“Yes, and Prince Darolin was a babe in arms at the time. So would have been about forty when the Hibiscus Emperor died. He must be ninety now. He tried to slap my ass once, the lecher, but I was quicker and I slapped his ass first, which amused him more. But I can bore you for hours with tales of the palace, the more lurid the better.”

“Can you?” Kem asked excitedly. “If only Joef were here. He would love it.”

Xilsi laughed. “Joef and I would close down the wineshops with our gossiping.”

“Is it true the Peony Emperor had three wives and four husbands?” Kem asked.

“Are you referring to the famous sex manuals?”

“Sex manuals?” cried Ipis. “Are there really imperial sex manuals? Kem, you are blushing!”

“This is a subject best left to the classroom,” said Xilsi. “Not that I haven’t leafed through copies with the greatest interest. I was much intrigued by the turnip sculptures.”

Kem awkwardly cleared his throat. Elen puckered up her face so as not to laugh.

Xilsi grinned. “Ask me another one, just not sex manuals or bedroom secrets.”

“What about the Scalt War in the reign of the Orchid Emperor?”

“Oho! General Sakor is one of my ancestors!”

“The legendary hero who carried the snake-headed spear?”

“The very one! Let me tell you how he got that spear. It’s not in any of the official histories.”

The friendly conversation eased Elen’s heart. She could manage anything as long as she knew Kem was going to be all right.

Xilsi’s story was a long and convoluted tale. When they halted at midday to change horses and use the latrine, Elen switched places with Kem so the lad didn’t have to crane his neck to ask yet more questions.

As Elen crammed in beside Ipis, the young warden sighed. “I’m going to die of boredom.”

“Don’t you like history?”

“No. I like routine. I like knowing all the pieces of each thing we need to do, in the order we need to do it. Histories and chronicles are too messy, bits of truth amid half-told lies. No one agrees on anything.”

The words made Elen think of standing on the shore of the Pall beside the haunt. You are a story, he had said, as if it were a gift, a treasure. But Ipis was right too: Elen was a messy story, half-told lies and fragments of truth, patched garments and holes she never meant to fill. She had to figure out how to respect Ao’s demand that they never speak of the past. Or was it El who had shut that door?