Chapter 11: The One Before You

The prisoner lay on the cellar floor in chains, with a bandage on his head and a cracked lip.

He looked up at Linyuan and smiled with half his mouth.

"Taster," he said. "You're prettier than I heard."

"Who sent you?"

"Nobody sends me. I like the work." He coughed. "Did he tell you yet?"

"Tell me what?"

"About the one before you." His eyes were bright and pleased. "Ask him how many grains it took."

The guard captain moved to strike him, and Linyuan held up a hand.

He went back up the stairs and found the Regent awake.

Duan Shiyan sat on the edge of his bed in his under-robe with his hair loose.

There was a look on his face that Linyuan had never seen there.

It was peace.

The Regent looked up and smiled, a small unguarded smile, and said, "I slept."

"Yes."

"I slept three hours. I do not remember lying down."

"You were in the bath."

"Was I?" The smile deepened. "I think I was dreaming of soup."

Then he saw Linyuan's face, and the smile went out.

"Tell me about the one before me," Linyuan said.

The Regent did not ask who had said it.

He sat very still, and Linyuan watched him put his face back on, one piece at a time, until it was the Regent's face again.

"Sit down," Duan Shiyan said.

"I'll stand."

"As you like." The Regent folded his hands in his lap. "He was nineteen."

Linyuan waited.

"He was a kitchen boy, raised in the ovens. He had held the post for two years, since the old Emperor died."

"He was brave, and he had a good palate."

The Regent's voice was flat.

"On the first night, I put twelve grains of sleepwort in the soup. I did not know how much was too much. I had guessed."

"I put twelve grains in a bowl for a fourteen-year-old boy, because I wanted him to sleep through the night."

"The taster ate it first."

"All of it?"

"All of it. He was thorough." Something crossed his face. "He ate every spoonful, to be certain."

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