Of imperial offices.

‘I’m getting awfully hungry,’ said Master Xerox of Sabra, after the handsome Lord Swiffer had returned to his place¹.

‘Here—have this, Master,’ replied Princess Calamondin, handing him a luscious orange from a basket of fruit she had at her side. The Master of Sabra looked at the handsome fruit and began peeling it with his fingers.

‘The things we do for love, eh, Lord Swiffer? I know such travails² well, though I cannot say my fate has been as happy as yours and Don Limpio³’s promises to be. But no matter. While I live and breathe, I am happy to travel beyond my homeland, even though that is what I wish to see more than anything else in the world,’ the Princess continued.

‘We have not heard much from your Royal Highness,’ Lady Lunesta said.

‘I have not deigned to speak much. Speaking too much precludes understanding, which is a thing all great men should first have. I have met many kings and queens, and few, if any, can be said to retain a mastery of holding their peace⁴, especially when it comes to a bond of trust.’

‘We, however, know how to observe it,’ Lady Ouiser said, and with a wave of her hand, gave the beautiful Princess Calamondin the floor.

Calamondin is, I lament to say, not my real name. My name, which my poor parents gave me, is Lichun⁵. It means ‘the beginning of spring’, for that was the time when I was born, when snow still covered the budding plum blossoms of February. This was twenty-four years ago, in Cathay⁶. The moon was in her waxing phase⁷, looking with cold disdain as snow covered the hut of my parents.

When I was twelve I was affianced⁸ to a passing prince. He collected me up much as one collects up wildflowers to drop into a vase he soon forgets about. This would have been the case had not another, finer man found me. Soon I was in Cambaluc⁹, among other ladies of rank. They called me ‘millet pearl’¹⁰: a name which I absolutely hate. But that was then, and this is now, and I suppose I should be thankful, because it was while I was in Cambaluc that I was able to hear the tale which I am telling you.

One cold winter’s night the girls of the imperial ward were all sitting at the brazier¹¹, telling each other scary ghost stories. One of these involved a Nestorian from Damascus¹² named Adam. Now, this story is considerably older than the tale in which it now rests.

‘A nested story¹³! How ingenious!’ Master Xerox said. ‘Is this a custom of the ancient East, your Highness?’

‘One could say it is. Life is itself a nest of little stories. But let me continue, dear Xerox—Messer Cayenne¹⁴ does not like for me to be errant.’

This Adam had learned the ways of Cathay, and meant to honor the faith well. But faith can only bring so much in a pagan land, and he also learned that among other things of Cathay, a man is deemed successful if he is also wealthy, well-connected and blessed with sons. His sons, subsequently, are deemed honorable if they attain offices of various kinds, and if they can pass the Imperial Examinations¹⁵.

But these examinations were not being held in Adam’s time, and so men of his ilk sought advancement through the favor and connections of the Nestorians¹⁶.

Adam was young, well-spoken and ambitious. Women vied for him as he was unmarried. On a day that the Emperor selected brides for his choicest advisors, Adam was called to the inner forecourt¹⁷ of the Emperor and made to bow before him.

‘Listen to me, son,’ said the Emperor. ‘You have yet to define your import to me and this Court. But since you are well-spoken, and have given me much to contemplate regarding the foreign religion, I wish to give you a task of especial import¹⁸.’

Adam kept his nose pressed to the ground and said: ‘What would you have me do, dread and mighty Lord?’

‘I need someone to procure office space for me—and immediately. These worthless scribes are gobbling up ink, rice and paper and not getting much work out. There are more scribes coming in than going out, such that I cannot build any more imperial offices without demolishing the habitations of the common people. I cannot risk a rebellion for the mere prospect of administrative oversight.’

The Emperor then took Adam with his retinue to the offices, which were all situated in the area reserved for the Emperor’s Mother-in-Law’s Husband’s Concubine’s Secretary. The house was a beautiful one, but it was trembling with fourteen or fifteen men, copying imperial edict and rescript¹⁹ alike with tremendous sloppiness. Adam looked on the sight with a fallen heart and said:

‘This cannot please Your Majesty in any meaningful way.’

‘Adam, you simply must do something. The secretary is thankfully away on business seeing to the marriage (and execution) of his rival, and I’d love it if I didn’t have to beg the quartermaster²⁰ of the Army for rations he himself cannot provide. I’ve heard the latest thing in the Roman wastes is timeshares²¹. Do you know anything about that?’

But Adam had not, in fact, heard of the condominiums of the golden west, and had not seen his beloved, dust-covered Damascus in nearly two decades.

So he said, quite assiduously²²:

‘I’ll see what I can do.’

That night he had a dream. A butterfly landed on a blooming lotus²³ in the innermost court pond of the Emperor’s Right-Flank Rear General, and fluttered its wings twice. The dream was so disturbing to him and so utterly ominous that he shot up out of bed and prayed to God, saying:

‘Lord, if it is Your Will that I should take the Emperor’s task to heart, at least make it so that I can advance Your Holy Name in this world.’

And at that moment, a messenger arrived and said: ‘There’s a realtor waiting²⁴ for you at the gate. He says he’s come a long way from home.’

The realtor said he was actually from the opposite side of Cambaluc and had walked not very far to meet him.

The realtor said: ‘You know, I’ve heard of this magnificent walk-up on Jasmine Road you’d love—really the most lovely little commercial property. The priest at the Temple of the Sun²⁵ hopes for the foot-traffic²⁶, and there’s some real retail opportunity for the street-level access on the western side.’

‘How did you know the Emperor needed extra office space?’

The realtor chuckled and said: ‘You’re new, aren’t you?’

But the prospect was, even at that advanced hour of the night, rather appealing. Without saying much to either the Emperor or his clique of sharp-eyed eunuchs²⁷, Adam and the realtor rode out the very next morning to look at the houses, and that afternoon, Adam was signing the paperwork—as best as one can, anyway—for the Emperor’s real estate portfolio²⁸, which he would manage on the Household’s behalf.

‘Why would the priest of the Temple of the Sun need supplicants for retail²⁹?’ asked Fr Bunion.

‘It’s a rather long and circuitous story, Father,’ replied Princess Calamondin. ‘Suffice it to say, dear Father, that in that part of the world religion and commerce go hand in hand.’

‘You say it as if it doesn’t happen here,’ Abraham of Babka said.

Princess Calamondin chuckled and then went on.

The houses were bought for a pittance³⁰ with money reserved from the Imperial Household’s Fund for Development. A covered walkway from the palace to the houses was built so that the scribes would not have to look upon the poor people as they went to work. The Emperor was pleased with this—the houses, I mean—and then said:

‘Do it again, dear Adam. And this time, see if you can do anything with these concubines³¹. They’re all conspiring to kill one another in the Summer Palace and it’s really killing the mood there, if you know what I mean.’

So once more Adam met with the realtor, and found an additional workspace for the scribes of these concubines, whose incessant scribblings nearly brought the Household—and the Empire—to the brink of war. And as soon as the Emperor had thoroughly pruned off the dead branches of unwieldy pretenders³², he had Adam move these scribes to the new building, and set them to work.

In time, Adam became wealthy, respected and powerful, and was accorded fame. Many whispered against him, including the debauched brother of His Majesty. But Adam saw this, and had the Emperor’s brother’s scheming agent put away in a large, cylindrical tower made of porcelain³³, which was so cold in the winter that he froze to death. And when that building became free again, Adam turned it into the Imperial Icehouse³⁴.

But as these men served the Imperial Household, they felt its amenities were essential—for at the palace a man could bathe, eat, drink and carouse³⁵ to his heart’s content, even at the lowest rank, whereas the services provided at these houses were bare-bones. So the scribes grumbled once more, and brought forth an elder of their religion to Adam.

The priest gave this oracle, which had been divined using the bones of a tortoise³⁶:

The scribes who work for the Emperor’s bread
Require more than the Son of Heav’n³⁷ can procure
So from foreign gods and foreign coin let the deficit be answered³⁸:
And if it be not sufficient, let Heav’n itself fall upon him.

This utterance was dire in the extreme to Adam. As soon as he heard this, he panicked and muttered to himself: ‘If the Emperor knows of any of this, it will humiliate not only me, but every one of his flatterers, who will vent their ire upon me and the rest of the foreign population in the concessions³⁹. I must find some way to quell these discordant voices.’

So, after a while, Adam started diverting funds reserved for the Imperial Palace’s upkeep to supply rations for the scribes in the scribal houses and offices, such that the outlay, while not initially noticed, became a drain upon monies⁴⁰ needed for the Palace’s upkeep. And in the Imperial Palace, the Emperor must have fresh flowers, fresh water, fine food, or the gods will think the favor upon his person a waste.

Adam could have easily supplied the need with his own money. It would have been seen as a kindness to even the lowliest of clerks. But he had his own expenditures: a house of his own, servants, considerations paid⁴¹ to wealthy businessmen with whom he wished to transact; in short, the common things of the wealthy. What nobility is there, I ask? Is not a great man a generous one?

No, friends, for Adam began to believe that his own security lay simply in quieting these complaints, rather than treating the men fairly with a pay raise and a kind word.

Men surrounded him with similar flatteries. The common people grew jealous and resentful of Adam’s arrogant and self-congratulatory airs. When he passed, they whispered: ‘See there that man who thinks himself Lord of the World! He is nothing to the Emperor, the very Son of Heaven! Who does he think he is, leasing the houses he manages for the Emperor to strangers and thinking his vote on the Board of Improvements⁴² counts twenty times more than that of native-born fellows with more money and experience?’

And, in time, he forgot his God, for he had moved the priests of the Nestorians out of their habitation in the Imperial Palace and leased their vacated offices to the Imperial Granary’s⁴³ Clockmaker’s Astronomer’s Secretary, who was responsible for the toad-mouthed earthquake clock⁴⁴’s biannual calibration⁴⁵—and before you ask me, Doctor Scholl, no, I don’t know how it works.

The Emperor was blithely unaware of all this, by the way. I am told he was enmeshed in a scandal of his own, regarding his dimwitted son and his marriage to a lady of lesser rank. In any case, Adam proceeded until he had acquired a palace nearly rivalling that of the Emperor.

But the insult to Heaven⁴⁶ was answered. Rains fell and washed away certain houses; then came a famine, then a plague, then a cold, bitter winter. Thousands died. All of the nobles sought to repair the error in their own way with sacrifices, prayers and supplications, and donations to the affected. Adam had married into a good family of middling rank, and enriched his wife’s family with his fame and money, and these people, who were unworthy of such attentions, were peremptory in the most awful way⁴⁷ to everyone and anyone they met. Furthermore, instead of seeing to the repair of the damaged houses, Adam opened a school to teach the Nestorian ways of property management. Amenities disappeared overnight. The scribes grew sullen and angry and complained to anyone in earshot.

When the autumn arrived, the Emperor convoked⁴⁸ all his nobles and asked them what they would do in order to repair the Empire’s appeal to Heaven. Adam was conspicuously absent. He was in a high, cool place with his wife, and a foreign investor from an enemy state. The Emperor was infuriated and had him brought back to Cambaluc in chains.

‘See what your arrogance has bought you, fool!’ he said.

He called the selfsame scribes to lay before him the ledgers⁴⁹ Adam had forced them to compile for weeks on end. The sums charged to the Imperial Household for all the offices were so great that they beggared belief⁵⁰. It was enough, they claimed, to sail to England and back in one year or more, with every available ration of the highest quality and every man paid well above his grade for the voyage.

‘Your conduct is the source of the gods’ ire against the people, and I must sacrifice for it. Furthermore, your vile abominations are heaped with seditious conduct⁵¹ you meant to hide from me. I have spoken to that foreign investor whom you wished to delude in your ruse, and he has promised me that we will not go to war for it. The blood of the people be on your head for it anyway. Guards—put Adam in a cangue⁵² until I have decided what his punishment is.’

Adam was led away to meet a fate the chroniclers of the time did not record. But here is the ghost story that was told to me that one cold winter’s night.

Sometimes, if one is alone with the screen drawn open to the night air in Cambaluc, one can hear the sorrowful voice of Adam crying out: ‘It’s forty-four thousand square feet⁵³ of prime office space in an attractive downtown location!’

And never mind, of course, that just before the man was caught he attempted with some difficulty to obtain an Imperial prohibition of the word ‘we’, this word having a particular sound in the language of Cambaluc. The Emperor was not pleased when he heard this, either, but I do not have the book with me from whence this detail came, so I cannot put the claim to the test.

I see some of you look upon me with some incredulity. Very well. Perhaps your look is well-earned. But I feel I have made a point about the trust that a man’s word to his superiors ought to secure. But notice, dear friends, that I did not articulate precisely which man the bond belongs to⁵⁴. That is in the province of a man’s heart alone—one no other person need explore or conquer.

And with a graceful bow and flourish, the beautiful Princess Calamondin resumed her place.

‘What a story!’ Persiflage said. ‘And the ladies among you, Your Highness—was this suitably terrifying to induce them to stay away from husbands who speculate too freely with other men’s money?’

‘One could say. I wouldn’t know either way, dear Monsieur Persiflage, as I was taken away from that place by force,’ replied the Princess.

Lady Lunesta, who had not said much, then rose:

‘Such a story reminds me of an event involving some Poor Clares⁵⁵ in the town of Iride, in the realms of my Lord the Duke. Though Your Highness’s story is awful to hear, more awful is the realization that a man may break his word to God and Woman, and thereby cause a woman to lose her faith in her Lord and Savior as well.’

Lady Lunesta, of nocturnal beauty, then told her tale.