Chương 165: Chapter 162

The gates of the wall of the Imperial Capital begin to open when we still have a good stretch to go before reaching them, and I, who have had the little curtain drawn back since we left behind the first cultivation fields, let out a sigh so deep that Xia lifts her head to look at me.

"Are you feeling unwell?" she asks me right away.

"On the contrary", I answer her without taking my eyes off the window.

"I am better than in the last five weeks put together." And then I lower my hand to my lap, where I have been carrying the feather wrapped in a handkerchief since we left the valley, to check for the umpteenth time that it is still there. The carriage advances the last few paces, the shadow of the arch falls over us and, for a few seconds, the interior goes dark and the noise of the wheels multiplies against the stone. Afterward the light returns and, at last, we are inside.

I draw the little curtain back a bit more and take advantage to take a look at the procession, more out of habit than out of interest, and once again I find the same thing I have been finding for five days now. Five disciples of the Sect of the Celestial Sun distributed around the carriage, each one covering their part, attentive to the surroundings and in a silence so compact that at this point I already consider it a philosophical stance.

Unfortunately Bai Zhen is not there, nor Song Yan, nor any of the other three, and to me that change seemed a minor misfortune the morning we climbed into the carriage, because, with all his unpleasantness, Bai Zhen was at least a known unpleasantness and I had come to know Song Yan. But I right away understood that the misfortune was not minor at all, because these five have not addressed a word to me a single time. And I am not exaggerating, not a single time in five days.

Not to warn me of a stop, not to indicate to me where we were going to spend the night, not to answer the two polite questions I asked the first day before giving up. Everything I have needed to know during the trip has reached me through the Nei Wei, who do speak with me, and from looking out the window. I don't even know what they are called, which, after five days of coexistence, has considerable merit. And I am fairly clear about the motive, or at least I have a theory that convinces me.

Because I left that mountain after an Inner Disciple interrupted my descent to take me to a place to which, according to Lin Xun himself, hardly anyone is granted access. And however discreet Wang Jing may have been, and she was, in a place where everyone lives piled on top of one another and where gossip must be the second sport after cultivation, that kind of news probably doesn't take even a day to spread. So these five are not escorting me.

They are escorting the stranger who does not belong to the Sect, whom the Elders practically isolated and whom, for some motive none of them understands and that probably annoys them quite a bit, Tianyu Feng wished to see before she left. And faced with something like that, any sensible person does exactly what they have done, which is not to touch me, not to look at me too much and certainly not to speak to me.

"That's their problem", I murmur to myself as I decide to ignore the matter. Because the good thing is that today is the last day I am going to have to see them, so I settle myself against the backrest, rest my chin on my hand and devote myself to looking out the window while the carriage heads down the main street in the direction of the Imperial Palace.

At first, what I see fits fairly well with what I expected to find, half a dozen shutters closed for every one open, the awnings rolled up and not a single street stall. Nothing new. The fire Qi surge continues and the city continues shut in its houses waiting for it to pass but, as we advance, I begin to notice that there is something that doesn't add up for me.

And it takes me a while to realize, because it is one of those things one only perceives, that uncomfortable sensation of looking at a room in which someone has moved two pieces of furniture without telling you and it takes you a while to realize what the change is. But I realize more or less quickly, and it is that the difference is that now the haste over the heat has mixed into it, however strange it may seem, something of fear.

The people I see walk quickly, glued to the facades and without stopping to look at anything. I see a woman come out of a shop, tuck the package under her arm and set off walking even before finishing putting it away. I see two men cross the street diagonally, very close together, looking to one side and the other before doing it. I see a shopkeeper lean out an instant from his own door, take a look up the street and down the street and go back inside.

This is not people fleeing from the heat, this is people who want to finish what they have come out to do and return to their houses as soon as possible. And the second thing is the city guard. There is a great deal more than there was, with pairs posted at the corners of the important side streets, patrols of four traveling the avenue at a slow pace and an entire group planted in front of what, if my memory does not fail me, and it never fails me, is the door of a fairly well-known lending house.

And the third thing is what truly makes me straighten up in my seat, because, among the hurried people and the patrols, there are groups. Small groups, of three or four people, who are not going anywhere in particular and who carry nothing on them save what they carry at their belts. They go armed, all of them, and not with the short knife anyone might carry, but with perfectly visible swords and sabers.

And although they go dressed in street clothes, there is something in the way they position themselves, in how one of them always goes half a step ahead and the others open the angle, that turns out recognizable even to me. And there are two classes of them. It takes me a while to confirm it, but in the end it is evident.

Some wear a sash of one color and the others of another, and although at this distance and in this light I am not capable of distinguishing the tones well, I do perfectly distinguish what happens when two of those groups cross paths. They see each other coming from far off, the two groups slow their pace at the same time, with that involuntary coordination of two dogs that have smelled each other on the same street. They separate toward their respective sidewalks leaving the whole width of the avenue between them.

And upon reaching the other's level, without exception, each and every one of their hands rises to the hilt and stays there, resting, while their heads turn so as not to lose sight of one another for an instant. Afterward they pass by, the hands come down and each group continues on its way. And I stay looking at that scene with the back of my neck cold in spite of the heat that comes in through the little window, because I don't need to know anything about this world to recognize what I have just seen.

Those are two families, or gangs, about to kill each other, and a guard trying to keep them from doing it in the middle of the street. And to me, who have spent five days manufacturing theories about what can have happened at the Imperial Palace for my father to send an urgent notification, that makes me discard all of them because not one of the ones I had explained this.

I stay glued to the window for the rest of the journey, mentally noting every detail while the carriage advances and the avenue widens, and even Xia, who has learned to read me almost as well as Lianhua, has stopped asking questions and has stayed very still in her seat. Finally we reach the zone that opens before the Imperial Palace and I see the gates, but what I see almost makes my heart stop.

Because the gates are surrounded by banners, and from what I have read in the manuals of the Lǐbù, they are the banners of mourning for the death of an imperial consort. And from that instant on the street stops mattering to me, and the guard, and the gangs, and the haste of the people, because there is only one idea inside my head and it occupies all the available space. My mother is an imperial consort.

I try to hold on to the only thing I can hold on to, which is the last thing Tianyu Feng told me before unfolding his wings, that bit about how what I most fear is not the reason why I have to return, and I repeat the sentence to myself, word by word, as if repeating it made it more solid.

"Zhāohuán Wen", says Lianhua at my side. Just by the fact that she has opened her mouth, I know that my nervousness is showing on my face.

"I'm fine", I answer her, and not even I believe it. The carriage slows down, I hear voices outside, I hear the creak of the hinges and I notice how we pass beneath the arch. And when we finally stop and Lianhua opens the door, what I see on the other side does not reassure me at all.

Because in the middle of the great plaza, waiting standing while she ignores the heat, is Lingxi, who besides is not alone, since behind her there are eight Nei Wei formed in two rows of four, still as statues, and to one side waits one of the small carriages used to move around the interior of the palace. And Lingxi is dressed in white. In a raw white, without a single embroidery, without an adornment in her hair, without anything that breaks the sobriety of the ensemble save the small metal clasp of the collar.

Lingxi does not come to receive anyone, Lingxi does not separate from my mother, Lingxi has spent since before I was born two paces behind her lady and the only reason she would be planted in the middle of a plaza in the sun waiting for a carriage is that her lady had ordered her to. Or that her lady can no longer order her anything.

"Lianhua", I say, and my voice comes out much drier than I intended as I grip the feather more tightly.

"Get me down. Now." And Lianhua, who never asks, doesn't ask now either. Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. She surrounds me with her arms, lifts me from the seat in a single movement and takes me out of the carriage without waiting for anyone to place anything, and the moment I feel the outside air on my face I turn my head searching for Lingxi, who is already coming toward us at a quick pace. But I don't wait for her to arrive.

"Has something happened to my mother?" I ask her the moment I have her five paces away, and it matters to me exactly nothing who may be listening. Lingxi stops dead upon hearing me, and then she does something I have never seen her do, which is to skip the greeting, the inclination and the formula to answer me directly.

"No, Zhāohuán Wen", she tells me, and she says it quickly.

"Nothing at all has happened to Guifei Xiang. She is perfectly fine and is waiting for you at the Pavilion." I close my eyes and let out all the air I have been carrying inside since I saw the first banner and I notice how Lianhua's arms adjust a bit around me because I have just lost all at once all the rigidity I had.

"Then why are you here?" I ask her the moment I can speak again.

"Because she sent me", Lingxi answers me.

"The atmosphere at the Imperial Palace is fairly chaotic at these moments, and Guifei Xiang considered it more prudent that there be someone of her trust waiting for you upon your arrival." I nod slowly as I recover my composure. That's it. My mother is fine and the rest, whatever it may be, is secondary.

"Very well", I say then.

"And what exactly is it that has happened?" And Lingxi, who at this point is already beginning to give orders to the Nei Wei who came with us, looks at me and gives me the most predictable answer in the world.

"It will be Guifei Xiang who tells you everything when we reach the Pavilion", she tells me. I look at her a moment, weigh for half a second the possibility of insisting and discard the idea on the spot, because I have known this woman since I have memory and I know perfectly that insisting to her when she has decided that something is not hers to tell is a very elaborate way of wasting time.

"Well then the sooner we reach the Pavilion, the better", I answer. And from there on everything is set in motion with that silent efficiency that things have when my mother organizes them, or failing that, Lingxi. Lianhua settles me inside the small carriage, Lingxi climbs in behind her and Xia enters last while she puts in the backpacks with the help of the Nei Wei.

And the moment the four of us are inside it becomes clear that the chair doesn't fit, so two of the Nei Wei carry it between them and position themselves beside the carriage to take it on foot. An instant later we set off, and I look out the little window to discover that the Imperial Palace is just as strange as the city, only in its own manner. The first thing I see are the Jin Wei, since there are patrols everywhere.

In the outer corridors, at the crossings of the paths, in the arches and in the courtyards we pass through. They go in a group with their full armor and at a regular pace that is not that of one who watches out of routine, but that of one who watches because they are on guard, and in the while it takes us to cross the first zone I count more of them than I usually see in an entire week. And the second thing I see is what there isn't, because there are no functionaries.

Well, there are indeed some, but very few, and the few I see go alone and go quickly, with their folders pressed against their bodies and their eyes on the ground. And that, in this place, is even more eloquent than the patrols. Because functionaries form little circles, and today there is not a single one. And that absence tells me, with a clarity no patrol would give me, that in this palace something considerably bigger has happened than the simple period of mourning for the death of a consort.

The rest of the journey I make in silence, and when the carriage finishes crossing the park and enters the Pavilion, there, in the courtyard, is my mother. She is standing, in the center, without a parasol or anything to shelter her, with her hands gathered in front and waiting for the carriage to stop. And she is dressed in white.

In that same raw white Lingxi wears, without a single color in the whole figure, without embroidery, with her hair gathered in the simplest manner I have seen in my life and held by a single hairpin of pale wood. Neither jade, nor gold, nor a single flower. Lianhua gets down first, takes the chair the Nei Wei hold out to her and places it beside the little door, then comes back for me, takes me out in her arms, seats me and, finally, pushes me to where my mother is.

And when I reach my mother's level and lift my head to look at her, I see that she is very serious.

"Mother", I tell her.

"Wen", she answers me.

"Mother", I repeat, and I lower my voice.

"What has happened for them to make me return with such urgency?" My mother holds my gaze a moment with that expression of hers that tells nothing to anyone who has not known her for years, and afterward answers with all the calm in the world.

"Let's go to my office", she tells me.

"There I'll tell you." And with that it is clear to me that I am not going to get a single word out of her in the middle of a courtyard, so I nod and turn my head toward the carriage, where Xia has just gotten down at that precise instant loaded with the two backpacks.

"Xia", I call her. Upon hearing me, I see how she straightens up all at once.

"See to it that everything we have brought from the Sect is taken to my study", I tell her as I hold out to her the feather wrapped in the handkerchief.

"Everything. And let no one open anything."

"I will make sure it is done correctly, Zhāohuán Wen", she answers me as she takes the feather, inclines her head at a perfect angle and replies with a formality I have not heard from her in the five weeks we have been away.

I look at my mother again and she, without saying anything more, turns around and sets off walking toward the interior of the building with Lingxi glued to her back, so that Lianhua pushes me behind the two of them through the corridors of the Pavilion until we reach my mother's office and the door closes at our backs. My mother goes around the table, sits and indicates my usual spot with a gesture of her hand while Lianhua places me in front of her.

"Good", I say the moment I am still.

"We are now in your office. Now can you finally tell me what has happened?" My mother rests her hands on the table, interlaces her fingers and tells me without roundabouts.

"A week ago the Fei Lan and the Fei Zhi were found dead", she begins.

"And also the Fei Zhi's Fei Yi, who apparently took her own life shortly afterward." And I stay looking at her. Simply that, without saying anything, because of all the conjectures I had prepared during five days of carriage, there was not a single one that resembled this even from a distance. The Fei Lan. The Emperor's first consort. The woman who has spent, according to my mother, practically since I was born trying to kill me or defame me. And the Fei Zhi.

And with the Fei Zhi the matter is worse, because the Fei Lan is an enemy, whereas I had the Fei Zhi seated across from me a little over a month ago, eating at my mother's table and praising her paintings. And now she is dead.

"Why?" I ask at last, and it is the only thing that occurs to me.

"Why did they die?"

"From what has been able to be reconstructed the Fei Zhi obtained a very rare poison, from outside the Empire, and used it to poison herself and the Fei Lan at the same time", my mother answers me.

"They were found seated at the same table." And it takes me a moment to process that, because there is a part that doesn't go in.

"Wait", I say.

"Wait a moment. Are you telling me the Fei Zhi committed suicide?"

"That is exactly what I am telling you", she answers me.

"But that makes no sense", I insist.

"Mother, that woman had just returned from ten years of banishment. Ten years. She returned, settled in, began visiting all the consorts one by one and was eating in this house talking about her plans. No one does all that to kill themselves a month later. What kind of hatred does one have to have for someone to be disposed to die oneself only to make sure the other dies with you?"

My mother doesn't answer right away, she only lowers her gaze a moment toward her own hands, interlaced on the wood, and when she lifts it again she speaks to me in the same tone as before.

"The kind any mother would have", she tells me.

"In the Fei Zhi's apartments a note was found written in her own hand in which she blamed the Fei Lan for the death of her son Sun Xiang, and explained that that was the reason for what she was going to do." And there I fall silent. Because Sun Xiang died from Qi deviation when he was seven years old and the Fei Zhi was banished ten years for it, and I have had that story present in my head since I attended the trial and saw the state of the poor boy.

"And is it true?" I ask.

"That is exactly what half the court has spent a week asking itself", my mother answers me, and afterward she sighs. It is a short sigh, and she accompanies it by pushing a couple of reports toward one side of the table as if she needed the space cleared for what comes now.

"And that question is the true problem", she continues.

"Because the Ma family has decided that the answer is no, that their daughter was murdered by a slander, and has initiated hostilities against the Xie family."

"Hostilities?" I repeat.

"Hostilities", she confirms.

"It is not an open war, not yet, and neither of the two has declared anything in writing because doing so would have consequences that neither one nor the other can afford. But we have had a week of clashes in the street, three businesses of the Xie and two of the Ma have been burned, and there are already several dead on both sides. To which must be added that their allies have gotten into the dispute, and they are not few."

And there I fit together what I saw on the avenue, the patrols, the people walking glued to the facades and the groups of three and four armed men watching one another from sidewalk to sidewalk.

"I saw them", I say slowly.

"Coming here. There were two classes of armed groups on the main street, and when they crossed paths they brought their hands to the hilts of their weapons."

"You will have seen them, yes", my mother tells me.

"And you are going to keep seeing them. The city guard has orders to be present everywhere precisely so that it doesn't pay anyone to start anything in front of thirty witnesses, but that does not resolve the substance of the matter, it only postpones it." She makes a pause.

"And to try to calm tempers the old regulations have had to be dusted off, because it had been almost seven hundred years since a case like this occurred and there was no longer anyone alive who had had to apply them", she adds.

"Right now the Lǐbù is working day and night on it, and its strategy is the usual one. To publicly guarantee both families that their daughters are going to receive each and every one of the rites that correspond to them by their rank, without cutting a single one, and to sustain a mourning period long and solemn enough that initiating an escalation during that period would be, for either of the two parties, an offense against the Empire and not against the other family."

I stay a moment assimilating that, and there is a part that catches my attention far more than the others.

"One moment", I say.

"Do concrete ceremonies really exist for this? For two consorts who kill each other?" And my mother, for the first time since I entered this office, smiles.

"Wen", she tells me.

"With all the time this Empire has been standing, any situation that could occur to you has already happened before. And if it has happened, someone wrote it down, and if someone wrote it down, there is a protocol kept in some archive of the Lǐbù waiting for it to be needed again."

"But it's seven hundred years", I insist.

"Seven hundred and something", she corrects me.

"And in case it serves you as consolation, on that occasion it was rather more gruesome than now because the two consorts involved did not bother with poisons, they simply stabbed each other to death." I let the air out through my nose after listening to my mother.

"Charming", I murmur.

"Very much so", she agrees. And then, since we have gotten this far, I finally ask the question I have spent five days asking myself, the one that has accompanied me at every bump of the road since I left that mountain.

"All right, now I understand what has happened", I tell her.

"What I don't understand is what I have to do with this. From what you tell me, this does not affect me at all since I was shut up in the sect five days' journey away. Why did they send an urgent notification to the Sect of the Celestial Sun to make me return immediately?" My mother looks at me and doesn't answer right away but rather takes a second, and in that second I see perfectly how the seriousness she has carried throughout the whole conversation softens and the corners of her mouth move into a smile.

"Because the mourning has already begun with the twenty-seven days of national grieving", she tells me.

"And you, thanks to being conveniently far away, have gotten out of the first ceremonies, which besides have been the most uncomfortable because the two families were still deciding whether to attend or not. That has been pure luck and you should be grateful."

"Let me guess, now is when you give me the bad news", I say as I begin to intuit what she is going to tell me next.

"Exactly", she concedes.

"You have the rank of Zhāohuán, and a Zhāohuán cannot be absent from the funeral rites of an imperial consort, so your presence is expected at each and every one of the ceremonies that remain until the rites are considered concluded." And there, while I listen to her, an alarm goes off for me because I know that smile, and that has never, ever, meant anything good for me, so, with all the caution I am capable of, I ask the question.

"And how many ceremonies exactly are the ones that remain?" I ask. And my mother, without stopping smiling, joins her hands on the table.

"The exact quantity I cannot tell you", she answers me with an absolute tranquility.

"Because the Lǐbù is still finishing setting the calendar, and with two families watching that hers not be given less importance than the other, they can still grow a bit." She makes a perfectly calculated pause.

"But what I can assure you is that you are going to be busy, at the very least, for the next six months", she finishes. And I stay looking at her with my mouth open after hearing her answer.

"What do you mean, six months?!" I cannot help exclaiming.