Chapter 453 — The Honest Gambler

CHAPTER 453

The Honest Gambler

“A bridge,” Qu Jiang said, and held up one finger.

He had been speaking for a quarter of an hour. The clerks in the tower had stopped yawning around the second finger.

“Nine wagons of Palace ore stopped on the Ironwood Bridge, and three of them never came off it. A ferry at Jinsha, seized from honest river hands and handed to a gang. A deacon of the Hall of Outer Affairs, tricked into a loan of six thousand stones by means of a letter.” Qu Jiang stroked his beard. “A lotus at Cuiping, taken by the lie of a stolen egg. A core furnace's legacy at the Ashen Lake, which turned out to be filings, and which no honest man would call a legacy.”

Murmurs ran along the benches. Several of the listeners were nodding. That was the trouble with a list read well.

“Thieves,” Qu Jiang said. “I will say the word plainly, since nobody here will. Artificer Hall breeds thieves. As the saying goes, a rat crossing the street is chased by every shout, and the Hall has been that rat for sixty years. It has done so since it first grew poor, and it now has a master of the art sitting at the accused's table.”

Shi Feng listened with growing annoyance. Qu Jiang was treating every Palace loss as proof of theft. At the word master, he opened his mouth.

He had intended to ask for an itemised copy of the list. He was going to bill the speaker for the minutes.

A chair scraped on the top tier.

“Elder Qu,” Gongsun Ce called.

Gongsun Ce stood up.

He was not a tall man, and he wore the same plain grey robe he always did. The puppet in his arm had a black ribbon still tied around its neck. Four hundred heads turned, and he waited until the last of them had done so.

“Gongsun Ce, Third Prince of Great Song, inner disciple of Artificer Hall,” Gongsun Ce said. “May a foreign guest speak to the record, Assessor?”

Wen Lu's brush paused over the page. “A prince has standing,” Wen Lu said. “Speak.”

“Thank you,” Gongsun Ce said, and came down the steps, one at a time, and the crowd opened for him. He stopped in the middle of the hall, between the Palace's table and the Hall's. “I shall not speak about the bridges. I was not there. But I know the man you are accusing.”

“A gambler's word,” Qu Jiang said.

“Yes, a gambler's word,” Gongsun Ce replied, unashamed. “I have lost enough to him to know whether he keeps his promises.”

He took a small, worn book from his sleeve and opened it.

“I have bet against Shi Feng more often than I have bet on the weather,” Gongsun Ce said. “I lost every time. Each time, the stake was paid to him in the usual currency, and each time he accepted it. That is what a bet is. He has never been paid anything he did not win.”

“Irrelevant,” Fang Shu began.

“I am not finished,” Gongsun Ce said firmly, turning a page without raising his voice. “On the first night of the Three Sects Gathering, I lent him forty stones for lamp oil. He repaid me on the third day, with a receipt. In the old puppet storehouse, he borrowed a roll of cooling wax. He returned it with the end cut square. At the Ashen Lake, my silver crane was eaten by an ash hound. He paid sixty stones for its repair without being asked, and I would have forgiven it.”

“I didn't know that,” Sima Lan said quietly, behind Shi Feng's shoulder.

“He never mentioned it,” Gongsun Ce replied. “I did not even have to ask. Every other loan, every roll of wax, every stone, he repaid to the copper. I have never found an unpaid debt, and he has never lied to escape one.” He shut the book. “He cheats at cards.”

The hall gave a startled laugh.

“He cheated me in the puppet storehouse,” Gongsun Ce said, “with sixty puppets watching, and I knew it, and he knew I knew, and he took eleven stones. He did it in plain view. That is a cheat of an honest kind.” He looked at Qu Jiang for the first time. “Elder, I have known this man since the day he walked through our gate. He is a cheat at cards and honest in everything else. If he says that Wei Renshan tried to kill him, I would put my own name on it.”

The hall fell silent. A man who repeatedly lost to Shi Feng had just staked his own name on Shi Feng's honesty.

“The Third Prince defends the champion?”

“He bets against him every month!”

“He just said so!”

“That's why we believe it!”

“...”

“A prince of Great Song has no place in a Great Liang quarrel,” Qu Jiang said angrily, dropping his hand from his beard.

“Perhaps not,” Gongsun Ce said. “But you asked for a sworn word. You cannot reject mine just because it supports him.” He looked toward Shi Feng's table. “This does not count.”

Shi Feng lifted his head.

“It's on the record,” Shi Feng said.

“It is,” Wen Lu confirmed, writing it down. “The testimony of the Third Prince of Great Song is entered in full.”

Gongsun Ce climbed the stairs again, as slowly as he'd come down them. His ears were crimson. On the top bench he sat down, laid the puppet on his knee, and began to arrange his ledger as though nothing at all had happened.

In the third tier, Wu Qiang, who had somehow got a seat, was seen to scratch out a number on his betting slip and write a smaller one.

Qu Jiang rose again, slowly, and his voice had gone cold and thin.

“Then the Palace will not require the Pavilion's leave,” Qu Jiang said. “It will settle the matter where the Pavilion has no tower. When pulling weeds, one must pull out the roots.”