Under Heaven (2010) by Kay Guy Gavriel

Author:Kay, Guy Gavriel [Gavriel, Kay, Guy]
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Limited
Published: 2011-01-14T19:12:27.687000+00:00

IT WAS A RESPONSE to the realities of the main imperial roads that in most of the posting inns along them the stables were larger than the accommodations available for travellers.

Civil service messengers and military couriers, the most regular users of the staging inns, were constantly wearing out and changing horses, often not lingering for the night. A meal, back in the saddle. The whole point was to ride through the darkness down the middle of the road, not to seek out a feathered bed, let alone wine and a girl. Time mattered in a far-flung empire.

There were merchants and army officers on the roads, aristocrats going to and from country estates, moving with rather less urgency, and there were civil servants travelling to or returning from postings to various prefectures, or on tours of inspection there. For these, of course, rooms and adequate food were required.

The inns nearest to Xinan tended to be different. Their wine was generally excellent, and so were the girls and music. High-ranking mandarins making short journeys from the capital didn't need their carriage horses changed but did demand a better quality of chamber and meal if, for example, they wished to time a return to the city for the hours before curfew fell.

The Mulberry Grove Rest House, not far from Xinan, qualified as one of the more elaborately appointed places to spend a night on the main east-west road.

Mulberry trees were long gone from the environs of the inn, as were the silk farms associated with them. The inn's name evoked quieter days many hundred years ago, before Xinan had grown into what it now was. There was a plaque in the main courtyard, inscribed in the Fifth Dynasty: a verse extolling the serenity of the inn and its countryside.

It made for some irony. By the time Tai and his company rode into the inn yard, well after darkfall, it was as noisy and crowded as the road had been. Two riders had been sent ahead to arrange their stay, or finding rooms would have been doubtful.

Torches were lit in the inn yard. The night had been starry as they approached, the Sky River showing, a sliver of moon. These were lost in the smoky, clattering chaos of the main courtyard.

Tai's horsemen were bunched around him. On guard, aggressively alert. He imagined Song had given the orders. Issues of rank in their company had been worked out; his Kanlin Warrior could speak for him. The soldiers might hate her for it, but that would have always been the case with a woman. In any event, Song didn't seem inclined to worry about being well liked by soldiers.

Tai was too preoccupied as they rode in to be unhappy about how protective they were. In fact, with some ruefulness, he realized that he didn't even mind it any more. He'd been frightened in that carriage by the road, and was still disturbed.

The two advance riders they'd sent reported to Song and their captain. Their company had three rooms, seven or eight to a room.

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