one befitting the greatness

of your accomplishment?”

“We do not want an arch at all.”

“If Your Majesty is concerned about the cost,

rest assured that the reparations rendered

by the Innish more than suffice—”

“No. No arch. No monument. Leave us.”

The minister bowed three more times on his way out.

Tsung, captain of Xau’s guards,

who had watched in silence,

said quietly,

though it was not his place to say it,

“The minister thought to please you.”

“We know.”

Xau took a blank sheet of paper,

glanced over at Tsung.

“Thank you.”

The king started to write,

stopped, looked at Tsung again.

“We should learn patience,

but the minister measures war

in ounces of gold.”

Tsung said nothing further,

neither that the Finance Minister

would be baffled by Xau’s disapproval,

nor that the capital was littered

with triumphal monuments,

nor that Xau needed rest.

In silence, Tsung stood

while the king wrote

in his own hand

(breaking tradition)

to the parents of a common foot soldier,

a handful of sentences

about their son Guo

and how he had died.

STABLES

In the stables,

King Xau found himself again,

or found the man

he might have been

if he had never been crowned,

never gone to war,

never led other men

to their deaths.

Half an hour at a time

squeezed between meetings

and training exercises,

the stables secured by his guards.

Only Khyert, once his stableboy,

inside to watch him groom Micha

or Pica or Narson or Romer,

to sit beside him on the feed sacks

breathing leather, manure, dust,

the scent of the horses.

Xau’s words already spent

on rice farmers, ministers,

ambassadors, advisors;

on irrigation, taxation,

alliances, strategy,

so that sometimes

he had no more

than a handful of words

for the boy—

Khyert, younger even than Xau,

turned fifteen that autumn.

But sometimes they spoke

at length about the horses,

both Xau’s own mounts

and the others in the stable,

about the condition of the pastures,

the chafing of a girth,

a horse off its feed,

while Khyert rubbed oil

into the saddles,

asking nothing of Xau,

then or later.

Xau listened

more than he spoke,

received more than he gave,

though he asked nothing of boy or horses

beyond their company,

but boy and horses alike offering him,

unasked and without restriction,

their hearts.

TRAINING: DARK

No reason to be afraid:

the courtyard so dark

King Xau couldn’t see the walls,

couldn’t see his own hands.

No reason to be afraid:

all eight of his guards

circled about him,

armed with sword, bow,

dagger, knife, staff, ji—

Xau barefoot in his pajamas,

weaponless,

cold and getting colder,

afraid,

though he should not have been—

“Begin.”

Tsung’s voice,

captain of Xau’s guards,

Tsung who had decided

it was time Xau learned

to fight in the dark

(though it would doubtless be months

before Tsung judged Xau ready

to actually fight).

Xau ran into freezing darkness,

trying to remember the size

of the courtyard,

trying to make out the walls,