Chapter 4: Property of the Lord

Six Discipline disciples stepped forward, and the captain shifted the sleeping boy to his left arm and put his right hand on his sword.

Shi Wen had time to think that this was the dumbest possible place to die.

"Han Zhuo."

The voice came from the stairs behind them, low and tired.

Nobody had heard the Sect Lord arrive.

He stood three steps up in his fur collar with a lantern in his hand, and the Discipline disciples dropped to one knee as one.

"Sect Lord," said Han Zhuo, bowing. "A grave matter. Your taster is the poisoner."

"My taster is my property," said Duan Linxiao.

He came down a step.

"The code says property is tried in the Hall, in daylight, before the elders.

It does not say it is tried in a cell at night by the man who accuses it."

"Of course. At dawn, then."

"At dawn. Until then he sleeps in my court.

The girl and the boy are witnesses in a guard matter. The captain keeps them in the Cloaks' kitchen."

Han Zhuo's thumb turned his ring a quarter-turn.

"As the Lord commands," he said, and bowed again, and did not take his eyes off Shi Wen.

Back in Cold Spring Court, the Lord walked into the inner room without a word.

Shi Wen stood in the outer room holding a hairpin and wondered whether he was meant to follow.

"Doctor," said the Lord's voice from the dark. "You have been standing in my window for a quarter of an hour."

An old man in a green robe stepped out of the shadow by the shutters.

Gu Yan, the sect doctor, was sixty-two, thin and tall, with a white beard.

He had the dry face of someone who disliked most patients.

"The Sect Lord has excellent hearing," he said.

"Look at what the taster has brought."

The doctor took the hairpin, twisted the end, tipped the pill into a white dish and smelled it.

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