Chapter 22: The Mansion Kneels

Snow had fallen on the Marquis's courtyard again, and this time somebody had swept it.

The servants knelt in rows on the clean stone.

There were sixty of them, in grey, and none of them looked up.

Behind them knelt the Pei family in their good silks, and the sons held their mother up by the elbows.

On the steps stood the high chair where the Marquis used to sit.

It was empty.

Wanning came through the gate in plum silk, with her hands in her sleeves.

Chengxiao walked half a pace behind her, and he stopped at the foot of the steps and did not come up.

It was the first term.

She went up alone and stood beside the empty chair, and did not sit in it.

Shi An unrolled a sheet of yellow silk and read it in his dry voice.

By the Emperor's decree, the Marquisate of Anping was abolished, and its house forfeit.

The Marquis, who had sworn false evidence, was condemned to death.

His sentence was in the hands of the woman he had falsely condemned, to be confirmed or changed as she chose.

Pei Zhonghe, on his knees at the front, made a sound in his throat.

"Princess," he said. "Princess Wei..."

"Not yet, my lord."

She turned instead to the brazier.

It stood where it had stood that winter, at the foot of the steps.

The steward knelt beside it with his forehead on the stone.

"Get up," she said.

He got up.

He was a heavy, soft man, and he was shaking.

"You read my name off a paper in this courtyard," she said. "Read these."

She held out a strongbox.

It was the same strongbox, and she had had it brought from the Marquis's own study that morning.