Wu Jin came to me when the lamps had been trimmed thin and the attendants had forgotten how to cough. He did not bow. He sat exactly far enough to make deference an option and declined it.
"The Empress enters the ledger under expenses," he said mildly. "The Emperor bends. Father measures. Kang shatters. And you—" he weighed me with his eyes the way a merchant weighs a horse's teeth—"are cold."
"Heat burns past use," I said.
He accepted that as one records a weight. "The Southern throne watches from its harbors. They do not strike—why should they? North and North's puppet break bread with wolves. The Boundary River rises at first thaw; boats tip; news takes on water. Meanwhile, they sell us salt and buy our tempered steel and count what we bleed."
He let that settle. "The North is not a patient house. They respect roofs that do not leak and men who do not blink. If the Emperor blinks, they will close his eyes for him and claim they did it to keep the flies off."
"And you?" I asked.
"I keep numbers honest," he said. His glance flitted to the corner where lamplight made a slow spiral in the grain of the cedar pillar. The spiral looked back at him. He did not look away quickly enough. "There are balances we can no longer keep with ink."
"Then with what?" I asked.
"Bone," he said. He stood. "If you must cut, cut where the North expects you to. If you must be cut, choose the blade."
He left. The lamplight uncurled itself with the lazy grace of a cat deciding to be loyal for another hour.
The Emperor passed my threshold near midnight. His robe was plain. His step was modest. His head was bowed to the business of walking. If a man had never seen him speak, he would have thought him a soft steward who had learned to keep accounts tidy and his face tidier. He did not look left or right. I did not speak. He smelled faintly of sandalwood and wet stone, the two scents this palace prefers when it is trying to pretend that nothing is happening.
In the morning the North sent its courtesy: a tray of pale pears, a poem written by a councilor whose hand was better at knives than brush, an invitation to watch soldiers drill. The pears were sweet where they had been bruised. The poem said nothing and managed to be insulting while it did it. The drill showed men who could make a square that would not break even if someone took out the ground. The captain asked if we drilled our southerners half so hard. I asked if his men could eat air. We agreed that winter is long and the river makes fools of men who believe in spring.
The South kept its distance. Its banners did not cross the Boundary. Its traders came to the truce markets with salt the size of fists and eyes that never rose above the weight in their hands. They sold to North at dawn and to our quarter at dusk and said prayers to both Heavens in the middle, just in case. Their envoys sent letters that smelled of cardamom and did not say the word "condolence." They did say "stability" three times and "grain" five. The South is very devout in matters of arithmetic.
By the third day, rumors put a southern flotilla at the mouth of a river renamed so many times even the fishermen had forgotten its old story. By the fourth, a northern colonel whispered that his men could not guard the granary and the temple and the road to the foundry with the same set of legs. By the fifth, a clerk who had never been to war told me that wars are won by ink. I told him inks curdle when the city forgets to boil water.
At dusk the Lord Protector sent for me again. Not to speak. To stand beside him while the North's princes bowed to him exactly deep enough to make us take note and not complain. He let them call him "uncle" and "elder" and "pillar." He did not let them call him "lord." He watched them the way a mountain watches men cut steps into it and wonders how many they can climb before the snow decides it is tired of being polite.
"Liang is a house with two kitchens and one roof," he said when the last princeling had backed away smiling and counting. "Sooner or later the smoke finds the same rafters. If the South is patient, the North will break the rafters for them."
"If the South is impatient?" I asked.
"They will pull at the rafters while we argue about whether to boil or steam," he said. "If you have a rope, use it."
The rope lay under my ribs, coiled. It did not feel like a rope a man could throw to another man. It felt like a tide deciding whether it loved land enough to leave it be a little longer.