It was an unhappy surprise.
His father entirely and unreservedly disapproved of the royal gift. He thought it was an act of decadent folly. But since it was impossible in Tagur, even for a high-ranking officer, to say anything like that, Fortress Commander Nespo discharged his ire on his own worthless son, who happened to be serving under him now, and who had evidently proposed amendments to the gift, making it more likely to happen.
The horses were here at Dosmad, in large pens outside the walls. They needed to be fed and watered, ridden regularly, monitored for health. To send defective horses east would reflect badly upon Tagur, Commander Nespo had been caused to understand, and this, in turn, might have implications for him, nearing retirement.
A small army of men had arrived with the horses to discharge these duties, adding to the burdens of a fortress commander. He’d placed his son in charge of them. It was beneath Bytsan’s new rank, but the Sardians were the only reason for his son’s promotion, so he could make sure their hooves and diet were tended to and the shit and mud brushed off them when they rolled in it. He could do it himself, for all Nespo cared. In fact, he’d have preferred it that way. He’d said that to Bytsan.
It was easy to blame his son for all of this: Bytsan had been the one to propose to the court that they hold the horses here.
As far as Nespo sri Mgar was concerned, it was a foolish idea added to a foolish gift. The thing to do, if you had to go through with this, would have been to dump all two hundred and fifty of them on the Kitan at Kuala Nor and let him do what he could to get them back to wherever he wanted them. If the horses were stolen or scattered, grew sick, or died on the way, so much the better for Tagur, in Nespo’s view.
You didn’t give Sardian cavalry horses to a once enemy who might be a future enemy. You didn’t do that. And he wasn’t going to listen to anyone, especially his hopeless son, going on about the treaty signed after Kuala Nor, or honouring the wishes of the so-lovely princess they’d been so kindly granted by the eternally untrustworthy Kitans.
In fact, Nespo had declared to his son one evening earlier in the summer, this whole business of the princess and the horses might be part of Kitai’s intricate plotting.
Bytsan, who was far too modern in his thinking and too inclined to disagree if his father said the sun was shining at noon on a blue-sky day, had said, “After twenty years? Long time to hatch a plot. I think you’re too much afraid of them.”
Nespo had thrown him out of his chambers for that.
He did that often, throwing Bytsan out. He’d call him back the next night, or the one after if he’d been really angered, because … well, because this was his son, wasn’t it? And because not every last thing he said was foolish.
It was possible, just, for an old army officer in Tagur to accept that the world was changing. He didn’t have to like it, mind you.
And he wasn’t sure how he felt when messengers came from across the border in late summer, two riders under a banner of peace, to say that the Kitan from Kuala Nor had come for his horses—which meant his clever son had been proven right.
THEY MET, with half a dozen attendants each, on open ground near a stand of elm trees. The hilly country between Dosmad Fortress and the prefecture town of Hsien was one of the places of relatively open land between Kitai and the Taguran Plateau.
Shen Tai, he saw, riding up to where the other man was already waiting, had Kanlin Warriors as his escort. It surprised Bytsan a little, how pleased he was to see the other man.
Nespo had wanted his son to wear armour—he was enormously proud of Taguran linked-mail, better than anything in Kitai—but Bytsan had declined. It was a hot, humid day, they weren’t going into battle, and he’d be embarrassed if the Kitan decided he was wearing the armour for show.
Shen Tai dismounted first, from Dynlal. It affected Bytsan to see his own horse again, looking well cared for.
The Kitan walked forward. He stopped and bowed, hand over fist. Bytsan remembered this about him. He swung down from the saddle and did the same thing, not caring what his own soldiers thought. Shen Tai had done it first, hadn’t he? And the two of them had shared a night in a cabin among the dead.
He said, in Kitan, “You haven’t had your fill of Kanlins?” He grinned.
The other man smiled a little. “That one was false, these aren’t. I am pleased to see you again.”
“I am pleased you survived.”
“Thank you.”
They walked together, a little apart from their escorts. It was a heavy day, a chance of rain, which was needed.
Shen Tai said, “Dynlal is beyond magnificent. Would you like him back?”
They could do that to you, the Kitan—or some of them could. Bytsan shook his head. “He was a gift. I am honoured that he pleases you.”
“You have chosen three horses from the herd?”
Bytsan had done so, of course. Hadn’t been shy, either.
He said, “I’m afraid I took three of the best.”
Shen Tai smiled again, though there was an odd feeling that smiling came hard for him. Bytsan looked more closely, and wondered.
The other man registered the gaze.
He made a jest, too deliberately. “Ah, well, how would a Taguran know a good horse?”
Bytsan allowed himself to smile back. But now that he’d noticed it, it was obvious that even with the Kitan skill at hiding their thoughts, Shen Tai had changed since he’d left the lake.
Well, why shouldn’t he have?
“Did you find out who tried to kill you?” he asked.
He saw the other man stiffen, hesitate.
“You were there,” said Shen Tai, too lightly. “The false Kanlin did.”
It was a rebuff. Bytsan felt himself flushing, humiliated. He turned away, to hide it.
TAI REGRETTED HIS WORDS as soon as he spoke them. He hesitated again, this was difficult. The other man was Taguran, and Kitai was in the midst of a rebellion.
He took a breath. He had decided to trust this man, back by the lake. He said, “Forgive me. That was a shameful answer. But I have not talked of this with anyone.”
“Don’t force yourself to—”
“It was Wen Zhou, the first minister, who sent that assassin. And there were others on the road. As you thought there might be.”
He saw the Taguran, broad-shouldered, tanned by the summer sun, turn to look at him. There was no one nearby, which was good. Tai heard a distant roll of thunder. There would be rain.
“The first minister of Kitai hates you that much?”
“He hated me that much,” Tai said.
“He doesn’t, any more?”
“He’s dead.”
And if that told the Tagurans something they hadn’t yet learned, so be it. They were going to learn it, and it might as well be this man, his … well, his friend, who relayed the news.
Bytsan was staring. “This may be known in Rygyal, but I’m not certain it is.”
“There was an uprising in the northeast,” Tai said. “First Minister Wen Zhou accepted the blame for allowing it.”
That was enough for now, he thought.
“And he was killed?”
Tai nodded.
“So … you aren’t in danger?”
“No more than any man in difficult days.”
“But did … were you honoured by the emperor? As you deserved to be?”
“I was. I thank you for making it possible.”
It was true, of course. Tai had wealth, a great deal of property, and access to power if he wanted it. Though the emperor who had given him these things was travelling somewhere south of here, even now, towards the Great River, and he didn’t rule Kitai any more.
You didn’t need to tell all the truth, not with armies moving.
“And you?” he asked. “You are not in your fortress any more. This is good?”
“Mostly so. I am at Dosmad, obviously. My … my father is the commander.”
Tai looked at him. “Did
you know that he …?”
“Am I so obviously a fool? He’d just been transferred.”
“This is not good?”
Bytsan sri Nespo shook his head so gloomily, Tai laughed.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Fathers and sons …”
“I blame you,” said the Taguran wryly. And suddenly they seemed to be as they’d been during a long night by the lake.
“I am your friend,” said Tai with exaggerated seriousness. “One role of friends is to accept such blame unquestioningly.”
He was jesting, but the other man didn’t smile.
After a moment, Tai added, “I know that this has also changed your life.”
The other nodded. “Thank you,” he said. Bytsan looked at the clouds overhead. “I can bring the Sardians by late today, or tomorrow morning, if that suits better.”
“Tomorrow suits very well. I will have sixty Kanlins with me. They will have weapons, they always have them, but they are only here to lead and guard the horses. Please tell your men not to be alarmed.”
“Why would a Kitan alarm a Taguran soldier?”
Tai grinned.
Bytsan smiled back. “But I will let them know.” The Taguran hesitated again. “What are you doing with the horses?”
Given the circumstances they’d shared, a fair question. Tai shrugged. “The only thing that made sense, in the end … I’ve offered them to the emperor.”
He didn’t have to name the emperor, he thought. But he suddenly pictured Bytsan some weeks from now, learning the truth, realizing that Tai had …
“You do know,” he said abruptly, “that Emperor Taizu has withdrawn from the Phoenix Throne in favour of his son?”
They wouldn’t know. Not here, not yet.
Bytsan’s mouth opened, showing his missing tooth. “Which son?” he asked quietly.
“Third Son. The heir. Shinzu of the Ninth Dynasty is emperor of Kitai now, may he rule a thousand years.”
“Has … has a message gone to Rygyal?”
“I do not know. Perhaps. If you send word swiftly, it might come from you. It is all recent, I came here quickly.”
Bytsan stared at him again. “This may be a gift you are giving me.”
“A small one, if it is.”
“Not so small, being the one with world-changing tidings.”
“Perhaps,” Tai said again. “If so, I am pleased for you.”
Bytsan was still looking closely at him. “Are you pleased about the change?”
Near to the bone this time. “A man in my position, or yours … who are we to be happy or unhappy about what happens in palaces?” Tai suddenly wanted a cup of wine.
“But we are,” said Bytsan sri Nespo. “We always have thoughts on these changes.”
“Perhaps eventually,” said Tai.
The other man glanced away. “So you will take the Sardians to the new emperor? You will serve him, with them?”
And it was in that moment—in a meadow by the border with Tagur, under a heavy sky with thunder to the south—even as he opened his mouth to answer, that Tai realized something.
It made his heart begin to pound, so abrupt was the awareness, so intense.
“No,” he said quietly, and then repeated it. “No. I’m not.”
Bytsan looked back at him, waiting.
Tai said, “I’m going home.”
Then he added something else, a thought he hadn’t even known he’d been carrying until he heard his voice speaking it.
The Taguran listened, holding Tai’s gaze. After a moment he nodded his head, and said, also quietly, something equally unexpected.
They bowed to each other and parted—until the next morning, it was agreed, at which time the Heavenly Horses of the west, the gift of the White Jade Princess, would be brought over the border to Kitai.
LOOKING BACK, Tai would name that day as another of those that changed his life. Paths branching, decisions made. Sometimes, you did have a choice, he thought.
Riding back from the meeting with Bytsan he understood, yet again, that he’d already made a decision within, he’d only needed to acknowledge it, say it, bring it into the world. He felt a quiet within, as they rode. He hadn’t felt this way, he realized, since leaving Kuala Nor.
But this awareness—that all he wanted to do now was go home to his two mothers and his younger brother and his father’s grave, and Liu’s by now—was not the only thing that would emerge from that day and night by the border.
The storm came that afternoon.
The heavy stillness of the air, silence of birds, had foretold it. When it broke over them, lightning lacerating the southern sky, thunder cracking like the anger of gods, they were blessedly under a roof in the trading station and inn between Hsien and the border.
In times of peace, and there had been twenty years of peace now, Tagur and Kitai did trade, and this was one of the places where it happened.
As rain drummed on the roof and thunder boomed and snarled, Tai drank cup after cup of unexceptional wine, and did the best he could to fend off a verbal assault.
Wei Song was rigid with fury, had even enlisted Lu Chen to join her attack—and the very experienced leader of Tai’s Kanlins, however respectful he remained, wasn’t diffident about agreeing with her.
Song was less respectful. She called him a fool. He had made what appeared to be a mistake, had told the two of them his intentions. He was going home; the Kanlins would take the horses to the emperor.
“Tai, you cannot do this! Later, yes. Of course, yes. But not until you have taken the Sardians to him yourself! He needs to see you!”
She’d just called him by his name, which she never did.
Another hint that she was genuinely upset. As if he needed more evidence. He pushed a cup of wine across the wooden table to her. She ignored it. Her eyes were fierce. She was very angry.
“I am touched that a Kanlin Warrior should care so much about her employer’s choices,” he said, trying for a lighter tone.
She swore. She never did that, either. Lu Chen looked startled.
“You aren’t my employer any more!” Song snapped. “We were hired by Wen Jian, or did you forget?”
There was another roll of thunder, but it was north of them now, the storm was passing. “She’s dead,” he said. He was somewhat drunk, he realized. “They killed her at Ma-wai.”
He looked at the two Kanlins across the table. They were alone in the dining space of the inn, on long benches at a rough table. They had eaten already. The sun would be setting, but you couldn’t see it. A hard rain had been pounding down, it seemed to be lessening now. Tai felt sorry for the Kanlins who’d gone back to Hsien to bring the rest of the company. They would claim the horses in the morning and start them north.
Sixty Kanlins would. Not Tai.
He was going home. Crossing a last bridge over the River Wai.
He thought for a moment. “Wait. If you’re paid by Jian, then you aren’t being paid any more. You don’t even owe me …”
He trailed off, because Song looked extremely dangerous suddenly. Lu Chen lifted an apologetic hand.
He nodded to Chen, who said, “It is not so, my lord. The Lady Wen Jian presented our sanctuary with a sum of money to ensure you ten Kanlin guards for ten years.”
“What? That’s … it makes no sense!” He was shaken, again.
“Since when,” said Song icily, “do the women of a court have to act in ways that make sense? Is extravagance such a startling thing? I’d have thought you’d learned that lesson by now!”
She really wasn’t speaking respectfully. Too upset, Tai decided. He decided he would forgive her.
“Have more wine,” he said.
“I do not want wine!” she snapped. “I want you to have some sense. You aren’t a member of the court yet! You have to be more careful!”
“I don’t want to be a member of the court, that’s the whole … that’s the point!”
“I know that!” she exclaimed. “But
take the horses to the emperor first! Bow nine times, accept his thanks. Then decline a position because you feel a son’s need to go home to protect his family, with a father and older brother dead. He will honour that. He has to honour that. He can make you a prefect or something and let you go.”
“He doesn’t have to do anything,” Tai said. Which was true, and she knew it.
“But he will!”
“Why? Why will he?”
And amidst her fury, and what was also clearly fear, Tai saw a flicker of amusement in her eyes. Song shook her head. “Because you aren’t very useful to him in a war, Tai, once he has your horses.”
Using his name again. She sat very straight, looking at him. Lu Chen pretended to be interested in wine stains on the table wood.
Anger for a moment, then rue, then something else. Tai threw up both hands in surrender, and began to laugh. The wine, mostly, although wine could take you towards rage, too. Another crack of thunder, moving away.
Song didn’t smile at his amusement. She stared angrily back at him. “Think it through,” she said. “Master Shen, please think it through.” At least she was back to addressing him properly.
She went on, “The emperor knows your brother was with Wen Zhou. That puts you under suspicion.”
“He knows Zhou tried to kill me, too.”
“Doesn’t matter. It isn’t Wen Zhou, it is your brother, his death. Your feeling about that. And Jian’s. He knows she paid for your guards. For us.”
Tai stared at her.
Song said, “He will remember that you were on the ride from Xinan, when he spoke to the soldiers about Teng Pass and caused what happened at Ma-wai.”
“We don’t know he did that!” Tai exclaimed.
He looked around, to be sure they were alone.
“Yes, we do,” said Lu Chen softly. “And we also know it was almost certainly the right thing to do. It was necessary.”
“Sima Zian thought so, too!” said Song. “If he were here he would say it, and you would listen to him! Shinzu needed Zhou dead, and could have foreseen what would happen to Wen Jian after, and even his father’s reaction to her death. The empire needed a younger emperor to fight Roshan. Who can deny it?”