'Would you like a wife?' Kyu asked Bold slyly. 'A thirty year old virgin, expertly trained?'

'No thanks,' Bold said uneasily. He already had an arrangement with one of the servant women in the compound in Nanking, and though he supposed Kyu was joking, it made him feel strange.

Usually when Kyu made these midnight visits out to the stables, he was deep in thought. He did not hear things Bold said to him, or answered oddly, as if replying to some other question. Bold had heard that the young eunuch was well liked, knew many people in the palace, and had the favour of Wu, the Director of Ceremonies. But what they all did in the concubines' quarters during the long nights of the Beijing winters, he had no idea. Usually Kyu came out to the stables reeking of wine and perfume, sometimes urine, once even vomit. 'To stink like a eunuch' – the common phrase came back to Bold at those times with unpleasant force. He saw how people made fun of the mincing eunuch walk, the hunched little steps with feet pointing outwards, something that was either a physical necessity or a group style, Bold didn't know. They were called crows for their falsetto voices, among other names; but always behind their backs; and everyone agreed that as they fattened and then wizened in their characteristic fashion, they came to look like bent old women.

Kyu was still young and pretty, however, and drunk and dishevelled as he was during his night visits to Bold, he seemed very pleased with himself. 'Let me know if you ever want women,' he said. 'We've got more than we need in there.'

During one of the Heir's visits to Beijing, Bold caught a glimpse of the Emperor and his heir together, as he brought their perfectly groomed horses out to the Gate of Heavenly Purity, so that the two could ride to ether in the parks of the imperial garden. Except the Emperor wanted to leave the enclosure and ride well to the north of the city, apparently, and sleep out in tents. Clearly the Heir Designate was unenthusiastic, and the officials accompanying the Emperor were as well. Finally he gave in and agreed to make it a day ride, but outside the imperial city, by the river.

As they were mounting the horses he exclaimed to his son, 'You have to learn to fit the punishment to the crime! People need to feel the justice of your decision! When the Board of Punishments recommended that Xu Pei yi be put to the lingering death, and all his male relations over sixteen put to death and all his female relations and children enslaved, I was merciful! I lowered his sentence to beheading, sparing all the relatives. And so they say, "the Emperor has a sense of proportion, he understands things".'

'Of course they do,' the Heir agreed blandly.

The Emperor glanced sharply at him, and off they rode.

When they returned, late in the day, he was still lecturing his son, sounding even more peeved than he had in the morning. 'If you know nothing but the court, you will never be able to rule! The people expect the Emperor to understand them, to be a man who rides and shoots as well as the Heavenly Envoy! Why do you think your governors will do what you say if they think you are womanly? They will only obey you to your face, and behind your back they will mock you and do whatever they like.'

'Of course they will,' said the Heir, looking the other way.

The Emperor glared at him. 'Off the horse,' he said in a heavy voice.

The Heir sighed and slid from his mount. Bold caught the reins and calmed the horse with a quick hand while leading it towards the Emperor's mount, ready when the Emperor leapt off and roared 'Obey!'

The Heir fell to his knees and kotowed.

'You think the bureaucrats care about you!' the Emperor shouted. 'But they don't! Your mother is wrong about that, like she is about everything else! They have their own ideas, and they won't support you when there's the least trouble. You need your own men.'

' Or eunuchs,' the Heir said into the gravel.

The Yongle Emperor stared at him. 'Yes. My eunuchs know they depend on my good will above all else. No one else will back them. So they're the only people in the world you know will back you.'

No reply from the prostrated elder son. Bold, facing away and moving to the very edge of earshot, risked a glance back. The Emperor, shaking his head heavily, was walking away, leaving his son kneeling on the ground.

'You may be backing the wrong horse,' Bold said to Kyu the next time they met, on one of Kyu's increasingly rare night visits to the stables. 'The Emperor is going out with his second son now. They ride, they hunt, they laugh. One day they killed three hundred deer we had enclosed. While with the Heir Designate, the Emperor has to drag him out of doors, can't get him off the palace grounds, and spends the whole time yelling at him. And the Heir nearly mocks him to his face. Comes as close as he dares. And the Emperor knows it too. I wouldn't be surprised if he changed the Heir Designate.'

'He can't,' Kyu said. 'He wants to, but he can't.'

'Whyever not?'

'The eldest is the son of the Empress. The second born is the son of a courtesan. A low ranking courtesan at that.'

'But the Emperor can do what he wants, right?'

'Wrong. It only works when they all follow the laws together. If anyone breaks the laws, it can mean civil war, and the end of the dynasty.'

Bold had seen this in the Chinggurid wars of succession, which had gone on for generations. Indeed it was said now that Temur's sons had been fighting ever since his death, with the Khan's empire divided into four parts, and no sign of it ever coming together again.

But Bold also knew that a strong ruler could get away with things. 'You're parroting what you've heard from the Empress and the Heir and their officials. But it isn't that simple. People make the laws, and sometimes they change them. Or ignore them. And if they've got the swords, that's it.'

Kyu considered this in silence. Then he said, 'There's talk that the countryside is suffering. Famine in Hunan, piracy on the coast, diseases in the south. The officials don't like it. They think the great treasure fleet brought back disease instead of treasure, and wasted huge sums of money. They don't understand what trade brings back, they don't believe in it. They don't believe in the new capital. They tell the Empress and the Heir that they should help the people, that we should get back to agriculture, and stop wasting so much cash on extravagant projects.'

Bold nodded. 'I'm sure they do.'

'But the Emperor persists. He does what he wants, and he has the army behind him, and his eunuchs. The eunuchs like the foreign trade, as they see it makes them rich. And they like the new capital, and all the rest. Right?'

Bold nodded again. 'So it seems.'

'The regular officials hate the eunuchs.'

Bold glanced at him. 'Do you see that yourself?'

'Yes. Although it's the Emperor's eunuchs they really hate.'

'No doubt. Whoever is closest to power is feared by all the rest.'

Again Kyu thought things over. He seemed to Bold to be happy, these days; but then again Bold had thought that in Hangzhou. So it always made Bold nervous to see Kyu's little smile.

Soon after that conversation, when they were all in Beijing, a great storm came.

Yellow dust makes the first raindrops muddy; Lightning cracks down bronze through it,

Stitching together earth and sky,

Visible through closed eyelids.

About an hour later word comes: The new palaces have caught fire.

The whole centre of the Forbidden City Burning as though drenched in pitch,

Flames licking the wet clouds,

Pillar of smoke merging with the storm,

Rain downwind baked out of the air, replaced by ash.

Running back and forth with terrified horses, then with buckets of water, Bold kept an eye out, and finally, at dawn, when they had given up fighting the blaze, for it was useless, he caught sight of Kyu there among the evacuated imperial concubines. All the Heir Designate's people had a hectic look, but Kyu in particular seemed to Bold elated, the whites of his eyes visible all the way around. Like a shaman after a successful voyage to the spirit world. He started this fire, Bold thought, just like in Hangzhou, this time using the lightning as his cover.