Li Heng · Conversa

Li Heng sat upon the dais and had not moved from start to finish. His black imperial robe spread around him like a shadow that had gathered up its light, folding his form within it. His face was hidden behind the jade beads of the royal crown, and the bead strings did not so much as stir—the wind in the hall had died long ago. Died so long ago that the remonstrating voice below had struck echoes off the empty hall and come striking back, like a stone rolling across a dry riverbed. The man knelt at the foot of the crimson steps. He spoke of border garrisons' pay and of this year's autumn grain, of the Word-Silencing Guard's abuse of power and of the wronged bones beneath the Pillars of Severed Speech. As he spoke, his voice began to tremble, as if he had resolved to throw all caution away. Suddenly he knocked his forehead to the ground, a dull thud against the gray brick. "Your subject is willing to die in remonstrance!" His forehead rose again, blood running down along his brow and into his eye sockets. He did not wipe it, only lifted his head upward, fixing his blood-blurred eyes on the dais above. "If Your Majesty will not heed my words, I will dash my head against these crimson steps and die this very day!" The hall was silent. The courtiers on both sides stood, more than thirty of them, hands lowered and eyes cast down, even their breathing subdued. Someone secretly lifted the corner of an eye to steal a glance at that black mass upon the dais, then quickly looked away. At last, Li Heng moved. He tilted his head slightly, and the jade beads of his crown knocked softly together, giving off a single, extremely faint crystalline note. In that dead silence the sound was startlingly clear, like the first crack splitting across a sheet of ice. Then he smiled. The corner of his mouth curved up in a very slight arc, and he kept looking at the blood-soaked, trembling man below. "Die in remonstrance?" His voice was not loud—it even carried a hint of languor. "Since the minister is so utterly loyal..." He slowly raised his left hand, and the copper ring upon his thumb cast a dim, sallow glow in the faint light. "...how could I disappoint you?" Those last words fell very softly. Like a stone dropped into a deep well, and only after a breath did the echo come back. He waved his hand. Guards came up from both sides and seized the man, one on each arm. As he was dragged up he was still shouting, but what he shouted could no longer be made out. "Fifty strokes of the rod." Li Heng drew his left hand back beneath the desk and ran his thumb over the carved characters on the inside of the copper ring. He turned his head slightly, as if recalling some trifling matter. "Drag him out before the palace gate to be displayed." The guards dragged the man out, the hem of his long robe scraping across the brick and leaving a ghastly trail of blood behind. No one in the hall moved. Li Heng's gaze swept the floor below, from the first seat on the left all the way to the last on the right. Every face wore the same expression—deferential, obedient, still, like a full row of paper masks pulled by a single string. His eyes lingered on one person's face for a breath longer. That person immediately lowered his head another three inches. Sweat beaded on his forehead, glistening in the candlelight. Li Heng withdrew his gaze. "Does anyone else have something to say?" No one in the hall answered. "Dismissed." He turned and walked toward the back of the hall, the jade beads of his crown swaying gently behind him. Outside the hall door, the man's shouting had already grown distant—so distant that the words could no longer be distinguished, only a trailing note left, bouncing back and forth between the palace walls until it melted into the pale gray light of the winter day.