? ? ?
The Emperor did not look well: a heavy-set man and jowled, fatigue was writ upon his face; he breathed stentoriously and sweat gathered upon his thin mustaches and glistened to the sides of his chin and upon his forehead. Laurence began to realize what particular urgency had driven the conservative party to strike at Prince Mianning so blatantly: they foresaw him coming shortly to the throne. But the Emperor’s ill-health did not place bounds on his temper; his expression was set in grim lines and a glitter of anger that revealed itself plainly when the formalities had been quickly dispensed with.
He was not enthroned in state, but received Laurence in a courtyard with his own Celestial, Temeraire’s uncle Chu, coiled watchful and heavy along a raised dais behind a chair that was a simple and comfortable affair of wood. Temeraire had been permitted to accompany them only so far as the outer court of the pavilion; Laurence had been conscious of that anxious gaze upon his back as they had been ushered away into the inner halls of the palace, and thence to the great central court.
Laurence was not the sole guest; Mianning and Lord Bayan both had preceded him and were seated before the throne. Mianning was the nearer; Laurence followed Hammond’s hissed whisper to seat himself at a distance between the two, and they all three faced the Emperor as if defendants at a trial. Nor was the simile inapt: with the flick of a hand the Emperor dismissed nearly all his attendants, save the well-armed and watchful guards; Hammond, too, was forced to go trailing reluctantly away, leaving Laurence to rely upon nothing but his own uninformed and lately doubtful wits. There was at first no difficulty, however, no call for decision; he had merely to sit and be thundered at in company.
“I scarcely know who to blame the more,” the Emperor said, “for this upheaval of the Imperial court and therefore of the state, its mirror; for whatsoever evil begins here, it will show itself reflected tenfold throughout the nation! What madness should have permitted any man to lay a plot within their hearts upon my chosen heir and my adopted son? What reckless actions, in pursuing foreign involvement and disregarding the sage wisdom of centuries and respect for tradition, should have driven otherwise loyal servants of the court into such madness?”
Laurence wished badly for Hammond, adrift and struggling to pierce the veil of the Emperor’s terms; but despite his inexperience he felt he understood this much: whatever the Emperor might choose to say officially, he knew in private all that had transpired. He surely knew: the cold rage in his eyes, beneath which Bayan flattened his head, was not merely that of a ruler jealous of disruption in his palace, but that of a father. He knew Mianning’s intentions; he knew of Bayan’s assault; what power struggle here transpired, he permitted, to some extent.
But only to some extent: and evidently that extent had been exceeded; he meant to rope them in one and all. Laurence felt cold anxiety settle stone-like in his belly: he did not need Hammond to tell him deadly shoals lurked beneath these waters, and he had neither pilot nor chart nor even soundings to tell him where they lay. One misstep and he might ruin all their hopes as effectively as Bayan might have wished to do. Laurence resolved to shut his mouth and say nothing, so far as he might; he would offer nothing but the meekest response. Mianning should have to speak for their side, if at all.
“I will hear your explanations,” the Emperor said, concluding his tirade, and slumping angry back into his throne; he held a hand out and a cup bedewed with cold was placed within it. He drank heavily and put it aside.
Mianning prostrated himself, and quietly said, “My honored Imperial father, my trespasses against the wisdom of my elders would be unforgivable, save if by respecting that wisdom I should neglect my greater duty to the nation: surely it is my obligation to plant and tend the seed for a future harvest of peace and prosperity, that the fortune of Heaven will continue to smile upon our land. Though in summer the winter storms seem far away to those who must labor on the present harvest, they are coming nonetheless; and one whose shoulders do not yet bow over the sweep of his scythe may look towards the West, and see them approaching from afar.”
Bayan said, “And in looking afar, mislead himself that the distant clouds he sees, which soon will disperse of their own accord, are grave dangers; and worse yet, in chasing a defense against them will forget what nearer danger threatens, and let the crow plunder his fields.”