Chapter 9: The Cup

"Don't drink it," Jiang said.

The physician's smile froze.

Lin looked at the steaming bowl, then at Jiang.

He set it down on the desk with the care of a man putting down a sleeping cat.

"Thank the Marshal for his concern," he said to the physician.

"I'll take it with my supper."

The man bowed and left.

The door had barely shut before Wen Lanxi slid out from behind the screen.

He had a hawthorn in his cheek and a small silver needle in his hand.

"Monkshood," he said.

"Boiled in honey wine.

I smelled it from the passage."

"You knew," Jiang said, to Lin.

"Lanxi did," said Lin.

"I only guessed that you would too."

He had a look Jiang was beginning to recognize, a bright, cold amusement.

"Cen wants me ill in front of the Council, and you hanged for it.

He won't try the bowl twice if everyone is watching the first."

"What are you planning?"

"Supper," said the prince.

The Winter Feast was held in the great hall that night, with six hundred guests at long tables and braziers burning in every corner.

Jiang stood at Lin's shoulder in dark Liang robes, a consort's place, and felt every eye on the back of his skull.

The Marshal sat three tables down in his gold, laughing at something.

The physician carried the bowl up the aisle on a lacquer tray.

He set it before the prince with a deep bow, and the hall went quiet to see.

"The Marshal's tonic," Lin said, pleasantly, for six hundred ears.

"I was so touched by the gift that I could not drink it alone.

Marshal Cen, will you share it?"

The laughter at the third table stopped.

Cen rose slowly.

"The Prince is generous.

But the physician's draught is for the Prince's shoulder, not for an old soldier's belly."

"Then the physician will drink it."

The physician went the color of paper.

"Highness, I... it is for the royal body..."

"Then it isn't poison.

Drink."

For the space of three breaths nobody in that hall moved.

Then the physician dropped the tray and ran.

Jiang was off the dais before the bowl hit the floor.

He caught the man at the sixth table, by the collar.

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