Chapter 27

A pack of honest men had done their best. They had said the finest words in their hearts.

The Emperor was not offended. He was rather pleased to hear it. The words fell easy on the ear, and they were sincere. He liked them far better than the ministers who nattered on day after day, calling this forbidden and that improper.

Fond as he was of the words, they were too funny. Should he laugh or not?

The Tan house was burying its dead today, and the master of the house was away. Laughing out loud behind people's backs would be too rude, so he held it in.

So the Emperor and everyone around him drew long, slow breaths and swallowed the laughter back down, mouthful by mouthful. Sweat covered the Emperor's brow. He said to Chen Dasheng: "Ah, 'strike it rich' is good, 'congratulations' is good! Fine words, those, I like them... You, you men, come here and stand in the order of your sabers."

Only then did Chen Dasheng and the others look at one another, get up, and stand each before his own saber.

The Emperor said to Chen Dasheng, who stood at the first saber's place: "So you're the head of the blade, then?"

Chen Dasheng nodded. He made to say something, opened his mouth, and in the end said nothing at all. He didn't know how to answer such a thing.

Here was an honest boy, the Emperor thought. His patience warmed a little more, and he went on: "How old are you?"

"Nine..." Chen Dasheng had truly forgotten how old he was. He thought a long while before he guessed: "Nineteen, or twenty? By your leave, this humble one's father was in the camp too, once, and back then someone would remind me. But after my father was lost fighting in the four commanderies of Nanzhong, no one told me how old I ought to be. Life was hard, all rush and muddle every day, so I lost count."

He had spent his days in this great camp with nothing to do but kill, day in, day out, no way out and nothing to know. He spent his days in a fog, turning one thing over: tomorrow, when I go out, I've got to find a way to get back alive.

The four commanderies of Nanzhong! Those words stirred up no end of things in the Emperor's mind. He tilted his head back and thought of that great battle at Ningzhong Commandery. But for Tan Shilin, the Retired Emperor would long since have been gone.

But the shock and jolting of that battle had taken harm on the Retired Emperor's spirit. He was often muddled now, and it weighed on the Emperor in earnest.

Tan Shize, Tan Shilin, and Tan Shiyuan, whom he'd rather not think of. The Tan house did, at times, put him in a hard place.

The Emperor came back to himself. Patient still, he asked each of them his age. When he'd done, he said to Chen Dasheng with a smile: "Interesting. You're none of the eldest, yet you're their head of the blade. Do they mind you, usually?"

Guan Si'er, the youngest, knew nothing of manners and blurted: "We do, we do! The head's the head, and when the head above him is gone, the head below him is the head, and like it or not, you obey!"

A whole string of heads, one after another, nearly set the Emperor laughing aloud again.

Nothing for it, the Emperor could only raise his tea to cover it. He asked Chen Dasheng: "For your age it's no small thing, though. Do you remember how many points of the blade were lost before you?"

Chen Dasheng thought a moment, then took a bundle from the satchel at his waist. He crouched, opened it, and laid out the hair-locks: "By your leave, thirteen."

Thirteen locks of pitch-black hair, tied with red cloth. Chen Dasheng was filthy and stinking, but the hair was kept clean and neat and smooth.

The Emperor looked down at them. It was a long while before he said: "Tomorrow I'll have a burial ground set aside, and good coffins made, and give them a proper burial."

At that Chen Dasheng's eyes lit up. He thought to himself: for this much heart in the Emperor alone, he could put his life in his hands.

He knelt on the ground and, in silence, knocked his head three times.

The Emperor didn't know what those three kowtows meant. He took it that Chen Dasheng was giving thanks on his dead blade-points' behalf, and said, a little abashed: "You, ahem, don't fret about their incense either. I'll have it seen to at the great temple, and the monks can tend their rites properly."

At that, Yu Qingguan and the others knelt too, giving devout thanks. In their hearts, if anything, there was a touch of envy.

The living suffer so. But once you're a ghost, with grand monks to wait on you and incense to eat, what a fine, easy life that is.

Off to the side, Zhang Minwang gave a helpless little cough. How could the Emperor look on things like this so freely? How unlucky, and if some ill omen struck him, what then!

Presently they'd have to change the Emperor's clothes again. He'd looked on a funeral matter, so they'd need to send for the Bureau of Astronomy to read the hour, or something in the palace would be crossed too.

The Emperor heard Zhang Minwang laying it all on behind him and curled his lip. Up at the front, in the old days, had a day ever passed without a funeral in it? And now here they were, standing on ceremony with their poverty.

Still, he didn't stop him. The man had done no wrong.

Over by the camp, the sound of hooves began, one lot after another. The Emperor knew this was the funeral party coming back.

So he said, puzzled: "You lot? Why didn't you go up front today, to see your Second General off?"

Old blades, when all was said and done.

Chen Dasheng started at that. He raised his head, and his voice fell a little as he said: "We wanted to. But... no one told us. No one told this humble one how to go... so we didn't."

The Emperor's eyes went faintly dark. He looked over the state of the few men, and thought again of how they'd come into the camp.

"Oh? No one told you? Those Long Saber men, for all that, they're your juniors. How dare they slight you so?"

An old soldier of the camp, office or no office, kept a share of standing before anyone. A saber-squad like this, never mind all of them, take just this little head of the blade, should be an old hand who'd been there since the battalion was founded.

Chen Dasheng's voice held no grief in it. He said it quite plainly: "Those, those aren't our Long Saber Battalion. They're the Grand General's Long Saber Battalion..."

At that the Emperor's eyes changed. His voice rose as he cut in: "What did you say?!"

Chen Dasheng jumped. He looked at the Emperor, opened his mouth, hesitated, then explained: "No, it's no fault of theirs, not calling us. They're the Grand, the Grand Lord's, the Grand General's Long Saber Battalion, not the Second General's Long Saber Battalion. It's only right they don't call us. I'm, I'm not lying to you."

The Emperor flew into a rage. He reached out, took up the teacup from the table, raised it, then let out a breath and slowly set the cup back down.

The air all around went tight in an instant.

Chen Dasheng was rattled and hurried to kneel: "This humble one, this humble one, what did I say wrong?"

Seeing their head kneel, Yu Qingguan and the rest knelt too, one by one.

The Emperor pressed his temper down and forced out a smile: "Up you get. It's nothing to do with you."

Only then did Chen Dasheng and the others dare stand, though they were so flustered they didn't know where to put their hands and feet, and dared not speak.

But the Emperor pressed him again: "Don't be afraid. Even if something's amiss, it's no fault of yours. I only ask, your Second General's Long Saber Battalion, how many men has it now? And these men, where are they all?"

Chen Dasheng and the others looked at one another. At last he answered with a face that said you really don't know?: "You, you don't know?"

The Emperor shook his head and said gravely: "I! Do not! Know!"

Every month he got the roster passed over from the Ministry of War. Never mind Tan Shiyuan. Under Tan Shize's direct command were twelve thousand crack troops, each man drawing two sheng of rice a day, six dou a month. One army burned two hundred and fifty dan a day, some ninety thousand dan a year.

Of these, the Long Saber Battalion was five hundred at full strength, kitted as elite: each man two jin of beef and mutton a day, five ge two sheng of white rice, twelve steamed buns, one ge of salt to every three men, half a ge of sauce apiece, and every squad of fifteen with a cook of its own.

And his money had raised veterans like these? Give them a bowl and they could go out and beg, and sing the good-luck ditties too.

Chen Dasheng's body swayed. He stared at the Emperor a long while before he said: "You don't know? But you're the Emperor!"

Yu Qingguan saw his mind in disorder and hurried to steady him. He pleaded with the Emperor: "Our, our head is truly grieved. Could you, could you let this humble one speak for our head?"

The Emperor sighed, a bitter smile on him: "Yes, I am the Emperor. Speak."

"By your leave, the Second General's Long Saber Battalion had few men left long ago. Now it's just the seven of us! The last of them were all left at Qingfeng city."

The Emperor looked at them, unbelieving: "You mean, just the seven of you? The Long Saber Battalion?"

Yu Qingguan nodded: "By your leave, it's so, just the seven of us now. Back then there was still a battered remnant of the squad. When the city was under siege, we came to blows a few times with the other side's chief commander. The ones they had left were all elite, and they say it was the old dynasty's Second Prince leading them, fighting in person.

"Both sides were past caring. Whoever lost, lost his life! They meant to die for their country! Well, then we'd die too. It was a no-holding-back way of fighting either way. But who'd have thought two armies could fight so basely. They scattered poison powder, and a great wind blew up, and our side went down, went down by the score... Ding San, Ding San and the rest, none of them came back... the Second General's own guard-army lost a great swath too..."

Yu Qingguan couldn't go on. The tears burst from his eyes, cutting two muddy furrows down his face.

Men who'd come out from Shao Shang together, come up through hardship together, and at the last, poisoned to death?

The Emperor nodded, grieved and furious himself: "I know of this. They used White Stone Mountain's people." And he slapped the table hard: "White Stone Mountain! I'll wipe out their nine kindred!!"

Ma Ergu hurried to take it up: "I'll, I'll tell it, I'll tell it. After that, it was you, Grand, it was Your Majesty gave the order, only besiege, don't storm, and the rest you know. Heaven thought them base and grew wrathful, and Qingfeng city came down. We followed the Second General into Yanjing that same night to bring you relief. They said the Grand General would send reinforcements, but wait on the left and none came, wait on the right and none came. East and west they began to storm the walls, the cannon were sounding, there was no falling back!

"Nothing for it, the Second General took the rest of the guard-army, and us with them, and went in. There were too many people. We went in the whole way, none of us knowing anyone. The palace's south gate was the deadliest, and everyone had gone blood-mad, but by the end the people had all vanished... corpses over the whole ground, and no one to tell us what to do, and we didn't even know the Second General was gone. Today, that's right! Today, today!"

Ma Ergu, as if remembering something, tugged at Chen Dasheng: "Chief, quick, show that military order to His Majesty the Emperor. His Majesty can read. He can tell us where to go."

Then he said to the Emperor with a smile: "It wasn't meant to affront your Sixth Young Lord. It's that up front they were seeing the Second General off, and we thought, we've followed the Second General since who knows how many years back. If they scorned us as too shabby and wouldn't let us carry the bier, couldn't they at least let us walk a few steps behind?

"But no one ever came. Over there they were already getting into their armor and mail to set out, and the few of us were still at the horse-farm, waiting and waiting, and then Commandant Wu came over and said the marshal's tent had given an order, that we're to go with the grain-train to the frontier the day after tomorrow. Our head was grieved just then and didn't hear it clearly, so we don't know where we're meant to go and fall in, and when we thought to ask, Commandant Wu had gone up front already... Ai, Chief! Chief?"

Ma Ergu jabbed Chen Dasheng with his elbow.

Chen Dasheng steadied himself, and only then took the order from his breast and held it out with both hands to Zhang Minwang, who came forward.

When the Emperor took it and gave the order one look, he drew a cold breath.

He knew this thing. He saw it every month, looked at it every day. A spoiled ledger-sheet for men's rations and horse-fodder.

This was a military order?

The Emperor was half-laughed into anger, and didn't even know who to laugh at. He shook the sheet and asked Chen Dasheng: "This is your military order?"

Chen Dasheng, a bit flustered, asked: "It isn't? Have I got the wrong one?"

His hand went into his breast again. Before long it pulled out a heap of papers, which he spread on the ground, more flustered still, looking them over and knowing none of them. Then he raised his head and looked pleadingly at Zhang Minwang: "This, sir, might I trouble you to see which one it is? This humble one, this humble one can't read..."

Zhang Minwang was moved by the story just told, his eyes ringed red, and he nodded over and over: "Ai, ai, coming, let me look for you, don't fret, don't fret."

He trotted over in small steps and picked the things up one by one, and by the last of them the tears were falling plip-plop to the ground. At the end, holding the heap with his eyes gone blurry, he walked before the Emperor and said: "What military orders! Your Majesty, look, if this isn't bullying folk..."

But before he'd got the whole complaint out, word came that Tan Weitong had returned and begged an audience.

The Emperor made as if he hadn't heard, and turned the orders over one by one. At the last he asked Chen Dasheng: "Do you know what this is?"

Chen Dasheng blinked: "A, a military order?"

The Emperor's hand shook: "The military orders you saw were these?"

Seeing the Emperor angry, Chen Dasheng didn't know what to do. He reached out and felt at his satchel: "Have I got it wrong again? I didn't put it here..."

He drew out a sheepskin packet, tipped out yet more orders, turned them over and over, and nodded, certain: "That's right, these are all the old orders, not new ones, aren't they in your hand there?"

The Emperor drew in a cold breath and pointed bitterly at the sheepskin packet.

Zhang Minwang scurried over, confiscated the packet too, and held it up to the Emperor.

Again word came that Tan Weitong begged an audience...

But the Emperor turned over the old orders, and turning them over and over, his anger went instead. He only looked at Chen Dasheng and the rest before him, and his heart went sour and soft.

Seeing the honest boy gazing at him so wistfully, the Emperor made up his mind. Your old Tan house doesn't want them, he thought, so they're mine now.

Emperor after all, he steadied himself a moment, pointed at the orders, and said: "These, do you remember when each of them was?"

Chen Dasheng nodded, and pointed at one to the side: "I'll never forget! This humble one has a good memory, I remember them all. That red-lettered one, that's the first order this humble one ever took, up Sangzhi Road. I cut down a silver-armored, red-tasseled cavalry officer that time, and the Second General was pleased, gave us meat to eat and two hundred cash a man besides."

The Emperor and the sword-bearing attendants around him twitched at the brow. At the very start of the uprising, to spur the men's spirit, the army's way of tallying merit had been brutal. Merit was reckoned by the number of heads taken and the rank of the commander killed.

One silver-armored rider's head was worth a step of noble rank.

Chen Dasheng called up a great many happy memories and said shyly: "That was when I still had a head over me, this is our head's order, the only one of his. The rest after that are all mine, this humble one's. That one in your hand with all the circles, that's Wucheng Pavilion. The Second General wasn't there that time. The Eldest Young Master gave the order for the marshal's tent, and set this humble one to lead a squad to cut them off. We killed one they called Shang Jun, and eighty of his cavalry officers, and when Wucheng Pavilion was taken and they counted, our squad had twelve hundred heads. The Eldest Young Master was pleased, and gave us two whole sheep to eat our fill, and five hundred cash a man!"

No listening to it now. You killed Shang Jun? Do you know who Shang Jun was? The old dynasty's defending general at Wucheng Pavilion, second son of Shang Baozhi, a fourth-rank General of the Household, and eighty black cavalry behind him besides, and twelve hundred heads...

Merit so great, and the Emperor remembered it well. He remembered it credited to Tan Shiyuan and Tan Weitong. And now this little head of the blade said it was his men who did it?

Chen Dasheng would have said more, when someone behind them shouted: "Hold your tongue!!"

Everyone looked up. It was Tan Weitong, in hempen mourning, charging in with a crowd of his own generation, faces full of fury.

The Emperor hadn't summoned him, yet he dared force his way in. How much nerve was that?

But this was the Tan army camp.

The Emperor tossed the heap of things to Zhang Minwang, and smiled.

Tan Weitong came in with a band of his kinsmen and dropped to his knees before the Emperor with a thud.

His father was over at the burial ground. There was too much to do to run and ask him. Nothing for it, he could only rush over here, and even if the Emperor punished him, he'd have his say.

He knocked his head a few times: "Your servant is guilty. Your servant has affronted the imperial presence and deserves ten thousand deaths, but standing there at the side, your servant truly could not bear to listen. I beg Your Majesty's grace: let your servant say a few words in his own defense!"

Fair enough, best to hear what the man had to say.

The Emperor nodded, all warmth: "Young general Tan, don't take on so, speak slowly, I'm listening."

Tan Weitong straightened up, steadied himself, then flung out a hand pointing furiously at Chen Dasheng and the others: "Your Majesty does not know, these few are worthless soldier-scum. What they said is true enough. They did enter the Long Saber Battalion in the early years, but for shrinking from battle at the front, my Second Uncle packed them off to the horse-farm.

"If Your Majesty doesn't believe it, send now for the horse-farm's officers and men and ask them, ask whether these men don't live at the horse-farm, eat at the horse-farm.

"Your servant would not dare deceive his sovereign! I've already sent for the muster-rolls of the Long Saber Battalion, past and present. When they come, I beg Your Majesty to inspect them yourself, and see whether these few are on them at all.

"These men, trading on their seniority in the camp, have bullied the weak no end. It was only that my Second Uncle was soft-hearted, and for the sake of their having followed since the uprising, let it go. My house thought, well, there's always a mouthful of food for them, we'll send them off when the time comes. Generations of the Tan house have raised soldiers and led armies, what men have we not seen? Never did we think, these few! These few..."

Tan Weitong glared at Chen Dasheng and cursed savagely: "Speak! Who put you up to this, to slander my whole loyal and heroic house? Aren't you afraid that when the Grand General comes back, he'll have you cut to a thousand pieces?!"

Then he knocked his head to the Emperor once more: "Your Majesty, these men have been egged on somewhere. They're taking advantage of my Second Uncle being dead, that a dead man can't speak, to ruin my house's name! I beg Your Majesty to look into it clearly, and give the Tan house back the good name of generations. Your Majesty, my Second Uncle was only just carried out today!!"

Tan Weitong finished and broke into bitter weeping, and all round the Tan sons and nephews set up a wail.

Chen Dasheng and the others stood without a word, their eyes all calm, not a body stirring.

Chen Dasheng even thought: if they were all the same, then today let none of them live. Kill as many as we can... He turned to look at the Emperor, but the Emperor made him a soothing gesture.

Tan Weitong wept as if his heart would break, calling on his Second Uncle, over and over, to look down from heaven and see...

The Emperor listened without a word, until someone carried up half a chest of muster-rolls and begged him to inspect them, and the Emperor smiled.

He said to Tan Weitong: "I'll not look at that, I see it every day! I've had my fill of it! And I say, child, what are you crying for? You're one I watched grow up, more or less. I never knew you were such a weeper. What's to check? Years of campaigning, old matters long past, whoever's got the idle time to sort them out. Isn't it just that they're not of the Long Saber Battalion? If they're not, they're not!"

That said, the Emperor turned to Meng Dingchen, who stood some way off without a word: "Fifth Lord."

Meng Dingchen came over: "Your servant is here."

The Emperor said, smiling: "Go and bring me young general Tan's warhorse."

The wailing below stopped at once. Who knew what wild notions ran through the crowd. They all turned to look at Tan Weitong, and Tan Weitong, who knew what wild notions ran through him, went white about the lips. He looked at the Emperor, then at Chen Dasheng and the rest, and even cast round for rescue, but there was only His Majesty here, and these men who'd forced their way in...

What did His Majesty mean to do? Have him fight these monsters himself?

While his mind was still running wild, Meng Dingchen led Tan Weitong's warhorse over.

This warhorse of Tan Weitong's was of no common stock. It was a first-grade warhorse sent up this year from the Six Steeds Horse Farm below, by the name of Red-Flame Dragon, said to carry the dilu blood and to run a thousand li a day without trouble.

When Red-Flame Dragon was led over and they saw it clearly, a low murmur of admiration went round. It was a first-rate warhorse at a glance, beautiful in its very bearing, its whole body vermilion without a single stray hair, its frame long, its build fine, the muscle even all over. Led along, it came proud, every step firm, its hooves striking with a springing force.

Even the Emperor, who'd seen fine horses beyond counting, let a flash of regret cross his eyes, and praised it to Tan Weitong: "A fine horse!"

Tan Weitong's lips still trembled, and then he heard the Emperor say to those few worthless men: "Today I'll not let you kill men, but killing a horse, can you do that?"

Chen Dasheng looked at the horse: "A beast this good, a pity to kill it."

But the Emperor said with a smile: "It's nothing. The Tan house is never short a beast or two. I only ask you, do you dare?"

Chen Dasheng nodded: "A small thing."

And so, willing or not, the whole crowd came together at the open ground at the mouth of the Tan army camp, the place for shows of force.

Fear in his heart, Tan Weitong still held himself up and said to the Emperor: "Your Majesty, for old soldiers to kill a horse, isn't that a simple thing?"

But the Emperor tucked his hands in his sleeves and said, smiling: "Mm, simple? I don't suppose you've ever seen how your Second Uncle's Long Saber Battalion kills a horse."

Outside the fence, Chen Dasheng and the others slowly unwound their head-cloths and wrapped them over their faces, leaving only the two eyes, and they stripped down to nothing but a single filthy loincloth.

Zhang Minwang said, all a-tremble: "This, what sort of decency is this?"

But the Emperor said with a smile: "How is it not decent? They wrap their heads against the choking blood. No amount of clothes would be enough to waste, so from the very first day they never took up the habit of wearing armor."

Zhang Minwang was a talker, and asked, curious: "Your Majesty, this old servant sees these few are solid enough of body, how is it they've so few wounds? Look at Lord Meng and the others, covered in scars..."

The Emperor said, his eyes calm: "A Long Saber man goes out to live or die. What does he want with scars?" And he looked round at the Tan sons and nephews: "In a moment, open your eyes wide, all of you, and look well for me! Remember every one of you! Remember what the Long Saber Battalion is! What the Tan family's Long Saber Battalion is! Just you try shutting your eyes, I'll cut every one of you to a thousand pieces!!"

Chen Dasheng and the others took a ragged cloth cuirass from their bundle and wound it roughly round their waists.

This thing had once covered half a body. Only now there was but half of it left.

Guan Si'er looked scornfully at the horse in the distance: "Chief, Big Brother, you want us to kill just that one? You could go alone, no?"

Chen Dasheng rolled his neck, and said in a flat voice: "We've a new master now. Today let every stroke of the work be a fine one, let our new master save some face."

"Oh!"

And so, barefoot, their battle-won bronze flesh bared, taut with half a life's stored fury, they walked slowly, unhurried, to the middle of the ground and formed a row, each with a saber held one-handed behind his back. Chen Dasheng fixed his eyes on the horse. The six behind him each watched a different quarter, left and right and rear.

Meng Dingchen saw them ready and nodded to the Emperor.

The Emperor made a sign, and Meng Dingchen suddenly drew from his waist a gleaming long saber and brought it down hard across the horse's rump, and there came a thunk.

The horse's blood flew. It gave a long scream and reared onto its forelegs, and, mad as a thing possessed, a rolling cloud of red and black fury, swept straight at the seven men.

Someone round about cried out, and before anyone could react, the horse had reached Chen Dasheng and the others, and, meeting a wall of men, sprang with both legs into the air and came down to trample the row of them.

In one instant, one blink, one flash!

First the ears heard a low, heavy grunt: "Hup!!"

There was no anger in that grunt, no complaint. It was only like the boat-haulers on the rapids of the two rivers, bent double against cliff and crag, dragging a ship a hundred, a thousand times their own weight, forward. Never a force too great, never a force too small, every step firm, not one slip.

It was the work of an instant, and every ear together caught a sound, unhurried, like sharp shears through a bolt of coarse cloth, hchh, crisp and light, gone through the ear in a breath.

And in their eyes: the horse's two hooves in the air, the head of the blade's body sliding, already come beneath the horse, his saber somehow brought from behind to the front, gripped now in both hands.

His body dropped a little, a flick, a whish. A white light split the air, and the horse, before everyone's eyes, its waist cut through in a breath, split one into two, two into four, four into eight into sixteen...

The horse was dismembered in the air, hewn apart clean and even, and only as the horseflesh settled to the ground, cushioned soft, did they hear the hiss of spurting blood, and even the horse's low, faint last gasp, and then no sound at all...

The few old blades didn't look at the pieces, but slowly sheathed their sabers, let out the breath they'd held, and gave a low, drawn-out cry:

"Haa...!"

Like the stale breath of the bedclothes, breathed out at a winter morning on stepping from the house, an odd freshness to it.

A mighty killing-aura swept across the ground. Someone plopped down flat, and a smell of piss rose slowly on the air.

The Martial Emperor Yang Zao watched the old blades, his own heart stirred past bearing. However many times he saw it, he was stirred past bearing, feeling a beauty he couldn't name, a clean sharpness he couldn't name. A scene like this was worth two jin of wine to him, and a whole battle's war-drums beaten through.

He grabbed up the stunned Tan Weitong and hauled him before himself: "Go back and tell your father, say I said this: I'll not pursue it. Let him wipe his old backside clean, and if he can't learn from his uncle, at least look a bit like a man! He's dull, he's a fool, let him go ask your grandfather what the art of using men means! And open your eyes wide and look again: this is your Second Uncle's Long Saber Battalion. You didn't want it, now it's mine."

A sweep of cheering burst up like spring thunder.

Out on the ground, Guan Si'er breathed out his stale breath and asked his chief quietly: "Big Brother! Big Brother? Is our master pleased?"

Chen Dasheng, a smile in his eyes, gave an "Mm."

Then Guan Si'er slung his saber, bent, and scooped up a rack of the horse's rib meat, and called to the Emperor from a good way off: "Y-Your Majesty the Emperor! Can this humble one have this piece of horse meat?!"

It was that hour. He was hungry.