饕餮大餐
Tāotièdàcān
Great meal fit for a dragon's son.
A sumptuous banquet.
At last the banquet came to a close, signaled by servants appearing with trays covered in sweets of all kinds.
Kageyama himself had always been partial to sweets, but could not eat them in large quantities. The sweet taste became meaningless if too much was consumed.
So after a small square of some green cake, and a steamed bun with red bean paste inside, Kageyama sat back to drink his wine and watch the goings on around him.
At her place, it seemed Ermi had been allowed to drink too much wine, as the girl's cheeks were rosy and she kept slipping to one side to lean against Liang'yi.
Beside her, Liang'yi also seemed to have drunk, and eaten too much. The Dachuo clutched at her much larger stomach, occasionally reaching out a hand to steady the swaying Ermi.
Sanyu, Ermi's younger brother, had disappeared.
Erli was sipping wine and looking at the goings on of those around her, much as Kageyama himself was doing. The fox hurriedly averted his eyes so as to not make eye contact.
At the main table, Xiangwu's place was empty, so Lady Lu's attention was now firmly fixed on Zhangyu. The Second Prince's face was serious as he nodded and replied to whatever it was his grandmother said to him, as though he was intent on her words.
Zhangyu's eyes, however, roamed over those assembled below. Kageyama could not help but notice that again and again they strayed to Ao, who had made up with Sanli and was once again laughing at something the troublesome prince had said.
Hmmm... this does not bode well....
Suddenly there was a great clatter beside him. He turned to see Ao had dropped her small silver spoon to her tray. In one hand she held a bowl of white almond pudding, a scoop carved out of the middle of the smooth white gelatinous mixture.
"Where did this come from?" Ao asked.
"The kitchens I'd imagine. Everything is made here, in the valley," said Sanli. "Why, what's wrong?"
Ao stood, her long goldfish robes brushing against the men beside her as she did.
"Where are you going?" asked Sanli, puzzled.
Instead of responding, Ao turned and strode off through the nearest doorway, causing several tray bearing servants to totter precariously to one side.
Sanli looked to Kageyama and shrugged. "I'll go after her."
"No," said Kageyama, rising, and motioning with one finger for Sanli to sit. "You two cause too much trouble together. Sit here and BEHAVE."
"Absolutely, Sho Sensei," Sanli chimed obediently, reaching for his wine cup.
Kageyama slipped through the door Ao had passed through, seeing the hem of her robe disappear around a corner.
"Girl, wait!" he called, hurrying after her.
Through the halls Kageyama followed Ao, agilely weaving past servants staggering under trays of food and trays of empty plates. The girl walked swiftly, her robe and long unbound hair flowing out behind her, and with the press of servants blocking his way Kageyama could not catch up to her.
Ao disappeared through the large double doors leading to the kitchens. Kageyama hurried to follow.
He pushed through the doors and narrowly missed colliding with two men carrying a giant bronze pot between them. Kageyama skidded to a stop, searching the chaos around him for Ao.
The main kitchens of Lady Lu's residence were huge. Massive tables, many lengths wide and much more long were set everywhere and covered with food and flour and bowls and pots of every shape and size. The walls were lined with cupboards many levels high, so that a long ladder on a rail had to be used to access the highest shelves.
The ceiling was high above, and it too was hung with ingredients, spices and herbs of every kind, along with some smoked meats and dried fish. Along the far wall, the ovens, spits, and stoves sat, the smoke flowing up a set of inter weaving chimneys and out through the roof.
Everywhere servants in cream and green liveries thronged. The cream was for the kitchen staff, the green for the servers and other house servants. Some of the kitchen staff pounded dough for noodles or bread, flour flying. Some spooned food from great cauldrons into smaller serving bowls. Some manned the spits over by the giant hearths, sweat pouring down their faces, the smoke of roasting meat sticking to their skin and clothes.
Kageyama took a step back, his senses overwhelmed by all the smells and sounds. He scanned the kitchens for Ao, and just caught sight of a grey silk robe with orange fish disappearing down a corridor. He followed.
The corridor Ao had disappeared was cool and narrow. It led to a spiral staircase leading down into the earth. The cooling rooms.
At the bottom of the stair was another corridor, lit with the soft glow of turquoise green zih. Cool, fresh, freeze, chill, all glimmered where they were carved in the rock walls and ceiling. Doors leading to the cooling rooms stood on either side of the long corridor.
Kageyama brushed by a single servant, carrying a huge cube of bean curd. The servant gave Kageyama a strange look, wondering what the kitsune was doing down there.
Kageyama wondered that too.
He heard voices coming from one of the cooling rooms near the end of the hall. He crept silently towards them.
"Haha, I never expected to find you here, Old Catfish!" said Ao.
"It is good to see you again, Lady Ao," said a man's voice.
Kageyama slunk to the opposite side of the door frame and snuck a glance.
Ao stood in the center of the dim room, which was lit only by a spray of turquoise zih across the ceiling. Her arms were thrown around the neck of a short, chubby man in a cream chef's uniform.
The man embraced Ao, patting her back, and then stepped back.
"You look... different. I didn't recognize you."
"I do, don't I?" Ao said. "Why are you here, and not in the Golden City making cake for Yan?"
Yan... they don't mean Jinyan, the Golden Emperor? Kageyama wondered.
The man laughed. Kageyama recognized him in the dim light. He was one of the head chefs, a man by the name of Wong Peng, who had come to cook for Lady Lu several years ago.
The man was a wonderful cook. He was also a 鯰鱯 niánhù, a rare type of mu'ren, known for having some of the longest lifespans of any mu'ren, some living to 8,000 years and longer.
Although a Nianhu's true form was closer to a small, flat-headed dragon than a true fish, they were often nicknamed 'catfish'.
"Ah, I was in the Golden City until just a few decades ago. Then the old Dowager heard of my pastries and poached me. I couldn't say no to the amount of coin she offered. But why are you here Lady Ao... like this?" Wong Peng asked Ao.
"A long story. I'm sure you've heard it though," said Ao lightly, but Kageyama could sense something darker in her tone.
"I am happy to have found you," Ao continued, placing a hand on the man's shoulder. "I recognized your almond pudding at once. Out of everything I've eaten in my long life, it is still without doubt the most delicious delicacy of all."
The chef chuckled. "You do not need to flatter me to get me to make you more. You can have as much as you like." Then the man's tone changed. "Lady Ao, the stories about what happened with you and the other five, is there any truth to them?"
But instead of answering the nian'hu's question, Ao asked her own, as though the man had not spoken at all. "How long have you been here, cooking for Lu's family? If I had known, I would have returned to the valley sooner."
She clearly did not intend to answer the question. Kageyama decided he would not hear anything else useful. He cleared his throat and pushed the half open door all the way open.
Two faces turned to him, pale in the dim light. The chef inclined his head. "My Lord, can I help you with something?"
Kageyama pointed to Ao. "I'm here for her."
"How kind of you to come fetch me, Lord Kageyama," said Ao stiffly. Then to Wong Peng. "I'll come see you again. Better not go back on your promise." She patted the short man's shoulder affectionately.
The chef chuckled. "I won't. As much pudding as you like. I'm sure I'll be seeing you again soon."
Kageyama gestured for Ao to exit ahead of him. He waited until the woman had started up the steps, then turned and looked once more at the mu'ren standing in the cool room.
"You will be seeing me again soon, as well," Kageyama said. "I have a lot of questions for you."
The man bowed humbly, chef's hat tipping as he did so. "Of course, Lord Kageyama."
*~*~*~*~*~*
Back in the corridor, Kageyama led them in another direction, hoping to avoid the congestion caused by all the servants flocking from the kitchen to the great hall.
"How much did you hear?" Ao asked by his side.
"What? Nothing," Kageyama lied, but it was obvious to both of them he had heard more than nothing.
He thought Ao would be angry at his prying, but when her next question came her voice was soft, wistful.
"Did you know the Green King well, Lord Kageyama?"
"What? No... not so well."
"How would you describe him?"
Kageyama led them out of the main building and onto a veranda running along the gardens. "He was a kind man. But hard to know really. Always smiling. A bit like Sanli, I suppose."
"Hmmm, I wonder," said Ao, and a smile far gentler than any Kageyama had seen from her yet spread across her face. "How did you come to be in his service?"
"I happened to come to the Inner Kingdom on an... assignment from Wa. I met Lulin then, and he proposed I work for him instead."
"Hmm... was that assignment to assassinate the Five Gods by any chance?"
Kageyama staggered mid stride. "How did you.... Nakamura. That damn tanuki loves to talk. What else did he tell you about me?"
Ao laughed. "Nothing much else. Don't be too hard on Lord Nakamura. After all, he had... persuasion."
Kageyama decided not to ask what kind. He stopped, glancing up and down the veranda, and then over the railing to the flowerbeds below, to make sure no gardeners were lurking in the shrubbery hunting after stray weeds.
He sighed, rubbing the back of his head with one hand, something he did when uncomfortable. "Fine. I... was assigned to target the Five Gods, yes. And to not return home until they were all dead or deposed. It... it was more a punishment than anything. I knew that. There was no way I could accomplish such a task on my own, nor did I intend to."
Ao leaned on the railing beside him, idly loosing a stray vine that curled around the carved wood and twirling it about her finger instead. "Perhaps you underestimate yourself, Lord Kageyama. Or overestimate the power of the five gods. I assure you, gods can most definitely be killed."
Something in the matter-of-fact way she said it caused a chill to run down Kageyama's spine. A tremor of a memory, long forgotten, flicked to his mind.
"They said you came to kill me."
Kageyama, bound, had been staring at the whorls of the wood floor beneath him. He looked up.
His right eye was near swollen shut from the blow he had received earlier, so at first it was hard to make out the figure stood before him.
Gradually, Kageyama picked out a rather ordinary looking man in green and grey scholar robes. The man had a plain face, with square features, a jaw and eyebrows that were all awkward right angles. Yet there was something gentle in his eyes, and his mouth was quirked in a soft, somewhat sad smile.
"Why do you want to kill me?" the man asked Kageyama.
Kageyama blinked, his swollen eye twinging pain. The man before him was the Green King. The man he had come to kill. The man he had failed to kill.
Kageyama did not know what to reply. Why should he even reply? The man was an enemy. Kageyama knew the gentle appearance would disappear moment the man realized he couldn't get what he wanted with kindness. And then the torture would begin.
"Why do you want to kill me?" The Green King asked again.
Kageyama said nothing, just stared at the wall past his captor, eyes steady.
The man who was the Green King sighed, and sat down on a chair. He looked genuinely tired.
Perhaps, if he asks again, it would not hurt to answer, Kageyama found himself thinking. After all, what is there left to lose?
"Why do you want to kill me?" the Green King asked a third time.
And to his surprise, Kageyama found himself answering.
"So I can return home."
The Green King's eyes studied Kageyama, growing sadder as he thought.
Finally he spoke. "I have a proposition for you."
Back in the present, Kageyama cleared his throat. "Anyway, after I came to the empire I targeted the Green King first. Lulin. My attempt... failed. Instead of killing me, the kirin convinced me to give up on my mission, and serve his not yet born family in exchange for his seal. I agreed, though when I think back on it now, he got the better part of the bargain."
Ao laughed, looking out over the garden. "He could be very convincing, couldn't he?"
The sun was just setting, and beneath the trees, a strange, glowing green twilight already sat over everything. "Yes," Kageyama agreed, watching the woman's face carefully in the dim light.
Wistful, longing. Sad. These were not expressions Kageyama was used to seeing on Ao.
She pushed off the railing and turned to him. "Well, Lord Kageyama, shall we return to Prince Sanli?"
*~*~*~*~*~*
Back through the hallways they went, taking a less used route to avoid the press of servants.
Just as they were about to re-enter huge doors of the great hall, Erli came bustling out, flanked by her twin guards.
Erli caught sight of Kageyama and Ao and her face wrinkled with displeasure. Without a word, she turned to leave, but Ao called out.
"Ah, Lady Erli!" Ao exclaimed, voice bright, friendly. Kageyama frowned. "Forgive me, I just wanted to enquire, when did you return from your hunt?"
"I returned last week for my son's banquet. I leave again next week for the north. Why?" Erli asked suspiciously.
"I was just surprised I have not had the good fortune to meet you sooner," said Ao graciously. "I have been at your daughter's court near daily, and have not yet met you. Perhaps the timing has just been off."
Erli laughed, and then sneered. "I know what you try to do girl. You try to shame me, by implying that I am a bad mother for not visiting my daughter sooner," Ao's innocent smile turned sharp. "Do not bother. You will receive about as much reaction as I did earlier when I called you a whore."
Ao's pleasant expression was gone. She stood facing Erli, posture tense. The older woman also had spread her feet, and swept her ornate green robe out behind her, as though bracing for a fight.
How did this escalate so quickly? Kageyama thought, bewildered. He stepped between the two bristling women. "Forgive me, my lady—" he began, not sure who he was addressing.
"You and I," Erli continued, ignoring Kageyama. Her eyes were fixed on Ao. "We both know what we are. And it matters little to us. So when others try to insult us with the faults we openly acknowledge, they get nowhere."
The handsome woman's eyes swung to Kageyama. "Kageyama. When you get tired of babying my foolish brother and his girls, do find me. My son will put you to much better use."
Erli turned, with a swish of her long green robe and a final rejoinder spat over her shoulder-
"Stay out of my way, girl. You better hope I don't meet you in Ermi's courtyard, or anywhere else in this valley."
And with that Erli strode off, the twin men following her obediently.
Kageyama sighed audibly. "Be careful. You do not want her as an enemy."
He looked to Ao. The girl's hands were clenched so tight, her fingers stood out white against the bands of her rings.
Finally she relaxed them. "I have had many enemies," she replied. "What's one more?"
*~*~*~*~*~*
When they entered the great hall again, the banquet was already over, people trailing for the exit.
Sanli met them by the door. "Let's get out of here," he said.
It was evening when they left. Here and there through the trees, smooth patches of twilight sky appeared, in rich purples. A few stars pinned these scattered scraps of purple to the forest canopy.
Sanli appeared to have drunk quite a bit while they had been gone. He walked ahead of Ao and Kageyama, swinging his arms and singing a song that sounded as though it was being composed while sung.
"Oh and the pretty stars.... they are so far ... and your pretty eyes... look toward mine...." here Sanli turned and gave Ao a roguish wink. She snorted.
They returned to the courtyard of Wo You Nai. Zakhar was asleep, waiting where they had left him, a book open on his chest.
"Wake up Zakhar! It's time to drink!" Sanli yelled above the sleeping man.
Zakhar yawned and rubbed his face. "Look's like you've already drunk."
"Not enough!" replied Sanli. "Sho Sensei, let's drink some of your Well Cloud Wine!"
"Not a chance," Kageyama replied. "It's to be savored. Not chugged down by drunk morons." Ao laughed at Kageyama's jibe.
Sanli waved his hands madly. "Fine, mock me and be stingy then." The drunk prince called to one of the servants nearby. "Ask Cook to prepare some snacks, and bring a bottle of chilled wine from the cool room. Anything will do." He turned to Ao. "Lady Four Strings, go get your lute!"
"I don't much feel like it," said Ao, sinking down onto the couch opposite Zakhar's.
"What!" said Sanli, bereft. "No music? How can we have a party without music." He looked toward Kageyama. "What about your shamisen?" Kageyama also shook his head, sitting in an armchair between Ao and Zakhar.
"Fine!" said Sanli. "I'll get my flute then. Really, I have to do everything myself." The prince disappeared, stomping across the courtyard, and reappeared soon after, stomping back.
In one fist was clutched a long bamboo flute. He sat himself down in another armchair and began to play.
The cool sounds of the flute wove over them. Kageyama himself had played a similar instrument in Wa, but he had to admit, that even for his long years playing, Sanli played it better.
Sanli played many instruments, seeming to have a natural aptitude for whatever he tried his hand at. But it was the flute where he truly shone, and Kageyama had always enjoyed listening to him play.
A strange thing, the simplest of instruments, simply a carved piece of bamboo, and yet in the right hands, it could evoke such strong images and feelings.
It was a secret that Kageyama would never tell anyone, but sometimes, when Sanli played the flute, he closed his eyes pretended he was home, in the mountains of Wa. He had just come in from a long day in the fields, and sat playing on the engawa of his house, the long porch, watching the sun set and the mist appear on the fields.
Or he was in the forests of the mountain. HIS mountain. It was not the grandest or tallest, but it was his.
It had been Kageyama's job, when he had been young, to go up into the forests of the mountain and scout out the best trees. He would search for prime trees, those whose trunks were shaped just the right way, bent by wind and snow, so as to make a good keel, or roof beam, or mast. Sometimes he would spend days up there, alone, just him and the trees and the mountain—
Sanli's song drew to a close. Kageyama opened his eyes.
A servant had come and placed a tray of small dishes and cups for wine on the low table between them, along with the wine itself.
On her sofa, Ao lay, eyes closed, a small smile on her face as she listened to Sanli's music.
Zakhar had also closed his eyes, but opened them now as Sanli's song finished.
"Bloody hell Sanli. If you keep playing sad songs like that, it's not going to be much of a party."
"Sorry," said Sanli. "I just felt like it. The next one will be happier. But first, WE DRINK!"
The prince leaned forward and poured out wine for the four of them, despite the fact he was the prince, and should have been the one served.
They drank and laughed and talked late into the night.
*~*~*~*~*~*
Author's note HERE.
The art in this chapter is called 'Forest Realm' by Nele-Diel on deviantart.com. Check them out! http://fav.me/ddah1bu
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