Chapter 1093 — The Creditor

CHAPTER 1093

The Creditor

Hong Lie carried Shi Feng to the hall in a chair and carefully set it down at the patriarch’s right hand.

The whole Wanyan household had gathered. The thirty riders who had escorted him north lined the left wall in grey coats. Servants, grooms and stewards packed the right wall and the doorway. Wanyan Bo sat straight-backed in the patriarch’s seat, hands on his knees. Nobody spoke.

Lin Langtian came in last, eating a steamed bun, and leaned on a pillar at the back.

Wanyan Che walked to the middle of the floor and knelt in front of his father.

“Father,” Wanyan Che said. His voice shook, but it carried to the doorway. “Last spring I owed money in Hanyuan. A great deal of it.”

A murmur ran along the right wall.

“How much?” Wanyan Bo asked. He was shaken, but his face didn’t move.

“Four hundred thousand to six different houses,” Wanyan Che said. “I’d been paying the interest by selling herbs out of our vault. A shelf at a time. I thought I’d put them back before you were well enough to look.”

Shi Feng remembered the vault’s half-bare shelves from the day he named the Heaven-Mending Pill. He’d said nothing then, because the house’s affairs weren’t yet his concern.

“Go on,” Wanyan Bo said.

“Then one day all six houses told me my debts had been bought,” Wanyan Che said. “By one buyer. All of them at once. And the new creditor never sent a bill. Not in spring, not in summer. Nothing.”

“That was when you stopped selling the shelves,” Wanyan Bo said quietly.

“Yes, Father,” Wanyan Che said.

Wanyan Che was quiet for a moment, afraid of what came next. His hands were flat on his knees, and his knuckles had gone pale.

“After the Pavilion accepted the commission,” Wanyan Che said, “a letter came. Plain paper, no seal. A clerk handed it to me at the city gate. The creditor wanted only one thing. Which road the 6 Mark would take on his way back south, and when.” He swallowed. “I gave it to them. Every waystation. Every day.”

The hall went very quiet.

“You knew the road would be watched,” Shi Feng said from his chair. He kept his voice calm, though he was angry.

“I didn’t know,” Wanyan Che said, turning to face him. “I told myself it was a merchant who wanted to sell you herbs along the way. I told myself many things.” He bowed his head. “I didn’t ask, Master Shi. I didn’t want to know the answer.”

“Who was the creditor?” Shi Feng asked.

“A counting house on Felt Street in Hanyuan,” Wanyan Che said. “I went there in spring to ask who owned my debts. The charter on the wall had no owner’s name on it. Only a seal I didn’t know. The clerk said the owner was a gentleman from the south who didn’t like visitors.”

Shi Feng understood. A counting house with no owner had paid four hundred thousand for a road. Whoever owned it had wanted him dead badly enough to buy the route long before the Heavenly Sect laid its Cage. It was the second buyer, the one who had won.

Shi Feng kept it to himself. Saying it here wouldn’t help anyone in the hall.

Wanyan Bo stood up.

“Che,” Wanyan Bo said. “Your seal.”

Wanyan Che took the heir’s seal off his belt. It was a square of black iron with the Wanyan pine cut into it. He held it for a moment. Then he set it on the floor in front of him and pushed it forward with two fingers.

“To raise a son without teaching him is the father’s fault,” Wanyan Bo said, to the whole hall. “So this is my fault as well as his. But it’s his seal. From today Wanyan Che isn’t the heir of this house. He keeps his name and his room. He doesn’t keep the vault keys, or the riders, or the road.”

The servants along the right wall gasped.

“The eldest young master! Stripped, in front of everyone!”

“Over one letter?”

“Over one road. A guest of the Pavilion almost died on it. Keep your voice down.”

“…”

Wanyan Che bowed until his forehead touched the floor beside the seal. He stayed there and didn’t protest.

Wanyan Bo turned to Shi Feng’s chair and bowed deeply.

“Master Shi,” Wanyan Bo said. “This house can’t buy back what my son sold. But it can pay for what it cost you. One million spirit stones, in notes, on the Pavilion’s own books, today.”

Lin Langtian stopped chewing at the back of the hall.

Shi Feng looked at the old patriarch. One million was a great sum, even for him. A house whose vault had been sold half bare couldn’t spare it. Wanyan Bo would have to sell something to raise it, probably land.

“No money,” Shi Feng said.

“Master Shi—” Wanyan Bo began.

“Herbs, Patriarch Wanyan,” Shi Feng said. “To the same value. Frost herbs, from the waste and from whatever’s left in your vault. The house keeps its land, and I get what I need.” He shifted in the chair, and his ribs ground. “I’ll be needing them for the next pill I’ll have to make for myself.”

Wanyan Bo stared at him, deeply moved. Then he bowed again, lower than before, and didn’t argue.

“Herbs, then,” Wanyan Bo said hoarsely. “This house will fill your ring.”

At the back, Lin Langtian sighed very loudly and took a large bite of his bun. Nobody turned round.

Shi Feng was about to ask to be carried back to bed when a groom came running down the corridor and stopped in the doorway, out of breath.

“Patriarch!” the groom said. “A rider from Hanyuan, at the gate. He says he’s the Pavilion’s steward. He says he’s come about the chart.”