Not long after, they saw the imperial party ahead of them on the road. Torches under moonlight.

Fear and strangeness were in Tai as they caught up with the others. He saw Prince Shinzu near the back of the small procession. It was shockingly small, in fact: two carriages, some riders from the court. Twenty or thirty cavalry of the Second Army guarding them. No more than that.

Normally, the emperor would journey to Ma-wai accompanied by two or three dozen carriages, preceded by an army of servants and five hundred soldiers, and escorted by five hundred more.

The prince looked back, hearing them approach. He slowed when he saw the Kanlins. He greeted Tai, who bowed in the saddle. Briskly, with nothing in the way of warning or preamble, Shinzu told them of the disaster that had happened east.

Or the first disaster.

With Teng Pass fallen, there was much more now to come.

Tai felt his mouth go dry. He swallowed hard. Had the world, their world, come to this? The emperor, they were told, was in the carriage just ahead-no kingfisher feathers. Jian was with him. The prime minister was riding at the front of the party.

"It is good that you are here," said the prince. He was riding a handsome stallion, though it was almost a full head smaller than Dynlal.

"I don't understand," said Tai. "What can I do?" He felt lost. This night ride felt dreamlike, as if through some star-world not their own.

"We need your horses, Shen Tai. More than ever. As cavalry mounts, or for couriers. We are going to be spread very widely. Distances will need to be covered swiftly. When we reach the posting station ahead I am going to propose we head north to Shuquian. The Fifth Army is still mostly there, and we will summon the First Army from the west now. I think we can hold Roshan in Xinan while other forces come up from the south. We ... we have to do that, don't we?"

Don't we? Why was a prince asking him? Was he waiting for a considered answer? A disagreement? What was Tai expected to know? Why was a prince asking him? Was he waiting for a considered answer? A disagreement? What was Tai expected to know?

It was obvious the prince was shaken. How could he not be? It was the middle of the night. They were fleeing the capital, the palace, with twenty or thirty men, and an army of rebels was behind them, would be approaching Xinan unopposed. Was the mandate of heaven being withdrawn right here? Could the shape of the world change in a night?

"I am to go to Shuquian with you?"

He was confused, himself. The prince shook his head.

"You will take riders southwest to the border. You must claim your horses, Shen Tai, then bring them as speedily as possible to wherever we are."

Tai drew a breath. Precise instructions were good, they freed him from the need to think. "My lord, there are a great many of the Sardians."

"I know how many there are!" said the prince sharply. There was a half-moon shining but it was hard to see his eyes.

Another voice: "My lords, let the Kanlins do this. Take fifty of us, Master Shen, from our sanctuary ahead." It was Wei Song, still beside him (she was always beside him through that night, he would later remember). It made sense, what she said.

"Are there enough of you? At the sanctuary? Will they release so many?" Tai was calculating quickly. "If they are good with horses, we can do this with sixty, five horses behind each rider, ten to guard us."

"There are enough," she said. "And they will be good with horses."

The prince nodded. "Attend to it, Kanlin."

"This is why you sent for me, my lord?" Tai was still wrapped in strangeness, struggling to believe what had happened.

"I didn't send for you," the prince said.

It took a moment. They looked ahead, at the nearest carriage.

It wouldn't have been the emperor. Once, perhaps, in his burnished, brilliant youth, new to the throne or ready to claim it, but not now. Not any more.

It was Jian who had summoned him, Tai realized. Awakened in the middle of the night herself, amid panic, preparing to fly from all they knew, she had thought of this.

A question came. It ought to have been, he thought, his first. "My lord, forgive me, but I don't understand. How was there a battle? General Xu held held the pass. He would never have-" the pass. He would never have-"

"He was ordered out," said Shinzu flatly.

And then, very deliberately, he looked ahead, towards where a handsome, moonlit horseman rode at the front of their small procession.

"In the name of all nine heavens!" exclaimed Sima Zian. "That cannot be. He would not have done that!"

"But he did do that," said the prince. He smiled, mirthlessly. "Look where we are, poet."

It seemed as if he would say more, but he did not. The prince flicked his reins and moved up beside his father's racing coach, then they saw him go past it to ride with the soldiers guarding them.

Just as the sun rose on a summer morning they reached the posting station by the lake at Ma-wai.

TAI HAD BEEN WARNED that the soldiers were beginning to murmur amongst each other as the night drew to an end.

Lu Chen, a shrewd, experienced man, had moved up for a time among the cavalry escort. Then the Kanlin drifted back towards Tai, where he and Zian and Song had kept to the rear of the party.

Chen had spoken to Song first, then brought his quick Bogu horse over beside Dynlal. "My lord," he said, "I am not certain how it is, but the soldiers know what they should not."

"What do you mean?"

"Someone has spoken to them about Teng Pass. Word is spreading as we ride. The Second Army was in the pass, my lord. These men will be grieving, and angry."

Zian moved up. Song shifted her mount to let him. The road was wide; they rode four abreast in the night.

"They know who gave Xu Bihai that order?" the poet asked.

"I believe that is so, my lord." Lu Chen was invariably courteous to the poet.

"Do you think it was intentional? That they know this?" Zian's voice was grim. Tai looked quickly over at him.

"I do not know, my lord. But I believe it would be wise to be cautious at the posting station." He glanced at Tai. "My lord, I have determined that your honourable brother is in the other carriage. I thought you might wish to know."

Never much of a horseman, Tai's honourable brother, to their father's regret. Even less so now, undoubtedly. Clever in the extreme, however, hard-working, ambitious, precise, with foresight and discipline.

He would never have let Wen Zhou send that order to Teng Pass.

Tai knew it with certainty. As surely as he understood how Liu could send their sister to the barbarians, he knew he would not have ordered Xu Bihai out of that pass into battle.

His Kanlins were gathered tightly around him now. Someone had obviously given instructions. He looked ahead at the carriage nearest to them. The emperor of Kitai was in there, rolling through the night, fleeing fleeing in the night. Could the world really come to encompass such a thing? in the night. Could the world really come to encompass such a thing?

Tai knew it could, that it had before. He'd studied a thousand years of history, hadn't he, preparing for the examinations? He knew the legacy of his people, the dark and the brightly shimmering. He knew of civil wars, palace assassinations, slaughter on battlefields, cities sacked and burned. He had not thought to live through any of these.

It suddenly occurred to him, belatedly, how almost all of the court and imperial family-children, grandchildren, advisers, concubines-had been left behind tonight, to get away as best they could, or face Roshan when he came.

And there were two million people in Xinan, undefended.

His heart twisted. Be very alert Be very alert, he'd written to Rain. So helpful, that. What would she do? What was possible? Would she even get his message, from that twisted figure in the street? He'd left two Kanlins behind for her-at least he'd done that.

His mouth was dry again. He spat into the dust beside the road. Zian handed over a wine flask. Wordlessly, Tai drank. Only a little. He needed to be clear-headed, surely, above all else.

He glanced ahead. Wen Zhou was still among those up front. Lit by torches, he was easy to see, on a splendid black horse, a riding posture to be envied. Born to ride, they said about him.

The light grew as they went on. All but a handful of the brightest stars disappeared, then these, too, were gone. Individual trees took shape on their right, and fields on the other side of the road, ripe with summer grain. Torches were extinguished and discarded.

End of night. Morning, soft and clear. Tai looked back. Thin clouds east, underlit, pale pink, pale yellow. He caught a flash of blue, bright between trees, then he saw it again: the lake, ahead and to the right.

They came to the branching road that would lead around its shore to the extravagant luxury of the hot springs at Ma-wai. Jade and gold there, alabaster and ivory from the Silk Roads, porcelain, flawless silk, marble floors and columns, sandalwood walls, room screens painted with mastery, rare dishes from far lands, exquisitely prepared. Music.

Not today. They carried on along the road straight past that lakeside cut-off so often taken by this court, and not long after they came to the postal station inn and yard and stables, instead.

Riders had galloped ahead. They were awaited. The officers and attendants of the station were assembled in the courtyard, some bowing three times, some already prostrate in the dust, all visibly terrified to have their emperor suddenly among them like this.

There was a clatter of coach wheels and horses and orders shouted, then an odd, intense near-silence as they came to a halt. Birds were singing, Tai would remember. It was a summer morning.

The imperial carriage stopped directly in front of the station's doors. It was a handsome posting inn, Ma-wai's, so near Xinan, so very near the hot springs and aristocrats' country estates, and the tombs of the imperial family.

The carriage door was opened and they saw the emperor step down.

The Exalted and Glorious Emperor Taizu wore white, unadorned, with a black belt and hat. Alighting behind him, in a vivid blue travelling robe, with small gold flowers for decoration, came Jian.

The two of them went up the three steps to the station's porch. It was deeply disturbing to see the emperor walking. He was carried, always. His feet seldom touched the ground-not in the palace, and certainly not here in the dust of an inn yard. Tai looked around, and saw that he wasn't the only one unsettled by the sight. Wei Song was biting her lip.

Too much had changed too swiftly in a night. The world was a different place, he thought, than it had been when they went to bed.

On the porch, the emperor turned-Tai hadn't thought he would-and looked gravely out at those in the courtyard. He lifted a hand, briefly, then turned and went inside. He held himself very straight, Tai saw, leaning on no one. He didn't look look like a fleeing man who'd lost the guidance of heaven. like a fleeing man who'd lost the guidance of heaven.

Jian went in behind him. The prime minister and the prince followed, handing their horses to servants, going quickly up the steps. They didn't look at each other. The other carriage door was opened by a servant. Tai saw his brother step down and walk into the station as well. Three other mandarins alighted and followed.

The posting station doors were closed.

There followed an interlude of disquiet in the courtyard.

No one seemed to have any idea what to do. Tai gave Dynlal's reins to a stable boy, with orders to feed and water the horse and rub it down. Uncertainly, he went up on the covered porch, standing to one side. Zian came with him, and then Song and five of the Kanlins, staying close. Song was carrying her bow, had her arrow-quiver at one hip. So did the other five.

On the western side of the yard Tai saw a company of soldiers, fifty of them, a dui dui, such as he had commanded once. They appeared to have just arrived.

Their banners and colours marked them as also being of the Second Army. A mixed unit: forty archers, ten cavalry escorting them. Their presence was not unusual. When the main east-west road was congested troops would routinely be diverted this way. The posting stations were used by soldiers in transit throughout the empire, to change horses, eat and rest, receive new orders. These men would be coming from the west, assigned to the capital very likely, or they might even have been heading all the way to Teng Pass, to join their fellows there.

Not any more, Tai thought.

Some of the soldiers who had escorted their party here could be seen making their way across the inn yard to talk to the others. They were all of the Second Army. And there were tidings to share.

"This is not good," said Sima Zian quietly.

The two companies of soldiers were intermingled now, talking with increasing intensity in small clusters. Tai looked for their officers, wondering if they'd assert control. That didn't seem to be happening.

"The dui dui commander just drew his sword," said Song. commander just drew his sword," said Song.

Tai had seen it, too. He looked at her.

"I have sent two of our people for sixty riders from the sanctuary," Lu Chen said. "They cannot be here before end of day." He said it as if apologizing.

"Of course not," said Tai.

"They will not be in time to help," said Chen. He had stepped in front of Tai and the poet, holding his bow. They were towards one end of the porch, away from the doors.

"We are not the target of their anger," said Tai.

"It doesn't matter," Sima Zian murmured. "This mood finds targets as it goes."

And with that, Tai thought of a cabin in the north, long ago, when anger had turned into flames, and worse. He shook his head, as if to shake off memory.

He said, "Keep together. No aggression. There are more than seventy of them. This cannot become violent. The emperor is here."

The emperor is here. He'd actually said that, he would recall later. Invoked the imperial presence like a talisman, a ward, something magical. Perhaps once it would have been, but too much had changed by the time that day's sun had risen. He'd actually said that, he would recall later. Invoked the imperial presence like a talisman, a ward, something magical. Perhaps once it would have been, but too much had changed by the time that day's sun had risen.

An arrow flew in morning light.

It struck one of the doors of the posting station straight on, burying itself, vibrating there. Tai winced as if he'd been hit himself, so shocking was the sight, and the sound it made hitting the wood.

Three more arrows, and then ten, rapidly. The archers of the Second Army were widely known for their skill, and they were shooting only at doors, and not from far away. This was solidarity, the dui dui acting together. None of them would leave any others to face consequences alone. Tai looked for the acting together. None of them would leave any others to face consequences alone. Tai looked for the dui dui commander again, hoping he could stop this. commander again, hoping he could stop this.

A vain hope, entirely awry. The commander, not a young man, grey in his short beard, cold anger in his eyes, strode to the foot of the steps leading up to the porch and shouted, "Where is the first minister? We demand to speak with Wen Zhou!"

Demand to speak. Demand. Demand.

Knowing this might end his own days, aware of what men in such a state as this could do (they would be thinking about their fellows at Teng Pass), Tai stepped forward.

"Do not!" he heard Song say, a low, strained voice.

He didn't feel as if he had a choice.

"Dui commander," he said, as calmly as he could. "This is unseemly. Please hear me. My name is Shen Tai, I am the son of General Shen Gao, a name of honour among soldiers, and you might know it." commander," he said, as calmly as he could. "This is unseemly. Please hear me. My name is Shen Tai, I am the son of General Shen Gao, a name of honour among soldiers, and you might know it."

"I know who you are," said the man. Only that. But he did sketch a bow. "I was in Chenyao when the governor assigned you an escort and gave you rank in the Second Army."

"We share that army, then," said Tai.

"In that case," said the commander, "you should be standing with us. Have you not heard what happened?"

"I have," said Tai. "Why else are we here? Our glorious emperor is consulting even now with his advisers and the prince. We must stand ready to serve Kitai when they emerge with orders for us!"