concubines as well. The redjackets were very grateful for their documents.”
He went on about the beauty of the fire, and the panic of the concubines, 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. Bejeweled, plump, perfumed, dressed in elaborate silk: a favorite 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.
So when the news spread that two of the emperor's concubines had hanged themselves, and the furious emperor demanded an accounting, and the whole nest of corruption began to unravel before everyone, fear rippling through the court like the plague itself, lies spreading the blame wider and wider, until fully three thousand concubines and eunuchs were implicated in the scandal, Bold expected to hear any hour of his young friend's torture and lingering death, perhaps from the mouths of guards come to execute him as well.
But it didn't happen. Kyu existed under a spell of protection like that of a sorcerer, it was so obvious that everyone saw it. The emperor executed forty of his concubines with his own hand, swinging the sword furiously, cutting them in half or decapitating them with single strokes, or running them through over and over, until the steps of the rebuilt Hall of Great Harmony ran with their blood; but Kyu stood just to the side, unharmed. One concubine even cried out toward Kyu as she stood naked before them all, a wordless shriek, and then she cursed the emperor to his face, “It's your fault, you're too old, your yang is gone, the eunuchs do it better than you!” Then snick, her head was falling into the puddles of blood like a sacrificed sheep's. All that beauty wasted. And yet no one touched Kyu; the emperor dared not look at him; and the black youth watched it all with a gleam in his eye, enjoying the wastage, and the way the bureaucrats hated him for it. The court was literally a shambles, they were feeding on each other now; and yet none of them had the courage to take on the weird black eunuch.
Bold's last meeting
with him happened just before Bold was to accompany the emperor on an expedition to the west, to destroy the Tartars led by Arughtai. It was a hopeless cause; the Tartars were too fast, the emperor not well. Nothing would come of it. They would be back when winter came on, in just a few months. So Bold was surprised
He went on about the beauty of the fire, and the panic of the concubines, 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. Bejeweled, plump, perfumed, dressed in elaborate silk: a favorite 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.
So when the news spread that two of the emperor's concubines had hanged themselves, and the furious emperor demanded an accounting, and the whole nest of corruption began to unravel before everyone, fear rippling through the court like the plague itself, lies spreading the blame wider and wider, until fully three thousand concubines and eunuchs were implicated in the scandal, Bold expected to hear any hour of his young friend's torture and lingering death, perhaps from the mouths of guards come to execute him as well.
But it didn't happen. Kyu existed under a spell of protection like that of a sorcerer, it was so obvious that everyone saw it. The emperor executed forty of his concubines with his own hand, swinging the sword furiously, cutting them in half or decapitating them with single strokes, or running them through over and over, until the steps of the rebuilt Hall of Great Harmony ran with their blood; but Kyu stood just to the side, unharmed. One concubine even cried out toward Kyu as she stood naked before them all, a wordless shriek, and then she cursed the emperor to his face, “It's your fault, you're too old, your yang is gone, the eunuchs do it better than you!” Then snick, her head was falling into the puddles of blood like a sacrificed sheep's. All that beauty wasted. And yet no one touched Kyu; the emperor dared not look at him; and the black youth watched it all with a gleam in his eye, enjoying the wastage, and the way the bureaucrats hated him for it. The court was literally a shambles, they were feeding on each other now; and yet none of them had the courage to take on the weird black eunuch.
Bold's last meeting
with him happened just before Bold was to accompany the emperor on an expedition to the west, to destroy the Tartars led by Arughtai. It was a hopeless cause; the Tartars were too fast, the emperor not well. Nothing would come of it. They would be back when winter came on, in just a few months. So Bold was surprised
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