NOVEL NEXT Chapter 302: And Ending and An Annoyance
That ended it.
Not the quarrel—those never end—but the usefulness of continuing it here.
Lady Huai allowed herself to be turned at last, pendants ticking their complaint as she moved toward the cloister. The minnows went with her, eager to hear the letter they would later pretend not to have read.
"Ministers," I called, not raising my voice. "You have a choice. Spend your afternoon counting how many names fit into the word 'propriety,' or spend it confirming that the ropes holding your bells were bought from our own workshop and not from the temple quarter. Anyone who brings me incense instead of a report will wish he'd brought me blood."
They bowed, uneven, some in relief at direction, some in terror of exactly how clear it had been. The garden began to breathe again in small, careful sips.
Mingyu's steps reached me before he did. Not haste—decision. He'd watched the last of it from the far arch, eyes steady, lips pressed thin to keep anything soft from spilling. He stopped at my right, just close enough to share warmth, just far enough that it couldn't be called dependence.
He didn't look at Lady Huai. He didn't look at Longzi. He looked at me, and in that look lived trust dressed as resignation.
"Is he settled?" I asked.
"He will be by dusk," Mingyu answered, returning the bamboo slip I'd left on the bench as if we'd been dividing chores in a kitchen. "I have the Guard Commander drafting a new route. The post at the inner gate moves. The east galleries get brass hooks by nightfall."
"Good."
"You realize the court will nurse this rumor like a foundling," he went on. "They will bring it into every room until it learns to walk."
"Let them," I answered. "If they are busy nursing this rumor, they will be too tired to breed another."
At the edge of the cypress, Yaozu leaned where bark met shadow, an expression on his face that other men mistook for boredom. He had been there long enough to catalogue every whisper and assign every motive a shelf. I crooked two fingers. He came.
"Inventory," I requested.
"Lady Huai arrived with two ladies, three pages, and a temper." His tone never wasted color. "The pages will talk in the kitchens by evening. I've placed an aunt there who enjoys beating rugs more than repeating stories."
"The ministers?"
"Two wanted to test the water with their toes," he went on. "You stepped on their ankles. They'll limp home and warn the rest that the river is cold."
"Good."
"And Captain Sun?" No judgment, only the point where blade meets whetstone.
"He is where he needs to be," I replied. "If he looks anywhere but forward, cut the view."
Yaozu's mouth almost turned up. "With pleasure."
Deming arrived with a small knot of guards, the ones he trusted to hear orders without tasting them first.
He took in the garden—the empty bench, the abandoned fury, the new captain standing like a pillar—and met my gaze. No sulk this time, only the acceptance that comes when a man decides which weight is his to carry.
"Drills change," he noted, as if I hadn't heard my own orders. "Call-and-answer moves to hand signs in the inner court. I'll break them of the habit before they break me of patience."
"Do it," I returned.
He looked past me to Longzi. Not a challenge. Not a welcome. A measurement. Longzi returned it without heat. Two edges testing without clashing.
A runner arrived, breath held in his teeth, and dropped to a knee. "Message from the west cloister," he stammered. "Lady Huai requests a private audience."
"She had one," I replied. "She used it poorly."
The runner swallowed. "Her maid says her mother will arrive tomorrow."
"Her mother can arrive with a cup to catch her daughter's tears," I answered. "We'll give them both water. Nothing else."
Mingyu exhaled, the sound almost a laugh and almost a sigh. "You're merciful today."
"I'm busy today," I corrected. "I don't have time for drama or women who want to start it."
The Guard Commander shifted, awaiting dismissal. Longzi hadn't moved, eyes on me as if waiting to see whether the next order would require steel or patience. I let him wait. Men learn more in waiting than in motion.
"Captain," I said at last, "walk the Emperor's noon circuit. Then walk it backward. List every corner that can hold a body and every threshold that can hide a blade. At fourth bell, bring me two routes I would choose and one I would never choose. I want to see if you know why."
"Yes, Majesty."
He turned, already dividing the palace into angles and distances. Deming gave him the corridor with a tilt of the chin that was not permission so much as acknowledgment.
Mingyu took the bamboo slip back from my hand as if he wanted to keep the feel of it, then offered me the tea. It had cooled. I drank it anyway.
"You didn't tear her throat," he observed.
"I tore something more useful," I answered. "Audience."
"Do you ever miss being wrong?" he asked lightly.
"Every day," I replied. "But it wastes time."
He smiled then, real this time, and the garden looked less like a stage and more like a courtyard again.
A second runner skidded on the flagstones, almost fell, caught himself with a palm that would bruise later. "Report from the east corridor," he blurted. "New hooks fitted. One monk complained about the loss of rope; the laundress threw him out with a broom."
"Promote the laundress," I instructed. "Demote the monk to silence."
"Yes, Majesty."
"Where were we," Mingyu murmured, reaching for the thread of our abandoned conversation as if it were a stitch in a sleeve.
"We were about to eat," I decided, because breakfast had been a theory and lunch would forgive us if we were late. "And then we were going to check on a boy who finally slept without shaking."
"After you," he offered.
I stepped; a crow complained from the cypress; and from the inner arch a new voice cut clean across the stones. A second woman came rushing into the garden, her voice just as high and annoying as the first.
The woman, who did look a bit familiar, was already reaching for Longzi's sleeve as she rounded the pillar with a soldier's badge pinned crooked at her throat and a story burning a hole in her mouth.