"We greet Your Highness!"
The riders drew up several zhang before the carriage, reined in as one, and swung down from their saddles.
Out from among them came a man of forty-five or fifty — spare-featured, a thin beard at his chin, eyes bright with keen light. "Young Master!"
Wang Yu's mind turned once, and a name floated up from the files on Zhao Yu's life. He leapt down from the carriage at once. "Uncle Rong!"
Zhao Rong: adopted son of Zhao Yu's grandfather, sworn younger brother of the late prince Zhao Zheng, and grand steward of the Westguard Manor — the man who ran everything whenever Zhao Zheng was in seclusion or away.
"Home safe. That's all that matters." Zhao Rong let his smile show, then turned to Fang Shaobai and bowed with full respect. "Our thanks to the Sword in the Wine, Young Hero Fang, for escorting him all this way. The Westguard Manor, from its master to its gates, will not forget."
One "Sword in the Wine" and Fang Shaobai was beaming. "You are too courteous, elder. Brother Zhao and I were old friends at first sight — we call each other brother. This was simply my duty."
Zhao Rong's eyes flickered.
The Manor had received word the moment Wang Yu's party left the capital, and he had dispatched men to meet them on the road. But the party had moved fast — before his people were even in position came the news of Elder Yan's death by poison, and then of the party's disappearance.
By the time they surfaced again, Fang Shaobai was traveling at their side, and the whole procession was making straight for Longshan.
With Fang Shaobai present, the Manor's men had kept out of sight — some shadowing at a distance, others relaying word back — which was exactly how Zhao Rong had managed to ride out the instant they reached the city.
Truth be told, Zhao Rong knew Zhao Yu's character reasonably well, and Fang Shaobai was the finest of the Seven Great Sword Sects' entire generation. How those two could possibly have taken to each other at first meeting was beyond his power to imagine.
But it was excellent news, however it had happened!
Zhao Rong inclined his head — then turned to the lady in the carriage, put away his smile, and saluted with folded fists. "Greetings to the woman Top Scholar."
Li Yunxiu's eyes narrowed slightly.
Not greetings to Your Highness; not greetings to Madam. Greetings to the woman Top Scholar. Which was to say: the Manor did not yet acknowledge her as its princess consort.
A marriage bestowed by the emperor himself!
And there was the measure of the Westguard Manor's independence.
It was, in fact, exactly what she had expected. The Manor was warily hostile to the court by its very nature; of course they suspected her — the court's woman, planted at Zhao Yu's side to steer him, to reach for the Manor itself.
Nor, in fairness, were they wrong to.
What they didn't know was that this Wang Yu was no longer that Zhao Yu.
Li Yunxiu smiled a small smile, stepped down from the carriage on Ziling's arm, and bent in a graceful half-bow — matching Wang Yu's own greeting, word for word. "Greetings, Uncle Rong."
The address of family.
Zhao Rong's mouth gave a twitch. Perfectly courteous, perfectly poised — and carrying an emperor-bestowed title besides. Somehow she had made him the one who looked petty.
"Let's get you home first. The banquet's already laid," Zhao Rong said. "There's grape wine from the Western Regions — a few casks from the cellars, well worth the Young Hero's judgment."
Fang Shaobai's eyes lit. "Good!"
"Was it chilled?" Wang Yu put in.
Zhao Rong stopped short. "It was not."
Wang Yu waved a hand. "Send a rider ahead. Ice, and the wine in it — the taste improves."
"At once!" Zhao Rong answered, and detailed a rider back to the Manor with the order.
Two riders gave up their mounts to drive the carriage; Wang Yu and Fang Shaobai took the horses. The column passed through the gates of Longshan city — and Wang Yu, at long last, came home to the Westguard Manor that was his.
The Manor stood in the city's northwest corner: high walls, deep courts, grounds vast enough that the square before the main gate alone could have formed up a small army. Between two great red lanterns hung the name-board — WESTGUARD MANOR, four characters in a hand of ferocious strength, brushwork all edge and sinew: the calligraphy of Zhao Ling, Zhao Yu's grandfather, first Westguard Prince.
The main gates already stood open. Ranks of guards, servants, and maids lined both sides — and in front of them all stood a chubby young man wearing a whole festival's worth of delight on his face, while off at the gate's flank waited a beautiful girl in a moon-white, cloud-patterned gown that swept the ground.
"Brother Yu!" The chubby young man came at Wang Yu almost at a run. "Three years! I've missed you to death!"
Zhao Rong crossed the space in one stride and planted himself in the young man's path, growling through his teeth: "Say. Your. Highness."
"My son, Zhao Yingjie," he said over his shoulder. "He met the Young Master once in the capital, three years ago. His nature is incorrigibly..."
"Yingjie!" Wang Yu had already swung down, and was looking Zhao Yingjie up and down. "Fatter again?"
Zhao Yingjie drew himself up, the picture of wounded dignity. "Thinner! The day I heard Brother Yu was coming home, I thought of you morning and night, tossed and turned, couldn't sleep — I've wasted away by pounds!"
Zhao Rong suppressed, with visible effort, the urge to cover his face. He raked his son aside — clearing the view for a young lady who came forward, willow-graceful.
Wang Yu swallowed hard, heart knocking in wild little skips.
Not because she was lovely — though she was: a face out of a painting, eyes like moving water. It was because she appeared nowhere, nowhere at all, in the files he'd been given!
Am I supposed to know her?
Wang Yu stood very still, said nothing, and prepared to improvise.
Zhao Rong, an honest man, glanced once at Wang Yu, once at Li Yunxiu, and made the introduction himself. "Miss Qianqian. Your betrothed, Young Master — the future princess consort of the Westguard Manor. The old prince arranged it himself."
Wang Yu froze.
Something keen glinted through Li Yunxiu's eyes.
Fang Shaobai looked from Li Yunxiu to Qianqian and back — one bright-eyed as stars, elegant and utterly composed; the other soft-eyed and shrinking, the kind of fragile that begged protecting.
Mm. Where's my grape wine?
His hand drifted, all on its own, toward the gourd at his belt.
Qianqian came before them and dipped first toward Wang Yu, the smallest bow. "Brother Yu."
Then, before Wang Yu could so much as extend a hand, she had turned to Li Yunxiu. "Thank you, elder sister, for taking care of our prince all along the road."
Li Yunxiu raised her up gently. "You're too courteous, little sister. I am my husband's wife; bearing each other up is only my duty."
Qianqian's expression stayed soft as ever, and her question came out all innocence. "Elder sister and Brother Yu haven't yet bowed at the wedding altar, though... have you?"
Li Yunxiu smiled. "His Majesty bestowed the marriage with his own voice. All under heaven know it."
Four hands clasped; two pairs of eyes met. Wang Yu could have sworn he saw a crackle of lightning arc through the air between them.
Fang Shaobai uncorked his gourd and took a swallow he genuinely needed. Every word out of both women had a blade folded into it; just standing nearby made his skin itch. Wine. Wine helped.
"Ahem!" Zhao Rong coughed twice, breaking up the sisterly warmth. "Inside first, everyone."
***
The Westguard Manor's grounds ran wide. They had none of a Jiangnan garden's exquisite delicacy — theirs was the grand, open sweep of a northwestern park: carved beams and painted rafters a shade rough-hewn, flying eaves and bracketed towers built to overwhelm.
Wang Yu followed a knot of servants to a small courtyard along the Manor's flank.
"Your old rooms, Brother Yu — Dehe Lodge, same as ever." Zhao Yingjie had attached himself to Wang Yu's side, narrating cheerfully. "The old prince's main residence has been cleaned and made ready, but you'll want to hold the memorial rite before you move in."
"And Yunxiu?" Wang Yu asked instead of answering.
"Consort Li's been settled in the Red Willow Garden," Zhao Yingjie answered at once.
Wang Yu paused. "And Miss Qianqian?"
Zhao Yingjie grinned. "The Wild Goose Pavilion."
Wang Yu consulted the Manor's floor plan from his files. Dehe Lodge and the Wild Goose Pavilion sat on the Manor's east side — next door to each other. The Red Willow Garden lay on the west side, hard against Longyue Tower, where Zhao Rong and his son lived.
Wang Yu slid Zhao Yingjie a look. "What is this, burglar-proofing?"
"Well, obviously. The Li patriarch holds office at court, and Consort Li took the palace exam's top three — the emperor's own hand-picked choice."
And then, in the same breath, Zhao Yingjie was marveling: "That's the woman Top Scholar, famous across the realm! They say she stood in the Hall of Supreme Harmony and lectured the court on statecraft till famous ministers and generals couldn't find their own tongues. A talent of the empire's first water!"
Zhao Rong was Zhao Zheng's sworn brother, no blood relation; Zhao Yingjie was two years Zhao Yu's junior and had spent his childhood chasing him around these courtyards. Father and son were no threat to the Zhao line and closer to it than anyone — the innermost of the inner circle.
Which was why Zhao Yingjie said whatever he thought, no varnish. "But when you get down to it, Brother Yu wins this round. The old emperor wanted you so badly he gave a woman like that away in marriage!"
Wang Yu snorted. "And you're all terrified I'll lose my head over a pretty face and gift-wrap the Westguard Manor for the throne?"
Zhao Yingjie rubbed his hands, eyebrows waggling. "It'd never come to that. Now — if Brother Yu were to unleash his full glory, conquer Consort Li outright, and make her gladly bow her neck — the emperor out a wife and out his soldiers both — that would be best of all."
He sidled closer, conspiratorial to the tips of his ears. "As it happens, I keep a little passion incense on hand. Bliss powder too. Brother Yu, say the word..."
Something in Wang Yu's chest gave one traitorous thump.
"That is the woman Top Scholar. You'd try that on her and not lie awake waiting for the reckoning?" He crushed the flutter flat and snorted. "I will win her over on personal magnetism alone!"
Zhao Yingjie's thumb shot up, loud with admiration: "Brother Yu! Heroic!"
"And what's the story with this Qianqian?" Wang Yu moved to gathering intelligence on his own fiancée. "The old man suddenly finds me a bride, and I hear nothing about it?"
"Don't look at me!" Zhao Yingjie shook his head hard enough to rattle, shedding all responsibility in a single motion. "Miss Qianqian was brought home by the old prince personally, announced by the old prince personally. The whole Manor can testify."
"When was this?"
"Half a year ago, about!"
Wang Yu nodded slowly. "The old man died awfully tidily. Did he leave any word?"
Zhao Yingjie opened his mouth, shut it, and dropped his voice. "There's something off about how the old prince died. My father knows something — he won't tell me what. I think he means to tell you alone."
While they talked, a handful of maids had changed Wang Yu's clothes and set his collar straight.
He stood before a full-length bronze mirror: a prince's everyday robe, dark ground worked with gold thread and silver borders, a tiger descending its mountain embroidered across the chest. The man in the mirror had sword-line brows and eyes like stars — every inch the young lord of legend.
Not bad. This role came with excellent production values.
***
Back in the reception hall, Zhao Rong sat keeping Fang Shaobai company at the side seats.
Great households ran on precision timing: the moment Wang Yu entered, maids appeared at left and right to usher in Li Yunxiu and Qianqian.
Li Yunxiu had changed into a soft gauze gown of hibiscus rose, a smile at the corner of her mouth — understated, serene. Ziling followed at her shoulder, chin tilted, every inch the great house's proud senior maid.
Qianqian came alone, in a moon-white pleated skirt figured with faint blossoms, willow-slender, swaying like a line of verse — and her eyes stole toward Wang Yu as she came, shy and sparkling at once, pitiably lovely.
Wang Yu nodded to each of them in turn, then hastily waved Zhao Rong and Fang Shaobai back into their seats as both men rose.
"Everyone's tired from the road. First — we eat!"