River of Stars

The emperor was standing at the edge of his pavilion. He was not writing, or painting, or gazing at his rock-mountain. He was looking down at a man prostrate on the path below him.

The man on the ground was trembling with terror. Given that he was—very obviously—a simple palace gardener (his rake lay beside him) in the actual, immediate presence of the emperor of Kitai, that fear was readily understood. The imperial guards had edged close. All were motionless, hands to swords, faces like stone warriors.

The emperor’s face was also cold, Dejin saw as he came near enough. It was not a customary expression for Wenzong. He could be demanding or inattentive, but seldom appeared angry. He did now.

Later, Hang Dejin would be caused to think (and even write a letter to an old friend) about how accidents of timing could have so great an impact on the way the world unfolded. You could decide this was the working of heaven, that such moments were not accidents at all, or you could see them as indicators of the limits placed by the gods on what mortal men could control, even if they were wise.

Dejin took the second view.

Had he not come looking for the emperor this morning with two letters in his robe, had the deputy prime minister been with Wenzong when the gardener was summoned into the imperial presence, significant matters would have proceeded otherwise than they did. He wrote that in his letter.

He made a formal obeisance. Emperor Wenzong had graciously stipulated that his senior councillors need not observe full court protocol when they were with him in his garden, but instinct suggested to Hang Dejin that this was a moment of importance and he offered all three prostrations. His mind was working quickly, however stiff his body was. He did not understand what had happened here and he needed to do so.

“Principal Councillor,” the emperor said, “we are pleased to see you. We would have sent for you to come to us. Approach.” Very formal, including the old title. There were meanings in everything, for those who knew how to find them.

“I am honoured to anticipate the emperor’s desire,” Dejin said, rising and coming forward. “Has something disturbed imperial tranquility?”

Of course something had, but it needed to be asked, to elicit a response—and a chance to sort this out.

“This man, this … gardener has done so,” Wenzong said.

Dejin could see the emperor’s agitation, a hand moving up and down an ivory column, stroking it steadily.

“And your serene excellence permits him to live? This is yet another indication of the emperor’s benevolent—”

“No. Listen to us.”

The emperor had just interrupted him. It was astonishing. Hang Dejin folded his hands in his sleeves and lowered his head. And then, listening, he understood, and the prime minister of Kitai saw, as a shaft of sunlight slicing down through storm clouds, opportunity shining.

He had summoned the gardener into his presence, the emperor said, because of the distressing sound of his weeping. Inquiring directly, he had learned that the labourer’s tears were for his son, who had just been reported dead. The son, it seemed, had been in the Pacification Army, among the recruits sent against the Kislik capital in the northwest.

The gardener had just told him, the emperor said, what all of Hanjin apparently knew: that half the Kitan army had been destroyed some time ago, on a retreat from Erighaya. It seemed that they had been deficiently led and supplied.

Hang Dejin privately considered it remarkable (and very wrong) that the gardener was still alive, after speaking so many words to his emperor. It was unbearably presumptuous, deserving decapitation. Where had the world come, if garden servants could behave this way? At the same time, he felt a surge of warm feelings towards the man lying face down on the ground, sweating through his tunic. Sometimes it happened that you received aid, illumination, from the most unexpected sources.

“We have just had the leader of our guards here to confirm this disturbing information,” the emperor said.

Wenzong’s voice was thin, cold. He really was very angry. The guards stared straight ahead, still alert to the presence of the gardener. Dejin wasn’t sure which was their leader, the uniforms were identical. The faces even looked alike to his weak eyes. Wenzong preferred that in his guards, for the harmony.

It appeared that the leader—whichever one it was—had indeed echoed the story told by the gardener. It was not a new tale. The first word of disaster had reached Hanjin last year. Even servants had heard it by now.

The emperor had not.

Hang Dejin said, carefully, “My lord, it is a lamentable truth that the Pacification Army suffered terrible losses.”

The emperor of Kitai stared bleakly down at him. The emperor was a tall man and was standing three steps up, in the pavilion. His writing seat and desk were behind him. The rock-mountain that had destroyed fields and killed so many men (you didn’t say that) loomed beyond, sunlit, magnificent. There was a breeze.

“You knew of this, councillor?”

Opportunity, and the need for extreme care. But Hang Dejin had been in the palace for a long time, at the summit of all possible achievement. You didn’t arrive there and survive without knowing how to deal with moments such as this.

“I knew, because I was able to learn it through my own sources, celestial lord. The military reports went to the deputy prime minister. He has not presented them in council or at court yet. The emperor will recall that responsibility for the Pacification Army led by the eunuch Wu Tong was given directly to General Wu’s advocate and supporter, Minister Kai. This was done at Kai Zhen’s own request, which I did not oppose. It was therefore not my place to diminish the honourable Kai Zhen by speaking to the emperor of this tragedy before he … decided to do so himself.”

Decided to do so was good, Hang Dejin thought. So was diminish.

It was all true, what he’d said. It just wasn’t the heart of the truth. Of course Dejin had known what had happened as soon as word came, of course he hadn’t carried it to the emperor … but that had been a shared, tacit agreement among all who led Kitai at this court.

The disaster of Erighaya was one that could imperil them all if Wenzong took it in a certain way. They had all aligned themselves with this war, for various reasons. This nightmare could undo everything, the reforms, their own positions. It could bring back the conservatives! Xi Wengao! The Lu brothers!

Tidings of this sort could do that. A very large expeditionary army sent to take a barbarian capital city, but not securing its supply lines … and forgetting the siege equipment for when it arrived before the walls?

What did that demand, for those responsible? What form of execution was adequate, even if the general of that army was the much-loved Wu Tong, who had devised the network that had created this garden?

Wu Tong himself had evidently fled south ahead of his army. He was still in the west, keeping away from court. Still alive. Sending artifacts and trees for the Genyue.

What Dejin had heard, disturbingly, was that in the retreat through the desert, harassed by barbarians all the way south, the starving, thirst-maddened soldiers of Kitai had begun killing their officers and drinking their blood.

People in the countryside ate each other (and their children) in times of extreme famine; it was a sad truth of a hard world. But for the discipline of a Kitan army to break down so utterly? That was terrifying. It brought to mind all the histories of what armies—and their generals—could do if not firmly held in check, under control.

Better, in some ways, an incompetent, preening, greedy general like Wu Tong than some brilliant leader with the love of his soldiers. His soldiers. Not the emperor’s.

That choice between evils, thought Hang Dejin, had become part of this dynasty, and they were all involved in it here at court.

Your thoughts were your own. What he said, as the emperor gazed coldly down at him, was, “My humblest apologies, celestial lord. That the serenity of this garden should be marred by such tidings is a grief to me. Shall I have the gardener removed from the imperial presence? He must be punished, of course.”

“The gardener stays,” said Wenzong. Too bluntly. This remained an unbalanced moment. “His son has died. He will not be punished. He told us only truth.” He paused. “We have sent for Kai Zhen.”

Hearing that—just the name, without the title—it became an exercise in self-mastery for the prime minister not to smile.

For safety, he lowered his head as if in chastened acquiescence to the majesty of the imperial will. After a precisely timed pause, he murmured, “If the esteemed deputy prime minister is to be with us soon, perhaps my lord will be good enough to assist his servant by reviewing two letters I have received today. The calligraphy in both is exceptional.”

He handed up the second letter first, the one in which the brush strokes would not be familiar.

He still knew how to talk to Wenzong. Of course he did. He’d tutored him as a boy.

The emperor reached down and took the letter from his hand. He glanced at it casually, then looked more closely. He sat at the dark-green marble desk, and read.

He looked up. “This is a character-filled hand. A man of conviction and integrity.”

It had to be said quickly, lest the emperor feel he’d been deceived: “It is a woman writing, gracious lord. I, too, was greatly surprised.”

Wenzong’s expression would have been diverting at a less significant moment. The light was good and he was close enough—Dejin could still see.

The emperor’s mouth opened above the thin, dark beard, as if to exclaim aloud. Then it closed again as he turned back to the letter from Lady Lin Shan, daughter of Court Gentleman Lin Kuo.

There was an interval of stillness. Dejin heard the breeze in the leaves of trees, and autumn birdsong, and the frightened breathing of the gardener, still face down on the path, still trembling.

Hang Dejin watched his emperor read, saw him savouring brush strokes, saw him smile—then look startled and dismayed. In those two expressions, the one chasing the other across the imperial features, he knew he had won. There were pleasures left in life, small ones, larger ones.

Wenzong looked up. “Her strokes are both firm and graceful. We find this unexpected.”

Dejin had known that would be his first remark. Men were what they were, their passions showed through.

He nodded respectfully, saying nothing.

The emperor looked back to the letter, then at Dejin again. “And the second one? You mentioned two letters?”

“The second is from Xi Wengao, my lord. He adds his voice to her plea.”

“Your old enemy writes you letters?” A faint imperial smile.

“My old adversary, celestial lord. I have too much respect for him, as I know the emperor does, to name him an enemy.”

“He banished you when in power, and you exiled him in turn.”

“To his home, my lord. Away from court, where his agitations were doing the empire harm. But not—”

“Not all the way south.” The emperor lifted the letter. “Not to Lingzhou Isle. What did this man, Lin Kuo, do that this should be his fate?”

A gift, really. The world could hand you opportunities, and it was almost a disgrace not to pluck them like fruit.

“If we believe the daughter and Master Xi, and I will say that I do believe them, he visited Xi Wengao in Yenling to present to him a book he’d written about gardens.”

“Gardens?”

Part of the gift, of course, part of the fruit hanging from the plum tree of this autumn morning.

“Yes, my lord. But it happened to be on the day Lu Chen came to Yenling to bid farewell to his mentor before going to Lingzhou, to his own banishment. It was many years ago. The order of exile for Lin Kuo has just been given, however.”

“Lu Chen. Another enemy of yours.”

“Another man whose views I considered wrongly judged and dangerous. My lord, I have his poetry in my bedchamber.”

The emperor nodded. “And this Lin Kuo is now ordered to Lingzhou? For visiting Xi Wengao?”

“Years ago. At the wrong time. The emperor has read the letter. He was taking his young daughter to see the peonies. And bringing his garden book to present to Master Xi.”

“Ah! Yes. We remember now. We know that book,” said the emperor of Kitai.

Another plum, dropping into one’s hand.

“I did not know this, celestial lord.” (It was true.)

“He had it presented to us when it was completed. We looked through it. Pleasantly conceived, artfully bound. Not insightful about the spiritual nature of gardens, but a charming gift. I believe he mentioned Xi Wengao’s garden.”

“So I understand, my lord.”

“And went to present the book to him?”

“Perhaps also to introduce his daughter.”

Reminded, Wenzong looked again at the letter. “Extraordinary,” he said. He looked up. “Of course, it isn’t proper for a woman to write like this.”

“No, my lord. Of course not. It is, as you say, extraordinary. I believe the father taught her himself, then arranged for tutors.” (Xi Wengao’s letter had reported as much.)

“Indeed? Does that make him a subversive man?”

Unexpected. One needed to be alert, always. There were so many dangers here.

“It might, my lord. I rather think it makes him an attentive father.”

“He ought to have looked to marrying her, then.”

“She is wed, my lord. To Qi Wai, of the imperial clan. Sixth degree. Xi Wengao states as much.”

An alert look. Emperors were attentive when the imperial clan was mentioned. “An honourable marriage.”

“Of course, my lord.”

Another pause. One still heard the gardener breathing raggedly. Dejin half wished the man were gone, but he knew he would be useful, any moment now.

The emperor said, “We find this appeal filial and persuasive, with evocative brush strokes.”

“Yes, celestial lord.”

“Why would our adviser send a simple man like this to Lingzhou Isle?”

It was as if he were biting into a plum through taut, firm skin, so vivid and sweet was the taste.

“Again, alas, I cannot answer. I am ashamed. I knew nothing of this until these letters this morning. I permitted Minister Kai to take command of dealing with remaining conservative faction members. He petitioned for that responsibility, and I was too kind-hearted to deny him. I confess it might have been an error.”

“But Lingzhou? For visiting someone whose garden he had described in a book? We are told … we understand it is a harsh place, Lingzhou Isle.”

“I also understand as much, my lord.”

Even as he said this, a thought came to Dejin. And then another, more profound, in its wake.

Before he could be cautious and stop himself, he spoke the first thought, “It might be regarded as a gesture of the celebrated imperial compassion if the poet Lu Chen were now permitted to leave the isle, august lord. He has been there some time.”

Wenzong looked at him. “That is where he is? Lu Chen?”

It was entirely possible the emperor had forgotten.

“It is, celestial lord.”

“He was a leader of that faction. With Xi Wengao. You exiled him yourself, did you not?”

He answered promptly. “I did the first time, yes. South of the Great River. But when his political poems continued to be written and circulated he was ordered farther away. He is … a challenging man.”

“Poets can be difficult,” said the emperor in a musing tone. He was pleased with his own observation. Dejin could hear it.

“I did not order him to Lingzhou, my lord. Across the mountains was what I suggested. Sending him to the isle was Councillor Kai’s decision. He also ordered his writings gathered and destroyed.”

“And yet you have some in your bedchamber.” The emperor smiled.

A careful pause. A rueful smile. “I do, my lord.”

“We do, as well. Perhaps,” said the emperor of Kitai, smiling even more, “we must be exiled, ourselves.”

One of the imperial guards would later remember that.

Wenzong added, “We recall his lines. Wise men fill the emperor’s court, so why do things get worse? / I’d have been better off dying, as bride to the river god. Do you know the poem?”

“I do, revered lord.” Of course he knew it. It had been an attack on him.

“That was during a flood of the Golden River, wasn’t it?”

“It was.”

“We sent relief, did we not?”

“You did, my lord. Very generously.”

The emperor nodded.

They heard a sound. Dejin found it interesting how his hearing seemed to have improved as his eyesight failed. He turned. The figure of Kai Zhen could be seen approaching, on foot along the path from the palace gate. He was able to see the man hesitate as he took in Dejin’s presence and someone lying face down on the path before the emperor.

Only the briefest hesitation, however, barely a checked stride, you could miss it if you weren’t watching for it. The deputy prime minister was as smooth, as polished, as green jade made by the finest craftsmen in Kitai, masters of their trade, in a tradition going back a thousand years.

AFTERWARDS, BEING CARRIED back to the palace, Prime Minister Hang would take careful thought concerning what had just taken place. In his working room again, surrounded by papers and scrolls, with many lamps lit to make it easier for him to see, he would speak with his son and make arrangements for someone to be protected, and for the gardener to be found and executed.

The man had heard far too much, lying on the ground throughout the exchanges before and after Kai Zhen arrived at the pavilion. He would be uneducated but he wasn’t a mute, and the times were dangerous.

Some days later he would learn that the man had not been found. He wasn’t, evidently, a fool. It had proved extremely difficult even to establish his identity. None of them there that morning had asked his name, of course, and there were, Prime Minister Hang was informed, four thousand, six hundred men employed in the emperor’s garden.

Eventually they would determine, through the Genyue supervisors’ records, who he was—a man from the north. Guards sent to his residence would find it empty, with signs of a hasty departure. Well, they knew it had been a hasty departure. The gardener was gone, his wife and a child were gone. None of the neighbours knew where. He hadn’t been a talkative man. Northerners tended not to be.

There was a grown son living in a house outside the walls. He was interrogated. He did not know where his parents and young sister had gone, or so he would maintain right up until he died under questioning.

It was disappointing.

Holding high office (for so many years) meant that you had done, and would have to continue doing, unpleasant things at times. Actions inconsistent with philosophic ideals. It was necessary, at such moments, to remember that one’s duty was to the empire, that weakness in power could undermine peace and order.

Difficult as it was for a virtuous man to have someone killed merely for overhearing a conversation, it was even more difficult to discover that the order, once given, had not been carried out.

He would also give thought to the imperial guards who had been standing by that morning. They were trusted favourites of the emperor, always with him, not men one could order executed. Not without consequences. He had them promoted in rank, instead.

You did what you could.

CHAPTER V

“Deputy Kai,” the emperor of Kitai had said in his garden that morning, “we are displeased.”

Kai Zhen, standing below him on the brushed path, inclined his head in sorrow. “My lord, I live to amend anything that causes this, any errors your servants have committed. Only tell me!”

Wenzong’s face remained chilly. “We believe it is the deputy prime minister’s errors that have disturbed our morning.”

Even with bad eyesight, Dejin could see Zhen’s eyes flicker towards him, then back to the emperor. Dance a little, he thought. Unworthy malice, perhaps, but he had cause.

He watched as Kai Zhen sank to his knees. Dejin envied him the ease of the movement. The deputy prime minister’s beard and hair were still black, his back was straight. His eyes, undoubtedly, were keen.

Impatiently, Wenzong motioned him upright. Zhen took a careful moment then he did rise, head still lowered, hands folded submissively in sleeves. Dejin wondered if they were shaking. It was possible.

Looking down at the smoothed gravel path (and at the gardener lying on it), Zhen said, “Our fates are in the emperor’s hands, always. It is a grief to me if I have erred in your service.”

“Excess,” said Emperor Wenzong, “can be an error as much as neglect.”

Hang Dejin blinked. It was an elegant phrase. Wenzong could surprise. Although it would not do to dwell upon the emperor’s own neglect of duties. For one thing, that habit had allowed Dejin to control and shape Kitai these many years.

Kai Zhen, smooth as finest silk, murmured, “Zeal in your service may indeed lead me to excessive devotion. I will admit it.”

But Wenzong was in a dark, sharp mood. He shook his head at the sleek evasion. “Why is Court Gentleman Lin Kuo exiled to Lingzhou Isle?”

Dejin could almost feel Zhen’s relief. He now knew what he was facing. A small matter, easy to address.

The deputy prime minister said, “The emperor is so gracious! To offer imperial guidance on minor affairs of state! It humbles his servants!” His voice was rich. He was a handsome man. No one would ever have said either about Hang Dejin, even when he was young.

“We have seen petitions on the court gentleman’s behalf. We would know why our well-known benevolence has been compromised in this matter.”

That placed things in a different light. Zhen could be seen absorbing this. He cleared his throat. “Celestial lord, it must surely be the task of your servants to defend you and the empire. As dangers mount around us and—”

“What danger did Court Gentleman Lin Kuo present, Deputy Kai?”

Yet another interruption. The emperor was in a dangerous mood.

A real hesitation for the first time, as Zhen registered this too. “I … he was allied with the conservatives, of course, my lord. That evil faction intent on destroying all peace!”

“He wrote a book on the gardens of Yenling. He sent it to us last year. We read it and approved of it.”

At this point, thought Hang Dejin, happily silent, his expression composed, Deputy Minister Kai would believe he understood the gravity of the moment.

“My lord, he visited with the exiled Xi Wengao.”

“Years ago! Many visit him. It is not forbidden. He presented him with a copy of his book. Master Xi’s garden is described in it. We ask again, what is it Lin Kuo has done? Really. Lingzhou Isle?”

“The … the banished poet was there that same day! They met with Lu Chen on his way to exile. It was … it was an obvious moment of plotting!”

Time to speak. “Xi Wengao, whose honour we will not impeach, has written to say that the court gentleman had no idea Lu Chen would be present. Xi Wengao writes that he was grieving for his friend, and asked Lin Kuo to attend upon him the same day to brighten his own mood. Lin Kuo brought his young daughter, now married into the imperial clan. She writes the same thing. What plot did you uncover from that day?”

There was nothing so obvious as hatred in the look Zhen gave him, but it could chill you, nonetheless, if you weren’t his superior, still, and used to such glances over the years. And they hadn’t yet reached the heart of this morning. He knew that; Zhen did not.

Kai Zhen said, “Xi Wengao, all his life, has been loyal to his friends and followers.”

“A trait,” said the emperor, “we admire.” He paused. “We choose to give instruction in this matter. The order of exile for Lin Kuo will be rescinded and notice conveyed to him immediately. He is to be raised two ranks in the civil service by way of redress and given the proper adjustments in salary and housing. His daughter and her husband will attend upon us in our garden. We wish to meet this woman. Her calligraphy is exceptional. From today, all names proposed and punishments decreed for those remaining in the conservative faction are to be reviewed by the prime minister. We are displeased, deputy councillor.”