Chapter 21: Spring Rice

The Black Palace learned to eat breakfast in the third week of spring.

It had not known how.

For a thousand years its lord had taken one meal a day, standing up, over a map.

The great kitchens had run on that.

Now, at the first bell, there were forty servants lined along the dining hall wall.

The table was laid with thirty dishes, and the master of the kitchen was close to tears.

"My lord," he said. "The Sword Saint has asked for congee."

"Then make him congee."

"He's asked to make it himself."

Chenjue looked at Wuhen.

Wuhen stood in a plain grey robe with his sleeves rolled to the elbow.

He looked back with the face of a man who has been told he cannot do a thing.

"I stirred rice in a hut for a hundred years," he said. "I'm an expert."

"You burned it every day."

"Lan Zhu ate it every day."

"I ate it because there was nothing else," said Lan Zhu, from the foot of the table.

Zhu Ao kicked him under it.

The pot came out twenty minutes later.

It was a gray paste, with a crust of black on the bottom that the ladle scraped.

Wuhen set it down in the center with a flourish.

"Rice porridge," he announced. "With ginger, an egg, and some feeling."

Nobody moved.

Zhu Ao looked at it for a long time.

Then, with the stern calm of a man going to his death, he picked up a spoon, and ate.

The hall went quiet.

He chewed.

"It's burned," he said flatly.

"I know."

"It's very burned," Zhu Ao said.

"I know."

"My brother ate worse." Zhu Ao took another spoonful. "He ate whatever was in front of him. He once ate a candle."

Wuhen's face changed.

"The one at the Red Ford?"

"The same," Zhu Ao replied.

"He was a good fighter."

"He was a terrible cook," Zhu Ao answered.

Zhu Ao reached for the pot and ladled himself a second bowl, and did not look up.

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