Chapter 13
Chapter 13
The banquet followed Southern Xu custom. The king sat in the north facing south, while his ministers took places according to rank. Most were northerners, though some southerners were present.
By merit of his campaigns, Chen Dong occupied the second seat on the left. I knelt behind him to serve. In the first seat sat an elderly monk from Southern Xu, skeletal and bent, curled upon himself. Though music and dancing filled the courtyard, he never once raised his head.
What kind of man ranked above Chen Dong? I wondered as I served him food.
A strange bellow sounded outside. A massive white deer was carried in with all four legs bound, struggling without cease.
Linnan had many deer and revered the white deer as a mountain god. Though I believed in no spirits, the sight chilled me. It was enormous, nearly the size of a horse, with snow-white hair and branching antlers like a tree crown. Tears shone unmistakably in its intelligent eyes as it moaned.
“I did not expect to find such treasure here.” Danchi smiled with interest from the head of the feast.
The hunter bowed deeply. “A gift sent by heaven to celebrate my king’s unification of the realm.”
“Open it,” Danchi said casually.
“Yes, my king.”
Before I understood, a swift knife crossed the deer’s throat. Its body convulsed. Black-red blood erupted in a horrifying stream, caught in bowls by the hunters and respectfully presented.
The northerners accepted the bowls without concern and drank them dry. The southerners at the feast shrank lower. I watched the old monk. Even before such bloodshed, his face remained blank.
Danchi finished his deer blood, licked his lips with a scarlet tongue, and drawled, “Tonight sovereign and subjects drink together. Do not restrain yourselves. Enjoy all you wish.”
The dances had been arranged in imitation of Southern Xu, though poorly. The performers were likely village girls pressed into service. A drunken Northern Qian general rose, dragged the lead dancer down, and assaulted her across his table before everyone.
The other girls dared not stop dancing. Their faces held more despair than the dying deer’s. From time to time, another northern warrior snatched one from the line. They cheered in their own tongue, exulting over deer blood and young southern women.
I did not lower my eyes. I watched it all: girls as desperate as the white deer, bloody tears falling one by one into my heart.
Danchi suddenly looked our way and smiled maliciously. “My son keeps such a beautiful woman, yet even after deer-blood wine he does nothing?”
Amid the debauchery, Chen Dong pulled me into his arms. His body was burning hot, but his voice remained calm. “She is with child. It would not be proper.”
I stared in shock. I was not pregnant. I did not know why he said it.
Danchi smiled knowingly. “My son is valiant indeed. His eldest will come before he has even celebrated the Guanchun Festival.” His lecherous gaze traveled over me. “You don’t know Guanchun, do you? For three spring days, no one in Northern Qian works. Men carry their chosen women into their tents and do not emerge until the women conceive. A woman like you would be in grave danger during Guanchun!”
Three days. Spring. My fingers clenched.
Do not say it. Please, do not say it.
“The most amusing Guanchun of my life was in Southern Xu!” He laughed at the memory. “To make Northern Qian send troops against the rebels, King Xizhao let me take his empress. That was my first southern woman. So young and tender.”
In that instant, I could no longer smile like a carefree girl. I wanted to carve that swollen, hideous face into a thousand pieces. Even Chen Dong felt me shaking.
“What is it?” he whispered.
Danchi continued with relish. “Princess Xihe had the face of a goddess, though she was too young. I meant to bring her back this time – ”
Porcelain shattered.
The old monk still sat numbly. A dancer knelt before him, a bowl of deer blood broken at her feet.
“What happened?” Danchi asked.
“The southern slave refuses your generosity,” a northern general said angrily. “I ordered the beauty to feed him deer blood, but he will not drink.”
Danchi descended from his seat and walked toward the monk. The lively banquet slowly fell silent.
“Why won’t you drink?” His voice was almost gentle. “You have eaten nothing for three days. Is Northern Qian’s food too coarse for you?”
“I am a monk.”
The old man spoke without feeling, as though the cruelest king under heaven were merely a tree or leaf – not alive, not worth seeing.
The monk’s indifference plainly enraged Danchi, but instead of lashing out, he began to laugh. The sound grew until his hideous mirth filled the entire house.
“My king…” Chen Dong said uneasily.
“Behold your honored guest.” Danchi kept his eyes on the monk as if watching prey. “Do not fear. I will not hurt him. I simply love watching holy men drink blood and eat flesh.”
At his gesture, the dancer offered the monk another bowl. He did not look at it. His numbness reminded me of my brother before he died. When life and dignity have both been stripped away, the soul seals itself inside, becoming wood or stone, incapable of feeling.
Danchi raised one hand. The dancer fell dead, eyes still open. His movement had been so fast that a pause passed before blood spurted from her neck.
It sprayed across the monk’s face. At last, some expression entered it. His clouded eyes turned toward the smiling King of Northern Qian.
“Will you drink?”
Another bowl appeared. A new dancer pressed it toward the monk with shaking hands. “My lord… please. My lord…”
The monk stared blankly at Danchi and did not take it.
Another blade flashed. The girl dropped before she could scream.
She looked like a farmer’s daughter, no more than seventeen. Without this war, she might still have helped her parents in the fields, mischievously caught fireflies, and given them to the cowherd boy she loved next door.
Instead, she lay there like slaughtered livestock.
Blood covered the monk’s face. His lips trembled. He returned to himself. Two vivid lives had dragged him from the refuge of numbness and forced him to endure the pain before him.
“Another!” Danchi smiled wickedly.
Before a new girl could take the bowl, I sprang up. “My king, southern dancers must sing and dance before offering wine. Surely the same courtesy should precede the master’s drink. Xiaoxi begs leave to perform a sword dance.”
“What are you doing?” Chen Dong reached for me, but I evaded him. I met Danchi’s brown eyes and spoke each word clearly. “Please grant me a sword.”
“Good. Very good.” Danchi laughed. “Give her one!”
The sword was light and thin, cold brilliance running along its edge. I turned it through a flourish and began singing in the southern tongue before the entire gathering.
“The old general returns by night from wine,
loosening his carved saddle at the long pavilion.
He curses the drunken officer who failed to know him;
peach and plum trees speak no word…”
I had learned the sword from childhood, not for defense but elegance. Our ancestors taught that the sword was the weapon of kings, so every royal child studied it. My brother and I had mastered many beautiful, useless forms – like our kingdom itself.
But I was so close to Danchi.
So very close.
“Who seeks mulberry and hemp at Duqu,
to ride in short robes and settle South Mountain?”
The blade passed beside Danchi’s throat. I raised my face and saw Grandfather in the heavens, holding my childhood self with pity in his eyes.
Xihe, live.
“The Han opened its frontiers, winning glory ten thousand li;
did even its boldest heroes ever rest?
Beyond the gauze window, slanting wind and fine rain,
a sudden breath of cold.”
The sword stopped less than an inch from the monk’s neck. I quietly signaled the dancer. “Present it to the master.”
The monk met my eyes. A tear slowly traced his hollow cheek.
He had recognized me.
And in that instant, I recognized him.
Black hair seemed to grow again; armor returned to his shoulders. Southern Xu’s god of war, commander of Linnan, the general who had finally surrendered to Northern Qian – He Sulong.
We had met countless times across great halls, when he was a proud general and I an exalted princess.
Now we met bent low together in the dust.
He Sulong looked away, accepted the blood, and drank it in one swallow. Then he seized the bloody meat from the table and devoured it, mouth smeared red, eyes rolling back as he forced himself to swallow.
Danchi applauded and laughed. The northerners joined him, believing the monk had finally gone mad. I laughed too, because I understood what this traitor of Southern Xu, this aging general, was telling me.
Princess, Lian Po is not yet old.
The banquet resumed and lasted until dawn. Northerners and southerners drank together with a happiness so extreme it looked like madness. A surrendered southern general sat on the ground, laughing while tears streamed down his face.