green allowed her hair (in strategic disarray to one side) to brush his hands. This was the "waterfall" hairstyle made popular by the Precious Consort, Wen Jian herself, in Xinan.
It was unfair.
Xu's daughter smiled very slightly as she straightened, as if sensing, and enjoying, his response. Her father said, briskly, "Commander Lin writes that he proposed to you a position of high rank in the cavalry of the Second Army, a number of the Sardian horses to remain as yours, and your selection of officers to serve under you."
So much for polite discussion of stars, or millet and its ripening time and best-suited soil.
Tai set down his cup. "Fortress Commander Lin was generous beyond my merits, and behaved with impeccable courtesy to his guest, on behalf of his military district."
"He's ambitious, and clever enough. He would," said Xu Bihai. "I imagine he will serve the district well if promoted." Tai thought he owed the commander that much.
"Perhaps," said Xu indifferently. "He isn't well liked and he isn't feared. Makes it harder for him to rise. Your father would have agreed."
"Indeed," said Tai noncommittally.
He received a glance from the other couch. The two daughters had withdrawn to the door, either side of it, decorative beyond words. He very much liked the one in green. Her eyes, that knowing half-smile.
"Perhaps further persuasion from me will be of use in causing you to reconsider his offer?"
"I am honoured you would even consider me worthy of persuading," murmured Tai. "But I told Commander Lin—a man I liked, incidentally—that it would be folly for me to contemplate a course of action before I consult with those at court."
"First Minister Wen Zhou?"
"Indeed," Tai repeated.
"Your elder brother, advising him?"
Tai nodded, uneasy suddenly.
"Two men I understand you have reason to dislike."
"I should regret if you continued in such an understanding," Tai said carefully. His pulse had quickened. "My duty to the Son of Heaven, may he rule a thousand years, surely requires that I take counsel in Xinan with his advisers."
There was a silence. It was not a statement that could be challenged, and both men knew it. Governor Xu lifted his cup, sipped thoughtfully. He put it down. Looking at Tai, his expression changed. "I can almost pity you," he said.
"I should regret that, as well," Tai said.
"You do know what I mean?"
Tai met his gaze. "I might have chosen a simpler life, had it been my own decision, but if we accept the teachings of the Sacred Path, then we also accept—"
"Do you? Do you follow those teachings?"
The discussion had become uncomfortably intimate. Tai said, "I try. The balancing. Male and female, hot and cold, awareness of all five directions. Stillness and motion, polarities. The flow between such things suits my nature more than the Cho Master's certainties, however wise he was."
"You learned this on Stone Drum Mountain?"
It was curious how many people seemed to know of his time there. He remembered Rain telling him that—and what else she'd said. How it might be useful. Shaping a mystery about him...
He shook his head. "From before. My own readings. It was a reason I went there." He saw no reason not to be honest, to a point. It had been one reason.
Xu Bihai nodded, as if a thought had been confirmed.
He stared at Tai another long moment, then, as if speaking only of cultivated fields again, or early-summer rainfall, said quietly, "I understand you must consult at the palace before acting, but I would sooner kill you tonight and lose all the horses for the empire and be exiled to the pestilent south, or ordered to commit suicide, than have you give them to Roshan. This, Master Shen Tai, you need to know."
The promised escort took him in the governor's sedan chair to the entertainment district. He hadn't been in one of those for a long time. The cushions were soft, there was a scent of aloeswood. He was slightly drunk, he realized.
The bearers stopped. Tai opened the curtains to reveal the quite handsome entrance of the White Phoenix Pleasure Pavilion, which had a new roof, a covered portico, lanterns hanging by the entrance, wide steps going up, and doors open to the mild night.
The leader of Tai's escort went up and spoke to an older woman at the entrance. Tai knew—and there was nothing he could, in courtesy, do about it—that he was not going to be permitted to pay for anything here tonight.
The soldiers indicated that they would wait for him. He wanted to dismiss them, but that wasn't possible if they had orders from the governor, and he knew they did. They would take him back to the inn eventually. If he spent the night here they'd remain outside until morning with the sedan chair. This was the way things were going to be now. Men were investing in him. He could try to find it amusing, but it was difficult.
I would sooner kill you tonight. This, you need to know.
Murder as an alternative to investment, he thought wryly. And given consequences so sure and so severe, even for a governor—since word had gone ahead to Xinan and they would know about the horses very soon—Governor Xu's statement carried its own uncompromising message.