“No,” he shakes his head. “Was right. Not to go. For priests, spirit-walkers. Very old. But you see last horse? Above?”
“I saw it.”
He looks at her, seems to make a decision. “Come. One thing we do, then go.”
She has exhausted her reserves for resisting. She lets him lead her back into the dimness of the horse-cave with those animals on the wall, laid upon each other long ago. And she watches as he does go into the last cave, the one she would not enter. Very old.
He comes out with a shallow earthen bowl, and mixes into it water from a second flask he’s carrying, and he stirs with a wooden stick, his motions stiff as they always are. There is no grace to him, how he moves. She is surprisingly certain there was, once.
He signals her nearer. She goes. He takes her right hand—the first time he’s ever touched her—and lays it flat in the bowl. There is a paint of sorts, white, or very nearly.
At that point she realizes what is happening.
He leads her over by the wrist and he lays her hand on the flank of the king-horse above the tunnel leading to the third cave, so that a fresh imprint is made there among all the others, which means that her existence, her presence, her life having been here has now been recorded, registered. And perhaps (she will never know) that does play a role in what follows.
It is so hard to see the patterns, to be sure that they are there.
They leave that cave and then the other one, go back out into sunlight. She blinks in the day’s brightness.
He has found one horse only, but the dead shaman’s is still tethered here, unmenaced by the wolves, though lathered with fear—and so they have two mounts, after all, along with the food and the clothing Meshag has taken from who knows where.
He helps her on the smaller horse, and then he mounts and gentles the shaman’s, and they ride a path out of that valley and go east with the sun overhead and the wolves beside them.
Li-Mei has no notion, no least idea where he is taking her, but she is alive, and not going placidly into the fate devised for her against her will and desire, and, for now, for this moment under heaven, that is enough.
CHAPTER XIV
Wujen Ning, of the Second District cavalry, had been the first to see Master Shen Tai and his horse appear like ghosts out of a grey dawn west of Iron Gate Fortress.
Now, not many days after, he was dimly aware that his life might be changed—or might have already been changed—by them.
It was not normal for peasant labourers or soldiers without rank to undergo such alterations in the flowing of their lives. You worked your fields, dealt with flood or famine, married, had children born, had them die (and wives). Events far away rolled on, vaguely apprehended, perhaps heard about over rice wine in a tavern, if you went to taverns.
Or you joined the army, were posted where they posted you—usually far from home these days. You dug ditches and latrines, built and rebuilt garrison walls and buildings, patrolled for bandits or wild animals, caught fevers, lived or died, marched, did go to taverns and brothels on leave in market towns. Sometimes you fought, some of you died in battle, some lost an eye or an arm and wished they’d died. The sweep of distant events among the great might come more often to your ears in the way of army talk, but it tended to have just as little impact, short of a major campaign, or perhaps a rebellion.
Change wasn’t a part of life as Wujen Ning had understood or experienced it. This truth was currently … undergoing change.
For one thing, he was shockingly close to Xinan, to seeing the capital for the first time in his life. Only a night or two away now, they told him.
The countryside had been altering as they’d ridden east from Chenyao. Wheat and barley fields, the occasional mulberry grove (silk farms set back behind them, away from the noise of the road) had given way to village after village, and larger towns, so frequent now you could say they were continuous. People and more people. Temple bells ringing not in haunting isolation but barely audible amid loud populations. Small farms—potatoes, broad beans—were tucked in between the villages, squeezed.
There was an endless line of market carts or wood-cutters’ wagons going both ways along the imperial road, clogging it, slowing them. This was the outermost sprawl of Xinan, he was told. They were getting close now.
It was not something Ning had ever thought about, or wanted. The capital had been as remote to his grasp of the world as the sea. It terrified him, to be honest: so many people. Already. He tried not to let that show, and since no one in their company was really looking at him and he talked little, he thought he’d kept his secret. He did catch himself whistling nervously sometimes.
He wondered, as they travelled, how the other soldiers felt about coming to the capital. There were thirty riders now, not just the five that had set out from Iron Gate to escort Master Shen. Governor Xu had insisted that Shen Tai, as an honorary officer of the Second District army, carrying tidings (and riding a horse) of greatest importance, be accompanied—and protected.
There was some anger and some amusement among the Iron Gate soldiers (Ning didn’t see the humour, but he wasn’t good at that, he knew) arising from the belief that it was carelessness among the governor’s guards that had come near to having Master Shen killed in Chenyao.
One of Ning’s fellows from Iron Gate, a man with no shortage of opinions or wine-soaked breath to voice them with, said he didn’t think any of those soldiers who had been on guard outside their inn that night were still alive.
Governor Xu might no longer be in the prime of youth, he said, but he wasn’t showing any inclination to retire to fruit orchards and trout ponds. He was wealthy, aristocratic, known to have rivalries with other military governors. One big one in particular, he’d said with a knowing look, as if everyone at their table would realize the one he meant. Ning didn’t. It didn’t bother him.
Had Shen Tai been killed (or the horse, Wujen Ning thought, with genuine horror) it would, apparently, have reflected very badly on the governor. Ning didn’t understand or think much about this either, but from the time they’d left Chenyao he had made it his task to stay as close as he could to Master Shen and Dynlal. He honoured Shen Tai; he loved the horse. How could anyone, Wujen Ning thought, not love the horse?
The Kanlin woman, who frightened all of them a little (and elicited some crude talk at night), appeared to have decided Ning was all right. After an amused expression or two, she had accepted him as having a place close to them while they rode, or when they settled for the night.
(Ning didn’t understand her glances. He didn’t know what anyone could find amusing in any of this, but he had learned to accept that what made others smile could be a source of perplexity for him.)
They were stopping at large inns now at sundown, imperial posting stations. Good meals, a change of horses. They had documents, signed by the governor.
Ning was always entrusted with Dynlal at the end of a day’s ride. He tried not to let his pride show, but it probably did. He talked to the horse at night, waking and walking out from whatever space he shared with the other soldiers, bringing apples to the stable. Sometimes he’d sleep there.
Master Shen didn’t look at him much as they rode, or at any of them. He spoke occasionally with his Kanlin guard, more often with the poet who had joined them (another mystery). His preoccupation was with speed. None of the soldiers knew why, not even the one who acted as if he knew everything.
If Wei Song and the poet knew the reason, they weren’t telling. The poet’s name was Master Sima. The others said he was famous. Immortal, one of them declared. Ning knew nothing about that but he didn’t think anyone was immortal. Maybe the emperor.
What he did know was that Shen Tai was in a great hurry to get to Xinan.
Ning wasn’t, at all, but his own wishes and desires were as those of the silkworm that spins in subdued light amid a hush, and lives only to do that.
ON THE FIFTH DAY out of Chenyao, just before crossing an arched river br
idge Tai had always loved, they’d come to a road branching south, running alongside the stream.
He had known it was coming, of course.
He’d been careful not to look down that road as they reached the junction, or to speed up his horse in feigned indifference as they went across the bridge above bright water. There were plum blossoms in the stream, he saw.
It was difficult. He knew that southern road as surely as he knew his own face in a bronze mirror. Every turn, every fall and rise. Knew the towns and hamlets you would pass, the fields and mulberry groves and silk farms. The one genuinely good wine shop, and the places to find a woman and a bed between the imperial road they were on and the home where he’d grown up, where his mothers and youngest brother were, and his father’s grave.
Not him. Not Liu. Not Li-Mei.
The three of them were in the world, entangled in it. In the dust and noise, jade-and-gold. After two years by the lake he didn’t know how he felt about that, he’d been moving east so fast he hadn’t had time to think about it. That was, he decided, a component of the dust and noise: never enough time.
For Li-Mei it would be worse. Tai remembered the dust storms of the north. Real ones, stinging, blinding, dangerous, not a poet’s imagery. There was so much anger when he thought of her.
He’d felt a tug within, a feeling nearly physical, as they passed the cut-off south. Two years and more since he’d been there, seen the gates in the stone wall, the worn-smooth statues beside it (to frighten demons away), the always-swept path, the goldfish ponds, the porch, garden, stream.
His father’s grave-marker would be raised by now, he thought. The allotted time had passed. His mother would have done things properly, she always did. But Tai hadn’t seen the headstone, hadn’t bowed before it, didn’t know what was inscribed, what verse had been chosen, what memorial words, who had been selected to do the calligraphy.
He’d been at Kuala Nor. And was going elsewhere now, riding past the road that would bring him home. There could be peace there at night, he thought, after two years of hearing the dead.
He knew that this speed was almost meaningless. It crossed into some showy gesture, a display of love for his sister, driving riders and horses hard towards Xinan, and to no point.
She’d already been gone when Sima Zian left the capital. He’d said so. The decision had been made before poor Yan had set out for Tai’s family estate, thinking to find him there, to tell him what was being done to her. There might have been enough time if he’d been home.
Too late now. So why was he pushing on so fiercely, all of them awake before sunrise, riding till nightfall? The days were longer now, too, approaching the summer festival.
No one complained, not by word or glance. The soldiers would not (would never!), but neither did Wei Song, who had given considerable evidence of a willingness to advise him as to correct conduct. And Sima Zian, older and presumably suffering most from their pace, did not seem to be suffering at all. The poet never spoke to Tai about their speed, the folly of it, the absence of proportion.
Perhaps, with a lifetime of observing men, he’d understood from the beginning what Tai only gradually came to grasp: he wasn’t thundering down this road on his glorious horse in a wild attempt to rescue his sister.
He was going to his brother.
Accepting that truth, acknowledging it, didn’t bring anything like the calm that resolving uncertainty was supposed to do. For one thing, there was too much anger in him. It seemed to find new channels with every li they rode, every watch of the nights when he lay awake, even in the fatigued aftermath of the day’s riding.
He didn’t talk about any of this with the poet, and certainly not with Song, though he had a sense they both knew something of what was troubling him. He didn’t enjoy the feeling of being understood so well, even by a new, dazzling friend, and certainly not by a Kanlin woman who was only here to guard him, and only because he’d made an impulsive decision at Iron Gate. He could have dismissed her by now. He had thirty soldiers.
He didn’t dismiss her. He remembered, instead, how she’d fought at sunrise, in a garden in Chenyao.
IT WAS LATE in the day. Tai felt it in his legs and back. The sun was behind them, a mild summer’s day, slight breeze. The imperial road was thronged with traffic. It was too crowded, too noisy, for any attempt to appreciate the beauty of late afternoon, the twilight to come.
They were three days past the cut-off to his home now, which meant less than two days from Xinan. They might even be there tomorrow, right around curfew. He knew this part of the road very well, had gone back and forth often enough through the years.
Even with the crowds they were going quickly. They used the middle of the three lanes, reserved for soldiers and imperial riders. A pair of imperial couriers, galloping even faster than they were, shouted for them to make room and they did, jostling some farm carts and laden peasants right off the road towards the drainage ditch. The couriers carried full saddlebags, obviously packed with more than message scrolls.
“Lychees for Wen Jian!” one of them shouted over his shoulder as the poet threw out a query.
Sima Zian laughed, then stopped laughing.
Tai thought about helping the farmers right their carts and goods, but there was too much urgency in him. They would help each other, he thought, and looking back saw that it was so. It was the way of life for country folk: they’d probably have been fearful and confused if soldiers had stopped to aid them.
He looked over at the poet. Zian’s horse was beside his. Dynlal could have outrun all the others easily; a foolish thing to do. It might not be as foolish in a day or so. Tai had been thinking about that, of making his way ahead, entering Xinan quietly, before the gates closed at dusk. He had someone to see, and it might be more possible after dark.
The other man’s expression was grave, as they watched the couriers disappear into dust ahead of them, carrying a delicacy for the Precious Consort. Lychees. The military post, wearing out horses with them.
“That is wrong. It is not …” Sima Zian began. He stopped.
Recklessly, Tai said, “Not proportionate?”
Zian looked around to ensure that no one else was near them. He nodded. “One word for it. I fear chaos, in the heavens, here on earth.”
Words that could have you beaten and exiled. Even killed. Tai flinched, sorry he’d spoken. The poet saw it and smiled. “My apologies. Shall we discuss the verses of Chan Du? Let us do that. It always brings me pleasure. I wonder if he’s in Xinan … I believe he is the best poet alive.”
Tai cleared his throat, followed the lead. “I believe I am riding with the best poet alive.”
Sima Zian laughed again, waved a hand dismissively. “We are very different men, Chan Du and I. Though he does enjoy his wine, I am happy to say.” A brief silence. “He wrote about Kuala Nor when he was younger. After your father’s campaign. Do you know them, those verses?”
Tai nodded his head. “Of course I do.” He had studied those poems.
Zian’s eyes were tiger-bright. “Did they send you there? To the lake?”
Tai thought about it. “No. My father’s sadness sent me there. One poem … may have given me a task.”
The other man considered that, then said:Why sir, it is true: on the shores of Kuala Nor
White bones have lain for many years.
No one has gathered them. The new ghosts
Are bitter and angry, the old ghosts weep.
Under the rain and within the circle of mountains
The air is full of their cries.
“You thought it was a poet’s imagery? About the ghosts?”
Tai nodded. “I imagine everyone does. If they haven’t been there.”
A short silence, and then the poet asked, “Son of Shen Gao, what is it you need to do when we arrive? How may I help you?”
Tai rode a little. Then said, very simply, “I do not know. I am eager to be counselled. What should I do?”
But Sima
Zian only repeated back to him, “I do not know.”
They rode on, the light very rich now, nearing day’s end, the wind behind them. Tai felt it stir his hair. He reached forward and patted the mane of his horse. He loved the horse already, he thought. Sometimes it took no time at all.
The poet said, “You told me you wanted to kill someone.”
Tai remembered. Late night in the White Phoenix Pleasure House. “I did say that. I am still angry, but trying not to be unwise. What would you do, in my place?”
A quick answer this time. “Take care to stay alive, first. You are a danger to many people. And they know you are coming.”
Of course they did. He’d sent messages, the commander of Iron Gate had, Governor Xu would have sent letters, using all-night riders.
But Tai took the point, or what might have been part of a subtle man’s point: it truly would not be wise to ride alone through the walls, to do whatever it was he wanted to do, if he decided what he wanted to do.
He realized that Zian was reining up beside him. Slowing Dynlal, Tai looked ahead, towards the side of the road, at a grassy space across the ditch. He realized, doing so, that it had become more than just foolish, any notion of slipping quietly into the city as darkness fell.
He stopped his horse. Lifted a hand so the others would do the same. Wei Song came up beside them and so, a little behind her, did the gap-toothed soldier whose name he could never remember. The one who always took care of Dynlal.
“Who is it?” Song asked quietly.
“Isn’t it obvious?” asked the poet.
“Not to me!” she snapped.
“Look at the carriage,” said Zian. There was an edge to his voice. The sun from behind them lit the road, the grass, and the carriage he was eyeing. “There are kingfisher feathers on it.”
“That isn’t the emperor!” Song said. “Stop being obscure. I need to know, to decide what—”
“Kanlin, look at the soldiers!” said Sima Zian. “Their uniforms.”