The second packet Deming laid out held notes I recognized by rumor, not sight—short lists with no titles, sums tallied in code that had pretended to be clever until today. Ren's name appeared three times where it had no right to appear once.
"Messenger," I said, not raising my voice. The hallway supplied one. "Go to the south storehouse and ask Gaoyu whether he's finished with Ren's steward. If he has, tell him I want the steward's tongue in a bucket. If he hasn't, tell him to keep the man whole until dusk and teach him the word 'why'."
The messenger ran like I had promised him a hot meal for bringing me the answer before it cooled.
Zhao Hengyuan found backbone where deceit had lived. "You overreach. You command outside your remit. You threatened to mutilate a merchant's man in a matter of accounting. You—"
