Page 64 of A Song to Drown Rivers
Zixu made a choked sound and said with barely held composure, “I implore you, Your Majesty, if you would just let me speak—”
“Aren’t you already speaking?” Fuchai said, annoyed.
Zixu flinched, but continued on. “There have been… strange movements along the Yue borders.” My heart thundered in my chest. I listened harder, mouth dry, latching on to his every word. “We have no proof of what they’re planning, but I’m certain they’re planningsomething. It will not do to just lie here, waiting for the enemy to spring upon us. We have the advantage right now—we must use it and take swift action, conquer them before they can attack us—”
“The Yue again?” Fuchai interrupted. He sounded unimpressed, unconcerned. Still, I held my breath. “Zixu, this is getting dull. We’ve been through this conversation before, and I’ve made my decision perfectly clear. We are not to attack the Yue, and they will not attack us. The days of war are over.”
A dark green vein twitched in Zixu’s temple. He bowed impossibly lower, his face almost pressed to the floor. “I wish that were the case too, Your Majesty. Believe me. Who doesn’t dreamof peace? But Goujian is far more complex a character than you give him credit for—”
“You just said yourself you have no proof they will attack.”
“No proofyet.” Again his eyes snapped to me. “But I am confident that I will be able to find it, sooner or later.”
Fear sawed at my stomach. I could not give him time to collect proof, to build up a stronger case for conquest. If I was to be rid of him, then it would have to be right here. Tonight.
“Your Majesty,” I ventured, making my voice tremble. “Don’t be angry with him. I’m sure he has his… personal reasons for wanting to usher in another war. That is understandable.”
Zixu looked at me with such vehemence I did not have to pretend to flinch. I was half-certain he would forget his position and mine and simply strangle me. “How dare you—I have no personal reasons at all. Everything I say is for the good of the kingdom—”
“Is it really?” Fuchai regarded him coolly.
“Of course,” Zixu cried. “Your Majesty knows better than anyone how long I have served you, and your father before you—”
Fuchai’s eyes flashed. “Yes, how can I forget? What a loyal servant you were to him.”
A dark silence fell over the room.
For a moment I feared Zixu’s courage would fail him, that he would cower and crawl outside before the king had the chance to do anything. But Wu Zixu was a stubborn man and a faithful minister. He didn’t move.
“We must attack, Your Majesty,” he whispered. “If you are to grant any request of mine, let it be this. Your father had devoted his life to building this kingdom for you. Will you really tarnish his legacy by letting the enemy—those who brought about his death—invade our walls? Your father would never have allowed such a thing.”
Perhaps another king might have been moved by this speech.But I understood Fuchai in a way his ministers did not; I had kissed him in the moonlight, had coaxed his worst fears, his insecurities, his weaknesses, out of him night after night. He resented his father as much as he respected him, and any comparisons between the two of them was a sure way to erode what little patience he possessed.
“Enough,” Fuchai snapped, standing to his full height and looming over the minister in all his power, his black silk robes spilling around him like a great shadow. It was a scene for the legends: the two figures, one stooped as low as one could go, the other towering above him, the yellow candles flickering in the background, the painted murals of the kingdom’s tumultuous, blood-soaked history unrolling on either side of them. I watched Zixu from a distance, knowing how this would play out, and felt a thorn of something almost like pity.
Perhaps history would remember him as a hero. But a hero to many was still a villain to one.
“You are obsessed with the Yue,” Fuchai said, taking one forceful step closer, the movement like that of a predator advancing. “You speak of dangers that do not exist. All my other ministers disagree with you.”
“You mean Bo Pi?” Wu Zixu lifted his head, his eyes bloodshot. He had never looked so young, so desperate, so human. “Bo Pi cannot be trusted, Your Majesty. He is—”
“So I am not to trust anybody except you, is that right?” Fuchai demanded. “I remember you said the same thing of the Yue minister Fanli.” I tried not to react, even as the sound of his name cut my heart open. “And what happened in the end? You wounded him for nothing, and his blood dirtied the palace lanes. It made a bigger mess than it was worth.”
“That’s what you think now,” Zixu said, his voice low and throttled with urgency. “That’s what they want you to think. But you never know, in the future—”
“Silence.”
Zixu shuffled forward on his knees, then lowered his head so it was pressed to the floor right before Fuchai’s boots. My stomach swooped, my shock barely concealed in time. It was the ultimate gesture of submission, like a dog rolling over to display its belly.
“Please,” Zixu whispered. His dark eyes shone with—tears, I realized, startled. I should have been enjoying this. I should have relished every detail. But it was also discomfiting, seeing a man of such high status be brought so low, down on his knees and begging his king. Knowing that it had everything to do with me. “You’re making a terrible mistake. That woman has poisoned your mind.” He pointed at me. I stared back with feigned innocence. “You are not thinking clearly. Ever since she came—”
“Speak another bad word about her again,” Fuchai said quietly, his voice ringing with danger, “and I will stitch your lips shut myself.”
But it was as if Zixu had been possessed by another force, something that propelled him to continue walking the path to his doomed fate. He persisted in a rush, like he already knew he was running out of time. “It’s not too late—Your Majesty, if we rally our troops tonight, we can still—”
“Zixu,” Fuchai interrupted. His expression was strange, unreadable, his tone almost gentle. He crouched down too, and in a rapid movement, seized Wu Zixu’s face. It might have looked intimate, like he was going to close the distance any second now and kiss him, if not for the points where his fingers dug into the flesh of Zixu’s cheeks like claws, applying such pressure the surrounding skin went white. “For years, I have let you stay by my side. I have tolerated you, and humored you, and given you much of what you’ve asked—”
“And I am honored, Your Majesty,” Zixu choked out, with an emotion that seemed torn between hatred and raw, wretched devotion. It was the devotion of a believer who would follow his god to the destruction of the very earth. Who would caress the hand that strangled him. “I wish—only to serve you—”
