Chapter 988 — The Hall of Clear Rule

CHAPTER 988

The Hall of Clear Rule

“Your servant has read the finding twice,” Censor Situ Kerang said, bowing toward the curtained throne, “and your servant accepts every word of it.”

The hall went quiet. Nobody expected a Situ to accept the finding.

Long Caili had brought the finding south herself. The Long household’s array had carried her from Shuoyang to Tianjing in one morning, and on the day the court sat she laid the sealed case on the Censorate clerk’s table with her own hands. The clerk read it aloud to the whole hall. The guest had defended himself against a masked attack by an officer on unsigned leave. The death in the palace canal lay outside the commission. Commissioner Situ Mingzhao’s seal sat at the bottom, and under it the Long seat’s signature, one stroke wide.

Situ Kerang lifted his narrow grey beard and turned to face the left row.

“The finding is correct,” Situ Kerang said loudly. “Commissioner Situ Mingzhao is this servant’s own clan nephew, and he has never been anything but correct. Your servant’s concern is how the finding was reached.”

“Go on, Censor,” Long Caili said, without looking at him.

She stood at the head of the left row in deep blue court robes. Her veil hung still from brow to chin, and her hands were folded in her sleeves.

“The guest was heard in the north, more than a thousand li from this court,” Situ Kerang said, and his voice rose to fill the hall. “He was heard there because Her Highness put a Long household surety seal in his hand before he ever left the capital. A commoner was placed beyond the court’s reach by a princess’s private token. Your servant only asks whether that’s the law, or a Long privilege used against the law.”

The ministers stirred along both rows.

“He’s moved his ground already.”

“Yesterday it was the guest. Today it’s the seal.”

“The Situ never lose a memorial. They just change what it’s about.”

“…”

Long Caili turned her head at last. Her eyes above the veil were very cold.

“You’ve misread what a surety is, Censor,” Long Caili said. “A surety doesn’t put a man above the law. It puts me under the law beside him. If my guest had been found guilty, Long law would have judged me more harshly than him, for lending him my name. I sat in that hearing for two days knowing it.”

Situ Kerang opened his mouth.

“And the Censorate’s witness,” Long Caili went on, before he could speak. “Cao Shuncai. He confessed in the same hall that he’d been paid to say what he said. Would you like to stand surety for him, Censor? On the same terms?”

Situ Kerang’s beard trembled.

“…” Situ Kerang said nothing, and his face went red to the ears.

Someone near the back of the right row coughed to hide a laugh. Nobody turned to see who it was.

“I said I’d read every line,” Long Jingtian said.

The First Prince stood alone below the throne steps, as he had on the day the memorial was filed. He wore the same plain dark grey and held a copy of the finding in one hand. The ministers nearest him had already moved half a step back without noticing.

“I’ve read them,” Long Jingtian said, and turned the last page. “Two lines aren’t there. Censor, who paid Cao Shuncai?”

“The witness said he never saw the man’s face, Your Highness,” Situ Kerang said quickly.

“And who signed Commander Linghu’s leave?” Long Jingtian asked. “His deputy didn’t. The Commander hadn’t taken leave in fourteen years. The papers turned up among his effects, sealed and dated, three days before my sister’s guest left the city.”

“The Censorate is still inquiring into—” Situ Kerang began.

“Your memorial said the matter was as clear as looking at fire,” Long Jingtian said. He didn’t raise his voice. “You looked at it, Censor, and you couldn’t see either of those two things.”

Situ Kerang went down on both knees.

The hall was so quiet that the brazier by the pillars could be heard ticking. Every minister knew the Censorate’s oldest rule. A censor who accused a member of the Long Family and could not stand behind his memorial was sent to serve where his reports would be short.

“The western salt marshes need a post censor,” Long Jingtian said, and looked toward the curtain. “I ask that Censor Situ Kerang be given it, for a careless memorial.”

Behind the curtain, the eunuch’s voice called out that the request was granted.

Situ Kerang touched his forehead to the floor three times. When Situ Kerang stood, he was pale and silent. None of the ministers who’d agreed with him met his eyes.

“Report carefully,” Long Jingtian said to him quietly.

Situ Kerang backed out of the Hall of Clear Rule without a word. The door closed behind him.

“He lifted a rock just to drop it on his own foot,” an old minister muttered near the back.

“Whoever ties the bell has to untie it,” the man beside him muttered back.

Neither of them looked at the princess.

Long Caili didn’t look at them either. She looked at the curtain. The finding had been read, the Censor had gone west, and her guest’s name was clean in the court’s own record. She was relieved. Her guest was cleared without her breaking the surety’s silence or giving the censors grounds to impeach her. The record justified her risk.

She was turning back to her place in the row when the Third Prince stepped out of the right row.

He was the tallest man in the hall, in black court robes, and he moved very little. His name wasn’t on the memorial. His seal wasn’t on the finding. Every faction in the hall watched him anyway.

“Then Fourth Sister’s name is cleared,” the Third Prince said gently. “I’m glad.”

He folded his hands.

“There’s only the canal left,” the Third Prince said.