TVisTV Book 4: Chapter 32 (RAW) (Patreon)

Chapter 32 - Ten Thousand Flowers

When somebody challenges you, fight back. Be brutal, be yough.

- Donald Trump

Seraphina de Sariens had hired the entire teahouse.

Not merely the upper floor, nor the private balcony overlooking the Avenue of Heavenly Peace, but the kitchens, storerooms, inner courtyard, side rooms, and every table from the entrance to the rooftop pavilion. This was not because she required them per se, but rather it was because she did not require anyone else to disturb her.

The owner of the House of Ten Thousand Fragrances had initially attempted to explain that the day of the Flower General’s victory parade would be the most profitable in the establishment’s history. Every seat had been reserved with merchants having paid deposits months in advance, minor officials calling in favors, and even several wealthy families had offered increasingly obscene sums for the upper balconies.

Seraphina had listened patiently. Then she had offered him more money than the teahouse could reasonably earn in three years, ending the negotiations shortly thereafter. Money could not purchase everything, but it could purchase privacy, silence, compliance, and an unobstructed view of one’s rivals. 

Now, Seraphina sat upon the finest balcony of the teahouse beneath a painted awning, looking down upon the broad avenue as Tianhua prepared to welcome its victorious heroine.

The balcony projected above the street from the third floor, supported by red-painted brackets carved into clouds and cranes. Silk curtains had been drawn back to either side, leaving the entire road open before her. A low lacquered table had been set with porcelain cups, sweet bean cakes, candied lotus seeds, thin pastries dusted with sugar, and a pot of tea steeped from fine, fragrant leaves.

Desdemona lounged beside her with the satisfied air of a cat that had acquired someone else’s cushion. Wen Meilin sat more properly on Seraphina’s other side, hands folded within her sleeves, though her eyes returned again and again to the avenue below.

Haze had taken up a place farther back, where she could see without being seen too clearly. Miriam stood behind her mistress, ready to pour tea, adjust a cushion, or perform any of the other duties at her lady’s command.

Frest had been stationed downstairs with several of the Carcaronne Knights. It was not that Seraphina expected trouble. The capital had filled the avenue with enough soldiers to discourage all but the most dedicated assassin. However, like any good person in a position of real wealth and power, you could never be too sure.

Tia hovered invisibly somewhere above the awning. Kiwi occupied the roof ridge, his three eyes watching the crowd with avian suspicion. Spike had been left behind at the Spring Palace after the young girl had explained, with considerable firmness, that this was not his parade, and no, he could not kill the local citizenry because they smelled odd.

The Avenue of Heavenly Peace had been transformed with Imperial soldiers. They stood shoulder to shoulder along either side of the road, holding back the enormous, jubilant crowd. They wore polished helmets, dark lamellar armor, red sashes, and expressions of such disciplined severity that one might have mistaken the day for an execution.

Behind them, the people of Tianhua had gathered. Merchants stood in embroidered robes beside apprentices wearing plain cotton. Scholars craned their necks over the shoulders of laborers. Old women occupied stools brought from home, while children sat upon walls, shoulders, barrels, windowsills, and any other surface their parents had failed to prevent them from climbing.

Every balcony was full, and every rooftop that could safely bear human weight had acquired spectators. A few roofs that plainly could not bear such weight had acquired them as well, resulting in more than a few accidents.

Colored cloth hung from windows and stretched between buildings in long, streaming ribbons. Red lanterns swung beneath the eaves despite the brightness of the morning. Banners embroidered with flowers, dragons, and double-headed eagles snapped in the mild spring wind.

The southern gardens had been stripped almost bare for the occasion. Baskets of peach blossoms, chrysanthemums, camellias, peonies, and early roses had been distributed among the crowd. Other flowers had been brought from glasshouses, temple gardens, noble estates, and provinces further south where spring had arrived weeks earlier. Even now, savvy sellers moved along the route with broad wicker trays, selling bundles of petals to those who had arrived insufficiently prepared to display their patriotic affection.

“This is rather excessive,” Desdemona observed, selecting a candied lotus seed from a small porcelain bowl.

“No,” Meilin rebutted quietly. “Not for her.”

Desdemona glanced toward her. “You say that as though she has returned from slaying a Dragon.”

Meilin’s expression tightened slightly. “She saved the capital from believing it might need to defend itself. That can be nearly as impressive.” 

Seraphina just smiled into her tea as the first note of the great ceremonial horns reached them from somewhere beyond the western gate. The sound was deep and long, rolling between the buildings like distant thunder. 

It was the kind of sound that Spike would have taken for a challenge, making the blonde girl glad that she had refrained from bringing him along. And with that sound, the crowd changed. The masses stilled.

Now those sounds thinned, and heads turned toward the gate as the beat of the drums began.

Boom.

The cups upon the table trembled.

Boom.

Seraphina found herself sitting slightly straighter.

The sound multiplied. Great war drums joined smaller marching drums, building layer upon layer until their rhythm filled the avenue. Cymbals answered in brilliant clashes, bronze bells rang, and reed pipes rose above them in a piercing melody of triumph.

At the head of the procession came the heralds of the Ministry of Rites. They wore red and black robes and rode white horses whose bridles had been decorated with golden tassels. Each carried a long staff hung with bronze rings that chimed as the horses moved. Behind them marched officials bearing tablets engraved with the names of the victorious army, the provinces it had protected, and the glorious mercy of the Jade Dragon Throne.

Mercy, Seraphina thought, was an interesting choice of word for burying thousands of men alive.

Then came dancers dressed as heavenly maidens, their sleeves so long that they flowed around them like streams of colored water. They spun and turned beneath clouds of petals released from wicker baskets by attendants walking beside the route. 

The crowd cheered politely, but Seraphina secretly thought she could do better. 

This prompted her to, naturally, compare herself to the Flower General.

She had entered Tianhua behind musicians and banners, with flowers scattered beneath the wheels of her carriage. The city had whispered of auspiciousness as Spike drew her through the gates. They had bowed to the Kirin, marveled at the barbarian princess, and stared at the wounded survivors of the battle among the Pillars.

It had been magnificent, and, Seraphina was not too proud to admit, had been quite pleased. Yet as she looked down upon the celebrations below, she began to suspect that magnificence, like beauty, was a quality best appreciated until someone more magnificent arrived.

Behind the dancers marched the standards—hundreds of them. The first bore the Imperial dragon upon fields of green and silver. The next carried the double-headed eagle of the old legions. Then came the banners of the eastern provinces, the cavalry commands, the Iron Legions, and the many auxiliary formations that had joined Fan Xiwei’s campaign.

Some were immaculate. Others had been torn by arrows, fire, blades, or simply weather. Their edges hung in ragged strips. Dark stains marked the cloth. One had been pierced so many times that the design upon it could barely be discerned. The damaged standards drew a louder cheer than the perfect ones.

Seraphina’s eyes narrowed by the smallest degree.

After them came soldiers bearing the captured relics of Enkarn’s horde. One group carried an enormous wooden standard crowned with three bear skulls, and the crowd roared its hatred at the sight of it.

Rotten fruit flew from somewhere below. A stone followed, striking one of the skulls and knocking loose a tooth. The soldiers carrying it did not so much as flinch.

Seraphina rested her cheek lightly against one hand.

This was truly the end of Enkarn’s great saga, then. The man had crossed mountains in winter, broken Imperial armies, burned his way through entire provinces, and marched toward Tianhua to slay a Dragon and win her hand. Now the remnants of his defeat were being carried through the capital as stage dressing for another person’s triumph.

It was almost sad in a way. A smaller part of her, the tiny voice of doubt, was not so sure that it was truly the end of her would-be suitor.

“He did all of that for you, did he not?” Desdemona asked sweetly.

Meilin turned toward Seraphina, and Haze stopped pretending not to listen.

“I do not know what you are talking about,” Seraphina replied coolly. “But, what I do know is that men often confuse the reasons for their own actions.”

Her friend looked her in the eyes, hard emeralds against deep brown. “That is not a denial.”

The blonde girl shrugged. “Why should I deny the foolishness of a dead man?”

A sudden surge of cheers rolled down the avenue before Desdemona could answer.

The first true soldiers now appeared. They came in disciplined ranks, twenty abreast, wearing full suits of dark steel armor. Heavy rectangular shields rested upon their shoulders, each painted with the Imperial dragon. Their helmets concealed most of their faces behind cheek guards and low brows. Short swords hung at their hips, while long spears rose above them in a forest of steel. 

These were the Iron Legions, and they marched in absolute rhythm, boots striking the fitted stones in a single unbroken beat. These were the men who had closed around Enkarn’s warriors. These were the walls against which the tribal charge had finally broken, and their armor bore the scars of that battle.

Bitten by batte, they were not a pretty lot, and some marched with bandaged hands or stiffened legs. One man had even lost an eye. But the crowd did cheer them all the more for it. Flowers fell from every window. Petals caught upon helmets, shields, and spear shafts. Men held children above their heads so they could see. Veterans in the crowd raised clenched fists or struck hands against their chests in salute.

The Iron Legionaries did not break formation, but Seraphina saw their faces beneath their helmets. Among the grimness, some smiled. Some wept over the war they had brought with them. One soldier turned his head when an old woman cried out a name, and for three steps his perfect rhythm faltered before the man beside him quietly struck his shoulder and brought him back into line.

The young noblewoman felt very annoyed.

Her own escort had been proud upon entering Tianhua. They had been wounded, bloodied, and tempered by battle. The people had applauded them as part of her spectacle, admiring the brave foreigners and the Kirin. But this was different.

The people knew these soldiers. Their sons were among them. Their brothers, husbands, fathers, neighbors, and childhood friends had marched away beneath those banners. The flowers were not being thrown because officials had ordered them to. They were being thrown because people had lain awake wondering whether those men would ever return.

A Kirin might be auspicious, but a victory protecting your country was real. 

How very unfair.

“General Fan has timed this well,” Seraphina remarked, feeling rather upstaged.

Her newest addition to her retinue, Meilin, looked at her with polite deference. “She did not choose when the barbarians would threaten the capital. The general returned when the Emperor commanded her to return.”

“Then the Emperor has timed it well,” returned the blonde girl dryly.

Desdemona laughed softly behind one sleeve.

Archers in layered leather and scale. Cavalry leading exhausted horses marked by old cuts and healing wounds. Engineers carrying axes, hammers, hooks, and the tools with which armies tamed the lands. Priests bearing incense, and healers dressed in white and green, walking beside covered wagons filled with the wounded.

The cheers softened for those wagons. People bowed their heads as they passed. Flowers were laid rather than thrown. The drums slowed, and somewhere below, a woman began to sob.

For after the wounded came the tablets of the dead. Thousands of narrow wooden plaques, each inscribed with a name, were carried upon long red frames draped in white cloth. They moved like rows of silent soldiers, held aloft by men with haunted faces.

The entire avenue bowed, then the drums began again.

The cavalry standards appeared first, long pennants streaming from tall spears. Red flowers had been tied beneath their blades. Behind them rode the officers of the eastern army in armor of black, crimson, and silver. Their horses were enormous, groomed for presentation but too scarred to be mistaken for ceremonial animals.

And then the crowd began to chant. At first, Seraphina could not distinguish the words. It came from too many mouths, tumbling together beneath background drums, bells, and cymbals.

Then the rhythm caught.

“Fan Xiwei!” the crowd shouted in a thousand voices. “Fan Xiwei!” “Fan Xiwei!”

The Flower General rode beneath a rain of blossoms. She sat astride a black warhorse, a truly massive creature with a broad chest, a scarred muzzle, and red silk braided through its mane. Fan Xiwei wore no court dress.

Her armor was made from overlapping plates of dark steel edged in crimson cord, fitted close. Silver guards protected her shoulders and forearms; each worked with a simple flowering branch rather than dragons or phoenixes. A crimson cloak fell from her back, torn near the lower edge.

Her helmet rested against one thigh, and her long black hair was bound high behind her head, though several loose strands swept across her proud, smiling face. Despite her martial bearing, her features were delicate: a straight nose, high cheekbones, and full lips that seemed more suited to a courtesan than a general. A thin scar crossed the bridge of her nose, marring an otherwise striking beauty. She possessed, Seraphina decided at once, precisely the sort of appeal that would captivate a certain kind of man.

Xiwei looked like the heroine of a period drama at the exact moment the music swelled, and the corrupt ministers realized they had gravely underestimated her.

Flowers struck the General from every direction. They caught in her hair, cloak, armor, saddle, and the black mane of her horse. A rose bounced from one shoulder guard and fell into her lap. Fan caught it before it slipped away and raised it high, and the avenue erupted.

The young noblewoman’s fingers tightened around her cup even as Fan Xiwei smiled at the adoring crowd. It was not the small, careful smile of court. Nor was it the dazzling weapon Seraphina herself employed when she wished to reduce men to obedient furniture. It was broad, unguarded, and almost disbelieving. A village girl’s smile, perhaps. The smile of someone who had once stood in a crowd like this and never imagined that one day the crowd would chant her name.

That made it infinitely more effective.

“Oh,” Desdemona said quietly.  “I must say, she is rather impressive.”

Seraphina turned her gaze upon her.

Her friend recovered at once. “She is just riding a horse slowly.”

Seraphina looked back toward the avenue.

Fan had stopped beside a group of children who had somehow been permitted past the barrier. A little girl offered her a clumsily bound wreath of small yellow flowers.

The General leaned from the saddle and accepted it with both hands, and the child said something too quiet to hear.

Fan Xiwei’s expression changed. The celebrated general dismounted; the movement was smooth despite her armor. She knelt before the girl, placed the wreath around her own neck, and pressed her forehead briefly to the child’s.

The crowd went mad again

Seraphina closed her eyes. This was shameless. Absolutely shameless, she thought to herself. Worse still, it did not appear to have been planned.

“Are you jealous?” Desdemona asked, raising an eyebrow.

“No.”

“You look jealous.”

“I look thoughtful,” the blonde girl replied with a beatific smile. “I am merely considering the relationship between public affection and mass hysteria.”

The de Savant girl schooled her face to a mocking neutrality. “I see.”

Below them, Fan Xiwei remounted and continued along the avenue. The General saluted wounded veterans, laughed when a thrown peony struck her squarely in the face, and caught a small boy who slipped from a barrier while trying to reach her. She returned him to his frantic mother without slowing the procession for more than a few moments.

Each little act multiplied the love around her, and Seraphina understood then why Second Prince Liang had spoken of her with such careful distaste. Fan Xiwei was not merely a general. She was a story in and of herself.

A common girl who had risen through merit. A woman soldier who fought beside ordinary men. A daughter of the soil who had saved the Heavenly Splendor from the foreign terror descending upon it. And soon, if court and custom had their way, she would stand beside First Prince Hantien Huan.

The concubine-born heir and the people’s general, a terrible combination of blood and merit. A most dangerous pairing.

Seraphina’s jealousy cooled, hardening into calculation. Fan Xiwei possessed something no court decree could grant, and no genealogy could manufacture.

The Flower General drew nearer to the teahouse. Though her posture remained strong, there was a stiffness to the way she held her left side. An injury hidden beneath the plate, perhaps.

Fan Xiwei looked upon the crowd with warmth, then her gaze rose. Past the soldiers. Past the painted barriers and falling petals. Past the lower balconies crowded with merchants and minor officials. 

Directly toward Seraphina, and for one brief instant, the noise of the avenue seemed to recede as the Flower General’s dark eyes settled upon the beautiful foreign girl seated above the road. Recognition came almost at once. Fan Xiwei’s expression hardened, her smile fading by the slightest degree.

Seraphina raised her teacup in greeting, wearing an innocent smile so sweetly friendly that it could only be understood as a challenge.

Let her come. I will deal with her as I have dealt with all who stand in my way. I will build you a trap from glory itself, my general, the blonde girl promised beneath her breath.