Under Heaven (32 page)

Even an enormous, and enormously powerful, military governor of three districts. Even the first minister of Kitai.
He looked around, trying to bring himself into the present, not let his thoughts run too far ahead, or linger behind. Song was at his elbow. So, until a moment ago when Tai dismounted, had been the gap-toothed soldier from Iron Gate.
He shook his head, suddenly irritated. "What is the name of that one who always takes Dynlal?" He spotted the man, leading the horse towards the stables. "I should know it by now."
Song tilted her head a little, as if surprised. "A border soldier? Not really. But he's called Wujen. Wujen Ning." He saw her teeth flash. "You'll forget it again."
"I will not!" Tai said, and swore under his breath. He took immediate steps to fix the name in memory. An association: Ning was the metalsmith in the village near their estate.
He looked at the woman in the flickering light. Torches were above them, over the portico. Other lights moved through the yard. Insects were out now after dark. Tai slapped at one on his arm. "We are less than a day from your sanctuary," he murmured. "Do you wish to go home, Kanlin?"
He'd caught her by surprise, he saw. Wasn't sure why, it was an obvious question.
"Do you wish to dismiss your servant, my lord?"
He cleared his throat. "I don't think so. I have no cause to question your competence."
"I am honoured by your trust," she said formally.
Zian strode over from--predictably--the direction of the music, to the right of this first courtyard.
"I have arranged a table," he said cheerfully, "and I have requested that their best saffron wine be heated, seeing as we have had a long, difficult day." He grinned at Song. "I trust you will approve the expense?"
"I only carry the money," she murmured. "I don't approve the spending of it, except for the soldiers."
"Make sure they have wine," Tai said.
The poet gestured with one hand, and Tai went with him through the crowd. Song stayed beside them, her expression alert. It made him weary, this need for vigilance. It was not a life he'd ever wanted.
How many men were allowed the life they wanted?
Maybe this one,
he thought, looking at the poet moving eagerly ahead of him towards where they could just hear a
pipa
being played, in a room beyond the courtyard noise.
This one, or maybe my brother.
"YOUR BROTHER," Roshan had said without preamble, as Tai closed the carriage door and sat opposite him, "is not named in the letter. It was read to me several times. I do not," he'd added, "read, myself."
It was widely known. A source of derision among the aristocrats and the examination-trained mandarins. It was regarded as a principal reason why the endlessly subtle Chin Hai, once first minister, once feared everywhere, now gone to his ancestors, had allowed Roshan and other barbarian generals to acquire so much power on the borders. An illiterate had no chance of threatening him at the centre of his webs in the Ta-Ming, the way an aristocrat with an army could.
Such, at any rate, had been the view of the students taking the examinations, or preparing to. And, of course, whatever they agreed upon had to be true, did it not?
Settling into the carriage, Tai had immediately felt out of his depth. Which was, he was certain, the point of Roshan's remark.
"Why would you imagine I'd consider that possible? That my brother could be accused of anything regarding me?"
He was delaying, trying to get his bearings. The governor leaned back against a profusion of cushions, eyeing him. An Li was, from this close, even more awesomely vast. A size that seemed mythic, a figure of legend.
He had, when not yet promoted to the rank of general, led three companies of Seventh District cavalry through five brutal days and nights of riding to turn the tide of battle against an incursion from the Koreini Peninsula. The Koreini of the far east, ambitious under their own emperor, had elected that spring to test the Kitan emperor's commitment to the building of garrison forts beyond the Wall.
They had been given an answer, to their very great cost--but only because of Roshan. That was twenty years ago. Tai's father had told him about that ride.
He had told Liu, as well, Tai remembered.
An Li shifted on his cushions again. "Your brother is principal counsellor to the first minister. Shen Liu has made his choice of paths. The letter--you may read it--indicates that Prime Minister Wen had his reasons for wishing you no longer among us, or in a dear woman's thoughts. Or perhaps able to disrupt your brother's plans for your sister. He does, after all, depend on Shen Liu for a great deal. It was the first minister who formally proposed your sister's elevation to exalted status. You did know that?"
Tai shook his head. He hadn't, but it made sense.
The governor sighed, fluttered a hand. His fingers were unexpectedly long. He wore a sweet, floral scent, it filled the carriage. He said, "Spring Rain? Is that the charming creature's name? It will puzzle me until I draw my last breath how men can be so undone by women." He paused, then added, thoughtfully, "Not even the highest among us are immune to the folly of that."
Nothing he says is unplanned,
Tai told himself. And that last remark was treason, since
the highest among us
could only mean the emperor.
Tai said, possibly making a mistake, "I might risk such a course myself for a woman."
"Indeed? I had thought you might be different. This Lin Chang--that is her name now?--is she so
very
appealing? I confess I grow curious."
"I never knew that name. We called her Rain. But I am not speaking of her, my lord. You have mentioned two women."
Roshan's eyes were slits. Tai wondered how well the man could even see. The governor waited. He shifted in his seat again.
Tai said, "If you can bring my sister back from the Bogu lands before she is married there, I will claim and then assign all of my Sardian horses to the armies of the Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Districts."
He hadn't known he was going to say that.
An Li made a small, involuntary movement of one hand. Tai realized he'd startled the other man. The general said as much: "You are more direct than your brother, aren't you?"
"We have little in common," Tai said.
"A sister?" the other man murmured.
"And a father of distinction, as you were gracious enough to mention. But we see different paths to extending the family honour. I have made you a formal proposal, Governor An."
"You would do this, you would give them to me,
all
of them, for a girl?"
"For my sister."
From outside Tai heard sounds again: traffic on the roadway had resumed, creaking cartwheels, laughter, shouts. Life moving, on a spring day. He kept his gaze on the man opposite.
At length, Roshan shook his head. "I would do it. For two hundred and fifty Sardian horses? Of course I would. I am thinking now, right here, of how to do it. But it is impossible. I believe you know that. I might even accuse you of toying with me."
"It would be untrue," Tai said quietly.
The man across from him shifted yet again, stretching a massive leg to one side, with a grunt. He said, "Five horses would have been generous as a gift. Princess Cheng-wan has shaken your life, hasn't she?"
Tai said nothing.
"She has," the governor went on. "Like a storm shakes a tree, or even uproots it. You have to choose what to do now. You might be killed to
stop
you from choosing. I could do it here."
"Only if it did not get back to the Ta-Ming, to the first minister, whose action cost the empire those horses."
An Li stared at him with those slitted eyes.
"You all want them too much," Tai said.
"Not if they go to an enemy, Shen Tai."
Tai noted the word. He said, "I just offered them to you."
"I heard you. But I cannot do it, since it cannot be done. Your sister is gone, son of Shen Gao. She is north of the Wall by now. She is with the Bogu."
He grinned suddenly. A malicious smile. No sense of any genial, amusing figure of the court, the one who'd allowed himself to be swaddled like a baby by all the women. "She may be with child to the kaghan's son as we speak. At the least she will know his inclinations. I have heard stories. I wonder if your brother knew them, before he proposed her as wife to the kaghan's heir."
The sweetness of the perfume was almost sickening suddenly. "Why be uncivilized?" Tai said before he could stop himself.
He was fighting anger. Reminded himself again that the other man was not saying these things--was not saying
anything
--without purpose.
Roshan seemed amused. "Why uncivilized? Because I am! I am a soldier all my life. And my father's tribe warred with the Bogu. Shen Tai, you are not the only one to be direct by inclination."
"Let me see the letter," Tai said. Being direct.
It was handed across without a word. He read, quickly. It was a copy, the calligraphy was too regular. No mention of Liu, as Roshan had indicated. But ...
Tai said, "He is clear, Xin Lun. Says he expects to be killed that night. Begs you to guard him. Why did you not send men to bring him to you?"
The expression on the other man's face made him feel, again, out of his depth. Childlike.
An Li shrugged, turned his neck one way and then the other, stretching it. "I suppose I could have. He did ask for protection, didn't he? Perhaps you are right."
"Perhaps?" Tai was struggling, heard it in his voice.
The general betrayed impatience. "Shen Tai, it is important in any battle to know your own strengths and weaknesses and to understand your enemy's. Your father
must
have taught you this."
"What does that have to do--?"
"Wen Zhou would have learned of your horses and your survival as soon as word reached the palace. As soon as anyone learned it that night. That is why Xin Lun knew he was in danger. The first minister could not let him live, knowing what he knew, and with what he'd done. Zhou is a fool, but dangerous."
"So why not send your soldiers for Lun?"
The general shook his massive head, as if sorrowing for the ignorance of the world. "Where was this happening, Shen Tai? Where were we all?"
"Xinan. But I don't--"
"Think!
I don't have an army there.
It is not permitted to me, to anyone. I am on my enemy's ground without my forces. If I shelter Lun in the capital, I am declaring war on the first minister that very night, where he has the weapons he needs and I do not!"
"You ... you are the favourite of the emperor, of the Precious Consort."
"No. We are
both
favoured. It was a policy. But our so-glorious emperor is unpredictable now, too distracted, and Jian is young, and a woman, which
means
unpredictable. They are not, son of Shen Gao, reliable. I could not bring Lun into my home and be halfway certain of leaving Xinan alive."
Tai looked down at the letter in his hand. Read it again, mostly to give himself time. He was beginning to see.
"So ... you let Lun believe you would. You offered him sanctuary. That led him to start down through the city."
"Good," said An Li. "You are not a fool. Are you as dangerous as your brother?"
Tai blinked. "I may be dangerous to him."
The general smiled, shifted again. "A good answer. It amuses me. But come, work it through. What did I do that night?"
Tai said, slowly, "You did send men, didn't you? But not to escort Xin Lun. Only to observe."
"Good, again. And why?"
Tai swallowed. "To see when he was killed."
An Li smiled. "When, and by whom."
"The killer was seen?"
"Of course he was. And by the Gold Bird Guards, as well. My men made certain of it. The Guard were persuaded not to do anything yet, but have recorded what they saw that night."
Tai looked at him, the small eyes, florid face. "One of Wen Zhou's retainers killed Lun?"
"Of course."
As simple as that.
"But if Lun is dead ...?"
"The honourable Xin Lun is as useful to me murdered as alive. Especially if the city guards know who did it. The letter is what I needed, along with the observed killing of the letter-writer by a known person. The first minister has generously obliged me. Xin Lun in my home might have had me arrested. Xinan was the wrong place for me to begin a battle."
Tai let that last sink into awareness, stone in a pond.
"Are you beginning a battle?"
There was a silence. He wasn't entirely sure he wanted an answer. Sounds from outside again. The customary back and forth of the road. An irritated outcry, an oath, more laughter. A day moving towards a usual end, sunset and the stars.
"Tell me," the man opposite said, "were you really burying dead soldiers at Kuala Nor for two years?"
"Yes," Tai said.
"Were there ghosts?"
"Yes."
"That was bravely done, then. As a soldier I honour it. I could kill you here, if I decided your horses would somehow determine the course of events."
"You don't think they will?"
"They might. I have decided to act as if it is not so, and to spare you." He shifted position yet again.
"You'd have lost--"
"Rank, title, all granted lands. Possibly my life. And so, Shen Tai, what does that tell you, by way of answering the question you asked?"
Are you beginning a battle?
he'd asked.
Tai cleared his throat, managed a half-smile. "It tells me I need to be grateful you've decided the horses might not matter as much as some others seem to think."
A moment of stillness, then the carriage rocked to Roshan's laughter. It lasted a long time.
When he finally subsided, coughing, the governor said, "You can't see it, can you? You have been too long away. I am being pushed towards my destruction or to resisting it. Wen Zhou is rolling dice. That is his nature. But I cannot, I
will
not linger in Xinan to see what the emperor does, whether Jian chooses her cousin or ... her adopted child."
Tai had never seen a smile so lacking in mirth.
He shivered. The governor saw it, of course. The narrow eyes in the folds of flesh. Roshan said, "You may keep that copy, it might be of use to you. And perhaps to me, if you choose to remember who gave it to you, eventually." He shifted his outstretched leg one more time.
Eventually.
Everything he said had layers of meaning.
And so, Tai abruptly realized, with a sudden hard shock of understanding, did his movements. They had nothing to do with restlessness. The man was in pain. Once you saw it, it was obvious.
Tai looked away, an instinct to hide what he'd realized. He wasn't at all sure how he'd intuited this, but he was certain he was right. And that An Li would not be pleased to have it noted.