Chapter 11: Acting Lord

The Lord was carried out through the side door of the pavilion.

By the time the Peak Master had finished saying "Surely not serious," the doors had shut behind him.

The Senior Sister stood alone on the dais with her fans folded.

"The Lord is fatigued by the Founding season," she said, in a voice that rang to the back of the pavilion. "The feast continues."

Nobody believed her.

Everybody ate.

In the inner room of Cold Spring Court, Gu Yan worked through the night with every needle he owned.

He found nothing wrong with the wine.

He found the answer in the cup instead, which Shi Wen had carried out inside his sleeve.

"Dawn-glass," said the old man at dawn, turning it in the light. "There is sun-iron drawn through the rim as a thread."

"I know of one other thing in the world made of sun-iron."

"What?" said Shi Wen.

"I will not say it in a room with a sick man," said Gu Yan, and set the cup down.

"He will live. He will not stand for two days."

"We don't have two days."

Behind them, from the bed, a dry voice said, "Taster."

The Lord's eyes were open, and his lips were grey.

"Sect Lord," said Shi Wen, at his side in a moment. "Don't talk."

"Come closer."

A cold hand felt for him under the sheet and pressed something into his palm.

It was a tally of black jade the length of a finger, carved with a lantern.

"The Lord's word," said Duan Linxiao. "The Senior Sister holds the seal. You hold the word. For two days."

"She'll hate it."

"She will hate it very much." His mouth moved. "Be rude to her. She likes it."

The Senior Sister did hate it.

She said so in the corridor, quietly, in about nine different ways, with her fans in her fists.

"A third guard," she said. "On the Lord's word. I have served him for sixty years."

"You've served him very well," said Shi Wen. "That's why he gave you the seal."

"I'm only the one he can send where you can't be seen."

She stared at him.

"You are going to ruin us," she said.

"Probably. Help me do it carefully."

The elders met that afternoon in the small council room, six of them in grey and black.

The one with the long moustache spoke first.

"Han Zhuo's petition has reached us. The Lord has been unconscious a night and a day. Under the Rule of Unfitness, that is incapacity."

"The Rule requires a physician's finding," said Shi Wen.

He stood at the head of the table with the jade tally on the cloth in front of him.

He tried to look as cold as the man he spoke for.

"Doctor Gu declines to make one," said Shi Wen.

"The Doctor is the Lord's creature," said the elder.

"The Doctor is the physician of the Valley, and has been for forty years. You may ask him in the hallway. He is sharpening something."

The long-moustached elder went a little pale.

"Then the Lord himself should appear."

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