Chapter 5: Searched

Twenty-two guardsmen can wreck a teahouse in a surprisingly short time.

Shouzhi watched them do it from the foot of the stairs.

They turned over the tables in the lower hall and slit the cushions.

They pulled down the lanterns, and a girl who poured tea sat on the floor with her hands over her ears.

Madam Hui stood at her counter with her ledger held against her chest and her smile fixed.

"The Prefect will pay for the damages," she said pleasantly, to nobody.

Qinghe stood beside Shouzhi with his pipa case on his back.

Before they left the lodging, he had straightened Shouzhi's collar with both hands.

His palm had rested flat on Shouzhi's chest for a moment.

Then he had gone and been charming at the guardsmen for an hour.

"Open it," said the captain.

Qinghe set the case on the floor and unlatched it.

Inside lay the pipa on faded red felt, with a spare coil of silk, a tuning key, and a pot of rosin.

The captain took the pipa out by the neck.

"Don't," said Qinghe.

"Don't what?"

"It cracks if you hold it like that."

"Cut it open," said a pleasant voice from the doorway.

Prefect Ding had arrived, with a paper bag of plums and two servants carrying his chair.

He came in on soft feet, looked around at the wreckage with his small bright eyes, and smiled.

"Prefect," Shouzhi said.

"Tan. Keeping your pet nicely, I see."

Shouzhi felt the whole room look at him.

"The instrument belongs to a man in my keeping," he said, "under Rule Four."

"The instrument belongs to the empire," said Ding, "if it hides a mask."

"It doesn't hide a mask."

"How would you know?"

Shouzhi opened his mouth, and nothing came out.

He didn't know.

He had slept in the man's room, he had put his mouth on him, and he had never once asked to look inside the case.

The captain drew a knife.

Shouzhi stepped between the captain and the pipa before he'd decided to, his arm out, his iron cuffs knocking at his belt.

"No," he said.

He said it very loudly, in the voice he used at hangings.

"That pipa is a hundred years old and made by a master's hand."

"Search the case if you like."

"But if you cut the belly open, you destroy a man's whole living on the word of one cook."

"A cook's word," Ding repeated, delighted. "Listen to him. A musician's lapdog, ladies and gentlemen. Look how he stands."

A few of the guardsmen laughed.

Someone at the back of the hall laughed too loudly.

Shouzhi stood there with his face burning and his chin up.

They lifted the red felt and rapped on every wall of the case.

It held nothing but wood.

The captain turned the pipa over.

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