A long fumbling delay

while Gan lit a lamp.

Li blinked back brightness.

“You look rough,” said Gan,

foraging in a saddlebag.

He pulled out a bruised pear,

gave it to Li. “Here. Eat something,

then I’ll get you cleaned up.”

The bruised pear in Li’s hands.

He stared down at it.

“Eat, Captain,” said Gan.

“I’m not captain anymore.

I stepped down.”

Another way Li had failed Xau,

by refusing Keng, Xau’s son.

“You’ll always be Xau’s captain,” said Gan.

“And he wants you safe.”

“Wanted,” corrected Li.

“Wants,” said Gan. “I didn’t know

how I was going to find you,

but once I crossed the Guang Yun river

the horses led me straight to you.”

The patter of rain, Gan watching him.

Li turned Gan’s words over,

trying to find in them

the proof he needed.

Tears streamed down Li’s face.

He took a bite of pear.

THE CAT’S EPILOGUE

Peace, war, treaties

mean nothing to her.

The new king in her rooms:

that is significant.

The new king is noisier, disruptive,

displaces her from the desk.

He offers her tidbits,

but they are the wrong tidbits.

Where is her egg yolk?

The pale chicken flesh?

She is too old for change,

too old to seek new territory.

Instead she withholds her favors,

declines to be touched,

retreats behind a cupboard.

The new king, contrite,

crouches on hands and knees,

proffers water, milk, crab meat.

He has not groomed recently,

yet his face is wet.

It is nothing to her.

She stays behind the cupboard,

resolute.

Comes then a softness,

a warmth that is not sunlight.

She neither sees nor smells him,

yet the old king is near,

his steady calmness,

his love.

She inches out,

rubs her head, briefly,

against the new king’s legs.

A month before order

is fully restored,

the new king trained,

the egg yolk hers again.

TWO WEEKS

In the sixteenth year of Keng’s reign,

at the start of summer,

two weeks with his twins.

Two weeks stolen from crown and court,

from ambassadors, ministers, merchants,

ceremonies, inspections, reviews,

the never-ending negotiations.

Incredible how a land at peace

demanded so much attention.

Two weeks camping by a lake,

the twins, seven years old,

learning to swim, to fish.

Nya, his daughter, solemnly teaching

her brother to fletch an arrow,

a skill her Aunt Ying had taught her.

Riding, running, skimming stones;

water battles in the warm lake.

Shan, his son, hair braided

like a miniature horse warrior,

forever asking questions:

“Who’s the strongest guard?”

“How do horses sleep standing up?”

“Why don’t rocks burn?”

Evenings round the fire.

Fresh fish, rice, dried plums,

the guards singing,

Nya and Shan crowding Keng’s lap,

the smell of smoke caught in their hair.

On the last night,

Keng took the blankets from the tent,

laid them on a patch of grass.

He stretched out on his back

beneath the patterned stars,

a child on either side.

Spun stories about talking tigers

until Nya fell asleep.

Down near the water