Chapter 2
Swenshion sighed in the imperial hot spring, allowing the Qi infused bath to wash away his stress and worries for a few moments. He wasn’t a cultivator himself. No, just a humble scholar. And he was quite nervous, which is why the warmth of the hot spring was so welcome. It allowed him to pretend for a moment that he wasn’t on the way to his third ever imperial audience.
He swallowed, and then forced himself to pretend that he was just at a luxurious inn, and not the palace, and that he was just enjoying a hot bath, and not preparing to meet one of the four most powerful people in the world. He soaked in the bubbling water, and with time and the mental exercises he forced himself through, he began to relax.
Twenty minutes of pure bliss, and then the servant brought out towels and the change of clothes. A humble silk robe. If it was embroidered, no symbols appeared for him. No, he was no cultivator himself. He was just the man who educated those cultivators on the worldly affairs whenever they deigned to notice the affairs of mortals.
He wondered what it was that his emperor required advice on. As he dressed, he glanced at the other men in the pond, who were also ending their purification session. They were his peers and equals, and some of them his rivals. Thirty of them in total, including himself. And he’d seen an equal number of female scholars entering the women’s side of the hot springs.
Whatever it was that the emperor required advice on, he was looking for a diverse range of opinions, Swenshion reflected. He sighed. Hopefully it was a complex but minor issue, and not related to the tensions with the Green Monkey Empire. Some discussion on taxes, perhaps. Or another economic issue which might affect vast swaths of the empire but was not posed to threaten the lives of its subjects.
Swenshion hated war. He hated the concept of war, he hated the practice of war, and he hated that the rulers of this world did not hate war as much as he did himself.
The scholars around him dressed, then entered the formal audience chamber, where they were met by their female counterparts. The emperor was not yet in session, and so it was permissible for them to mingle briefly.
One of his female colleagues wandered up to Swenshion and smiled at him. “Do you know what this is all about?” she asked.
“I do not,” Swenshion admitted. “But with so many of the greatest and most knowledgeable minds of our generation here, I am not surprised to see you among them, Lokari.”
“Yes, I thought the same when I saw you entering the men’s bath,” she said, smiling at the flattery. He smiled back. They’d been lovers, once, five years ago, but hadn’t spent much time together since then to avoid the rumors or scandals or the expectation that they’d marry.
Not that they wouldn’t make a fine couple, he reflected. But neither of them were ready for that commitment. She was a widower, he a bachelor, and neither were looking to change that.
The night of passion had been a pleasant distraction, however. As was its memory.
“So, if nobody knows why we’re here—” Lokari was cut off by the sudden strike of a gong. She smiled at him sheepishly as she walked away, taking the position that she’d been a signed by a small stake in the ground with her name on it. Swenshion hurried to his own stake as the royal retainers began filing into the room. Cursing his back and his knees, Swenshion kowtowed at the empty box in the center of the chamber, closing his eyes so as not to accidentally lay them on the emperor as he ascended to his throne.
“We are ensconced,” a sonorous voice said after several moments. “You may rise and know that you are in our presence.”
Swenshion relaxed and assumed a more natural position, sitting back on his knees and looking at the silken screens that separated him from the most powerful man in the empire. Politically, and magically, emperor Torentonion Shenlong was formidable in more ways than one.
“You all likely wish to know why we have summoned you,” the emperor said. “We will enlighten you. A loyal servant of the empire, who has performed many meritorious deeds and with whom we are well pleased, has need of your services in the education of his niece and his nephew. The relationship between this servant of the empire and the children’s father has been strained in the past but is beginning to recover. If you would demean yourselves to educate an eleven year old boy and a five year old girl, then you will find that you will be rewarded with our pleasure.”
The emperor paused for a moment as he allowed his subjects to consider his words. “This assignment is not an order. I wish for only volunteers. You will be rewarded for your service to us, but we do not wish to impose. Only two tutors are sought at this time. A man and a woman, for the boy and the girl, although you will both be expected to be involved in the education of both. However, you must meet with and impress both the uncle and the parents of these children. If you wish to discuss this matter further, remain in our palace for the night and our loyal servant will interview in the morning. Those who have duties which prevent them from serving us in this capacity may leave without fear that we shall look upon them with disfavor. That is all. We shall depart now.”
Wincing, Swenshion kowtowed once more and closed his eyes as the imperial box was emptied. It would not do for the loyal subjects of the emperor to see him do something so mundane as walking to and from his throne, he reflected, trying to suppress the grin that such a thought put upon his lips.
He looked up again when the gong sounded, announcing the end of the court session, and he glanced at his fellow scholars. A few of them made immediately to leave, not interested in the assignment. Lokari came over to him once more and smiled.
“Will you be spending the night in the palace?” she inquired.
“I believe I shall,” he admitted. “If nothing else, I have heard that they recently acquired some of the most delicious rice, and I wish to taste it.”
“Yes, I’ve heard those same rumors,” she agreed.
Another scholar, a portly man, came up to them. “Swen, Lokari, it is pleasant to see you. Swen, I’m sorry that this offer from the emperor makes us rivals once more.”
“To the victor goes the spoils of the emperor’s favor,” Swenshion said, nodding at his friend. “And no hard feelings from whichever us fails to meet the standards of whoever this servant of the emperor may be. Who do you think that it is that requires our services, Gaius?”
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“Who knows?” Gaius said gaily. “Does it matter? We were not approached by a servant of the emperor, but the emperor on their behalf, and promised favor from the same. That means that whatever children it is that we’re supposed to educate, we’re ultimately working for the emperor. For mere mortals such as ourselves, that is a high privilege, and one which may see us well taken care of into our dotage.”
“We are all too young to be discussing our retirements,” Lokari chided, swatting Gaius on the arm affectionately. “Or are you calling me old?”
“Nothing of the sort, young lady!” Gaius said, laughter in his voice. A servant appeared to show them to their rooms, and the three followed the servant, who remained silent.
They spoke on the way of inconsequential matters. Rumors, faraway events, opinions on the subjects they were studying at present, the minutiae of daily life. The three had, not too surprisingly, been assigned adjacent rooms. They separated briefly to inspect their lodgings. There was fruit upon the table, taken from the imperial orchard itself, and Swenshion couldn’t help but select an peach from the basket.
Biting into it, he closed his eyes to savor the sweet and rich flavor of the fruit. Some of the juice ran down his chin, so ripe was the peach, but he did not wash his face until he had eaten the entire thing. He carefully placed the pit on in the small bowl near the fruit platter where the seeds were to go once the fruit had been eaten.
He was no cultivator to know whether or not the seed could be grown into a tree. He knew that only one in fifty of the seeds of the imperial peach trees was able to sprout. A cultivator, particularly an earth or water cultivator, might have known, but Swenshion was no cultivator.
Many would consider it a waste to feed him such a precious resource as the Qi rich fruit that he had just savored. But the emperor was keen on such displays of decadence. The fact that he could offer such luxuries to his mortal guests, and still also display favor to his cultivator subjects suitable to their elevated station, was display of his wealth.
A display which Swenshion was happy to take part in.
He sat on the bed for a moment and closed his eyes, going through a brief mental exercise to try to harness some of the Qi in the fruit. He did not have a spirit bound in his dantian and could not channel the energy effectively, but even a mortal like him saw some benefits when consuming a resource as rich in Qi as the peach had been.
After twenty minutes, he gave it up and went into the common room, where Gaius met him a few minutes later, and Lokari a moment after that.
“So, seriously, who do you believe that we’ll be educating?” Lokair asked.
“A servant of the emperor’s nephews,” Lokari answered. “One who must be close with the emperor himself to have garnered such favor.”
“That’s not answering my question,” Gaius persisted, and so the three gossiped for several hours before dinner was served.
The rice was as delicious as the rumors had promised, served with duck and a savory sauce.
Surprisingly, the cabbage was equally as tasty.
In the morning, Swenshion rose early. He performed his morning ablutions and informed the servant standing in the waiting area that he would be ready for the interview with the servant of the emperor whenever was convenient. He selected one of the books that had been placed in his rooms and read in the sunlight that came through the window, basking in the warmth.
An hour passed, and there was a knock on the door.
“Come in!” Swenshion said, and a young man with dark hair stepped inside. He was wearing the clothes of a servant, but carried with him no burden. Swenshion smiled at him. “Are you here to lead me to the interview?”
“No need for that,” a sonorous voice said. “I’ve come to perform it myself.”
Swenshion’s eyes went wide in recognition. He hasted to kowtow, and did not stop even as he saw the man raising his arms to protest.
“Ah, that reaction is so tiresome,” the emperor said. “Please, I have never once struck someone down for making eye contact with me. That tradition is … it’s not what we publicly declare. We prefer not to have people look at us as we perform our formal duties to make it easier to perform our informal ones. If life came to a stop every time I entered a room in my own home, then nobody would ever get anything done.”
Swenshion’s mind raced as he processed what was going on. “You would demean yourself by wearing such clothes?” he asked tentatively.
“I elevate my servants by giving them from my own wardrobe,” the emperor said. “It’s not my fault that the ignorant and the uninitiated cannot tell us apart.”
Slowly, Swenshion forced himself to calm down. He tentatively raised his head, but the emperor was sitting in the chair next to the fruit platter and eating a peach. The emperor noticed him and smiled, motioning to the empty chair next to him. “Please, be seated and let’s discuss my nephew.”
“ Your nephew,” Swenshion said. His mind continued to race. “The earth emperor did not ascend,” he concluded after a moment.
“No. Kortrentos and Wensho remain very much part of this world,” the emperor agreed. “They have secluded themselves and have had many happy years together, for which I am most pleased. And they have given me the gift of a nephew and a niece, so I am even more pleased.”
Swenshion swallowed. “If I am not selected for the privilege of serving the imperial family, what shall happen to me?”
“If you betray certain facts, then you will be punished,” the emperor admitted. “Otherwise, nothing. My identity is an open secret, as far as I’m concerned. One that I prefer not to have advertised to the entire world. But even if you tell the court that I sometimes dress in the garb of servants and walk unmasked through my own hallways, that will, what? What effect do you see that having?”
Swenshion swallowed. “Those who do not know your face or your voice would treat unknown servants with significantly more respect,” he said after a moment.
“And is that such a bad thing?” the emperor asked. “Now please, come sit. I wish to get your opinion on many, many matters. And once we’ve finished our discussion, I’m afraid it will be time for you to retake the Service Exams. I know that you passed them twenty years ago with a very favorable result, but I wish to know the current state of your knowledge, not what it was twenty years ago.”
“Of course, Your Majesty,” Swenshion said, standing nervously and walking over to the chair. “I am at your disposal.”
“Please,” His Majesty said, “Call me Renton.”