From Xiangyang (襄陽) to Xinye (新野) was half a day by horse.

Late that afternoon, a man who had ridden that half-day without rest reached the east gate of Xinye. The man who dismounted was a civil officer in his mid-forties. The hem of his robe had been worn thin on the road. Fastened to his belt was the tag of Jingzhou's Inspector's residence (刺史府).

"A letter for His Highness the Imperial Uncle Liu (劉皇叔)."

The gatekeeper checked the tag and stepped back a pace. The man let go of the reins and walked into the courtyard carrying a single letter in both hands.

Within the courtyard of the magistrate's office, Liu Bei (劉備) was mending a cartwheel together with Guan Yu (關羽).

It was a cart they had taken out last spring. A spoke on the right rear wheel had cracked in last summer's rains. Guan Yu was shaping a new spoke and setting it in place; Liu Bei held the spoke steady. Sawdust clung to both men's hands. Beside them, Zhang Fei (張飛) was pressing one strand of the wheel down with the sole of his foot.

The gatekeeper entered the yard and stopped a pace away.

"My lord. A man has come from the Inspector's residence at Xiangyang."

Liu Bei let go of the spoke and rose, dusting his hands. Guan Yu and Zhang Fei turned to him at the same moment.

In the guest hall, the man from Xiangyang lifted the letter with both hands. Liu Bei received it and unfolded it. The writing was tidy. The seal was Liu Biao's (劉表).

The letter was short. A great conference (議) was to be held at Xiangyang. Generals and notables of Jingzhou would gather. His Highness the Imperial Uncle was asked to attend. After the conference, a banquet (宴) would be shared together.

Liu Bei set the letter down. Hands resting on the desk, he stayed silent for a long while. Guan Yu and Zhang Fei watched him from behind.

"Yunchang (雲長). Yide (翼德). Today, before anything else, I must ask the two of you one thing."

Guan Yu bowed his head. Zhang Fei folded his arms.

"Brother — at that conference, Cai Mao (蔡瑁) will also be there, will he not."

Zhang Fei spoke first. Guan Yu nodded without a word.

Cai Mao (蔡瑁). Commander of Jingzhou's navy. Younger brother of Liu Biao's second wife, Lady Cai (蔡氏). As Liu Biao aged into deepening illness, the true hand of Xiangyang was passing, little by little, into Cai Mao's grip.

In the six years since Liu Bei had come to Xinye, Cai Mao had not greeted him as a welcome guest. In his gaze, the fact that Liu Bei's surname was Liu (劉) — that single character — was the sharpest thorn of all. On the path by which Liu Biao's eldest son Liu Qi (劉琦) would die and Lady Cai's younger son Liu Cong (劉琮) would inherit the seat of Xiangyang, the name Liu Bei was the first name that had to be cleared away.

Liu Bei looked down at the letter again. The seal was Liu Biao's, but the beat of this invitation was not Liu Biao's. It was a beat that had flowed from a farther seat.

Zhang Fei let out a heavy breath.

"Brother, let us not go. If we go, it is a seat from which we shall not return."

Guan Yu lifted his face.

"Yide speaks quickly, but he speaks rightly. The moment of this invitation is not Liu Biao's pause."

Liu Bei stayed silent for a long while. Then he smiled quietly. The smile was heavy. Heavy — yet all three brothers had long known together that there are some seats to which one must go bearing that very weight.

"Not going is, at times, a seat one measure more fearful than going."

Guan Yu drew a deep breath. Zhang Fei clenched his fist hard.

"If you go, I shall not leave your side by so much as an inch, Brother."

Zhang Fei's voice trembled low. Guan Yu, silent, bowed his head.

That night, in a corner of the yard at Xinye, Liu Bei stood a long while before his horse, Dilu (的盧).

Dilu was a horse with a strand of white at the very center of his forehead. That strand shone all the brighter under the moon. It was said in the rumors of Jingzhou that this horse would one day do great harm to his master. Knowing the rumor, Liu Bei had kept the horse beside him for six years.

"Tomorrow, there may be one more seat for me to ride you to."

Liu Bei stroked the horse's mane. Dilu gave a low neigh. The white strand on his brow glinted once more under the moonlight.

The man who had come from Xiangyang slept shallowly that night in the guest quarters at Xinye. Within the folds of his robe, a second letter he had not yet delivered lay folded. That letter had been sent separately by a man on Cai Mao's orders: a sheet of the attendee list. At the very bottom of the list, four characters — "新野 劉備" — were ringed in red ink.

Even the man from Xiangyang did not yet know, precisely, the meaning of that circle.

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