Chapter 972 — The Boundary Stone

CHAPTER 972

The Boundary Stone

The southern boundary stone stood alone in a white field, two hours’ walk below Lianxia. It was as tall as a man, carved with a single lotus, and the snow on the far side of it was trampled flat by horses.

Shen Yaoqing stopped one pace before it. The four stewards set the herb chest down beside her and stepped back.

“A host’s duty ends here,” Shen Yaoqing said. “By sect rule, I go no further.”

“Then thank you for bringing me this far, Chief Disciple Shen,” Shi Feng said.

She didn’t answer the thanks. She looked at him with the same cold, level face she’d worn on the first morning at the Lotus Gate, and spoke flatly, one item at a time.

“Three things before you cross,” Shen Yaoqing said. “The elders’ refusal stands. Nothing about today changes it. Your room is kept by the Grand Elder’s grant. Nothing about today changes that either. And Elder Kong’s faction is already saying in the outer hall that you brought the Empire’s law to the Serene Jade’s gate.”

“Tell Elder Kong I’ve taken it away again,” Shi Feng said. “He can see it from here.”

He pointed past the stone. On the far side, a hundred paces off, stood a neat camp of six grey tents, with a Long-law pennant on a pole in the middle and Lantern Guard horses in a line behind it. Men in Censorate black were already watching from the tent flaps.

Shen Yaoqing looked at the camp. Then she looked at him.

“I’ll tell him,” Shen Yaoqing said.

She bowed exactly as a host bows to a departing guest. Then she turned and walked back toward Lianxia with the four stewards behind her, and she didn’t look back once.

Shi Feng shouldered one pole of the herb chest. Qin Wuyan, without being asked, picked up the other. They stepped past the boundary stone together.

A man came out of the largest tent to meet them halfway.

He was about forty, slim and neat, in the black robe and square hat of a Censorate commissioner. His beard was trimmed very short. His boots had been cleaned that morning, even out here in the snow. He stopped at exactly the right distance, put his hands together and bowed to Shi Feng.

His bow met the rites for a fifth-rank Imperial commissioner greeting a Master of the Sixth Mark. Shi Feng watched carefully. Situ Mingzhao showed all the required respect, but no warmth or hesitation.

“This official is Situ Mingzhao of the Censorate,” Situ Mingzhao said. “Commissioner of the inquiry. The Guest Elder honours us by coming out in person. I hope the walk wasn’t too cold.”

“It was cold,” Shi Feng said, setting down the chest. “You came twelve days early, Commissioner Situ.”

“The roads were kinder than we expected,” Situ Mingzhao said pleasantly. “And this official thought it would be discourteous to make the Guest Elder travel to Shuoyang alone.”

Situ. Shi Feng thought of the narrow censor who’d loudly read the memorial in the Hall of Clear Rule. This commissioner spoke softly, but he represented the same family. Shi Feng wasn’t reassured by his courtesy.

“Please, come in out of the wind,” Situ Mingzhao said.

The largest tent had a brazier, a folding table and four stools. A clerk poured tea. Behind the commissioner stood two Censorate scribes, and at the tent’s far wall stood a lean man in the dark red of the Lantern Guard with a black mourning band on his arm. Shi Feng knew him. It was Pang Yue, Linghu Yan’s deputy, who’d asked him one question at the Helian Hold and ridden south without saying goodbye.

Pang Yue nodded to him once. He didn’t sit.

“This official will be brief,” Situ Mingzhao said, folding his hands on the table. “The inquiry is a grave matter, but the court has no wish to inconvenience a guest elder of the Sky Pavilion. So this official has been authorised to offer an honour escort. Twenty Lantern Guard riders, a covered carriage, and every post-station opened to you between here and Tianjing. The Guest Elder would be heard directly in the capital, for the court’s convenience. It would save everyone the trouble of the circuit court.”

Situ Mingzhao spoke kindly, as though he were offering a favour. Shi Feng was annoyed. The man wanted to change both the hearing’s location and how the public would see his arrival.

Qin Wuyan, standing just inside the tent flap, didn’t move at all.

Shi Feng drank his tea. Then he set the cup down and counted on his fingers.

“First,” Shi Feng said. “The memorial says I attacked an imperial officer on the north road and ran. If I ride back south to Tianjing under a Lantern Guard escort, every teahouse between here and the capital sees a man the court caught and brought home. That’s the one proof the memorial doesn’t have. I’m not going to hand it over for the price of a carriage.”

Situ Mingzhao’s smile didn’t change.

“Second,” Shi Feng said. “Under Long law, the Fourth Princess answers for her guest. Every day I spend in a cell in the capital waiting for the court’s convenience is a day entered against her name. I signed her contract. I won’t let it be used that way.”

One of the scribes stopped writing for a moment.

“Third,” Shi Feng said, and put his hand flat on the table. “I haven’t been charged, Commissioner. I’ve been named. Your own summons says so. It asks for my account, at Shuoyang, at whatever hour suits my convenience. A named man is heard where the summons says. Only a charged man is escorted.”

The tent was quiet.

“This official stands corrected,” Situ Mingzhao said at last, and inclined his head. “The Guest Elder knows Long law very well. This official will enter all three objections in the record, word for word.”

“But the escort is the court’s offer, not this official’s,” Situ Mingzhao went on gently. “And whichever road the Guest Elder travels, Long law has one more procedure for a man named in an officer’s death. Deputy Commander Pang?”

Pang Yue stepped forward from the wall. He took a coil of dark iron from his belt and laid it on the table between the teacups. It was a binding chain, as thick as a finger, with a seal plate at each end, and the iron was etched with runes that would close a man’s meridians the moment it touched his wrists.

“Under Long law,” Pang Yue said flatly, without looking at him, “a man named in the death of an imperial officer travels to the commission bound.”