“This prince hopes the honored grandfather had a good night!” the elegantly dressed young man proclaimed, bending in a low bow.

  Prince Regent Dorgon was thirty-six years old and did not feel like the grandfather of twenty-year-old Lekdehun. In truth, the latter was the grandson of his second brother Daisan.

  Daisan, Prince Li, to the great sorrow of the entire country, had passed away last November at the age of sixty-five. As he had always supported Dorgon and the Emperor, the Prince Regent now repaid that loyalty to his numerous orphaned descendants.

  “If you call me grandfather rather than prince, then you have some family problem,” Dorgon snorted, stroking his mustache. “Speak.”

  “N-not exactly mine, but…” Lekdehun grew flustered and began to twist the end of his thin jet-black braid.

  “Speak,” Dorgon repeated. Those youngsters were forever entangling themselves in something and then running to him for help. “If it is not treason, you have nothing to fear.”

  When the young Fulin had first been chosen Emperor several years ago, part of the family had opposed the decision and raised a rebellion, intending to place Dorgon himself upon the throne. Together with Daisan, he had then been forced to punish the traitors severely. Among those executed were one of Daisan’s sons and Adali, his grandson and Lekdehun’s elder brother. And this nice boy, who now could not find the proper words, had been expelled from the imperial clan and sent into exile.

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  A year later Dorgon had agreed to bring Lekdehun back and restore his rights — he had been too young to participate in his brother’s and uncle’s treason. Yet fear seemed never to have released him, and Lekdehun had grown nervous, timid, and overly thin. He would certainly not last long on a battlefield. Dorgon felt pity for him.

  “Last evening, when the banquet in honor of the Son of Heaven ended, Prince Li appeared dissatisfied with the meagerness of the entertainments,” Lekdehun faltered again and cast Dorgon a quick glance from beneath thick dark lashes, “and invited me to continue the celebration in the flower quarter.”

  Dorgon snorted.

  Whenever something was bound to go wrong, the name of the second Prince Li would inevitably be heard. Mandahai, the seventh son of Daisan, who had inherited the title, possessed a violent temper and poor upbringing. Fortunately, his companions were usually more reasonable and restrained him from serious mistakes.

  Usually, but not always.

  “What has that scoundrel done this time?” Dorgon sighed.

  “Prince Li drank much yesterday,” Lekdehun began to recount. “Then he began to harass the girls. They did not object; they know the prince’s character. But afterward Prince Li, for some reason, decided to pay attention to, um, one of the musicians. Forgive me. I am only telling it as it was.”

  “Continue,” Dorgon urged him, frowning.

  “And, well, it came to a fight,” Lekdehun lowered his gaze to the tips of his embroidered shoes. “Prince Li broke that fellow’s head. The mistress of the house locked the prince in a shed and said she would summon the guards and accuse him of immoral conduct unless he offered an apology to the musician. And Prince Li…”

  “I understand. Let us go,” Dorgon interrupted. At times, being the head of the family meant resolving such trivial matters. “You will show me which flower house your uncle caused trouble in.”