The White Mirror (14 page)

There was a silence. “No,” said Hamza, finally.

Li Du took a deep breath. “A murderer, however, who wished to make a murder look like a suicide, would do exactly that.”

“Explain this to me,” said Hamza, with a gesture of invitation. He leaned against a wall and crossed his arms over his chest.

“Dhamo went to the hot springs to collect cinnabar,” Li Du said, thinking as he spoke. “He intended to return with it to his studio and continue his work. When I examined the hot spring pool, I touched scoring where a blade had scraped and pried away the rock. Dhamo must have had a knife with him.”

“He did,” said Hamza. “A knife that was later buried in his body.”

With a little shake of his head, Li Du went on. “Dhamo was killed with a silver blade. I saw it this morning at the temple. It is an ornate weapon, and it was not the one that Dhamo used to chip at rocks.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because the water of the hot springs tarnishes silver. If Dhamo had used that blade, it would have turned black.” Li Du withdrew his own knife from its sheath and handed it to Hamza, indicating the silver in its hilt.

Hamza looked impressed. “Then where is the knife Dhamo used to collect the cinnabar?”

“Exactly,” replied Li Du. “There was no knife with Dhamo's body except for the one that killed him. So where is the prosaic tool to fit the prosaic task? My guess is that the murderer tossed it into the stream, along with the cinnabar Dhamo had collected. Without them, the scene appeared as the murderer wanted it to appear. Dhamo went to the bridge with paint and a knife, and submitted to his demons.”

With a grave expression, Hamza handed Li Du's knife back to him. “Surely there are easier ways to kill a man,” he said. “Why choose such an elaborate scheme?”

“I don't know,” Li Du said. “And here is another question. What is the meaning of the painted mirror? It was not necessary to the appearance of suicide.”

Hamza had no answer. “What will you do,” he asked. “Will you tell Doso?”

Li Du let out a shaky breath, aware that he was exhausted. With an effort, he gathered his thoughts. “I do not think we should announce our suspicions yet,” he said. “Whom can we trust?”

A crease appeared between Hamza's eyebrows. “We can trust Kalden.”

“Are you sure? Why has he been so evasive about his reason for bringing us here?”

Hamza opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. “I don't know,” he said.

Li Du picked up one of the warmers. It was still hot. “Tomorrow I will investigate the place from which Campo fell. Maybe something was left there.”

“If you are going back to the hot springs,” said Hamza, “this time you will not go alone.”

 

Chapter 12

It had snowed a little more during the night, and Li Du and Hamza emerged from the manor to a smooth, featureless pasture. At the open door of Yeshe's hut, the old man was accepting buckets of water from Kamala's two eldest children. He hailed Li Du and Hamza, and they made their way over.

The two children stood close to Yeshe, their dark eyes conducting a wary assessment of the strangers. “Go back to the hearth,” Yeshe said to them. His face when he looked at them was kind. “Your mother will praise you if you are quick in your chores.”

They scampered back toward the manor, the empty buckets swinging in their hands. Yeshe's expression hardened as he looked up at Li Du and Hamza, and Li Du wondered how much of his apparent cantankerousness was indicative of the physical pain he suffered. Li Du doubted that the cold was kind to scarred and twisted joints.

“Wandering through the forest at night,” said Yeshe. “You two are lucky you travel with those Khampa. You won't last long in these mountains making decisions like that. I hear that the foreign monk fell, but didn't break any of his bones.” Yeshe glanced down at his own legs.

“It is true,” Li Du said. “He was very lucky.”

“Maybe his god let him sprout wings like one of the pictures in his book,” Yeshe said.

“What book?”

Yeshe shrugged. “He came into my place to show pictures in a book to me and to the children. In his bad Chinese, he tried to tell them about his god. They didn't understand, and wouldn't pay attention to him.” A hint of pride crossed Yeshe's features. “They like my stories better,” he said.

Hamza looked interested. “What stories do you tell them?”

Yeshe shrugged again. “The kind of stories that children like. Stories that frighten them.”

*   *   *

A short while later, Li Du and Hamza stood together on the ledge from which Campo had fallen. The fresh snow, in combination with the sweeping wind, had left only illusory suggestions of footprints. Several broken branches hanging askew near the edge testified to where Campo had clutched for balance. Below them were the pools, shining indistinctly through the vapors that eddied across their surfaces.

“I have seen pools like this before,” said Hamza, “in the hills north of Kham. Those springs were near a monastery, and they were heated by a spirit who used to torment travelers. One day, the spirit led the wife of a soldier into a ravine so that she would be lost, only to fall in love with her when he saw her crying amid the thorns and rocks. He tried to lead her to safety, but she slipped and fell to her death. The repentant spirit went to a temple high on the mountain and asked the monks how he could atone for his actions. The clever monks told the spirit that he could atone by warming the water in the mountain. So the spirit kept their water hot for many years, and was grateful to the monks for their counsel.”

“And the monks were grateful for the warmth,” Li Du said.

“Just so,” said Hamza. He scanned the snow around them again. “We have not learned much from coming to this place.”

“No,” Li Du agreed. His gaze was focused on the view through the trees. He pointed. “You can see the bridge,” he said, “if you stand just here.”

Hamza moved closer and looked. “I can see it,” he said. “From this distance, and with the the fresh snow, it has a tranquil look.”

Li Du only half agreed. It was not hard to imagine death within that vista of wintry gray and white. What was difficult to picture were the colors: the crimson robe, the lurid splashes of blood and layers of paint. He retreated from the ledge and paced slowly in the direction of the woods, deep in thought.

In front of him was a tree that had fallen long ago, and was covered in an undisturbed layer of snow. He pulled his right hand free of its sleeve and considered. Several moments to untie the leather packets of paint, then … he dipped a finger into the snow and traced a circle into it. He pictured a gold bead like the one in the box at the temple, dampened and crushed and applied in a ring. Finally, a sweep of blue.

Hamza came and stood beside him. “The white mirror.”

The shape looked up at them like a face with curving, outstretched arms.

“It was roughly done,” Li Du said. “It would have taken only moments.”

“Even moments risk discovery,” said Hamza. “It must have been very important to the murderer.”

A voice announced a presence in the trees. “So you have come back.” They turned to see Lumo. She was bundled in furs that made her form appear larger than it was, and her face appear small and dainty as a squirrel's. Li Du noticed that her age gave her no trouble moving through the snow. She was not out of breath. Beside her stood one of the mastiffs.

“This is where Campo fell,” Li Du said. “He says that he slipped.”

“You do not believe him?”

“You yourself observed his fear last night.”

Lumo considered this. “Let us be straightforward,” she said. “You think that someone killed Dhamo. You think that the foreigner knows something about it, and that someone pushed him from this ledge. Is that so?”

Li Du and Hamza exchanged looks. “I am not satisfied with the explanations that seem acceptable to the family and guests at the manor,” Li Du said finally.

“Well I don't know anything about it,” said Lumo. “I told you last night—strange roads, and strange people that travel them. It has nothing to do with me. What is it that you have done?” She was looking at the outline Li Du had traced in the snow.

“It is the shape that was painted on Dhamo's body—we think it was a mirror.”

“Is that what it was? It didn't look like any mirror to me.”

Hamza nodded sagely. He was petting the mastiff, who had sat down in the snow. “After all, a mirror, by its nature, reflects. The painted mirror does not.”

“Don't start talking like a monk,” Lumo said. She sounded irritated.

Li Du changed the subject. “What brought you out of your hut—when you saw Dhamo on the bridge. Did you hear something?”

“Hear?” Lumo shook her head. “My hearing is not so keen as that. I was out in the snow because I was showing my guest the way to the path. It is easy to get lost in a storm, even when the distances are short. And the snow was falling heavily by then. We saw Doso and the others. Then we saw Dhamo.”

“Who was your guest?”

“The woman called Sera-tsering.”

“You know each other?”

“I met her on the path the day she arrived. We spoke, and I invited her to visit me. She came to my door very early that morning—the day Dhamo died—and we remained inside talking and drinking butter tea.”

“What can you tell us of her?” Hamza asked the question.

“She is a good traveler,” replied Lumo. “And she speaks entertainingly of cities I have not seen since I was young. Much has changed since I stepped off the trade route paths.”

“One does not meet many women traveling alone,” Li Du said.

“And so you assume,” said Lumo, “that there are not many who do it. Consider instead that women who travel dangerous roads are clever enough to avoid being noticed by strangers unless they wish to be.”

Li Du accepted the rebuke. “Then,” he said, “I would guess that since you yourself traveled these paths once, as Sera-tsering does now, you are both adept at observing your surroundings. Did you see or hear anything unusual in the forest that day, or yesterday?”

Lumo's expression became set. “Only the bells of your own caravan,” she said. “And I am tired of talking. If I were you, I would wait by the hearth fire until the snow melts and your caravan can be on its way. There's no use asking questions that won't be answered.”

*   *   *

Paolo Campo called down to Li Du from an opened shutter in the courtyard's central tower. Li Du looked up at the painted woodwork, from which emerged a brown sleeve and pale hand, one finger pointed downward toward the entrance to the building.

Inside, a staircase slick with packed snow led up to the second floor. At the top of the staircase, Li Du turned left into a dark hallway crowded with crates, stained, misshapen saddlebags, blankets and furs piled almost to the ceiling. He squeezed through the clutter, which smelled of campfire smoke, into Campo's room.

It was a small but luxurious space. The floor was covered in thick layered rugs of many colors and patterns, on top of which stacks of padded coverlets and animal skins invited occupants to sit or recline comfortably. Chinese brocaded silks covered some of the pillows. Bright embroidered wool encased others. Two covered copper braziers were lit in the center of the room beside a heavy desk laden with piles of books and papers.

In one corner was a shrine that housed a silver statue of a Buddha seated on the curling silver petals of a lotus flower, surrounded by tendrils of silver cloth molded to appear suspended in the air. Campo had reappointed the shrine by nestling a wooden crucifix into the arms of the statue.

“I am gratified to see you so recovered,” said Li Du, watching Campo's face.

Campo's smile lifted his loose cheeks like cinched draperies. “I wish to convey to you my sincere gratitude. You pulled me from the very jaws of death.”

“I am thankful that I happened to be so close,” Li Du said. “But I did wish to inquire of you—were you alone there at the top of the escarpment?”

“Alone?” Campo's eyes did not meet Li Du's. “Ah. You refer, perhaps, to the words I spoke to you after you pulled me from the water. I was not in my right mind when I uttered them. Yes—I was alone. I simply stepped too near the edge, and the snow slipped away under my feet.”

“But the rocks and pebbles that were dislodged—it seemed to me as if you struggled.”

Campo shook his head vigorously. “I clung to the branches around me as I fell,” he said. “But be assured—there was no one there but myself.”

“And what brought you to that place?”

With a nervous little flutter of his hands, Campo made a vague gesture encompassing several opened crates in the corner. “My work,” he said. “You perceived, I am sure, the heavy burden of equipment I carry.”

Li Du glanced behind him. “Are the items in the hallways yours as well?”

Campo nodded. “It is an unwieldy load, but essential.”

“Essential to…”

“To my surveys of the land,” said Campo. “We cannot hope to locate the lost Christian kingdoms if we do not trace our route as we go.” He went to one of the crates and removed an object from it. “The drum of a base box,” he said, handing it to Li Du, who took it carefully. It was gilt brass, etched on both sides, with a compass set into its center.

Li Du raised it close to his eyes. “Boreas, Zephirus, Favonius, Corus,” he read.

“The names of winds,” said Campo. “In the Greek and the Roman systems.”

Turning it over in his hands, Li Du marveled at the intricate calendrical and zodiacal scales etched in concentric circles on its face. “It is exquisite,” he said. “I would be pleased to learn how it is used.” He handed it carefully back to Campo.