Wingrove, David - Chung Kuo 02 (2 page)

Golden Heart—young
prostitute bought by Hans Ebert for his household.

Hammond, Joel—Senior
Technician on the Wiring Project.

Heng Chian-ye—son of Heng
Chi-po and nephew of Heng Yu.

Herrick—an illegal-implant
specialist.

Kao Ch'iang Hsin—infant
daughter of Kao Chen.

Kao Wu—infant son of Kao
Chen.

Kung Wen-fa—Senior Advocate
from Mars.

Ling Hen—henchman for
Herrick.

Liu Chang—brothel
keeper/pimp.

Loehr—alias of DeVore.

Lotte—student at Oxford;
sister of Wolf.

Lo Wen—personal servant to
Hans Ebert.

Lu Cao—amah (maidservant)
to Jelka Tolonen.

Lu Ming Shao—"Whiskers
Lu," Triad boss.

Lu Nan Jen—the "Oven
Man."

Lu Wang-pei—murder suspect.

Mi Feng—"Little Bee,"
maid to Wang Hsien.

Mu Chua—Madam of the House
of the Ninth Ecstasy, a singsong house, or brothel.

Novacek, Lubos—merchant;
father of Sergey Novacek.

Novacek, Sergey—sculptor
and student at Oxford.

Reynolds—alias of DeVore.

Schenck, Hung-li—Governor
of the Mars Colony.

Siang Che—martial arts
instructor to Jelka Tolonen.

Spatz, Gustav—Director of
the Wiring Project.

Sweet Flute—mui tsai to
Madam Chuang Lian.

T'ai Cho—tutor and
"guardian" to Kim Ward.

Tarrant—company head.

Tissan, Catherine—student
at Oxford.

Tong Chou—alias of Kao
Chen.

Tsang Yi—friend of Heng
Chian-ye.

Tung T'an—Senior Consultant
at the Melfi Clinic.

Turner—alias of DeVore.

Wang Ti—wife of Kao Chen.

Ward, Kim—Claybom orphan
and scientist.

Wolf—student at Oxford and
brother of Lotte.

At rise of day
we sacrificed to the Wind God,

When darkly,
darkly, dawn glimmered in the sky.

Officers
followed, horsemen led the way;

They brought us
out to the wastes beyond the town,

Where river
mists fall heavier than rain,

And the fires on
the hill leap higher than the stars.

Suddenly I
remembered the early levees at Court

When you and I
galloped to the Purple Yard.

As we walked our
horses up Dragon Tail Way

We turned and
gazed at the green of the Southern Hills.

Since we parted,
both of us have been growing old;

And our minds
have been vexed by many anxious cares;

Yet even now I
fancy my ears are full

Of the sound of
jade tinkling on your bridle-straps.

—po chu-i,
To Li Chien
(a.a 819)

IT
WAS NIGHT and the moon lay like a blinded eye upon the satin darkness
of the Nile. From where he stood, on the balcony high above the
river, Wang Hsien could feel the slow, warm movement of the air like
the breath of a sleeping woman against his cheek. He sighed and laid
his

hands upon the
cool stone of the balustrade, looking out to his right, to the north,
where in the distance the great lighthouse threw its long sweeping
arm of light across the delta. For a while he watched it, feeling as
empty as the air through which it moved; then he turned back, looking
up at the moon itself. So clear the nights were here. And the stars.
He shivered, the bitterness flooding back. The stars . . .

A voice broke
into his reverie.
"Chieh Hsia?
Are you ready for us?"

It was Sun Li
Hua, Master of the Inner Chamber. He stood just inside the doorway,
his head bowed, his two assistants a respectful distance behind him,
their heads lowered. Wang Hsien turned and made a brief gesture,
signifying that they should begin; then he turned back, staring up at
the stars.

He remembered
being with his two eldest sons, Chang Ye and Lieh Tsu, on the coast
of Mozambique in summer. A late summer night with the bright stars
filling the heavens overhead. They had sat there around an open fire,
the three of them, naming the stars and their constellations,
watching the Dipper move across the black velvet of the sky until the
fire was ash and the day was come again. It was the last time he had
been with them alone. Their last holiday together.

And now they
were dead. Both of them lying in their coffins, still and cold
beneath the earth. And where were their spirits now? Up there? Among
the eternal stars? Or was there only one soul, the
hun,
trapped
and rotting in the ground? He gritted his teeth, fighting against his
sense of bitterness and loss, hardening himself against it. But the
bitterness remained. Was it so? he asked himself. Did the spirit
soul—the
p'o
—rise up to Heaven as they said, or
was there only this? This earth, this sky, and Man between them? He
shuddered. Best not ask. Best keep such thoughts at bay, lest the
darkness answer you.

He shivered, his
hands gripping the stone balustrade fiercely. Gods, but he missed
them! Missed them beyond the power of words to say. He filled his
hours, keeping his mind busy with the myriad affairs of state. Even
so, he could not keep himself from thinking of them. Where are you?
he would ask himself on waking. Where are you, Chang Ye, who smiled
so sweetly? And you, Lieh Tsu, my
ying too,
my baby peach,
always my favorite? Where are you now?

Murdered, a
brutal voice in him insisted. And only ash and bitterness remain.

He turned
savagely, angry with himself. Now he would not sleep. Bone-tired as
he was, he would lie there, sleepless, impotent against the thousand
bittersweet images that would come.

"Sun Li
Hua!" he called impatiently, moving the diaphanous curtain aside
with one hand. "Bring me something to make me sleep! Ho
yeh,
perhaps, or tou chi."

"At once,
Chieh Hsia
."

The Master of
the Inner Chamber bowed low; then went to do as he was bid. Wang
Hsien watched him go; then turned to look across at the huge low bed
at the far end of the chamber. The servants were almost finished. The
silken sheets were turned back, the flowers at the bedside changed,
his sleeping robes laid out, ready for the maids.

The headboard
seemed to fill the end wall, the circle of the
Ywe Lung
—the
Moon Dragon, symbol of the Seven—carved deep into the wood. The
seven dragons formed a great wheel, their regal snouts meeting at the
hub, their lithe, powerful bodies forming the spokes, their tails the
rim. Wang Hsien stared at it for a while; then nodded to himself as
if satisfied. But deeper, at some dark, unarticulated level, he felt
a sense of unease. The War, the murder of his sons—these things
had made him far less certain than he'd been. He could no longer look
at the Ywe Lung without questioning what had been done in the name of
the Seven these last five years.

He looked down
sharply. Five years. Was that all? Only five short years? So it was.
Yet it felt as though a whole cycle of sixty years had passed since
the New Hope had been blasted from the heavens and war declared. He
sighed and put his hand up to his brow, remembering. It had been a
nasty, vicious war; a war of little trust— where friend and
enemy had worn the same smiling face. They had won, but their victory
had failed to set things right. The struggle had changed the
nature—the very essence—of Chung Kuo. Nothing would ever
be the same again.

He waited until
the servants left, backing away, bowed low, their eyes averted from
their lord's face. Then he went across and stood before the
wall-length mirror.

"You are an
old man, Wang Hsien," he told himself softly, noting the deep
lines about his eyes and mouth, the ivory yellow of his eyes, the
loose roughness of his skin. "Moon-faced, they call you. Maybe
so. But this moon has waxed and waned a thousand times and still I
see no clearer by its light. Who are you, Wang Hsien? What kind of
man are you?"

He heard a noise
in the passageway outside and turned, tensing instinctively; then he
relaxed, smiling.

The three girls
bowed deeply, then came into the room, Little Bee making her way
across to him, while Tender Willow and Sweet Rain busied themselves
elsewhere in the room.

Little Bee knelt
before him then looked up, her sweet, unaffected smile lifting his
spirits, bringing a breath of youth and gaiety to his old heart.

"How are
you this evening, good father?"

"I am
fine." He lied, warmed by the sight of her. "And you, Mi
Feng?"

"The better
for seeing you, my Lord."

He laughed
softly, then leaned forward, and touched her head gently,
affectionately. Little Bee had been with him six years now, since her
tenth birthday. She was like a daughter to him.

He turned,
enjoying the familiar sight of his girls moving about the room,
readying things for him. For a while it dispelled his previous mood,
made him forget the darkness he had glimpsed inside and out. He let
Little Bee remove his
pau
and sit him, naked, in a chair; then
he closed his eyes and let his head fall back while she began to rub
his chest and arms with oils. As ever, the gentle pressure of her
hands against his skin roused him. Tender Willow came and held the
bowl with the lavender glaze while Sweet Rain gave him ease, her
soft, thin-boned fingers caressing him with practiced strokes until
he spilled his seed. Then Little Bee washed him there, and, making
him stand, bound him up in a single yellow-silk cloth before bringing
a fresh sleeping garment.

He looked down
at her tiny, delicate form as she stood before him, fastening his
cloak, and felt a small shiver pass through him. Little Bee looked
up, concerned.

"Are you
sure you are all right, Father? Should I ask one of your wives to
come to you?"

"It's
nothing, Mi Feng. And no, I'll sleep alone tonight."

She fastened the
last of the tiny, difficult buttons, looking up into his face a
moment, then looked down again, frowning. "I worry for you,
Chieh Hsia,
" she said, turning away to take a brush from
the table at her side. "Some days you seem to carry the whole
world's troubles on your shoulders."

He smiled and
let her push him down gently into the chair again. "I am Seven,
Mi Feng. Who else should carry the burden of Chung Kuo?"

She was silent a
moment, her fingers working to unbind his tightly braided queue.
Then, leaning close, she whispered in his ear. "Your son,"
she said. "Why not make Ta-hung your regent?"

He laughed
shortly, unamused. "And make Hung Mien-lo, that rascal friend of
his, a T'ang in all but name?" He looked at her sharply. "Has
he been talking to you?"

"Has who
been talking to me, Father? I was thinking only of your health. You
need more time to yourself."

He laughed,
seeing how free from subterfuge she was. "Forget what 1 said, Mi
Feng. Besides, I enjoy my duties."

She was brushing
out his hair now, from scalp to tip, her tiny, perfectly formed body
swaying gently, enticingly, beside him with each passage of the
brush. He could see her in the mirror across the room, her silks
barely veiling her nakedness.

He sighed and
closed his eyes again, overcome by a strange mixture of emotions.
Most men would envy me, he thought. And yet some days I think myself
accursed. These girls . . . they would do whatever I wished, without
a moment's hesitation; yet there is no joy in the thought. My sons
are dead. How could joy survive such heartbreak?

He shuddered and
stood up abruptly, surprising Little Bee, making the others turn and
look across. They watched him walk briskly to the mirror and stand
there as if in pain, grimacing into the glass. Then he turned back,
his face bitter.

"Ta-hung!"
he said scathingly, throwing himself down into the chair again. "I
was a fool to let that one be bom!"

There was a
shocked intake of breath from the three girls. It was unlike Wang
Hsien to say such things. Little Bee looked to the others and nodded,
then waited until they were gone before speaking to him again.

She knelt,
looking up into his face, concerned. "What is it, Wang Hsien?
What eats at you like poison?"

"My sons!"
he said in sudden agony. "My sons are dead!"

"Not all
your sons," she answered gently, taking his hands in her own.
"Wang Ta-hung yet lives. And Wang Sau-leyan."

"A weakling
and a libertine!" he said bitterly, not looking at her, staring
past her into space. "I had two fine, strong sons. Good,
upstanding men with all their mother's finest qualities. And now—"
He shivered violently and looked at her, his features racked with
pain, his hands gripping hers tightly. "This war has taken
everything, Mi Feng. Everything. Some days I think it has left me
hollow, emptied of all I was."

"No . . ."
she said, sharing his pain. "No, my Lord. Not everything."

He let her hands
fall from his and stood again, turning away from her and staring at
the door that led out onto the balcony.

"It is the
most bitter lesson," he said fiercely, "that a man might
own the world and yet have nothing."

Little Bee
swallowed and looked down. She had seen her master in many moods, but
never like this.

She turned,
realizing there was someone in the chamber with them. It was Sun Li
Hua. He stood in the doorway, his head bowed. In his hands was the
bowl with the lavender glaze Tender Willow had taken out to him only
moments earlier.

"
Chieh
Hsia
?"

Wang Hsien
turned abruptly, facing the newcomer, clearly angered by the
interruption. Then he seemed to collect himself and dropped his head
slightly. He looked across at Little Bee and with a forced smile
dismissed her.