Zhang laid a finger on the map, on Yong'an's tiny square.
"Yong'an sits here," he said. "At a crossing that feeds three prefectures. Its people still think they are Qi. Their 'Lady Road' tells them they are not. If we crush her outright, we risk turning her into a story. Stories cross rivers. But if she were to… overreach. If she sent her spar-rows"—he tasted the foreign shape of the word—"into towns that answer nominally to Xia. If she gave your Emperor a clear excuse…"
Ji Lu did not let his body show his alarm. The air itself seemed to thin.
"You propose," the envoy said slowly, "to… encourage this 'Road' to trouble our side of the river. Then you may present yourself as the reasonable partner: Qi asking humbly that Xia join in putting down a shared threat."
Zhang spread his hands. "We both have unwanted embers on our doorstep," he said. "Better to stamp together than to argue whose robe is smoking."
The envoy considered.
"Ren Kanyu will not like needless provocation," he said.
"Ren Kanyu will obey," Zhang answered. "He serves your Emperor. Your Emperor will accept any story that lets him put his heel on a new kind of law without appearing the aggressor."
"And if this Road is not so foolish?" the envoy asked. "If they refuse to step into your trap?"
Zhang's smile chilled. "Then I will provide them with an opportunity to look brave."
He turned to Ji Lu. "You wrote of Haojin," he said. "A law-house there. Sparrows on a pillar."
"Yes, Excellency," Ji Lu said carefully.
"Haojin is a ferry town on both our maps," Zhang continued. "Too small to bother a court. Large enough to kill quietly. We send a minor tax patrol there. Young, zealous men who have learned that the word 'seditious' tastes good. We tell them to press. To seize food in that hall. To make enough noise that the Road must either yield its law or defend it."
The envoy's eyes gleamed, shark-bright. "If they yield, your satrapy shrinks," he said. "If they defend…"
"If they defend," Zhang said softly, "and someone dies under that sparrow, we have 'armed rebellion' in writing. In a place that touches your river."
He moved his finger from Haojin to the border line.
"Then," he said, "you, honoured envoy, may carry to your Emperor a report full of words he understands: 'incitement,' 'insurrection,' 'contagion.' He may send Ren Kanyu to 'restore order' on his side. I will move on mine. Between us, we slice this Road before it learns to walk."
Ji Lu's knuckles whitened on his own knee.
"Excellency," he said carefully, "if your patrol is too zealous, Haojin burns. The river traffic chokes. Refugees run. They will run somewhere."
"Roads are for movement," Zhang said. "Let them run. They will flee to the nearest place that promises law and full bowls. Yong'an."
He looked back at the map, seeing not lines but trajectories.
"When enough of them crowd that sparrow city," he murmured, "even Ren Kanyu will have to admit it is more than a buffer."
The envoy of Xia bowed.
"I will carry your 'concerns' to my Emperor," he said. "He likes men who provide problems with convenient solutions."
"And you, Ji Lu," Zhang said. "Return to your office. Write your report again, this time without the word 'contained.' Xiang in the Records Office will send copies to the necessary hands."
Ji Lu bowed a third time and backed away, heart pounding.
He had thought himself cautious when he wrote "tolerance." Now he saw it for what it was: a narrow plank over a wider pit.
As he passed the pillars, his hand brushed the plaster. It was cool, rough under the lacquer. Ash shifted imperceptibly beneath his fingers, as if the ghosts within objected to the shapes being drawn above them.
In the archive, later, he found Wang Yu staring at a requisition order.
"Trouble?" Ji Lu asked.
Wang Yu lifted the slip. The characters were precise, impersonal.
To Captain Du of Haojin: Proceed to enforce Regent's decree on unauthorized law-houses. Seize any seditious tablets. Detain ringleaders resisting lawful inspection.
"They want your sparrows," Wang Yu said.
Ji Lu's throat dried. "And they are sending a man who is not entirely a fool," he said.
Wang Yu's eyes flicked to him. "Can he be made lazier?" he asked. "Or clumsier?"
"Perhaps," Ji Lu said. "But the order exists. When it reaches Du's hand, he will be watched."
He thought of Ziyan, her calm in the square. Of Sun Wei, shoulders bent under honest sacks. Of the boy with the blanket.
"How long to Haojin?" he asked.
"On a good horse," Wang Yu said, "three days. On a tired pigeon, one."
Ji Lu looked at the order. At his own fingers. At the shelves.
"Then," he said slowly, "we make the pigeon stubborn."
Wang Yu's brows rose. "You mean to send warning."
"I mean," Ji Lu said, "to make sure when Captain Du stands at that threshold, he knows more than the word 'seditious'."
Wang Yu studied him.
"You'll die for this," he said quietly. "You know that."
Ji Lu swallowed. "If I do," he said, "make sure the record names the right crime."
He reached for a scrap of silk.
To the Lady of Yong'an, he wrote, the brush shaking only a little. Your stone at Haojin has attracted more than fish. The Regent means to use it as a whetstone. He sends Du with orders written in the word 'sedition.' Xia watches for an excuse. If Haojin burns, you will gain martyrs and lose a door. If it yields, the Road will learn what it can bear.
He hesitated, then added:
If you can make your law bend there without breaking, you may yet keep both hall and river. If not… remember that not all men wearing the dragon are deaf.
He sealed it with no name, only a tiny, crooked sparrow.
Wang Yu took it, fingers brushing his.
"Careful," he said. "If you start thinking like them, they'll decide they don't need you."
"They never did," Ji Lu said.
The pigeon launched into a pale sky.