An Inch of Ashes (5 page)

The sky overhead was a cold, metallic blue. To the north, above the mountains, storm clouds were gathering, black and dense, throwing the furthest peaks into an intense shadow.

To the south the land fell away, slowly at first then abruptly. A steep path led down into a narrow, deeply eroded valley through which a clear stream ran, swift yet shallow, to the plains below.

At the southern end of the valley where the sky was brighter, a horseman now appeared, his dark mount reined in, its head pulling to one side as it slowed then came to a halt. A moment later, a second rider came up over the lip of rock and drew up beside the first. They leaned close momentarily then began to come forward again, slowly, looking about them, the first of them pointing up at the ruined monastery.

‘What is this place?’ Fei Yen asked, looking up to where Tsu Ma was pointing. ‘It looks ancient.’

‘It is. Li Yuan was telling me about it yesterday. There used to be two hundred monks here.’

‘Monks?’

He laughed, turning in his saddle to look at her. ‘Yes, monks. But come. Let’s go up. I’ll explain it when we get there.’

She looked down, smiling, then nudged her horse forward, following him, watching as he began to climb the steep path that cut into the overhang above, his horse straining to make the gradient.

It was difficult. If it had been wet it would have been impossible on horseback, but he managed it. Jumping down from his mount, he came back and stood there at the head of the path, looking down at her.

‘Dismount and I’ll give you a hand. Or you can leave your mount there, if you like. He’ll not stray far.’

In answer she spurred her horse forward, willing it up the path, making Tsu Ma step back sharply as she came on.

‘There!’ she said, turning the beast sharply, then reaching forward to smooth its neck. ‘It wasn’t so hard...’

She saw how he was looking at her, his admiration clouded by concern, and looked away quickly. There had been this tension between them all morning; a sense of things unspoken; of gestures not yet made between them. It had lain there beneath the stiff formality of their talk, like fire under ice, surfacing from time to time in a look, a moment’s hesitation, a tacit smile.

‘You should be more careful,’ he said, coming up to her, his fingers reaching up to smooth the horse’s flank only a hand’s length from her knee. ‘You’re a good rider, Lady Fei, but that’s not a stunt I’d recommend you try a second time.’

She looked down at him, her eyes defiant. ‘Because I’m a woman, you mean?’

He smiled back at her, a strange hardness behind his eyes, then shook his head. ‘No. Because you’re not
that
good a rider. And because I’m responsible for you. What would your husband say if I brought you back in pieces?’

Fei Yen was silent. What
would
he say? She smiled. ‘All right. I’ll behave myself in future.’

She climbed down, aware suddenly of how close he was to her, closer than he had been all morning, and when she turned, it was to find him looking down at her, a strange expression in his eyes. For a moment she stood there, silent, waiting for him, not knowing what he would do. The moment seemed to stretch out endlessly, his gaze travelling across her face, her neck, her shoulder, returning to her eyes. Then, with a soft laugh, he turned away, letting her breathe again.

‘Come!’ he said briskly, moving up the slope, away from her. ‘Let’s explore the place!’

She bent down momentarily, brushing the dust from her clothes, then straightened up, her eyes following him.

‘You asked me what monks were,’ he said, turning, waiting for her to catch up with him. ‘But it’s difficult to explain. We’ve nothing like them now. Not since Tsao Ch’un destroyed them all. There are some similarities to the New Confucian officials, of course – they dressed alike, in saffron robes, and had similar rituals and ceremonies – but in other ways they were completely different.’

‘In what way different?’

He smiled and began to climb the slope again, slowly, looking about him all the while, his eyes taking in the ruins, the distant, cloud-wreathed mountains, the two horses grazing just below them. ‘Well, let’s just say that they had some strange beliefs. And that they let those beliefs shape their lives – as if their lives were of no account.’

They had reached the pool. Tsu Ma went across and stood there, one foot resting lightly on the tiled lip of the well as he looked back across the valley towards the south. Fei Yen hesitated, then came alongside, looking up at him.

‘What kind of beliefs?’

‘Oh...’ He looked down, studying her reflection in the pool; conscious of the vague, moss-covered forms beneath the surface image. ‘That each one of us would return after death, in another form. As a butterfly, perhaps, or as a horse.’

‘Or as a man?’

‘Yes...’ He looked up at her, smiling. ‘Imagine it! Endless cycles of rebirth. Each newborn form reflecting your behaviour in past lives. If you lived badly you would return as an insect.’

‘And if well, as a T’ang?’

He laughed. ‘Perhaps... but then again, perhaps not. They held such things as power and government as being of little importance. What they believed in was purity. All that was important to them was that the spirit be purged of all its earthly weaknesses. And because of that – because each new life was a fresh chance to live purely – they believed all life was sacred.’

A path led up from where they stood, its stone flags worn and broken, its progress hidden here and there by moss and weed. They moved on, following it up to the first of the ruined buildings. To either side great chunks of masonry lay in the tall grasses, pieces of fallen statuary among them.

In the doorway she paused, looking up at him. ‘I think they sound rather nice. Why did Tsao Ch’un destroy them?’

He sighed, then pushed through, into the deep shadow within. ‘That’s not an easy question to answer, my lady. To understand, you would have to know how the world was before Tsao Ch’un. How divided it was. How many different forms of religion there were, and every one of them “the truth”.’

She stood there, looking in at him. ‘I know my history. I’ve read about the century of rebellions.’

‘Yes...’ He glanced back at her, then turned away, looking about him at the cluttered floor, the smoke-blackened walls, the broken ceiling of the room he was in. There was a dank, sour smell to everything, a smell of decay and great antiquity. It seemed much colder here than out in the open. He turned back, shaking his head. ‘On the surface of things the Buddhists seemed the best of all the religious groups. They were peaceful. They fought no great holy wars in the name of their god. Neither did they persecute anyone who disagreed with them. But ultimately they were every bit as bad as the others.’

‘Why? If they threatened no one...’

‘Ah, but they did. Their very existence was a threat. This place... it was but one of many thousand such monasteries throughout Chung Kuo. And a small one at that. Some monasteries had ten, twenty thousand monks, many of them living long into their eighties and nineties. Imagine all those men, disdainful of states and princes, taking from the land – eating, drinking, building their temples and their statues, making their books and their prayer flags –
and giving nothing back
. That was what was so threatening about them. It all seemed so harmless, so peaceful, but it was really quite insidious – a debilitating disease that crippled the social body, choking its life from it like a cancer.’

Tsu Ma looked about him, suddenly angry, his eyes taking in the waste of it all. Long centuries of waste. ‘They could have done so much. For the sick, the poor, the homeless, but such things were beneath their notice. To purge themselves of earthly desires – that was all they were worried about. Pain and suffering – what did suffering mean to them except as a path to purity?’

‘Then you think Tsao Ch’un was right to destroy them?’

‘Right?’ He came across to her. ‘Yes, I think he was right. Not in everything he did. But in this... yes. It’s better to feed and clothe and house the masses than to let them rot. Better to give them a good life here than to let them suffer in the vague hope of some better afterlife.’

He placed his right hand against the rounded stone of the upright, leaning over her, staring down fiercely at her as he spoke, more passionate than she had ever seen him. She looked down, her pulse quickening.

‘And that’s what you believe?’ she asked softly. ‘That we’ve only this one life? And nothing after?’

‘Don’t we all believe that? At core?’

She shivered, then looked up, meeting his eyes. ‘One life?’

He hesitated, his eyes narrowing, then reached out and brushed his fingers against her cheek and neck.

‘Tsu Ma...’

He drew his hand back sharply. ‘Forgive me, I...’ He stared at her a moment, his eyes confused, pained. ‘I thought...’ He looked down, shaking his head, then pushed past her.

Outside the sky was overcast. A wind had blown up, tearing at the grass, rippling the surface of the pool. Tsu Ma knelt at its edge, his chest heaving, his thoughts in turmoil.
One life
... What had she meant if not that? What did she want of him?

He turned, hearing her approach.

‘I’m sorry...’ she began, but he shook his head.

‘It was a mistake, that’s all.
We are who we are, neh?
’

She stared at him, pained by the sudden roughness of his words. She had not meant to hurt him.

‘If I were free...’

He shook his head, his face suddenly ugly, his eyes bitter. ‘But you’re not. And the Prince is my friend, neh?’

She turned her face from him, then moved away. The storm was almost upon them now. A dense, rolling mist lay upon the hills behind the ruins and the wind held the faintest suggestion of the downpour to come. The sky was darkening by the moment.

‘We’d best get back,’ she said, turning to him. But he seemed unaware of the darkness at the back of everything. His eyes held nothing but herself. She shuddered. Was he in love with her? Was that it? And she had thought...

Slowly he stood, his strong, powerful body stretching, as if from sleep. Then, turning his head from her, he strode down the slope towards the horses.

On the flight down to Nanking, Tolonen played back the recording, the words sounding clearly in his head. Listening to his own voice again, he could hear the unease, the bitterness there and wondered what Li Yuan had made of it. Prince Yuan was a clever one, there was no doubting it, so perhaps he understood why the T’ang had appointed him to oversee the Project rather than someone more sympathetic. Maybe that was why he had left things unresolved, their talk at an impasse. But had he guessed the rest of it? Did he know just how deeply his father was opposed to things?

He sighed, then smiled, thinking of the reunion to come. He had not seen Karr in more than three years. Not since he’d seen him off from Nanking back in November 2203. And now Karr was returning, triumphant, his success in tracking down and killing Berdichev a full vindication of their faith in him.

Tolonen leaned forward, looking down out of the porthole. The spaceport was off in the distance ahead, a giant depression in the midst of the great glacial plateau of ice – the City’s edge forming a great wall about the outer perimeter. Even from this distance he could see the vast, pitted sprawl of landing pads, twenty
li
in diameter, its southernmost edge opening out on to Hsuan Wu lake, the curve of the ancient Yangtze forming a natural barrier to the north-east, like a giant moat two
li
in width. At the very centre of that great sunken circle, like a vast yet slender needle perched on its tip, was the control tower. Seeing it, Tolonen had mixed feelings. The last time he had come to greet someone from Mars it had been DeVore. Before he had known. Before the T’ang’s son, Han Ch’in, had died and everything had changed.

But this time it was Karr. And Karr would be the hawk he’d fly against his prey. So maybe it was fitting that it should begin here, at Nanking, where DeVore had first slipped the net.

Ten minutes later he was seated across from a young duty captain as they travelled the fast-link between the City and the spaceport. Things were tight here. Tighter than he remembered them. They had banned all transit flights across the port. Only incoming or outgoing spacecraft were allowed in its airspace. Anything else was destroyed immediately, without warning. So this was the only way in – underneath the port.

Karr’s ship was docking even as Tolonen rode the sealed car out to the landing bay. The noise was deafening. He could feel the vibrations in his bones; juddering the cradle into which he was strapped, making him think for a moment that the tiny vehicle was going to shake itself to pieces. Then it eased and the sound dropped down the register. With a hiss, a door irised open up ahead of him and the car slipped through, coming out into a great sunken pit, in the centre of which stood the squatly rounded shape of the interplanetary craft.

He could see the
Tientsin
clearly through the transparent walls of the car, its underbelly glowing, great wreaths of mist swirling up into the cold air overhead. The track curved sharply, taking his car halfway round the ship before it slowed and stopped. Guards met him, helped him out, standing back, their heads bowed, as he stretched his legs and looked about him.

He smiled, looking back at the craft. It had come all the way from Mars. Like a large black stone slapped down upon the great
wei chi
board of Chung Kuo. Karr. He could see the big man in his mind’s eye even now, lifting Berdichev and breaking him. Ending it quickly, cleanly. Tolonen sniffed. Yes, in that he and Karr were alike. They understood how things worked at this level. It was no good dealing with one’s enemies as one dealt with one’s friends. Useless to play by rules that the other side constantly broke. In war one had to be utterly ruthless. To concede nothing – unless concession were a path to victory.

As he watched, an r-shaped gantry-lift moved on its rails across to the craft and attached itself to a portal on its uppermost surface. He walked towards it, habit making him look about him, as if, even here, he might expect attack.