Chapter 11: The Midautumn Court

On the night of Midautumn, the Hall of Waves was full of fish.

They came in long lines behind the glass, hundreds of them.

There were fat river turtles in official hats, and crabs with brushes tied to their claws.

The moon lay full on the ceiling.

Mingjue sat on the throne of white stone, enormous and stiff in a robe stitched with real silver thread.

Liyan stood at his side in the teal silk, and his stomach was full of cold stones.

Hongde sat in the best seat, at the king's right hand, and smiled at everyone.

"Honored court," Mingjue said. His voice was steady. "I present my husband, Xie Liyan, of Lower Ferry."

Nobody clapped.

An old turtle in a black hat leaned forward, his neck stretching.

"A mortal," he said, in a dry, creaking voice. "A mortal husband, Majesty."

"Yes, Chancellor."

"A man who will be dust in sixty years."

"And what is the court to do then? Take a new one? Every sixty years, a new husband?"

A murmur went through the shells and fins.

"A scholar," sniffed a carp elder. "Hands covered in ink."

"He doesn't even have a pearl."

"What does he know of rivers?"

Liyan felt the blood leave his face.

He had stood before eleven noisy children for six years and never been afraid of them.

This was different.

He looked at Mingjue, whose jaw had gone hard, and he saw that the dragon was about to say something terrible.

Liyan took a step forward before he could speak.

"May I answer?" he said.

The court went quiet.

"I don't have a pearl," Liyan said. "I don't know the old rites. You're right."

"But I've lived on this river my whole life, and I know one thing about it."

He took his water-mark ledger from his sleeve.

"For six years I've measured the Wan at Lower Ferry, every morning, at the third post."

"I kept a book, because the village wanted to know when to move the rice."

He opened it on the nearest table.

"The king's records go back eleven hundred years. I've read them."

"I know where the floods start."

A crab clerk scuttled forward, clicking.

"At the Black Water mouth, where the Black River joins the Wan," Liyan said. "Everyone here has lost a home to it."

"I think it can be turned."

"A low stone weir at the mouth, angled here, here and here, would send the first surge across the shoal gravel."

"It would not go down the east bank."

He showed them, on a sheet of paper, with a brush from his sleeve.

"It would have saved the village in the year of the two moons of rain. I checked the numbers. It would save the next one."

The crab clerks were clacking.

The turtle chancellor adjusted his hat.

"A weir," the old turtle said slowly. "No dragon has ever thought of a weir."

Keep reading free with an account. Start The River Dragon Demanded a Husband, So the Scholar Stepped Forward from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.