“Halt!” Li bowed to the king.

“Xau, take turns sparring one-on-one

with Leong and Atun.”

Li gestured the remaining six guards to him,

looked at each man in turn.

“You cannot defend the king

if you are dead,

cannot fight effectively

unless you can concentrate.

If there is anything that

you cannot set aside when you fight,

you must deal with it now. Today.”

Silence.

Gan broke it. “How?

We can’t talk to the king.

He doesn’t want to speak about her.”

Three days since the queen died,

yet Xau had not spoken about Shazia

except to his children;

had not slept except for the night

Leong gave him a sleeping draft;

had not wept, yet his grief naked.

Li stared at Gan.

“If you can find no other way,

then you must speak to Xau.”

Gan’s face almost as anguished

as the king’s, but he nodded,

walked over to Xau,

waited for the king

to finish sparring with Leong.

Li couldn’t hear what Gan said,

but he saw the king set his hand,

briefly,

on Gan’s shoulder.

A stillness in the five men with Li,

then first Tai Seng, and then Dao,

and Chong, and Wen Xun, and Shuen

went to the king.

After,

when they were done,

Li set two of the guards on watch,

dismissed the others,

and sparred with the king himself,

neither of them speaking,

Li using a dagger against the king’s sword

so that they were more evenly matched,

Xau struggling nonetheless,

but stepping to keep Li

out of dagger-reach,

perhaps forgetting,

for a moment or two,

anything beyond the placement

of hand and foot,

the changing positions

of sword and dagger.

Little else Li could do for Xau

but to stay near him,

which he did,

fourteen hours a day

for the next six weeks;

speaking rarely,

and then mostly of small matters,

the shape of a tree,

a hawk in the sky;

Li at the king’s side

the one time he wept.

UNDONE

“How would you punish him?”

demanded King Xau, staring down

from the massive dragon throne

upon the gray-haired woman

kneeling before him.

“A beating? A caning?”

The woman raised her head.

If she was intimidated by the king,

by the marbled magnificence of the room,

by the armed menace of the guards,

she did not show it.

“Your Majesty is grieving.”

“Irrelevant,” snapped Xau.

She looked straight at him

without dropping her gaze.

“Your Majesty has many other concerns.

Your Majesty may have overlooked

your son’s age.

Prince Chye is only four—”

“Almost five,” said Xau,

hardening his features.

“Old enough to be disciplined.”

“Old enough to be reprimanded,

not beaten,” she said quietly,

no defiance on her face,

merely dissent,

a dissent Xau had despaired

of ever finding.

Hard to argue against a king.

Of the twenty-two previous applicants

for the position as senior amah

to Xau’s children,

not one had dared oppose him.

Xau leaned forward.

“And what age would be old enough?

Six years? Eight?”

“Your Majesty, some would say six,