Chapter 871 — Three at the Glass

CHAPTER 871

Three at the Glass

“Notaries for the sitting of Shi Feng, the 5 Mark and the 6 Mark,” a scholar at the front of the crowd read aloud, his voice shaking. “For the Sky Pavilion, Old Tower Master Dai. For the Sky Pavilion, Master Jiang Xu.”

“Two 6 Marks! Two!”

“Wait, there’s a third line!”

The scholar swallowed and read on.

“For the Imperial seat,” the scholar read, “Master Xuanyuan Gui.”

The street went silent. Then it went mad.

“Xuanyuan Gui? The Emperor’s sworn brother?”

“He’s never sat as a notary! Not once! Not at any sitting!”

“Three 6 Marks at one glass wall. Three!”

“There are only a few 6 Marks alive on the whole continent, and half of them will be in one room?”

“I’m going. I don’t care what it costs.”

“…”

Shi Feng stood at the back of the crowd with Ji Yuanhe. He was tall enough to read the notice over the heads now that people had started to move. It was short. Three names, three seats, one sitting, the sitting set for dawn three days from now.

Ji Yuanhe read it twice and turned to him.

“Master Shi,” Ji Yuanhe said. “Did you know?”

“No,” Shi Feng said. “Junior Keeper Si Jiahe said the hall would need time to work out how to seat it. I suppose this is how.”

He wasn’t joking. Three 6 Marks as notaries meant that nobody in the Empire could say afterwards that the glass had been rigged, or the clouds miscounted. Whatever happened in the Glass Hall would be true, forever. It was the best protection a candidate could have.

It also meant there would be nowhere to hide if it went wrong.

At the side of the steps, under a red parasol, Madam Liu Su sat behind her little gambling table. Her odds-book was open in front of her, and a dozen men were shouting at her, waving silver.

“Thirty to one against! I’ll take thirty to one!”

“Fifty on the princess’s man! Write it down!”

“No,” Madam Liu Su said.

She closed the book with a snap and tied its cord.

A merchant protested as Madam Liu Su put away the book. The odds had only just become interesting, he complained.

“The Imperial seat is sitting,” Madam Liu Su said calmly. “When the Emperor’s sworn brother takes an interest, nobody in the capital wants to be on the wrong side of the answer. Including me. A wise man doesn’t stand under a tottering wall. The book is closed.”

The men groaned. Madam Liu Su put the book in her sleeve, saw Shi Feng watching her across the crowd, and gave him a small, sour nod. Shi Feng nodded back.

Within the hour, every odds-book in Tianjing had closed the same way.

Shi Feng went into the Pavilion through the candidates’ side door. Si Jiahe had sent word that the hall wanted to measure him for the candidate’s stand and record Ji Yuanhe as his attendant.

The candidates’ corridor ran behind the Glass Hall, long and narrow, with plain plaster walls and lamps every ten paces. It was empty except for a clerk with a measuring cord, who measured Shi Feng’s height and the reach of his arms, bowed and hurried away.

Shi Feng was walking back toward the door when someone came the other way.

The middle-aged man wore a dark green robe with the Jiang array mark at the collar. He passed the attendants quietly. Shi Feng recognised him from the array court’s side gallery; nothing in that mild face otherwise suggested one of the continent’s 6 Marks.

Jiang Xu.

Shi Feng stepped to the side of the corridor and bowed.

“Master Jiang,” Shi Feng said.

Jiang Xu stopped. He didn’t bow back. He looked at Shi Feng’s face first, then down at his hands.

The bandages had come off that morning. The blisters on his forearms had dried to red, peeling skin, and the backs of his hands were still pink and tight. Jiang Xu studied the deepest burns.

Shi Feng’s right hand moved, without his quite meaning it to, toward his left sleeve. Jiang Xu’s card was there, where it had been since the winter. He’d never used it.

The market had been bought out. The steps had been blocked. If there was ever a time to ask a Jiang 6 Mark for a little help, it was now.

“Not yet,” Jiang Xu said.

His voice was quiet and mild, and it stopped Shi Feng’s hand completely.

Jiang Xu lifted his eyes from the burnt hands. There was no smile on his face this time, and nothing unfriendly either. Then he walked on down the corridor without another word, and turned the corner.

Shi Feng stood still for a moment. Then he let his hand drop, and the card stayed in his sleeve.

“Not yet,” Shi Feng said to the empty corridor. “All right.”

He kept the card. He hadn’t even spoken his request, and Jiang Xu had already answered it. Asking now wouldn’t change that answer.

That evening, he went to the princess’s pavilion to check the herbs.

Tomorrow the eight sealed crates would be carried to the Pavilion’s candidate store and sealed again under the Pavilion’s paper until the sitting. After that, nobody could touch them outside the Pavilion’s own rooms, including him. Tonight was his last chance to look.

The storeroom was on the ground floor, behind the kitchens. The princess’s guard captain unlocked it for him and stood by the door. Ji Yuanhe brought a lamp.

Shi Feng broke the princess’s seals one crate at a time and lifted each lid.

The first four crates were perfect. Seven-Star Dew Moss in jade boxes. Heaven-Locking Root packed in cold sand. The Starfall Heart Lotus in its own case, glowing faintly through the lid.

He lifted the lid of the fifth crate and stopped.

There was a smell in it that shouldn’t have been there.