The Year of Rice and Salt

Kyu considered this in silence. Then he said, 'There's talk that the countryside is suffering. Famine in Hunan, piracy on the coast, diseases in the south. The officials don't like it. They think the great treasure fleet brought back disease instead of treasure, and wasted huge sums of money. They don't understand what trade brings back, they don't believe in it. They don't believe in the new capital. They tell the Empress and the Heir that they should help the people, that we should get back to agriculture, and stop wasting so much cash on extravagant projects.'

Bold nodded. 'I'm sure they do.'

'But the Emperor persists. He does what he wants, and he has the army behind him, and his eunuchs. The eunuchs like the foreign trade, as they see it makes them rich. And they like the new capital, and all the rest. Right?'

Bold nodded again. 'So it seems.'

'The regular officials hate the eunuchs.'

Bold glanced at him. 'Do you see that yourself?'

'Yes. Although it's the Emperor's eunuchs they really hate.'

'No doubt. Whoever is closest to power is feared by all the rest.'

Again Kyu thought things over. He seemed to Bold to be happy, these days; but then again Bold had thought that in Hangzhou. So it always made Bold nervous to see Kyu's little smile.

Soon after that conversation, when they were all in Beijing, a great storm came.

Yellow dust makes the first raindrops muddy; Lightning cracks down bronze through it,

Stitching together earth and sky,

Visible through closed eyelids.

About an hour later word comes: The new palaces have caught fire.

The whole centre of the Forbidden City Burning as though drenched in pitch,

Flames licking the wet clouds,

Pillar of smoke merging with the storm,

Rain downwind baked out of the air, replaced by ash.

Running back and forth with terrified horses, then with buckets of water, Bold kept an eye out, and finally, at dawn, when they had given up fighting the blaze, for it was useless, he caught sight of Kyu there among the evacuated imperial concubines. All the Heir Designate's people had a hectic look, but Kyu in particular seemed to Bold elated, the whites of his eyes visible all the way around. Like a shaman after a successful voyage to the spirit world. He started this fire, Bold thought, just like in Hangzhou, this time using the lightning as his cover.

The next time Kyu made one of his midnight visits to the stables, Bold was almost afraid to speak to him.

Nevertheless he said, 'Did you set that fire?' – whispering in Arabic, even though they were alone, outside the stables, with no chance of being overheard.

Kyu just stared at him. The look said Yes, but he didn't elaborate.

Finally he said calmly, 'An exciting night, wasn't it? I saved one of the Script Pavilion's cabinets, and some concubines as well. The redjackets were very grateful about their documents.'

He went on about the beauty of the fire, and the panic of the concu bines, and the rage, and later the fear, of the Emperor, who took the fire to be a sign of heavenly disapproval, the worst bad portent ever to smite him; but Bold could not follow the boy's talk, his mind filled as it was with images of the various forms of the lingering death. To burn down a merchant in Hangzhou was one thing, but the Emperor of all China! The Dragon Throne! He glimpsed again that thing inside the boy, the black nafs banging its wings around inside, and felt the distance between them grown vast and unbridgeable.

'Be quiet!' he said sharply in Arabic. 'You're a fool. You'll get yourself killed, and me too.'

Kyu smiled grimly. 'On to a better life, right? Isn't that what you told me? Why should I fear dying?'

Bold had no answer.

After that they saw less of each other than ever. Days passed, festivals, seasons. Kyu grew up. When Bold caught sight of him, he saw a tall slender black eunuch, pretty and perfumed, mincing along with a flash of the eye, and, once, that raptor look as he regarded the people around him. Bejewelled, plump, perfumed, dressed in elaborate silk: a favourite of the Empress and the Heir, even though they hated the eunuchs of the Emperor. Kyu was their pet, and perhaps even a spy in the Emperor's harem. Bold feared for him at the same time that he feared him. The boy was wreaking havoc among the concubines of both Emperor and Heir, many said, even people in the stables who had no way of knowing directly. The way he moved through them was too forward, he was bound to be making enemies. Cliques would be plotting to bring him down. He must know that, he must be courting it; he laughed in their faces, so that they would hate him even more. It all seemed to delight him. But imperial revenge had a long reach. If someone fell, everyone he knew came down too.