The Sword Dancer (9 page)

Li Feng was torn and the two halves warred within her. She and Han had come to this village wary of one another, but over the last two days, something had changed between them. Han was starting to trust her and she was starting to feel that she was worthy of that trust.
We go together,
he had insisted.

Wei’s breath caught as he tried to breathe through the pain. When he looked up at her there was fear in his eyes.

‘Miss Wen,’ he pleaded.

This was no ruthless bandit. He was a husband and father. His wife and son were sleeping in the back of the tavern and he was afraid for them.

She thought of Yiyi and her boy. Han might spare the two of them, but Wei had been caught in the act. Salt smuggling was worse than theft; it was a crime against the government. Ping would have to watch his father dragged away by a thief-catcher. Wei would be tried and executed.

No matter how many times Han explained it to her, Li Feng would never understand how a few sacks of salt could equal a man’s life. Yiyi would be left without a husband and little Ping without a father.

‘Is there somewhere you can hide?’ she asked Wei. ‘Somewhere safe and far from here.’

He nodded.

‘Get ready now.’ She looked to his wound. It would need to be bound before he lost too much blood. ‘I’ll go with you.’

She had to go in case Han tracked them down. Wei wasn’t a trained fighter. He was no match for the thief-catcher.

Wei went to gather his family while Li Feng bolted the door. She considered asking Han to spare the tavern keeper, but she knew her effort would have been useless. Han believed in justice and order above all else. It would take more than what they had between them to persuade him.

Li Feng closed her eyes and rested her forehead against the door, listening for the pound of footsteps coming towards them. From the back of the tavern, she could hear shuffling and the sound of voices as Yiyi and her son awoke.

She and Han would have had to part ways sooner or later, she told herself. It wasn’t as if she owed Han anything. Certainly nothing more than she’d already given. She had just assumed that when they parted, there would at least be a farewell. Instead she would disappear into the night and Han would know that she had betrayed him.

But there was no time for regret. Li Feng pushed away from the door and went to help Wei and his family.

Chapter Nine

M
inzhou was a city of hills and canals, hidden within the mountains which surrounded it on three sides: east, west and north. The old part of the city was located on top of a hill and protected by a stone wall. A newer section had cropped up in the lowlands to the south. The Min River flowed between the two halves and a wide wooden bridge connected old to new. Though it was the capital of the prefecture, its location within the valley made it seem remote and sheltered. At the same time, it was a sprawl of a city. Li Feng walked through lane after lane, engulfed in the crowd and the buzz of voices. How did one go about finding a single man in such a place?

Thief-catcher Han would know how.

She shoved the thought aside. There was no point in thinking about him every day. Or in yearning for his company. She was done with Zheng Hao Han.

It had been over a week since she had helped Wei and Yiyi escape from their village. She had made sure they were safe before continuing on to Minzhou. During that time, she had exchanged her peasant clothing for the blue-grey robes of a Taoist priestess. Her hair was pulled back into an austere bun.

Li Feng didn’t know what she was expecting now that she was in Minzhou. Perhaps a sense of familiarity. Or of two pieces coming inevitably together, but she felt no more a sense of belonging here than she had anywhere else.

The bustling marketplace engulfed her and everyone became as nameless and faceless as she was. There were times when she sought this feeling of being lost in a crowd. She wasn’t so alone in a place where no one recognised one another.

She found a stand that served sweet dumplings and spent some time chatting with the vendor. He happened to be a former clerk who had fallen on hard times. Now his wife made the dumplings every morning and he sold them to care for their small family with another child soon to be born.

‘All things being said, Heaven has been good to me, Elder Sister,’ he said.

The respectful address startled her until Li Feng remembered she was dressed as a priestess. She ordered extra dumplings to further ingratiate herself. This was a busy intersection and the dumpling seller was the sort who spilled secrets easily.

‘Do you know of a man named Cai Yun?’ she asked him when he brought the second plate of dumplings. ‘He is supposedly from this city.’

‘Cai Yun?’ He scrubbed a hand over his chin. ‘The name sounds familiar—’

Another customer piped up. ‘Wasn’t that the name of that man outside the tea house?’

‘Him? Oh, was that his name?’

‘Horrible!’

Li Feng tried to follow the exchange without success until the dumpling seller turned back to her. He lowered his voice gravely. ‘If this was the man you’re looking for, he’s dead.’

The wind rushed out of her. ‘Dead?’

‘Right in the street, in daylight. They came upon him with knives.’

Others joined in the gossip. ‘There were city guards right at the corner.’

‘Nowhere is safe!’

The dumpling seller nodded. ‘One can’t be too careful.’

Li Feng was in shock. She had seen Cai Yun alive not ten days ago. ‘What happened?’

‘A man was leaving a local tea house when a gang of bandits surrounded him. He was with his attendants, but they were no use and were quickly overpowered.’ He lowered his voice ominously. ‘They slit his throat and left him there.’

‘Heaven and earth.’ She touched a hand to her own throat.

‘He wasn’t just any no-name,’ another customer said. ‘I heard he was the prefect’s steward, in charge of his affairs.’

Li Feng stood, slightly shaken at the convergence of events. The man she was searching for had been ruthlessly murdered. Han had suspected Cai Yun was involved in corruption, but this was still unexpected.

‘Did you know him, Elder Sister?’ the seller asked.

She was listening with half an ear. There was a stranger at the end of the street, half in view, half hidden by the corner. His face was incongruous, his features slightly askew. His jaw was shaded by a rough growth of stubble. Something about him left an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. Her gaze passed over him and he quickly turned away.

He had been watching her.

Hastily, she reached into her purse, placed a coin on to the table and turned to leave.

‘Your dumplings, Elder Sister!’

She had to wait while he wrapped them in palm leaves. By the time he handed her the package, the mysterious man was gone. Li Feng murmured her thanks and slipped into the crowd, taking care to match the pace of everyone around her. After several streets, she glanced back warily. Nothing was amiss.

Was another thief-catcher after her? The weight of the stranger’s stare sent a shiver up her spine. Whoever he was, the man was dangerous.

She crossed through a shaded area where a row of banyan trees had been planted. By the time she emerged on the other side of the park, the feeling of being followed had dissipated. She kept a hand close to her sword as she continued through the streets.

* * *

The rain came the next day, chasing all but the most stalwart of pedestrians from the streets. Li Feng had been expecting it, from the look of the sky, and had found refuge inside an abandoned Taoist shrine.

The front gate had been boarded shut when she came upon it, but she easily climbed the wall and landed inside the tiny square of a courtyard. Wild grass poked up between the rough stones that paved the garden and there was a small pond in the centre, though any fish that might be swimming in the murky waters were obscured beneath a layer of grime.

The altar in the main room was intact, leading her to believe the shrine’s caretaker had left for a journey and intended to return one day. Statues of the Three Pure Ones, the old sages of Taoist legend, stood on the altar. A dusty spider’s web stretched from the Jade Pure One’s shoulder up to the rafters.

Perhaps the caretaker of this shrine had gone off on a pilgrimage. Taoist practitioners often preferred to meditate in solitude, reflecting upon life up high in the mountains. Statues and incense neither inspired nor enlightened them.

Li Feng lit a fire in the small brazier that was typically used to collect incense and then climbed on to the altar to brush some of the dust off of the three statues. The Supreme Pure One regarded her with a serene, yet someone amused expression as she cleaned his face. She wasn’t one for idols either, but it was a small service to perform for her stay at the shrine.

‘Elder Sister.’ A deep voice cut through the rhythm of the rainfall. ‘I didn’t realise you had decided to follow the Way.’

It was Han. Of course it was Han.

She hopped from the altar, every muscle tense, as he stepped into the chamber. Water glistened upon his face and beaded on his cloak. The patter of raindrops upon the rooftop had covered the sound of his footsteps.

Her hand trailed to her sleeve. ‘You found me.’

‘I’ll always find you.’

He didn’t seem happy with that. Han shed his bamboo hat along with the heavy cloak that shielded him from the rain. His
dao
remained in his sheath while he looked over her priestess’s robe curiously.

‘Every time I see you, you’ve become something new,’ he said absently before meeting her eyes. ‘You disappeared that night.’

‘It was time to go our separate ways,’ she replied with her teeth on edge. Actually her teeth were close to chattering. It was cold inside and wet outside. The prospect of fleeing into the rain didn’t please her at all. She was rather annoyed by it.

He looked out into the soaked courtyard, then back at her. ‘Even though I’m blocking this doorway here, the frame on that window over there is pretty flimsy. I suppose you’re fast enough to dive through it.’

‘In one leap,’ she agreed warily. ‘And then I would be through the courtyard and up over the roof before you could turn around.’

‘The rain would make everything very slippery. Are you sure you won’t fall?’

He took a step into the altar room. By now he had to have discovered what had happened. Was she once again his quarry? Li Feng side-stepped along the wall to keep the distance between them. It was a precarious dance.

‘I’ve tried the climb,’ she insisted. ‘I know exactly where to hold on.’

‘You’ll land in the alleyway out back,’ he continued lightly. ‘That’s a dead end.’

‘Not for me.’

‘Ah, up another wall. On to another roof.’

‘Walking on walls and flying over eaves,’ she finished for him.

He smiled. It was a generous, genuine smile and, as always, it did alarming things to her insides.

‘It seems you’ve escaped from me again then,’ he conceded. ‘If that’s the case, we can both avoid the unpleasantness of getting soaked.’

He moved towards her, very much still in pursuit. Her heart was racing as fast as if she had run from him, even though she was standing still.

‘One day, I’ll find a way to get a hold of you,’ he said
quietly. He ventured closer and touched a hand to her waist, cradling gently with just the pressure of his fingertips. ‘Is there a way to keep a hold on you, Li Feng?’

His mouth grew tight as she glanced over the broad features of his face, the strong cheekbones and broad jaw. He was seeking an answer with his eyes, his touch, but she had no answer.

‘I searched everywhere that night.’ His voice resonated beneath the cadence of the rain. She could feel it humming through her, inside her. ‘At first I thought something had happened to you.’

He stopped himself, embarrassed at revealing so much. They were toe to toe, but still barely touching. It was hard to breathe freely with him so close.

She had never considered that he might be worried. That he might actually care for her. The thought flooded her with warmth.

‘I saw that the tavern keeper and his family were gone the next morning,’ he told her. ‘I knew then what had happened.’

‘It’s just salt,’ she argued.

‘It is never just salt,’ he corrected. ‘And the tavern keeper wasn’t the only one involved. I suspect the entire village had a hand in the smuggling.’

‘You arrested the entire village?’

‘No, that would be beyond my abilities. Such a serious accusation has to be carefully considered before being reported to the proper—’ He stopped himself and regarded her with a determined expression on his face. ‘This isn’t why I came here,’ he said, his voice rough.

‘Why, then?’

His hands rounded her waist to rest against the small of her back. At first she stiffened, but his touch had the ease of familiarity. As if holding her was the most natural thing in the world for him. Slowly he pulled her closer, testing the bonds between them.

She braced a hand against his chest. ‘This is impossible.’

‘I know.’

He didn’t kiss her.

With a heavy sigh, he lowered his forehead to hers. She had never realised how well they fit. Her height complemented his perfectly. It was a disconcerting thought. For a long moment they did nothing but stand together, breathing softly.

She closed her eyes. ‘I’m only letting you do this because you’re so warm.’

‘Of course.’

He was more than warm. He smelled faintly of sandalwood, a clean, comforting smell that made her close her eyes and sink against him. His chest was broad, his shoulders strong and for once she enjoyed the feeling of being enclosed and held. It had been so long.

‘Didn’t you consider that I might have some compassion in me?’ he asked her. ‘I’m not made of rock.’

An apt comparison, actually.

‘Justice is justice,’ she pointed out. ‘Your words.’

He fell silent. Li Feng pulled away and he let her slip through his fingers without a fight. Surely she was misleading Han to remain in his embrace, no matter how good it felt. She went to stand outside on the veranda. The tread of his footsteps on the wooden floor told her he’d followed her outside.

‘Why do you continue to follow me, if not to arrest me?’

She stared at the endless fall of water. It was easier than looking at Han. She had allowed herself to be diverted once before from her quest and wouldn’t let it happen again.

‘I told you we would do this together,’ he said.

‘Why?’ She turned and fixed her gaze on him. She wouldn’t accept his deflections about truth and justice any longer. ‘Why are you here?’ she demanded.

He considered for a long moment before answering.

‘Because we’re friends.’

* * *

He managed to coax her back inside. They fed strips of wood into the brazier and warmed their hands over the fire as they sat on the bamboo mats that covered the floor of the shrine.

‘How did you find me?’ Li Feng asked.

‘Does it matter?’

She tilted her head playfully at him. ‘I want to know how the thief-catcher thinks.’

It was as if they’d never parted. All their meetings in the past weeks started to blend seamlessly together in his mind. And in the spaces in between, he’d done little else but think of her, looking over small details, things she’d said, done. Figuring out how he’d find her again.

He nodded. ‘I knew you would come to Minzhou because it was where our friend Cai Yun was going. From our past altercations, I knew you favoured seeking out abandoned buildings. Then it was a matter of asking the right people about a woman travelling alone. You’ll always stand out because of that.’

She made a face at him, her lips in a pout. She would always stand out for him because he couldn’t take his eyes off of her. It had been that way from the first moment he’d seen her, sword in hand.

‘Do you know that Cai Yun is dead?’ she asked.

He blinked once. Twice. ‘Dead.’ He sat back, exhaling sharply. ‘Dead?’

She shifted to find a more comfortable position on the mat, tucking her legs beneath her as she recounted the tale. Han noted that she was no longer in a position to leap to her feet and fly through the window. In response, he relaxed as well, leaning back and resting an arm over his knee. For the moment, they were companions again.

‘An entire gang of bandits killed him out in the open and then disappeared?’ he asked.

‘They said a thief-catcher tried to hunt down the killers, but they beat him nearly to death and then escaped into the mountains.’