"Huangdi?"
"When I'm eighteen, I'll be Huangd just like you became Huangdi," Yong said, smiling at her as she held him. She laughed.
"Is that what you want, Yong? That means I only have twelve more years to live." She pouted dramatically, and Yong's eyes widened and his mouth dropped open. The courtiers gathered around them laughed.
"Oh, no, Mamaqin," Yong said, the words tumbling out all in a rush. "I want you to live forever and ever!"
"Huangdi?"
The Throne Room smelled of oils. When Zhong's voice came, Shangxiang found herself startled—she'd nearly fallen into a trance as the painter wei'Rang first sketched her likeness on the canvas and began applying the underpainting. She was startled to see darkness outside the windows of the West Reception Chamber, and to find the room lit by a dozen candelabra and the eternal glow of the Sun Throne.
Several of the courtiers were standing well to the back of the room—banished there because wei'Rang had said that he could not work with gawkers looking over his shoulder—and talking softly among themselves while servants bustled about. How long had she been sitting there? Had she ordered the candles lit? It seemed bare minutes ago that Third Ring had sounded.
"Yes?" she asked Zhong, blinking at him standing before her with hands on forehead—here, in public, always the correct image of an aide. Zhong glanced over at the painter. Wei'Rang straightened by the canvas set at the foot of Shangxiang's dais, stirring his brush in a jar of turpentine. Pale colors swirled around the fine sable hairs. The strange, dark box of a mechanism he'd used to sketch her initial likeness, the device he'd called a "inverted mirror," was draped in black cloth on the floor nearby.
"Huangdi, the Commandant wan'Zhuge is here with his report."
"Ah!" Shangxiang blinked. She felt somnolent and lethargic, and shook her head to clear it. She wondered whether she'd been sleeping, and if anyone had noticed. "Send him up. Mister wei'Rang, I'm afraid that our session is over for today."
The painter bowed and pressed his paint-stained hands to his forehead, leaving behind a smudge of vermilion. "As you wish, Huangdi. When should I return? Tomorrow afternoon, perhaps? The lighting I want to capture on your face is that of the late day—the light looks so dramatic on your face, coupled with the Vermillion Throne behind you..."
"That will be fine—Zhong, make certain there are a few turns of the glass in my schedule for Mister wei'Rang before Third Ring. And please clear the room so that the commandant and I have some privacy; I will meet with the court afterward in the Red Hall for supper." As Zhong bowed and went to the courtiers, as the painter began to gather up his oils and brushes, Shangxiang rose from the crystalline seat. The light in the Vermillion Throne dimmed and faded, making the room seem dark as the courtiers noisily filed out of the room. "I would like to see what you've done," she told the artist.
Wei'Rang was visibly startled by the request. He dropped the brushes he was holding on the small table next to the easel and quickly draped a white sheet over the canvas. "You cannot, Huangdi."
"I what?" Her head tilted slightly to one side with the word, and an eyebrow lifted.
"Well... I would strongly prefer that you do not, Huangdi," wei'Rang quickly amended, with another pressing of hands to forehead. He picked up the brushes again and began to place them in a case. "I've only just made my sketch and began to place the undertones on the canvas. You would be more pleased if you could wait until I have something substantial to show you. It's the way I work with my subjects; I want to surprise them with an image of themselves, as if they were looking into a mirror, but this..." He waved his hand at the hidden canvas. "This would only disappoint you at the moment, I'm afraid. So if it would please the Huangdi, I beg you not to look. In fact, perhaps it would be best if I took it with me..."
His face seemed so comically distressed that she nearly laughed. "I'll manage to contain my curiosity for the time being, Mister," she told him, then did laugh at the relief that softened the hard lines of his thin face. "Leave your canvas here; no one will disturb it."
A knock came on the doors at the far end of the room. "Enter," Shangxiang said; the door opened and Commandant wan'Zhuge strode into the room, walking quickly toward them, his bootsteps loud on the tiled floor. His sharp eyes flickered over to wei'Rang even as he quickly touched hands to forehead yet again; the painter stared openly at the man's silver nose.
"Huangdi," the commandant said. "You'd do well to open your windows. The stench of the oils..." He strode to the windows nearest the dais and pushed them open. Fresh, cold air wafted in and the Huangdi shivered, but the breeze did seem to clear her head.
"Thank you, Mancheng," she said. "Mister wei'Rang, if you have everything..."
The man nearly jumped, still watching wan'Zhuge. He grabbed the case of brushes under his left arm and took up the valise that held the jars of mixed paints in the same hand, then picked up the inverted mirror by a handle; it seemed rather heavy, judging by the way wei'Rang leaned to one side while holding it. "Forgive me, Huangdi. I'll see... uh..." He hesitated.
"Zhong shu'Zhuge. My aide," she reminded him.
"Zhong shu'Zhuge. Yes. That was the name. Remember, Huangdi, you shouldn't look. Umm... tomorrow, then." He started to bring hands to forehead, remembered that he was holding something in each hand, and set them down again to salute her. Then he picked up case, valise, and inverted mirror and lurched toward the doors, grunting with the effort. He knocked on one of the doors with a foot; the hall patrol opened them and he went out. The patrol saluted the Huangdi and closed them again.
"That is a very strange man," wan'Zhuge said. He was staring after the painter.
"But a talented one, from what I've seen." She glanced at the draped painting on its easel. "You've questioned the assassin, Mancheng?"
Wan'Zhuge nodded. He looked at his hands as if making certain that they were clean. "Yes." He told her, briefly, what had happened during the interrogation at the Gaol—leaving out, Shangxiang suspected, some of the more brutal details. She did not press him for them.
"So this jin'Zhuo was a rogue," she said when he'd finished. "Nothing more. He may have been in the Mategician faction, but you're satisfied he was acting on his own, not on their orders?"
"That's my conclusion, Huangdi. Yes."
"I assume you have a signed confession."
He smiled at that. "Indeed. One that you may..." He paused. "...use as you wish."
"Did he name Envoy wei'Shamoke as the instigator?"
Sergei shrugged. "Only if you wish it to be so."
Shangxiang sniffed. Her fingers trailed along the hem of the cloth over her painting. "At this point, I don't know what would be to our best advantage," Shangxiang answered. "The confession can remain blank for now, until we know better. Envoy wei'Shamoke has sent over an urgent request to meet with me, along with an official statement denying any connection with the attempt on the Guji's life."
"That's not surprising. He's no doubt shaking in his Hebeirian boots at this, knowing that it's only going to inflame the anti-Mategician sentiments in the city. You've refused, just to make him worry some more?"
A smile: Mancheng knew her well. Sometimes too well. "Yes. I thought perhaps you should talk with him first. Then, if you think I should, I can meet with the man. He's been very patient thus far."
"Indeed he has. I'll make the arrangements. You heard how the Guji was saved?"
"Yes. An acolyte's spell: a girl from the shu'Ling family. I also understand that the Guji will giving her a Sign in gratitude."
"He already has," Mancheng told her. "The Guji made the girl an ei'torii and placed her on his private staff." Shangxiang glanced again at the windows and the darkness beyond, seeing the bright lights shimmering along the Main Boulevard. How long had she been sitting there, half-asleep? That was unlike her. "Huangdi, my contacts among the torii tell me that she reacted more like an experienced torii than a raw acolyte; in fact, some of them think what she did may have been against the Confession. There are some... rumors among the torii also—that the girl's mother was suffering from Fever and that after years in a weak dream-state, she's suddenly recovered completely. The talk is that a healing might have been performed."
Shangxiang's eyebrows sought her forehead with that. "Then I'll need to meet her and the Guji, won't I? But that can wait until tomorrow, surely."
"As the Huangdi wishes. Do you want me to brief the Huan?"
Shangxiang shrugged. "If you can find him at this time of night. My son is often... out." She didn't need to say more; it had, after all, been Mancheng who alerted her to Yong's nocturnal wanderings and what they implied. For the moment, her son's dalliances could be tolerated, but Shangxiang knew that she would have to do something to disengage him, and soon.
She had done it several times before, after all.
"If that's the case, then I will see the Huan in the morning. If the Huangdi will excuse me...?"
Shangxiang gestured dismissal, and Mancheng saluted and strode quickly to the door. She watched him leave, standing next to the easel. She waited, her breathing slow, taking in the scent of oiled pigments and dust, looking down at the little table set next to the painting, speckled with a thousand colors. The breeze from the window touched the cloth masking the portrait and rippled the candle flames, and the swaying of cloth and light seemed to mock her.
She lifted the covering.