Chapter 913 — Deposition

CHAPTER 913

Deposition

The scribe was an old woman with ink on both wrists, and she had three brushes laid out before Ruan Heng even sat down.

The side hall of the Frost Pass tower was small and warm. A brazier burned in one corner. Ruan Heng sat across the table from Shi Feng with a blank sheet in front of him, and Pang Yue stood by the window with his arms folded. Qin Wuyan stood behind Shi Feng’s chair, as he had the day before.

“This official will ask one question at a time,” Ruan Heng said, dipping his brush. “The honoured guest may answer as fully as he likes.”

“Ask,” Shi Feng said.

“Where were you on the twelfth night of last month?” Ruan Heng asked.

“In the yard of the waystation at Grey Goose Pass, with Hao Dafu’s salt train,” Shi Feng said. “Eleven wagons. I’d paid for passage north.”

“Who attacked whom?” Ruan Heng asked.

“A man in a white mask came out of the dark and cut at me,” Shi Feng said. “He used a blade that swallowed sound. The first cut arrived before I heard it. I had my back to him at the time.”

The scribe’s brush moved quickly. Ruan Heng wrote one line.

“Did you know who he was?” Ruan Heng asked.

“No,” Shi Feng said. “Not until the mask came off. Then one of the salt guards recognised him from the capital’s spring review and shouted his name. Linghu Yan.”

By the window, Pang Yue’s jaw tightened.

“Describe how the fight ended,” Ruan Heng said.

“I cut his mask in half and his face with it,” Shi Feng said. “He was alive and standing. He looked at the drivers. Every one of them was looking at him. Then he tore a rift behind himself and stepped back into it. Eleven wagons of men watched him go.”

“Alive,” Ruan Heng said.

“Alive, bleeding and on his feet,” Shi Feng said. “I was out of qi. I didn’t follow him.”

“And four days later, he was found in the west canal,” Ruan Heng said. “Inside the palace walls.”

“So I’ve heard,” Shi Feng said. “I’ve never been inside the palace walls, Inspector. Ask the gate guards whether I ever entered. They can confirm that much.”

The scribe glanced up at the suggestion. Ruan Heng kept his expression still and wrote it down too.

“Deputy Commander,” Ruan Heng said, without turning. “You said you had a question.”

Pang Yue came away from the window. He was a heavy, quiet man, and he stopped at the end of the table and looked down at Shi Feng.

“The mask,” Pang Yue said. “Describe it.”

“Plain porcelain,” Shi Feng said. “No mark. No maker’s seal. A mask for a man who must never be recognised.”

Pang Yue’s hand closed on the hilt of his sword. He didn’t draw it. He just held it, so hard the lacquer on the scabbard creaked.

“The Commander owned no such mask,” Pang Yue said.

“Then someone gave it to him,” Shi Feng said.

Nobody in the room said anything for a while. The scribe’s brush had stopped.

Ruan Heng was the first to move. He set his brush down neatly beside his sheet.

“The salt drivers will be found and heard,” Ruan Heng said. “Eleven witnesses who saw a living man leave. The inquiry will want each of them.”

Shi Feng nodded. Inside, he wasn’t calm at all.

Found and heard. That meant Hao Dafu. The Censorate would go looking for a salt master with a train, a trade and a licence, and anyone who wanted the drivers to forget what they saw would know exactly where to find him. He’d kept Hao Dafu out of it at Hanli. Now the inquiry had put Hao Dafu back in.

Shi Feng thought of the bun Hao Dafu had dropped when he heard about the accusation. The salt master had offered to help without hesitation. He would have to warn Long Caili tonight.

The deposition took two hours. At the end the scribe made a fair copy, and Shi Feng read both, signed both and pressed his thumb to both. Ruan Heng took one copy. The scribe locked the other in the tower’s iron chest.

They came out of the side hall into the tower square together, and stopped.

A man was kneeling in the snow in the middle of the square.

He was young, in the black armour of the Lantern Guard, with a captain’s lantern badge on his chest and his sword laid flat on the stones in front of him. A crowd had already gathered around him at a respectful distance.

“Lantern Guard Captain Ximen Sheng!” Ximen Sheng called out, loud enough for the whole square to hear. “Under the Guard’s old rule, this captain files an officer’s grievance against the honoured guest Shi Feng, for the death of Commander Linghu Yan! I ask for a duel!”

The crowd broke into noise.

“A grievance duel? Here?”

“That’s the Lantern Guard’s oldest rule. If the man refuses, the Guard’s records say he was afraid!”

“Afraid of an early Shattering Void captain? He’s thirteenth on the Tianxing!”

“Shh! Look at the old man!”

Shi Feng looked at Ruan Heng. The inspector’s face had gone very still.

“Inspector,” Shi Feng said. “Can the inquiry forbid it?”

“This official regrets that it can’t,” Ruan Heng said quietly, and he sounded as if he meant it. “The Guard’s rule is older than the Censorate. It doesn’t need the inquiry’s leave.”

Pang Yue said nothing at all. He looked at his kneeling captain, and his hand was on his hilt again.

So that was the next move, Shi Feng thought. Someone had worked it out very neatly. If he refused, the Lantern Guard would write that the princess’s guest was afraid to face a dead man’s officer. If he fought and killed the captain, there would be a second dead Lantern Guard officer in the inquiry, killed by the same man in front of a whole city. Either way, the memorial got thicker.

Ximen Sheng hadn’t thought of any of that. He looked like a man who’d thought only of his commander.

Qin Wuyan stepped forward, one pace, and the whole square went quiet.

“The Pavilion will keep the ring fair,” Qin Wuyan said.

That was all. Ximen Sheng looked up at the old man, and his face lost a little of its colour, but he didn’t take back his grievance.

“Tomorrow at noon,” Shi Feng said, looking down at the kneeling captain. “In this square. Bring your best art, Captain. I’m going to need to see all of it.”