“If this plan of yours succeeds,” Goujian continued, “and my revenge is secured, I will make sure that you are handsomely rewarded for your efforts.”
“No need, Your Majesty.” His voice was even. “It is my duty to serve the kingdom.”
“Don’t be like that, now. You must wantsomething. Gold, perhaps? Wine? Land? A marriage with a daughter from one of the noble families? There are many girls who have already expressed interest, you know, and I dare say they’d make excellent concubines, good enough to satisfy even somebody like you. It would be no trouble.”
My stomach sank.Manygirls. What number was that? Six? A dozen? Perhaps Zhengdan had been wrong, and he would not live his life alone. Perhaps he would get married the second I stepped into the Wu palace. A sour taste crept into my mouth at the thought, as if I’d just swallowed vinegar.
“I thank you, Your Majesty, but such things would be wasted on me.”
Goujian scoffed, a sound of equal parts admiration and bemusement. “Of all the men who have served me, only you are so insistent on denying yourself the basic pleasures of life. It’s almost masochistic—”
“Let us go in, shall we?” Fanli cut in. “I believe there was something you wished to show us before our departure?”
“Oh yes, yes,” Goujian said hastily. To us, he commanded, “You may rise.”
My neck ached, stiff from being held in one place so long and hot from where the sun had beaten down on it. When Fanli had first shown us the right positions for a curtsy, I’d wondered aloud if discomfort was the primary purpose of it. What better way to show that you took another person’s power seriously than to suffer for their sake?
It was a relief to be back indoors, in the cool air of the study.
“Look here,” Goujian said, unrolling a map over the low mahogany table. To my surprise, I saw that he was gesturing to us. I crept closer, close enough to see the sprawling territories, the drawings of the mountain peaks and rivers and valleys, the meticulously labeled cities, but not so close to the king as to forget propriety.
“That is Lake Tai,” I said in slow recognition, looking to the place he had jabbed a finger.
“Precisely.” He nodded. “This will be our opening.”
It took me a moment to understand. “Into the Kingdom of Wu, you mean?”
“I have familiarized myself well enough with the territory. The quickest and easiest way inside is not by horse, but by boat.”
“But… there are no waterways,” Zhengdan said.
Goujian shrugged. “So build one.”
The way he said it, he might have been suggesting that we build a small mound of dirt, not a highly sophisticated structure that required the physical labor of thousands.
“Or, to be more accurate, convince Fuchai to build one,” Goujian continued, tapping the map sharply. “I do not care what excuse you use. Tell him you like the scenery there, or that you wish to spend more alone time with him on the canal, or that you believe you may uncover some mythical creature in the waters. If you have bewitched him sufficiently, won him over body and soul, he should be willing to do whatever to meet your requests, no matter how irrational they may seem.”
My throat constricted. Suddenly the air in the room felt too stuffy, too solid. I had tried desperately to ward off thoughts of the Wu king, to stop myself from dreading the journey ahead. Yet it was only now, with the king of my own homeland addressing me, this map of two kingdoms unfurled before me, that it feltreal. Everyone was looking at me. I would have to do this. It would have to be me, and I would have to succeed, or else—
“Now that the carriages and boats have all been arranged, you’ll be leaving as planned in two days. Fanli will escort you there, of course, and Luyi will come as well. I had hoped to send you off even sooner, but Fanli insisted that I give you the full ten weeks to train until you were perfect…”
Two days.I had braced myself for it, had known this was coming, yet still I felt as though I had been thrown into a dark room and was watching the door swing shut right in front of me. A foolish impulse gripped me then—to beg the king for more time. More time to taste the sweet plums in the yard, to admire the lanternlights of the village at night, to fall asleep with Zhengdan’s quiet snores in my ear. More time with—
In that exact instant, Fanli’s gaze touched mine, and something in the air tightened, as if there ran a thread between us, and it had suddenly been plucked. It had to be my imagination. Wishful thinking. A manifestation of my own black, churning despair. But his eyes appeared darker, and I thought I caught a flicker of sorrow in them, like a bird’s shadow flitting over a still pond.
“Is there a problem, Xishi?” Goujian asked. The weight of the question hung like a mallet, poised to crush my neck. I had once heard that kings never asked anything, no matter how it was phrased; they merely made requests.
“No, Your Majesty,” I murmured, bowing my head, the lie scalding my tongue. “I am ready.”
On my last day, I sat perched atop the ledge of the highest cottage wall, my legs dangling over the side. It was my favorite place to go, with its clear view of the village below: the serene sky of dawn casting its soft light over everything, the dense clusters of houses connected by crooked paths and dusty roads, the little boats floating over the waterways, and farther beyond that, the winding river that flashed silver like the body of an eel. Sometimes I thought I could see where the very edges of the kingdom lay, the simmering lines that marked out Wu from Yue soil, where the colors turned deeper and darker and even the clouds formed different shapes.
Behind me, footsteps sounded.
I knew, without even having to turn, who had come. Only Fanli walked with the grace of a dancer and the quiet precision of a killer. Yet something in my blood skipped as his presence drew near.
Stop, I told myself firmly, keeping my eyes on the horizon.There is nothing to anticipate from him.
“It’s beautiful, is it not?” he asked as he lifted himself onto the ledge beside me. A few feet of space remained between us. The safe distance, always there, in everything he did. Always so careful not to cross some invisible line that separated duty from—whatever else there could be.
