* * *
Upon his arrival at the Black Palace, Hong-la had expected to be shown into the empress’s reception chamber and offered a cushion on the floor among her ladies. It was the accepted means of doing such things, and avoided any hint of scandal. Instead, she met him alone, in an opulently paneled and carpeted chamber divided down the middle by an openwork ivory screen and otherwise completely devoid of furnishings.
Hong-la wondered how many spyholes and niches were concealed in the elaborate, elephant-carved, coffered paneling, and if any of them were occupied.
She was waiting for him when he entered, the pierced screen rendering her indigo-clad form into something more akin to a flock of birds or a swarm of bees.
“Empress,” he said, performing the ritual obeisance. The hem and the draped sleeve of her robes twitched as she beckoned him forward. In the situation of a formal audience, even a Wizard of Tsarepheth advanced upon the emperor’s wife with his head bowed and his eyes averted. He scuttled up with humility largely unpracticed since his time in Song, amused despite himself by how far he had to hunch to get his head below the level of hers. Hong-la was taller than most men, and broad-shouldered, and even after the birth of a prince the empress remained a porcelain doll of a woman.
He dropped to his knees before the screen, relieved to ease the strain in his thighs. The carpets absorbed the impact; he landed with only a faint thud, despite the lack of grace engendered by middle years and a chronic lack of exercise.
“Empress,” he said again. “I accept my duty to serve you with great pleasure.”
He wondered if she would bring up the flight of Samarkar-la and the escaped princess, Payma. Surely, that had been adequately hashed over through official channels—Hong-la had not been privy to the discussions between Yongten-la and the emperor, but he had heard enough about them from Yongten-la to have an idea of how hard the bargaining had been and what concessions had been made by the wizards to avoid reprisals. And it was not as if either the empress or Hong-la had the authority to gainsay their respective masters. So it must be something else.
He had time to muse on what, because she kept him waiting. Formulating her response or stretching out his hoped-for discomfort, he was not sure … but then, nor was he particularly uncomfortable. Hong-la was unusual in that he had been a eunuch before he became a Wizard of Tsarepheth. He had come into his adulthood as a civil servant in Song, and it was there he had acquired his skills as an archivist and administrator.
The Rasan dynasty was replete with canny politicians and ruthless manipulators. But the Rasan emperors had been eliminating rival branches of the bloodline for centuries, and compared with the intrigues of the so-called Ten-Thousand-Princes of Song … there just weren’t enough nobles in Rasa to make things really interesting.
So her silence gave him no great pause. What she said when she finally spoke, though, brought his eyes up quickly in a reaction too startled to hide.
“Rise, Hong-la,” she said. “I cannot speak to the top of your head at this time.”
He realized he was staring and averted his gaze, but not before he had glimpsed the strain creasing the maquillage that should have rendered her face an expressionless oval. He stood, his attention fixed on the bottom edge of the screen between them. It had been carved in panels of cherry trees in blossom, homey and familiar to Hong-la, and he wondered if the empress had brought it with her, or if it had been part of the once-princess Samarkar’s bride-price when she in her turn had been sold to one of Song’s Ten-Thousand.
He thrust his tongue out in respect, and though he stood, he continued to bow low. Her inviting him to stand in her imperial presence did answer one of his questions, however: if there were any watchers in the walls, Empress Yangchen did not know of them.
She said, “I have drawn you from your duty to the victims of the pestilence, and for that I apologize.”
“I am not sure,” Hong-la said carefully, “that we may call it—precisely—a pestilence any longer. Not with precision, anyway. An affliction, certainly. An infestation…”
He was, he understood with detached rationality, taking refuge in scholarly babble. With an effort, he silenced his tongue. He drew a breath, pained on his own behalf, and continued. “That is to say, if by my duty to the empress I may serve the empire, I am at her disposal.”
Through the screen, out of the corner of his eye, he saw her smile. That too disturbed her paint. “We both have a duty to the empire, Hong-la. And to Tsarepheth. How is it, do you think, that these demons have managed to enter within the sweep of the city’s blessings and the prayers that guard it? And how is it that the Citadel and the palace remain unsullied by their presence?”