Chapter 10: The Bath Hall

They came over the Pavilion wall at the third watch, six men in black with their faces wrapped.

The Regent had put the Emperor in the guest room beside the bath hall, where there was only one door and one roof.

Linyuan was awake, lying on his pallet and finding sleep too far off to reach.

He heard a roof tile slide.

It was a small sound, the sound of a cat on a roof, and he was on his feet before the second tile went.

"Shiyan," he said, not loudly.

The Regent was already beside him, barefoot, in his under-robe with his hair down.

He had taken a sword from the wall.

Linyuan had never seen him hold one.

He held it the way Linyuan held a spoon.

The bath hall door burst inward, and the first man through it died on the stone floor without a sound.

Linyuan did not see how.

The Regent moved, without waste, and nobody in the room had time to scream.

He was beautiful and he was terrible, and Linyuan stood with his mouth open until a man in black swung at his head.

He ducked.

The copper kettle was steaming on the bath hall stove, as it always was, ready for the morning wash.

Linyuan grabbed it by the handle and threw the whole thing in the man's face.

The man screamed and fell, clawing at his eyes.

"Good," the Regent said over his shoulder, and cut down the next one.

It lasted perhaps a hundred breaths.

When it was done, four men lay on the tiles, and two of them were still breathing.

The Regent stood in the steam with blood on his sleeve and his hair stuck to his cheek, and his chest heaved.

"Majesty?" he called, in a voice Linyuan had not heard from him before.

The guest room door opened a crack.

A thin face looked out, white as milk, with a bed pillow held in front of it.

"I hid under the bed," Zhao Yunhe said unsteadily. "Was that right?"

"That was exactly right."

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Taster Who Caught the Regent's Poison from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.