The Gift of Kings (HuaLian TGCF)

Prologue

"it's just my luck." That's what Hua Cheng tells Yin Yu when the other boy expresses concern for him. "It's just my luck and I'm used to it." And he is. It's always been this way.

When he was 7 his mother died. When he was 9 his father remarried a woman who couldn't stand the sight of him. When he was 11 they were forced to flee their home in Xianle due to his father's unpaid gambling debts. When he was 14 his father sold him into slavery to the royal family of Yong'an in order to cover his new round of gambling debts. When he was 16 he lost his right eye, and now that he's 18...Well it doesn't appear to be getting any better.

How does a slave from the stables end up being shipped off to a neighboring country as a gift to warm the bed of the crown prince? Well, Hua Cheng wasn't actually in the room at the time but, judging by everything he's put together and what Yin Yu has told him, it goes something like this.

1 The King of Yong'an wants to conquer Xianle.

2 The King doesn't want Xianle to know that yet so that he can take them by surprise.

3 To bring this about the King wants a spy deep enough in Xianle's royal court that they can learn the royal family's most intimate and military secrets, and who could be better positioned to do that than a concubine? The King of Xianle doesn't have a harem but the crown prince does.

So 4 the King of Yong'an tells his inner counsel that the first step in his invasion plan is to give the crown prince a concubine.

That's where the first problem comes up because Yong'an already has a few low ranked servant spies within the court and, as one of the king's advisors reminds him, the spies say that the crown prince doesn't actually sleep with his concubines, in fact, unless he's forced to perform some sort of social nicety, he doesn't even go near them.

So 5 if the crown prince isn't sleeping with his concubines then figure out who he is sleeping with, because he has to be sleeping with someone right? He's a prince. That's what princes do.

6 check the spies report again for any clues and discover that while the prince isn't spending any time with his concubines, or with any other women for that matter, he /is/ spending a good deal of time with two young men around his own age. One is his bodyguard so there might be nothing in that, but the other one is merely a servant, and why would a prince show so much favor to a mere servant? There's only one possible answer.

Alright so 7 the Prince prefers men. Well, that certainly explains why he ignores his harem.

8 give him a man.

It's the obvious conclusion the Council comes to. The problem then becomes /which/ man. They need someone young, someone relatively attractive, someone who is within the thrones power to give and someone who is either completely loyal or without his own agenda.

That's where the problem really starts, at least according to Yin Yu, a house servant two years Hua Cheng's Junior who he saved from the master at arm's abuse a year earlier and who has been repaying him with useful bits of court gossip ever since. Apparently at the question of which man or boy should be sent all the ministers burst out with explanations and excuses of why their sons and nephews and grandsons are not an option. The upshot of their arguing is this: No nobleman wants to sacrifice a member of their own household to the degradation of being a mere concubine, especially not for a soon-to-be enemy nation.

Perhaps the idea would have ended there, buried in the dead-end that was quickly becoming its grave, if it hadn't been for the master at arms, that very same master at arms who Hua Cheng saved Yin Yu from, and who was responsible for a couple of the most unpleasant incidents of Hua Cheng's altogether unpleasant life, the same master at arms who Hua Chang has been blackmailing for the last 10 months, ever since Yin Yu helped him discover proof of the existence of the man's mistress.

Hua Cheng made very clear when he began blackmailing the man that he had a second copy of his incriminating letter and that, should Hua Cheng conveniently disappear, the holder of that second letter would not hesitate to send it to the man's wife. Hua Cheng is sure that the man has been looking for some loophole that would let him get rid of Hua Cheng ever since, and now he appears to think he's found one.

Which brings us to 9 the bastard at arms tells his majesty that he can solve all his problems because he knows just the youth for the job.

So now here Hua Cheng is, back in the country of his birth, his body washed, his hair brushed, dressed in clothes far more expensive than what his father sold him for, about to be given away for the second time in his life.

To say that he is angry is such an understatement that it's not worth making. Not only does every fiber of his being resent being treated like a cheap trinket or some other piece of property, but this also ruins every plan he's been making for escape, because he has been making them. Blackmailing the master at arms is only one of the many ways he's found over the last few years to con and steel and cheat his way into bits of coin, and he's been saving all of it up carefully, so that when he has enough, he can pay the bribes and supply costs and transportation fees that it will take to get him out of the royal capital. Now though all those carefully saved coins are sitting in their hiding place in the royal stables of Yong'an, no more good to him than the plans he's been obsessing over or the dreams of freedom that he was stupid enough to think could ever be reality.

That simply isn't how his luck works.

To say that he's afraid... Well, he would be lying if he said he wasn't, so that's exactly what he does, lie and keep his head held high, and never show anyone his weakness. Yet in the privacy of his own mind... Yes there at least he can admit to himself the truth; he is afraid.

Hua Cheng doesn't know much about the crown prince of Xianle. The man is 20, a master of swordsmanship, unmarried, uninterested in his harem, apparently has a taste for men, and that's about it, none of which gives Hua Cheng the slightest idea what to expect, but after four years of slavery, well, to say that he doesn't expect anything good is putting it lightly.

He does have something to hold onto though, something which the king of Yong'an plans to use to ensure his loyalty and which is the only thing that could quite possibly make all of this worth it for Hua Cheng. If he performs his job faithfully, if he seduces the crown prince and uses that access to fulfill his role as a Yong'an spy, then when Xianle falls, Hua Cheng will be set free.