His older brother was an issue.
“That is indeed a change, as you said. What else must I know?”
Lin Fong reached for his tea cup, put it down. He said, gravely,
“You named the prime minister. That was an error. Alas, First Minister Chin Hai died last autumn.”
Tai blinked, shaken. He hadn’t been ready for this, at all. It felt for a moment as if the world rocked, as if some tree of colossal size had fallen and the fort was shaking with the reverberation.
Wei Song spoke up. “It is generally believed, though we have heard it suggested otherwise, that he died of an illness contracted with an autumn chill.”
The commander looked narrowly at her.
We have heard it suggested otherwise.
These could be called words of treason.
Commander Lin said nothing, however. It could never have been said that the army held any love for Emperor Taizu’s brilliant, all-controlling first minister.
Chin Hai, tall, thin-bearded, thin-shouldered, famously suspicious, had governed under the emperor through a quarter-century of growing Kitan wealth and fabulous expansion. Autocratic, ferociously loyal to Taizu and the Celestial Throne, he’d had spies everywhere, could exile—or execute—a man for saying something too loudly in a wine shop, overheard by the wrong person.
A man hated and terribly feared, and possibly indispensable.
Tai waited, looking at the commander. Another name was coming now. Had to be coming.
Commander Lin sipped from his tea. He said, “The new first minister, appointed by the emperor in his wisdom, is Wen Zhou, of … of distinguished lineage.” The pause was deliberate, of course. “Is his a name you might know?”
It was. Of course it was. Wen Zhou was the Precious Consort’s cousin.
But that wasn’t the thing. Tai closed his eyes. He was remembering a scent, green eyes, yellow hair, a voice.
“And if someone should ask me … should propose to make me his personal courtesan, or even a concubine?”
He opened his eyes. They were both looking at him curiously.
“I know the man,” he said.
Commander Lin Fong of Iron Gate Fortress would not have named himself a philosopher. He was a career soldier, and had made that choice early in life, following older brothers into the army.
Still, over the years, he had come to realize (with proper humility) that he was more inclined to certain ways of thinking, and perhaps to an appreciation of beauty that went deeper in him than in most of his fellow soldiers—and then fellow officers—as he rose (somewhat) through the ranks from humble beginnings.
He enjoyed, among other things, civilized conversation so much. Sipping wine alone in his chamber late at night, Lin Fong acknowledged that a disturbing measure of what had to be called excitement was keeping him awake.
Shen Tai, the son of the late General Shen, was the sort of person Lin Fong would have wished to keep at Iron Gate for days or even weeks, such was the spark of the man’s thinking and the unusual pattern of his life.
Their conversation over dinner had forced him to acknowledge, ruefully, how impoverished his daily routines and company were here.
He’d asked the man an obvious (to him) question. “You have now gone twice beyond the borders for extended periods. The ancient masters teach that danger to the soul lies in doing that.” He had offered a smile, to take any sting or offence from the words.
“Some teach that. Not all.”
“That is so,” Lin Fong had murmured, gesturing to a servant to pour more wine. He was a little out of his depth when it came to variant teachings of the ancient masters. A soldier did not have time to learn these things.
Shen Tai had looked thoughtful, however, the oddly deep-set eyes revealing a mind working on the question. Courteously, he’d said, “The first time, commander, I was a very young officer. I went north among the Bogü because I was ordered there, that’s all. I doubt, respectfully, you would have chosen to come to Iron Gate, had your wishes been considered.”
So he had noticed! Fong had laughed a little self-consciously. “It is an honourable posting,” he’d protested.
“Of course it is.”
After a short silence, Fong had said, “I take your point, of course. Still, having been beyond the empire once without any choice of your own, the second time …?”
Unhurried, unruffled, a man of obvious breeding: “The second time I was honouring my father. That is why I went to Kuala Nor.”
“There were no other ways to honour him?”
“I’m sure there were,” was all Shen Tai said.
Fong had cleared his throat, embarrassed. He was too hungry for such exchanges, he’d realized, too starved for intelligent talk. It could make you cross social boundaries. He’d bowed.
This Shen Tai was a complex man, but he was leaving in the morning to pursue a life that was unlikely ever to bring the two of them into contact again. With reluctance, but an awareness of what was proper, the commander had turned the conversation to the matter of the Tagurans and their fortress north of the lake, what Shen Tai could tell him of that.
The Tagurans, after all, were within his present sphere of responsibility, and would be until he was posted elsewhere.
Some men seemed able to slide in and out of society. This man appeared to be one of them. Lin Fong knew that he himself was not, and never would be; he had too great a need for security, routines, for such uncertainty. But Shen Tai did make him aware that there were, or might be, alternative ways to live. It probably did help, he thought, to have had a Left Side Commander for a father.
Alone in his chamber later that night, he sipped his wine. He wondered if the other man had even noticed that they’d been drinking tea earlier, how unusual that was out here. It was a new luxury, just beginning to be taken up in Xinan, imported from the far southwest: yet another consequence of peace and trade under Emperor Taizu.
He had heard about the drink from correspondents and asked for some to be sent. He very much doubted the new custom had been adopted by many other commanders in their fortresses. He’d even ordered special cups and trays, paid for them himself.
He wasn’t sure he liked the taste of the drink, even sweetened with mountain honey, but he did enjoy the idea of himself as a man in tune with court and city culture, even here on a desolate border where it was almost impossible to find a man worth talking to.
What did you do when faced with this as your life? You reminded yourself, over and again, that you were a civilized man in the most civilized empire the world had ever known.
Times were changing. The prime minister’s death, the new first minister, even the nature and composition of the army—all these foreign troops now, so different from when Lin Fong had first enlisted. There were great and growing tensions among military governors. And the emperor himself, aging, withdrawing, with who knew what to follow? Commander Lin did not like change. It was a flaw in his nature, perhaps, but a man could cling to basic certainties to survive such a flaw, couldn’t he? Didn’t you have to do that?
There was only one private chamber for guests at Iron Gate.
The fort wasn’t a place where distinguished visitors came. The trade routes were to the north. Jade Gate Pass, aptly named, guarded those and the wealth that passed through. That was the glamour posting in this part of the world.
The guest room was small, an interior chamber on the second level of the main building, no windows, no courtyard below. Tai regretted not having chosen to share a communal room where there might at least be air. On reflection, however, it hadn’t been an option: you needed to make choices that reflected your status or you confused those dealing with you.
He’d had to take the private chamber. He was an important man.
He had blown out his candle some time ago. The chamber was hot, airless, black. He was having trouble falling asleep. His thoughts were of Chou Yan, who was dead.
There were no ghost-voices in the darkness here, onl
y the night watch on the walls, faintly calling. There hadn’t been ghosts in the canyon, either, the two nights he’d spent coming this way. He hadn’t been used to that: stillness after sunset. He wasn’t used to not seeing the moon or stars.
Or, if it came to that, to having a young woman just the other side of his door, on guard—at her absolute insistence—in the corridor.
He didn’t need a guard here, Tai had told her. She hadn’t even bothered to reply. Her expression suggested that she was of the view she’d been retained by a fool.
They hadn’t talked about her fee. Tai knew the usual Kanlin rates, but had a feeling he also knew what she would say when that came up: something to do with her failure to be at Kuala Nor in time to save him, being required by honour to serve him now. He needed to learn more about that first woman at the lake: most importantly, who had sent her, and why.
He had a name—Yan had named their scholar friend Xin Lun—and Tai also had a growing apprehension about another.
The fee for Wei Song hardly mattered, in any case. He could afford a guard now. Or twenty. He could hire a private dui of fifty cavalry and dress them in chosen colours. He could borrow any sum he needed against the Sardian horses.
He was—no other way to shape the thought, no avoiding it—a wealthy man now. If he survived to deal with the horses in Xinan. If he sorted out how to deal with the horses.
His family had always been comfortable, but Shen Gao had been a fighting officer commanding in the field, not an ambitious one at court straining towards recognition and the prizes that came with it. Tai’s older brother was different, but he wasn’t ready to start thinking about Liu tonight.
His mind drifted back to the woman outside his door. That didn’t lead him towards sleep, either. They’d put a pallet in the corridor for her. They’d be used to doing that. Guests of any stature would have servants outside or even inside this chamber. It just wasn’t how he thought of himself. A guest of stature.
The other Kanlin—the rogue, according to Wei Song—had likely slept out there when Yan was in this same bed a few nights earlier.
You could look at that as symmetry, two well-balanced lines in a verse, or as something darker. This was life, not a poem, and Yan, loyal, gentle, almost always laughing, lay in a grave three days’ ride back through the ravine.
West of Iron Gate, west of Jade Gate Pass,
There’ll be no old friends.
For Tai, there would be one there forever now.
He listened, but heard nothing from the corridor. He couldn’t remember if he’d barred the door. It hadn’t been a habit for some time.
It had also been more than two years since he’d been close to a woman, let alone in the stillness after dark.
Against his will, he found himself picturing her: oval face, wide mouth, alert eyes, amusement in them under arching eyebrows. The eyebrows her own, not painted in the Xinan fashion. Or what had been the fashion two years ago. It had likely changed. It always changed. Wei Song was slender, with quick movements, long black hair. It had been unbound when first seen this morning.
Too much, that last recollection, for a man who’d been alone as long as he had.
His mind seemed to be sailing down moonlit river channels, pulled towards memory as to the sea. Unsurprisingly, he found himself thinking of Spring Rain’s golden hair, also unbound, and then—unexpectedly—there was an image of a different woman entirely.
It was because of what he’d been told this afternoon, he suspected, that he found himself with a clear memory of the Precious Consort, the emperor’s own dearly beloved concubine.
Wen Jian, the one time he’d seen her close: a jade-and-gold enchantment on a springtime afternoon in Long Lake Park. Laughing on horseback (a ripple in air, like birdsong), a shimmer about her, an aura. Appallingly desirable. Unattainable. Not even safe for dreaming about or reveries.
And her handsome, silken-smooth cousin, he had learned today, was now first minister of the empire. Had been since autumn.
Not a good man to have as a rival for a woman.
If Tai was even halfway intelligent, in possession of the most basic self-preservation instincts, he told himself, he would stop thinking about Spring Rain and her scent and skin and voice right now, long before he came anywhere near to Xinan.
Not easily done.
She was from Sardia, as the horses were. Objects of desire, coming as so many precious things seemed to do, from the west.
It was another existence entirely, this world of men and women and desire, Tai thought, lying in darkness at the empire’s edge. That truth was beginning to come back, along with so much else. One more aspect of what he was returning to.
It was unsettling, pushed away sleep, twisting with all the other disturbances in his mind like silkworm threads inattentively spooled. And he was still on the border, in a back-of-beyond fortress. What was going to happen as he rode east on his bay-coloured Sardian to the brilliant, deadly world of the court?
He turned restlessly, hearing the mattress and bedposts creak. He wished there were a window. He could stand there, draw breaths of clear air, look up at summer stars, seek order and answers in the sky. As above, so below, we are a mirror in our lives of the nine heavens.
He felt confined in here, fought an apprehension of permanent enclosure, restraint, death. Someone had tried to kill him, before they’d known about the horses. Why? Why would he have been important enough to kill?
Abruptly he sat up, swung his legs over the side of the bed. Sleep was vanishingly far away.
“I can bring you water, or wine.”
Her hearing had to be extremely good, and she couldn’t have been asleep.
“You are a guard, not a servant,” he said, through the closed door.
He heard her laughter. “I have been retained by people who saw little distinction.”
“I am not one of those.”
“Ah. I shall light an ancestor candle in gratitude.”
Gods above! He wasn’t ready for this.
“Go to sleep,” Tai said. “We start early.”
Laughter again. “I’ll be awake,” she said. “But if you can’t sleep because of fears tonight, you’ll slow us down tomorrow.”
He really wasn’t ready for this.
There was a silence. Tai was acutely aware of her presence out there. After a moment he heard her say, “Forgive me, that was presumptuous. Accept that I am bowing to you. Respectfully, however, might you have declined the princess’s gift?”
He had been thinking the same thing for three days. That didn’t make it easier to hear someone else ask it.
“I couldn’t,” he said.
It was odd, talking through door and wall. Someone could be listening, easily enough. He doubted it, however. Not here. “They were offered to me by royalty. You can’t refuse.”
“I wouldn’t know. Her gift will probably kill you.”
“I am aware of that,” Tai said.
“It is a terrible thing to do to someone.”
Youth in the voice now, in that aggrieved sense of injustice, but her words were true, after a fashion. The princess would not have meant for that to happen. It would not even have occurred to her that it might.
“They know nothing of balance,” Wei Song said from the corridor. She was Kanlin: balance was the essence of their teaching.
“The Tagurans, you mean?”
“No. Royalty. Everywhere.”
He thought about it. “I think being royal means you need not think that way.”
Another silence. He had a sense of her working it through. She said, “We are taught that the emperor in Xinan echoes heaven, rules with its mandate. Balance above echoed below, or the empire falls. No?”
His own thought, from moments before.
There were women in the North District—not many, but a few—who could talk this way over wine or after lovemaking. He hadn’t expected it here, in a Kanlin guard.
He said, “I mean it differently. About
how they think. Why should our princess in Rygyal, or any prince, have an idea what might happen to a common man if he is given a gift this extravagant? What in their lives allows them to imagine that?”
“Oh. Yes.”
He found himself waiting. She said, “Well, for one thing, that means the gift is about them, not you.”
He nodded, then remembered she couldn’t see him.
“Go to sleep,” he said again, a bit abruptly.
He heard her laugh, a richness in the dark.
He pictured her as he’d first seen her, hair down her back in the morning courtyard, just risen from her bed. Pushed that image away. There would be women and music in Chenyao, he thought. Five days from now.
Perhaps four? If they went quickly?
He lay down again on the hard pillow.
The door opened.
Tai sat up, much more abruptly than the first time. He gathered the bed linens to cover his nakedness, though it was dark in the room. No light came in with her from the corridor. He sensed rather than saw her bowing. That was proper, nothing else about this was.
“You should bar your door,” she said quietly.
Her voice seemed to have altered, or was that his imagination?
“I’m out of the habit.” He cleared his throat. “What is this? A guard’s sweep of the chamber? Am I to expect it every night?”
She didn’t laugh. “No. I … have something to tell you.”
“We were talking.”
“This is private.”
“You think someone is listening? Here? In the middle of the night?”
“I don’t know. The army does use spies. You need not fear for your virtue, Master Shen.” A hint of asperity, tartness returning.
“You don’t fear for yours?”
“I’m the one with a blade.”
He knew what bawdy jokes would have been made in the North District as an immediate response to that. He could almost hear Yan’s voice. He kept silent, waiting. He was aroused, distracted by that.
She said, softly, “You haven’t asked who paid me to follow the assassin.”
Suddenly he wasn’t distracted any more.