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spiralling thoughts to what one might call order. Bytsan was quiet, allowing him to deal with this, or try.
    You gave a man one of the Sardian horses to reward him greatly. You gave him four or five of those glories to exalt him above his fellows, propel him towards rank—and earn him the jealousy, possibly mortal, of those who rode the smaller horses of the steppes.
    The Princess Cheng-wan, a royal consort of Tagur now through twenty years of peace, had just bestowed upon him, with permission , two hundred and fifty of the dragon horses.
    That was the number. Tai read it one more time.
    It was in the scroll he held, recorded in Kitan, in a Taguran scribe’s thin but careful calligraphy. Two hundred and fifty Heavenly Horses. Given him in his own right, and to no one else. Not a gift for the Ta-Ming Palace, the emperor. Not that. Presented to Shen Tai, second son of the General Shen Gao, once Left Side Commander of the Pacified West.
    His own, to use or dispose of as he judged best, the letter read, in royal recognition from Rygyal of courage and piety, and honour done the dead of Kuala Nor.
    “You know what this says?” His own voice sounded odd to Tai.
    The captain nodded.
    “They will kill me for these,” Tai said. “They will tear me apart to claim those horses before I get near the court.”
    “I know,” said Bytsan calmly.
    Tai looked at him. The other man’s dark-brown eyes were impossible to read. “You know ?”
    “Well, it seems likely enough. It is a large gift.”
    A large gift.
    Tai laughed, a little breathlessly. He shook his head in disbelief. “In the name of all nine heavens, I can’t just ride through Iron Gate Pass with two hundred and fifty—”
    “I know,” the Taguran interrupted. “I know you can’t. I made some suggestions when they told me what they wished to do.”
    “You did?”
    Bytsan nodded. “Hardly a gift if you’re … accidentally killed on the way east and the horses are dispersed, or claimed by someone else.”
    “No, it isn’t, is it? Hardly a gift!” Tai heard his voice rising. Such a simple life he’d been living, until moments ago. “And the Ta-Ming was a brawl of factions when I left. I am sure it is worse now!”
    “I am sure you are right.”
    “Oh? Really? What do you know about it?” The other man, he decided, seemed irritatingly at ease.
    Bytsan gave him a glance. “Little enough, in the small fort I am honoured to command for my king. I was only agreeing with you.” He paused. “Do you want to hear what I suggested, or not?”
    Tai looked down. He felt embarrassed. He nodded his head. For no reason he knew, he took off his straw hat, standing in the high, bright sun. The axes continued in the distance.
    Bytsan told him what he’d written to his own court, and what had been decreed in response to that. It seemed to have cost the other man his position at the fortress in the pass above, in order to implement his own proposal. Tai didn’t know if that meant a promotion or not.
    It might, Tai understood, keep him alive. For a time, at least. He cleared his throat, trying to think what to say.
    “You realize,” Bytsan spoke with a pride he could not conceal, “that this is Sangrama’s gift. The king’s generosity. Our Kitan princess might have asked him for it, it is her name on that letter, but it is the Lion who sends you this.”
    Tai looked at him. He said, quietly, “I understand. It is an honour that the Lion of Rygyal even knows my name.”
    Bytsan flushed. After the briefest hesitation, he bowed.
    Two hundred and fifty Sardian horses, Tai was thinking, from within the sandstorm of his forever-altered life. Being brought by him to a court, an empire, that gloried in every single dragon steed that had ever reached them from the west. That dreamed of those horses with so fierce a longing, shaping porcelain and jade and ivory in their image, linking poets’ words to the thunder of mythic hooves.
    The world could bring you poison in a