Hidden Cities (33 page)

His best guarantee of that lay in the fact that what he said was not quite true. He could send all the guards away and it would still not be true, that he was just one man alone.

There was one, not quite a guard, who would never leave him.

Would never leave the skin, rather, not let it out of his sight.

“Yu Shan,” Biao said, quite mildly, “I thought it was Siew Ren you loved?”

The tall young man said nothing, only reached to touch the wonder-skin with tentative, expressive fingers.

“And yet you leave her,” Biao went on relentlessly, “overnight and longer, we’ll be two days on the road together this time …”

For once they were on their own, or at least their escort was asleep. Biao and the boy were sitting up over a late low fire. Biao had trouble sleeping, such a treasure in his grasp; Yu Shan seemed to need no sleep at all.

Biao was talking nonsense and he knew it. Goading Yu Shan was like goading jade. He sat there smooth and silent and only said, “I need to be sure.”

“Sure of what?”

“That the skin comes back.”

Not
that you bring it back
, not quite. Biao still had work to do.

A
ND WAS
doing it, in a manner of speaking, back in Siew Ren’s hut, when the soldiers came.

They were in the doorway suddenly, blocking what little light there was: soldiers as Biao knew them best, veterans, road-scarred. Set these men among Tunghai Wang’s and they would have been indistinguishable.

Soldiers can go anywhere, can be found anywhere; and yet they seemed out of place here, suddenly in the mountains, in the valley, at the door. It was remarkable that they had been let come this far. Mountain folk are jealous of what little they have, their land, their lives. They do not suffer strangers gladly or often.

These strangers wore yellow sashes in their uniforms, which said they came from the emperor. He was a friend known and welcome; even so, Biao thought he should have sent a runner from the clans, some green-eyed youngster who would know the ways of the hills. He still had plenty such among his guard. And he would have thought of that, or if he had not Mei Feng would have reminded him, and when did the emperor ever do anything without Mei Feng’s blessing?

Which meant that sashes or no sashes, these men were not from the emperor; which meant …

Which meant that Biao needed to be careful, but that was his common condition. He needn’t worry for his own skin, not here. The clansfolk would protect that for him. No matter how good these soldiers were, jade-soaked valley warriors would be faster and stronger and very much more vicious.

There would be warriors all around these now, hands openly on tao-hilts, distrust openly on their faces. Arrows nocked to bowstrings. Biao need only concern himself with what the men brought:
news, a request, a summons perhaps except that he would not go. The people here—his people now, he liked to think, he wanted them to think—would not let the soldiers take him.

Biao rose to his feet, went out, left his patient with Yu Shan.

Said, “Well, what? The swifter you name your errand, the swifter you can be away again.”

From the shifting unease on their faces, they wanted nothing more. The clansfolk around them were standing very close, and there were naked blades playing with the sunlight. But the soldiers were stubborn, they were dutiful. Their captain said, “Master Biao, we have been sent to fetch you back to Taishu-port, to the palace.”

That was more or less what he had expected. Their disappointment could wait a little; let them gather slowly that he wasn’t coming. He said, “Who sent you?”

“The dowager empress.” That was honest, and should make it easier to refuse. The empress had no particular authority on Taishu. Of course she had the weight of years and experience, widow of one emperor and mother of another; of course her words mattered and her wishes commanded men—but not in opposition to her son’s words and wishes, not anymore. And not so much in the mountains here. The clans were independent-minded. They knew the emperor, some of their own had fought with him. He had both their allegiance and their loyalty. His mother might be twice an empress, might have jade in her own blood to make her so tough and let her live so long; she was still a stranger from far and far away, they knew nothing of her, they owed her nothing.

They would not let soldiers take their doctor.

Biao was confident of that.

He said, “I cannot come, these people need me here; but why does the empress want me? Is she ill? She has doctors of her own,” whom she had haled with her all the way from the far north. She would have better reasons to trust them than him.

“The empress is eternal.” Which was obviously not true, not even emperors were eternal. Though the boy Chien Hua was doing his best to perpetuate the myth, surviving wars and assassins, recovering from lethal wounds, having knife blades break against his imperial green hide.

A captain of the military must know that his old woman would not live forever. His meaning was plain; he meant
the empress is well, and does not need your doctoring
. So, then …?

Biao waited. Soon enough the man went on. “She doesn’t want you for herself, and it isn’t you she wants. You have a thing of magic, she has heard, a tiger-skin that heals …”

Of course she had heard. Biao had sent messages himself, to alert the palace to this wonderful thing, and whose hands held it safe. He wanted it written and known. “In the right hands,” he said gruffly, “it will heal, yes.” That was nonsense too, his hands held no gift. But the skin was his, he felt somehow that he had earned it; he would not part with it. Nor would the clansfolk. He and the skin were one. The soldiers would not be let leave with either one of them. Already he could see blades being raised with purpose.

He made a little sign with his hands,
gently now, gently
. “If not for herself, what use does the empress have for my tiger-skin, or me? It is not a trophy, to hang unused in a palace hall.”

“The emperor’s favorite, Mei Feng, is sick. Sick to death, most likely; and likely to lose the emperor’s baby, if it has not already died inside her. The empress will do anything to save that child.”

Naturally. And the emperor would do anything to save Mei Feng, only that he hadn’t thought of this. Or else thought of it and dismissed it. That seemed less than likely, except …

Biao said, “There is a skin in the palace already. Yu Shan told me he had seen it there.”

“That has been tried. Mei Feng has lain beneath it for two days, two nights together, and she only grows worse.”

The emperor would be despairing, surrendering to fate, watching his beloved die and believing in nothing anymore. The empress would be despairing and clutching at straws. Sending for anyone, anything that might promise hope. It was the difference between youth and age; Biao recognized it intimately.

A blade had broken on the emperor’s back, and still he doubted. He was all boy yet; it was a weakness, open to exploit. Biao was talking already, and somehow not bluffing for a wonder, speaking perfect truth. “I don’t know why the palace skin would not be effective, unless it is simply too old. Or not genuine, perhaps that, not a true stone tiger.” No bluff now about the needed hands of a healer. He was on safe ground, and meant to stay there. “Mine is … assured. And people rise up better than they were. I cannot promise that it will heal Mei Feng, or her baby; it may be too late already. You should have come to me sooner. Still, I am willing to make the attempt.” He was surprising no one, gratifying no one. Of course he would go, for the emperor’s favorite. He must go. There was no choice in the world.

“No,” said a voice at his back.

That was Yu Shan: risen from Siew Ren’s bedside—
like the emperor
, Biao thought,
rising from Mei Feng’s bedside, that must be as rare as this
—to stand four-square in the doorway of the hut behind them, blinking at the sun, his arms spread across the open entrance and his immaculate strong body like a locked gate,
you shall not pass
.

“No,” he said again, “you can’t take it. Not to the city. Siew Ren needs it here.”

It was true. And so were the soldiers’ hands on their weapons true, and so were the clansfolk’s blades rising again, the glitter of arrowheads in the sun. So was the foretelling stink of blood in the air, that was very true.

Biao said, “I will come back. A day’s journey to the palace, a night’s sleep for Mei Feng beneath the skin, a day’s journey back
here again,” he had almost said
back home
. “I’ve been gone that long between one valley and the next. Siew Ren will be fine until tomorrow night.”

It was true, not a word of a lie; but Yu Shan saw too truly. He said, “What, you think one night will cure her? And her baby too? There is magic in your tiger-skin, but not that much, Master Biao. I think perhaps less with every day, I think it’s fading. Failing.” And then again, “No. Do you think they will let you go, if you can help Mei Feng? They will keep you there however long it takes: days, weeks. Until the baby’s born, and later too. You know they will.”

True, and true again. Yu Shan gave him nothing to deny. Until right at the last, the boy overran himself in his enthusiasm. He said, “I won’t let you take the skin. I won’t let you go.”

“Oh, and what, will you outspeak the emperor? These men speak for him,” even if he didn’t know it yet, if his mother hadn’t told him. “Is your voice stronger?”

A momentary hesitation, then Yu Shan said, “My voice is nearer. My voice is
here.
”

“And so is the emperor’s, through these men.”

“If they try to take you away …”

“What, will you kill them all? You could, of course. And what will the emperor do then?”

“These come from his mother.”

“They do,” and they were looking frightened in that dangerous way that reaches for weapons. Biao tried to still them with the same gesture he had used before to the clansfolk,
gently, gently, let the wise solve this with words
. “And do you not think perhaps his mother will speak to him about it, if her men don’t return to her with the skin—and the doctor, yes—who might cure his beloved? If they don’t return at all? Yu Shan, be sensible. I have to go; you have to let me go,” as though he had any voice in this at all.

“No …” But he was weakening, he was ready to be persuaded.

“I will go; I will come back. I will bring the skin back. I have promised.”

“How?”

“I will bring Mei Feng back too.” It was that easy, in the end. “She was happier anyway, when she lived out here with you. I will wrap her in the skin and fetch her back to the mountains, and then everybody will do well,” and he would have one more coin to bargain with, a golden coin, jade-bright as a tiger’s eye.

here needn’t be trumpets. Nor fireworks, though there were in fact fireworks almost every night now. They were gaudy and welcome and superfluous.

Triumph could be a quiet thing, Chung had learned. It could be what came after the fireworks, in the absence of trumpets. Slipping into his bed, into his heart; a whisper in his ear, a hidden touch in the dark, contentment. Contentment could be triumph, indistinguishable.

Shen had come to him—across a dragon-guarded sea, through a war-shattered city, along a typhoon-wreaked valley: Chung could make that a march of heroes, privately in his head, if he wanted to—and it might have been triumph enough, something to be treasured.

More than that, though, Shen had stayed with him. The battle might be over, but not the war; there were still two armies in the land. There was Santung-city to be made strong, to be defended. There was a new governor in need of good advice, good soldiers. There were daily patrols and nightly raiding-parties sneaking out to confront Tunghai’s rebels: to harry, to drive off, to destroy.

That above all, actual fighting. Chung had not realized how much fighting there would still be, between two armies caught in an inglorious deadlock. The one not quite besieged, the other not quite defeated, loyalties uncertain on both sides. Every day there were lines of men on either bank, heading out beyond known
perimeters, dragging wearily back with wounded and with prisoners, reports.

Shen could be a part of that, rising into fame. He should be, for reasons that were as obvious to Chung as they were to him, even before he spelled them out in brutal, painful detail. Fighting was what he did, it made the definition of the man he was; his shoulder was healed well enough to be disregarded, if not quite depended on; his skills and temper would make him genuinely useful to the governor and hence to the emperor. In his own mind he was wasted here, useless to anyone but Chung.

And yet, he chose to stay. Here on this little river island, isolated from the real army and the real war. Avoided, indeed, by everyone outside their own small band of artificers. Condemned as crazy, dangerous, likely to explode at any moment.

Food and other supplies were left on the bank by the footings of the bridge. If there was a message, it was a bold soul who would cross the water to deliver it. Messages were few, in any case, and mostly variations on
Please don’t do that
.