34 He Shot the Prefect

~BU LIANG~

A scented handkerchief was a poor defence against the dungeon. Bu Liang noticed the stench, but he did not think it was the worst thing about the place as he followed his escort. The pressure of the stone overhead, the lack of moving air, and, above all, the restricted exit impacted him more.

Any man must have a fair chance of escape...

The captain on duty led their little group from cell to cell, searching each methodically, then frowned and shut one heavy door after another, reapplied the locks, cutting off any exits.

Finally, they found who Liang was searching for. The guards came from the back of the cell, dragging a prisoner along. The captain frowned, the man of many frowns that he was, and presented his prize to Liang:

"Demure Yu, the Blasphemer, Your Excellency."

The blasphemer's left leg was swollen to twice the normal size and black, so he sagged to the floor the moment the captain let go of him.

The rest of his escort moved forward to push the other prisoners away from the Prefect. It was the same story in each cell. The wretches tried to reach for him, for the crimson of his robes, for his power. They pleaded with him. Cursed and condemned, they still believed that someone should remember their names and circumstances.

Demure Yu, right there in front of the Prefect, stayed silent.

Liang crouched to look at the healer, pressing his handkerchief closer to his face. He had seen prettier corpses during the Contagion. How the prisoner was still breathing was a mystery to him. About the only part of Yu that seemed untouched by one affliction or another, was his dirty mop of red hair. It fell down the poke-marked forehead, past the brows, nearly obscuring the eyes.

"Do you know who I am, Demure Yu?"

"You won't get anything out of him, Your Excellency. The man's a mute," the captain reported. It did not take a towering intellect to guess that the frown that accompanied the uttering meant 'I told you so'.

Liang did not stoop to pointing out the distinction between mute or deaf, or both, not that it truly mattered. The blasphemer's face remained vacant.

What did I hope to glean in the first place with this pointless endeavour? Foolish, foolish...

Yu reached out weakly with a hand bony and hardly cleaner than the filth-soaked floor in the cell.

Liang might have stepped back, but something held him in place, something nearly imperceptible, but it was there, and it came from Yu. Should he have relied on the soldiers to guard him against a man accused of blasphemy and consorting with demons?

Am I so unworthy that a man entirely at my mercy scares me? Or what's left of him anyway?

The grip was weak, he could break it at any moment, surely. If he felt at all uncomfortable, it was because he was embarrassed by Yu's sorry state. He wished that the matted hair had hidden the blasphemer's eyes completely.

A man must have an escape, and this one escaped into madness.

The blasphemer's hand dropped, powerless.

As if it were some sort of a signal, the burden lifted from Liang's conscience then. He felt at peace with himself for the first time since the examination, and, perhaps, since long before that. "Thank you for indulging my request, Captain."

The captain frowned in response -what else?- and locked the prisoner was locked back in with his cellmates without any resistance.

Liang returned to his office and immediately set to work, humming. A detestable habit, to be sure, but he was so glad. Weynala set out a test for him, and he had passed it, as always, with flying colours.

A barely noticeable clerical error twined the number of blows Yu was to receive. An unnecessary precaution, perhaps, given what was remained of the prisoner, but he left nothing to chance when it came to acts of mercy.

***

The overnight thunderstorm refreshed the air and left a few clouds behind to temper the heat.

With such pleasant weather, the crowd gathering for the Ceremony of Sorrowful Penitence grew thicker than Liang expected. He sent the frowning captain to clear the way for Serene Mother Weynala and her two attendants. Maybe he should have asked him to hold the frowns as a personal favour, but he doubted even the strictest orders could change the nature of this man.

"May this day be joyful, Prefect," Weynala beamed at him, and Liang nodded affirmatively to the question in her eyes. She'd see in a moment that he had done everything she'd asked and more.

The pretend healer was at the head of the miserable line-up of convicts. The troops received enough rice wine on the Prefects' orders to dull their restraint. Finally, a loyal man accustomed to delicate tasks and not in Imperial employ was paid to strangle Yu in case a flicker of life was discovered after the corpse was carried away.

No need to upset my gentle faery further.

Liang had heard stories of the highest ladies in the land dressing down to take in the sight of executions, as bloodthirsty as any commoner, but Weynala covered her eyes with a painted fan. The drums and pipes covered up the screams, as well as keeping the beat for bamboo sticks to rise and fall. Demure Yu was turned into a bloodied lump of flesh tossed to one side, taken for dead long before he received the full measure of his blows.

When the music ceased, the Prefect Bu Liang rose to address the crowd with the appropriate message to complete the ceremony.

He stole a glance at Weynala to see if she was listening, but her head was turned away from him. She was so tensed and absorbed by something -or someone- else that he felt a sting of jealousy. He whirled to see what or who caught her attention.

Someone's litter illegally jammed into the crowd and partially obscured the view. Behind it, his independent agent argued quietly but hotly with a tall nervous man, a merchant by his dress. Liang would have left the situation to his man to handle, but Weynala's rapt eyes were on them, and not on him.

He rushed to intervene. "My good man!" The authority in his voice rang impeccably. They could hear him far out, and certainly on the dais where Weynala sat. "In the Celebrated Emperor's name, this unrighteous man was punished. The Temple of the Serene Joy piously agreed to purify the body. Move on, and do not interfere with the good works of our Emperor."

The man bobbed his head respectfully during his speech, the very picture of a compliant citizen. All in a day's work.

The litter's beaded curtains parted, letting out a young, slight woman. The first touch of pregnancy kept her grounded, seemingly the only thing that could. "Good Prefect!"

Despite being high, her voice carried too, at least as far as the dais where Weynala sat.

"There was an injustice done to this poor man, Demure Yu. I have the scroll of his judgment. It prescribed but half the blows. A lazy and corrupt servant must have misguided Your Exalted Excellence!"

"These are grave accusations, Mistress," Liang responded trying not to cringe. "I promise that it will be investigated fully by the lettered and learned officials, at a later date. We must first attend to the living, and their needs are many."

He turned to the obedient man, presumably the husband of the helion, "Now, do your duty, citizen, and move on."

The man cleared his throat nervously, glanced around him. "Your Exalted Excellence! The Serene Order prayers are welcome with us, always. But a man that enters the Temple's gates never leaves. We all know that!"

The crowd murmured in agreement, but it was not what lent his voice conviction. And, with it, power. There was some strength within him, and more standing just behind his shoulder. "My wife was delivered from her deathbed during the Inscrutable Contagion. This fortune was bestowed on me by the Heavens, and, in gratitude, I wish to bury the ashes of a man without a family of his own at my own ancestors' shrines, in keeping with the human customs."

"You are fortunate indeed," Liang said. "So do not bring a curse onto your family. Yu was possessed by the demons, mad and blasphemous. Only the Temple of Serene Joy has ways to safeguard against such evil."

"Evil?" the merchant's wife exclaimed, "Evil?! I was delivered from the Inscrutable Contagion by the blessed healer Yu!"

She turned away from Bu Liang and addressed herself directly to the crowd. "All of you! You all must know someone who was healed by Demure Yu!"

"Yes! He healed!" It was another woman's voice, screaming. Liang picked her from the crowd easily enough, since she was dressed like a whore.

"Did he ever ask anything from you in return?" the pregnant wife took over.

The captain moved to stand behind him, likely frowning harder than ever.

"Remove them," Liang mouthed.

The guards pushed the litter and the crowd away from Yu's bloody corpse.

Another gangly man weaselled his way into the vacated space as if it was cleared for his convenience.

Liang sighed. The world had too many of these unremarkable, self-effacing, slightly hunched-shouldered commoners.

At least this one was decently dressed. He wore a richly embroidered vest and a fine tunic, and across his chest was a bandolier with a weapon only a nobleman could afford – a pistol. Another one was tacked behind his belt, advertising his wealth.

"Prefect! " the newcomer yelled.

Liang clenched his jaw tight. "There is a day each month when the citizens can come to me with their grievances, citizen."

He glanced back at Weynala and saw her fluttering fan.

The nobleman also appealed to the crowd.

"I have heard pitiful tales of how the Prefect treats the poor without mercy!

I am saddened to find it is true.

Prefect Bu Liang!

You lack virtue to hold this esteemed post!

I challenge you!"

There were gasps of: 'Zha Yao!' and the orator's face flushed with pleasure.

Well, well. Liang straightened, unable to believe his luck.

Fortune placed the rebel leader into his hands, Zha Yao himself, the hero of a thousand songs, all of them bad save for one. Zha Yao's luck in shooting Thirty Claws must have genuinely impressed the drunkard Jiang, to spout out the catchy verses.

Better men than Zha Yao had been seduced into believing their own legends. And always it was always to their downfall. He would turn Zha Yao's vanity against him, and in front of Serene Mother Weynala.

"I accept your challenge, Zha Yao. I shall prove my virtue." He allowed himself an amused smile. Don't bother recording this, Shan Jiang. I write my own songs.

The captain took him by the elbow with an unpleasant degree of familiarity. "Your Excellency, is that wise? This is—"

"I know who this is," he retorted irritably. "And that's precisely why I am going to triumph. He will try to shoot me from thirty paces. Exactly measured, in full daylight. So this time he will miss and he will be finished. Along with his little rebellion."

The captain gave Zha Yao an appraising look and frowned. "Were it a sword, Your Excellence---"

"Swords are for soldiers. The pistol is a gentleman's weapon," Liang patted the handle of his own decorated pistol. "I have read every scroll on the making of guns. I assure you, no man, not even with the demons' own luck, can hit true twice at this distance. "

The captain frowned for the thousandth time since breakfast and went to measure the thirty paces with commendable accuracy.

Zha Yao came midway to meet the Prefect. The crowd looked daggers at Liang, but instead of being intimidated by the masses' hostility, he felt uplifted by it to a superior status. Playing a villain had its appeal.

In the songs, The Noble Outlaw always offered one of his pistols to the men he challenged, but not this time. Perhaps he only did it when the opponent was unarmed. Liang wouldn't have in his place - Zha Yao's pistols looked exquisite.

And there was something else about them, something that bothered Liang as he walked towards his spot. The design looks different from anything I've seen on a weaponsmith bench or in a scroll. Well, there will be time to examine it once I take them off Zha Yao's corpse. Now it is the time to turn and face Zha Yao, to become a villain who killed a hero of a thousand songs.

As soon as Prefect made his first step forward, Zha Yao lifted his arm and fired.

'Fool!' Liang wanted to shout, but he could not. Something hit him through the chest, pushed him to the ground, to his knees, and instead of a triumphant yell, he coughed out a bowlful of red froth.

Prefect Bu Liang died still in disbelief.